Before & After You

by Michelle Chamberland

“Poetry assignment?” He rocked back on his heels, gripping the straps of his backpack, looking down at me expectantly.

  And then it dawned on me, or more like violently smacked me in the face. “Oh, shit! I almost forgot. I’m sorry. Yes, I’m…I’m ready. Do you want to head up to the library, or something?”

  “You hungry? We could go to Maddie’s Diner,” he suggested instead.

  “Oh…I don’t have a car, actually.” I did have a car, I just refused to drive it.

  He smiled, pulling his keys out of his pocket and dangling them from his fingertips. “I’ll take you. Come on.”

  I stood from the ground and wordlessly followed him to his car. He opened the door for me, and I slid in. He drove a nice car—a really nice car, actually. Clean-cut lines, smooth leather, and the smell of old, classic car.

  “This car is so beautiful it’s disgusting,” I said.

  “Shh, earmuffs, baby girl.” He laughed, petting the dashboard before turning towards me. “There’s nothing disgusting about Lady.”

  So, he was one of those types. The kind that treasured a purring engine like it was a beating heart; the kind that felt it necessary to name their car. So, he wasn’t perfect after all.

  Ah, hell. Who was I kidding? The way he’d just pet his car and called her baby girl was hot as hell. I wanted to be his baby…and I might’ve had the passing thought of wanting him to pet me like that, too.

  I smiled to myself. “Sorry, Lady,” I said with a hand on the dashboard.

  Greyson groaned, lip caught between his teeth. It was the most beautiful sound. I wanted to hear it again, and again and again. “Careful, Jess. Lady will get attached if you keep sweet talking her like that.”

  “She sounds awfully moody.”

  He laughed, and with his foot to the pedal, I was sucked back into my seat. Lady purred—no, growled—as we made our way across town. The music was turned way up, something soft and catchy, seductive. So, Greyson had great taste in music, too. Was there anything he sucked at? I doubted it.

  We arrived at Maddie’s Diner, and Greyson turned back the key, Lady’s motor shuddering to a halt. I went for the door handle, but Greyson stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “Lady would be highly offended if I didn’t get the door for you,” he said.

  I laughed. “Really? I totally had her pegged as a feminist.”

  “Nope. She’s old-fashioned. Believes a pretty girl should never open their own door.”

  And holy shit, the blushing of my cheeks. I didn’t do blushing. He noticed and smiled softly, opening his door and coming around the car for mine.

  When he opened my door, my eyes locked onto his. Such a strange place to feel so familiar, so comfortable, I remember thinking.

  He reached his hand out for me, his fingers gliding over mine achingly slow, and it was like a drug. That excitement, the awareness of a first touch that stirred like butterflies in my stomach and made my heart beat just that much faster. I was already addicted.

  I was aware of every movement, every twitch of his hand, every glide of his thumb across my fingers. If holding his hand felt that good, I could only imagine what everything else with him would feel like. If his arms were wrapped around me, if his lips were to ever touch mine.

  It had to happen.

  I didn’t care what I had to do; I was going to make him mine.

  Six Before

  NOTEBOOKS, FOLDERS, PAPERS, pens and pencils were strewn across the table in front of us, our devoured burgers, fries, and shakes pushed to the outer edges.

  We’d already tackled the first few sections of The Raven when I found myself spaced out again, staring at Greyson’s profile—for what felt like the hundredth time. But I couldn’t help it. The way his brows furrowed in concentration and the way he absentmindedly licked his lips when writing something down in his notebook made it completely his fault I’d lost concentration so many times.

  His face turned towards mine, half-smile, eyebrows raised. “Jess?”

  “Hmm?”

  He laughed, shaking his head, flipping his notebook shut. “I guess we should stop here; we did get a lot done already.”

  What? No! I didn’t want to leave; I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

  Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Greyson was in any rush to leave either. He slid his things into his backpack and turned towards me, crooked smile on full display. “Dessert?” he asked, pulling out the menu and silently reading over the options.

  “Is that a serious question?” I scoffed playfully. “What the hell is this life without dessert? Nothing. The answer is nothing.”

  He whistled, eyebrows sky-high, playfully mocking me in return. “Wow. Jess takes her dessert seriously. Noted.”

  I laughed, nudging him with my elbow, and he nudged me back, and somehow, we ended up even closer to each other than we already had been. Our shoulders were now touching, our arms, our hips, our legs. The entire right side of my body tingled with awareness.

  “Want to share something?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I replied, immediately embarrassed at how soft it had come out. Could he tell how affected I was, how desperate I was?

  If he noticed, he didn’t show it. “Hot fudge sundae?”

  I nodded, not able to get the words past my lips without embarrassing myself again.

  When our sundae came, we dug into it, falling into an easy conversation. I felt an ease with him I’d never felt before. It was unsettling—or more accurately, scary as hell—but also…comfortable, warm.

  I told him about my love for art and photography, and he told me about his for football and music. He’d already joined the team at our school, but his real passion was music—and yes, I found out that he did sing, and I almost died at the thought of hearing his voice belt out the words he’d been writing in his notebook the other day.

  Also? He played the drums and guitar, too. Swoon.

  I tried my best not to stare at him as he took his last few bites of ice cream, but like much else in my life, it was a total failure. He dropped his spoon into the bowl, licked his lips, and relaxed back into the booth, turning his face towards mine.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he started, his eyes a bit hesitant for some reason. “Have you always lived here?”

  I rubbed my hand along the base of my throat. A habit; a nervous tic. “No.” It was like a security blanket, giving me the illusion that I felt choked by myself and not by the outside world. “I just moved here over the summer.”

  He nodded, looking as if he might have expected that answer. “Where from?”

  I swallowed past the thickness quickly building in my throat. I swear I could almost feel the pressure of it sliding past my palm. “Washington.”

  He nodded again, tapping a beat against the table with his fingers, completely oblivious to the raging of my heart inside my ribcage. Oblivious to the anxiety slowly trickling its way through my body. But then again, I was pretty good at hiding these things. “That’s pretty far. Why here, of all places?” he asked.

  I don’t know why, but I forced the truth past my lips even though I could feel that familiar weight pressing down on my chest. It was a question I anticipated every time someone asked me where I moved from, but it wasn’t one I had ever planned on actually answering until then. “My mom died last year, so…after that I didn’t really have any choice but to move out here with my dad,” I told him.

  I didn’t say the other words that were on the tip of my tongue, words that begged to be released.

  That I’d hated my mom. That she’d been a drug addict with a rotating door of men who took advantage and stole from us, men who only ever pulled her deeper into her addictions, and who tended to pay more attention to her daughter than to her.

  I didn’t tell him that we’d been homeless more often than not. That I’d gone hungry too many times to count. That she’d been a mean, and miserable, and hateful person. That she’d never really been a mom to me at all.

  I didn’t
tell him that in many ways her death had felt like a relief.

  He winced. “I’m sorry; that’s shitty.”

  I shrugged. It was shitty, just not for the reasons he was thinking of. “What about you?” I deflected. That was enough about me. “You just moved here too, right?”

  He shifted in his seat. “I was raised here, actually. My family and I just uh,” he paused, almost too quick to notice, and cleared his throat, “we moved away for a little while, for some family stuff.”

  If I hadn’t been so familiar with that kind of pain, I wouldn’t have recognized it in him, but I did. His eyes had clouded over, infinitesimally, a little distant, some hidden pain showing itself momentarily before it was gone.

  It knocked the breath straight from my lungs. No way.

  “You ready to go?” he quickly said, smiling as he slid his backpack over his shoulder.

  I wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him I recognized his pain because I held it inside of myself, too. But I couldn’t do it; I didn’t do it, but I’d never wanted to tell somebody my truths more than I wanted Greyson to know them.

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” I replied.

  That crooked smile of his grew brighter—light, happy. How did he do that? And then he grabbed my hand, and all of it, all of the heaviness, fell away.

  And by the end of that day, I had learned three things about the boy I was going to marry someday:

  One, he was smart as hell.

  Two, he was charming as hell, too.

  And three, he was hiding something dark inside of himself; he was just a lot better at hiding it than I was.

  Seven After

  A NAKED MAN with a bleeding heart in the palm of his hands stares back at me from the canvas. He grips it as if it’s his life force. He’s on his knees, blurred faces surrounding him in a chaos of colors and streaks of paint marring their features. They lean towards the heart—possibly curious, possibly hungry for the chance to snatch it away from the man and rip it to shreds.

  That’s up to the observer to decide, but I’d like to think that if any of those faces dared to try, he would rip them to shreds instead, fiercely protecting the heart with his life.

  I blow my hair away from my face, wiping my paint-streaked fingers across my apron, and take a step away from the painting. Something’s missing, but I’m not sure what.

  Caffeine.

  I need more caffeine.

  And supplies.

  I quickly down the rest of my green juice and slip my apron off, draping it over the empty easel beside me. I don’t bother changing out of my paint-stained clothes. I’ll be gone and back too quick for it to matter.

  Shutting the double doors of my studio behind me, I step off the wooded patio and into the overgrown grass of my backyard. I like it this way. It makes me feel like I’m in a mystical faery meadow, or the never-ending rolling hills of wildland somewhere far away and foreign. At least that’s what I tell myself, since I don’t have the care enough to cut it as often as I should. But it’s mine—all mine—and it makes for perfect grounding energy. Again, this is what I tell myself.

  I sink my toes into the moist soil beneath the grass, close my eyes, and tilt my face towards the sun; pull in a deep, determined breath; fill my lungs with air and inspiration; and will the answers I need to magically come to me through divine intervention.

  Color? Maybe the painting needs more color. Or less color. More vibrancy? Muted tones?

  Less contrast? More contrast? Hell, I don’t know.

  I mentally shrug, and then physically shrug.

  Thanks anyway, Universe.

  Ten minutes later, I’m browsing the aisle of acrylic paints at a local hole-in-the-wall art supply, still unsure of which direction to take in finishing this one. The one I’ve secretly named “Mine.” Because no one will ever know for certain that the heart on that canvas is mine, and that the man protecting it has been holding onto it, in reality, for the past eight years. He was supposed to be mine, too.

  I will the thought away, throwing almost every color there is into my basket. Problem solved. I can figure out the rest later; I always do.

  And then I smile, because this, this is my life. Colors, and feeling, and the complexities of life streaked and splattered and meticulously stroked onto a canvas, releasing whatever it is that needs releasing, freeing me for hours and hours on end.

  I’ve been lucky enough to be successful at something I love. At something I can pour my heart and soul into. A place I can dump all of my demons.

  No, not lucky. I’ve never believed in luck.

  Except for maybe twenty minutes from now, when I’ve randomly decided to be mildly social for once and walk down to the coffee shop instead of opting for the drive-thru like I normally do; when I turn around after picking up my order of one venti mocha iced coffee and come face to face with the one person from my past I never expected to see again. Least of all in my busy, chaotic hometown of Seattle, Washington.

  Because this can’t be anything but dumb luck, right?

  To be not ten feet away from him after all of these years.

  My fingers tighten their grip on my coffee, lest it fall to the ground in an overly dramatic fashion. Because nothing about this is all that dramatic, aside from the raging chaos going on inside my head. And the way my heart refuses to stop racing. And my hands to stop shaking.

  Surely my eyes are playing tricks on me.

  It isn’t him. It can’t be. This isn’t happening.

  He looks up at me, and I squeeze my eyes closed. No. No, no, no. No way. There’s no way.

  “Jess?”

  Okay, there’s definitely a way.

  Eight Before

  “HEY, YOU.” GREYSON sat down beside me.

  I’d been finishing up a drawing on the stairs outside of school, long after most people had already headed home for the day. I slid my pencil into my sketchbook and the book into my bag.

  “Hey, Greyson.” I forced my lips into a half-smile, pushing away everything that made me feel so heavy.

  He thought something over for a few seconds and then turned to me, casually resting his hand over my knee. I say casually, because he didn’t seem to have a second thought about it, but me? His touch seared straight through my black jeans, branding me. MINE, MINE, MINE, I wanted it to say.

  “So, tell me what you think about this,” he started confidently, squeezing my knee. “Lame, or totally badass pickup line?”

  “O-kay,” I replied, narrowing my eyes at him as I tried not to smile. What was it with him and making me smile? And how was I supposed to hear anything he was saying when his fingers had found the rip in my jeans at my knee? He was touching me, skin on skin, hand on leg, completely unaffected.

  He cleared his throat, turning to me fully. “Are you a library book? Because I can’t stop checking you out.”

  I shook my head, smiling. “Totally lame.”

  “Was that an earthquake? Or you did you just rock my world?” he continued.

  “That one is even worse.”

  “You’re like a Sharpie, super fine.”

  I scoffed in disapproval, even though that one was kind of funny. “No. No. Those are terrible!” I laughed, but the truth was, any one of those lines would’ve worked on me had he been seriously directing them my way. Because words, and his mouth, were a great match. It really didn’t matter what he was saying, they just looked so good coming out.

  And then I realized that he’d actually gotten me to laugh, despite the exceptionally crappy mood I had been in. Had he done that on purpose? The look on his face told me I might’ve been right. Like he’d achieved some kind of goal in making me smile. God, he was perfect. Too perfect.

  “Alright, give me your phone number and we can try to come up with a great pickup line together,” he said, completely serious even though there was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

  “Ha! Smooth.”

  He bit his lip, holding his phone out to me.

  I look
ed down at it and back up at him. Wait, he was serious? “You’re serious?”

  “Holy shit, man! Greyson!” Jaymes yelled as he walked right up to us.

  No. No, no, no.

  Not Jaymes. Not now.

  Jaymes was…a friend of mine. To put it loosely. His eyes quickly darted between Greyson and me, questioning.

  Greyson stood up, and him and Jaymes embraced in some sort of a man-hug-handshake thing. They both wore shit-eating grins too. All while I flailed around inside my brain, trying to figure out exactly what the hell was happening.

  “I heard you might be coming back! How the hell are you?” Jaymes.

  “Good; I’m good, man.” Greyson.

  “Hell yeah. What are you up to tonight?” Jaymes.

  A shrug. “Nothing much, still settling in.” Greyson.

  So, they knew each other, that much was obvious.

  “No way; you’re coming over tonight. Party at my place. We’re celebrating. You down?”

  Greyson’s eyes darted to mine briefly. “Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

  “Awesome! And I see you’ve already met my girl!” Jaymes curled his arm around my shoulders possessively.

  Greyson’s eyes fell on mine again, all traces of that perfect smile gone. I’d only known him a short time, but I knew the look of disappointment when I saw it.

  I palmed Jaymes’ face, gently shoving him away from me. “Not his girl,” I clarified.

  “Not yet.” Jaymes smirked. “Still working on her; she’s playing hard to get.”

  Greyson’s eyes narrowed, confused.

  I rolled my eyes, desperately trying to bring humor to the situation where there was none. “Give it up, Jaymes. It’s not happening, and you know it.”

  But the truth was, we kind of were more than friends, or less than friends—I don’t know. It was complicated. I’d never had to explain it before, or never cared to explain it before, but when I’d first moved here, Jaymes and his crazy group of friends had given me a distraction I needed from life. The drinking, the parties, the chaos, it all drew me in. I spent more nights at Jaymes’ than I didn’t. It helped me forget, for at least a little while, who I was, and all of the fucked-up bullshit that came along with it.