Before & After You

by Michelle Chamberland

  And while he could be an epic a-hole, and most nights I could hardly stand him, other nights he was my closest friend.

  It’s just the way it was with us.

  When he was finished with his random hook-up of the night, he’d slip into his bed with me and we’d both fall asleep. And that was it. I never crossed that line with him. Not once. But I guess that’s where the lines had blurred, because I knew he wanted more even though I didn’t.

  I didn’t have it in me to want someone like that.

  Not until Greyson came along, anyway.

  Nine Before

  “YOU WERE SO right about that one,” Sara said as she pointed at Greyson from across Jaymes’ living room. “He. Is... Yum!”

  I slapped her arm down. “Don’t point at him!” I whisper-yelled.

  She laughed. “So, since you can’t have him, can I?”

  She was joking, but I still felt a pile of bricks drop into the pit of my stomach. “Don’t even think about it.”

  She laughed louder. “Down, girl. I’m kidding. But what are you going to do about Jaymes? You know he probably already gave Greyson the whole ‘don’t even think about touching my girl’ speech, right?”

  I threw myself back into the seat cushion, groaning. Yes, I didn’t doubt that he did. I swung my feet into her lap, pulling at the strands of her hair with my fingertips and started braiding them. Her hair was bleached so blond it was almost white, the complete opposite of mine.

  But we were opposites in a lot of ways. Our hair, our eyes, our height, our body types, the way we dressed, our general outlook on life. As soon as I turned eighteen, I was getting the hell away from this place, and this life, and never looking back, but she had more of the “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude.

  “I know we don’t do the whole ‘girl gossip, sharing feelings’ thing,” she said, “so I’ve never asked, but aren’t you and Jaymes…?”

  I scoffed. “What do you think? You’re here every night too,” I stated the obvious. If Jaymes and I were actually hooking up she would know it. Wouldn’t she? But I guess I’d never really denied it before either, and the look on her face said that no, she didn’t know. “We’re just friends—”

  “Who sleep together,” she interrupted.

  “Key word being sleep, nothing more. Open your eyes. You see Jaymes, he screws around with everyone.”

  “Yeah, key word being screws.”

  I laughed halfheartedly. “Exactly. If I actually meant anything to him, he wouldn’t be sleeping with a different girl every other night, so he’s full of shit. We’re just friends.”

  “Just friends,” she repeated skeptically.

  “Just. Friends.” I reiterated.

  “Fine. You know I believe you, but will Greyson?”

  “Ugh. I don’t know, but I need a drink.”

  “Yes! Brilliant idea.” She hopped up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me off the couch and into her arms. “Operation Jessie and Greyson commences,” she whispered in my ear, giggling. I guess she’d already started drinking without me, because Sara only giggled when she was drunk. She left the room and returned with an empty tequila bottle. “Who wants to play spin-the-bottle?!” she yelled, and people slowly began forming a circle in the middle of the living room.

  But me? No thanks. She might’ve loved the attention—or lived for it, really—but I was much happier in my corner of: if you don’t smile or make eye contact with people, maybe they won’t realize you exist. And besides, if Greyson was ever going to kiss me, it was going to be because he wanted to. That much I was sure of. And I didn’t want to stick around and watch everybody kissing each other, especially if it involved Greyson, so I went outside for some fresh air instead, grabbing a half-empty bottle of Jack on my way out.

  I hit my favorite patch of grass in Jaymes’ front yard, laid back against the uphill slope, and looked up at the sky. At all of the stars, and the full, bright moon.

  There was something about the moon. The way it reminded me of the hope I sometimes clung to. A sliver of light in all that darkness.

  Real deep, Jess.

  I pressed the bottle of whiskey to my lips, swallowing back the burning amber liquid.

  “Hey, Jess,” Greyson’s voice seeped into my skin, mixing itself with the whiskey. “Mind if I join you? Spin-the-bottle isn’t really my thing.”

  “Is it anybody’s thing?” I laughed.

  He chuckled. “I honestly didn’t think people still played it.”

  “Sara just likes to…make things interesting.” I patted the grass, and he sat down beside me. His face came into view, and damn, but he looked even better in the moonlight. I held the bottle out to him.

  “Nah, thanks. I don’t drink.”

  “Like, ever?” I took another sip.

  He shrugged. “Not really.”

  I wondered if he cared that I was drinking, if it was something that turned him off or not.

  “So, I’m just gonna go ahead and ask…why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?” he asked.

  I looked back up at the sky, sucking in a deep breath. “Because I don’t.”

  “Jaymes says differently.”

  “Of course he does,” I huffed. “Would it matter to you if I did have a boyfriend?” Thank you, whiskey.

  He hesitated, taking a moment with whatever words were swirling through that pretty head of his. “I’m not sure.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I immediately replied, narrowing my eyes at him.

  He took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly, and then shrugged again. “It means that it’s pretty obvious I’m into you, but Jaymes already threatened cut off my legs if I so much as thought about it.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. I wanted to run inside and punch Jaymes in the face. “There’s something there between you two that I clearly know nothing about, and Jaymes is a really good friend of mine, so…” he left the words hanging, leaving me to fill in the blanks: So, I can’t have you. You can’t be mine. I can’t touch you. Whatever this could’ve been between us, ends here.

  And as much as I wanted to kill Jaymes, I couldn’t help it…through the weight that had settled in my stomach, I smiled. “You’re into me?” I asked.

  Yep. That’s what I had taken from all that. Because the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t too worried about the rest of it. I wanted one thing and one thing only, and there was no way in hell I was going to let Jaymes keep me from getting it.

  Ten Before

  “HOLY MOTHER OF all things holy,” Sara whispered, sighing dramatically. “Remind me again why we’ve never done this before?”

  “I don’t…” were the only words that got past my lips before I swallowed the rest of them whole, because there he was. Joining his teammates out on the football field. In full gear. Big, bulky, padded jersey, and those pants. Those pants that didn’t hide much of anything. Not those muscled calves, or those toned thighs, or up higher, to his tight…

  I swallowed thickly.

  Arms. I was totally talking about his arms. I swear.

  So…that’s what Greyson looked like in uniform.

  Okay. I could handle it. I could totally handle it.

  I turned and buried my face into Sara’s side. “Oh. My. God,” I groaned. Whined. Maybe cried a little.

  “Singing to the choir, girl. Singing to the choir!” She stood up, pulling me with her. “This is going to be so much fun! Let’s go. Hurry up. Hurry!”

  We nearly tripped over ourselves getting down the empty bleachers, cameras in hand. We were working on a photography project: “Life in Action,” and Sara had called dibs on the football team. I don’t think I’d ever been more thankful for something in my life.

  Okay, okay. Get it together, I told myself as we reached the sideline. Sara crouched down and immediately started taking some photos. It took me a little longer to snap into action, my eyes still glued to the team—okay, on Greyson—lining up on the thirty-yard line. Because seriously? How the
hell was I supposed to take a decent photo when Greyson was standing in front of me dressed like that?

  But somehow, eventually—by some miracle—I managed.

  I focused on the team, the way they moved out on the field, practiced and synchronized like a dance routine. I focused on my camera, on the snap of the shutter and on timing a shot just right.

  A player leapt into the air to complete a catch. Snap. Tumbled to the ground. Snap. Fumbled the ball. Snap.

  His hand reached out for it, straining, his fingers finally grasping the ball in a desperate grip. Snap.

  It was easy to lose myself this way. In the quiet and stillness that came with watching life through the lens. I’m not even sure how much time must have passed by, but before I knew it Coach Anderson had blown the whistle, players halting in their tracks.

  Greyson slid his helmet off. Snap.

  Shook out his hair. Snap.

  Squeezed water into his mouth. Snap.

  Water spilled from his mouth and trailed all the way down his chin and neck. Snap, snap, snap.

  He looked over at me then, a slow smile forming on his lips.

  The way I saw it, I had one of two options: One, I could pretend I hadn’t had my camera zeroed in on him for the past few minutes and completely ignore that knowing smirk of his. Or two, I could keep my camera steady, and capture everything about him that made my insides feel like a swarm of butterflies had just come to life and were fluttering their giddy wings against every cell of my body.

  So, I did what I had to do; I went with option two, taking pictures of him the entire time he was walking towards me.

  “Hey, Jess. What are you guys doing out here?” He was out of breath, his voice raspy and strained. It forced a hundred different images through my mind, a hundred alternate scenarios for why his voice would sound that way.

  And then I was blushing. Great. Awesome. You don’t do blushing, Jess. Try to remember that! I mashed my lips together, twisting around in search for Sara. She was sitting on the bleachers, already scrolling through her camera roll.

  I turned back towards Greyson, held my camera up. “Just taking pictures,” I answered. Good one, Captain Dumbass.

  He laughed. “I can see that. But what for?”

  “Photography project.”

  “Ah, that’s right.” He nodded. “Get any good ones?”

  “Yep.” I smiled; we both smiled, skirting the obvious. The fact that he’d just caught me taking at least a dozen pictures of him. I guess he wasn’t going to call me on it, and I think I fell for him a little harder then.

  “Well, I have to head into locker now,” he said, gripping the back of his neck in one hand and his helmet in the other. “See ya around, Jess.”

  “See ya, Grey.” My eyes didn’t leave him as he walked away. Not until his tall, lean, muscled form disappeared around the corner of the locker building.

  I sighed.

  Sara bumped into the back of me, snickering. “Could you be any more obvious?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Well! What did he say?”

  “Nothing really.” I shrugged.

  “Oh, come on! I saw the way you two were looking at each other. If he said something juicy, you better spill.”

  “Something juicy?” I laughed. “I wish.” Only in my dreams. Only when the thoughts that had been running through my mind just before falling asleep bled into my unconsciousness. Only then did Greyson say things like “I want you,” and “I’m yours,” and “I’m going to kiss you now.” “He was just asking what we were doing taking pictures out here, and…that’s pretty much the gist of it,” I finished.

  “Lame.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

  “Totally lame.”

  And it hit me then, with the subtlety of a freaking freight train, that something had been noticeably different between Greyson and I just before, when we’d been talking. Something was off, skewed. Unlike our usual interactions.

  The way he hadn’t touched me, not once. The way his smiles had been genuine, but hesitant, if not a little distant. The way he hadn’t flirted at all, aside from that single knowing smirk he’d thrown my way. And the way he’d just casually said, “See ya around, Jess,” like he could wait a day, a week, a month before seeing me again. Like it didn’t matter to him at all when that would ever actually happen.

  Was I being dramatic? Probably. But the absence of all these things made me feel inexplicably hollow inside. Because I realized then, that those silent words that had filled the space between Greyson and I the night of the party…he’d obviously meant them.

  Eleven Before

  AND THAT’S HOW the next few weeks went.

  Me: desperately flirting.

  Him: brushing it off like it was nothing.

  And maybe that’s because I totally sucked at flirting. At best, he probably had no clue I was attempting to at all. At worst…he probably thought I’d been incubated all sixteen years of my life and had only just discovered what the outside world was like: Ooh. Boy. Me like.

  Whatever the case, he was too good at appearing oblivious. Or actually being oblivious. But I refused to believe that was the truth.

  We’d worked on our poetry assignment over those few weeks, too. Last we left off, we were trying to figure out how to combine our interpretations of it into one cohesive presentation, because our takes on it were night and day. Mine was one of loss and turmoil; his was one of devotion and remembrance. It made sense, though. That he’d be able to find the positive in it. He was light—a happy, glass half-full kind of person. And I was…well, I was me.

  I spent a lot more time with Greyson than I’d expected to, though, outside of our assignment. In first period, at lunch, in the hallways between classes, at Jaymes’ parties. We always seemed to find each other on that same slope of grass, talking under those stars for what felt like forever. I wasn’t just infatuated with him anymore—no, I actually liked him. Like, as a human. His personality, his likes and dislikes, his positivity, his humor. I really, really liked him.

  But again…he seemed oblivious. Everything between us was completely platonic. Utterly and tragically and disgustingly platonic.

  Ugh.

  Except for those soul-reaching smiles of his. He couldn’t help those.

  But tonight was going to be different. We’d talked so much by this point that I was pretty damn sure I could finally make a move without being entirely rejected. Because Greyson’s actions might’ve said one thing, but I swear the way he sometimes looked at me spelled out something completely different.

  He wanted me too, I was sure of it.

  Wasn’t I?

  Yes. Yes, I was.

  Right? Right. Right? Hell, I didn’t know, but I knew I had to go for it. I knew I would forever regret it if I didn’t. And what was the worst that could happen?

  A lot. A whole fucking lot.

  I was pulled from my thoughts when my dad walked into the kitchen. One thing that had definitely changed since that first night with Greyson at Jaymes’ party was that I was now sleeping in my own bed, in my own house. The closest thing to it, anyway. I didn’t want to keep giving Jaymes the wrong idea—or, if I was being totally honest with myself, I didn’t want to keep giving Greyson another reason to stay away from me.

  My dad and I didn’t say anything to each other as he strode across the open space, quietly pouring himself a mug of coffee. It wasn’t unusual, the silence. After my first few days of living here, and the complete lack of communication on my end, him and his wife seemed to be content in leaving me be. I couldn’t tell if they were just super observant and giving me the space I needed, or if they actually just didn’t give a shit. Either way was fine by me.

  His wife walked into the room then. A tornado of chaos. Two screaming babies strapped to her body like a suit of armor, a diaper-bag of weapons haphazardly slung over her shoulder, a bottle in one hand and a shoe in another as she hobbled across the kitchen trying to get it on her foot.

 
Dad held her steady. I kept eating my cereal, more intrigued by their interaction than normal. I don’t know why, but I had the sudden urge to grab my camera and snap a shot of it.

  So, I did.

  All eyes in the room landed on mine. All eight of them if I was counting. I quickly stuffed the camera into my bag, barely catching the sad smile on my dad’s wife’s face before she smoothed it away. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed her holding something back. So maybe she did care.

  And maybe I was the asshole.

  She wasn’t the one who’d done anything wrong, after all. Wasn’t the one who’d abandoned me before I was even born, and wasn’t the one who hadn’t cared to ever call or write or visit. She wasn’t the one forced to play dad with her own child when my mom died.

  But I’d been down one road with one mother. I didn’t want to go down this one with another. One year. Thirteen months, and I’d be eighteen and out of here. They’d forget all about me and go back to life as usual. I couldn’t wait, and I was sure they couldn’t either.

  My dad turned towards her, planting a kiss square on her mouth, brushing off the whole strange encounter. “Super-mom, ready for battle,” he said, chuckling, and it immediately irritated me. Him and I were nothing alike; we weren’t supposed to share the same thoughts.

  I stood from my stool at the bar-top, quickly sliding my backpack over my shoulder.

  “School?” he asked, as if it weren’t where I was obviously headed. I didn’t answer him. “Why don’t you take your car, sweetie?” he added.

  My whole body tensed, clenching with anger. I’d spoken an entire five sentences to him in the past six months, and he was calling me sweetie? I wanted to scream, but I answered with a, “No thanks,” through gritted teeth instead. I didn’t want anything more from him than I needed. A bed to sleep in, clothes on my back, food in my stomach. I’d figure the rest out on my own. And he sure as hell didn’t care before, when I’d been living with a dead-beat, drug-addict of a mother, so why the hell did he care now?