Underneath the Sycamore Tree

by Celeste, B.

  “Um…” I clear my throat, not making eye contact with Kaiden. “Good. I slept good.” I stab a strawberry and pop it into my mouth, looking over my shoulder at Mama’s open bedroom door. “Where is Mama?”

  Grandma hesitates. “She left for work already. She mentioned something about an early meeting with the school.”

  I press my lips together and nod.

  I focus on my pancakes, when Grandma adds, “Tomorrow is the last day before break for them, so she’ll be home the rest of the week.”

  There’s so much hope in her voice, and I wonder if she believes everything will be okay. Mama has always been great at avoiding me when she wants to, and I doubt now is any different than when I lived here.

  My voice is quiet. “Good.”

  Kaiden sees right through my false brevity. When I glance up, his head is tilted to the side as he studies me. His plate is already half empty, so I wonder how long he’s been up.

  I fidget in my chair. “What are your plans today, Grandma? Do you still see Betty across the street?”

  She smiles. “The two of us planned on doing some shopping later today. If you’re interested in tagging along, I’m sure she’d love to hear all about your new school.” She gives Kaiden a small nod. “You’re welcome too, of course.”

  To my surprise, he smiles back. It looks weird on his face, considering there’s usually a scowl in its place. “Em actually told me she’d show me around town.”

  Grandma’s sculpted white brows arch before she looks at me. “Did she now?”

  Kaiden’s lips waver. “Yeah, she told me she’d show me her favorite spots. I’ve been looking forward to it since she said something last night.”

  Closing my eyes, I internally sigh. I don’t go anywhere besides the bookstore, and that’s been closed for a month now according to their website.

  Grandma hums out a non-committal reply, amusement spattered on her face. The corners of her lips are crinkled in a barely-there smile, but I know she knows.

  I cut my pancakes. “These are good.”

  “You say that a lot,” Kaiden responds.

  I peek up at him. “Say what?”

  “Good.”

  “What’s wrong with good?”

  “It’s a lie.”

  Grandma laughs. “You two are interesting together, I’ll give you that.” She scrapes her chair backwards, grabbing her plate and standing. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  Together? “Grandma—”

  She gently pats my shoulder before walking out of the room.

  Kaiden is grinning from across the table.

  “What?” I grumble, picking at my food.

  “So, you slept well, huh?”

  I’m silent.

  “Didn’t wake up at all?” he presses.

  My shoulders drop. “Why did you tell her I was showing you around? She knows that you’re lying.”

  He seems genuinely surprised. “How would she know I’m lying?”

  Shaking my head, I push around the fruit before setting my fork down. “I never got out much when I lived here, okay?”

  He snorts. “Did you ever have a life? You don’t do anything in Exeter either.”

  My nostrils flare. “There are reasons.”

  His fork clinks against the glass plate, causing me to stare at his waiting expression. “I have all day, Mouse. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Narrowing my eyes, I scoff. “What aren’t you asking, Kaiden? You’re so worked up over your own bullshit that you don’t ask anyone about themselves. You assume.”

  “That isn’t—”

  “Don’t lie,” I cut him off. “You make stupid assumptions about everybody and everything. You shut down when things don’t go your way and you blow up when people try to help. Yet, you never ask anybody about anything that’s relevant because you’re trapped in your own little world.”

  His lips part, but nothing escapes them.

  Taking a deep breath, I focus on finishing breakfast before tackling the rest of the day. I don’t want to go shopping with Grandma and Betty, but I also don’t want to chauffer Kaiden around. He’ll complain about how little there is to do here or give me crap about my only true happy place being a musty old bookstore that has more dust than books on the shelves.

  When I’m finished, I take my plate to the kitchen and start washing it off. Kaiden nudges me out of the way and drops his plate in the sink before grabbing the sponge from me and taking over. I gape as I watch him scrub down and rinse off our stuff, before placing them strategically in the plastic drainer.

  “You act like you’ve never seen a guy do dishes before,” he grumbles, turning the water off and drying his hands with the dish towel.

  Dad would sometimes do dishes when we were little, but mostly it was up to Mama or Logan and I. Especially when Mama would give us treats or coins for helping.

  “I just didn’t expect you to do them,” I murmur, shrugging.

  He doesn’t respond right away. Then he turns to me, resting his hip against the counter. “I prefer keeping out of people’s business if I don’t think I belong in it.”

  I snort unattractively. “Really? If memory serves, you think it’s necessary to rule the school like you’re the king. Kings are in everybody’s business. I can’t even eat a salad in peace without you making a scene.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  His tongue clicks. “High school is a nasty place, especially Exeter. There was a guy that graduated about a year ago who held my position. Everybody knew him, respected him, and listened to what he wanted. You know what that was? For everyone to get along.”

  I roll my eyes. “Not everybody is going to get along all the time. So what? High school is just four years—a blimp in the grand scheme of things. You’re wasting time trying to get everyone on the same page.”

  He looks away.

  I contemplate telling him my own experiences from the only other school I’ve known. “Logan and I have always been opposites. Everyone loved her because she was outgoing and fearless. I was picked on because I hated interacting with people. I’ve always preferred being buried in a book where nobody can bother me. But even on the days when people teased me and gave me crap, I got through it.”

  He still doesn’t look at me.

  “There are worse things in life than being picked on. It’s draining to try fitting in. Lo and I were different, but I loved us because we were who we were. People may not have understood that, but only our opinion mattered.”

  “So what?” he finally asks, crossing his arms on his chest. “Would you like me to let them talk shit about you? Do you want guys to hit on you, catcall you in the halls, or worse?”

  Worse? “What…?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  My eyes widen.

  “Exeter High is a hunting ground,” he says quietly, stepping closer. His tone drops. “I’ve seen bad things happen to people like you all the time. I do what I can to keep the predators away, but they’re around and they love fresh meat.”

  I swallow.

  He flicks a strand of my hair. “You’re not wrong though,” he adds, shrugging. “It’s tiring to give a shit about what people do and think. It’s necessary though.”

  One of my brows arches. “And what would people like me be?”

  He smirks. “The mice. The quiet ones who don’t bother anyone. That’s who they go after, you know.”

  I blink and whisper, “I can take care of myself, Kaiden.”

  He glances around the room, lips pressing together, and then nods. “Yeah, Mouse. I can see that now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kaiden Monroe loves frozen yogurt. Like smiling, it seems odd for someone as intense as him. He’s content as he spoons some of the cake batter froyo from the bowl, picking through the gummies he added to the top. Gummy bears!

  The girl working the register keeps looking over at our table. Kaiden is oblivious, but I roll
my eyes. I vaguely remember seeing her in a study hall held by one of my old math teachers a few years ago. She graduated, I do know that much.

  Kaiden notices my barely touched dessert and points toward it with the neon pink spoon. Considering the other option was purple, it makes me giggle. “You going to eat or what?”

  I’m not sure why he cares. I insisted on paying, so it isn’t like he’s out any money if I decide to throw it away.

  His eyes narrow. “What’s your deal?”

  I shake my head, raising the spoon of chocolate fudge flavored yogurt to my lips to appease him. He grins and starts eating again, having over half his gone before I even eat a third of mine. It hasn’t even been three hours since we ate breakfast, so I’m not hungry.

  Grandma insisted we take her car and ride around, so I showed him the old bookstore and we walked around the small strip mall. There are only a few stores and a tiny theater but considering the stores in town barely stay in business long, it gets a lot of people. Otherwise, everyone would need to travel two hours to go shopping.

  We spent most of the morning in silence. Sometimes he’d make a comment, or criticism in his case, over something we saw in passing. More times than not, he just matches my pace and walks beside me without a word to say.

  Yet, it’s…peaceful.

  The cashier looks our way again.

  Kaiden chuckles. “Friend of yours?”

  He’s known the whole time? “No.”

  He gives her a quick once over, in which she blushes and wiggles her fingers, before looking back at me with no interest in his features. “It’s a small area. You probably know everyone.”

  I eat more of my yogurt. “Is that your way of asking for an introduction? Sadly, I don’t know her name.”

  That’s not true. It’s Marigold. I remember now because her hair is the color of one, and her sisters are all named after flowers. Rose, Lily, and Marigold. Mama said her parents are hippies or something.

  He chuckles and pushes his empty bowl away from him. “No need to be jealous, Mouse. I’m all yours.”

  “What if I don’t want you?”

  He shrugs.

  That’s it.

  Ignoring him, I eat about half my dessert before I’m full. Blotting my lips with a napkin, I ball it up and throw it into what’s left of my dish.

  “You’re seriously not eating it all?”

  “I’m full.”

  “You barely eat.”

  “You barely shut up,” I counter.

  His head tips back in a loud laugh that makes his chest shake.

  Marigold glares at me.

  I hold her gaze.

  She goes in the back.

  Brushing hair behind my ear, I wet my bottom lip and study the little crumbs on the tabletop. “I thought I’d like being home. I even thought maybe Mama…” I swallow my words and toy with the spoon in my dish.

  Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. “I thought Mama was okay. Or better. Something. I don’t think she’ll ever be okay, Kaiden.”

  “She seems a bit off,” he agrees quietly.

  I lift my gaze. “You met her?”

  He leans back in his seat. “After you fell asleep, she came in to check on you. She wouldn’t walk in the room. I told her I’d leave you two alone, but…”

  “But what?”

  He doesn’t say.

  “But. What?” I enunciate my words clearly, an almost-growl.

  “She said she couldn’t be what you needed right now,” he answers dryly. “Not sure what the hell that means, but she wouldn’t even fucking look at you when she said it. She kept looking at the other bed.”

  “Lo’s bed.”

  He grunts.

  “Now do you get it?” I ask.

  Do you get why it’s better?

  Do you get why I had to leave?

  Do you see I’m killing Mama?

  “Yeah, Mouse,” he murmurs. “I get it.”

  This time when we visit Lo’s grave, Kaiden sits beside me like I’m going to try falling asleep again. It’s colder now. I don’t want to stay long, much less curl up on the cold, hard ground.

  Legs crossed under me, I tuck my bare hands in the soft lining of my jacket pockets. “I used to love coming here and talking to Logan about my day. If our old friends did something that annoyed me, I’d vent to her about it. After she died, everyone just moved on like it was no big deal. It seemed like I was the only one who really missed her.”

  One of Lo’s closest friends was part of the cheer squad with us. Ria Chaplin. I always thought she was annoying, but Lo loved her. Sometimes I think more than me. I even remember Lo ditching our plans after school to hang out at Ria’s house with some of the other girls from the squad. They never invited me, but Lo would always tell me about the silly games they’d play and gossip they’d hear from Ria’s older sister after Mama brought her home.

  Ria used to tell Logan she thought I was holding her back. I overheard them talking after practice one day about me not being as talented. I never wanted to join the team, I did it for Lo. She begged me to do it with her. There was no denying that my passion for cheer didn’t come close to matching hers.

  I shake my head, running my tongue over my top teeth. “This one girl went to the funeral with her mother, but she wouldn’t even come over and talk to me. Some of the girls from the squad were in the back and all they talked about was how they wanted to leave.”

  Kaiden shifts, resting an arm over his knee. “Maybe they weren’t handling it well.”

  My jaw ticks. “They handled it just fine. Ria mentioned wanting to go to McDonald’s to get a shake before they all went home. I couldn’t eat for a month, and she wanted to go get a shake.”

  He’s quiet.

  My eyes graze over Lo’s grave before slowly making their way back to Kaiden. He’s watching me with no clear emotion on his face. At least there isn’t pity.

  “Do you visit your dad?”

  His eyes cast downward. “Yeah.”

  I nod.

  “Maybe you’re right.” I sigh. “Maybe the girls just didn’t know how to cope and I’ve been irritated with them since. Does it make me a bad person to like bad mouthing them to Lo? She thought Ria and them were great.”

  He chuckles. “Nah, there’s worse you could say about people.”

  “Like?”

  He simply shrugs again.

  I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them. “I think Logan is around sometimes. Like when I’m having a bad day or something, it’s like I feel her. In the wind. The sun. In music.” I angle my body toward him slightly. “Do you ever feel that?”

  His eyes are unblinking. “No.”

  I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. I wish there was a telltale sign, like a twitching eyebrow or a lingering gaze. It’s almost like he’s mastered the skill—like he’s had years of practice. How long as he lied to himself?

  My head tips back up to the sky. “I read an article about people coming back as other things. This one time, a woman was doing a maternity photoshoot and a ladybug landed on her. The photographer snapped a picture when the woman explained her late mother loved ladybugs. Then, during the baby’s cake smashing photoshoot over a year later, a ladybug landed on his overalls. They got a picture of that too.”

  He scoffs in disbelief. “You can’t honestly believe the woman’s mother was the ladybug, can you?”

  “Why can’t I?” I challenge, staring only at Lo’s grave. “Sometimes we need those types of beliefs to get us through the day. Like when I see a rainbow, especially without any rain, I like to think it’s Logan.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  I question a lot of things—God, the afterlife, what comes after death. Everything about never existing anymore terrifies me. What if we take our last breaths and then that’s it? What then?

  I scoot forward and put my hand on the cold marble stone in front of me. My fingers curl over the top, as though I’m holding Lo’s hand. “Ma
ybe it is,” I agree softly. “But maybe it isn’t. Who’s to say what’s out there and what isn’t? None of us really know.”

  So we pretend.

  We pretend our loved ones are still close to us.

  We pretend we’re okay.

  It’s not denial.

  It’s coping.

  It’s reassurance.

  It’s how we get through another day.

  My hand is cold. “Ready to go inside? Grandma is probably going to be gone for a little while longer, which means we have the TV to ourselves.”

  His head tilts. “You want to watch TV?”

  “What else would we do?”

  His lips quirk in a devious smirk. “I can think of a lot of different things, Mouse. A house to ourselves can get us into a lot of trouble.”

  My heart does a little jig in my chest, but I silently tell it to stop. I stand up, brushing my leggings off. “I guess it’s a good thing I was never a troublemaker then, huh?”

  Amusement lingers on his face as he joins me, standing a little too close. Then again, we literally slept pressed against each other, so I suppose the minimal distance between us now is welcoming.

  “Admit it, Mouse.”

  My brows pinch. “What?”

  He leans in, his lips grazing my ear until the warmth of his breath causes me to shiver. “I think you want to know what trouble tastes like.”

  I allow myself to close my eyes for a split second and absorb the moment before turning my head toward where his lips linger. If I move ever so slightly, our lips will touch. It could be my first kiss, and I bet it would be a good one. Kaiden seems like he knows what he’s doing, not that I want to think about him doing this with other girls.

  How many people does he travel to see on school break? He already admitted he doesn’t usually take people to his special spot at the sycamore. Yet, for me, he does.

  I let my heart absorb the win.

  Then I bury it deep, deep down.

  His breath caresses my mouth, invites me in. My nose nuzzles his cheek as I take in his masculine scent.

  I exhale. “Pass.”

  Then I walk away.