Explore my world with your mind,
Paint it with your soul,
Your eyes can see the lies I hide,
I’ll never let you go.
I’ll be your greatest pleasure,
I’ll drown your deepest pain,
Walk with me through flames, my love,
You’ll never be the same.
Lucky for me, I don’t have to walk very far to make it to practice. It takes time to process kissing a girl like Lennon, so I’m not in a hurry.
I’m grinning, walking along the fence, when something stops me dead in my tracks and wipes the smile from my face. Macy. She’s talking. She’s laughing. Only it’s not her regular voice. It’s her I’m so into you I feel like I could die voice, which she reserves for Silas.
Neither of my parents’ cars are here, Austin and Emmett’s SUV isn’t here, but Silas is. And he’s alone. With my sister.
I strain against the privacy provided through the high fence to hear them.
“Slide your fingers down two frets,” Silas says. A moment later, he says, “Atta girl. Now strum down and then back up, with your thumb.”
“I’m so bad at this,” I hear Macy say.
“Nah,” Silas says. “You’re doing good, you’re—”
“—just a beginner,” I say, coming around the fence and cutting him off. “What’s going on?”
“Silas is showing me how to play a few chords on the guitar.”
“I see that.” I narrow my gaze at Silas, issuing a warning with my eyes so he knows I don’t approve.
He disregards me. Again. “She’s actually really good, Kyler. Why haven’t you shown her anything before?”
This catches me off guard. Not because I’m surprised Macy is good—she’s good at everything she does—but at Silas calling me out for not sharing with my sister, something I’ve always been into. “Dunno. She never asked, I guess. You really want to learn the guitar, Mae?”
She looks up at me, a smile on her face. After what happened with her Swan Lake audition, I don’t have the heart to take this from her, too. Fuck. I don’t have the heart to take her wish for Silas away, either, as much as I want to.
I look at Silas again, so he by no means mistakes what I’m about to say as my blessing for anything to happen between them. “Silas is a good teacher. I’m sure he’ll show you some stuff.”
Her face lights up brighter than the sun on a California summer day before she looks at him questioningly, longingly. I have to clench my fists at my sides to make sure they don’t get me into trouble. It takes a lot of work to swallow the instinct inside of me to be the protective older brother.
He doesn’t say anything for a beat, and now I’m swinging on an emotional pendulum between wanting to kick his ass if he agrees, and wanting to kick his ass for not agreeing right away. We both wait until Silas breaks the silence.
“Yeah, sure, Mae. I’d love to.”
She sets the guitar down and springs up from the chair to hug me first, then him.
“Get the black-and-white Fender out of my room. You can start with that one, it’s been broken in.”
“You’re the best!” she says. She bolts toward the house but turns around to look back at us. “Thank you, Silas.”
“Yeah,” he says, picking his guitar back up. “No problem.”
When Macy’s out of earshot, I turn to him and glare. “Hurt her and I will kill you with my bare hands. I swear to God—” Even the mention of him hurting my sister makes rage boil inside of me.
His voice is calm and even. “Relax, I’m showing her some stuff on guitar, not taking her to prom.”
I point my finger at him. “I mean it. Don’t fuck around. If you feel something for Macy, I’ll stop standing in your way, but don’t screw with her, because you screw with her, you screw with me.”
“Your sister is an awesome person, Kyler. I’m not going to hurt her. You’re overthinking this. I’m showing her some stuff on guitar,” he repeats again. “That’s it.”
“Good,” I say.
“We done?”
I nod.
“Come on, then,” Silas says, “we have a gig to practice for.”
FACT: KISSING RELEASES OXYTOCIN IN THE BRAIN.
IT’S A HORMONE THAT STRENGTHENS THE BOND
BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE. SO DOES SHARING SECRETS.
KYLER STANDS BESIDE MY LOCKER, leaning against it, as if his weight is responsible for holding up the wall. “If it isn’t the Mad Hatter herself. Hi.” He grins.
I slide my backpack down my shoulder and enter my locker combo: 5, 15, 55. “Why, hello, tortured-artist-slash-amazing-kisser.” I open the lock, close the lock, and enter the combination again.
“‘Tortured artist’ is cringeworthy. I’ll take the ‘amazing kisser’ part, though.”
I stick out my tongue, open the lock, and close the lock. “Both are true.”
“True,” he agrees. “What are you imagining?”
“About your kissing?”
“About that, but you’re…” He nods to my lock. “You’re doing your ritual or whatever. What are you imagining right now?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I open the lock. I close the lock. I turn the dial back to five.
“It does. Tell me.”
“No.”
“C’mon.”
“No.”
“Tell me and I’ll do something just as epic.”
I don’t meet his gaze. I can’t stop at three. I must do five. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” I open the lock. Close the lock. And enter the combo for the last time.
“I do.”
“You don’t. Besides,” I say, “I can’t tell you. You won’t see me the same way again.”
“Right, what if you get more interesting?”
“I won’t.”
“Can I guess?”
“Probably not.”
“Would you tell me even if I guessed right?”
“I’d rather die.”
“You’re dying inside anyway, Lennon. Every time you let those thoughts hijack your brain, even for a second, you’re dying. Live a little, yeah? What if I did something completely out of character and sacrificial? I’ll lose the hoodie for the whole day. Let us have some strange life-defining moment.” He leans closer, dropping his voice. “C’mon. I really wanna understand this one thing about you.”
Then, to my total shock, he reaches for the bottom of his hoodie and pulls it up and over his head, then extends it to me. I glance back up at him, standing in the middle of the school hallway doing something that is uncomfortable for him. And he’s doing it to discover something about me. “I didn’t think you’d do it,” I say.
“I know. That’s why I did it.” He lets out the ponytail that’s secured at the nape of his neck, and his sand-colored hair falls against his jaw. Oh my God. He looks incredible. “Now tell me what is going on inside your beautiful mind. Please.”
I don’t understand why, but I feel like I owe him.
“That if I don’t turn the lock right now, something bad will happen to Jacob. He could fall down the stairs, slip on the patio where the pool is, and knock himself out. What if he got kidnapped? Or tortured or sold into some child sex-trafficking ring? Claire is famous, so that’s not entirely unrealistic.”
Speaking the words makes me turn to begin the ritual again, Kyler’s hoodie tucked into the crook of my arm. When I finish my round of five, it still doesn’t feel right, so I do it again. Three sets of five. Can’t be an even number. Ever. When I’m finished, I slip his hoodie up and over until I’m wrapped in its fabric. It’s the kind that stays supersoft even after it’s been washed a hundred times, and right now it smells like Bounce sheets again.
Kyler observes my entire ritual, consideration etched into his features. He smiles. “You are cuter than me in that. Wasn’t so hard, was it, Davis?”
I regard him. He’s made his point. “Do you want your hoodie back?” I don’t really want to give it back, but it’s somet
hing I should offer. I can keep my insecurities inside, most of the time. Kyler’s are there for the world to see.
He shakes his head. “Fair is fair. A deal is a deal. I said if you told me what you were thinking, I’d be just as brave as you. You’re into all that inspirational garbage, right?”
“I’m serious. You can have it back.”
“Return it later. I’m a lot of things. But when I say I’ll do something, I do it.”
“That’s something pretty admirable.”
He looks at his watch. “Ego fluffing to commence in three, two…”
“Shut up,” I tell him. I retrieve five notebooks and five pens from my locker and place them in my backpack. “Last chance, want it back? No English today. What are you going to tell people?”
He shrugs. “That I lost a bet with a cute girl. Once-in-a-lifetime things happen once in a lifetime, Lennon. Gotta catch those things while you can.”
As he walks away, everybody has turned to stare past him. They’re gloating, their California glows shadowed by fascination. When he disappears from sight, all eyes turn to me, and Jada comes barreling down the hallway, gawking.
“Did I miss something?”
I look at my shoes. “No.”
Her eyebrow darts upward. “No? It sure looks like I missed something.” She reaches out and tugs on the hoodie. “Really trying not to lick you right now. Could that hoodie smell any better?”
I fight against a grin. “We made a bet. He lost. I offered him the hoodie back, but he said a deal is a deal.”
Jada’s mask of shock wears away to reveal a smile stretched across her face. “Girl, what did you do to Kyler Benton?”
“I did nothing,” I say. “He’s a really cool guy.”
“Yeah,” she says, “like, four people are aware of that. Kyler is friends with no one, except his band and his sister.”
“And now me.”
“And now you.”
“We’ll be late,” I say, hitching my bag up my shoulder.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Kyler, the real Kyler, floods my mind, and I can’t fight it anymore. The smile wins. Worse, it’s a huge smile—the kind that permanently sticks on the faces of lovesick teenage girls. Pathetic. I’m one of them. I say nothing. Kyler is my secret, and I don’t want to share him. Not even a little. Because if anyone knew how different he was—I wouldn’t stand a chance.
* * *
At the end of the day, I spot Kyler in the parking lot, standing beside his car. He’s talking to his friend Silas when he sees me approach. Silas gives me a small wave, says, “Hi, Lennon, bye, Lennon.”
“Bye.” I walk up to Kyler and take off his hoodie, holding it out to him.
“You like it?”
I nod.
“Keep it.”
“Really?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead he smiles wide, his hair falling over his eye. “What are the chances I can convince you to let me give you a ride home?”
“Almost nonexistent.”
“Is there still a percentage of said existence? Like would you say I have a point-zero-zero-zero-one percent chance of convincing you to get in the car with me?”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t even say the odds are that high.”
He removes his hand from his pocket and points his key chain toward his car. The headlights flash and an alarm sounds to show that it’s armed. “Let’s walk, then.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ll come back for my car later.”
I put his hoodie back on and sling my backpack over my shoulders. It’s only then I realize that after my ritual with the locker this morning, I made it a full day without giving in. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
I look at my shoes as I walk. He keeps pace beside me, and I hazard a glance at his face.
“What was it like?”
“Eye-opening,” he says. “Weird. Scary as hell.”
“I’m proud of you,” I say.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I’m serious.”
“It was incredible, Lennon. I feel like for once I wasn’t letting the world control me. I didn’t care what they thought.”
“That’s what I try to do with the OCD,” I tell him. “Sometimes I win. Sometimes the thoughts don’t control me.”
“One day, you’ll be able to ride in a car,” he says. “I want it to be with me. I want to witness the day you kick that fucker to the curb once and for all. It’ll be a pivotal, soul-changing kind of moment to call your own, Lennon.”
“So are you done with the hoodies? I don’t need to finish the mask?”
Kyler stops dead in his tracks, his head turning sideways. “Don’t get any wild ideas. I’ve got an entire closet of them. My hoodies and I have a history, and we’re not ready to part ways just yet. And yes, I still need the mask.”
“Maybe the day you decide you don’t need to hide yourself from the world, I’ll decide that I can conquer my biggest demon.”
Kyler extends his hand. “Deal.”
“AND THEN YOU CAME TO PULL ME UP, MY
SWEETEST LITTLE SIN, IT’S HARD TO SEE THE PART
OF ME, THAT ENDS WHERE YOU BEGIN.”
Fire to Dust, Life-Defining Moments EP, “My Sweetest Sin”
I WALK THROUGH THE PATIO door and spot Macy seated at the kitchen table. She’s reading a book, a lemonade on a coaster in front of her. The coolness of the liquid and humidity from the house have produced small droplets of water on the surface of her glass. She glances up when she hears me before she looks back down at her book and says, “Fresh lemon—” She stops, her gaze snapping up at me from the pages. “Where’s your hoodie?” In seconds she’s on her feet. “What happened?”
I can’t answer her because I don’t know.
“Are you okay?” Her hand trembles, as if she wants to reach out and touch my face like our mom does. Macy never has, but I’d probably let her if she tried.
“I took it off,” I tell her. “To prove a point.”
“To prove what point?”
I look at my sister, more serious than I ever have in my entire life. “That I’ll do anything for her, I guess.”
“Are you in love with the girl next door?”
“You know something, Mae? I’m beginning to think I am.”
As I leave a shocked Macy behind, it hits me. I realized it a while ago. I’m in love with the girl next door. How utterly clichéd. I climb the stairs two at a time until I get to my room. I lie across my bed and rake my hands through my hair.
What the fuck happened today? Why did I do that? Their gazes burned into me exactly like the flames of the fire that gave them a reason to stare. Hushed whispers told a thousand different stories inside their heads of my untimely transformation into a monster. And for the first time in my entire life, I didn’t care. The snickers, the whispers, the smirks, they didn’t bother me, because Lennon knows I’m not a monster. That’s the only thing that mattered. It’s the only thing that matters.
I’m not sure how I let that happen.
But I’m sure I have to tell her.
Later that night, I’m in the tree house. The window to the guest bedroom has been dark and I’m growing impatient, waiting to hear from her. I text her.
Come to the tree house.
It only takes a few moments for her to respond.
Now?
Now. Yes.
Why?
Because I need to see you, Lennon. Deep thoughts. That’s why.
I’ll be there in five.
You’ll be here in like 4 minutes and 37 seconds. Not sure who you’re kidding.
She doesn’t reply, so I set my phone on the mattress beside me and close my eyes. I keep them closed while I hear her scale the ladder, and when she comes in and spins around, her arms make fast work of the rope attached to the tree house’s pulley. It reaches the top, and she grabs a basket from it as I open my eyes. She turns to face me, grinn
ing. Her hair is in what I can only say is the messiest ponytail I’ve ever laid eyes on, she’s in cutoffs and a black T-shirt, and she has a huge smear of what I’m guessing is either cocaine or flour across her cheek. Since she doesn’t really strike me as an addict, and I can smell something intoxicatingly sweet coming from that basket, I’m going to take an educated guess that it’s flour. “You brought gifts.”
She showcases her basket. “Jacob and I baked cookies.”
I sit up, wrapping my hand around her wrist and pulling her to me. “Is that why you look like you’ve waged war against the Pillsbury Doughboy?”
She nods, smiles, and pushes the basket toward me. “Try one.”
I take a cookie. It’s still warm, and as I split it, melted chocolate chips ooze from the gooey middle. I eat half of it before devouring the second part. “Best cookie I’ve ever had,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Your mom is, like, a Michelin-star chef. I somehow doubt it. But Jacob and I did a decent job with them.” She sets the basket on the floor before sitting down next to me, her hands folded in her lap. “So, another important epiphany, huh? For someone who doesn’t believe in inspirational garbage, that’s inspirational.”
“I know,” I say. “Can’t quite believe it, either.”
“So what’s the big moment? The second experience in one day that will define your life?”
I cover my hand with my sleeve and swipe away the flour on her face before I slide my hand to her jaw and underneath her ear, cupping the side of her face. I smile first and then I kiss her. “You are my life-defining moment, Lennon. For all the shit you’ve been through, for all the shit you’re still going through, and for the weird things you do that I’ll never understand. And for this moment, right here.” I brush her lips with mine a second time and she shivers. “This memory in the making, right now, when everything is perfectly okay, and I tell you that I’m falling in love with you. Since it feels pretty big, and it’s never happened to me before, I think classification as a life-defining moment is fair, don’t you?”
I freeze, unable to believe I said those words. My breath sticks until her smile sends the air rushing back into the space between us. Maybe I should take some of Lennon’s drugs and chill out, because this is the last thing I expected. I’m not that guy. I don’t do romantic things, I don’t bare my soul for anyone.
All Our Broken Pieces Page 16
