by Doyle, S.
He didn’t like that I knew that about him. That I saw everything about him. But I was the only one around here watching him that closely. I wanted, so desperately, for him to like me, and there were times I knew he did. Times when I made him laugh, and it was like I took him by surprise. Or, when I would show up with a brownie and he would shove the whole thing in his mouth while I watched and laughed as he did it.
There were times when he was even nice to me, before he forgot he wasn’t supposed to like me.
So I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want him to go back with his mom and forget that he’d ever lived here.
It was selfish, but I didn’t want to be alone again. Even a grumpy Marc was better than no Marc at all.
I heard the rumble of the SUV and stood. George had barely brought the car to a stop when Marc jumped out and slammed the passenger door closed. He stormed by me and growled as he did.
“Do. Not. Follow. Me.”
I whipped around prepared to do exactly that. I knew what was happening. This was angry Marc and I was always really good at calming him down.
Then I felt George’s hand on my shoulder stopping me.
“Let him go, Peanut.”
“But—”
“No,” he cut me off. “He needs time to work it out of his system and I don’t want you around when that happens. He’ll only hurt you, and then later regret he did it.”
“What happened?”
“His mom wasn’t there,” George said, his eyes sad.
“What do you mean? Did she forget he was supposed to be visiting today?”
He shook his head. “No. She left the halfway house a few days ago. No one has seen her since.”
I understood. Maybe too much for my age, but I knew what that meant. She wasn’t allowed to leave the halfway house. She had to stay there while she got a job and stayed clean, so she could prove to the court she could be Marc’s mom again.
Instead she ran away.
I was sad for Marc. I was. But also, I was a little happy inside. Because I knew what this really meant.
Marc was going to stay with us forever.
2
A year later
Marc
“You can’t even hit the ball hard enough to get it back over the net,” I accused her.
“I’m trying!”
It was summer and I was particularly bored, which was the only reason I accepted when Ash asked me to play tennis with her.
This was my second year living with George in the carriage house on the Landen estate. A freaking estate with so much property you couldn’t see the end of it. I’d gone from a shitty apartment that was a step up from the projects, to here. Sometimes I still didn’t understand it. I only knew I didn’t fit in. Not really. So I resented it.
Come fall I would start high school, which was actually ranked as one of the top schools in New Jersey. Because when everyone in town is rich the public school has all the advantages of a private school. I was going to get my own laptop and everything.
I had plans for this year. What I needed to accomplish. I wasn’t any typical kid just starting high school. I needed to be focused on what a fancy school like this could do for me. Because in four more years I wouldn’t be a minor anymore. Four more years and the state couldn’t tell me what to do. My life would be under my control.
This was my second year living near Ashleigh.
Who was always there no matter what I did. Always asking to play or do something. I always said no. Because she was just a kid. Because she was a girl. Because she was annoying in the way she thought we could be best friends, and we couldn’t.
Why couldn’t we be friends?
Because she was a kid, and a girl.
And rich and sheltered and she didn’t know anything about real life. She didn’t even go to school because of her asthma.
“I don’t know why I’m bothering. You can’t even play,” I said, scowling at her.
“One more try,” she said, holding up her finger. “I promise, I’ll get it over the net.”
“I doubt it.”
“You won’t even give me a chance,” she said, stomping her foot in exasperation. Which was actually kind of funny. Ash was always so agreeable to anything when it came to me, right up until she wasn’t.
“Because you suck. You need to get more exercise. It’s bad for you to not be active.”
She stilled then, like she was taking in what I’d told her. I don’t know why I bothered. It wasn’t my business. She could do whatever she wanted. She wasn’t some out-of -shape, fat kid. She was all arms and legs. Nothing but bones and skin, which is why she couldn’t hit a tennis ball hard enough to get it over the net.
“You know why,” she said quietly. I still heard her.
Because of the asthma. It was like her whole life was defined by that one thing. Like she was nothing more than her condition. Or at least her father had convinced her it was true.
“Lots of people have asthma and can still hit a freaking tennis ball.”
That made her mad. She bounced the ball once, twice on the court then swung the racket as hard as she could. The ball almost nailed me in the balls, but I stepped away and delivered a lob back over the net.
She wasn’t fast enough to get to it, and the ball bounced a few times before she picked it up.
“One more try,” she said.
I shook my head and put the racket in the supply chest where the equipment was kept. “You can’t keep up and I’m probably going to hurt you if we keep playing. Nail you in the face with a ball or something. Your dad would be freaking pissed.”
She jogged over to me. Her breath was a little wheezy, but I didn’t think it was too bad. “I can’t get better if I don’t practice,” she pointed out.
“You need to find a friend to play with,” I told her.
“You’re my friend.”
I shook my head. I was fourteen. I’d already made out with a girl in my class. I was getting boners when the wind blew too hard. I cursed with my guy friends and talked shit on adults who were all assholes.
I couldn’t be friends with a twelve-year-old girl. No matter how nice she was to me. It wouldn’t work.
“We’re not friends, Ash. We just live next to each other.”
“Can we try? To be friends? Real friends.”
I looked at her then. She had soft, wispy, blond curls that were matted down on her head from sweating. Her eyes were this pale blue color that looked a little creepy if her eyes were dilated. Cornflower blue eyes that saw too much inside me.
Stuff I didn’t want anyone to see. The stuff I kept hidden.
“No. You need to find a friend. A girl friend, your own age. That’s how it works.”
“But I like you.”
There it was. That was my problem with her. She was so honest about everything because she didn’t know how not to tell the truth. She didn’t know how to protect herself from meanness or anger, or anything.
Which only made me want to show her how mean and angry people could be.
“Yeah, well, I don’t like spoiled princesses.”
I shrugged off the hurt in her eyes and walked away. Ashleigh needed to learn how it was out there in the real world. She was this fragile thing always on the verge of being shattered by the next mean thing I said.
What she needed to do was toughen up. Like I had. Nothing could hurt me, because I wouldn’t let it.
Maybe I was a jerk. Maybe I was hurtful, but if that thickened her skin a little bit, I told myself it was a good thing.
I was helping her to grow up the only way I knew.
* * *
One year later
Marc
“I don’t know why you need to be here,” I said, looking over my shoulder into the back seat where Ashleigh was buckling her seat belt.
“Duh, moral support.”
“I don’t need moral support to learn how to drive.”
George, who was sitting in the passenger seat,
chuckled. “Don’t knock it. Having a cheerleader might help.”
I didn’t need a cheerleader, I just needed to do this. In New Jersey they didn’t let you drive legally until you were seventeen, but I’d convinced George he needed to teach me earlier than that. Driving was a form of independence, and I wanted it sooner rather than later.
Since George agreed waiting until sixteen to learn how to drive was foolish, he was willing to do this, even though, technically, we were breaking the law.
He’d driven us to a large parking lot. The store was closed on Sunday, so we had the space to ourselves. Then he let me get behind the wheel.
“Okay, we’re just going to focus on acceleration and braking,” George said. “The same with both—you want to ease on the gas and ease on the brake.”
I knew the basics of driving. I put the car into drive and hit the gas pedal with my right foot. Immediately the car lurched forward with more speed than I was anticipating, so I hit the brake hard and we jerked to a stop.
“That’s not easing,” Ash said from the back seat.
“That’s not being a cheerleader,” I told her.
“You’re right. Sorry. You’ll do better next time. Give me an M. An A—”
“Shut it,” I scowled as I glanced in the rearview mirror, but she was all smiles. Her soft, curly, blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her pale blue eyes were filled with mischief.
That was the thing about Ash. No matter what I said or did to her, it always rolled off her back. Like she understood, on some weird level, I never really wanted to hurt her feelings.
I just did.
This time I hit the gas pedal a lot easier and I could see the difference. But as we approached where the parking lot ended I immediately went from the gas to the brake and we were lurching to a stop again.
“That’s okay. You’ve got to learn that when you take your foot off the gas, the car slows down,” George said. “So ease off the gas first, then worry about braking to a stop.”
I put the car in reverse. Figured out how to make a K turn, then drove forward, this time easing off the gas first before slowly braking so that the car stopped without a lurch.
“That was awesome!” Ash clapped. “I knew you were going to be a good driver. You can do anything, Marc.”
A freaking cheerleader along for a driving lesson. Who did that?
“You just want me to learn how to drive so I can take you places off the estate,” I muttered, even as I put the car in reverse to turn around and try again.
That made her smile. “Wait. You’ll take me places when you get your license?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Then yes, I absolutely want you to learn how to drive. Then I can be free! Also, are we going to get ice cream after this?”
George nodded. “Successful driving lesson number one in the books, yes, I think we should get ice cream.”
“Fine, but we need to go to a burger joint to get it,” I said. “I’m not a little girl who wants ice cream. I want a burger and fries.”
George laughed. “Yes, sorry for doubting your manliness with ice cream.”
“But you love ice cream,” Ash said, clearly confused.
She didn’t get it. I was getting older. I was learning how to drive. I was getting closer and closer to the day when I wouldn’t need anyone or anything because I could take care of myself.
Closer to the day when I would be legal. A man.
And men didn’t eat ice cream with little girls.
* * *
One year later
End of summer
Ashleigh
I was never exactly sure when I fell in love with Marc. I just knew for sure I was. Like I’d always been. Like maybe it was love at first sight even though I was only ten. It should have been weird. But I decided it wasn’t.
It was just us. I understood he didn’t love me back, not the way I wanted, not yet. Sometimes it seemed he barely tolerated me, but I knew that was an act. Like when I was super annoying, and he called me princess with this sneer. Or when he told me I was a spoiled brat.
I used to think the reason he was always so mean to me was because he associated me with being separated from his mom. Like saying goodbye to her in the rehab place, then meeting me for the first time were ultimately linked in his mind.
Which made me a sad thing to him. Because his mom never got better.
After she’d left the halfway house that first time, she’d been found by the cops. On the streets selling drugs, which led to her doing time in jail. Then another in-patient stay at a rehab facility, another halfway house. For a while there, it looked like she might make it. She wasn’t in a position where George would consider letting Marc live with her, but for the first time everyone had hoped she might stay clean.
That hope didn’t last long after Marc learned she’d left the halfway house again. And it appeared she’d even left the state.
Florida, George thought, because he knew she had friends down there. But he wasn’t certain. George had asked Marc if he wanted him to hire a private investigator to track her down, but Marc had said no.
Marc once told me if she didn’t love him enough to stay clean, then she wasn’t worth anything he had to offer.
So he stayed with George and, of course, he had me.
Even though he pretended to hate me.
It never stopped me from trying to change his mind. At first, I knew I only wanted him to be my friend. But now, sitting on a lounge chair by the pool, watching him—with his shirt off—run the vacuum back and forth in the water, his lean body tan all over, I felt like I wanted him to be something else.
Maintaining the pool was one of Marc’s chores. He had a bunch around the estate. When I asked my father if I should have chores, he chuckled and patted my head. So I watched Marc do his chores and if I ever asked him if I could help, he told me to get lost.
He told me to get lost a lot, but I didn’t listen.
Because I loved him, and maybe I wanted him to kiss me.
It was just recently my father had begun to tell me to stay away from Marc. He said boys his age weren’t to be trusted. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But when you’re fourteen, and the only other teenager you have access to lives on the same estate, that was sort of impossible.
Instead, I did what I always did with Marc. I annoyed him with questions until he answered me.
“Are you excited about going back to school?” I asked him.
He grunted.
“You’re going to be a junior this year. You’ll get to go to prom. Have you thought about who you’re going to take?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. Prom isn’t until the end of the year. I’m not thinking about it now.”
Good, I thought. Because another hurdle in all of the hurdles I had to leap over to get to Marc, would be other girls his age who looked at him like I did. Who would study the way his shoulders were getting so wide, while his waist stayed narrow.
Who thought his dark brown eyes were soulful.
Girls, who were going to show up to his soccer games just to get his attention, even though I’d been to every one since he’d started playing. A small concession my father had granted me as a way to potentially mingle, but not for too long at a time, with people my own age.
It didn’t really work. The mingling with other kids. I just sat by myself in the bleachers and watched Marc play. When he scored, I cheered. When he lost, I tried to offer him bottles of Gatorade, which he inevitably took, then told me to get lost. I think it embarrassed him with his friends to be seen hanging out with me, considering he was sixteen and I was only fourteen.
“Think you’re going to be captain of the team this year?” I asked him. Because that’s how it worked with us. I just kept poking and poking until he either answered or told me to leave him alone.
He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.”
“I bet you will be. Even though you’re only a junior, all the guys look up to you.
Even the seniors.”
“What do you know about it?” he asked with a smirk.
He didn’t really acknowledge that I came to all his games. At least he never mentioned it. If he did acknowledge me, it was only because I had extra Gatorade. But I watched everything when it came to him, and I could see how the guys would take his lead whenever he was on the field. Directing them the way he wanted them to go, to set up for an attempt on goal.
Marc didn’t talk a lot. Not with me. Not with George, who I think he’d come to respect, if not love. But when he did talk, his words always carried weight because they were thoughtful. Never careless.
He was only ever careless with me.
I stretched out on the lounger to show off the tankini I was wearing. I was just starting to get breasts, and watching him without his shirt on had made my nipples hard. Did he notice? Did it make him think about kissing me?
“What do you think of my new suit?” I asked finally, forcing him to look at me.
“I don’t.”
I wasn’t deterred. I was on a mission to make him love me. I knew there were so many things in our way, but it was just going to take time.
Lots and lots of time.
He stopped running the vacuum along the bottom of the pool and looked at me. “Why don’t you go to school? Get your own fucking life instead of living through me.”
“You know why,” I said quietly.
“You’re fourteen, not a kid anymore. Tell your dad you want to go to school. You’re such a freak I don’t know if you’ll make friends, but maybe there will be some other freaks who will like you. I’m serious, Ash…”
There it was. The arrow that shot right to my heart and made me realize all my poking at Marc was worth it. Because every once in a while, he called me Ash.
No one called me Ash. I was Ashleigh to my father, my tutor, my nurse and my doctor. Peanut to George, but that didn’t really count.
I was Ash only to Marc. Who made me think of kissing and made me aware of my nipples and was mostly mean to me…but sometimes not.
