Imagine Us

by Jaxson Kidman

  “And what’s reality look like for you?” I asked.

  She poured creamer into the coffee. “I don’t know yet. I don’t think this is just a walk away thing, you know?”

  “It’s not easy, that’s for sure.”

  “Chris is here,” Shannon said as she stopped next to me. “Finally.”

  I nodded. Relief washed over me. As long as Chris was here, he was safe. But there was a greedier reason why I needed him here though.

  I flexed my shoulder, feeling a tight pain. I hated that the damn pills were already wearing off.

  “Is he bothering you?” Shannon asked Elena.

  “Really?” I asked. “I’ve known Elena since I was a kid.”

  “Oh, that’s juicy,” Shannon said. “I want details. All the dorky details of Adam.”

  Elena laughed. “I have plenty of stories.”

  “Easy now,” I said. “I’m giving you free food” - I pointed to Elena - “and I give you a paycheck” - I pointed to Shannon.

  “I can get food anywhere,” Elena said.

  “And I can get a paycheck anywhere,” Shannon added.

  “Then I guess I’m in trouble here,” I said.

  “What can I get you to eat?” Shannon asked.

  I put my hand over the menu. “Pancakes. A tall. With pecan butter.”

  Elena smirked and that same cherry color flushed her cheeks.

  “On it,” Shannon said.

  She walked away and I stayed right there at the counter.

  “Pancakes?” Elena asked.

  “What? Don’t act like you weren’t going to order that.”

  “Fine. You win.”

  I winked at her. “Besides the showings, what else is going on today? Any writing?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’d like to.”

  “Then do it. My place isn’t that far away. Do your showings and get some writing done. Or go write before you leave. Whatever you have to do.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “It’s not that easy for me right now.”

  “I’m sure nothing is,” I said. “You’re going to be okay. Whatever happens. I just hope…”

  I turned my head and looked at Tony, Joe, and Brian. They all had their hands up, measuring something invisible. Probably back to their fish conversation.

  “Hope what?” Elena asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Adam… hope what?”

  “I hope you end up happy,” I said. “That’s it. Okay? You have a lot to face and we really didn’t talk all that much last night. I don’t know if you’ll be back today, or ever. I hope so though, Elena.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” she admitted to me. “I don’t even want to go to these showings. I hate what I do, Adam.”

  “Then why do it, sugar?”

  “My mother and Chad said I needed a real job,” she said. “And, wow, does that sound childish.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Let me put it this way, Elena. You’re here. Right now. You’re in my diner. How about that? I own this diner.”

  “Adam…”

  “Just listen to me for a second. You’re here, right? You came here for a reason. We can talk about the past and any promises I made, that’s fine. But you came for a different reason. Nobody here is going to bother you. Or judge you. So think about what you want. Confess your soul to the best pancakes you’ve ever had.”

  Elena laughed. “I don’t think anything can top the pancakes you made for me before. Remember that?”

  Of course I remembered it.

  “I remember,” I said softly. “Let me go check on your order.”

  I walked into the kitchen and Chris was at the sink, washing dishes. He looked at me, his eyes bloodshot and tired. He must have had a rough night and morning. But he was here. Safe. Alive. Doing his job.

  “She’s beautiful, Adam.”

  I turned my head to see Shannon standing there holding a plate of pancakes.

  “What?”

  “That woman. You know her?”

  “For most of my life.”

  “How come we’ve never heard about her before? Or met her?”

  “That’s personal.”

  “I bet it is,” she said with a smirk.

  “Give me that plate,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re serving her too?”

  “And she’s not paying.”

  “Wow. What does she have on you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” Shannon said.

  “I’d better get these out there before they get cold,” I said.

  “Yeah, you don’t want anything out there to get cold.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  I put the plate of pancakes down in front of Elena and rubbed my jaw.

  What I actually hoped for was that she would stay away from Chad for good. Once and for all. Because he was only going to stomp on her heart until there was nothing left but ashes.

  Which was what I planned on telling her the last time I served her pancakes.

  7

  Messy With a Side of Pancakes

  ADAM

  (then)

  There was no reason why we were all invited to the party. Other than it being in the woods, meaning the scummy kids like us wouldn’t contaminate the nice houses just beyond the train tracks.

  Whatever.

  For me, it was a chance to drink, smoke whatever Brad had to give, and hang out with Elena. When it came to parties, she and Chad would show up together, arm in arm. Like she was a prize and he was showing her off. But the second he saw his boys (as he called them) he would toss her aside like the weekly trash and would be gone for the night. That meant Elena and I would chill together. Talk about school. Talk about jobs. Talk about the future. Talk about life.

  Of course it was all bullshit talk. Dreaming big, with no plan to make it happen because we were just teenagers.

  Except it was different for Elena.

  Something had been wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Which was why I stood at the kitchen sink in the apartment I called home, reading the side label on a box of pancake mix. My mother hadn’t been home in two days and probably wouldn’t be home for another two. That was fine by me. She would work, do her thing, sleep it all off, and go back to work. She checked on me twice a day, just to tell me she loved me and cared about me.

  I mixed the pancake mix together and heated up the biggest pan I could find.

  I could only fit two pancakes at a time in the pan.

  As they started to bubble at the top, I hurried to make coffee.

  I flipped the pancakes and walked from the kitchen to my bedroom.

  There had been a lot of times when I’d thought about Elena in my bed. For a lot of reasons. Stupid teenage boy stuff that I kept to myself and only mattered when I was alone.

  But there she was.

  Sleeping in my bed. Her head on my pillow. My favorite blanket covering her body.

  Next to the bed was an ugly green sleeping bag with a flannel pattern on the inside.

  That’s where I had slept.

  Next to the bed.

  Next to the puke bucket that Elena used three times when I got her into bed after she spent more than a few minutes in the bathroom, hugging the toilet, crying, muttering something about her life.

  Back in the kitchen, I flipped the cooked pancakes onto a plate and hurried to shove it into the microwave to keep them warm.

  Then I scooped two more ladles of batter into the pan.

  Last night, the moment Chad broke away from Elena, she went straight to the coolers and went right for a bottle of vodka. Watching her drink it like water made me cringe. I looked back and Chad was already in the center of a circle of jerk-off baseball players, shotgunning beer after beer, trying to play catch up.

  I walked to Elena and she put a hand to my chest and shook her head at me.

  I gave her space but never took my eyes off her.

  She drank and dr
ank… until she sat on the ground near a fire that someone had built. Her head swaying left to right as though music was playing. Chad had taken his boys and Brad deeper into the woods. Which explained why we were invited to the party.

  I sat across the fire on a tree stump, nursing a warm beer, already trying to plan out the rest of the night. Because if Chad was going to get as messed up as he planned, then someone would need to keep an eye on Elena. It also didn’t help that two assholes were scoping her out.

  TJ and Jon weren’t baseball players. They weren’t stoners either. They were rich, popular, and could do anything they wanted. Their fathers were lawyers and there were plenty of stories about their families and plenty of stories about the bullshit they did, forever getting away with it all because of who they were.

  When TJ plopped down next to Elena, my blood started to boil.

  Then came Jon, with a fresh bottle of vodka.

  He sat behind her, his legs open, inching forward. If she put her head back, she’d be resting it against Jon’s… you know. That area.

  I slowly started to stand.

  TJ put a hand to Elena’s leg. “You’re all whacked out tonight, beautiful. I like this side of you.”

  “Whatever,” Elena said.

  “Sorry about your boyfriend,” Jon said. “Guys need to pay attention to their girls or someone else will.”

  I walked around the fire and put a hand out for Elena to take. “Come on, Elena. Let’s go for a walk.”

  “She’s fine right here, man,” TJ said.

  He squeezed her leg with his hand.

  Elena kicked her leg and looked up at me.

  “Get your hand off her,” I said.

  “Or what?” TJ asked.

  “Yeah, or what?” Jon asked. He slowly slid his left hand to her left shoulder.

  I didn’t even think. I just reacted.

  I pushed Jon back and off the makeshift bench made from tree limbs. I grabbed the bottle of vodka and smashed it against the bench and turned, holding the jagged part out at TJ as he slowly got to his feet.

  “Whoa, man,” TJ said. “Fuck.”

  “You’re fucking dead, scum boy,” Jon said.

  “Come on then,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” TJ said. He grabbed Jon’s sleeve. “It’s okay. There are plenty here to have fun with. She’s not even that pretty.”

  “Yeah,” Jon said. “I was just going for the moment. She’s only been fucked by one guy. So she’s still prime.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” I growled.

  They walked off, disappearing into another group of partygoers, acting like nothing had happened.

  I crouched down in front of Elena and she looked right at me.

  Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Sugar… what’s going on?”

  “Adam, I’m going to throw up.”

  * * *

  I made twelve pancakes in total.

  I poured two mugs of coffee.

  My mother and I never ate at the kitchen table. Not once. Ever. It was a mess of mail, bills, papers and baskets of junk. Keys, change, pens, highlighters with missing caps. Rolled up clothes just left there. I put my forearms on the table and pushed all the shit away to make room for myself and Elena.

  “Adam?”

  I stood and saw her standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  She was wearing the same blue, pink, and black checkered patterned button-down shirt from the night before. The top three buttons were undone, showing off her low-cut undershirt. When I first met Elena, she didn’t have any cleavage. But now? It was… wow.

  “Morning, sugar,” I said. “I made you some pancakes. And coffee. Sit down.”

  She stumbled into the kitchen and took a seat. She rubbed her forehead. “It hurts so bad.”

  “I know,” I said. “You were really drinking last night. I can get you some medicine if you’d like.”

  “Please.”

  I raced to the bathroom and got her some ibuprofen for the headache.

  I put the pills on the table and then brought over the plate of pancakes and the coffee. I went to the fridge and opened it, feeling fucking embarrassed at how empty it was. The girl of my dreams was in my apartment and it was a complete shithole of a mess.

  There was a bottle of syrup with just enough left for her pancakes.

  “Thank you for this,” she said as she picked at the pancakes.

  I sat across from her and watched her. She was afraid to look at me.

  “Elena… what happened?”

  That’s when her eyes met mine.

  Even hungover, those green eyes were killer.

  “I threw up, didn’t I?”

  “A lot.”

  “On you?”

  “No.”

  “Thank God,” she said with a weak smile. “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you back here.”

  “And Chad?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Of course.”

  “You got sick in the woods.”

  “In front of everyone?” she asked, her face turning red.

  “No,” I said. “I got you away from the fire and the party. Then I walked around so nobody saw us leave together.”

  “You drove?”

  “I was okay to drive,” I said. “I swear.”

  “You went to a party in the woods and didn’t drink?”

  “Elena, when you got there, you grabbed that bottle of vodka and went to town on it. And when Chad walked away…”

  “Shit,” she said. “You took care of me. You protected me.”

  “I promised I would.”

  She sighed and rubbed her forehead again. “I’m such a fuck up.”

  “How so? Everyone gets like that now and again.”

  “It’s because of what happened before the party.”

  I ate the last bite of my pancakes and stood up, taking my plate to the sink. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Stuff with Chad.”

  I turned and leaned against the sink, crossing my arms. “I’m here, Elena. You can tell me anything.”

  “I know I can,” she said. “These pancakes are delicious.”

  “They’re from a box.”

  “They’re perfect.”

  “I’ve never made pancakes for anyone else before.”

  Elena grinned. She sipped her coffee. “How much did I throw up?”

  “A lot,” I repeated.

  “I slept in your bed.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “You slept on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  It looked as though regret washed over her face for a second before blushing and hurrying to look away from me.

  “I kept a bucket next to the bed. And when you got sick, I held your hair back so it didn’t get on it.”

  “Then you cleaned it up?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want the room to stink.”

  “You did all that for me,” she said.

  “You were really upset and drunk. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  She picked at a few more bites of her pancakes and then put the fork down. She looked at me, her eyes glossy.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “Before the party,” she said. “Chad wanted to go for a ride. He took me up to the ridge. You know what that is, right?”

  I felt an inferno of jealousy burn through me. The ridge was just off the new highway built across the mountain. It was a pull off area where people went to fool around in the back seats of their cars. There was no other purpose of going up there other than to…

  “I didn’t want to,” Elena said.

  “But you did?”

  “No,” she said. “I said no and I meant it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He got mad at me for it. He said that because we already did it, it was okay to keep doing. Like there was no worry about it anymore. Like it’s just… normal. I wa
sn’t ready for it. I thought we were going to the party.”

  “That’s why you drank at the party like that?”

  “I guess,” she said. “It was just… weird. I felt like I let him down. And he was mad, then calm. He said he loved me and would wait again for me. But then we got to the party and he said we would hook up later in the night. And that there was no saying no. Like, what the hell?”

  I pushed from the sink and walked toward her. “I’m sorry, Elena. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “And I found out my mother is sleeping with a college-aged guy.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. He’s fucking twenty. Twenty, Adam. That’s like… a few years older than us.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered. “How did you…”

  “I caught them.”

  “Caught them… as in…”

  “Yeah,” Elena said. Her cheeks turned red again. “My mother thought I was gone for the night. I went home to grab a different shirt and…”

  I gently touched her shoulder. “What a fucked-up night then for you.”

  “More than fucked up,” she said. She tilted her head and rested it on my hand. “Why does this happen to me?”

  “What’s that, sugar?”

  “Everything,” she said. “I thought my mother leaving Dan was a good thing. We were finally free of him and all of his bullshit rules. But she just… it’s the freedom. I’m too good of a daughter.”

  I laughed.

  “Why is that funny?” she snapped at me.

  She shook me away and stood up.

  “Elena, I’m laughing because you’re right. Because I get it. Because we’re the same.”

  She put the chair between us. “We are?”

  “Look at this place,” I said. “My mother hasn’t been home in days. This was supposed to be our chance to start over too. She swore to me this place was just temporary. But this is home. I’m going to have to go grocery shopping later because the fridge is empty.”

  Elena swallowed hard. “You know how to do that?”

  “Yeah. You grab shit off the shelves and hope you have enough to pay.”

  “Adam…”

  “I go across town so nobody sees me. I don’t need any other reasons for people to shit on me.”

  She slowly pushed the chair back to the table. “I’m sorry I got mad at you.”

  “Don’t. I laughed because you’re right. Your mother is a total flake. She’s living like a teenager and you’re the adult.”