I'll Be Here

by Autumn Doughton

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to lately,” she says.

  Mom emerges from the kitchen wiping her hands on her khaki shorts. “Hi sweetie! Brooke was just dropping off a brochure about the retreat we’re going on next month and I told her she should stay for dinner, but—”

  “But Pete’s waiting on me,” Brooke finishes for her. I think they share a look but I’m not sure. Maybe I’m being paranoid. “He’s making a new shrimp dish that he’s been wanting us to try for ages.”

  She wraps her arm around me and swings us towards the couch. “I have a minute though. Tell me—are you looking forward to graduation?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Just a few more papers due and then finals and then I’ll be official.”

  “Pete and I will both be there of course. We wouldn’t miss the chance to see you in your cap and gown. But I promise not to make you pose for too many pictures. I thought Alex was going to kill me and stuff me in my camera bag at his graduation.” She laughs at the memory and inclines her head to me.

  “In all honesty, I did take too many photos. It’s not every day your only child graduates, is it?”

  I shake my head.

  “You know,” Brooke says raising her eyebrows and taps her chin with her index finger. “We need to get you guys together this summer.”

  The room tilts. My breath hitches in my throat.

  She’s watching me closely, scanning my face with her crystal blue eyes. “You can talk about school. He’ll be sure to have lots of pointers for you about college next year since you’ll be in the same place. You’ll want to take advantage of him.”

  Sigh.

  I sure will.

  ***

  After Brooke leaves, I can’t stop thinking about Alex and the way that we’d left things last weekend. I think about the way that his skin felt and the warmth of his breath and how he’d looked almost jealous when Lance had grabbed me. I know it’s stupid to want Alex to be jealous—of a gay guy no less—but, I can’t help the tiny thrill it sends through me. And I can’t help when my breathing becomes more ragged as I think about his eyes moving over me and what it would feel like to have his lips do the same. Needless to say, sleep is not so easy to come by.

  I’ll be here.

  I’ll be here.

  Could I have been a little vaguer? Did he think that I meant I’ll be here in town or more I specifically at the pier or just alive in general? As in, I’ll be here on this great planet of ours and I hope you are too, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll ever see each other again.

  Am I supposed to call him? Should I message him on Facebook or send him a text? Texting seems more casual. I want to appear casual, not conflicted or like I’m trying too hard. Because I’m not. No way. I am not trying anything with Alex. Definitely not.

  Ack!

  I’m a spaz.

  Okay, calm down Willow.

  It’s easy to imagine that Alex was flirting with me. That’s definitely what it felt like, but that can’t be what was happening, right?

  Right.

  Alex Faber wasn’t flirting with me, he was being friendly. He’s a friendly guy. He likes people. People like him. They talk to him. He talks to them. That’s what we were doing. Talking. Nothing more.

  Alex is in college. He’s got better things to do than flirt with high school girls. Especially me. We’ve been down that road before and I know that he doesn’t see me that way.

  He was not flirting with me.

  I’m not even going to think about it anymore.

  Or the fact that he looked wonderful.

  Of course he did. He is wonderful. He’s this smart, attractive, tremendous person but that doesn’t have to mean anything to me. It’s just nice for the human race. You know, to have such a great person. The bottom line is that the world is filled with lots of great people and I don’t go falling in love with them.

  I am not in love with Alex Faber.

  I like him, but I don’t like like him.

  Plus, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this! I am in no shape to think about any guys right now. My boyfriend just broke up with me and is now dating my ex-friend. I’m a disaster. My heart is in a fragile state.

  “You missed my party.”

  The voice surprises me out of my thoughts. “What?”

  I look up. It’s Dustin. He’s standing in front of me with a look on his face. I don’t know the look. I’m not sure that I like the look.

  He’s wearing the shirt we picked out together at the mall. The blue one with the thin green stripes that I love. It compliments his tanned skin and hugs his chest just right. Great. If only I hadn’t noticed that.

  I’m sitting on a wooden bench on the outskirts of the quad. My Spanish notes are sprawled on the seat beside me. I was supposed to be studying for a quiz but I was letting myself get consumed with thoughts of boys. Story of my life.

  Dustin shuffles my notes into a messy pile so that he can sit down and then he’s next to me and my calf is touching his bare leg. His special Dustin smell of cologne and leather surrounds me and it’s nice and decidedly weird all at once.

  “You missed the party last night,” he repeats. “I was really hoping that you’d show.”

  He was? “Oh, I—uh—I had to work.”

  Dustin looks at me. He knows that I usually only work at Patty’s office on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I wonder if he’ll call me on my lie. Instead, his lips purse ever so slightly and he says, “We won the track meet.”

  I automatically smile and nudge his arm. “Good for you. See all those sprints that I forced you to do at the beach last summer paid off.”

  Dustin reluctantly grins, flashing a bit of his dimple. “I guess they did. I should be grateful. Shin splints and all.”

  “You’re damn right.”

  I’m just forming the thought that this isn’t so weird and that maybe Dustin, Taylor and I really can all exist in the same universe when I realize that he’s staring at me and it’s not so much that he’s staring, it’s the way that he’s staring. I feel myself blushing and my heart starts pounding. He looks away.

  “Soooo…” The word stretches out into the air between us… “Sorry about the party. I thought about coming but it’s not like I’ve been popular recently and I didn’t think that your girlfriend would exactly jump for joy if she saw me there.”

  Lie. Lie. Lie. I did not think about going. Not even close. But Dustin doesn’t need to be privy to that information.

  Dustin winces. “Willow, I’m sorry about all the crap that you’ve been putting up with. I told Taylor to back off and you know that Allison and those other girls are just being bitchy because that’s what they do best. You didn’t deserve that shit and I’m sorry that I let it happen.”

  He inhales deeply. “I was serious about what I said in my note. I’m sorry about a lot of things. You were a good girlfriend and I didn’t appreciate that and Taylor is… Well, she’s not you.”

  Ack! My head is groaning trying to figure out what he means. I really need a translator to accompany me during these encounters.

  I open my mouth to speak, but before sound makes it out of my mouth, Taylor is standing in front of us. She clears her throat and gazes down at me with daggers in her brown eyes.

  “What am I babe?” She manages to squish onto the bench between us which is not incredibly awkward or anything.

  Dustin’s eyes get wide. “Wh-what?”

  Taylor’s annoyance reaches a new level. I picture her head exploding as her lips move. “You were talking about me?”

  “Uh… I—umm...” Dustin glances down at her hand on his arm and back at me. He looks like a child who just got caught with a piece of candy that he was not supposed to be eating.

  I scoot forward on the bench. “Dustin was asking me about that quiz that we’re supposed to have in calculus. We used to study together and he was telling me that he didn’t like to bother you with it.”

  Wow. I am impressed with how self-assured and n
ormal I sound. No one would know that my stomach is churning like the paddlewheel on an old-fashioned steamboat.

  She doesn’t acknowledge me but gives Dustin a feminine pouty face. “You should have told me baby. I could have helped you study for that last test. I don’t think you have to be a genius to help in calculus.”

  No. But you have to have a basic understanding of mathematic principals and if I remember correctly you baked your way out of a failing grade in Algebra by chairing the bake sale that was Mrs. Vaughn’s pet project.

  Okay. I don’t say this. Not really. Only in my head. And for now that is satisfying enough.

  Taylor pecks Dustin on the cheek and he smiles weakly. I stand up and shove my notes into my backpack because I don’t need to subject myself to this crap anymore. Sure, Dustin’s giving me a guilty look, but that doesn’t mean that I have to give him a free pass to flaunt his new relationship in front of me.

  “The Hooch. This Saturday night.” He says this to my back and I lift my hand so that he knows that I heard him but I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see the look on Taylor’s face.

  Laney’s standing at the archway in front of the building texting on her phone.

  “What was that about?” She asks, gesturing to the bench where our odd threesome had been sitting.

  I close my eyes. “Nothing important.”

  As we round the corner, I turn back to see Taylor nestling her head on Dustin’s shoulder. “We were talking. He wanted me to go to some party or something. Taylor interrupted us.”

  Laney’s eyes widen. “You still have feelings for him, huh?”

  I sigh through my nose but I don’t answer.

  She tilts her head. “Do you love him?”

  I don’t know how to answer that. I guess my heart still hurts when I think about him. There’s a pit in my stomach right now. Is that the same as love? I’m not sure anymore. There’s this part of me that wishes that I could tell Laney that I’m a strong, powerful woman and I don’t need a man—rah-rah-rah girl power and all that. But that’s not how I feel. I still feel empty and I’m not sure if Dustin Rant is what I need to be full. I can’t remember what being full feels like.

  “I don’t know.”

  She nods. “You know what you need to do, right?”

  I shake my head. Obviously if I knew what I need to be doing I would be doing it.

  “Duh.” The expression on her face can only be described as exasperation. “You need to make him jealous.”

  ***

  “Pass me the white-out please.”

  I stand up and take the small bottle over to Smirna’s desk. She unscrews the lid and carefully paints over a smudge on the ledger. Fanning her hand and blowing, she gives me a thoughtful look over the edge of the paper. “The thing to remember is that you’re young. This is the time to make mistakes and learn from them, no?”

  “Does that mean that we should learn from them together or apart?”

  She laughs. “If all the answers were so easy then we’d all have it figured out.”

  The waiting area has been empty since we sent the last patient of the day in to see Patty twenty minutes ago. Smirna and I don’t normally chat about our personal lives but she asked about my “handsome young man” so I had to tell her that he was my young man no longer.

  She inclined her head and said, “Dustin is not the handsome young man that I meant.”

  And when she winked at me I knew that she meant Alex and that she’d picked up on some kind of vibe between us when he was in the office. I hadn’t responded and I thought that I’d effectively shaken her off the trail but somehow our conversation about her quilting patterns had circled back to boys and we’re now talking about my ex.

  “But I want easy!”

  Smirna’s voice is careful. “You’re a good girl Willow. Do you really and truly want that boy back?”

  I just shrug.

  She tips her head forward so that her chin is almost touching her neck. “Answer the question.”

  I throw my hands up dramatically. “Yes! Okay? Yes, I want him back. I want to see the look on Taylor’s face when he comes back to me.”

  “That sounds less like love and more like revenge.”

  Somehow that seems like a familiar sentiment.

  Smirna turns back to her desk popping a cherry flavored cough drop in her mouth. She looks at me halfway over her shoulder and smiles. “If it is revenge you’re after then you must make him jealous.”

  ***

  “You should make him jealous.”

  “Oh my God! Why does everyone keep saying that?” I turn in my seat knocking over a binder and a pen with my arm. A half-dozen heads look in our direction.

  Nate ignores my grimace and smiles like the Cheshire Cat as he bends to pick up the spilled things. His white teeth show vividly against his almond lips. “Because we’re intelligent, in the know, on the pulse… Take your pick.”

  I tuck my long hair behind my ear and lower my voice to a loud whisper. “I just feel weird about doing that.”

  He sits up. “How do you mean?”

  I sigh. “Well, I would have to use a guy—a real guy—an actual living breathing person who might be a tad offended about being used as a subject in an experiment.”

  He considers that but doesn’t seem bothered by it. “Just tell him the truth,” he says with a mild shrug.

  “Guys aren’t like girls. There are plenty of us that don’t mind being used by a hot girl, even if it is to get her douchy ex-boyfriend back.”

  “Hey,” I say slapping his arm playfully.

  Nate puts his hands up in mock surrender. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

  I raise my eyebrows and point my finger at him. “Tell me this ‘Oh Wise One.’ Would you be willing to be my faux-boyfriend?”

  “And blow my chances to go to prom with Alyssa Chestnut?” He points back mimicking my gesture. “Not even for you sweetheart.”

  My chin settles onto my palm as I look around the room, studying the faces of my classmates. Wes Hardin did ask me to prom but he’s too nice to use for some crazy scheme. “What about Isaac?” I say with a nod to the occupied desk in the corner of the room.

  Nate gives me a look like I’m crazy. “Nose hair? No, no, no,” he says on a breath. “And if I didn’t make myself clear… NO.”

  I roll my eyes. “Come on. His nose hair is not that long. That’s a nickname from freshman year. I think we can move on.”

  As if on cue, Isaac, who doesn’t realize that he has an audience, lifts his hand to his face and deftly picks his nose. Nate and I burst into high-pitched laughter.

  The thick slab of skin underneath Mrs. Carlson’s chin shakes as her head turns in our direction.

  “Miss James, Mr. Perry, do I need to separate the two of you?” She is looking at us over her glasses and her voice is mocking, condescending.

  “No ma’am,” Nate says picking up his pen.

  “Hmmmphh…” She settles back in her seat.

  I bend my head and pretend to be busy reading our workbook. I angle myself so that Nate can hear me but Mrs. Carlson can’t see my lips moving. “I don’t know what you expect. I can’t just take my pick of guys and expect them to fall over themselves for me.”

  Nate smiles. “But I think that we can do better than Nose Hair.” He leans closer smelling faintly of laundry soap and coconut. “For starters, no one in this room is going to work. We need to find someone that threatens Dustin at the cellular level. Someone tall, dark and handsome—all that stuff that you girls go goo-goo-ga-ga over. And Dustin needs to believe that it’s real—not some set-up.”

  Okaaaay...

  There is exactly one human that threatens Dustin at the cellular level.

  And he told me that he would be in town this weekend.

  Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.

  ~Neil Gaiman

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  August. The summer before junior year.

 
; Dustin and I had been going out for about seven months. Mom had finished the second round of chemo a few weeks before and we were waiting on the test results that would tell us how likely it was that the cancer would come back. Jake was like a zombie during that time. Getting Aaron to daycare, going to work, coming home and eating dinner. I don’t think I saw him smile a normal smile for months. So when I walked in the door and saw that goofy, lopsided grin on his face I knew.

  “We’re having a party!” He shouted in greeting.

  I think I remember that there was a group hug and maybe some tears involved. I’m not sure of the details. I just remember that it was the first time we had felt like a family in a long time.

  A few hours later I was letting people in through the front door.

  “Great news!” They all said as they filed in with their contribution to the potluck.

  Cheers!

  Yay!

  We knew she would pull through.

  Julie’s always been a fighter.

  Alex handed me a ceramic platter with assorted cookies.

  I tried not jump when his fingers brushed against mine.

  I tried not to think of other times that we’d touched, of the last time when everything had gone so horribly, horribly wrong.

  He smiled.

  I tried not melt right there in the foyer.

  He said hello.

  I tried to make coherent sounds with my tangled up tongue.

  He blinked.

  I tried not to stare deeply into his blue eyes.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you never called me back,” he said with a lilt in his voice that I didn’t understand.

  I opened my mouth. What could I say to him? That I couldn’t handle that kind of rejection again? That it had been much easier to avoid answering my phone and to make other plans the night a few weeks ago when I knew that he and Pete and Brooke were coming to dinner? That I still had his jacket in my closet and I’d put it on twice just to sit around my room and feel the fabric that once touched his skin brush against mine?

  And then Dustin—my boyfriend—was behind me, shaking hands and acting completely normal, like the world hadn’t just flipped on its axis.