by D. R. Graham
“Is it okay?”
“Of course.”
I wait for him to swing the door open and invite me in, but he doesn’t.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Just a little bit.”
He smiles and steps out onto the front step closing the door behind him. He’s shirtless and only wearing jeans. “Do you want me to give you a ride home?”
I kiss the TDAGF tattoo on his left pec. It stands for Tienne Desrochers and Aiden Gyllenhall forever. I slide my hands over his abs. “I was hoping I could stay here.”
“Uh.” He runs his hand through his hair to push it back out of his eyes. “Tonight’s not a good night.”
“Why?”
“My dad said some guys might be crashing here tonight. Let me get dressed and I’ll take you to your aunt’s.”
He looks twitchy. Aiden never looks twitchy. “What’s going on?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He opens the door a couple inches and slips back into the house. Before he has a chance to shut the door and hide whatever is making him act like he’s done something he shouldn’t have, I kick it as hard as I can. “Ow! God damn it, Ti.”
Aiden clutches his wrist. I kick the door again and it slams into his shoulder, knocking him back. Sitting on the couch is Leah, the girl he dated before me. Her eye is black and her lip is swollen. She’s smiling at me like a boxer who just got his ass kicked but won on a technicality.
I throw my purse and shoes on the floor and sprint across the room. Rage throbs through my veins as I jump over the end of the couch and pounce on her. Momentum sends us both crashing to the carpet. I grab her hair. She tries to squirm away and we knock into a lamp. It shatters.
“Bitch!” I scream as I straddle her chest and punch her. Before I can throw another punch, Aiden grabs me by the waist and peels me off her. I kick and scream, trying to get at her, but he’s too strong. My fingernails claw at his forearms. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re fucking dead, Leah.”
“Ooh, I’m scared. What are you, five foot nothing and sixty pounds?” She sits back on the couch. “You’re wearing a fucking princess dress, for Christ’s sake.”
“Get out of here, you stupid filthy whore!”
“Ti. Calm down.” Aiden spins me around and tries to restrain me in a hug. My knee slams him in the nuts and he drops to the floor. He groans and reaches out to grab one of my legs, but I stomp on his hand and pick up my pumps to throw at Leah. The first one hits her in the back of the head. The second one hits her right in the mouth because she was dumb enough to turn to face me. Furious, she climbs over the back of the couch to come at me. “Sit down, Leah,” Aiden growls as he slowly stands. “Ti. Outside.”
I pick up my purse, swing the door open, and run down the path. He chases me. Even though the adrenaline fuels my getaway, his legs are way longer than mine, and he catches up before I even make it to the driveway. His fingers clamp around my upper arm and he spins me around.
“Ti, what are you doing?”
“What am I doing? What the fuck were you doing? Am I psychotic, or did you not just ask me to marry you?”
“I did. She came over because she needed my help.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she did. If it was so innocent, why were you trying to hide her from me?”
“Because I knew you would freak out on her, and you did.”
“I freaked out because you were trying to hide the fact that you have a whore at your house on a night when you didn’t expect me to come over.”
“Ti. You know me well enough to know that’s not what’s going on.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah, you do. What’s this really about?”
I blink back tears as I stare at him. This is about him. This is about me. It’s about not wanting to get married at eighteen and trapped into a life that I can’t get out of. It’s about everything. I don’t know what it’s about. “We’re over. Don’t call me.” I run down the driveway and hit the sidewalk at a full sprint. Once I reach the end of the block, I slow down and check over my shoulder. He’s standing barefoot on the sidewalk in front of his house watching me.
“Ti. You’re overreacting. Come back.”
I take a deep breath, then turn the corner and walk away. My hands are shaking so badly that it’s a struggle to take my phone out of my purse to make a call. It rings repeatedly and I can barely breathe as I wait. “Uncle Blaine.” I start bawling.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Everything. I can’t imagine my life without Aiden, but I can imagine it with him, and it’s not good. “Will you pick me up in front of my old house, please?”
“Of course. Are you all right?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
I exhale and glance down the street I grew up on. All the shitty old houses with the chewed-up lawns and beat-up cars out front. “I don’t want my mom and dad’s life. I want a fresh start.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Chapter Four
The sun floods my bedroom, ruining my attempt to crawl under a rock and die. Ever since Uncle Blaine picked me up last night, my phone has been dancing across the top of my dresser every few minutes with calls, texts, and voicemail alerts. Hopefully the battery will die soon.
There is a soft knock on my door. I don’t answer.
“Ti.” Cooper pushes the door open. “I brought you some tea.” He places the teacup on my bedside table and flops on my bed beside me.
“Thanks,” I mumble into my pillow.
He gently lifts my hair from my face and studies me more closely. “Gylly called and asked me to check on you because you haven’t been answering your phone.”
I groan and roll over. “I’m fine. Tell him he can go fuck himself.”
“Why? What happened?”
“He was with Leah when I got there last night. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Cooper pulls me in to cuddle. Now his phone is going off. He reaches into his jeans and mutters something that I don’t quite hear.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Uncle Terry.”
“It’s probably about Mom.” I slump down to hug my pillow. “Go ahead. I’ll survive.”
“She’ll likely survive, too.”
“My money is on me over her.”
“It might be nothing serious.” He moves to sit on the edge of my bed and rests his elbows on his knees as he talks to Uncle Terry. “Yeah… When?… How bad is it this time?… Okay… Which hospital?… I’ll be there as soon as I can… Uh, no. Ti isn’t around…Yeah, see ya.” He hangs up and looks over his shoulder at me. “It’s the same old shit over again. What do you want me to do?”
“Go. I have theater this afternoon anyway.”
He stands and cocks his head. “Are you absolutely sure something was going on between Gylly and Leah?”
Instead of answering, I bite my bottom lip. I want to say yes, but I can’t force myself to say something that isn’t true. “Thanks for the tea.”
He nods and turns toward the door. Before he steps into the hall, he turns back. “I almost forgot; a delivery came for you.”
“Send it back to Gylly.”
“It’s not from Gylly.” He points at me in a see-you-later way. “It’s in the kitchen if you feel like dragging your ass out of bed.” He leaves and quietly closes my door.
I mope around until I get hungry enough to get out of bed. I attempt to freshen up a little in the bathroom, but it’s a lost cause. My face looks like complete shit. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there is a bird living in the nest of hair at the back of my head. I shuffle down the kitchen staircase in case Elizabeth and Blaine have people over for Sunday brunch or something. The house seems quiet, so I don’t think anybody’s home.
There’s a massive vase full of three dozen sunflowers on the counter. I’ve only gotten flowers one time, when I was six and Aiden was eight. He picked a dandelion out of th
e school field and gave it to me. That doesn’t really count. This arrangement must be from Uncle Blaine. He seemed really worried last night when I was crying so hard that I couldn’t tell him why I was crying. He’s sweet. Blaine and Elizabeth would be good parents. I’ve wondered a lot why God let my shitty parents have two kids and won’t let Blaine and Elizabeth have any.
I open the card and read,
Tienne,
It was a pleasure to meet you last night. I asked your brother what your favorite flowers are. Hopefully he wasn’t playing a cruel joke on me by telling me something that you hate or are allergic to.
Leland Crofton
I’m still staring at the card as Blaine and Elizabeth come in through the back door. Elizabeth has a canvas bag of groceries slung over her shoulder and Blaine is carrying a bouquet of six sunflowers. His mouth drops open when he sees the huge arrangement on the counter. “Ah, man. Someone beat me to it.” He frowns at his own bouquet as if it’s pathetic in comparison.
“Yours are a nicer color,” I reassure him and search the cupboards for another vase to arrange them in. “Thanks.”
“Ooh!” Elizabeth squeals. “Who are these from?”
Blaine looks concerned that this might be Gylly’s attempt to win me back. “They’re from Leland Crofton,” I tell them, trying to make it into no big deal. “He just wanted to say that he enjoyed meeting me at the country club last night.”
Blaine opens the fridge to unload the groceries. His smile seems a little smug, as if he might have had a hand in some behind the scenes matchmaking scheme.
“Wow. Leland Crofton. Nice work, Tienne.” Elizabeth is nearly jumping up and down.
I roll my eyes, embarrassed. “I’m going to have a shower.”
“I’ll bring your new outfits up for you to try on.”
“What? Thank you, but you didn’t need to buy me work clothes. I have some skirts and dress pants.”
“You need an entire business-appropriate wardrobe.”
So, if outlet store deals aren’t going to cut it, that’s a pretty good indication I won’t be able to cut it either. There’s no way I can pay Elizabeth and Blaine back for everything they’ve done, and it’s overwhelming to be showered with gifts I don’t deserve, let alone opportunities I didn’t earn. “It’s not necessary. I’m only going to be there temporarily.”
“Maybe not. If the acting thing doesn’t work out you might choose design as a career option to fall back on.”
I nod and chew on my bottom lip. “Fall back plan” sounds a lot like a nice way of saying “when you fail.”
She waves her hands as if to erase what she said. “You’ll need corporate clothes once you make it in the theater industry, too. You want to fit in, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I guess.” I glance at Leland’s sunflowers. They’re beautiful, and it is flattering to know that someone would go to the trouble of asking what my all-time favorite type of flower is. I sniff them before I head upstairs. I grab my phone off the dresser before climbing back into bed. The voicemail box is full and I leave it that way so Aiden can’t leave any more messages. I delete all the texts without reading them and turn the phone off. This is the first time in my entire life that I have faced the future without Aiden right next to me. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a bridge and I’m supposed to jump, but I’m not sure if there is a bungee cord attached to me or not.
Cooper doesn’t get home from the hospital until ten o’clock. When he knocks and comes into my room, he’s already dressed for bed.
“How is she?” I ask, trying not to care.
“They’re keeping her in overnight to monitor her. She went into cardiac arrest this time, but Uncle Ronnie was there, so he called the ambulance. She seems fine now.”
“Are they going to put her in detox?”
He shrugs and climbs into bed next to me, which he does every time Mom is hospitalized. It has happened more times than I can remember. “Yeah, but she won’t stay in treatment.”
“I know.” I give him one of my pillows and lay facing him. “You don’t have to take care of her, you know. She never took care of us.”
“I want to.”
I smile and brush his bangs away from his eyes. “Have you got your outfit picked out for your first day at a fancy private school?”
“Flat front trousers and an argyle sweater. How about you? What are you wearing to your first day at a corporate job?”
“Frumpy skirt and grandma blouse.”
“Sexy.”
I laugh. “Night, Lucky Boy.”
“Night, T Bear.”
Chapter Five
Cooper and I roll up at Tisdale High School in Elizabeth’s Mercedes. Apparently, she’s giving it to us and Blaine’s getting her a new one. It’s too much generosity for my brain to process, so I’m just going to pretend we stole it. Cooper’s leg jiggles nervously as he sits in the passenger seat watching students go by. Half of me wants to walk in with him and stay until he gets settled. The other half of me wants to push him out onto the curb because it’s already eight thirty and I’m going to be late for my first day of work.
“It will be fine,” I say in a chipper Auntie Elizabeth voice.
He sighs and adjusts the leather strap of his bag over his shoulder, but still doesn’t get out. Groups of teens lounge on the manicured lawn and on the front steps to the school. Four parking spots down, three guys pile out of a Cadillac SUV. I recognize the light-brown styled hair.
“Hey, isn’t that Sam?” I roll down the window and wave. “Sam! Hi.”
“Ti,” Cooper mumbles an embarrassed objection.
“What? He’s sweet,” I say, totally innocently. “He’ll show you around and introduce you to people.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want—”
Sam hustles over with a smile on his face.
“What were you saying?” I shove Cooper’s shoulder.
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to be my tour guide.”
Sam opens Cooper’s door with a sweeping arm gesture. “Welcome to Tisdale.”
I tickle my brother’s waist. “Looks like maybe he does. Have a good day.”
Cooper gives me a quick hug before he gets out of the car. He looks over his shoulder once before they reach the steps of the school. I wave, then sigh. His entire life I have always been by his side when he had to do scary things. A knot of guilt bangs around my chest like it’s a pinball machine because I’m letting him face this alone. After he disappears, I half expect him to come running right back out the doors like he did when he was little. But he doesn’t.
I check my phone for the map to Elizabeth’s office. As I pull out of the school parking lot, I realize that I’m even more nervous than Cooper was. It takes only ten minutes to drive to the high-rise office building, but finding the gate for the underground parking takes almost as long. As I’m getting out of the car, Cara Livingstone pulls up in a clunky Jetta and parks in the stall beside me. Not exactly the wheels I would have expected from a country club girl.
“Hi,” she says as she steps out and closes the rusted out door.
The last time I saw her it felt like she was shooting “I hate you” daggers my way for talking to Leland. Today, she seems friendly again. She either has the worst memory, or she’s a “let bygones be bygones” kind of person. Or, she’s fake as hell and waiting for the opportunity to slay me. My money is on the last one.
“Are you ready for your first day?” she asks.
“Um.” I study her, still not sure if I should prepare myself for a backstabbing. “I hope so.” I wait as she collects her purse and blazer out of the backseat. “Which company do you intern for?”
“A media company on the tenth floor,” she says as we walk toward the elevators.
“That sounds cool.”
She shrugs. “It would be better if they paid me. I’m hoping the experience will help me get a scholarship so I can go to school. You are so lucky to have your aunt’s connections.” She c
alls the elevator. “I saw you talking to Leland on Saturday night.”
All right, here we go. I can take her, but brawling in the parking garage before even showing up for my first day at work would be idiotic.
“How did that go?” she asks hesitantly.
“Fine, I guess.” We both step inside the elevator. Unfortunately, we’re all alone.
She presses the buttons for both our floors. “Did he ask you out?”
I debate whether I should tell the truth and commit social suicide on the first day, or lie and guarantee my social ranking. I decide to go with the lie. “No. He was talking about you.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“He was just saying that you’re really nice.”
Cara smiles. When the elevator doors open on the tenth floor she says, “Have a good first day.”
“Thanks.” Okay. That went not too badly. Nobody got stabbed. Conflict resolution is apparently less violent with people who aren’t from my neighborhood. Good to know.
She steps out and holds her hand against the door to prevent it from closing. “Are we still on for lunch?”
Wow. Nobody got stabbed and we’re still lunch buddies. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’ll meet you at the café downstairs at one o’clock.”
“Okay.” I smile at how easy it is to interact with normal people as I carry on to the nineteenth floor. I step out into the lobby of Elizabeth’s interior design firm and immediately smell the white roses on the reception desk. Everything is white—the leather furniture, the marble floors, and the textured wallpaper. A receptionist greets me and leads the way to Elizabeth’s office. She’s seated at her desk talking on the phone when I arrive. She waves me in and points at a chair, indicating that I should sit down while she finishes her call. She hangs up a minute later and smiles. “Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
“Gum.” She hands me a tissue across the desk.
I spit my gum into the tissue and drop it in her wastepaper basket.
Elizabeth presses a button on the phone. “Erica, Tienne is here. Would you please give her a tour of the floor and show her to her office?”
