(Never) Again

by Theresa Paolo

  I couldn’t wait to see him. Josh and I always had a good relationship, even after I found out he still emailed Zach. I couldn’t hold it against him forever. I questioned him about it, hoping to get some information as to why Zach stopped calling.

  It was useless. Guys weren’t like girls. They didn’t dig for the dirt. I figured that out quickly when Josh said unless Zach’s and my relationship had to do with the new “Grand Theft Auto,” then he had no idea.

  I took another pair of jeans out of my laundry bag and stuffed them in my dresser while Joe rested comfortably on my bed.

  “So when’s your brother getting in?” Joe asked.

  “He should be here around nine. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive without traffic. So he wants to wait for rush hour to die down before he hits the road. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  “About that—” My eyebrow arched at the words. “Scott and the guys have a gig this weekend upstate and they asked me to come. You know, to help set up. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind.” His desperation made it seem like cancelling, again, wasn’t that big of a deal. He could meet him next time. Though this would be the hundredth time he got out of meeting my brother. For an entire summer he managed to never be available when my brother was. Whatever, it’s not like I needed my brother’s approval anyway.

  “Yeah, you should go,” I said, tossing socks into my top drawer.

  “See, I knew you would understand.” He pulled my hand and I landed on top of him. His mouth brushed mine. “You’re awesome. You know that?” he said against my lips.

  “So I’ve been told. Go ahead, call Scott and let him know.” I motioned to the cell phone sitting on my nightstand and got back to my laundry bag.

  He crossed his hands behind his head. “I already told him I’m going.”

  Wait a minute. A rush of fury surged through me.

  “You already told Scott you’d go?” I gripped the handle on my dresser to keep myself from lashing out. “Then why did you even bother asking me? What if I threw a fit and insisted you stay home to meet Josh?”

  “Because you’re not like that, babe. I knew you’d say yes. You always do.”

  Okay. I didn’t realize I was a doormat.

  “Besides, I can meet your brother next time. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said with a sigh, not exactly thrilled but aware there were no other options.

  He sat up on his knees and moved towards me, taking my hand in his. “You’re not mad, are you?”

  “No, I’m not mad. It’s just been a long week.” No reason to start a fight over petty BS.

  “Tell me about it. I thought this weekend was never going to get here. Ever since Scott told me about the show I’ve been anxious to get on the road.”

  Wait another minute!

  I ripped my hand out of his. “When did Scott tell you?”

  He scratched his head. “Uh, Monday.”

  I pushed aside the anger building within me. He was going. It was already settled. Why drag it out any more? We weren’t going to see each other all weekend, so we might as well enjoy our time together. It was the only thought that kept me from asking him to leave.

  Joe pulled me towards the bed. “I love ya, babe.” He dropped his hand to my cheek. The feel of his fingers on my skin eased my frustrations. I pressed my palm to his chest and kissed him. His lips instantly synced with mine. I licked his lower lip until his mouth parted, his tongue meeting mine.

  In that moment I didn’t care if he didn’t meet my brother or if he ditched me for his friends as long as he kept kissing me like that. When he backed away I desperately wanted to pull him back.

  “I kinda have to pack. We’re leaving in two hours.” Then he had the nerve to check his cell phone.

  “Oh.” There went my plans for the evening. Josh wasn’t expected for a few hours. “Yeah. Sure. So I’ll see you when you get back then.”

  “Yeah. I gotta go now though.”

  It’s better to be left wanting than not, so I allowed myself to step away. “I know. Have fun. Be careful.” I forced a smile and waved as he walked out of my bedroom.

  Sadie was taking her brother to get a new achkan for their cousin’s wedding, so I called home to check in with my parents and let them know I’d survived another week on my own.

  Mom answered on the second ring. “Can’t talk long, sweetie,” she said. “Your father and I are planning our cruise.”

  My parents had been planning this trip to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary since before I moved out.

  “So when do you leave?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “Don’t go during hurricane season,” I volunteered.

  “Why? That sounds like the perfect time for a cruise,” Mom joked. “Josh should be there in a couple hours. He called, said he’d come home tomorrow with some laundry.”

  Of course, the minute she knew my brother was coming home, she had fabric softener on the brain. I tried bringing my laundry home once, and she told me I knew where the machines were. Total mama’s boy. I swear, he could murder someone and she’d help him hide the body.

  “Not soon enough. I’m bored.”

  “Why don’t you bake something? You haven’t baked in so long. Josh always loved your cookies.”

  I’d managed a whole afternoon without thinking about Zach, and then Mom dropped the baking bomb on me. His face popped into my head as if it was in the back of my mind, just waiting for the perfect opportunity. “I actually have homework to do.”

  “It’s the weekend,” she replied.

  It was, but baking was out of the question. “I’d rather get it out of the way. Maybe another time.”

  “Are your grades okay?”

  The concern in her tone wasn’t lost on me. Ever since I let my grades slip senior year of high school after Zach left, she constantly worried about me and school.

  “Couldn’t be better,” I said. And before she could bring up the cookies again, I told her I had to go and hung up.

  For a while baking was a huge part of my life. I baked when I was happy, and I baked in excess when I was upset. Maybe that had to do with my current lack of passion for the one thing I used to love.

  When my grandfather passed away I baked for twelve hours straight. Zach sat with me for nine of those hours.

  When Zach moved away I baked every day. I baked cookies and cakes and brownies and whatever else I could whip up and stick in the oven. Josh blamed me for gaining five pounds, but I kept going. It was the only thing that kept my mind off Zach.

  Maybe I was relating baking to bad memories, or maybe I just grew out of it. Either way my desire and my passion were gone. And I didn’t think they would ever come back.

  I walked around the counter into our galley kitchen and stared at the stove. Nothing. The excitement that used to flow through me whenever I tried a new recipe was no longer there and there was no point in baking without it.

  I popped in a movie and settled on the couch. I remembered when I couldn’t wait to have my own place, to have my own privacy. I never realized how lonely it could be.

  Josh arrived an hour later than I expected. He burst through the door, a hat adorned with his school’s mascot covering his dirty blond hair and his duffel bag hanging from his shoulder.

  “Hey, lil sis.” He scooped me up in his arms, my feet dangling above the floor. I don’t know why he was gifted with all the height. He put me back down and stepped back. “So what’s the plan tonight? Any good parties going on?”

  There probably were, but I didn’t seek them out. Josh was the partier, not me. I usually waited till he got in then let him figure it out. He had party radar and could find the most random of locations with kegs and tons of people.

  I did fantasize about throwing my
own party, it being the talk of campus and declared the best party of the year. It was on my bucket list.

  “Let me run a brush through my hair and we can head out.”

  “Awesome. Where’s Sades?” He reached down and picked up one of her pillows, placing it to the side before flopping onto the cushions.

  “Babysitting,” I called out over my shoulder as I headed to the bathroom. I grabbed my brush and walked back into the living room. “So did you want to go pick pumpkins tomorrow?”

  Josh gave a quick glance in my direction. “Aren’t you too old for that?”

  “You’re never too old to pick pumpkins. And besides, we always carve them together. It’s tradition.”

  He took his hat off and tossed it on the back of the sofa. “You’re in college now. And traditions are meant to be broken.”

  “No they’re not. Come on Josh. It’ll be fun. I’ll even buy you a caramel apple.” I ran the brush over my highlighted strands, pouting my bottom lip.

  “With nuts?” he asked.

  “Yes, with nuts.”

  “Is Joe coming?”

  He was supposed to until he made plans without me for the weekend and then didn’t think it was necessary to tell me until the very last minute. I didn’t say that though. I told Josh a lot of things, but I didn’t want him to think poorly of Joe before he got the chance to meet him.

  “No, something came up. Family stuff. He’ll be gone for the weekend,” I said instead.

  “Too bad, I was looking forward to threatening him.”

  I glared at him then waited for him to pity me and give in.

  “Okay, fine. You driving?” he asked.

  “I guess. I don’t really want to put dirty pumpkins in my car, but why not.” I shrugged.

  “So it’s okay to get my truck dirty.”

  “Like it’s clean anyway.” I threw one of the decorative pillows at his head, but being an ex-state champion baseball player he caught it before it hit him.

  “Good point.” He set the pillow on the couch. “You almost ready? Let’s go before the girls get too drunk to talk to.”

  I rolled my eyes and followed him out the door.

  ***

  You’d think I’d have learned that going out with my brother required a full day of recovery. My bed was so comfortable I wanted to stay beneath my covers as long as I could. But I’d talked Josh into going pumpkin picking, and there was no way I was missing out. Assuming he was functioning after last night’s festivities.

  Grudgingly, I dragged myself out of bed and went to the kitchen. I needed caffeine ASAP.

  I stepped out of my bedroom expecting to find Josh in a coma. The last thing I expected to see at the crack of dawn was Zach sitting on my couch playing video games with my brother.

  Josh leaned back into the beige sofa. “Oh, hey, sis. Look who I bumped into at 7-Eleven this morning.”

  This morning. As if it was the middle of the afternoon. I thought for sure after the fifth body shot he did off the bartender, he’d be hurting when he woke up. But there he was, smiling as if he hadn’t played three rounds of beer pong too. And Zach. Ugh!

  I glanced at the green numbers on the cable box and was surprised to see it wasn’t actually the ass crack of dawn, but 11:22 a.m.

  “’Morning, sunshine,” Zach said, a stupid grin settling on his face, which made me want to smack it off.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, flipping my hair out of my face with my hand.

  “Like Josh said, we bumped into each other. He invited me to go pumpkin picking with you guys. I can’t believe you still do that.”

  My nails dug into my palms and I could feel the anger widening my eyes. I didn’t know who I wanted to kill more, my stupid brother or Zach.

  “Excuse me?” was all I was able to get out.

  “I thought it’d get boring just the two of us. Besides, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Zach was here,” Josh said, effectively passing Zach on my “who I want to kill more” list.

  “This is a joke. Right?”

  A sick, twisted joke.

  “Lizzie, you know I don’t joke.” That damn grin returned. “Now go get ready.” I glared at Zach with every ounce of disgust I could muster. “Oh, and you might want to do something with your hair.”

  “Ugh!” I turned so fast I could have given myself whiplash. I stormed out of the living room and straight to the bathroom mirror.

  If it was possible to die from embarrassment, I would have dropped right then and there. My hair stood up in all directions like something I’d imagine Medusa sported on a really bad day. I’d forgotten to wash my face before bed and had black mascara smeared under my lids. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had dried drool on the corner of my lip.

  I wasn’t even wearing my cute pajamas. I was too tired to care, so I had just grabbed something out of my dresser. Which just happened to be a crappy pair of sweatpants with paint stains and an oversized t-shirt Josh brought back his first visit from school when I still lived at home.

  Wait a minute. Who cared if Zach saw me looking bad? Okay, horrible. But seriously, why did I even care? The only person I needed to look good for was Joe. And he was on the road with the band.

  I didn’t get my coffee, but I wasn’t going back out there. I turned the shower on, rid myself of my craptastic pajamas and stepped in. I didn’t need to look good for Zach, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to see me looking horrendous again.

  An hour later I evaluated myself in the mirror. Hair straight, but with volume I have no idea how I managed to pull off. A pair of dark-wash denim skinny jeans with a white shirt, a gray three-quarter sleeve grandfather cardigan and a lightweight gray and white scarf. And since the weather was finally cooling down, I was able to wear my gray crocheted slouch boots.

  “Much better,” Zach said when I walked into the living room, making me want to dive across the couch and smack him upside his head.

  “I’m so happy to have your approval.” I rolled my eyes. “Are we ready or what?” I turned my attention to Josh, who was still playing video games.

  “Oh, yeah. I just have to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” Josh released the controller from his grasp and left the living room. Since Josh never did anything quickly, I flopped down on the couch in the farthest spot possible from Zach.

  I rested my ankle on my knee and leaned back, letting the overstuffed pillows swallow me.

  “What the hell are those?” Zach pushed at my foot with his finger.

  “My boots.”

  “It looks like your foot’s being attacked by a Muppet.” I looked at him and then down at the material wrapped around my leg and laughed. It really did.

  “Did I just get a laugh out of Liz Wagner?” His dark eyebrows rose in fake shock.

  “It was funny, I’ll give you that, but don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

  With a narcissistic confidence shining in his eyes he flashed a half grin and said, “We’ll see.”

  ***

  “Get in,” I said to Zach and Josh as I hit the unlock on my keypad ten minutes later.

  Zach looked through the passenger side window. “No, I’ll drive. Don’t want the pumpkins to dirty your car and cause you to get your panties in a bunch.”

  I rolled my eyes and purposely walked past Zach’s open door and around to Josh’s. I climbed into the Jeep and flopped into the backseat.

  Little did Zach know it was hard for a thong to actually bunch. Not that I told him that. As far as I was concerned the less Zach knew about my undergarments the better.

  There was a time when I was excited to tell him about my adventures in lingerie shopping. I was young and had a boyfriend I was crazy about and loved nothing more than watching the desire to see said lingerie burn in his eyes.

  Some may say I was a tease, but I never
thought so. It wasn’t that I excited him with no intention of actually following through. It’s just every time we inched past second base I’d panicked.

  I wanted to. There was no denying how much I wanted to. I just couldn’t. I was so young, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be everything I imagined, or worse, everything he had imagined. Everything at that time was perfect, so why would I risk it?

  Anyways, it wasn’t like I could change the past, or even like I wanted to. I had already decided I would lose my virginity to Joe. I was just waiting for the perfect time. Joe and I had gotten close so many times, but again, something in the back of my mind stopped me from following through.

  I wasn’t scared of losing the perfection Joe and I had because let’s face it, perfection didn’t exist. The naïve little girl I’d once been was gone. I could see the flaws in Joe as well as in our relationship, but for me that’s what made it real. I wasn’t living in the fairy tale. Which is why I couldn’t figure out what it was that kept stopping me from taking the final step.

  Out of all my friends I was the only virgin, even though, other than Sadie, they’d all assumed I lost it with Zach, until one drunken night I confessed. Zach and I never actually did it. Now I’m the DV: designated virgin.

  My eyes glanced over at the boy I’d once loved. The baby soft skin of his face was no longer: dark stubble had taken over. A year ago he didn’t even need to shave. The breakouts he was so prone to getting on his forehead were a thing of the past. Maybe it had something do with his hair not resting along his forehead anymore.

  Either way I couldn’t deny the past year had been good for him. Who would have thought the lanky boy who was basically the football team’s water boy would turn out to look more like its captain?

  Zach turned onto a patch of grass where other cars were parking. I wanted to get out on Josh’s side, but my brother being my brother, shut the door on me as I moved towards it. Before I could knock on the window, Zach had his seat up and his hand out to me.

  Not that I took it. I was perfectly capable of getting out of his Jeep by myself. I swatted his hand away and moved towards the door at a ninety-degree angle to avoid hitting my head.