by Sam Crescent
“You’re seriously going to doubt that man loves you?”
Lucia shrugged.
“You know, I think you’ve been taken over by aliens or something.” Marie leaned forward and began lifting up hair and looking behind her ears. “Have you been probed?”
“Get off. Stop being a crazy person right now.”
“The only person who sounds even remotely crazy is you. How can you even doubt that Jack Parker, our very sexy Lit teacher, loves you?”
Lucia didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, come on, Lucia. Don’t you get it? He’s not doing this for kicks or anything, or even to cross it off his bucket list. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He loves you. You’re just too blind to see it.”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Ugh, I swear I’m going to have to spank you for you to see the truth. I mean, seriously. He smiles as you enter a room. His eyes are always on you. It’s kind of scary. Imagine a scary horror movie meets, like, the teacher from the nicest of television shows.”
Lucia started to giggle and collapsed onto the floor, resting her head against Marie’s. They were spread out in her room, and she stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was going to happen.
“What are you thinking right now?” Marie asked.
“That it would be the best thing in the world if he loves me.”
“You know, I don’t even have to question it. He loves you. Has those big cuddly feelings for you.”
“What about your guy?”
“My ranch hand guy?”
“Yes.”
“He’s having fun making this big-ass name for himself. I think our thing was fleeting, but that was okay. I enjoyed it while it lasted.”
“You still talk to him though.”
“I probably won’t stop. I like hearing the stories he tells me.” Marie sighed. “You know, who would have thought it? I would lose my virginity to a dirty-talking ranch hand, and you’d lose it to a teacher.”
“Senior year is supposed to be crazy.”
“Yeah, but not for those reasons.”
“I’m not going to complain,” Lucia said. “It has been one amazing year.”
“Did you know that the woman who got attacked pressed charges?”
Lucia turned her head. “She did?”
“Yep.”
“How do you find out these things?”
“Mom made me take a big batch of cookies to the guys at the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t that hard to listen in to conversations. It turns out in three different towns this guy had attacked women. Random things.”
“Jack took me home,” Lucia said.
“What?”
“I was walking home. I didn’t have a car, and he didn’t like me walking the streets, so he took me home.”
“And you’re worried that he doesn’t love you.”
“That’s how we both started, really. I had this crush on him, and I was so scared that I’d say something or do something that would be so embarrassing.”
“Did the man ever fart?” Marie asked.
“You’re gross.”
“You didn’t have to spend Christmas with your brother permanently releasing gas. I’m sure he ate chili regularly just so it was like poison to be in the same room as him. Disgusting.” Marie took her hand. “Everything is going to be okay, Lucia. It’ll work out in the end.”
“Is this your unending belief in romance?” Lucia asked.
“No, it’s knowing that when you love someone and they love you back, it doesn’t matter what the world throws at you. So long as you’re together and you have best awesome friends named Marie on your side, it’ll all work out.”
Lucia chuckled. “You are the most awesome best friend in the entire world.”
“And don’t you forget it either.”
Her cell phone buzzed. Her heart leaped and she quickly grabbed it, wondering if it was from Jack.
It wasn’t
Dad: Hey, honey, we need help. Will you come home?
“Is that Jack?” Marie asked.
“Nope. My parents. They need help.”
“They’re probably wondering what’s important, your study books, or theirs?”
Lucia chuckled. “I’m going to have to head on over there.”
“Okay. Leave me. I get it.”
She giggled but got to her feet.
“Let me know if Jack calls or lets you know what is going on, or anything that is really fun and important.”
“You just want all the gossip,” Lucia said.
“Hell, yeah.”
Leaving Marie, she made her way to her car. She was tempted to blow her parents off, go to Jack’s place, and just wait. Instead, she went home. She couldn’t keep blowing her family off, and right now she didn’t want to see Jack.
Everything seemed to be going up all around them, and it was scaring her.
Arriving at home, she saw a large moving van was there.
They were one step closer to moving.
One step to her not seeing Jack again.
Climbing out of the car, she found her dad, lifting boxes. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Ah, honey. We need you to work on some of your stuff in your room. We’re taking this in via boat. It’ll take a few weeks to get there, but it will all be set up by the time we arrive.”
She licked her lips, seeing her home slowly diminishing to just a carcass. The television, stereo had all gone. The furniture was staying, but all the throws and added personal touches had gone.
Leaving her father to lift the large, heavy box, she made her way toward her bedroom. It was the only room that had barely been touched. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she stared around the room that had been hers for as long as she could remember. This was her place.
“Hey, honey, what’s wrong?” her mother asked, entering her room.
“I got your text.”
“Yes. We know that you hate change, but we really need you to get a move on. We have to put this on one of the moving vans soon.” Her mother entered the room and touched her dressing table. “This stuff can easily be packed away.”
The necklace Jack had given her was around her neck. She rarely took it off, and she was careful that her parents didn’t see it, just in case it was one of the few things that they noticed on her.
Her mother was about to say something else, but Bill shouted her name.
“Sorry, honey, I’d help, but I really need to get a move on with this.”
She watched her mother leave, and stood up, moving from one space to another, picking stuff up, and boxing it away. Each item she placed away, that ticking clock in the back of her mind started ringing harder than ever before.
Checking her cell phone to see if Jack had called, or she’d missed something, she found her cell empty. No alerts. No messages. Nothing.
Putting it away, she finished packing up her room and carried it out to the loading van. Her parents were talking to the men.
Laughing.
Joking.
Happy about their life and the change that was about to be made.
She wasn’t happy.
They were turning her life upside down, and they didn’t even see it.
“I can’t wait. It’s going to be so good. I can feel it. A fresh start,” her mother said. “Look at this, Lucia. This is our home.”
Her mother’s cell phone was thrust beneath her face, and she had to force a smile as she was shown each new picture and image. The bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, garden, utilities. Each room looking more and more like her parents’ place.
This home had started out being theirs, but she’d taken it over. She’d been the one to add the throws, the pillows, to turn it into a home. They hadn’t even noticed it.
“Oh, dinner has arrived. Go and set the table, Lucia. We’ll be in in a moment.”
She went through the motions, going to the kitchen, grabbing utensils to eat with, heading to the table, then back
to get drinks.
Her parents came in carrying a large box of Chinese food. They were talking animatedly to each other, completely oblivious to her struggle.
She listened as they talked about what was going to happen. The changes to their lives. How the English live. Nothing that Lucia cared about.
“What if I want to go to college here?” Lucia asked.
Compared to her parents’, her voice sounded dead.
“What?” her father asked.
“What if I want to go college here and not move away?”
“Lucia, you’re our daughter. England has some amazing colleges.”
“Yeah, and what if I want to stay with Marie, or go to college here, or stay in this house?”
Her parents stared at each other as if she’d lost her mind.
“Lucia, this is a great opportunity,” her mother said.
“For the two of you. Like always. This benefits you. You’re both happy about it because it is a decision the two of you have made. This is not my decision. You didn’t ask me. You told me we were moving.”
Silence met her words.
Lucia stared at the two of them. “Did you even consider what this would mean for me?”
“It’s a chance for us all to have a fresh start. To travel the world, to see new things.”
“I see. I was the last thing on your mind, right? You were both approached with these amazing job offers, and so you took it.” Lucia took a deep breath.
“We’re going to make this work.”
“I know.”
“I’m not … I’m not very hungry.” She got to her feet and made her way toward her bedroom.
Her parents were silent until she got to the stairs when their conversation picked up.
“She’ll see this is a good place for her, Bill.”
“Really? Again, we’re doing what we want and we’re taking her along for the ride.”
“We love our daughter. We’re not bad people.”
“No, we just don’t listen.”
“Do you remember Lucia saying she was going to the gym?” her mother asked. This made Lucia freeze.
“What? That is changing the fucking subject, Pat.”
“I’m being serious right now. Did she ever say that she was going to the gym?”
“I don’t fucking know. What the hell has the gym got to do with our daughter?”
“I called them today to change the cancellation date. They informed me it hadn’t been used in all the time I got it.”
“What?”
“Lucia wasn’t going to the gym, Bill.”
“I can’t even remember if she said she was going. Don’t turn this around. Don’t cause a problem right now.”
Lucia didn’t linger to see what else was said. She was very much aware of what she’d been doing, and she’d do it all again. Sitting on the end of her bed, she glanced down at her cell phone, hoping to see something from Jack. There was nothing there.
When her cell phone started to ring, her hope picked up.
It was Marie calling.
“Hey,” she said, answering.
“Wow, don’t sound so excited to hear from me.”
“I am, I promise.”
“Yeah, it totally sounds like it,” Marie said, laughing. Slowly, the sound stopped. “You’re upset.”
“Just trying to deal with everything right now. I had to pack up my stuff, and I finally asked them why they didn’t come to me asking me what I thought.”
“We’re talking about your parents right now?”
“Yes. They didn’t have an answer.”
“I don’t know why you’d think they’d say something different, Lucia. Your parents are a little selfish. You always knew that.”
“It doesn’t make this easier though.”
“It’s never going to be easy.” Marie sighed. “I … I don’t want you to leave. It’s why I try not to talk about it.”
Lucia’s eyes filled with tears.
“We’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember. We had plans, you know. A future together, college, a family.”
She remembered all of their plans. How they were going to get pregnant, share babysitting duties.
“Now you’re leaving and I’m not going to be able to do that, so I get it.” She heard Marie sniffle.
Leaning back on her bed, she wiped the tears from her own eyes, trying not to sob. “It’ll be okay.”
“Is this where you try and tell me everything is going to be okay? My eternal partner of doom?” Marie asked.
“Yeah, it will all work out in the end. You have to have hope.” Lucia burst out laughing. “It sounds so crazy, right?”
“Let’s talk about something else. Have you heard from him? Mr. Parker?”
“No. I haven’t. I’m a little worried about him.”
“Do you think something might have happened?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t really talk much about his parents.” She sniffled. “If I get a chance I’ll go over there. I don’t think that will happen before school though. I don’t know.”
“It’ll work out,” Marie said.
This made Lucia laugh. “Listen to the two of us. We’re making drama.”
“I know, but it makes a change to be the two of us.”
Chapter Eighteen
“They want you to end it?” Lucia asked him a week later.
For an entire week he’d been avoiding her, but now, on a Saturday morning, he didn’t have any choice but to face her. To tell her the truth that after talking to his parents, he’d drunk himself into a stupor, and he was completely lost about what to do.
She’d tried to talk to him during high school hours, but again, he’d blown her off, working his way through lunch breaks, doing everything he could to avoid the problem at hand.
“It’s for the best. At least they think it is.”
“Oh,” she said.
They stood in his kitchen, and he felt sick to his stomach. He kept looking everywhere but at her.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know, Lucia. I … don’t … this is not easy for me.”
“I know that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard. You’re leaving soon.” He ran a hand down his face. Upstairs in his drawer beneath his underwear was proof that he didn’t want her to go, but could he be that selfish? Could he allow himself to hope for a future? “Look, I know if you want to report this—”
“Will you stop?” She yelled at him. “I’m not reporting you. This wasn’t one-sided. I get that. I’m not going to ruin your entire career because you want to end this. Just come out, and say it, Jack. Say that you want to end it. Tell me to leave. To leave you the fuck alone.”
He stared at her chest, seeing her pant.
What to do?
She’s going.
You can’t keep running from this forever.
You’ve got to make a choice.
Be the grownup.
I don’t want to lose her.
We can make this work.
How?
“It’s over,” he said.
The words cut him to the core, especially as he heard her sudden intake of breath. She covered her mouth, and tears filled her eyes.
“We can’t … I can’t keep doing this. It was a mistake, Lucia. This. You and me. We have got to stop this.”
She nodded her head, but it was tearing him apart.
“Okay.” She paused, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’ve got to … I’ve got to go.”
She didn’t linger, and as she brushed past him, he closed his eyes, flinching as his door closed.
It didn’t slam shut.
She closed it quietly.
He listened to her car door close, and she pulled out of his driveway.
Jack didn’t know how long he stood in his kitchen, ten, fifteen minutes? An hour.
He finally moved from his kitchen and sat down in his chair.
His hom
e was no longer a safe haven to him.
It was a nightmare now.
Everywhere he turned, images, memories, sounds filled his head, reminding him of how happy he’d been.
Lucia giggling as she unwrapped her present.
He’d felt so … happy.
Getting drunk, thinking about what his parents had said, it had all weighed heavily on his mind. He didn’t know what to do or what to say.
In the end, he’d known he couldn’t keep her to himself.
Instead of being the selfish bastard that he was, he’d let her go.
Closing his eyes, he counted to ten, trying to concentrate on the evenness of his breaths. He tried to think of everything that would take him away from the pain that was currently filling him.
He’d hurt her, and now he had to pay the price.
He didn’t know if it was going to be a price worth paying.
****
Hugging her bear to her, Lucia stared at her best friend. She’d called Marie and begged her to come over to help her deal with the pain that was exploding inside her. She hadn’t been able to stop crying.
At least she’d been able to avoid her parents, who were out doing some shopping.
“He ended it?”
“Yeah. He’s right to,” Lucia said. “It was wrong all along. It was never supposed to happen. I get that.”
“You’re miserable.”
“It … it hurts so much, Marie. I don’t … I can’t seem to stop crying.”
Marie moved toward her, holding her close, hugging her tightly. “You think it’s something his parents said?”
“Could be,” she said, in between sobs. “I don’t know. He just ended it, but he was different, Marie. He didn’t even open his arms or kiss me.” She sniffled. The instant she’d entered his home, she’d sensed a difference.
Whenever he opened the door to her, he’d pull her inside and kiss her as if his life depended on it. That hadn’t happened.
“I’m so sorry, Lucia.”
“It’s not your fault. It just … it hurts. He’s been avoiding me all week. I should have known something was up.”
“Do you want me to go over there and kick him in the balls? I totally will.”
“It won’t help.”
“It’ll make me feel better.”
She chuckled. “No, it won’t. It’s not … he’s right.”
