by S. L. Naeole
That started the rumor that I was gay, which then turned into the rumor that I wasn’t gay at all, but that I was having a hot affair with a teacher. Then the teacher turned into an officer. Finally, the rumor came full circle when it started to spread that not only was I was gay, but I was having an affair with a female officer. It was easy to make fun of now, but three years ago, it had felt like my whole life was over and all because I’d laughed at a kiss and made Josh hate me.
“So what happened?” Audrey’s voice broke into my thoughts.
“With Josh?”
She nodded, her lips stretched across her face in an interested smile. “Yeah, with Josh!”
It was difficult to remember that part without feeling the mixed emotions of joy and sadness that had brought Josh back into my life. “My mom got a letter from Josh’s grandparents when I was fourteen. Josh’s dad had died in an accident just a few months after they’d moved, and his mom died from cancer a few months after that.
“Josh was broken. He started skipping school and drinking. His grandparents thought that if I wrote to him, or called him, that maybe it would help. My mom didn’t want me to do it, but my dad snuck me Josh’s grandparents’ address and phone number and then left it up to me. So one day I called. He sounded so…different. We talked for a little while, but it wasn’t like it had been before. I didn’t call him again after that.
“But then six months later my parents got a billet for California and he was just a couple of hours away from our house. He showed up the day we moved in, and he stayed for a week.”
Audrey coughed, her jaw hinged open in shock. “Your parents let your boyfriend sleep over?”
My head shook and I laughed. “He wasn’t my boyfriend. Not then, anyway. To my parents, he was their friend’s son, and my best friend. He spent most of the time he was with us with my dad, anyway.
“When I started school, Josh started going back, too. I only saw him after that on the weekends. He asked me to go tuxedo shopping with him when he was going to prom. I helped him pick out a tuxedo and a corsage for his prom date.”
“So…were you his prom date?”
“I was too young to be his prom date, and my parents weren’t gonna let me go.”
“But they let him sleep in your house,” Audrey pointed out.
“On the sofa,” I reminded her. “And like I said, we weren’t dating then.”
“So when did you guys start dating?” I could hear the impatience in Audrey’s voice, and I grinned.
“My fifteenth birthday. My parents threw a little party and some of my new friends at school came and so did Josh. He brought the girl he went to prom with-”
Audrey sputtered in shock, cutting me off. “Wait. He brought his girlfriend with him to your birthday party…and then you two started dating? How the hell does that happen?”
“She wasn’t his girlfriend. She made that very clear when they showed up. Josh brought her because it was the only way she could meet her boyfriend, who picked her up from my house fifteen minutes after she and Josh arrived.”
This made Audrey’s face pale before it quickly turned beet red with sympathetic anger. “She did what?”
“Her parents didn’t approve of her boyfriend so she told them that she was dating Josh. Her parents knew his grandparents, and you know how that is…inner circles and all that.”
“Yeah,” Audrey nodded, embarrassed.
“Well, after she left, my friends and I were joking around and one of them asked Josh if he wanted to play the alphabet game.”
“What’s that?”
My face felt hot as the memory came back, new and fresh as if it had just happened hours ago and I was sharing it for the first time. “It’s kind of like seven seconds in heaven, where you go into a closet and make out with someone for seven seconds. Only, in the alphabet game, you make out while everyone else outside starts naming things for each letter of the alphabet. If they can name twenty-six things, you can be in that closet for long time. If they screw up, you come out.
“My friends didn’t screw up.”
The smile that formed on Audrey’s face was both pleased and sad at the same time. “I don’t think my friends would do that for me,” she said with a half-laugh. “I mean, they would, but only if there was someone to play with, and there isn’t anyone. But I think that’s awesome that your friends did that for you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “it was awesome. Josh and I were pretty inseparable after that.”
“So…what happened? Is he in California, missing you and sending you texts and emails like crazy now?”
I laughed, but not because what she’d said was funny. No, I laughed because if I didn’t, I knew that I’d start tearing up and the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Audrey. What were my problems compared to hers?
“He tested out of high school, took his GED exam and then enlisted in the Army. He was still training when my mom found out about the house here. I haven’t seen him in…it’s been almost six months.”
Six months never sounded so long before. I didn’t even realize it had been that long, but saying it, acknowledging it, made it that much harder to accept and Audrey, instead of being bored or annoyed, seemed to understand. “You know, when I was eight and my mom died, it was almost a whole year before Liam said anything. It wasn’t his stitches or anything like that. He just…he wouldn’t talk.
“I know you think Liam’s a jerk; after the way he’s acted, I can’t blame you for thinking that way. But he’s always taken care of me. He didn’t…he didn’t speak to anyone, not even to me. I thought it was my fault, you know. I thought that he blamed me for what happened to his face, or maybe for what happened to our mom because…because I used to.”
I saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes, tears that I had been too afraid to show, but in a flash they were gone, blinked away and replaced with something I knew instantly as pride.“But then one night I had one of my episodes. Our dad was on his boat so we were all alone. Liam carried me all the way to Dr. Phan’s, and the whole way there he kept telling me that I was gonna be okay, that he was gonna take care of me. It was probably the best thing I’d ever heard. And…I think that when you see Josh again it’ll be like that. Like…he’s the best thing you’ve ever seen.”
My eyes closed at the idea, but it wasn’t Josh’s golden hair, or bright blue eyes, or crooked smile that I saw staring back at me. Things would’ve been so much simpler if it had been. Instead, it was the angry, hazel eyes and scowl of Liam Mace that appeared, and I shuddered at what that might mean.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LIAM
Dad was missing when I woke up the next morning, his boat gone from its slip. I wanted to believe that he was fishing. I wanted to believe that, but I knew better. Ever since Mom died, he’d done what I guess anyone would: he started drinking. It wasn’t really a problem – he never let it keep him from doing what he needed to – but whenever he or someone else talked about Mom, he’d hit the bottle and forget the world for as long as the booze wanted him.
I went to work with Jameson’s dad that day and then spent the night at Brenda’s. When I went home early the next morning, Audrey was up, staring into the refrigerator with disgust. “Is all this meat what I think it is?”
I grabbed the door and peered in. A stack of raw meat sat on the top rack, unwrapped and dripping blood onto the plastic containers beneath it. “I didn’t bring that,” I told her truthfully. I wanted to tell her that it was probably just some pork steaks that Dad had brought, but the smell of human blood could never be mistaken with blood from a pig. Human blood smelled clean, earthy, and sweet; just like how it tasted. Pig blood smelled like it had gone bad the moment it touched air. It smelled like sickness, or rot. I never wanted to know what it tasted like.
“I told you. I’m not eating it anymore. Take it out.”
With a shrug, I pulled the meat out and began to eat it. It tasted fresh, probably a twenty or thirty-year-old. “So what ar
e you gonna eat besides seafood?”
She pulled out a package of deli meat from a drawer. “I bought ham.”
This made me laugh between bites. “Ham? Are you trying to make yourself sick again?”
The package of ham smelled awful. It wasn’t even open yet and already I could smell the stink of it. “It’s more for Fallon than for me,” she said with a sigh. “I had some raw eggs this morning and I’ll have some more later.”
“She’s coming over again? Didn’t you have enough fun yesterday?”
“She didn’t come yesterday. But she’s coming today for lunch.”
I swallowed the last piece of meat and went over to the sink, the taste in my mouth no longer sweet. “Well, then I’m out of here. I’m gonna see if Jameson’s dad needs more help.”
***
It turned out that Jameson’s dad was gone for the next couple of days, so I went to Grans and took out the trash and old crates. She paid me twenty bucks, and I went home to see if Audrey wanted to go see Dark Veil at the theater for about the thousandth time.
When I arrived at the house, I saw two empty glasses on the porch. I walked inside and I could hear Audrey talking to someone. I looked at my watch and cursed silently when I saw that it wasn’t as late as I thought it was; Fallon was probably still here.
“So, when did you know that you were in love?”
Audrey’s question made my feet freeze on the wooden floor. Against common sense, I turned my head and strained to hear the response.
Fallon’s voice was soft, but I could still make out every word. “I knew I loved him the first time I met him. I know it doesn’t sound real, but it’s true. And it’s not like you read about, you know? There’s no bang or thunder or music in your head. It’s not like you suddenly realize it and your heart blows up with all these feelings. It’s more like…it’s more like a slow burn that gets hotter and hotter until the only thing left is how you feel. That’s how it was with Josh.”
It made no sense, no sense at all, but hearing her talk about this Josh kid like that made my hands tighten up and my teeth start to grind. I could feel the hairs on my arms rise and thicken, and the more she talked about him, the more things started to happen inside of me.
“Liam!”
Audrey was sitting in front of me, her wide eyes dropping to my hands. She took them in hers quickly and squeezed my fingers against her palms. “Your hands,” she whispered.
I pulled them away from her and looked at them. My fingernails were long, dark, black down to the nail bed, with sharp points. I shoved my hands into my pockets, feeling the fabric shred and my nails graze against my thighs.
“Why is she still here?” I growled.
“Because I invited her. Why are you here? And why are you-” her voice lowered to a hiss “-changing?”
I didn’t get to answer her because Fallon appeared behind her, a sandwich in her mouth. She looked at me, her big brown eyes traveling down and then up again, her mouth not moving. But I saw her swallow. I heard it. I could also hear her heart beating, fast and excited. Just talking about that Josh kid did that to her.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I mumbled, storming toward the stairs.
I reached the first step when I heard my sister ask Fallon another question. “What are you doing on the fourth of July?”
“I don’t know. My parents like to do the fireworks thing, but that’s usually at night.”
“Want to come to a party here? Liam and I are throwing a birthday party for ourselves-”
Without thinking, I rushed over to Audrey and roared. “No! She isn’t coming to my party, Aud. The answer is no. Do you hear me? No!”
It was difficult to breathe. Fallon was standing right behind my sister, her face unmoving, no fear in her eyes, no trembling in her limbs. But there was a smell that came off of her, the smell of blood and…and apples. I couldn’t believe it when I realized that I was the one trembling. She stood just feet from me, and I didn’t know whether or not to rip her throat out or…or…
“Fallon, you can’t come to Liam’s party. But you can definitely come to mine. It starts at noon. There’ll be cake and games. Maybe…maybe I can convince some of our friends to try out that alphabet game of yours.”
“Sounds like fun. I’ll definitely come to your party, Audrey.”
And like that, she was gone, her motorcycle snarling to life before she disappeared down the street. I don’t know how long I watched the curl of dust spin behind her, but I knew it was too damn long.
“Brenda’s not gonna like this,” I said to my sister as she rolled up beside me.
“Of course not. She’s gonna see you making goo-goo eyes at Fallon and then she’s going to tear your balls off. Either way, it’ll make it the most interesting birthday we’ve ever had.” The smile on Audrey’s face made me want to strangle her.
“I wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at her. She smells like meat.” I paused, and then looked at her with a worried frown pulling the corners of my mouth down. “You know…I thought you were her friend, but you’re inviting her to a party filled with folks who’re gonna smell the same thing I smell, and see her the same way I see her: as food. What kind of friend does that?”
Audrey grinned, not buying my act for a minute. “No one’s gonna touch Fallon because you’re gonna make sure that she’s safe. You promised you’d take care of me, Liam.”
“Yeah,” I argued, “I said I’d take care of you. Not your pets.”
Audrey didn’t argue because she knew that she’d already won. Instead, she hugged me, her arms wrapping around my waist. “Thank you.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” I laughed before I groaned, the scratches in my thighs burning. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and saw that my fingernails had returned to normal, dirty and ragged. Audrey was right.
Brenda was going to tear my balls off.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FALLON
I put the pile of jeans on the counter and watched as the sales lady rang them up, the total growing and Mom’s voice fading. “Two-hundred and seventy-four dollars and sixty-two cents. How would you like to pay for that?”
Mom pulled a bank card from her wallet and handed it over before looking at me with distaste. “You get more and more expensive every year. Do you really need all these clothes? Six pairs of jeans, a dozen t-shirts, and four camisoles? Summer here doesn’t last that long, Fallon. You should be looking at getting some warmer things, like jackets, sweaters, long underwear with footies.”
My mouth hung open and the sales lady smirked. “Mom!”
“Fallon, you know you can’t stand the cold, and winters here are pretty bad. You’re going to need some long underwear beneath your clothes, especially on the ferry.”
Her voice had grown louder, and I looked around the store to see just how many people had heard. A girl who looked my age was snickering behind a rack of summer dresses. “Could you keep your voice down?” I hissed.
“Why? No one here knows you. Besides, I didn’t say we’d get the kind with the hatch in the back, did I?” She laughed. She actually laughed. Sometimes parents just don’t get it.
“Can we leave?” I asked, grabbing the bags and heading toward the door.
Mom followed and we walked along the stores that lined the first floor of the shopping mall Mom took me to. We’d already bought me a new pair of boots, a pair of wedges, and a pair of sneakers. With the clothes, the only thing left to buy was something for Audrey’s birthday.
“Do you think they have a sporting goods store here?” I asked as I pushed ahead, my eyes darting back and forth.
“Two stores down,” Mom answered behind me.
I turned to look at her and saw that she was struggling with some of the bags so I took them from her. “Come on, Ma!” I told her.
“Fallon Eugenia Timmons, I know you did not just call me ‘Ma’!”
“Mom!” I hissed, my neck stretching as my eyes felt like they were about to pop out of
my head. “Stop telling everyone my middle name! You know I hate that name!”
Mom walked calmly to my side and then gave me the most disappointed sigh I’d ever heard. “When we adopted you, your dad and I promised that we’d only change your last name. Eugenia is the name your real mom gave you. It was her grandmother’s name. Saying you hate that name is like saying you hate her, and you should never say you hate someone you’ve never met.”
I apologized, shamed more than I’d been in a long time. “One day I’ll appreciate it.”
“One day you’ll appreciate a lot of things, Fallon, the least of all your middle name.”
We began walking again, passing the sporting goods store when I realized it wouldn’t have what I was looking for. We left the mall and headed to a shop near the pier that we’d seen coming in. It sold leather jackets and pants for bikers, but what I wanted was a helmet and I found it. It was matte black and domed, with a lip hanging over the front trimmed in bright chrome. It looked like the helmets that were worn when motorcycles were just bicycles with engines and needed something to scare the people on the road into submission.
“This,” I said to my mom when it was being rung up, “is the helmet that will make Audrey more than just a girl in a wheelchair. This is gonna make her dangerous.”
***
“I’m having second thoughts.”
The ride home on the ferry was long and quiet, most of the tourists already getting off on the other islands. Black Cat Rock loomed ahead and I was ready to get on my bike and feel the grit of the ground instead of the sway of the water. The way everything bobbed and swished made me think too much about things.
