by N. K. Smith
“Someday,” he answers. “I’ll be an awesome dad, except when it comes to homework. You can take care of that part of parenting.”
It feels as though my heart actually skips a beat. He’s looking out into the sea of people in this little house, almost like he didn’t just imply that we’d be together long enough to actually consider having babies together.
Oh, my God, are we really having the baby talk at Bree Howerton’s party?
As if she’s drawn by my thoughts, Bree appears in front of me. She smiles, but then turns to Fox. I crane my neck to see him give her this look back, and I’m not sure what the hell’s passing between them, but I don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to know something is.
All of the sudden, Bree’s hand is on my forearm. I have to stop myself from jumping away from the contact. People like her don’t randomly touch me, but it’s not like she’s acid or anything, and I want to prove to Fox that I can be social. So I grit my teeth and put on what I hope is a friendly smile.
“Hi, Bree. Nice party.”
She shrugs and part of her long blond hair falls off her shoulder. How can she looks so damned perfect all the time?
“How’s it going?” she asks me. “Hey, I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” How she says it is weird and awkward, but I don’t comment.
“Okay.”
“Um, do you want to go outside for a second?”
Immediately, I’m hit with the fact that this may be a trap. I don’t want to go outside with her, but then my rational mind kicks in, and I realize there’s no trap, she can’t hurt me, and if this happened to Fox, he’d go out and talk with her. With a backward glance at my boyfriend, I let Bree lead me through the people to the back door, then down the deck and to the little swing set.
“Wow. This is old,” I say as I sit down on the brittle plastic swing.
“Yeah. My dad wanted to throw it out, but I’ve got tons of memories all centered around this thing. Remember that one time when you swung so fast you nearly flipped over the bar?” Bree shakes her head and looks off into the night as if she can see that day in the distance. “And I was freaking out because I thought you were going to fall and break your neck.”
“I remember.”
“But you didn’t fall. You launched yourself right out of that swing, flew into the air, and landed on your feet.”
I don’t have anything to say to that. It’s bizarre she’s even bringing it up. “So what’s going on, Bree? Why are we out here?”
“I just wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“Well, I’m leaving for Colorado soon, and something’s been bothering me for a while.”
I glance at her as I wrap my fingers around the cold metal chain. She’s still looking out into the night, like the noise from the party isn’t but a few feet away.
“So that day way back in fifth grade when Kaitlyn bitched you out in the cafeteria in front of, like, everyone?”
I look away again and bite the inside of my cheek. Who cares about that day? I don’t even acknowledge that Bree’s said anything, but she continues anyway.
“It was totally wrong of me not to stick up for you.”
My head whips up, almost as if I’m not in control of it. I don’t want to look at Bree, but I can’t help but do it. “What?”
“She was jealous of all the attention you were getting, you know, because of your dad.”
Heat fills every inch of my body, and when it gets too hot, tears burn at my eyes. “My dad?”
“Yeah, don’t you remember? She did it about two weeks after the burial.”
There are a lot of things about the past I don’t remember. It’s the details I typically forget. I think I purposefully forgot the blow-up happened so close to my dad’s death.
Bree’s pause is just long enough to let my mood sink into a place not even Fox would be able to pull himself out of.
“She’d been talking for a few days about how stupid everyone was for treating you like a princess just because your mom died so long ago. Then she said that this would be just another excuse for you to get all the attention and praise from everyone because who doesn’t love an orphan?”
I feel like I could puke. “So she was pissed that people were sorry for me? She was jealous that I no longer had parents?”
Bree shrugged. “I don’t know why, exactly, I just know that I thought it was shitty then, and I still do. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up to her for you. I went home and cried about it.”
There’s nothing to say, so I push off with the swing and start pumping my feet as I lean back and forward. I go higher and higher and higher until I think I can just barely see the little girl I used to be, and just when the chains buckle, I jump off.
But this time I don’t land on my feet. I land on my knees. The pain is nothing compared to the thought of how different my life would have turned out if Kaitlyn hadn’t been jealous of the attention a poor, little eleven-year-old orphan received. Or if Bree had just told Kaitlyn she was an epic bitch, and I’d known someone had my back; if my dad hadn’t been a marine; if my mother hadn’t gone to work that day.
I wish I could remember what she looked like in her business suit and if she wore her hair up or down. I wish I could remember the kiss on the forehead she probably gave me when she dropped me off at Gramma’s.
These damned tears need to go away. They are useless.
“Are you okay? That looked like it hurt.”
I look up at Bree as she bends down to help me off my knees. “It’s fine.”
“Saige,” she says as soon as I’m standing up. “I’m sorry I—”
“Thanks for telling me. Have a good life in Colorado.”
I don’t run away from her, but I’m inside the house in under thirty seconds. A minute after rising from the ground, I’ve got a shot of amber liquid in one hand and a beer in the other and as soon as I drink them, the tears will dry up.
***
“Better?” Fox asks as he lets down my hair. It’s been hours since I grabbed that first drink, and the car ride home has made me sick.
I flush the toilet, then move to the sink. He smoothly moves out of the way so I can brush my teeth. When I’m finished, Fox takes a hold of my elbow and leads me through my apartment to my bedroom. Everything is hazy even though I’m not as drunk as I’ve been in the past. I try not to look at him for many reasons, but one is because I’m pretty sure he almost threw up when I did but not because of intoxication. Fox is the kind of guy who risks making himself puke to hold my hair back while I vomit.
My boyfriend hasn’t asked why I drank, and he doesn’t wear a mask of disappointment on his face either, but I feel it for him. He asked me to stay sober but I hadn’t. I don’t even know if I’d be able to elaborate on why I did that shot of Tequila or drank that beer. Of course I remember everything Bree said, but I don’t remember why I had such a huge impulse to get wasted, or why I didn’t fight the urge.
“Are you staying with me?” I ask him.
“Do you think I’d let you stay here drunk and alone?” When I don’t reply, he says, “You know, I’d wanted to make out with you tonight, but now I can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” I protest.
“You just puked.”
“I brushed my teeth.”
“You could puke again.”
I shake my head but then stop when it makes me feel sick. “I feel better.”
“I can’t put my tongue in a drunk girl’s mouth, that would be ungentlemanly.”
“Even if the girl wants you to?”
He lies down next to me and puts his hand on my belly. “Especially if the girl wants me to. You’re drunk. You can’t make the—”
“OMG, Fox. You’re the world’s most perfect guy. A walking Public Service Announcement!”
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” he says before giving me a kiss on the nose. “Now go to sleep.”
Sleep doesn’t come easily. There’s something aching d
eep inside of me. I cry against Fox’s chest before finally drifting off into the blackness.
Fox isn’t there when I wake up, but when I get to my coffeemaker, I see his drawing. If he was any other guy, it would’ve been a simple ‘gone to work’ note, but because he’s Fox, it’s a sketch of himself putting boxes on a slatted wooden platform. The best part about the picture is the pencil-sketched Fox has a visible heart on his chest with the letter S on it, and there’s a thought bubble. Again, instead of words, the drawn Fox has pictures of a stick figure guy kissing a stick figure girl.
I’m not hung over much, but I down a full glass of water anyway, then go right back to the coffee. One of the best things about Fox is how nonjudgmental he is. If I had made a promise to Myka to not get drunk and then did, she’d be oozing disappointment all over me.
As I drink my coffee, I start thinking about how easy it was for me to go back into the party and grab some alcohol when I started feeling all the stuff I hate feeling. I don’t like that I did that. I don’t like that one conversation about something important and meaningful left me pulsating for ways to drown out emotions.
So after my coffee, I start getting rid of all the crap in my apartment that makes it easy for me to run away from emotions like that. I pour all my alcohol down the drain. It’s uncomfortable to watch liquids you enjoy drinking going down to mingle with the dirty water, human waste, and God knows what else, but when I go to flush the weed down the toilet, I have an actual gut reaction. I’m angry as I tuck the baggie into my pants pocket, because who the hell has the right to make me feel bad for smoking a joint every once in a while? Hell, it’s legal in some states, but while New Jersey allows for medicinal uses of marijuana, I can’t claim that’s what I do.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with smoking pot, but I can’t deny that I probably don’t use it right. Instead of breaking the pipe and flushing the papers and weed, I put it back in the box and call Myka.
When she gets to my apartment an hour later, I shove the box at her as quickly as possible because I might change my mind and my entire morning will have been wasted. There’s a little urge in me to smoke up with her one last time, but I think about Fox and if he’d want me to do it. The answer, of course, is no, he wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t make me feel bad. The fact that he wouldn’t shove it in my face is such a prime motivator to me, and I don’t know why. If he was blatant about his disapproval, it would make me want to get high more, like when my Gramma gives her opinion. But because he’s so cool about it, he makes me want to give it up, just to see if he’ll be proud of me.
“What’s all this?” Myka asks with box in hand.
“My weed and pipe.”
“Um,” says, drawing it out as she raised an eyebrow at me. “Okay.”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“You don’t want your pot?”
I shake my head and turn around. “I don’t want to keep running to things that everyone says I shouldn’t run to.”
“Who says you shouldn’t?”
I can tell she’s trying to figure it out but failing. “Just take the stuff okay?”
“Okay. So how’s the book going?”
“Good. How’s Valentine? Has he agreed to stay with you forever and go to NYU?”
“Actually,” she says as she puts the box on the coffee table and sits down, “he has. I mean, sort of. He’s considering it, like really thinking about it. I mean, with you being iffy and all, there’s a space for him in whatever apartment we settle on, and—”
While Myka continues to talk, I’m struck by how much it hurts that she’s planning for me not to share the apartment with her in the fall. I know it’s my own doing and I could change it by committing to going to school with her, but it still sucks that she has contingency plans.
“But even if you do go, there’s still enough room in the apartment for Val. He’s skinny and doesn’t take up much space, and if he sleeps in my room. . .” Myka doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she lets it hang there with a waggle of her eyebrow.
“You’ve got the whole thing planned out,” I say.
She shrugs. “Not the whole thing, but how awesome would it be if all three of us are living it up in New York?”
Just like every time we talk about college, my mind turns to California and the beach. Maybe it’s stupid to have these dreams of something other than college. Kids are supposed to go to college after high school. Both my parents went to NYU, so I should go there too, right? I don’t even know anyone in California and so far, being a writer seems only to be me writing some stuff and letting it sit unfinished on my computer until I forget that it’s even there.
“Hello? Saige? Earth to Saige?”
Myka’s snapping fingers draw me back to Pechimu, New Jersey. “What?”
“You did it again.”
“Did what?” I ask.
“Went to that far off land you sometimes go to when you refuse to take part in talks about our awesome future. You’re like Peter Pan.”
“I don’t refuse to grow up; I just get bored talking about college.” But I think maybe Myka’s right. Peter was basically an abandoned child, needy, wanting, and desperate to keep Wendy.
Wait. I’m not the desperate one. Myka’s desperate to keep Valentine. I’m okay if I lose Fox. In fact, I’m fully expecting it to happen sooner rather than later.
Right?
A pressure in my chest builds. I need to do something to make sure Fox and I are solid. It’s been a while since I gave him those earrings. I need to do something badass. Something he’s going to love.
So, forgetting all about Myka, I pick up my laptop and start searching the internet. I don’t find what I’m looking for until after she leaves, but when I do, I go all out on it. As soon as everything has been arranged, I call Fox.
“Hey, Saigephina.”
I smile at the name and sound of his voice, but I can’t be distracted. “So I have a surprise for you but it requires you to miss work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”
“Cool. I’m in.”
His quick answer shouldn’t surprise me, Fox is just like that, but the way he’s so free about everything, even obligations he cares about, like work, is so jarringly different from the way I am. I’m organizing this trip, so it feels less spur-of-the-moment than it would if Fox had called me up and said, Let’s go away for the weekend.
Fox takes stuff like this in stride, so I feel it’s my duty to be concerned about the important stuff. “Will you be able to switch some shifts and get the time off?”
“Yeah, no big. So? Where are we going? Huh, huh? Where?”
I laugh at his enthusiasm. “It’s a surprise. All you need to know is that I need you at my apartment no later than nine in the morning on Friday with a small bag of clothes for the weekend.”
“Oh, my God, where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going?” Fox sounds like a little kid.
“You’re going to be unbearable until you know, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea how many times I’m going to ask you.”
“But it’s a surprise.”
He chuckles over the phone. “Yes, but never ending questions and guessing are parts of surprises, so be prepared. The next time I see you, I may have to tickle the answer out of you.”
***
Somehow I manage to keep the secret until Friday. Fox had been serious when he said he’d try to tickle it out of me, but I managed to turn that into making out on his bed. Well, it almost turned into more than just making out, but I could hear his father’s footsteps upstairs, so I ended it by getting off the bed and studying his newest drawing.
Today, his eyes get huge when he sees the airport. Through sideway glances, I’ve seen him watching the blue sign with the word airport and a picture of a plane pass by, but he doesn’t say anything until we are in the parking garage.
When I pop open my door, he says, “I’ve never flown before.”
The softness of
his voice stops me from getting out of the car. I turn to him. “It’s not even a three hour flight.”
Fox nods. “Okay.” He makes no move to get out of the car.
“Are you scared or something? Flying is—”
“I’m not scared,” he interrupts. “It’s just. . .haven’t you ever felt a bit nervous before doing something you’ve never done?”
“Yeah, but you’re Fox,” I say as if that clears everything up. “I mean, you’re fearless, aren’t you?”
He takes a big, deep breath and looks away. “Yeah,” he says as he opens the passenger door. He doesn’t sound convinced, so as we walk from my car to the terminal, I hold his hand.
After security, as we’re putting our shoes back on, I nudge him with my shoulder. “This is like a trial run for your trip to England, right? It’s better for your first flight to be a short one than one across the sea.”
“Yeah,” he says back.
I reach up and push a bit of hair off his forehead. Fox takes my hand and holds it in his lap for a moment before releasing it to finish tying his shoes. He stands, holds out his hands to me and pulls me up. “Sorry I’m being a baby.”
“You’re not a baby,” I say as I squeeze his hands. “I think it’s kind of nice that you’re showing your nerves. Makes you a real person instead of the superhero you almost always are.”
The way he looks at me with his intense eyes makes me want to turn away, but I force myself to stay put.
“I’m not a superhero.”
“You are to me,” I say. I wriggle one hand free, pick up my bag, and tug him away from the bench.
Fox lets me lead him for a little bit, then he stops. I try to tug him forward, but he’s like a boulder, so I turn back. “What?”
He shakes his head for just a second before pulling me back to him and saying, “I love you,” before kissing me in front of everyone walking around us. When he ends the embrace, he says, “I feel better now.”
This time, it’s Fox who pulls me through the terminal until we reach our gate.
***
Four hours later, we’re on our way to the hotel I booked. In the cab, Fox is like a little kid. He’s bouncing up and down, pressing his face against the window, asking if we’re there yet. When we get to the Peninsula Hotel right off Michigan Avenue, his eyes get big again.
