Ever (The Ever Trilogy)

by Jessa Russo

  Regardless of how awed my mom clearly was by Toby’s flower choice, or how she was so pointedly ignoring the fact that we wouldn’t be hitting it off anytime soon with my first love still living—or not living—in my house, the anemones were a bit too coincidental for my taste. I absently grabbed a Pop Tart out of the cabinet then sat down in front of the flowers. I stared at the anemones as if somehow I could intimidate them into speaking to me if I just stared at them long enough. Maybe I should have just asked them how Toby knew my favorite flower.

  “Honey? What is it?”

  “Nothing, I just … I don’t know. I’ve got some stuff on my mind.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Well, do you want to talk about it?”

  “No thanks, Mom. I’m all right. It’s no biggie.”

  “Okay, honey.” She grabbed the half-eaten Pop Tart out of my hand and replaced it with an apple. “Hey, I haven’t seen Frankie in a while. Have you seen him?”

  “What? No! Why would I have seen him? I’ve been in bed, Mom.”

  Shit. Way to act normal. You’d think I’d lost my virginity the way I was acting, not just had one boy in my room, one time. I must have answered a little too defensively because Mom raised one eyebrow and gave me a funny look. As she started to respond, I was saved from further questioning when Dad called to her from the backyard. I watched with relief as she ran out to meet him. To see the way they acted around each other, you’d think they were two people who hadn’t just woken up in the same bed together a few hours earlier, like they had every morning for the past twenty years. She ran into his arms as though they were in the opening credits of a love story on Lifetime.

  Ugh. I turned away to pour myself a cup of coffee when they started kissing. My mind switched back to my silly excuse for a love life.

  Frankie was everything a girl could ask for—honest, loyal, funny … incredibly good-looking, if I did say so myself. He had such an honest way about him, and he’d always been there for me. He was a part of every important memory I’d ever had. He was protective and compassionate, so who wouldn’t fall for him?

  Sane people, that’s who. Frankie died two years ago. Sane people do not fall in love with dead people, plain and simple. Regardless of his many good traits, or his rockabilly good looks, I could never have him. Only a crazy person would allow herself to continue obsessing over someone long after he’d died. Sane people focus on things they actually can attain, like relationships with living people.

  Like Toby, for instance. When I thought about Toby, I felt that little spark of anticipation, that excitement of something new. I hadn’t let myself feel anything for anyone other than Frankie since even before his death. But my thoughts about Toby soon turned to guilt, along with some other feelings I couldn’t quite put my finger on yet. What was I going to do with myself?

  Honestly, I really needed to stop acting like thinking about Toby was somehow cheating on Frankie. You couldn’t betray a boyfriend if he wasn’t actually your boyfriend and never had been.

  After a few minutes, my attention fell back to the flowers—my favorite flowers—sitting on the table in front of me.

  So, Toby had been here and he brought flowers for me. And this was after I was embarrassingly awkward when he tried to ask me out yesterday, turning him down with a lie. I knew I didn’t have a ton of experience with guys, but come on, that just didn’t make sense regardless of what angle you looked at it from. He should have been running for the hills from the girl with the scrunchie and the imaginary boyfriend.

  And what kind of guy brings flowers for a girl who has a boyfriend, anyway? I wondered what he was after. Surely I hadn’t made such a good impression that he was willing to ignore the boyfriend part.

  Clearly, with my confusion about the new guy next door, and my ever-frustrating feelings for my best friend, I had two dilemmas and no answer in sight for either of them. What a big Saturday this was turning out to be, and it was barely twelve o’clock.

  A car horn sounded from the driveway, reminding me that I was supposed to be heading to the beach with Jessie. Just what I needed to get my mind off Frankie and Toby. I quickly grabbed my bag, annoyed on Jessie’s behalf at my inability to be on time for anything. I stepped out into the beautiful spring day and made my way to her car. I’d barely gotten my cheeks in the seat before she was rolling out of the driveway.

  “Geez, Jess, why didn’t you just come inside?”

  “Yeah right, and add another half hour to our morning? I want to get a good spot by the volleyball courts!”

  Jessie’s hot pink VW bug was packed full to the brim with coolers, beach umbrellas, towels, a portable iPod player, three different kinds of tanning oils, and about a million other things only Jessie would consider a necessity for a day at the beach—all of them pink, if possible. Of course, on that note, I should probably add that I’d never gotten to the beach and wished I had something I forgot at home. Jessie always had me covered.

  Her blonde hair was hidden under a bright pink bandana, and her Juicy Couture cover-up was the same pink as her car.

  I wore my signature black, of course, with a black and gray argyle print bikini, black sundress and my dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. We were quite the pair of mismatched friends.

  I’d been staring out the window since we left, not purposely ignoring Jessie, but just trying to make sense of my life. I was obviously totally unaware of anything going on around me, because Jessie had to say my name a few times to get my attention.

  “Ev!”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re awfully quiet today. What’s up?”

  ”Hmm, where to start … ?”

  “Ooh, this sounds good!”

  “Slow down, Jess, there’s nothing too interesting to talk about.” I saw the disappointment forming on her face. Of course, in her world, she probably would have already been on at least one date with the hot new neighbor, found a way to magically turn Frankie back into a human, and by now they’d both be madly in love with her and most likely fighting each other for her heart—and all this after only twenty-four hours since Toby had moved in next door. My having nothing like that to talk about probably was disappointing for her. I continued anyway.

  “So, you know that new guy from next door? Toby?”

  “I knew this would be good! So what, did he ask you out?”

  “Yes, Jess, but geez, he only moved in yesterday!”

  “And? Oh god. You told him no, didn’t you? I knew you were acting funny after you talked to him yesterday! I swear I always know when you’re hiding something from me.”

  I ignored her and kept going, reluctant to outright admit to the innocent little fib I’d told Toby when I turned him down. She’d already figured out the gist of it. She didn’t need to know I pretended to have a boyfriend, too. My desire to sound like a total loser only went so far.

  “Oh, Ever.”

  “He brought me flowers this morning, and—”

  “What? Oh my gosh, Ever, what is the problem? And do not say Frankie!”

  “They were black and white anemones.”

  Jessie’s faced scrunched up, drawing her blonde eyebrows together. “What? Really? That’s weird.”

  “I know. That’s the thing: how did he know, right?”

  She pondered this for all of two-point-two seconds, before she was quickly back to being intrigued by the idea that the mysterious new neighbor gave me flowers. Eager to drive me toward a boy I could actually date for real, Jessie seemed to push any question from her mind.

  “Who cares? He has good taste in girls and flowers. Sounds like a keeper to me.” She flashed her electric smile, and that was the end of it.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, though I wasn’t convinced. The flower thing was pretty weird.

  After driving a few more miles in silence, Jessie picked up on my feelings once again and tried to prod me for more. “What else is it, Ever? I know you can’t be this quiet over a weird coincidence about flowers.”

&nb
sp; She was right, of course. There was so much more on my mind.

  “Well, you know, I’m feeling kind of … .” I trailed off then, not quite sure what to say. Luckily, knowing me as well as she did, Jessie jumped right in.

  “Oh, Ever. Really? Please don’t tell me you’re feeling all weird because of Frankie.”

  “Well—”

  “No. This has got to stop. Seriously, Ev, it’s not healthy! I mean, we are seventeen years old. We are supposed to be dating and having fun. Susan says—in one of the only bits of advice I’ll even bother with—that we should be dating multiple guys at a time! Multiple.” She sounded out each syllable, and I worried she’d stop to spell the word for me. Then she winked and continued, “We’re young. We’re hot. And we’re single. You shouldn’t be waiting around for Frankie, Ev. It’s just … it’s just a waste.”

  She lowered her voice at the end, trying to soften the blow of her words, but it didn’t matter. I was well aware that my feelings for Frankie were a waste of time—I wasn’t a total idiot—but that didn’t make them go away, and it didn’t make them any less a real part of me. Knowing how impossible a relationship with Frankie would be didn’t make me desire one any less.

  “Never mind, Jess. I’ll figure it out.”

  I was disappointed by the response she’d given me regarding the flowers, and she obviously didn’t have much along the lines of advice about Frankie that I hadn’t already heard before. I mean, I get why she tried to get me to move on. It was just easier said than done.

  I shrugged it off and tried to enjoy the day at the beach.

  I woke up a few times in the night, not because of nightmares—I had none—but because my inner alarm clock decided I should wake up and check for Frankie at 12:30 a.m., 2:30 a.m., and once again at 5:30 a.m., as if his appearance in my bedroom would now be a regular occurrence. Was I hoping for that? Yes. Like the ones before it, the 5:30 a.m. room search left me incredibly disappointed, but this time unable to fall back asleep.

  After yesterday’s trip to the beach, followed by no trace of Frankie last night, followed then by a full night of no ghostly visitors, I was beginning to convince myself that Frankie’s visit to my room in the wee hours of Friday night had simply been a part of the dream world that had so completely consumed me—a figment of my overactive imagination. Really, it made a lot more sense that my guilt over my interest in the neighbor created a dream version of Frankie—one that I had no qualms about being nearly naked in front of.

  Even more important than that was the very existence of a guilty conscience in the first place. Why I had any guilt was anyone’s guess, but I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that somehow having even the slightest interest in Toby was a betrayal of Frankie.

  Annoyed and exhausted, I headed into the kitchen to start the coffee because my brain wouldn’t fully function without it.

  “Mornin’, Doll.”

  “Shit! Frankie!” My traitorous cheeks flamed bright red in his presence, the memory of Friday night rushing into my mind. I turned to face him sitting on the counter. With one leg folded underneath him, and the other one dangling, he twirled a ghostly unlit cigarette in his fingers like a baton, a wry smile pulling up at his mouth.

  My heart stopped for a second as my breath caught in my chest. I hadn’t a clue what to say to him. As he stared at me, I couldn’t help but remember the intense way he’d looked at me in my room the other night. He was looking at me that way again. I hadn’t imagined it. The fact that nothing came from that moment between us was irrelevant. My heart raced, and I wondered if either one of us would look at one another the same way again.

  After being able to talk to Frankie about everything and anything for as long as I could remember, I was suddenly, painfully, tongue-tied. I swear he knew it too. He let his gaze slide over my body in a similar fashion as he did before—pausing briefly at my mid-section—and even though I was no longer in merely a bra and panties, I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he thought about my lack of clothing the previous night.

  He smiled at me—a mischievous, knowing smile—and my cheeks heated up a bit more.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you with all of your clothes on.”

  And then he winked at me. My mouth dropped open on a gasp. He actually winked at me. I wanted to punch him, but I restrained myself. I hadn’t figured out the logistics of punching a ghost yet.

  “Ugh. You’re impossible. I’m going to my room.”

  “Oh, Doll, come on. I’m teasing you!”

  It was hard to resist him when he smiled at me so playfully like that, but I stomped off down the hall, Gollum close on my heels. Frankie’s laughter followed me out of the kitchen. Well, I’m glad he’s enjoying himself. Jerk.

  I was trying to portray an air of nonchalance, when all the while I was torn between wanting to get away from him as fast as I could to keep my silly lovesick feelings for him a secret, and turning around and running into his arms.

  His ghostly arms.

  His ghostly arms that could never, ever hold me.

  I didn’t have long to stew on that fact, or pout about my depressing lack of a love life because it was time to get ready for work. Lately, my shift at the animal shelter started early on Sundays because of the before-church adoptions my boss really thought would take off. She called them the Early Bird Adoptions and had some tagline I could never remember about the early bird getting the dog, or something silly like that. Jessie and I had to be in by seven every Sunday morning. Today was the fifth Early Bird Adoption event, and we’d had only one adoption so far.

  I grabbed my iPod and my purse then headed for the door, stopping quickly to say goodbye to my mom and dad. They were huddled together over their coffee mugs, talking and laughing about who knows what, barely even noticing my presence in the room. I had to clear my throat to get them to tear their eyes away from each other and acknowledge me.

  I didn’t see Frankie again, which was fine with me. I didn’t honestly know what to say to him, and he clearly found that fact amusing. Apparently, he was about as unaffected by seeing me nearly naked as I was affected by it.

  Jessie was waiting for me when I pulled up to the shelter, leaning against her car, which was parked right in front. Our manager hated when she did that, but Jessie could charm anyone, and somehow she always managed to get her way. She wore a fitted pink tube top with a matching cardigan, both of which were almost the exact same pink of her car. The surprising aspect of her outfit wasn’t the shade of pink though, since Jessie only ever wore pink. It was the introduction of another color entirely: cream, not to mention a wardrobe item I had no idea she even owned: leggings. Cream, lace-trimmed leggings to be exact. Cream. They must have been brand new since I’d never seen her in anything other than variations of pink, and I’d definitely never seen her in leggings. At all.

  I parked my green machine in the employee parking lot across the street and sprinted to meet up with Jess. I’d spent so much time in my room feeling sorry for myself that I was almost late. Again.

  “Helloo? Late much?”

  “Hey, Jess. What’s with the leggings?”

  “Oh. Yeah, well, I thought it would be fun for spring. You know, switching it up a bit. Nude is all the rage right now.”

  I didn’t correct her by telling her that she wasn’t actually wearing nude. I just nodded and told her I liked them.

  “Well, of course you do. Duh. I know all about your unhealthy obsession with leggings.”

  Jessie worked in the front office of the shelter, so she could get away with open-toed sandals and light colored clothes. I’m more of a hands-on kind of girl, and I spent my shelter hours in the back with the dogs. Cream leggings on me would have been ruined within the first five minutes. Nothing like muddy paw prints up and down your legs to ruin your brand new springtime fashions. I had on an old pair of dark purple sweats, cut off to be shorts, and a black wife beater with an unraveled hem and a few scattered holes.

  Our
boss, Jo, reprimanded us for being late, even though we were actually two minutes early according to the digital clock on the wall. But to Jo, late was not being a good five minutes early for your shift. We’d come to realize that Jo just complained to hear herself complain, and we were used to it. We offered her our usual “Yes, Jo. Sorry, Jo” in unison, while we bowed our heads to her in mock ascension. I followed Jessie to the break room where we stuffed our lunches into the employee refrigerator then headed off to our respective jobs.

  I was so deep in thought that the day flew by quickly. When two came around, and I hadn’t shown up at the front desk yet, Jessie came looking for me. I had apparently been spending an excessive amount of time washing my favorite Husky-Corgi mix. Spectra’s fur had probably never been as clean—and probably will never be again. I was so lost in my thoughts about my frustrating feelings for my ghostly best friend and my curiosity about the new guy next door, that I hadn’t even been paying attention to the massive amount of soap suds covering the poor dog. Unfortunately, I too was covered.

  Jessie’s high-pitched squeal snapped me into the present. “Oh my gosh, Ever! Look at all that soap!”

  I broke away from my thoughts about Frankie and Toby, my eyes widening in surprise as I noticed all the bubbles. Spectra sure didn’t seem to mind the mess, since it meant she’d been getting my undivided attention for so long. Jessie rushed to my aid, laughing hysterically as she did so, to help me rinse Spectra and get everything cleaned up the best we could. By the time we were ready to go home, we were both soaked and soapy and looking remarkably like the wet dog who was watching the fiasco unfold in front of her.

  Jessie followed me home, waving to me emphatically every time I glanced in my rearview. I had to wonder if she looked where she was going at all, or if she just watched for me to look back at her so she could do her ridiculous waving thing. When we got to the house, it hadn’t been long enough of a drive to dry off, so we were definitely quite the pair. We looked as though we’d driven through the car wash in a convertible—with the top down.