Boys Like You

by Juliana Stone

  “Shit, Monroe.” I lifted her chin. “I’m glad that you didn’t…”

  She sniffled. “It proved that I didn’t feel anything. My parents sent me to therapy and they tried to get out of that place they were in. My dad started acting like everything was normal when it was so screwed up, and that made me angry. My mother…she just didn’t know what to say or how to act, so she started avoiding me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I get now that they were waiting for me. Waiting for me to come back to them. That they needed me before they could start to heal.” Her eyes were shiny again, and she reached for me. She kissed me then, her mouth soft and tentative. I tasted the salt from her tears and the pain from her heart.

  It was a slow, lingering kind of kiss that I wanted to keep going, because I could kiss this girl all day, but she pulled away and slipped her hand into mine. “We’d better go.”

  The birds sang as we trudged through the damp grass. We’d just rounded the corner of her grandmother’s house and I was picking a twig out of Monroe’s hair when the front door banged open and we both froze.

  “A little early in the morning for a stroll, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Blackwell leaned against the railing in a blue and white housecoat that fell almost to her feet. Matching slippers tapped along the floorboards, and she stared down at us with an expression that wasn’t exactly pissed off, but it was something. What that something was I couldn’t say at the moment.

  She arched an eyebrow and pinched her lips when neither one of us answered right away.

  Yeah. Okay, maybe she was pissed off.

  “Mrs. Blackwell, I can explain. There was a meteor shower last night and I wanted Monroe to see it.”

  Her eyebrow arched a little higher.

  “I called late and she, uh, I guess you were in bed and…”

  Damn, that eyebrow was even higher now.

  “Well, we kinda fell asleep in the maze,” I finished, a smile pasted to my face. Usually a smile was enough to get any sort of female to melt a little bit. But she wasn’t budging.

  Though her eyebrow relaxed a bit, which made me feel a whole lot better.

  “It’s not Monroe’s fault, so I hope if you’re upset with anyone, it’s me.”

  “I see,” she said, eyeing my backpack and the state of our rumpled clothes. “Well, come on in then. I’ll make you breakfast.”

  Breakfast.

  “It’s okay, ma’am. I’ll just be heading home—”

  “No, Nathan Everets, you will not. If I’m going to be upset with you, I’d rather do it over a pot of coffee and some bacon and eggs.”

  She gave us each a good long look and then slowly turned around, disappearing inside the house.

  “Come on.” Monroe tugged on my hand. “I wouldn’t argue with Gram. She’s pretty fierce and even though she looks sweet and maybe more frail than, say, a,” she paused dramatically, “dragon, she’s not.”

  “Is she pissed?”

  “She’s gotta be. At least a little.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Probably.” She tried to hide a grin. “Definitely.”

  Okay. Good to know.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Monroe

  There are things in this world that will never surprise you. Things that are absolute. The sun rises each morning and sets in the evening. No surprise there.

  The four seasons fall, one after the other. Again, no surprise.

  I’ve learned in my sixteen and a half years that there are things that will surprise you because you don’t see them coming. They can be hard, painful things, and it’s those ones that will live with you forever, bound to your soul in layers that grow thicker each year. Hopefully those layers will eventually dull the pain.

  There can also be awesome surprises. Again, ones you don’t see coming, but when they find you, you wonder how you ever lived without them.

  And sometimes, someone surprises you in a way that kinda knocks you on your ass. Nathan was one, but this afternoon it was Gram who held that honor.

  After an amazing breakfast, spent watching Nathan do everything in his power to charm Gram, he left to go home for a quick shower and I’d been told that I was spending the day with Gram in New Orleans.

  She said we were going to have a girls’ day. That she wanted to shop for some new furniture, stuff for her porch and the newly refurbished one at the main plantation house.

  Surprise number one. I was excited to go.

  Surprise number two came just after we’d finished lunch at a cute little bistro and settled back into her old Matlock. She fired up the engine and turned down the radio.

  “So, Monroe. Tell me something.”

  I buckled my seat belt, smoothed the hem of my yellow sundress, and glanced up.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you on the pill?”

  Wait. What?

  “The pill,” I repeated. “Like the…” Jesus, I couldn’t even say it. What was I? Twelve?

  “Yes.” She nodded. “The birth control pill.”

  Shit. Was I really gonna have the birds and the bees talk with Gram? First off, we covered that stuff in fifth grade and secondly, seriously?

  I opened my mouth to say something, but since this was one of those surprises that rips into all of your normal thought processes, I didn’t have anything. There were no words. There was just…

  Hot cheeks, a sweaty brow, and suddenly a very dry mouth.

  Gram pulled out into the road, signaling her turn, and stepped on the gas in precise, measured movements. She acted as if everything was normal and nice and as if she hadn’t just asked me about…

  “I’m just wondering is all. You did spend the entire night alone with a boy.”

  Now that I thought back, surprise number one had occurred at breakfast when she hadn’t said one word about the fact that Nathan and I had spent the night in the maze. She’d let him ramble on and on about meteor showers and comets, and I spent the entire time watching him…just watching him.

  Because he made me feel light.

  So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d decided to corner me for the big “talk.”

  “Gram, that’s…I’m not…I mean, we didn’t.”

  “I’m not saying you did, honey, but as a young woman, you should be protected and so should he. And birth control pills aren’t the only thing a young woman should have.” She glanced at me and arched her eyebrow. “Condoms. You should have condoms as well.”

  Oh. My. God.

  “Monroe, are you okay? You look pale.”

  “I’m good. I’m okay.” I was so not okay.

  I took a moment and then, well, I had to take another one. Gram had always been open with me, but still, hearing the word “condom” come out of her mouth was just wrong.

  “So, if we did…I mean if I wanted to, you know, do that with Nathan, you wouldn’t have a freak-out?”

  “Monroe, stop putting words in my mouth. I would very much have a—” she navigated a turn and then glanced at me, “freak-out. But I also know that hormones, emotion, and a hot Louisiana night are a recipe for all kinds of things.” She shook her head. “I may have gray hair and more than a few wrinkles on my face, but I remember what it feels like to be young and in love.”

  Jesus!

  “I’m not in love with Nathan Everets,” I said hotly. I mean, I couldn’t be, could I? Didn’t you have to know someone a lot longer than a few weeks to fall in love?

  Oh God. Was that what all the heat and emotion and burning inside me was about? Was I in love?

  “How do you know when you’re in love?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  Gram’s eyes were straight ahead, the radio on low. “If you can’t picture your tomorrow without a person in it? Then you’re in
love.”

  “Oh,” I said shakily.

  I glanced out the window, at the storefronts that blurred as we drove by, and tried to calm my suddenly frantic heart. It took a few moments, but eventually I settled against the seat.

  “I told Nate about Malcolm.”

  Gram’s eyes were on the road. She didn’t say a word, but her right hand crept over to me and clasped mine in a tight grip. She didn’t let go until we got to some old, rickety store that supposedly sold the finest antiques in the state of Louisiana.

  With one hand, she maneuvered her big car into the smallest spot imaginable, something any trucker would be proud of. She cut the engine and squeezed my hand once more before letting go.

  When she turned to me, her eyes were soft and pretty…but sad.

  “I’m glad,” she said haltingly.

  “Me too.”

  I swallowed hard. “I miss him so much, Gram.”

  “I know.”

  The one question that had haunted me since that awful day pressed in hard. I tried not to think about it. I tried to concentrate on the sound that the fan made as it blew out cold air into the car. The radio was still on, the volume low, an old Elvis Presley song played. “Heartbreak Hotel.”

  Kind of appropriate.

  “I want him to forgive me,” I whispered. “Do you think he can?”

  Her hand was on my cheek but my eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Your brother loved you, Monroe. There was never anything to forgive. Remember that.”

  She stroked my hair and I let out a long, shuddering breath. It felt so good, her touch, her smell.

  “Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?” I asked suddenly. I’d been given that line of bull from a lot of different people, and every time I heard it, I wanted to scratch their eyes out. I used to think they said something like that because they just didn’t know what else to say.

  I got that. What do you tell a teenager whose brother died on her watch? There were no words, no right thing to say.

  “I believe in fate,” Gram said softly. “And I believe in choice. Sometimes the two connect and sometimes they don’t.” She shook her head fiercely. “But Malcolm’s death wasn’t your choice, Monroe. Do you remember what I told you back then?”

  Slowly, I nodded. I hadn’t thought about that in forever.

  “You told me that I would be fine. That Mom and Dad were going to be fine. That we would all get through this.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And what else did I tell you?”

  I had to think hard for a minute. There was so much about that day that I had pushed away. Stuff I didn’t want to think about or remember ever again. Gram had been there with me for the worst of it, and I remembered her warmth, the scent of vanilla. And I remembered her tears.

  “You told me that I was going to fall a long way down before someone caught me.”

  “Yes.” Gram nodded slowly. “I begged your mother and father to let you come to me this summer because I truly believed it was time for you to come back to us. It was time, and I thought that I was going to be the one to catch you.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “But it wasn’t me, my darling girl. It was Nathan. He caught you.” She squeezed my hand again. “And I think that he’s still waiting.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Why, for you,” she said in a very serious voice, before she opened her car door and glanced back at me. “To catch him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nathan

  The week passed by in a blur of hot summer days spent out at the plantation working on a new gazebo with my uncle and hot summer nights spent under the stars with Monroe.

  Working with my uncle was good for me. It was hard physical labor, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to sit on his ass and do nothing. Besides, there wasn’t much time to think about shit when you were on a hot roof nailing tarpaper down.

  There was no time to remember that night, to think about the stuff I should have done differently. The mistakes I’d made, the choices that had brought me to where I was.

  Of course, Trevor was with me, but that was okay. I needed him there even if it was only in my head.

  But it was those hot summer nights that I looked forward to, because it was those hot summer nights that made me forget everything but a girl with dark, silky hair and a mouth that I could spend hours kissing. Seriously, the girl could kiss, and over the last week, we’d had a lot of practice. A lot.

  Sure, there might have been a bit of touching—okay, I knew that most of her was as soft and sweet as her mouth—but nothing else. And I was cool with that.

  Monroe was different from any girl I had ever met, and I’d be a liar if I told you I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be with her. To hold her and look in her eyes when I was inside her.

  But what we had was more than just the physical stuff. We talked for hours about pretty much everything. Music. Books. Family.

  She told me about her brother. About the kind of kid he’d been, and for me, to be the guy she was willing to share all that stuff with was huge.

  I felt like the king of the world, and for a while there, I felt like nothing could touch me. That’s what this girl did for me.

  But being a king and flying high meant that the fall could be epic. And in my case, epic didn’t even come close.

  It was Friday afternoon, and I’d come to town with my uncle to pick up a few things at the hardware store. We were nearly done with the gazebo but had run out of plywood trim for the base, and we needed to buy more paint.

  Once we stored everything in the back of his truck, my uncle ran to the bank, and I walked a block down to the convenience store to grab us a couple of Cokes.

  The girl behind the counter was someone I recognized, but I couldn’t think of her name. Candy…Candace maybe? She was a year behind me in school, and I tried not to stare as she tugged her top down so that her boobs were nearly falling out. It was kinda hard not to. They were massive.

  “Hey, Nathan. How’s your summer going? I mean, I know it’s probably hard and everything…and…”

  I shrugged. “It’s going.”

  I tossed a pack of gum on the counter to go along with my Cokes.

  “I heard you and Rachel broke up.”

  I nodded but didn’t answer. I didn’t know the girl, not really, and it’s not like we’d ever had a conversation before, so why the hell was she chatting me up about Rachel?

  “I hear Trevor’s the same. Not really improving. That’s gotta be weird, you know? It’s almost like he’s stuck or something.”

  Annoyed, I ran my hand through my hair and rolled my shoulders. “I really don’t know.”

  And it’s none of your business.

  The bell jingled behind me so I knew I wasn’t the only one in the store anymore. I cleared my throat, a “let’s get the freaking show on the road” kind of sound, but this girl was dense.

  She rang up my order. “So, are you and Mrs. Blackwell’s granddaughter like, you know, dating?”

  Jesus. I handed over a five-dollar bill. I gave a noncommittal nod that she could take whatever way she wanted. Was she ever going to shut up?

  “That’s gotta suck,” she said.

  My head shot up, not really understanding her angle or her need to talk about my social life. “Why the hell do you care?” I said sharply.

  Surprise widened her eyes and she stammered like an idiot. “You know, uh, because she doesn’t live around here. I mean, she’s going back to wherever it is she’s from, isn’t she? New York, I think someone said? And well, if you guys are together, then you won’t really be together anymore and…”

  Right.

  “Thanks for pointing that out.”

  It’s not like I hadn’t thought about it every damn night for at
least a week. Monroe’s parents were coming in a few days and then…well, then she was going home and I had no idea how I was going to survive without her.

  Pissed off, I grabbed my stuff from the counter and turned around without answering.

  I turned around and nearly ran over Trevor’s mom.

  Holy. Shit. I wasn’t ready for this.

  She was even thinner than when I’d seen her at the hospital, and trust me, Trevor’s mom was already skinny; she didn’t need to lose weight. The purple dress she wore looked like it was two sizes too big.

  Her eyes were sunken, kind of like the skin around them was too thin and bruised, and I glanced away because there’s no way I could look into them. Jesus, it felt like someone had just punched me in the gut.

  I couldn’t see her pain. Not now.

  My chest made this weird whooshing sound, like air had just been let out of a tire.

  I think my heart stopped. Or maybe it was just the weird sensation of my stomach rolling end over end before falling all the way to the floor.

  My fingertips started to tingle, and black dots flickered before my eyes.

  “Nate, you don’t look so good.” Brenda Lewis watched me closely, her thin lips trembling, her hands running up and down her thighs nervously.

  I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t say a damn thing, because my tongue was stuck at the back of my throat and those spots flickering in front of my eyes made it hard to concentrate.

  “Shit,” I said, shaking my head to try and stop the roaring in my ears. What the hell was wrong with me? “I’m sorry,” I managed to say, though I wasn’t sure she heard me. Or maybe the words had only echoed inside my head.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  She touched me, her hand strangely cool and smooth on my skin, and I let her lead me out of the store.

  I don’t think my heart slowed down until we walked a few feet and stopped near a bench cemented into the sidewalk underneath an oak tree.

  The shade wasn’t dark enough and I wished that it were nighttime, because the shadows were thicker, easier to hide inside.