Never Be Younger: a YA anthology © 2015 by Rachel Bateman, Jessica L Pierce, S.M Johnston, E.L. Wicker, Christina June, Nicole Zoltack, Cortney Pearson, Adrianne James, Olivia Hinebaugh, and Metamorphosis Books. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Metamorphosis Books, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Metamorphosis Books
First Edition: June 2015
Cover Design by Rachel Bateman
Edited by Jessica L Pierce and Rachel Bateman
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Metamorphosis Books
www.metamorphosisbooks.com
Dear Reader,
This anthology has been a labor of love for us. It all started with a random conversation one night, about how fun a YA anthology based on Shakespeare stories would be. Before we knew it, we were recruiting other authors and coming up with titles and talking about all the logistics of making this thing work.
We knew from the very start that we wanted all the proceeds from Never Be Younger to go to charity. After searching, we decided to support United Through Reading, a charity devoted to uniting U.S. military families who have been separated through the power of reading. United Through Reading offers service members the opportunity to record themselves reading books to their children at home, providing the DVD recording to the family. The program enhances emotional connections between parents and children, encourages literacy, and makes homecomings easier. We are thrilled to be donating the profits from this book to such a great cause.
Thank you for your interest in our little project, and a double scoop of thank you for your support of United Through Reading. We hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed writing!
Much love,
Jessica & Rachel
Him
Rachel Bateman
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst is this: my love was my decay.
—Sonnet 80
I am a collector of dates.
Some dates are better than others: when the numbers line up to tell their own story, when the calendar grants us beautiful symmetry. Good things always happen when there’s a pattern, and the stronger the pattern, the better.
Selena thinks I’m full of it, but I’ve done my research. Tracked all the important moments I've had so far and set them on a scale of Awesomness vs. Sucktitude. The math doesn’t lie. Case in point:
2/6/62: I was born. Not a bad day in my book, though not Mom’s best. A fact she’s happy to point out if I even think of pissing her off. See the numbers? 2-6-6-2. The pattern is strong with this one.
5/2/69: These numbers suck—they have no rhyme, no reason, and nothing even close to a pattern. It’s a failure of a date.
(It’s also the day my dad walked out.)
7/3/73: My first kiss. I was eleven; she was fourteen. It was sloppy and weird. But still, it was a kiss. With tongue. Not the best, but enough to warrant a decently patterned day.
And:
5/6/78: The ultimate date. The day it all lined up and I first felt alive.
The day I first saw him.
We were at a party at Denise Basher’s, same-old stuff as every other party that year. A crush of bodies, warmflatgross beer from a dented keg, the sweet-slash-skunky smell of pot riding the haze through the halls. Selena and I leaned against the kitchen counters so we could survey the crowd while we choked down our stale beer. Once you got a buzz going, it tasted better. Until then, it was a chore to drink it.
But we did. By the time I reached the last of my first cup, I had just enough of a buzz going that it no longer tasted like licking the ass end of an ass. Selena downed the end of hers, then stared at me with one eyebrow cocked, impatiently waiting for me to do the same. I took a tiny sip instead.
“Come on,” she said in that Selena voice that rides the edge between a whine and an I’ll-beat-the-hell-out-of-you, “the keg’s free now. Hurry up before there’s a line.”
I rolled my eyes and tipped my head back, dumping the rest of my drink onto my tongue. And when I lowered my cup, there he was.
He must’ve just come into the kitchen in the second I had my head tilted back, but already he was leaning against the doorframe like he’d been there all night. Arms folded across his chest, one foot crossed casually across the other. Dark, dark hair long and loose over his shoulders; the top two buttons of his shirt open, a thin leather cord in a knot at the hollow of his throat, ends dangling down his chest. His eyes drilled into me, stuck me to the floor. They were so dark they were almost black, the pupils completely lost. And they were staring straight at me.
A push from behind, and I was stumbling over my own feet. The red plastic cup hit the cheap linoluem floor when I threw my hands out to break my fall. The keg rushed at my face. Eyes squeezed shut, ready for impact. I found a second, on the way down, to wonder if this is how the keg got all its dents.
I didn't hit the keg. Suspended in air, half a foot from a broken nose, I twisted in the arms holding me to face my savior. I saw nothing but black.
“Careful,” a voice rumbled. I swooned in a swoonish way, and he righted me, holding my upper arms until my feet were steady beneath me. His mouth quirked in a mockery of a smile.
“I don’t believe we’ve met yet,” he said.
A loud voice cut across the room, “Come on, Brian, you mean to tell me that you’ve never met Little Jamie?” Benny swayed across the room toward us, well on the way to tomorrow’s hangover. He belched.
Brian tilted his head to study me. Hair fell across one eye. “Little Jamie?”
“It's James,” I squeaked out. Confusion colored his face. “James,” I repeated, louder.
Benny threw an arm around my neck, pulling me close and ruffling my hair with a sticky, oversized hand. He smelled of B.O. and beer. My stomach swirled in a pukey sort of way. “James?” He laughed a bear of a laugh. “ When the hell did you start going by James?”
Well, just now, actually. Thanks for asking.
My face burned. Brian kept looking at me in that Brian way—even that quick I understood it was an expression unique to him. I never could figure out if he was making fun of me with that look. Benny, arm still around me, belched again then pulled me in even tighter to his armpit. I held my breath.
“Li’l Jamie and Hurricane Selena are always around, man. Where’ve you been?”
Irritation flickered across Brian’s face, gone as fast as it came. He raised one eyebrow ay me and jerked his head toward the door. Arm still around me, Benny was deep in loud conversation with Selena, who looked bored. And angry. She glared at me, get me out of here clearly etched on her face. I pretended not to notice.
Instead, I used Benny’s distraction and squirmed my way out from under his arm. As soon as I was free, I ran a hand over my hair, trying in vain to smooth the mess Benny made. A quick glance back at Selena, ignoring her decidedly pissed-off-now expression.
When I faced Brian again, he had that same Brian expression on, mouth stalled halfway to a smirk. He held a hand out to me, palm up. Come on, he mouthed.
So, hand-in-hand with the boy with the black eyes, I stepped
into the rest of my life.
Brian pulled me out of the house and into a new world. A world where time swirled together and dates didn't matter at all. The summer was a blur of hot days and twinkly star nights, parties and ice cream, and Brian and Brian and Brian.
From the party that first night, we made our way to his orange Scout. The door creaked when it opened, and I climbed onto the seat before I had time to second-guess what I was doing. Cigarette smoke clung to the upholstery. I clasped my hands in my lap and craned my neck to look back at the house. Selena would hate me—maybe I should go back.
But then he climbed into the car next to me, and thoughts of Selena disappeared. She was a big girl; she could take care of herself. Brian looked at me all mischevious-like. “Where to, Little Jamie?”
My cheeks burned, the traitors. “It's just Jamie.”
“Not James?” He turned the key, and the engine roared to life, drowning out my response. Or, the response I would’ve said, had I had one. My mouth had gone dry, and my brain was swirling in a brain-swirly way.
It was just me and Brian, alone in the cab of his smoky car. The rest of the world fell away, broke off into oblivion, as I stared at his mouth. The way his lips were almost entirely symmetrical, the top nearly as thick as the bottom. His nose, long and prominent, was crooked just at the bridge. My fingers tingled and itched to reach out and feel the bump left behind by whatever had broken it. His darker than dark eyes were almost too close together, and his brows were drawn in straight lines with a magic marker. Individually, the pieces of his face were the components of a Picaso piece, disjointed and clunky. But together…oh, together. They blended together, each unique piece working in perfect harmony.
He was gorgeous.
And talking. His mouth—that perfect, symmetrical mouth—was moving, words spilling from it into the black hole of the car, getting sucked up before they could reach me. The ocean roared in my ears, the sound ebbing and flowing with my heartbeat, blocking out anything he was saying. My face got even more burny.
My head bobbed in a sort of nod, rocking on my neck of its own accord. Brian smiled and pulled the truck into gear. I had no idea what I’d just agreed to, but when he put his hand on my thigh, long fingers trailing between my legs, I would’ve agreed to anything.
The Scout creeped along the drag, cars crawling along either side of us. Typical Friday night in Avon—cruisin’ up and down the main strip, checking each other out, horndogging into the pants of the chick/dude/whatever three cars over. A truck pulled up alongside us, a ratty couch in the bed. A couple lay sprawled across its cushions, a tangle of arms and legs and tongues. My cheeks burned in their stupid blushing way. I turned away, trying to hide my face from Brian.
“Hungry?” He hit his blinker and veered to the right, angling toward Scotty’s Drive-in before I had a chance to answer. The scent of cardboard burgers and greasy onion rings fell over the Scout, heavy like a blanket. Food was delivered in red-and-white checked paper, almost see through with oil. We ate.
And then he kissed me. Deep, confident, knee-wobbly. He tasted of stale hamburger buns and burned onion rings and greasy greasy grease; he tasted like heaven.
“Passme the beer,” I slurred.
Selena waved a can over her head. “Uh-uh. No more for you. You've had enough.”
“I’s had jus’ as much as you.” I lunged for the can, then slid backward onto the armchair, leaving one leg draped over the side in a useless way.
“Yes, but I can still talk and walk and even stand upright like a normal human being still.” The can top pssssted open, and Selena tipped her face to the ceiling and poured the first swig down her throat. Swallowed with a loud smack of her lips
“Come on,” I whined, “I have sorrows to drown, woman. Give me some booze.”
“You don’t have sorrows. It’s been two days.” But she tossed me a slightly cold can before draping herself over the couch. Her shirt slid up, flashing a strip of skin.
“Five,” I said in between quick sips.
“Two, five, whatever,”
But it didn’t feel like whatever. It felt like I’d been holding on to the back of a racecar, clinging to the bumper on a rampage through the city, and then…just let go. Sixty to zero in zero-point-too-fast seconds.
Brian and I were inseperable for nearly a month. He led me from the same-old-same-old of summers with Selena—sitting around the community pool, trying to avoid the sticky fingers of the neighbor kids, then to whatever party we could find that night—and into Brian-world. It was a whirlwhind of excitement, a different adventure every night, and I drank it up with everything I had.
One not-so-remarkable evening, I was walking home from Selena's when I heard the now-familiar rumble of the Scout pulling up behind me. “Hey, sweet thing, you know where I can find some fun around here?”
My face broke into a wide smile, but I kept walking, making him trail behind me for half a block. Finally, he laid on the horn, the sound bouncing off the houses around us until I finally turned and faced him. He leaned partway out the window, one tanned arm trailing down the car door.
“Well, that depends on what kinda fun you’re looking for, sailor.” My face flamed in a fiery sort of way. God, I sounded so stupid saying stuff like that. How did Selena make it seem so cool and effortless?
That Brian look graced his face, and my cheeks burned even hotter. I swallowed, thick and slow. He cocked his head back quickly, a clear invitation to join him. So, of course, I did.
“Where you headed?“ he asked the moment my door shut behind me.
“Home.”
He looked at me like he already knew the answer, like the question was just a test. “Home from where?” He stared straight ahead, eyes tight. His Adam’s apple bobbed violently. I watched as he adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, once, then twice, his knuckles showing the barest hint of white under his dark skin.
My fingers twisted around each other. “Um, from Selena’s? She’s, you know, not doing so well since her dad left and her mom’s out of town this weekend—she finally got through training so she got to actually work the flight to New York, and—” My words choked off suddenly. Why did I feel the need to defend myself? I cleared my throat. “Anyway. What are we doing tonight?”
A shrug, just one shoulder hiking toward his ear. Slowly, he relaxed his hands around the wheel to his typical loose grip. I watched his reflection in the window, the sharp lines of his face as he watched the road ahead of us. The air in the Scout crackled around us, electricity buzzing across my skin. I wanted to talk, but my brain got all mushy, refusing to supply my mouth with all the words.
The blinker was so loud when Brian finally clicked it on that I jumped in a stupid jumpy way. We skidded around the corner, gravel spraying behind us in a great arc. The narrow two-track road lurched downward in front of us then shot back up, a roller coaster in an open field. I bounced across the seat until my leg smashed against Brian’s. My breath hitched, the air in the car standing still.
Finally, after the longest three seconds in the history of seconds, Brian wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. I exhaled loudly and melted against his warm skin. Smelled his smoky, woodsy scent. And settled in for the rest of the drive.
“Where are we?” I asked when we slowed to a squeaky stop.
The maybe-mocking Brian face broke into a full smile, the left side pulling up farther than the right, cutting a deep dimple across his cheek. In one swift movement, he pulled his arm back from around me and shifted the Scout into park. “Come on,” he said, pushing the door open and grabbing my hand, “You’ll see in a second.”
The walk was short, but took several minutes of picking our way down a steep hill, unable to see rocks in our path now that the sun had gone all sun-setty on us. When the ground evened back out, Brian pulled me around a sharp curve to a large flat rock.
“Where are we?” I asked again like a broken record.
I sat on the rock, and B
rian lowered himself behind me, cocooning me in his arms and legs. He shhhhed me, his breath warm and hot in my ear. “Listen, Little Jamie. What do you hear?”
A soft swishing swisssshed just in front of us, punctuated every few seconds by a frog’s grrroak. “Water,” I ansered so, so softly, not wanting to break the magic of this place. He pulled me tighter.
“Just wait, it gets better.”
So we waited together, his arms around my waist and his lips on my neck. My stomach dipped in a weird dipping way, deep down to areas I didn’t know it could reach. Heat rushed through my body, zinging across my chest and down my legs, flushing my skin and stealing my breath away. I craned my neck, twisting in Brian’s arms until my lips found his.
This kiss was different. Stronger, deeper. My stomach did that stomach-rolling thing again, settling low, electricity blazing. I pushed myself hard against him, and his hands found their way under the back of my shirt. Skin-to-skin, everything burned, my back where his hands rested, my chest where I pressed to him, my lips my lips…my lips.
Twisting, turning, legs tangled, hands everywhere, I was lowered down, the rock cool and hard against my back. And Brian on top of me, his weight thick and warm and perfect. His lips played along my jawline, starting at my ear with a whisper and tickle of breath, and making their way to reclaim my lips.
We kissed until my lips were buzzing, riding the line between hyper-sensitive and totally numb. And then we kissed a little more. My hands, braver than my head or my heart, worked on their own: twisting in Brian’s hair, reaching under his plaid shirt, running along hot hot skin.
And then the beeping began. Loud, ridiculously loud, at quick intervals: three short bursts and one long blare. Rinse and repeat. Brian pulled himself back to sitting then offered a hand to pull me up next to him. We settled back together, his arm around my shoulder, just as the lights blared to life.
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