The Leaving Season

by Cat Jordan

  “Hmmm . . . nope, there is nothing else.”

  “Well, I am not getting inked,” I declared. My voice was loud, even to my ears. I was definitely buzzed, if not actually drunk. I needed to breathe some fresh air, but the window was closed. “Can you roll down the window?”

  “It’s not electric,” Lee said.

  “Oh.” I stared at the old-fashioned handle, unable to think straight, willing it to move on its own.

  “Here, I got it,” Lee said, reaching across me to roll it down. As he leaned over me, I felt an overwhelming urge to sniff at him, to inhale him, to suck up his scent, his hair, his skin—to exist in the moment, this moment.

  But a small part of me worried that I wouldn’t stop there, and that would be wrong—for me, for Lee, for Liza.

  For Nate.

  I pressed my palms against the seat and gripped the leather tightly, holding my breath, holding every nerve still until I felt a rush of fresh air against my face and Lee returned to his own side.

  I rested my chin against the open window like a dog. The breeze lifted my hair away from my face, and I closed my eyes to it. “I guess I can’t be spontaneous,” I said. “I’m not what you want me to be.”

  I heard Lee’s voice behind me. It sounded so very far away. “I don’t want you to be anything. I just want you to be whoever you are, Meredith.”

  I smiled. “Your girlfriend is very lucky,” I said. “Do you love her?”

  “I do love her.”

  “Is she okay with you hanging out with me?”

  Lee laughed softly. “She’s cool with it.”

  “I like her. She’s nice. But she shouldn’t smoke.” I clucked my tongue, or at least I thought I did. It stuck there for a moment, as if all my saliva had dried up. I reached for the beer and took another sip to unstick my tongue.

  “She’s funny too. And smart. And beautiful.”

  “Yeah?” Another swallow of beer and I felt my body slide down in the seat. “I wish I could be like her.”

  “I wish you could too,” he said. “She’s the only one who cares about me.”

  I felt my heart lurch. I opened my eyes and swiveled my head toward him. The car spun woozily and my stomach skittered. “That’s not true. I care.”

  He looked at me but said nothing.

  “I care,” I said again, trying to sit up. “I’m your friend.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “So . . .”

  “So because you say you care, I should . . . what? Say that I care too?”

  “Um . . . don’t you?” I guess I’d assumed he did care about me, about my opinion, about my feelings. He’d done everything I’d expect from someone who did.

  But maybe, maybe I was wrong.

  The effort of trying to hold a conversation, to keep myself upright, was suddenly too much, and I sank down, my head slamming against the metal prongs holding the cushioned headrest. “Oww . . . ,” I moaned. That was gonna hurt in the morning.

  My eyelashes felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each; they pulled my lids down like shades. . . .

  Shades, memories, images of the past. . . .

  I felt Lee’s hand on my cheek, felt his warm palm hold my chin. “I’m sorry about all of this. I just keep thinking you’re going to change your mind. Stop talking to me. Then it will all be the way it was before.”

  “Shhh. . . .”

  I curled tighter into myself. I’m not changing my mind. I know what forever means.

  CHAPTER fifteen

  This is what a hangover is.

  Although I’d never had one before in my life, I knew instantly that the churning nausea and insane pressure on my head and chest were classic symptoms of someone who had had one too many. It felt like an elephant was crushing my rib cage, after he had stomped all over my face.

  As I started to move around a little, desperate for water, even the smallest tic threatened to trigger a tsunami of queasiness. I panicked when I couldn’t move my legs, until I realized they were simply tangled up in my nightgown.

  Nightgown? What the hell? I hadn’t worn a nightgown since I’d started high school, when Haley declared at a slumber party that my pretty Lanz cotton gowns were old-fashioned and completely lame. This one was all white, thin seersucker with an embroidered bodice and a light pink satin ribbon threaded through the eyelets along the borders of the shoulder straps.

  But why was I wearing it? I couldn’t imagine having had the brain function to seek out this nightgown rather than pulling on sweatpants and a T-shirt—or simply collapsing into bed without getting changed at all.

  Across the room I saw my purse and the clothes I’d been wearing. How had I gotten home? Had I driven here? Against my nauseous stomach’s better judgment, I ran to the window and looked down at the driveway. Oh, thank god! My mother’s car was still in one piece.

  I stared at it for a full minute or more, but my brain was an absolute blank. As I pulled out some clothes for school, I mentally walked through the previous day: homeroom, Mr. Z, Lee, beer . . .

  “Oh my god! What the . . . ?” I glanced down at my bare upper arm and saw the black outline of a horse on it.

  A tattoo? About four inches wide and two high, it looked exactly like the drawing hanging in Lee’s garage. I rubbed a finger across it but it, like the rest of my body, was sore to the touch, bloated and puffy.

  Lee! How could he bring me to a tattoo parlor when I was drunk? I threw on jeans and a T-shirt and tore out of my bedroom, stopping in the bathroom long enough to toss back some aspirin for my pounding headache.

  In the kitchen, I steeled myself to face the music with my parents, but the place was empty. A note in my mom’s handwriting sat next to her car keys on the counter:

  M, didn’t want to wake you. You needed the rest. Take car to school when you’re up.

  Oh yeah, no. I was not going to school. I grabbed the keys and hurried to the car. I drove first to Lee’s house. The Mustang was there, but the Vespa was gone, so I sped off to Lookingglass. With every mile, my anger grew exponentially. I practiced everything I wanted to say to him, shouting every profane word I could think of to the windshield. Passing cars must have thought I was an escaped lunatic.

  How could he do this to me? How could I explain this to my friends and family? A tattoo, honestly? I pulled into the lot in front of the charter tour shack, kicking up gravel as if I were in an action movie. Hand on door, curses in mouth—I stopped short when I saw a “Back in 10” sign on the window. Damn him!

  And, oh my god, my head. The aspirin was kind of working, but I needed more. Caffeine. Water. I needed coffee. I hurried to the convenience store across the street.

  The bell on the door announcing my arrival sounded like cymbals crashing around my ears. I nearly cringed when Liza’s cheerful voice called out, “Hi there!”

  I tiptoed across the floor so my Nikes wouldn’t squeak on the freshly cleaned linoleum. “Hi . . . ,” I said softly. “Could I have a very large coffee?”

  Liza’s wide blue eyes took me in from head to toe; the look on her face said she knew I was having a bad morning. She brought a finger to her lips, shushing herself, and set about very quietly making me some coffee.

  I leaned against the counter, cradling my head in my hands. Liza was dressed in mostly purple again; she was a girl with a favorite color, that was for sure. Her hair was held back from her pink-cheeked face with a purple polka-dotted headband, showing off dangly plastic earrings with white dots on a purple background.

  As I watched her hips sashay from side to side while she poured my coffee, I felt an irrational twinge of jealousy shoot through me. Lee loves her? What does he see in her? Sure she was attractive and she had a pleasant smile and a cheery outlook on life. But she smoked, which was gross, and she liked purple, for god’s sake.

  I shook my head. Whatever. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Lee was a jerk. If anything, I should be warning her about him. My hand went absentmindedly to the tattoo. I care
fully peeled my sleeve up to peek at it, and as I did so, I heard a sharp gasp.

  Liza’s face drained of color. She slid my coffee across the counter in silence, her eyes flicking from my arm to the cash register very quickly. “One forty-five,” she said loudly.

  I fished two bucks out of my wallet and handed them to her.

  “Cream and sugar are over there.” She jutted her chin past me and dropped my change on the counter with a clatter. I scooped it up and put it in the tip jar, hoping Karma would let my generosity make up for my harsh thoughts of her.

  I dumped some sugar and milk into the coffee until it was the color of sand and cool enough to drink.

  “You, uh, you just get that tattoo?” Liza asked in a shaky voice.

  I nodded and took a big hot gulp, scalding the roof of my mouth.

  “Oh.” Her eyes blinked a few times as if she were trying to focus. “So, both of you, huh?” Not so much a question as a statement of defeat. She meant Lee. We’d apparently both gotten tattoos last night. Brilliant.

  “Is that why you’re here?” she asked. Her head snapped up and her gaze narrowed at a figure crossing the street outside the shop window. Lee was loping awkwardly across the street, leading with his knees and head, body following.

  Finally. I started for the door and then turned back. “It’s not what you think.”

  A glimmer of hope lit up her face. “Really?”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Oh.” She rolled her eyes. “I get that too. ‘Just friends, Liza. Can’t be more than that.’” She lowered her voice, mimicking Lee. “God, I hate that about him. He’s so . . . closed off, you know?”

  “Wait . . . you’re not his girlfriend?”

  Liza shook her head and her dangly polka dots shook too. “Liza and Lee sounds good, though, doesn’t it? Lee and Liza, Liza and Lee.” She shrugged and looked down at her feet, as if she’d revealed too much. “Maybe someday. Who knows.”

  I was out the door at the tail end of her words. He’d tattooed my arm without my consent. Why should it surprise me he’d lied about Liza being his girlfriend? I charged after him, my anger refueled by fresh coffee and a sugar rush.

  I slammed my palm against the door and called out his name. He came around the back behind the counter with a bewildered look on his face. “No school today?”

  “How could you do this to me?” I said. My anger set every nerve on edge, making me feel raw and exposed. I thrust my arm at him and pulled up my sleeve, as if to show him the evidence of my pain.

  He started to reply but smiled instead, which infuriated me more!

  “Lee! I’m serious. I trusted you!”

  He held my gaze for a long moment and then unleashed on me. “You came over to my house, uninvited, drank all my beer, and now you’re pissed at me? I had to drive you home, sneak you inside without your parents waking up, and then walk all the way home at two in the morning.”

  I was incredulous. “That is nothing compared to a tattoo!”

  “You were the one who wanted it. You said you wanted what Nate wanted.”

  “Bullshit! I would never have said that.” But even as I spoke the words, a sliver of doubt crept into my mind. Did I say that?

  Lee said nothing but grabbed my arm with a soft grunt, pulling me through the back door and into the small courtyard behind the shack. I dug my heels in like a stubborn dog, but he urged me forward step by step.

  “Let go of me!” I shouted, trying to wrench my arm free, but he held fast. Across the street, I caught a hint of movement in the window of the convenience store and knew Liza was watching.

  Still holding me in place, Lee reached for a hose that was coiled on the ground and squeezed the nozzle, sending a spray of water into the air. Then in one swift move, he tucked me behind him, pulled up first my sleeve and then his own, to show a matching horse on his left biceps. With the two tattoos side by side, he aimed the hose against our skin. The cold water was a shock to my system, waking me up more fully than any amount of coffee could.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed. “Leave me alone!” I squirmed and twisted but it was no use. A very long ten seconds later, Lee shut off the hose and released me. I stood there, my arm dripping wet, one shoe soaked through to my sock. My shirt and jeans wet on one side. “Why did you do that?”

  He took a step closer and, cupping one palm under my elbow, slowly and gently rubbed the tattoo on my arm. I watched as the ink disappeared. First the tail, then the hooves, and so on, until there was nothing left but a faint outline of the horse’s head. He placed my hand on his “tattoo” and I did the same, rubbing some of the ink off with my fingertips. “It’s a Sharpie,” he said. “It’s not forever.”

  “Oh.” I felt like a total idiot.

  “You might want to take a shower before you accuse me of something.”

  “I . . . I thought . . .”

  “How could you think that?” Lee asked in a quiet voice. “I would never do that to you.”

  I looked up from Lee’s arm, from Lee’s hand on mine, to search his face for any signs of guile or teasing. But there was nothing there. I heard an echo of his voice in my head.

  I had a crush on her for years.

  She’s the only one who cares about me.

  My girl is clever and funny and beautiful.

  And Liza’s voice mocking him:

  Just friends. Can’t be more than that.

  “It wasn’t Liza you were talking about,” I said. “So who were you . . .”

  I felt the space between us close, felt a wall of heat build as Lee pulled me into him.

  He dropped his chin to his chest, folding me into his arms, and his face lowered to mine. My lips melted into his, and we kissed, first gently and then with more force, more insistence. My arms were at his back, my hips pressing into him as he wrapped himself around me, nearly swallowing me with his body.

  I felt the warmth of his mouth, the electricity of our tongues. My eyes fluttered open and I glanced over his shoulder, my vision catching Liza at the window. I should have cared, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to care about anything but this kiss, this embrace, this connection. I never wanted it to end.

  He pulled back slightly, and his breath came in short gasps. I could feel his heart beating through his T-shirt, doubling mine.

  “What . . . ,” I started to say, but he shook his head and kissed me again.

  I let my mind become a blank, let all the cares and worries slip from my consciousness, let my hands find what they wanted to find, touch what they wanted to touch.

  Lee’s palm was at my neck. I collapsed under him and we tumbled as one against the side of the shack. I felt the back of my shirt become damp from the wet shingles as Lee pressed himself to me. His mouth left my lips to nuzzle my ear and neck and shoulder, and his hands wandered from the sides of my waist toward my hips and—

  Enough, I thought. That was far enough.

  But it wasn’t. I needed more.

  I took Lee’s hand and entwined my fingers in his, gripping my palm to his tightly as if we were fighting each other, our hands and arms at war. He took both of my hands and held them above my shoulders, pinning me to the side of the shack.

  He paused, brushing his lips against my cheek. I opened my eyes and made him look at me.

  “Kiss me again,” I said.

  His smile was sly, teasing. “No.”

  “Yes. Kiss me again.” I gripped his hands harder, curling his arms around my back, waiting for him to give in.

  “No,” he said. “You kiss me.”

  I grinned and whirled him around so I had him pinned to the side of the shack. I tilted my chin up and leaned into him, crushing my mouth to his. I didn’t—wouldn’t—let him go.

  But I didn’t think he minded much.

  Finally, the urgency left us, like a water faucet, once gushing, slowly trickling to a stop. My heartbeat slowed, energy spent. I took a deep breath but was reluctant to sever the connection betw
een us. I rested my head against Lee’s chest and felt his breath rise and fall under my cheek.

  “Meredith—”

  “No. Please. No.” I was afraid to look at him, afraid to see in his face what this was, what it meant to him. It wasn’t the same for him as it was for me—it couldn’t be.

  “But—”

  “I have to go.”

  He pushed me away from him, holding me at arm’s length. “Now? Seriously?”

  I eased myself out of his embrace, carefully peeling his hands away from my waist. “I . . . I can’t do this. Whatever this is.”

  “This. You mean ‘us’?”

  I winced. Us. Was there an us? Could there be? When Nate . . .

  Nate is gone, a voice inside me said.

  No. This wasn’t okay. Not yet.

  I backed away, my gaze on my feet. “I’ll . . .”

  “Call me when you’ve joined the circus?” Lee cut me off with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Still working on that magic act,” I muttered. I hurried off, head down.

  As I left, I heard Lee say, “You sure know how to disappear.”

  In the shade box I gave Nate was a small slip of paper, a receipt for a locker at an ice rink. It was a Winter Olympics year, and everyone at our junior high school was into snow and ice sports. Until that day, Nate and I had been friends only. He was a year ahead of me, already a freshman at the high school. When it was time to go home, it didn’t take me long to unlace my skates and slide my feet into my Nikes, but for some reason, Nate was a slowpoke. I remembered how he took his time, first with each sock, then with each shoe. At last, he stood and put on his jacket and gloves, slapped a baseball cap on his head—and then leaned down and planted a kiss right on my lips. I was so surprised that I didn’t even close my eyes.

  His lips, so new to mine, were soft and gentle, and his hands were on my elbows, holding me down as if I might float away. Although it could not have lasted more than a second or two, that kiss—my first kiss—was seared into my memory.

  Until now. Until Lee. Was I ready to replace that memory? I didn’t ever want to forget Nate, but I was afraid I couldn’t ever forget Lee.