by Temple West
“I’m not sure what your stomach can handle, so I made you a slice of cinnamon bread. Does that sound okay?”
He’d taken me home and put me to bed and made me toast. Thank God it was dark, I felt like I was blushing red and pasty white all at the same time. He handed me the plate and I took a bite. It was good. Lots of butter.
We stared at each other while I ate. When I was finished, he set my plate down on his desk and picked up a coat, slinging it over my shoulders and messing with the collar until it lay right.
“There,” he said. “Why don’t you call Trish and tell her we’re coming?”
I nodded and looked around. “Uh—do you happen to know where my stuff is?”
I remembered taking off my clothes. I remembered putting on Adrian’s pajamas. I did not remember what happened in-between.
“I think everything’s on the floor over there.” He pointed near the set of French doors leading out to the moonlit balcony. We both noticed at the exact same moment that I’d managed to fling my bra onto his lampshade. He quickly looked away as I slowly lowered my face into my hands.
“I’ll, um—I’ll wait outside.”
Adrian slipped out the door once more and I quickly skimmed my bra off the lamp and tugged it on under his sweater, then found the rest of my clothes in a heap on the floor and dug through the pile to look for my phone. I flipped through my contacts and found Trish’s. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey!” she said, yelling. I could hear music in the background.
“Hey. Are you still at the party?”
“Yeah! It’s still going strong. Are you and—”
“Trish!” I whisper-yelled. I didn’t want her shouting my name and Adrian’s name in the same sentence, not while she was around people that went to our school.
“What?” she yelled above the music. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Never mind,” I told her. “Listen, I’m heading over to your house. Will you be there soon?”
“I’m leaving now,” she said.
“Are you … okay … to drive?” I asked awkwardly. We were friends, I think, but new friends. It felt weird asking.
“Mystic, unlike some people I know, I only had one drink, and that was, like, six hours ago. I’ll be fine. Thanks for worrying, though. I’ll see you soon!”
“Bye,” I said, and disconnected.
I felt my way to Adrian’s door in the darkness and let him back in.
“Ready to go?”
I nodded and shoved the sandals on my feet, following Adrian out the French doors onto the deck, then down the stairs and across the lawn to his motorcycle.
It occurred to me that I must look really weird clinging to a guy who could easily make a living as an underwear model while I wore baggy sweatpants and borrowed sandals. Of course, I’d probably looked pretty okay while I was on here in stilettos with my vampire dress riding up my thighs, but still. Life was weird. I slipped my arms around his waist as he started the engine.
It was less cold this time, but it was still Stony Creek at four thirty in the morning at the end of October. Eventually, we pulled up to Trish’s driveway and Adrian cut the engine. He pulled off his helmet and twisted to scan the road behind me.
“Trish’ll be here soon.”
A moment later, the headlights of Trish’s truck splashed golden light down the road. She pulled up next to us and rolled the passenger window down.
“Hop in,” she told me, then let her eyes wander to the other occupant of the Harley. “Morning, Adrian.”
He smiled back. “Morning, Trish.”
Trish grinned, then looked at me and frowned. “What in the hell are you wearing, Mystic?”
I was glad it was dark—she couldn’t see me blush. “Adrian let me borrow some clothes.”
Trish grinned slowly at me. “I see.”
“Well,” I announced in a higher pitch than normal. “We better be going.”
I scrambled off the bike (“fell” is more like it; Adrian had to grab hold of my arm to keep me upright) and shoved myself at the truck, pausing with the door half open.
“Thank you,” I said, glancing up once, briefly, at Adrian.
He just smiled softly, looking amused. “You’re welcome.”
I nodded at him and hopped in the truck. Trish pulled into the drive and in seconds Adrian had disappeared back into the night. After we parked, Trish let us in the front door and we tiptoed up to her room. I sank to the floor wearily.
“So,” Trish said, flopping onto her unmade bed. “You and Adrian, huh?”
Here we go. “Nothing happened.”
“Yeah. Right. Adrian looked like he wanted to beat the crap out of that guy and dragged you away on his Harley because he wanted nothing to happen.”
“He’s a good guy,” I told her a little more forcefully than necessary. “And it’s not like that. Besides, you told me he was gay.”
Trish snorted. “After seeing him with you the past few days, I have reversed my conclusion.”
It was my turn to snort. “I think you had too much Jungle Juice.”
Trish turned on her back, plunked her feet up against the wall, and let her head hang over the edge of the bed. “Firstly, he doesn’t let anyone within spitting distance of his bike, but he voluntarily picks you up for school. Secondly, he does his crazy superman stunt off the hayloft and who does he look at when he lands? You.”
I thought I’d imagined that. Guess not.
“Not only that, he comes to your rescue—again, I might add—when that guy kissed you.” She glanced down at me. “How was he, by the way?”
“A dream come true,” I said dryly. “Lots of saliva to keep it smooth.”
She laughed, then shuddered. “Gross. Anyway. After that, he hauls you back to the let’s-get-busy room and I don’t see you again until he’s dragging you out the front door. Call me crazy, but that looks like he’s pretty freaking interested.”
When she put it like that, it made sense. But she was wrong.
“Even if he wasn’t gay—which he is—I think I’d know if he saw me as anything other than, like, his crazy little sister. I’m new to Stony Creek. I’m an orphan. I live with my aunt and uncle. I don’t really belong here. Adrian’s an orphan, he lives with his aunt and uncle, and the only place he’d blend in is a runway in Milan.”
Trish looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “I still say he wants to get in your pants.”
“It’s not like that!” I replied more forcefully than I’d intended. “He’s just … just not … not…” I couldn’t even come up with what he wasn’t, he was so not whatever it was Trish was making him out to be.
“Ahh,” said Trish with a grin. “There’s the reaction I was looking for. You like him.”
I paled. “I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I do not. I barely know him.”
“Who,” Trish said, “besides your aunt and uncle and Norah, do you spend the most time with in Stony Creek? And don’t say me, because if that’s true, it’s sad.”
I thought about it. “He lives near me, so he gives me a ride to school, and we’re in the same study hall, so we talk.”
Trish just looked at me.
“But sometimes we don’t talk! Sometimes we sit. And read.” She smiled at me and I frowned at her. “I’m making your point for you, aren’t I?”
“I’m just saying, it would make sense if you liked him.” She yawned and stretched. “Or maybe I’m full of shit; I dunno. See you in the morning.” And she rolled over and fell asleep.
I crawled over to the air mattress we’d blown up earlier and slipped inside the faded Beauty and the Beast sleeping bag. My curls had deflated, and I was sure I had mascara all over my face, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Trish had a point. We were alike. But so what? He’d graduate in eight months and go who knows where. I’d graduate the year after and go to New York. We’d probably never see each other again. Not that any of that mattered, b
ecause I was still convinced he didn’t like me—or women in general—so the whole conversation was pointless.
Sleep pressed down on me like a weight, like a dozen feet of water and dark silence and I slipped into a dream, snuggled in Adrian’s clothes.
* * *
Monday morning, the house smelled good, like pine and wood smoke and cinnamon. The rain outside drizzled down in tufts of mist as the wind blew lightly through the forest surrounding the house. I was downstairs in the kitchen pouring myself a cup of coffee when Rachel walked in, smiling.
“Hope you had a good time at Trish’s. You didn’t say much when you got home.”
I shrugged, already bristling. “It was fun.”
Rachel had not given up on her attempts to be cheerful and welcoming. I hadn’t given up on being really, really mad at her.
“I’m glad you’ve made a friend,” she said. “Maybe you could invite her over sometime. Maybe to your birthday party?”
I looked up sharply. “What birthday party?”
“Joe and I were thinking you might want to have one here, and invite some school friends.”
I poured creamer into my mug. “No, thanks.”
I could feel the tension radiating off Rachel in waves. Or maybe that was my tension, it was hard to tell these days.
“Okay, well, have you at least thought about what you want? It’s coming up pretty soon here.”
I froze. For a second, for a split second, she’d sounded just like my mom. Or, like my mom a year ago, before her voice had gotten hoarse and raspy from intubation tubes and chemo. Rachel was her younger sister—her prettier sister. After my dad died, my mom had gotten slowly larger every year, then dramatically thinned out when she got sick. She was never really beautiful, but by the end she was downright scary to look at, with bags of loose skin pooling through the sleeves of her hospital gown and her head all dry and bald. Even with those differences, it was impossible to look at Rachel and not see her.
But my mom wouldn’t have had to ask me what I wanted for my birthday. She would have driven me to our local craft store where we knew every employee by name. She would have handed me a cart and told me to pick out anything I wanted. I’d usually get a couple yards of a fabric I couldn’t normally afford, or stock up on zippers, needles, elastics, pins, bobbins, seam rippers (I always managed to lose mine), pattern paper, backing, or any of the other thousand and one things you need to have a fully functional workshop. My freshman year, she’d surprised me with my own sewing machine—it was expensive enough that it had doubled as my Christmas present, but I didn’t care because it was the best thing I’d ever been given in my entire life, and it meant that much more because it drove home just how much my mom knew me, better than anyone. Rachel, though—she had no idea what to do with me.
I slowly put the spoon into my mug and stirred, trying to stay calm. “I’m all good on the birthday front. Thanks, though.”
Even from here I could see a vein beating in her temple as she struggled to keep her smile in place. “Come on, it’s your golden birthday! It’s not every day you turn seventeen on the seventeenth!”
“I don’t need anything,” I replied a little more sharply than I’d meant.
“Well, that’s fine, because birthdays are about receiving things you want.” She wasn’t going to give up. “So what do you want?”
I turned to face her so fast that coffee sloshed over the rim and burned my fingers, but I didn’t care. “I don’t want anything from you.” I’d said it quietly, but my voice was shaking.
“Caitlin, I know it’s hard now that your mom’s gone—”
“No—” I interrupted her, “you don’t get to give me that talk. You don’t get to pretend like you knew anything about her.”
I knew I should stop, but after weeks of trying to choke it all down, I could feel it racing uncontrollably toward the surface.
“You weren’t there,” I said evenly, although my face was flushed red and it felt a billion degrees warmer than it had a second ago. “You didn’t sleep for weeks in a chair by her bed. You didn’t show up at the cemetery to pay your respects, you weren’t there to help Grandma with the funeral arrangements or the medical bills or the service, you didn’t even come to Mystic to help me pack up my stuff to move to your shitty town.” I heard footsteps pause on the stairs, but I didn’t care if Norah heard. “Just to be clear, I don’t want to be here. My mom didn’t want me to be here. So when I say that I don’t want anything for my birthday, I don’t fucking want anything for my birthday.”
She blinked, mouth trembling, then set her mug on the counter and walked out of the kitchen.
Adrian had great timing—I could hear the hum of the Harley coming down the driveway. Abandoning my coffee, I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door. The bike was still running as I grabbed the helmet from his hand and swung on behind him before he’d even had a chance to put the kickstand down.
He frowned. “Everything all right?”
“Just go,” I said, and crammed the helmet on.
He looked at me a moment, glanced at the house, then drove away. I spent the entire ride feeling stupid, feeling angry, feeling exhausted and drained and then angry again, and sad and desperate and hollow. I just wanted to sleep, but I had to go to school. Learn. Do homework. Bullshit, brain-dead work.
We arrived at school, and he parked the bike.
“I brought your dress,” he said, swinging off the Harley.
“Damn it!” I muttered, setting the helmet down forcefully against the seat.
“What?”
“I forgot to bring your clothes.”
“It’s fine. I don’t need them anytime soon.”
“I know; but they’re yours, and I forgot and I—” I couldn’t finish the sentence I was so angry at myself. I didn’t even know why I was angry, but I was, and it felt good.
“It’s not a big deal.” He smiled. “Hey, I heard it’s your birthday soon.”
I stared at him. “Are you kidding me?”
I grabbed the bag of clothes out of his hands and walked toward my homeroom. Before I’d gotten three steps, he grabbed my arm and spun me around, face set in a hard line.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ll bring your clothes tomorrow.”
I wriggled out of his grip and walked to class, choking back tears.
By seventh period, I was composed. I managed to reach the library ahead of Adrian and went back to my little nook and moved the second chair to another table. A moment later, Adrian walked up to me, staring at the place where he usually sat.
“Are you angry at me?”
“No,” I said, shrugging, but I could feel another wave of rage coming on.
He arched a brow. “You sure about that?”
“Don’t mean to burst your bubble, dude, but not everything’s about you. Bring a chair over, don’t bring a chair over, I really don’t care.”
I flung open a book and leaned back. He looked at me and I felt something in the vicinity of shame crawling up the back of my throat, but I just stared right back and kept the cool look on my face until he nodded, backed away, and left.
I spent the rest of study hall trying not to cry.
When the bell rang, I walked outside and got on Adrian’s bike like nothing had happened. He came out of the library a second later and stopped when he saw me sitting there. Slowly, he walked over and got on in front, saying nothing. The only sound I heard on the way home was the angry hum of the bike and the mutinous beat of my own heart. He pulled to a stop in front of the ranch and took his helmet off, turning to me.
“You might want to hide the clothes in your backpack. Your aunt and uncle might wonder otherwise.”
I crammed the clothes in my backpack. Before I was done, he was already driving off.
6
SEVENTEEN ON THE 17TH
My birthday was a week away. Adrian had started picking me up in his truck because the roads were too icy for the Harley, and
even if they weren’t, the wind chill made it miserable. We’d sit there in silence, sometimes with his phone plugged in playing music, but otherwise in silence. I honestly didn’t know why he kept showing up—it certainly wasn’t for my witty banter. I was low on banter.
Any day, the snow would start. I was waiting. Waiting for the weather to change, waiting for my birthday, waiting for it to stop hurting every time I opened my eyes and remembered that my mom was gone and I would never, ever, ever see her again. I knew it was possible to make new friends, to build a family from scratch, to “start over”—but I didn’t want to. It was much easier to want nothing than it was to want something, and I was scoring major points as a beginner nihilist.
School dragged on. I dozed off in all of Mr. Warren’s classes; I refused to sing in choir. I simply wouldn’t turn in homework for anything but art, and study hall was just an extra forty-five minutes to sleep. I could tell all my teachers were upset, but I didn’t care. Well, I didn’t care until they called my aunt.
“Caitlin, can I talk to you for a minute?”
I’d just gotten home from school and Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table with her stacks of papers and her coffee. A second mug was already sitting next to her. It was much lighter, so I could tell it had been made for me. Warily, or perhaps just wearily, I sat down, sliding my backpack to the floor. I automatically curled my fingers around the mug, but didn’t drink anything.
“Your principal called.” She looked at me and waited.
“How is he?”
She frowned at me oddly. “Uh—good. Actually, he called about you.”
I took a sip of coffee. Still hot.
“He said that your teachers have been concerned about your performance. That you’ve been sleeping in class and not turning in homework.”
I took another sip of coffee. I liked coffee.
“Well?” she asked.
“Good coffee,” I said.
“Caitlin.”
“Nice creamer-to-coffee ratio.”
“What is going on?”
I looked at her blankly. Had she not been present when I yelled at her the week before?
