The Fire Between High & Lo

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  Just one day at a time.

  “Do you always shake your hips like that after you’re done taking someone’s order?” a voice mocked, making me smile when I realized the source.

  “Only when I know they’ll be good tippers,” I smiled, turning around to see Dan standing behind me, his hands filled with files. He looked so handsome in his navy blue slacks and light blue, button down shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His smile was big and bright as always, and he was giving that grin to me. Stuffing my pad of paper and pen into my apron, I walked over to him. “What brings you around this early?”

  “I was looking into the property we’ve been talking about getting.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I love it. I really do, but there’s a termite issue. Do you have a minute to go over some things? I brought a few more floor plans of other places that we could check out.”

  I frowned, glancing around the diner. “I think my boss would fire me if I stopped working to look at piano bars.”

  Dan was a friend I crossed paths with a few years ago at a piano bar. He was currently working for one of the best realtors in the state, and when I told him my idea about opening a piano bar, he jumped at the idea of helping me look into places—even though I told him it would be a long while before that day came to life.

  “Oh no, of course. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop in for some hash browns and coffee. I’m on my way to work anyway.”

  I smiled wide and he smiled wider. “We can look over them tomorrow night if that works?”

  “Yeah, yeah!” He exclaimed, excitement overtaking him. “I can bring them to your place. We can order Chinese food, and I can bring wine. I could even cook steak or something for you…” His voice faded off as he grew a bit too joyful. He ran his hands through his hair, shrugging. “You know, or whatever.”

  “That sounds like a plan. Just a heads up though, my house is still a piece of work. And with the rain, there’s been a few leaks through the roof.”

  “My offer still stands about you crashing at my place until you finish updating your house. I know that stuff can be a headache.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll pioneer my way through the complication that is my home.”

  “Okay. Well, I better get going to work, but I’ll meet you tomorrow at your place to go over these.” He shook the files in the air and winked my way.

  “Wait. I thought you came in for coffee and hash browns?”

  “Oh, yeah. I did, but I just realized…” He was a bit flustered, and I couldn’t help but smile. “I should really get to work a bit early to look some things over for my boss.”

  “Then tomorrow it is. I’ll supply the alcohol; you supply the properties.”

  With that he disappeared. I let out a sigh. Dan has had the same crush on me for the last three years, virtually since we met, but I never felt that kind of connection to him. He was an important person in my life, though, and I always hoped he’d be okay with just being friends.

  “I swear, he brings you properties, has a solid job, lies about wanting hash browns just to see you, has that ‘screw-me-sideways’ kind of smile, and offers to cook you steak. But you can’t even take up the offer to stay with him for a while?” Lori said, carrying a tray with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and sausage links.

  I laughed. “My house is fine. I’ve spent all these years saving up to buy my dream home, and now that I have it, I’m not ready to let it go. It just needs a few Band-Aids, that’s all.”

  “Honey. Your house needs a bit more than Band-Aids.” She smirked, placing the plates of food down on table five before she headed back over to me with a hand on her hip and sass in her lips. “I’m just saying. If I had Dan offering me a bed, I’d move in with him and have him show me his floor plans on every inch of my body, in every inch of the house.”

  “Lori!” I shushed her, my cheeks heating up.

  “I’m just saying. You’re working three jobs to pay for a house that you need to fix up anyway, in order to prove that you can be an independent woman. You could fix up the house and live with Dan, you know.”

  “The house isn’t that much of a fixer-upper,” I argued.

  “Aly.” She moaned, slapping her hand against her face. “The last time I came over to share a bottle of wine, I used your bathroom and I didn’t close the door when I used it. You know why? Because there wasn’t a bathroom door.”

  I laughed. “Okay. I get it. So it’s a fixer-upper. But, I like the challenge.”

  “Hm. You must be a really good lay for Dan to stick around the way he does.”

  “What? Dan and I haven’t slept together.”

  “Seriously?” she exclaimed. “You mean he’s drooling over you, and you two have never done the deed?”

  “Never.”

  “But… That smile!”

  I giggled. “I know. But he’s a good friend. I have a big rule for my relationships, and it includes never dating any of my friends. Ever.” I’d been down that road before, and was never planning to travel down it again. To this day I still thought about Logan and mourned the friendship I loved and lost.

  We would’ve been better off never falling in love.

  “You know, Charles and I were best friends before we decided to date. He was the love of my life, and no one has ever compared. He used to make me laugh so hard, before I even knew what love was. Some of the best things in life come from the strongest kinds of friendships,” Lori explained. Her head lowered, and she gripped the locket hanging from her necklace, which held their wedding photo inside of it. “Boy, oh boy, do I miss that man madly.” She hardly ever spoke about Charles, her late husband. But whenever she did, there was a twinkle in her eyes as if her mind was traveling back to the day she first fell in love with him.

  Our boss told us to stop chatting so much and get back to work, which we did. We were always busy in the mornings, serving more people than seemed humanly possible, but the busier we were, the less time I had to think about things.

  “Are you good on coffee?” I asked a woman sitting near the window. I held the coffee pot in my grip as I made my way around to all my tables for refills.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Thank you.”

  I smiled wide, and when I glanced up out of the window, my heart caught in my chest. My fingers landed against the glass, trying to reach out and touch the figure across the way. When I blinked once more, what I thought I saw was gone. A shiver ran down my spine, and I stood up straight.

  Lori glanced up in my direction. “You okay, Alyssa? You look like you saw a—

  “Ghost?” I said, finishing her sentence.

  “Exactly.” She came over and looked out the window. “What is it?”

  A ghost.

  “Nothing. It was nothing,” I said, taking my coffee pot to the next table.

  It was my imagination, that’s all.

  Nothing more, nothing less.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logan

  My stare was trained on Alyssa as she walked around the diner, helping customers. I sat in a back corner, unable to be seen from her location. I shouldn’t be here. My mind knew all of the reasons I shouldn’t have walked into the diner that day, but my heart felt a tug in her direction.

  She still smiled the same. That made me happy and sad all at once. How many smiles had I missed? Who did she smile for nowadays?

  “Here’s your omelet,” my waitress said sitting the plate in front of me. Her face was somewhat pale, and sweat was dripping at her forehead. She rocked back and forth, trying to force a smile. “Anything else I can get you?” she questioned.

  “Orange juice would be great,” I said.

  She nodded in reply, walking away.

  I picked up the salt shaker and started to add some to my omelet. A loud chuckle escaped the diner, and I took a deep breath. Alyssa’s laugh. It hadn’t changed. I shut my eyes, feeling my chest tighten. Memories flooded me like a hurricane, knocking me backwards as I envision
ed all of the times I laid beside her, listening to her laugh ripple through my soul.

  “If you wanted a plate of salt with an omelet on the side, you could’ve just asked,” a voice offered, snapping my mind from the past. My stare fell to the omelet that I’d been mindlessly shaking salt onto for the past five minutes.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, placing the salt shaker onto the table.

  “No need to be sorry. We all have our preferences,” the voice promised. “Anyway, the wait staff is being hammered, Jenny was just sent home with the flu, and I was ordered to bring you an orange juice and take over your table.”

  My eyes moved to the girl speaking. She had full, rose-colored lips and blue eyes that were more than familiar to me; they were the one thing amazing about that town. Those eyes had a talent of being able to smile all on their own. Her blonde hair was straight, and she had bangs that fell over her eyebrows.

  Neither of us had spoken a word.

  She kept staring.

  I wouldn’t look away.

  Alyssa.

  High.

  My greatest High.

  She looked beautiful, but that wasn’t surprising. There wasn’t one day I remembered where she wasn’t beautiful. Even on the days where I was too far gone to open my eyes, I remembered the beauty of her soft words begging me to come back to her, to keep breathing.

  “Logan,” she whispered, placing the glass of orange juice onto the table. I stood up from my chair as she stepped forward toward me. At first I thought she was going to hug me, embrace me, forgive me for being me and never returning her calls. But in reality, she wasn’t going to hug me. Her palm was open, and I knew right when I saw it, she was going to slap me. Hard. Whenever Alyssa did anything, she did it with full force, nothing was ever half-assed.

  Her arm rose, came at me swift, and I was ready for the sting that I deserved. I closed my eyes in anticipation, but I never felt her touch. God, how I wanted to feel her touch. Opening my eyes, I watched her shaky hand hovering in the air, centimeters from my cheek. Our eyes locked and I saw the tears burning in the back of her eyes, the confusion, the heartbreak.

  “Hi, Alyssa,” I softly spoke. She cringed and closed her eyes. Her hand stayed in the air and I took it in my own, laying her fingers against my cheek. A small whimper of pain escaped her lips as her skin laid against mine. I pulled her closer into a hug, and it felt just like yesterday. Her skin was so cold, like always, and my body heated hers up. Her fingers moved from my cheek, and she wrapped both arms around my neck, holding onto me as if she forgave me for all of the missed calls and silence.

  Her fingers clung to me, almost digging into my flesh as if she thought I was some kind of mirage that would disappear if she didn’t keep hold. I didn’t blame her—I’d disappeared before.

  I inhaled her hair.

  Peaches.

  God, I hated peaches until that day.

  She smelled like the days when summer went to sleep and awakened as fall. Soft, sweet, perfect.

  My fucking High.

  “I missed…” she spoke against my ear.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “You left…” she started.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “How dare you…” she began.

  “I know,” I replied.

  Her body tensed up and she yanked away from me. The sadness in her eyes was gone. Only anger remained.

  That seems right.

  “You know?” she hissed, standing tall, but still so small. Her arms crossed and she bit her bottom lip. The small crinkles in the corners of her eyes deepened, and it was clear that she wasn’t that same girl I left behind years ago. She was a grown woman now, and she had a fire burning deep in her soul. “I called you.”

  “I know.”

  Her brow furrowed. “No. I called you, Logan. I called you and left you over five hundred messages.”

  One thousand and ninety messages.

  I didn’t want to correct her.

  “You disappeared. You left me. Us. Kellan. You left us all,” she said. “I understand you needing your space, but you left me. After everything we’ve been through—after what happened—you left me alone with that.”

  “I was getting better. I was working through the shit with my mom, the shit with you, and yeah, I was a mess, but I just needed time.”

  “I gave you space, and you still stayed gone.”

  “You called me every day, Alyssa. That’s not giving me space.”

  “Kellan and I saved your life, and we thought you’d come back. I called you every day to let you know I was here, waiting. I thought you’d come back for me. For us.”

  “You can’t save people’s lives, and you can’t expect people to come back for you, Alyssa. You should’ve known that after what happened with—” I bit my tongue, stopping my speech, but I knew I couldn’t take back my words. She knew what I was going to say. You should’ve known that after what happened with your father.

  “That was mean.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  Her head shook back and forth. “For someone who said nothing, it sure communicated plenty.” Her voice cracked. “Over five hundred messages, and not one reply.”

  One thousand and ninety messages.

  Still didn’t correct her.

  “I didn’t have anything to say to you,” I lied. I was building the wall that I knew I had to build coming into town. I had to keep my emotions and mind at bay to keep me from falling back into Alyssa’s life. Last time I was in her life, I ruined it. I couldn’t allow myself to do that to her again. So, I had to be cold, harsh even.

  Because she deserved better than to be waiting by her phone for someone like me to call her back.

  “Nothing?” she stepped back, flabbergasted. “Not one thing? Not even hello?”

  “I was always better at goodbyes.”

  “Wow…” she blew out a sharp breath.

  Every emotion I felt toward her throughout the years was coming back to me, stronger than ever. I was mad at myself for not calling her, I was sad, I was happy, I was confused, I was in love. I was everything that Alyssa ever made me feel.

  My mind was seconds away from exploding.

  “You know what?” She cleared her throat and gave me a tight smile. “We aren’t going to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Fight. Argue. Because if we do that, you know what it means? It would mean you and I had some kind of relationship, which we don’t. You became a stranger the moment you disappeared into the cornfields of Iowa.”

  My lips parted, but before I could speak, she’d turned on her heel and stormed off to help another table. She had a fake smile pasted to her face while she spoke to the customers. Her foot tapped nonstop against the checkered floor, and there was a slight rock back and forth to her body.

  Her eyes shot over to me, as she spoke to the individuals.

  “Well, I think I’ll have the eggs over easy and,”–one customer spoke, but was cut off by Alyssa storming back over to me—“bacon.”

  “Does Kellan even know that you’re here?! Or were you just going to surprise attack him at his job, too?” Her hands hit her hips and she cocked an eyebrow.

  I cocked a brow back at her. “Yeah. He’s the reason I’m here. For the wedding.”

  “What?” she asked, flustered.

  “The wedding… You know, how my brother is marrying your sister.”

  “But…” she paused, her irritation dropping. “The wedding isn’t for another month. You came back a month early just to help with that?”

  “Kellan said it was this weekend.”

  “Well, that would definitely be news to me. But with everything that’s happening, I wouldn’t be shocked.”

  “What does that mean? What’s happening?”

  Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She tried again, nibbling on her bottom lip. “Are you using, Logan?”

  “What?” I asked, defensively. “What the hell does that mean
?”

  “You know what it means. I just…” She started shaking, her nerves taking ahold of her. “I need to know if you’re clean. If you’ve been using anything.”

  “That’s none of your business. Seeing how if I told you anything, that would mean we had some kind of relationship, and as you stated earlier we—”

  “Lo,” she whispered. The nickname falling from her lips made me rethink my annoyance and my defensive approach.

  Her eyes.

  Her lips.

  Alyssa.

  High.

  My greatest high.

  “Yeah?” I whispered back.

  “Are you using?”

  “No.”

  “Not even weed?”

  “Only weed,” I replied. A heavy sigh fell from her lips. “Come on, Alyssa, give me a break. Weed is legal in some states.”

  “Not in Iowa.” She was starting to sound like she was worried, which meant she kind of still cared, which meant hope. What did I care about hope though? The Keep Alyssa Out wall was built, and I wouldn’t be knocking it down any time soon. I’d be on the next train out of this place if a wedding wasn’t happening. “Only weed though?”

  “Only weed.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  She stepped back once, before stepping forward twice. She held out her pinky in my direction. “Pinky?”

  I stared at her pinky for a while, remembering all of the promises we used to make when we were younger, locking our fingers together.

  My pinky wrapped around hers, the small touch filling me up. “Pinky.”

  When we released our hold, she stepped back twice, before stepping forward once. Her hands stretched out toward me and without any thought, I took her hold. She pulled me from my seat and wrapped her arms around me. The way she held on so tight, told my gut that something was wrong.

  “High, what is it?”

  She pulled me closer, holding on while I refused to let go. Her lips pressed against my ear, her hot breaths dancing against my skin. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” When we parted, she put her hands in prayer position and pressed them against her lips, tilting her head slightly. “Lo…”