Sounds of Yesterday

by Pacheco, Briana

  Hairy spots whoever he’s looking for a few feet from we’re sitting and walks up to a woman with two kids sitting beside her, building a sandcastle. A smile breaks onto his face with something the woman says. Perfect white teeth blind me so I look away.

  I catch the look in Sophie’s eye when she watches the guy pick up his young daughter and drop her on his lap. Soph and her dad would build sandcastles at the beach. Now, he’s back home and she’s here. She’s a daddy’s girl so I won’t give her a hard time about this right now.

  “Soooo?” Sophie waits for my opinion. She adjusts the strap of her white bikini top and wiggles her eyebrows at me. I wish I had her confidence some days. She’s beautiful and she doesn’t like to shove it your face. Her curves make people look but she ignores them. We both eat so much and yet we stay in good shape. Sophie actually runs every once and awhile. I jog then powerwalk behind her.

  I shrug my shoulders and play with the bottom of my cover-up. It’s super light and feels like I’m not wearing it but knowing that I’m covered up while revealing so much helps me try to get used to this. I’m comfortable with my body, it’s just I’m not so comfortable being around people while in a bikini. At least here, there are plenty of people to let me hide in the background. I would’ve let my hair down to hide the tattoo by my left ear but putting it into a messy bun was the best choice for today. I got a tattoo of a treble clef and a bass clef that forms a heart, two months ago. I love music so it was kind of a given my first tattoo would have to do with my love of it. Sophie gushed over it as she sat by my side that day. It was one of her surprise visits and we decided to do something fun. She didn’t get anything because the faces I made over being stabbed with a needle repeatedly terrified her. Getting a tattoo hurts. But I love it.

  “He’s hot.” I cross my legs and reach for my one-fourth full iced coffee. All the ice filling the cup is making me question why I didn’t buy two instead of one. Why does a coffee need so much ice anyway?

  Why do I always complain too? Shit, I’m annoying.

  “Who’s hot?” a deep, sexy voice asks stopping beside me. His shadow blocks out the sun but when I shift to look up at him, his body blinds me. He literally blinds me. His body is oiled up and having the sun shine off him is too bright. As I try to blink, I’m stuck not wanting to look away either. “Em?”

  It’s been three days since Alex showed up in Florida. I have not seen him shirtless. Until now. His chest is more defined, and I see he has been working on his abs, which were perfect last year but drool-worthy now. My eyes travel lower, eyeing the V of his hips. The trail of dark hair leading south makes me want to follow it.

  Don’t look lower. Don’t look lower.

  “I...uh…”

  I’m eye-fucking Alex now. It’s what I hate seeing people do and here I am, acting like I’ve never seen a hot body before.

  “Can you sit?” I ask, making my eyes travel up. “You’re shining like Edward.” I focus on the tray of smoothies he’s holding. I spot a blueberry one with whip cream and my mouth waters. He knows I love blueberry.

  Alex chuckles and drops down to the spot in front of me. “Edward needed some sun if you ask me. Poor Bella had to deal with his pasty ass.”

  “Could be because, I don’t know, he was dead.” Sophie looks behind her and waves. “He brought food. Yes!” She glances back at Alex with a scowl. “You left him with the food.” She reaches out and smacks Alex on the arm. “He’s going to eat it!”

  Zach stops beside Sophie and makes his way down until he’s sitting. Sophie looks at the tray of food in his arms, reaching for a paper plate with two tacos on it. “These come with three.” Zach smiles and winks at her. “Stop eating my food!”

  All the plates are holding two tacos, except for Zach’s plate, which has three. Bastard took one from each. I grab a plate for me and reach over, stealing two tacos from Zach’s plate. I hand Soph a taco and bite into the other. Zach’s mouth forms an O as he watches me eat one of his tacos.

  “What about me?” Alex asks, smirking. “I only get two?”

  “You left him with the food. That’s your fault.” I take another bite of the taco, stuffing my cheeks until it’s gone. Declan would laugh at me if he witnessed this. He nicknamed me ‘Little Squirrel’ when I was younger because food is my friend and I always have room for more.

  Alex grabs the blueberry smoothie and hands it to me. As I wipe my fingers and stretch my arm out to get it, he pulls his hand back and brings the straw to his mouth. I watch as his lips wrap around it and he takes a sip. A million things pass my mind at that moment but the main one is, ‘he’s drinking my smoothie. The only blueberry one!’ The second is, ‘why does this look hot? He’s just sucking on a straw’.

  “He did not!” Sophie exclaims.

  “Oh, he did,” Zach chuckles.

  I set my plate of tacos down on the towel underneath us and sit up on my knees. I grab the smoothie, our fingers touching. He lets me take the plastic cup from him without a fight. He knew I’d go after the smoothie.

  I hold his eyes as I bring the straw up to my lips. His eyes drop to my mouth when my lips wrap around the straw. He licks his lips and I want to comment on his expression but I’m busy actually watching him watch me.

  I twirl my tongue around the straw before sucking. Everyone knows sucking anything in front of someone will eventually end up looking sexual. Throw in a soft moan and you have that person shifting in their seat.

  Blueberries, milk, and vanilla yogurt flavors blast in my mouth and my eyes flutter closed. Delicious. I’m pretty sure I taste a bit of nutmeg in there too. The soft moan comes naturally.

  My eyes open and find Alex’s eyes on mine. Because it’s Alex and my friends around me, I have the confidence to say, “Remember when you got me to make those noises?”

  Zach chokes on his food. Sophie whistles.

  Who are you right now?!

  I have no idea but the moment Alex put his mouth on my straw, Sassy Emily wanted to come out and play. She’s been locked up for so long. She needs to breathe at some point.

  Alex wipes his palms against his shorts and clears his throat. He never once looks away from me. I really wish he would because I’m starting to feel stupid for saying that. I recently told him that I didn’t know if I was ready for sex and here I go, saying stuff like that. It’s confusing. I want him so bad but I’m scared of the rejection. What if he still doesn’t want to touch me? Touching me makes him think of what happened. I want him to forget it ever happened just like I do every day.

  “Don’t mess with my food.” I sit back down, the self-conscious Emily making her way back. She’s no fun but I love her. She’s who I am.

  “Well, that was unexpected but so hot! Soph, what have you done to poor, sweet Em?” Zach nods an approval of this change before focusing all his attention back on his bitten taco. I turn my head to the right and make an unattractive face at him. Sophie flips him the finger and winks at me.

  When I look straight again, Alex’s eyes are traveling up and down my neck. I immediately grab my neck and panic. There could be a bug on me or something! “What?!”

  “When did you get a tattoo?” he asks, surprised.

  I shrug and grab my plate of tacos. “A few months ago.”

  Alex takes a bite of his taco then wipes his mouth. “I thought you never wanted tattoos.” He would be the person to bring that up because he’s the only one I ever said that too.

  At some point in my life, I didn’t like tattoos. It wasn’t the art itself that I didn’t like but rather the thought of getting it inked onto my skin permanently. I always change my mind so thinking of getting one thing and hating it later on in life because it’s not something else would be a big clusterfuck of having to add to it or cover it up. I wanted simple. I wanted my body nowhere near pain.

  That changed the moment all I felt was pain.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not the same girl I was back then.” Don’t even think about it! I don’t want to
ruin this day with my shit mood that will appear so I add, “I love it. I’m thinking of getting more in the future.”

  “She’s crazy. I saw how much pain she was in and she still wants more!” Soph crinkles her nose, shaking her head. “It’s because Landon is hot.”

  I laugh because she said that with so much conviction, you’d think it’s the reason why. Landon is my tattoo guy. He also teaches me some self-defense moves when I’m up for it. I met him while I was working for Charlie, and kind of kept seeing him everywhere so I got to know more about him. He was one of the first people I became comfortable with here in Florida. Soph met him and his girlfriend when she visited one day.

  Sophie looks at Alex but he’s busy looking down at his smoothie.

  “Relax. Landon is taken. We all know Em only has eyes for you.”

  Bitch! I glare at her but she gives me a creepy smile.

  I steal her last taco.

  “You bitch!”

  I laugh after I take a big bite.

  This is why we’re friends.

  ***

  We ditch the restaurant plan hours later when everyone complains about being full from all the food we’ve consumed. We walked around, found some food trucks and ordered from there. Looking at food right now, I want to puke. I had no control on trying everything I wanted.

  “I wish you had your car,” I groan to Alex as we stop at the bus stop to take us back to campus. Just thinking about his car has me wishing he could have brought it out here. First year students living on campus can’t have cars so there’s nothing we can do about it but the thought is out there.

  “What about me? My Honda wasn’t good enough for you?” Zach asks over Soph’s shoulder. He’s holding her against him and for the first time in years, Soph is quiet. She ate just as much as me but I notice a sadness in her eyes as she glances my way. It’s the same sadness I witnessed when we spotted the hairy guy with his daughter.

  Damn, I thought we’d talk about this back at the dorms. Alone.

  “I love your Civic,” I respond. “I couldn’t care less whose car we have right now. I just want to be in my bed.” I step toward Soph and give her a look asking if she’s okay. She nods and smiles but it doesn’t do the job for me. I know my bestie. I know when she’s hurting. “Hey.” I hold her green eyes. “You’ll be okay. You can Skype them when we get back. I’ll go somewhere for a bit so you have privacy.”

  Alex steps to my side as Zach steps around Soph and eyes her with a worried look. He didn’t catch it because she’s been saying sexual things all day, deflecting the real problem. She misses her family. Coming to the beach was their thing.

  “I thought I could come here and have fun.” Sophie looks down at the ground and shrugs. “I did enjoy today but...I miss them. I’ve only ever been away from my family for three days when we went on that Washington DC trip in eighth grade.”

  I push Zach out of the way because he had Sophie all day. It’s best friend time.

  When I pull her into my arms, she latches onto me and hugs me tight. I don’t even care if I feel uncomfortable. When your best friend needs a hug, you fucking hug her.

  “How could you do it for five months? How can you still do it?” she asks me.

  “It was so hard, Soph.” I pull back and find tears running down her cheeks. I wipe them away as my eyes water. Soph can’t cry because then I cry. I declare a new ‘no crying’ rule while we’re in college. I’ll tell her about this later. “I cried myself to sleep for days. I didn’t want to leave but I had to.” She lets more tears fall, not caring that we have a group of people beside us, waiting to get on the bus. “I kept telling myself that everyone would be okay.” It’s what got me through the night.

  She squeezes my arms and sniffles. “But we weren’t.”

  I try to speak but no words come out.

  I know they were hurt that I left without saying goodbye. I know they hated me because I hated myself for it. But it was worth it. Moving here on my own made me understand that I can do this. Live my life. I’m not a child anymore. All my decisions are my own and if I make a mistake, I’ll have to do better next time. It’s a part of life. You need to grow up someday.

  I take a deep breath and smile at my best friend. She needs to see that I mean this from the bottom of my heart.

  “Soph, sometimes you have to focus on yourself. No one else.”

  It’ll be hard but it’s what needs to be done. If you depend on somebody to the point of not being able to think for yourself, you need to change something up. You need to be your own person and do you.

  She blinks and a smile breaks through a second later. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I see that her smile is real. “You’re right. I’m going to be nineteen in two weeks. It’s time I stop being a baby.” She adjusts her purse on her shoulder and wipes away any remaining tears. “My parents will be fine. They wanted me to explore. Well, I’m exploring.”

  “Attagirl!”

  Zach brings her back into his arms and whispers something to her. I turn and give them privacy, eyeing Alex. He’s looking at me like I’m the sun during a very dark time.

  I look away. I’m still not used to this--Alex being here, around me. I need a few more days of pinching myself so it finally settles in.

  I need to come to terms that Alex is really here.

  For me.

  For...us?

  “I’m finally ready!” Sophie announces when the bus pulls up to the corner.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Tattoos!”

  I don’t think it’s possible to love this girl anymore than I already do.

  My bed can wait. Sophie is finally going to get tatted. We can not pass this up.

  Chapter 13

  Today is the first day of classes but I can’t concentrate on that while staring at the redhead smiling back at me. Sophie and I got matching tattoos on our collarbone over the weekend. It’s nothing huge, just three tiny stars, each floating above the other. Sophie wanted something small and cute. It was either the stars or a cute, fat unicorn. I’m dead serious. The unicorn almost won until the tattoo artist said it’d hurt more. It needed more detail and all that. After the tattoos, Sophie wanted to get a small change to commit to growing up. She went red.

  “Is it too red?” Sophie asks, glancing at the mirror for the hundredth time this morning.

  “Soph.” She glances back at me. “You look stunning. Like...I can’t believe it’s you.” Her brows furrow, confused. “That’s a good thing!” I add. Going from blonde to red overnight needed some adjusting. Mostly for me. All my life, my best friend was a blonde. She looks even hotter now. Zach agrees.

  I got some dark blue ombré done to my hair but I still look the same. I need slow physical changes. I can’t have it all happen at once. Soph wanted me to go light blue. That would just make my eyes pop even more. I’m good, thanks.

  “Okay.” Sophie drops her hands to her hips and exhales. “I’m ready. My chem class starts in forty minutes.” Her eyes roam back to the mirror and I spot the doubt still lingering in her eyes.

  I grab her arm and pull her towards the door.

  “If you keep looking at yourself, I’m going to shave your head while you sleep.” I throw in a big smile for extra affect. “Don’t test me.”

  Sophie pouts her lips. I see the corners kick up as she tries to hold back her smile. I win.

  “My music class starts in thirty. Walk faster.”

  We head out the door, glancing at our roomies door, expecting someone to pop out. We have yet to meet our roommates and if by today, we don’t see them, we’re breaking into their room to find out why. We’re going to be living so close. We need to at least know something about them. We only know their names are Beth and Jenn. Soph wants to make sure they’re friendly.

  Sophie and I stop at the elevators. Zach and Alex are already here, leaning against the wall, waiting for us.

  “Emily, who is this exotic looking beauty standing beside you?” Zach a
sks, grinning at Sophie, love pouring out of him.

  “I don’t have time for your role playing. Move!” I shove them into the elevator and hit the lobby button repeatedly. You can say I’m over excited. I’m finally going to do something I love. I’ve waited all life for this opportunity.

  Double majoring in Music Education and Music Therapy will be a challenge while I adjust to college life but I can do this. I believe in myself. I want to help people through music some day. My therapist encourages me to pursue this because music helps me. It’s slowly bringing me back to life. Every time I play now, I feel some part of me that I thought I lost, light up. It vibrates and shakes underneath my skin, wanting out.

  “When do you have a break in-between classes?” Alex asks me, standing to my side. Zach and Sophie are watching us like we are going to do something unexpected any second; hold hands, kiss, attack each other–either sexually or violently. It makes me smile.

  I turn my head to the left and catch Alex’s eyes. “I’m free at twelve-fifty. My next class won’t be until two. You?”

  “I’m free after one. I’ll wait for you at Whitten then? Grab lunch? If you want.”

  My smile widens and I nod. “I’d like that.” I’d like that a lot.

  The elevator doors open and we step out.

  “You’re smiling like he just played you a song,” Zach whispers beside me, throwing his arm around my shoulder. He doesn’t squeeze me too tight. It feels like one of Declan’s side hugs. Safe and secure. “Young love. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  I pinch his side and keep my eyes forward, walking faster than the three snails behind me. We’re going to different buildings across campus so we can’t walk to classes together. We’re splitting up in a few minutes. Might as well I get away now because my blushing cheeks are going to give me away. I’ve come to terms that I like Alex being here. I can’t really kick him out. I’m stuck with him for the rest of the year but why not make the best of it, right? We had history. We’re back in the same city together. We can be friendly.