by Avery Flynn
His fingers dove into her hair, tugging her more firmly against him. She went without protest, reveling in the feel of him pinning her against the tree. When their mouths met this time, it wasn’t a tease at all. It was fire. Or she became the fire. She was never sure which, nor was she ever in a sane enough state to think too hard about it when he kissed her like that.
It was just the feel of him, the taste of him, the euphoric temptation of their bodies close together. She wanted more.
Based on the feel of him hard against her thigh, she’d guess he wanted more, too.
“Damn,” he growled, pulling back from the embrace. “This is why you’re too special.”
He caught her hand and kept walking. “I like it when we kiss,” she said.
A small growl came from his throat. “I do, too. That’s the problem.”
Catching his wrist, she dug in her heels to stop them again. “That’s not the definition of a problem. That’s wonderful.” She touched his chest with one hand. “I can feel how hard your heart is beating. Like mine. That’s perfect. Here, see?”
She placed his hand over her breast, so he could feel how hard her heart was beating, and that hungry look took over his expression again. “Don’t. This isn’t a good idea.”
“Why? Give me one reason why what we feel isn’t a good idea.” Even as he suggested it wasn’t a good idea, his palm squeezed against her breast, sending the most delightful tingles through her body.
“What would Jay say?” Ollie asked, tugging her into a hug. “Our parents? Right now, we’re too young. But in a few years…”
Her smile stretched her face and she bit down on his collarbone. “Personally, I don’t care what anyone says or thinks. I only need you.” Dropping a kiss to his neck, she whispered, “What were you going to say about in a few years? Planning our future?”
He kissed her again, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. As if she were his breath and he held it any time their mouths were separated, gasping for more when they finally made contact. On tiptoes, she wished she could get closer. Wished for more.
Kisses weren’t enough. Not nearly enough.
But he broke away from her again, burying his face in her hair. “We could do anything, my Maisie. Be anything someday. But whenever I think of my future, the one thing I never want to change is you.”
Her heart soared, beating in time with his. This could work, this crazy love she had for him. They’d grow up, be together forever. Her and Ollie—together they could do anything.
4
Present
Maisie watched as he strode across the summer-green lawn filled with some of the more prominent members of their small town. Cameras flashed, people smiled and clapped Ollie on the shoulder or dragged him into brief but awkward hugs, yet he remained blank faced. He reminded her of some knight returning after a long war—a hero, sure, but a damaged one. It was as if the very weight of their joy and expectation took a toll on him, battering at the defenses he’d created to protect himself from feeling.
She wasn’t sure if anyone else saw him in that way. To them, he was a sport’s figure, not a regular man. It was as if they thought him beyond simple emotions like anxiety, fear, pain, and even love—he was almost a god amongst their drab, everyday ordinariness.
But, to her, he was her Ollie. He’d always been hers.
When they were kids, he was her brother’s best friend, therefore a bigger than life figure. The two boys were inseparable, always doing something mildly dangerous and exciting—climbing higher in trees than was safe, riding their bikes with no hands, jumping off bridges into creeks of questionable depth. Their scrapes and bruises badges of honor, while she just saw them as painful marks of stupidity. But the crazier they were, the more she built them up in her head. She tried to keep up with them, but a bike with a banana seat and streamers just wasn’t cut out for keeping up with the trick bikes they preferred.
When they’d graduated to roller blades, she didn’t have a shot in hell of keeping up. As if he had a unique ability to see her when her brother, Jay, was able to ignore her presence, Ollie would slow down sometimes. Skate in circles around her as she pedaled so hard that her face would flush and sweat would pool down her spine.
When she’d practiced kissing on the back of her hand, it was always Ollie’s face she’d imagine. As she got older, she wanted Ollie to take her to prom, even if she recognized that he’d never in a million years ask her.
But one night, when he’d stayed overnight at their house, she’d snuck out to where her Jay was crashed on the couch and sat next to Ollie on the carpet. Ollie wasn’t asleep, so they’d got to talking about the lame horror movie he was watching.
For once, she hadn’t overthought her every action, and she’d rested her head on his knee. When one particularly scary part flashed across the screen and she cringed, he’d stroked her hair.
That was the moment she’d decided they’d be together forever.
Now he was shaking the mayor’s hand, posing for a picture, but he met her eyes across the grassy lawn spread in front of the gazebo. They were connected, on some soul deep, profound level, and even he couldn’t deny it.
Not that it ever seemed to stop him from trying.
He’d been her first kiss. Under the stars, just like in a book. She remembered it like it was yesterday, even though it had been in the time she considered Before. As in, Before Things Changed. Back then, she’d just been a girl with a crush on her older brother’s best friend and he’d just been the kid who stayed with his grandparents a lot because his parents worked in The City—even then, she’d understood that wherever that was, it was important.
After dinner one night, they’d all been playing a childish game of hide and seek, and he’d found her. She’d tried to make a run for home, but he’d tackled her. When they’d stopped laughing, their eyes were locked. As if some magnetic pull drew them together, they kissed…
From there, it’d seemed like he’d go on to be more firsts. Her first time. Her first true love.
Life had other plans. Even she, rather widely regarded as an optimist, had a hard time finding anything good about the day the towers fell.
That was the end of Before and the beginning of everything After. Ollie seemed to shut down when his parents never came home from work that week. She knew his grandmother was great and all, but she dealt with her grief in her way and it didn’t really include a lot of room for Ollie. He’d had a home, but spent more time at their house than his own.
Even though he was suddenly closer in proximity, it seemed Ollie was miles away. Everything in him that had been light and daring died when he lost both his parents. What was left was a rabid determination—
To get the hell out of their town as if by leaving it all behind, he’d leave behind his feelings, too.
Their eyes met again and she gave him a bright smile and a little finger wave which he ignored. In retaliation to him creating walls between them, she’d tried her hardest to be upbeat, happy, and everything he wasn’t. She hoped her smiles would tease free answering grins from him, but usually they didn’t.
Every so often, though, when she was least expecting it, he’d kiss her. And she took those moments as hope. He was still in there somewhere. Alone.
She could fix it, she just knew it. If he would just give her a chance, she’d hug him so damn hard, all the broken bits would fit back together. Until then, she had the Silver Wonder and two fistfuls of hope. It would have to be enough.
Hardening her resolve, she picked up Silver Wonder. He wanted her to leave it in the truck, but she had other plans. From her purse, she pulled out the bottle of grape juice she’d brought just for this occasion. She’d considered bringing champagne, but nixed the idea since she wasn’t sure if kids would want to drink out of the cup, too. Grape juice seemed the best alternative. Carrying both to the mayor, she tapped her shoulder until the woman turned to face her. “Hello, look what I made.”
She practically shoved
Silver Wonder into the older woman’s arms. “Uh, what is it?” asked the mayor politely.
“It is a life-size replica of the Cup,” Maisie explained, thinking it was pretty self-evident.
“Yes, I thought we could get some pictures of Ollie with it and maybe drinking out of it?” Opening the bottle of grape juice, she poured some in the cup. “Give it a shot.”
She meant to tip the cup just slightly so that the mayor could sip from the Silver Wonder, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, she poured grape juice all over the startled looking mayor’s lovely white blouse.
The woman startled, apparently not expecting it to go that way anymore than Maisie had. She threw the Cup with more enthusiasm than Maisie thought necessary under the circumstances, but it was rather light—since it was all plastic. Grape juice sprayed those nearby and the cup itself bounced off the head of Reuben Detwiler, local Vietnam vet and war hero.
Ollie turned slowly from his conversation with a girl who graduated with Maisie and one of his brows raised very slowly. He looked from the juice splattered mayor to the sputtering vet and then his eyes settled on Maisie, honing in on the source of the chaos with all the intensity and accuracy of a heat seeking missile.
Maisie swallowed hard before recapping the bottle of grape juice. At this rate, he’d never realize she was the answer to all his problems.
The conversation with a woman he didn’t recognize wasn’t going well to begin with. The dismayed shouts provided a welcome distraction, at least until he realized Maisie stood at the center of the chaos. As usual, he thought.
People were splattered with red, and for a moment, ice skated down his spine. Then he realized Maisie held a plastic bottle and her creation was on the ground nearby. Not blood, juice. “What happened?” he asked no one in particular.
“Oh, you didn’t see it? I got it on video,” a man nearby helpfully stated. Shoving his phone in Ollie’s face, he got to watch Maisie pour what looked like grape juice all over the mayor before the woman flung the plastic Cup away and sprayed others with the offending beverage. Glancing up at the aftermath, he shook his head. Nothing was ever boring when Maisie was around, even if the reasons often weren’t in her favor. Right that second, she was looking ashamed and trying to explain. The mayor, always a genuine woman beyond her politics, seemed to be trying to comfort Maisie, even though she’d been at the epicenter of the minor disaster. But one man was red faced, clearly giving Maisie an earful.
Ignoring the pictures being snapped of him and the people trying to get a moment of his time, he cut through the crowd separating him from her side and overheard the man exclaim, “And if it wasn’t for your half assed ideas and liberal leanings…”
“That’s about enough, buddy.”
Ollie hadn’t recognized him from behind, but as the man spun to face him, he realized it was Johnny Rhodes. They’d gone to school together, and he’d always leered at Maisie in a way that pissed off Ollie. Perhaps the root of his anger wasn’t in the juice situation, but rather in the fact she’d always turned him down flat.
“Stay out of this, Tremblay. It doesn’t have a thing to do with you.” Johnny practically spat the words, puffing his chest like the overstuffed, hothead he was.
“I saw what happened,” he answered. “It was an accident. Let it go.”
Johnny sputtered. “An accident? How is it an accident when she pours juice all over everyone? Like I said, this doesn’t have anything to do with you. Go back to your celebration and leave me to deal with this train wreck. Besides, everyone knows you ditched her years ago. She’s garbage, left—”
Johnny didn’t have a chance to say more, as he found himself on his back, clutching his nose. Ollie’s fist throbbed in immediate pain, but it didn’t matter. Nobody talked about Maisie like that. Nobody.
“C’mon, Maisie. We’re leaving,” he said. Reaching out his hand, he took her slightly sticky and wet palm into his own and began weaving his way free of the crowd. They pushed closer, trying to snap pictures and ask him questions, but he ignored them.
Until a mic was shoved in his face. “What just happened, Oily Ollie? We saw you throw a punch. What’d that guy say? Who is your lady friend?”
The reporter in question had a local news station sticker on the mic, but Ollie didn’t have time to discuss it. He’d get hell from the team, probably, for starting shit. Whatever. He knew for a fact that Archer got into more shit than one little thrown punch. It’d hardly cause a ripple of bad press, comparatively.
None of it mattered as much as Maisie. Once he had her closed into his truck again, he went to his side of the vehicle and climbed in. She was sitting there, quiet for once, her hands folded together and her body a little hunched. As if she was trying to hide, right there in plain sight.
With a sigh, he popped the truck into gear and pulled out of the parking spot. “Where did you say your car broke down again?” he asked her.
5
September 12th, 2001
Ollie lay on his back, considering the strangely clear heavens above him. It looked so blue and pure up there, not even dotted with a cloud. Just a giant azure bowl of emptiness. The sky was completely unbroken by even a single white trail from a plane, while he lay shattered, weighed down by all of it. The world as he knew it ended at school yesterday, and nothing anyone said seemed to change that.
Not that anyone was even talking to him, not really.
People—neighbors and friends of the family—kept stopping by the house. They had at least a half dozen casseroles in the freezer—hell, Grandma wouldn’t have to cook for a month at this rate. None of the visitors spoke to him, but their eyes were full of unspoken needs. They needed to see he was okay, but he wasn’t, and he couldn’t pretend. They needed to see his grief, so that they could let go, but he couldn’t bring himself to show them anything he was feeling. Mostly because he couldn’t feel anything past the crushing weight of Nothing.
His grandparents let him stay home from school, but he wasn’t sure allowed was the right word. Didn’t notice he didn’t go? That was closer to the truth.
Grandpa kept holding his chest, as if his physical heart was breaking.
Grandma hadn’t stopped sipping her after dinner constitutional drink, not since yesterday morning. She kept mumbling something about how they were searching hard and she was sure they’d find survivors. Then she’d pour another drink. He’d never seen her drink like that before. Neither of them said much to him, but Grandpa gripped his shoulder hard and looked him right in the eye last night before he’d gone up to bed.
That was the moment he stopped hoping.
That was when he knew his parents wouldn’t be coming home from work for the weekend. Not this week. Not ever again.
It was funny, really. The birds didn’t seem to know the world ended. They sang from the treetops like today wasn’t any different from yesterday, or the day before that, or even a week ago. They kept chirping, but he had no words.
He had nothing.
Literally, nothing. No sobbing tears, like he thought he was supposed to cry. No sadness. He was sure he should at least feel that. But it seemed nothing could penetrate the weight of the sky, not even anger. He’d tried to get angry, just to see if he could feel something, but even that abandoned him to the crushing, unending, ever present heaviness of the sky. He was trapped in the blue bowl and there was no escape, no sense, no reason for it. One second, he was himself, the next… the bowl snapped into place, as sure and complete as if it was a tangible thing, separating him from everything he thought he knew.
A rustle in the brush caught his attention, but he didn’t bother turning his head. What worse thing could happen, compared to what already had? Things happened without reason, people didn’t have explanations, and no one could seem to grasp and face the truth he’d accepted already.
The world was over. There was nothing left.
A hand gripped his ankle, but he still didn’t look up. He didn’t move.
�
��Hey,” Maisie whispered. She crawled alongside him, wrapping him in a hug he couldn’t find the energy to return. Instead of being taken aback by his lack of response, she lay her head on his shoulder.
“Guess you don’t feel like talking, huh?” she whispered.
Again, he didn’t answer her. He focused on breathing and watching the sky for some proof of life. Some evidence that there was more left besides death and emptiness.
“That’s okay. I always do enough talking for both of us. I heard about what happened and—”
He rolled away from her, leaving her alone on the grass. Once he’d adjusted himself to face the sky again, he just breathed. In and out. In and out.
The air tasted like nothing. Not sweet, not like ash, just… like nothing.
Maisie joined him again, repositioning herself in the awkward hug he didn’t return. Her breathing matched his. In and out. In and out. But the sweetness of her scent gave it some little flavor. And he could feel the brush of her hair on his chin and neck, like tiny fingers stroking him and offering comfort he couldn’t bring himself to accept.
After a long while of breathing and looking at the weight of the sky, she spoke again. “Did you ever notice that the curve of your shoulder is just right for my head? Like we’re puzzle pieces, and we just fit together? I noticed. This is my spot. No matter what else happens, this is my spot.” Her voice broke a little on the last bit, and he reached one hand up to hold her there. Digging his nails into her hair to keep her there, with him. By his side.
In her spot.
She wasn’t wrong. She was still there, still fit him so damn well. She was the embodiment of life and joy and completion, and all he had to do was reach out and hold her. Dragging his lips across her forehead, he rained kisses on her lovely flesh. “My Maisie,” he managed. It was funny, but he realized it was the first thing he’d said since yesterday morning. Since he watched his world end in fire and death.
