Scattered Colors

by Jessica Prince

  “Hi, I’m Freya.” I extended my hand for her to shake. She stared down at it like it was carrying some sort of flesh-eating disease.

  “Cassidy,” she responded curtly.

  It seemed pointless, but I continued trying to kill her with kindness nonetheless. “You’re the captain of the Sassettes, right?” I tried hard not to choke on that god-awful name. She just stood there scowling at me, like I was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe before turning back to Parker.

  “Are you coming over tonight, Park?” Her fingers reached out and began running through his thick hair before he jerked away from her. “My parents are still out of town. We have the house to ourselves all night, baby.”

  There was no misunderstanding what she was getting at, and the bottom fell out of my stomach as I studied the glob of food on the plate in front of me. Parker turned around and glared at her with such intensity that, if it had been me on the receiving end of that look, I’d have run back to my table. “I’m not coming over tonight or any other night, Cass. We’re done. You need to get that through your damn head.”

  Cassidy’s flirty demeanor disappeared completely, replaced by what I could only guess was white-hot rage. “That hasn’t stopped you from jumping in my bed every other day, has it? What? Is your new little toy already giving it up to you?” Before I had the chance to formulate a response to her insult, she spun to me and leaned in. “Wow, I have to hand it to you. You spread your legs a lot faster than anyone I know. Don’t think putting out so fast will actually make him stick around.”

  Parker was on his feet in a heartbeat. “Watch your fucking mouth, Cassidy,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  “Obviously, he’s enjoying his little white-trash romp,” Brynn laughed callously. “He’ll come back just like he always does, Cass. Don’t worry.”

  Parker was still staring Cassidy down as she stepped up to him and placed a hand on his arm. It was a simple gesture, but the familiarity in that touch caused a pang of jealousy to shoot through me. It was a ridiculous reaction, but I wanted to smack her hand away, like she had no business touching what was mine. But Parker Owens wasn’t mine. Everything she’d just said had made that abundantly clear.

  To my relief, Parker pulled his arm away from Cassidy’s touch and glared at her. At his rebuff, her back straightened and her chin lifted in the air. Obviously Cassidy was the kind of girl who was used to getting what she wanted and, judging by the scowl on her face, she wasn’t happy with his reaction.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” she demanded. “We’re your friends, not these losers. Or have your forgotten that?”

  “I’d call you a lot of things, Cassidy, but trust me, friend is not one of them. Right now, bitch is at the top of the list, just in case you were wondering.”

  Her face reddened with anger and I was afraid her head was going to explode as she narrowed her eyes. “So, what? You’re choosing them over us?” She asked the question as if she couldn’t possibly fathom him picking anyone over her and her crew of spray-tanned Barbie dolls.

  “You’ve made the choice pretty damn easy.”

  “You’re an asshole,” she seethed.

  “And you’re barely tolerable when your mouth’s shut. I’m tired of your shit, Cass. I’m through with you and the rest of your followers.” He turned his back on her and reclaimed his seat, digging back into his meal like he hadn’t just engaged in a showdown with the high school’s Queen Bee.

  As Cassidy and her crew walked away, each one of them shot me looks filled with so much hate that I could almost feel each gaze cut into me. If there hadn’t been a target on my back before, thanks to Parker’s little standoff, there was definitely one there now. Cassidy’s face said it all. She blamed me for Parker’s dismissal of her and the rest of his friends.

  I stood from the table and picked up my bag, but before I had a chance to take a step Parker grabbed my elbow, stopping me. “Where are you going?” His voice echoed the concern that was shining through his eyes when my gaze met his.

  “I have to go.” I tried to pull my arm away only to have him hold tighter.

  “Don’t let them get to you, Freya. You can’t listen to them.”

  With one hard jerk, I managed to disengage from his hold. The moment I was free I took a step away from him, trying my hardest to ignore the flash of pain that flitted across Parker’s face. “Your girlfriend just stood here and basically called me a whore in front of the entire school. Excuse me for not wanting to stick around and bask in the humiliation.”

  I turned around and started for the doors when Parker called out my name. I had to close my eyes at the sound of anguish in his voice. As soon as I cleared the doors, a hand tugged at my arm and I yanked away, thinking it was Parker chasing after me. I spun around for another confrontation only to find Stella standing there with an understanding smile on her face. “I know a great little diner that serves up a pretty mean sandwich. What do you say we take the rest of our lunch break off-campus?”

  I let out a sigh of relief as I smiled down at my friend. “I’d say you’re a genius.”

  “About time you figured that out.”

  Two days. Two damn days had passed since Cassidy and her crew of evil minions had spewed their hate and bullshit at Freya. Two days had passed where Freya made every effort to avoid me. I’d tried desperately to get her attention in class, but the girl was a pro at acting like I didn’t exist. It was driving me out of my mind. I wanted to wring Cassidy’s neck for everything she’d said, but more than that, I wanted to kick my own ass for having let the charade with her last as long as it had. It was my own fault.

  After the second day, I decided I’d had enough of her radio silence. I wanted to go to Freya the moment school let out that afternoon, but when I got home, Mom seemed to be worse off than she had been in a while. From what I could tell, she hadn’t even bothered to get out of bed all day.

  When I walked through the door I could hear her crying from her and my dad’s bedroom and, of course, my old man was nowhere to be found. Not that him being home would have done a damn bit of good. My father couldn’t be bothered to sit by and support his wife when she needed him the most. He was a selfish bastard who couldn’t take the time from his extracurricular activities long enough to help his wife when she was struggling. For the past three years, it had fallen on me to be in charge of her well-being. Part of me wished the son of a bitch would just take off and leave us in peace, but the other part knew just how bad things would get if he were to finally wash his hands of us. My mother wouldn’t be able to handle it. My life was stuck firmly between a rock and a hard place.

  I managed to get my mom to eat a sandwich and gave her a sleeping pill, staying with her until I knew she was out for the night. Once I had no doubt she wouldn’t wake up until the morning I made my way down to the beach, hoping Freya would be there and she’d actually give me the chance to explain.

  The sun was slowly falling from the sky, and just like almost every evening since moving to Sommerspoint, I sat out on the beach behind my house and watched as it began fading away, pulling darkness in its wake as it disappeared for another night. And just like all the other nights, the pressure in my chest felt just a little bit lighter as I watched the colors bleed from light to dark. It was in those moments that I could feel my mother, like she was close to me. With each sunset, I felt like I was getting a piece of myself back; pieces I had lost the day I lost her. As long as I had the sunsets, I felt like I still had her, and that brought me comfort.

  I tried not to think about the scene in the cafeteria. I didn’t want it to affect the serenity of the moment, but avoiding Parker the past two days had proved to be more difficult than I’d imagined.

  The last of the yellows and oranges had morphed into deep blues and purples when I felt his presence behind me. It shouldn’t have been possible for me to be so in-tuned to a person I hardly knew, but that was the thing with Parker; he seemed to defy all logic
and explanation. I tugged the blanket around my shoulders tighter as I turned from my perch on the log to see him walking toward me. His face was a mask of determination and uncertainty. The combination shouldn’t work, but for some reason the look on his face endeared me to him and any fight I might have felt quickly disappeared.

  “We’re supposed to be friends, aren’t we?” he started as he took a seat next to me. I was so taken aback by his words that I was unable to formulate a response. I didn’t know what I expected him to say, but that certainly hadn’t been it.

  “Uhh…”

  “And friends aren’t supposed to avoid each other the way you’ve been avoiding me. That’s not very nice, now is it?” I heard the teasing lilt of his voice, but his deep eyes couldn’t completely hide the seriousness of his statement.

  I lifted my chin in the air as my eyelids lowered into slits, the need to defend myself at the forefront of my mind. “Yeah, well, being the target of your girlfriend’s rage isn’t really what I’d call fun. I just need a little time. I hate being in the spotlight and being your friend kind of puts me front and center.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend!” Parker insisted vehemently.

  “Whatever she is, I’ve got a target on my back just because I know you. I didn’t set out for this, Parker. I didn’t want this, I told you that.”

  “So, what, you’re just giving up? You’re going to let them bully you into not being friends with me?”

  I hated the defeated tone of his voice. Until that very second, I hadn’t realized just how much my friendship seemed to mean to Parker. I just thought it was some sort of game to him because I’d pushed him away at first. I was quickly realizing how wrong my initial assumption was.

  A heavy sigh pushed past my lips as I ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Parker. My life is so messed-up right now.”

  We both remained silent as we stared out at the inky black water ahead of us, the moon casting bright white rays across the rippling expanse.

  “I know a little something about messed up lives,” Parker said softly into the night. “My life hasn’t exactly been easy either, so I can understand where you’re coming from.”

  My head turned and I studied his profile, the moon casting just enough light for me to make out the tightness of his features. “You do?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve also realized something since I met you.” He finally looked at me as he continued. “I know it sounds crazy, but since meeting you I’ve felt, I don’t know…better, I guess. We might not know each other all that well, but I already know enough to tell me I really like you, Freya. You’re a girl who loves sunsets, you hate attention to an extreme, but you still have a toughness about you. I’ve seen that firsthand every time you’ve put me in my place.” A smile spread across his lips and I felt the corners of my own tipping up in response. “I know you’re sad for some reason, but I’ve seen first-hand how your eyes have gotten just a little bit brighter each day.”

  There was that perceptiveness again. I couldn’t understand how a boy his age was able to see so much. I could only assume that whatever he was struggling with in his own life had made him more sensitive to other people’s pain. That knowledge alone began to bang at the walls I kept around myself.

  “I like sitting here watching the sunsets with you. It’s times like this that I don’t feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless conversation. I can just sit here quietly and feel at peace…with you. I like how I feel around you,” he said, causing my heart to squeeze tightly in my chest. I didn’t speak the words out loud, but I liked how I felt around him, too. “I don’t want to lose that because of some petty high school bullshit that won’t mean much of anything in a few years’ time.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I had no doubt that as I got older I’d look back on my last year of high school and realize it didn’t mean much of anything in the big picture of life.

  “You’re right,” I finally spoke. The moment the words passed my lips the grin on Parker’s face grew into something almost blindingly beautiful. When he smiled like that, I realized just how handsome he truly was. And having that look directed at me stole the breath from my lungs.

  “So, you’ll give this friendship a fair shot? You won’t give up?”

  I laughed at his excitement as I answered. “I won’t give up.”

  The smile quickly disappeared from his face, an acute seriousness taking its place. “Promise.” It wasn’t a question. I got the distinct feeling he needed our friendship even more than I did, and I was quickly discovering I wanted to give him that peace of mind.

  “I promise, Parker.”

  In the evenings that passed over the following weeks, watching the sunset together became our thing. Every day, I’d make the short trek down to the beach and every day, Parker would join me. Sometimes he’d already be there, resting on what I was starting to think of as ‘our log’ as I stepped off the trail onto the rocky sand, and some days he wouldn’t show until it was almost over. But no matter what, he was always there with me as the last rays of daylight kissed at the sky. I found myself growing more and more anxious for that time of the day, knowing it wasn’t just because of the closeness I felt to my mother’s spirit, but also because those moments were becoming special between Parker and me.

  Some evenings, we’d talk and laugh together while other days, neither of us spoke. I was quickly learning the differences in Parker’s moods as the days passed. He always seemed the same at school, but on occasion something would happen between the time the final bell rang and the moment we’d meet on the beach. On the days that silence remained between us, I could feel the melancholy seeping off him.

  The more time I spent with him, the greater the need to open up to him became. I felt a sort of kinship with Parker that made keeping all of my sorrow locked away harder and harder. Finally, on a particularly chilly day weeks after we’d started spending our evenings together, I decided it was time. As I headed for the beach, I felt weightless in my decision to tell Parker my story even though I knew talking about my mom out loud would hurt. Maybe by me sharing my story, Parker would be able to let out whatever it was that was plaguing him. Hopefully, in time, we’d be able to help each other heal.

  I inhaled a cleansing breath as I remembered what my mother had said to me that day at the beach. In that moment, with the sun only a thin sliver on the horizon, I wanted nothing more than to share a piece of her with the enigmatic boy who seemed to be developing into a constant figure in my life.

  “You asked me once why I always watched the sunset,” I said as I stared out into the endless sky in front of me.

  I could see Parker was focusing on me out of the corner of my eye. “I remember.”

  “When I was little, my mom taught me that nothing in life is guaranteed. She said sunsets were a gift from God, that there was nothing as beautiful as the different colors He painted the sky with. She didn’t want me to ever get so busy that I forgot to stop and appreciate that gift, because there’s no promise of how many we’ll have in our lifetime.” As I spoke, tears ran down my cheeks. To Parker’s credit, he didn’t draw any attention to them.

  Neither of us spoke for several minutes. Finally, Parker’s deep voice broke through the silence. “How long ago did she die, Freya?” He asked so quietly I almost didn’t hear.

  “A little over four months ago.”

  “Jesus. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  When I looked over at him, the compassion and sincerity shining through his dark eyes cracked something inside of me. If my opinion of him hadn’t been changed in the past weeks we’d spent together, that very moment would have done it. There was no denying he wasn’t the awful person I’d been trying to make him out to be when we first met. Parker truly was a good person.

  “Thank you.”

  “So, is that why you moved here?”

  The cherished memory of my mother faded into the background as the reasons for what brought me
to Sommerspoint pushed forward. I let out a deep sigh. “My dad couldn’t really handle it after Mom died. He was always a workaholic, but it got even worse. I guess he couldn’t deal with being in the same house we’d all lived in together. He came home one day and sprang it on me. Told me to pack my stuff, we were moving. That was it. He’d already put the house on the market. It was done and I hadn’t even known it was happening.”

  “Shit, Freya. That had to have been hard.”

  That was putting it mildly. “You have no idea. I’d already lost my mom, my best friend. It felt like he was taking away everything else. Everything and everyone I loved is back in Chicago and now it’s all gone. He moved me to this little town where I don’t know anybody and buried himself in his work. He’s never home. I miss him, but at the same time, I’m so mad at him for what he’s done. Sometimes I just feel like I’m all alone, you know?”

  Reaching over, he brushed a strand of hair from my face. The gesture was so tender it brought forth another flood of tears. “You don’t have to be alone. You know that, right? You’ve got me and Stella, no matter what. And as for your dad, just give him some time.”

  “I really hope you’re right about that,” I whispered.

  Parker reached up and wiped my tears away with his thumb. “I do, too, sweetheart.”

  Several days passed since my confession to Parker. After that evening, the pain was still there, still strong, but it was nice to have a shoulder to lean on whenever I needed it. Parker had offered up that shoulder without so much as batting an eye.

  I’d gotten home from the beach a while ago and gone about my evening the same as I did every other day, only that night there was something a little different. Even though I’d only left Parker a few short hours before, I was already starting to miss him. It was ridiculous, but the enigmatic boy I’d tried so hard to avoid when I first arrived in Sommerspoint had somehow inundated himself into my life to the point where I wanted him there constantly. I pushed those thoughts away and went about my routine, trying not to overanalyze what was happening between the two of us. I told myself that I just needed to live in the moment.