by Jay McLean
-Joshua-
Her eyes are the color of emeralds.
And that’s pretty much all I remember about her. Even now, after hours have passed, all I can think about are those eyes.
I get through the obstacle course of toys on the floor and answer the knock on the door. Chazarae stands on the other side greeting me with the genuine smile I’ve learned not to confuse with pity.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to apologize to you about the Rebecca—I mean Becca—situation. It was very last minute and very—”
“You don’t need to apologize for anything. It’s your house.”
“No, Josh. It’s our house, and if I’d had more time I would’ve run it by you at least. I don’t want anyone—”
“It’s fine, ma’am. Really. I don’t mind at all.”
“Good,” she says, clearing her throat.
“So she’s staying for a while? Is everything okay? I didn’t even know you had a granddaughter.”
“I do.” She sighed. “She’s just graduated high school in Mississippi and she’ll be here—well, it’s a long, complicated story. One that I wish to stay between Becca and I. Okay?”
“Sure,” I tell her, though I don’t really know what I’m agreeing to. “She’s not, like, in trouble or anything is she?”
“Define trouble?” she mumbles, but it’s more to her than me so I leave it alone.
She turns to leave but before she does, I ask, “Is there anything I can do to make her feel more welcome or something? Anything?”
She sighs again, long and slow. “I think it’s best if you just leave her alone.”
2
-Becca-
intrigue
verb
ɪnˈtriːɡ/
arouse the curiosity or interest of; fascinate.
I watch from my bedroom window as Joshua shakes hands with the guys who just delivered a mountain of soil and more plants than I can count. He and my grandmother stand side by side, Tommy is between them, as the guys get back in the truck and drive away. As soon as the truck’s gone, Joshua throws his arm around my grandmother’s shoulders and shakes his head.
Whatever he says makes her laugh, or at least I think it does. I don’t actually hear the sound, just see the tilting of her head and her eyes brighten when she turns to him. She reaches up and cups his cheek with one hand, her smile as genuine as the ones she’s been giving me the past two weeks since I’ve moved in.
Josh nods and starts walking toward the garage, his smile matching hers as he looks up. Up. UP. And when his eyes land on mine, his smile drops.
So does my stomach.
Shit!
I close the curtains and turn around, my thumb already between my teeth when I bite down on it.
My heart races and my eyes squeeze shut from the pain of it all.
My gaze, unfocused, settles on my thumb when I pull it out. The imprints of my teeth fade away as the blood slowly recirculates.
A moment later there’s a knock on my door. I get up and answer it. “Is everything okay?” my grandmother asks.
I nod. “Why?” I whisper.
I whisper a lot.
“Josh said he saw you looking outside. We’re working on my garden today. Do you want to join us? Maybe get some fresh air? Some sun?”
With a shake of my head, I close the door in her face.
Of course I feel bad for doing it, but I don’t control my actions—fear does.
I wait a few seconds before going back to the window and parting the curtains, just slightly, and look back down to the driveway. Grams comes out of the house and straight to Josh who seems to be waiting for her. They speak and whatever she says has him looking up. Up. UP. Again. To me.
I repeat the exact same process as last time. I shut the curtains, sit on my bed, bite down on my thumb until the pain numbs me and then I stare at the wallpaper.
I stare at the wallpaper a lot.
I’ve come to love the wallpaper.
Now though, I can’t seem to keep still. Maybe it’s because my heart’s racing, or my legs are shaking, or my fingers are itching to push aside the curtains again.
I groan from deep in my throat and my eyes snap shut at the sound of it. I sound like a monster that hides under beds, watching, waiting. Or like my monsters who don’t bother to hide at all.
Finally, I give in to the urge—to the intrigue—and I look out the window again. Josh and Tommy are both pushing wheelbarrows. One real one. One toy one. That’s all I see before I run back to my bed, afraid he’ll spot me again.
I sit still for a shorter time than the last before I jump up and part my curtains again. Tommy has a bucket now. Josh and my grandmother are speaking to each other while looking at the garden bed between the fence and the driveway. My grandmother points at a few things while Josh stands with his hands on his hips and nods.
That’s enough, I tell myself, and go back to sitting on my bed… to staring at the wallpaper.
Then I repeat the process.
Over and over again I go from my window to the bed until an hour has passed and I’m spending more time looking out the window than I am at my wallpaper.
The wallpaper is stupid.
Tommy’s on a scooter now as Josh wipes his face with the bottom of his shirt—his back to me while Grams inspects what I’m sure, at one stage, was a bright yellow flower.
I decide right away that it’s my favorite of all the flowers.
I sit back on my bed, chew my thumb, just for a few seconds before looking back out. Grams is in her car now, reversing out of the driveway. Tommy’s got the bucket from earlier on his head, and Josh’s in the garden bed, one foot in the soil and the other on a shovel… right underneath my just-declared favorite flower.
His foot presses down and for some reason there’s a sharp ache in my chest. My gaze switches from his foot to the flower, over and over. Time slows and his foot moves and so does the flower as the shovel tilts, separating the plant from its roots and before I know it I’m yelling, “Stop!” Only nothing comes out and I curse myself for not speaking enough. I grab my bag—the one I held on to for dear life on the bus ride here—the one I’ve held on to every day since I got here—the one that holds the only thing left that matters to me—and I run down the stairs, open the front door, and go straight to the flower.
Josh jolts a little—I guess from the shock of my presence. “What are you doing?” I whisper loudly—not intentionally—but because I’m out of breath from racing down here.
He eyes me sideways. “Your grandmother wants all new plants put in. I’m getting rid of the old ones. Why?”
“Can you wait a minute?” I ask, my voice louder, but no more clearer.
With a shrug, he answers, “Sure,” and backs away as if he thinks I’m crazy.
He’s right.
I take a moment and inspect the flower just like I’d seen Grams doing, then I open the bag and feel the cold metal against my fingertips. My hand curls around the leather grip and when I’m sure I have a solid hold, I pull it out—my camera—and bring it straight to my eye, removing the lens cap at the same time. I take one shot, and then another, and another; of a single yellow flower whose life has almost ended.
“Why are you taking a picture of a dead flower when there’s close to a million fresh ones around us?”
“Because.” I replace the lens cap and focus on putting the camera back in its place as I clear my throat. “Some things will always be beautiful, even in the face of death.”
3
-Joshua-
Who’d have thought that windows could be so distracting?
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the window itself but the person behind it. An entire day has passed and I’m still thinking about her. Yesterday, when she’d snuck up beside me, scaring the shit out of me, I turned to her quickly and got trapped again—trapped in her eyes.
Her eyes were the first thing I noticed about her. One of
the only things I could remember, really.
Then she spoke.
And I remembered why it’d taken me so long to shake the thought of her the first time. It was her voice. It wasn’t horrible, but it was deep and raspy. Husky almost. The first time I heard it I remember thinking it was odd—that it didn’t seem like the type of voice that would belong to someone like her. Most pretty girls had annoying high-pitched voices. After she’d spoken yesterday, I’d decided that it was no longer odd. In fact, it was kind of hot.
So was she.
She was also completely fascinating.
Not that it matters.
I look at her window again—catching her watching me for the fifth time this morning. With a sigh, I go back to digging a hole in the dirt while Tommy plays with his cars in the driveway. Chazarae had left for church half an hour ago and had given me strict instructions on where to dig. She left out the part about what to put in them. So, here I am spending a perfectly sunny Sunday digging holes.
An hour passes and the temperature rises. I take a break and sit down on the driveway, staring at the dirt lining the fence. In my head, I count how many holes I’ve dug compared to how many more I need to and just as I go to lean back on my arms and curse the North Carolina sun for being so damn hot, something cold taps against my arm. I face it quickly; it’s a glass of iced water. Becca stands above me, blocking the sun. I look back down at the glass again and take it from her hands. “Thank you,” I say, but I’m talking to her back because she’s already walking away.
I down the entire thing in one go, set the glass down next to me, and a moment later the cold sensation’s on my arm again.
A new glass.
Same Becca.
She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even non-verbally respond as I take it from her. She picks up the used glass and walks over to Tommy with a plastic cup, hands it to him, and walks away.
So I do what anyone with a curious mind would do; I stare at the fence, down the water, and set the glass next to me. And then I wait.
This time, I see her shadow before I see her. Apart from that, she doesn’t make her presence known. She simply replaces the empty glass with a full one and does the same with Tommy’s.
I repeat the process.
So does she.
Tommy laughs.
He thinks it’s a game.
To me—it kind of is.
I drink my third glass of water in two minutes and wait.
After a while, I hear the screen door slam. I turn around to see her sitting on the porch steps, a tray of glasses and two jugs of iced water set down beside her. I face the fence again, trying to hide my smile.
“More!” Tommy shouts.
I turn and see her start to stand. “It’s cool,” I tell her, standing up faster than she can. “I got it.”
She sits back down as I gather our empty cups and walk them over to the tray. I fill them up slowly just so I can prolong her presence. “Fanks,” Tommy says when I hand him back his cup. She watches him and from the corner of my eye, I watch her. When Tommy’s done, he hands her back the cup. She places it on the tray and stands up. I think she’s going to go back inside but she doesn’t. Instead, she walks over to the flower pots at the top of the driveway and for some unknown reason, I follow her.
Squatting down, she inspects each of the plants; the flowers, the leaves, even the stems. Then she looks up at her window, her eyebrows pinched in concentration. She picks up a pot and places it about a third of the way down the driveway, then looks over at me. She holds up her hand as if asking me to wait and I nod in response because her eyes told me to.
A moment later her bedroom curtains open, and I mean open. Not just the tiny gap that I normally see her between. She disappears a second before returning, pointing to the phone in her hand, the same time my pocket vibrates with a text.
Unknown: Can you move the pot back a couple feet?
Joshua: How did you get my number?
Unknown: Grams.
Joshua: Oh.
Unknown: So?
I look from my phone and back up to her and give her a cheesy-as-hell thumbs up before picking up the pot with one hand, the other sending a reply.
Joshua: I’ll walk backward. Just raise your hand when you want me to stop.
After reading my text, she returns my cheesy thumbs up with one of her own and I start taking small steps back until she tells me to stop.
When she comes back out, she silently goes through all the pots and lines up what must be the ones she wants to see from her bedroom window against the fence line. This only takes a few minutes and when she’s done, she turns to me. “I think maybe we should wait for my grandmother to come back. I don’t want them there if she doesn’t. I don’t want to upset her,” she says, her voice knocking all sense out of me.
Again, I agree, because her eyes tell me to.
Becca spends the rest of the time watching me dig holes from her bedroom window, only now she doesn’t even try to hide it.
When Chazarae comes home and asks about the plants against the fence, I just point to Becca’s room.
Chazarae smiles.
I smile.
And then I plant those flowers with more attention and care than I’ve ever planted anything before. When I’m done I look up at her window. She’s already watching me, not a single emotion on her face. I wave for her to come down and she gives me another cheesy thumbs up. She shows up with her camera in her hand and without a single word spoken, spends the next hour taking pictures while I watch her and continue to dig holes, not just for the plants, but for myself, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never been more compelled by anything or anyone in my entire life.
4
-Becca-
envy
verb
desire to have a quality, possession, or other desirable thing belonging to (someone else).
My grandmother doesn’t work which means she’s home a lot. And when she’s home she likes to ask a lot of questions. I don’t like to answer them. So instead of feeling bad when I walk away or pretend like I don’t hear her, I just sit in my room and stare at the wallpaper.
Josh works and most of the time he takes Tommy with him. But not on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays he stays here. And Wednesdays are my favorite of all the days. Tommy calls me Becs. I like it. And I like him. I told him that. I also told him he was my best friend. He agreed that I was his. So now we’re best friends. Friends who can communicate without talking. When I whisper, he thinks it’s a game and whispers back. When I actually do speak, he doesn’t look at me like I’m a freak.
I am a freak.
But I like that he doesn’t know that.
Josh pulls into the driveway and the second the car’s stopped he looks directly up at my window. I know this because I’m watching him. I quickly move behind the curtain to hide my smile. I’ve stopped biting my thumb when he catches me now because it doesn’t feel wrong to be watching him anymore, so I no longer feel the need to punish myself with pain for doing something bad.
“Your dad’s home,” I tell Tommy, who’s sitting on the floor of my bedroom drawing. I like being alone with him so we spend a lot of time in my room. I don’t like the looks my grandmother gives me when she sees us together. I can tell by the way her brow bunches and her lips pull down to a frown that, in her head, she’s coming up with more questions that’ll inevitably be left unanswered.
I kneel down in front of Tommy and start packing the crayons.
He whispers, “Can I show Daddy my drawings?” and I nod and gather all fifty pieces of paper, the majority of which have a single jagged line through the middle.
Voices from downstairs filter up to my room and then footsteps thud up the stairs. I know it’s Josh because the steps are loud and heavy. My grandmother creeps around like I’m an injured animal and I’ll attack if spooked.
A panic sets in at the sound of his steps and then escalates when he knocks on the door. I look at Tommy—but all he’s doin
g is smiling—a smile identical to his father’s. Tommy answers because I’m too busy trying to look preoccupied with putting the crayons back in their box.
“Hey, bud,” Josh says to Tommy. “Did you have a good day with Becca?” He uses a voice suitable for talking to kids.
My teachers were the only ones who used that voice with me.
“We drawded,” Tommy whispers.
“Why are we whispering?” Josh whispers back.
“It’s a secwet,” Tommy tells him, and I turn my back to hide my smile again.
“Okay,” Josh says, his voice still low. Then louder, he asks, “I brought some burgers and fries home. You want to ask Becca if she’d like to join us?”
“Come on, best fwend!” Tommy shouts.
I stand up and set the crayons on my bed and pick up the drawings. Without looking at either of them, I hand Josh the papers and pass him on the way down to the kitchen. I hear Josh ask Tommy if he drew them, and then the fake surprise in his voice when he says, “Wow! These are amazing!” And as hard as I try not to be envious of Tommy in that moment, I am.
I wait in the kitchen for them to join my grandmother and I—who’s already going through the bags of food at the counter.
Josh and Tommy enter the room holding hands and Josh shouts, “No!” making me jump in my spot. “You know the rules, ma’am. Sit down at the table. You too, Becca,” he says, but he’s not angry, he’s smiling.
He smiles a lot.
And again I find myself envious of Tommy for having a happy parent—or at least one who’s decent enough to fake it around him.
Grams takes a seat at the table and motions for me to join her. I sit down next to her while Josh and Tommy busy themselves in the kitchen. Josh hands Tommy a bag and Tommy comes to the table, kneels on a chair and goes through it. The bag’s filled with paper plates, napkins and plastic knives and forks. Tommy gets to work, walking around and setting the table for us; a plate each with a knife placed on one side and a fork on the other with a napkin beneath it. He does this silently, his lips pursed and his eyes focused. Once he’s done, he walks back to the kitchen counter and asks his dad where the cups are.
