The Guilt of a Sparrow

by Jess B. Moore

  “This is why I stay away from you. I'm not good for you.” I snarled the words at her. I threw them at her, then turned and walked away.

  When I looked back she was gone. I drove home, my hands trying their darnedest to tear the steering wheel apart, and my head going a million miles an hour.

  I was stupid. Mean. Terrible. What had I done?

  Chapter Five

  Magnolia

  I trailed back into Prissy Polly's with an ache in my chest and trembling fingers. I could barely remember how to walk, but somehow managed to slap a neutral look on my face when I sat with my friends at the table. Alyssa watched me, her eyes carefully scanning my demeanor, while Jacob told a story about some guy he worked with that habitually stole food from the office fridge. Dominic didn't take long to make his assessment; suspicion giving away to something like shock and anger, jaw tight and eyes squinted. I looked away before I started comparing one MacKenna face to another, picking apart each detail and learning to read them.

  My friends were little more than a blur before me. My brain caught on a loop reliving the previous moments. I had been outside for maybe ten minutes, and it was as if hours or days had passed. Everything was different inside me, my heart pounding a staccato beat against my rib cage still caught up in the thrill, my stomach clenched in the aftermath of rejection, and my traitorous lips wanting nothing more than another taste of Cotton's mouth.

  He had kissed me. Cotton MacKenna kissed me. Not a simple thing. Not an accidental slip of lips across lips. A forceful and hungry kiss. I would've sworn it was filled with longing and possession. If I didn't know better, I would've thought it meant something.

  But he had been able to stop, to pull away from me, like it was nothing. Left me standing there, cold despite the heat of the night, and frantic with longing for him. I had never wanted anything as much as I didn't want him to stop kissing me.

  But I'd known. I had known he'd stop. Logically speaking he couldn't kiss me forever. Even so, I knew he'd come to his senses long before forever, and once he did that, I knew he'd stop kissing me.

  My fingertips lighted gently on my lips, a pressure nothing like the kiss, and a sore remembrance.

  “Magpie? Hello?” Alyssa was looking at me like she'd called me name more than once. Her little elfin face was pinched with concern, a furrow deep between her brows and her lips pursed.

  “Hmm?” I had spaced out, my mind wandering down the road where Cotton ran away from me.

  “What happened? You're being ... weird.”

  “Nothing.” I forced my lips to smile, the muscles not entirely cooperating. They still tingled from the pressure of Cotton's mouth. I shook my head and hoped it was convincing. “I'm always weird.”

  “Uh huh. You are a terrible liar! I don't know why you bother.” Alyssa sighed and set her chin in her hand. She blinked at me, waiting for me to spill the truth.

  I had little choice; Lyss would never let it drop. My mouth didn't open, not yet. My gaze skipped to Dominic. The last person I wanted to bear witness to the truth was Cotton's brother. Embarrassed heat rushed up and colored my face, and I knew even as I dipped my head it was too late to hide my reaction from Dominic.

  “Hey, look, if Cotton did something. Or said something. I'm real sorry.” Dominic placed a hand on my arm, his fingers warm and surprisingly soft. The muscles in my arm jumped, startled by his contact, and poor guy immediately removed his hand.

  He looked at me like I was a frightened bunny, and like it might be Cotton's fault.

  “No. Of course not.” I waved a hand toward the door, toward the setting of Cotton's departure, and pretended I didn't care. “He just, you know, left.”

  I drank the fizzy water that Cotton had brought me from the bar. Sharp with the tang of lime, filling my mouth with bubbles, so that it almost burned. It had been so sweet of him to bring me something fun to drink when I'd told him I wasn't drinking. That small gesture that meant he had thought about me and gone out of his way for me. It was the water's fault I had the guts to follow Cotton out of the bar when he stormed away from the table. Stupid sparkling water was to blame for me kissing him back.

  “Yeah. I'm gonna call my brother. Excuse me just a sec.” Dominic got up and headed toward the back hallway with the bathrooms and storage. His shoulders a stiff line atop his straight spine. He was past curious and onto pissed in an awful hurry.

  What would Cotton say to him? How would the story be translated from Cotton's point of view and for his brother's hearing?

  “Shit.” Alyssa was excited and leaned farther forward, chin still resting in hand. Wide eyes sparkled at me, going in the opposite direction of concern and leaping to thrilled. “What happened? Say it quick before he comes back!”

  “He kissed me.”

  “Holy shit. Cotton kissed you?” She didn't do a good job at keeping her voice down. I urged her with my eyes to keep it quiet. Her laugh was a wide-open thing, not a bit worried about her volume.

  “Yes. But then he just ... left. Like ravished me with his mouth, then pushed away and left.”

  Ravished. Yes, that was how it felt, like he had ravished me. It played again in my mind, a constant thing, each replay less and less real until it was a whisper of a kiss. A memory kiss that held nothing of the real thing. Ghostly in the end.

  “Wow!” Alyssa glanced at Jacob who, bless him, was doing a good job looking uninterested. “This is huge! You think he knows you've had a crush on him for like your whole life?”

  “Oh my lord. Stop talking.” Panic bubbled in my chest and pushed up my throat. I might choke and die on it. “No, I do not think he knows that. I wish you didn't know that.”

  “Oh please.” She rolled her eyes and sat back hard in her chair. “There isn't a girl in town that doesn't have a crush on at least one of the MacKennas.”

  “You don't.” Jacob intoned. His lips had moved to one side, almost smiling almost stern, as he looked to his wife.

  Happy for the reprieve I let them steer the conversation. Alyssa wasn't wrong. The MacKennas were something of a fantasy for all of us. With five of them, each so different and yet so alike, there was something for everyone. Teenage years, filled with slumber parties and whispered secrets, hours spent dissecting each boy we crushed on. For so many girls it was one of the MacKenna boys. We each had our favorite.

  “Yes, I do.” Alyssa laughed easily, not at all embarrassed by her confession, and Jacob dropped his act to stare harder at his wife. “Have you seen Denver? Ooh wee, that boy is fine. And with a fiddle in his hands he's a God.”

  My lips twitched into an easier smile. Content to sit back and watch, hard wood chair back pressing into my spine, last sip of fizzy water on my tongue.

  “Calm down, woman.” Her husband grumbled, a look of jealousy flashed across his features. One that said he was content to let it exist without fight. Acceptance. But he downed the remainder of his beer and slammed the bottle down a little too hard.

  “Whatever. You have a crush on him too.”

  “That is not entirely accurate. Besides which we're both straight so it would never work out.”

  They bantered, and I knew all was right in their world. Faces slipped back into being relaxed, their easy trust winning out.

  “Honey, I promise, Denver will never notice I exist.”

  “That is not the point.”

  She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and did something unseemly under the table involving her hand and his lap. I looked away, and saw Dominic pacing the hallway, appearing at the end I could see every few seconds. Was he still on the phone with Cotton? I didn't want to face Dominic after that conversation. No thank you.

  “I'm gonna call it a night.” I shoved my glass toward the center of the table and pushed my chair back. The noise in the bar rushed in, no longer in the background, a jumble of voices, glasses clinking with ice, country music threaded through it all, fans droning in a wobbly pattern.

  “Nooo! Don't go.”

  “It
's okay. I'm okay.” I stood and offered my usual small smile coupled with a small shrug. I was still reeling from that kiss, and I needed time alone to sort it out. More than that, I didn't want to know what story Dominic was getting from his brother or face him after they'd talked.

  “I'll walk you out.” Alyssa hopped up fast and offered me her hand. She held fast to me as she walked with me to the entrance, weaving our way through the tables packed with patrons, all people I could have recognized if I had taken the time to look.

  “I can't believe Cotton kissed you.” Alyssa shrieked at me, spinning me around to face her, as soon as we were down the steps of the front porch. Shoes crunching gravel, our movement slow.

  “Me neither.” The memory was beginning to be painful; squeezing my heart and making my whole chest burn. Yes, it was beginning to hurt, the shock of it wearing thin and leaving behind something awful.

  “Jerk.” Only she didn't mean it. Her voice was still touched with happiness, on my behalf, because she knew all about my silly crush on said jerk.

  “Tell me to forget about him.”

  “Forget about him.” She braced her hands on my shoulders as we came to a standstill in the parking lot. “I have an idea. Go out with someone, and take your mind off him.”

  “Go out with who? I don't see anyone here asking.”

  “Hmm.” Her lips twisted as she put some thought into the issue.

  “No. I was kidding.”

  Alyssa rarely put effort into setting me up or pressuring me to date. She knew better. I was not interested. When placed in front of a guy, I became incoherent. A guy I liked? Off the charts awkward. Not to mention the complications with my mama's expectations when it came to my dating. As in I shouldn't.

  “My brother.” I watched the dim outline of my best friend's head nodding. Satisfied with her suggestion. “Kent will take you out. Why haven't I thought of this before? It's brilliant.”

  “Um, no, it's not brilliant. It is the complete opposite of brilliant.” I recognized the quality in my voice that indicated I was halfway to a panic attack. Sometimes working myself into a frenzy was easy as breathing. I shook myself out of it, calmed by the obvious truth. “Doesn't matter. Kent would never go out with me. Does he even date?”

  Kent Garner. Nice enough, if not also incredibly boring, and more importantly not interested in me. He was in love with Olivia Hamilton and everyone knew it. Her daddy was full of pride for his daughter, and as such made an edict many years ago about the sort of boys his Olivia could date. Kent wasn't on the short list. Olivia was a sweet thing, pretty in a porcelain doll sort of way, and she was madly devoted to pleasing her parents. Poor girl didn't have any of her own ideas as far as I could tell and only did what her crazy father said she should. It was a sad tale, but I knew Kent well enough by proxy of his being my best friend's older brother, to know that he was still hung up on Olivia and therefore not interested in me.

  “He dates.” Alyssa nodded her head quickly and her voice turned hard. I knew she was thinking of unrequited love, same as me. “Kent's smart enough to know he'll never get through Mr. Hamilton and being in love with Sweetheart Olivia Grace is dumb. On second thought, my brother is a dummy. But he does date.”

  “That does not imply he would date me. He's known me next to forever and he has never been interested in me. It's a bad idea.”

  Alyssa threw her arms up, exasperated with my logic.

  A group of girls exited a large SUV, laughter ringing through the night air, and it was clear they were already tipsy if not drunk. Arms were linked to keep from falling as they walked en-masse toward the door. Alyssa and I both watched them go, at an impasse with the date thing.

  “Ooh! Vincent.”

  My jaw slipped open a degree in response. I closed it with a slight rattle of my teeth. I gave my friend a look that she likely couldn't get the full effect of in the weird light of the parking lot. Dark night pressed around us, with yellow streetlights at the edges of the lot casting long shadows toward where we stood near the middle.

  “Are you drunk? Did you get high in the bathroom?”

  At this Alyssa cackled and flicked my upper arm. I muttered an ouch and she laughed harder.

  “First off, you need to stop doubting yourself. Kent would go out with you. Vincent would go out with you.” Her voice was strong and sure and she was ramping up for a good old-fashioned pep talk on my self-esteem. I put up a hand, a universal sign for her to stop and she flicked my palm. “Magpie, you are pretty and smart and funny and weird, and those are all good things. All you lack is confidence.”

  “I am going home now. Give me your keys.” As much as I loved my best friend and her confidence on my behalf, I wasn't able to hear it. Not when my head and heart were trapped in a fight between what I wanted and what really happened.

  “What? No.” She slapped at my hand as I reached for her front pocket. “I'll get Jacob and we'll all go. Just hold on a sec.”

  I sighed and shifted my weight to the other foot, flat sandal sole sliding across the knobs of the rough gravel. I was tired. That bone weary sort of tired that hits all of the sudden and offers no release. Tired of being in the hot parking lot - why was it so blessed hot after the sun went down? Ugh. Of people in general. It was past time for me to hide my head and pretend people didn't exist until I could face them again. Alyssa meant well. But her meddling made me crazy.

  “I'll call a cab.”

  “Puh-lease. You will do no such thing. A cab? What is this, New York City? You aren't calling Wesley Donovan to come pick you up.”

  “It's a legit business.” Giggles were trying awful hard to let loose, softening my mouth. I tamped them down, barely, to get through my diatribe. “He uses his daddy's car and offers a safe sober ride home.”

  At which point, we both succumbed to laughter. It was mean. He was a good kid. Doing a good thing. Wes worked at the Fox River Auto Shop, which his daddy owned. They kept a few older cars, super clean no frills cars, for people to use when they had to leave their own at the shop. After a drunk driver ran Wes off the road one night, he got it in his head that our little town needed a designated driver. He volunteered as driver for the whole entire town. The best part was that he stayed busy. People called him, and I heard that his brother Seth was driving a second car now. Fox River was full of drunken fools - fool enough to drink too much on such a regular basis they required a driver. That was the part that got me. I loved that people weren't driving drunk. Duh. I loved that Wes was willing to provide such a service. I hated that people couldn't control themselves one iota and arrange to have a sober member in their party, or not drink to delirium. It was like the small town version of Uber, without the fancy app, and usually free of charge.

  “You are not drunk.”

  “I'm sure Wes would drive me home regardless.”

  She harrumphed. She also texted Jacob that we would all leave. Guilt punched through my gut and settled low and heavy. Lead belly, that was my guilt. I didn't want to ruin their night. I shouldn't have come in the first place.

  “Back to Vin.” Alyssa cleared her throat in a way that indicated how hot she found Vincent Berry. “Have you seen him lately? With the tattoos and all. Boy is rocking his rebel whatever look.”

  Fox River, like many small towns, was woefully behind the times. Tattoos were still for bikers and prisoners. Usually both at once. Acceptable only if you were in the military. They weren't for art or expression. Unless you were Vincent Berry. He took off when he turned eighteen, about a minute after graduating high school, and went to Asheville. No place in North Carolina is known for being proud of their weird like Asheville. Music on the streets, art on every corner, expressing yourself freely, yoga studios all over town, all the good stuff including tattoos resided in Asheville. We resided a three hour drive and a million galaxies away from Asheville. Vincent had come home two years ago, when his daddy got sick. He took care of him until he died, and he stayed after to take care of his mama and his little sister.
No one had it in their right mind to judge Vin for all his colorful ink or the piercings in his face when he'd devoted himself to caring for his family. Actions speak louder than tattoos and all that.

  “He's a great guy.” I could say that surely, because everyone knew it was true.

  “It's settled. I'll talk to him on Monday.”

  “What? No. Not settled!”

  “What's settled?” Jacob's converse sneakers crunched along the gravel of the parking lot. He slung an arm around Alyssa when he reached us, tucking her into his side. She fit there, her head at his shoulder, her arm snaking around his back with her hand coming to his waist. He supported her weight, for no reason other than he loved her and he could. Almost like he didn't think about it, his body slid into hers out of habit and comfort, their coming together a natural part of their being together.

  “Vincent Berry taking Maggie out.”

  “When did this happen?” Curiosity spiked in Jacob's tone. He kept himself well guarded, careful not to laugh at me or point out the unlikelihood of any such thing.

  “It hasn't happened yet. I'm setting them up.”

  “Alyssa Dianne Garner Hunter.” That was a mouthful. “You stop meddling. Maggie can take care of herself.”

  The look she turned on her husband was brutal. I could see it in the dark, and up close as he was to her face, it must have hit like a slap. She remained attached to his side, twisting to aim her glare at him.

  “Did you just full name me? What the hell?”

  Uh oh.

  “Yes, I did, and I'll do it again. Now stay out of this and don't go around setting people up. If Maggie wants to go out with Vincent, she can ask him out.”

  “Oh, right.” My friend's harsh sarcastic tone needled. I tensed, ready for the pain of having it pointed out how inadequate I was at dating. “Like you asked me out?”

  Damn. She turned it around on him. Ha. I leaned against their spectacularly old station wagon, prepared to wait this out. The night sky was growing heavy, rain clouds and humidity gathering around the perimeter.