Everything Changes

by Shey Stahl

  “Parker, we can’t do this. I can’t do this. You don’t feel that way for me.” I heard his breath catch as the words fell from my lips. “You think you do, but you don’t.” I was trying to find something that would make him stop but I couldn’t. “If anything, these last few weeks proved that.”

  “How can you think that? Don’t you see it, Ro? The blood that runs through my veins, the air that fills my lungs, it belongs to you. It’s only ever be you for me.”

  “Parker…” I breathed as though I was trying to squeeze every last breath from my body and not feel what I was feeling right then.

  “If I would have known that I would find you with Sean…” a regretful sigh ran through Parker when he shook his head “…if I…” his eyes squeezed shut, and he gave up trying to sort through his words and walked away.

  “Parker?” I called after him but I knew he was done.

  He was good at the walking away thing these days, and I was good at letting him.

  He appeared like he was going to walk home so I let him and drove to Addy’s house.

  I told her everything that had been said between Parker and I and the fact that I was freaking out that Parker had seen through my lies.

  Addy rolled her eyes, not seeing the significance in my situation. It might have had something to do with her bathing a flailing, slippery child, but I refused to admit that. The way I saw it, she wasn’t listening.

  So since she wasn’t going to listen to me, and I didn’t want to go home in fear Sean would be there and I would be forced into telling more lies, I grabbed a beer from their fridge and sat in their hot tub.

  I must have been in there twenty minutes, staring at the stars, loving the jelly feeling that was overtaking me when their backdoor opened and Justin emerged chuckling. That wasn’t so unusual because Justin and I had on more than one occasion sat out here and talked well into the wee hours of the morning. What was unusual was the fact that he didn’t know I was out here, and Parker had showed up. Maybe he was looking for some brotherly bonding, but I was kind of pissed he ran to the same place I ran to, and then there was the obvious setback. I was stranded in their hot tub.

  Glancing around, I had two options: make myself known and walk inside or listen to their conversation. I was starting to get light headed from the heat and the alcohol, so I chose to stay.

  I really began to sweat, but there was nothing I could do. I was stuck. I had all these visions of me dying in that hot tub from dehydration, but at least I would know the truth as to what Parker was really thinking.

  Staring at the bubbles around me, I carefully listened to them, thinking about how awkward it was that I was hearing this conversation.

  “I fucking hate this Sean guy, man,” Parker said, completely dejected, as they sat on the edge of the deck about ten feet from the hot tub. “How could you let her be with him?”

  “Are you talking to me or that beer in your hand?” Justin asked him. “Do they usually respond to you?”

  “They might, maybe, but I was talking to you,” Parker clarified with a small laugh. “Give me some brotherly advice. Should I walk away?”

  “Parker,” Justin reached out clapping his hand over Parker’s heavy shoulders. “I will give you the same advice I have given you for the last four years when it comes to Ro…if you love her, show it.” Justin slowly shook his head, seeming as confused about why we couldn’t just get our shit together. “You have it in your head that you can’t have her completely. You always have. Without knowing it, you never let her in because you’re afraid that if you do let her have you completely in all the ways she already does, that you’ll hurt her like Dad.”

  “I asked her to stay with me. How much clearer could I have been?”

  “You may have asked her, but you didn’t see what it was doing to her.” Justin gave him a look that I couldn’t make out “She was following you around all over the states and then left to continue her life without you when you were too busy. That’s not a life for her. Rowan wanted more and at the time, you couldn’t give it to her. It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just…the lifestyle you had.”

  One thing was certain. Justin was smarter than I ever gave him credit for.

  “What am I doing?” Parker asked, looking up at Justin. “Why can’t I just get my shit together?”

  Justin shrugged taking the beer from Parker. “It’s hard to say, but your life hasn’t been easy and you have a way of blaming yourself for everything that went wrong with our parents and now Rowan. It wasn’t your fault. Well…” Justin laughed lightly, his back shaking with the motion “…Rowan is your fault but you couldn’t see what you guys were doing to each other.”

  “Do you think I fucked up too bad?”

  “No… Ro doesn’t love Sean.”

  Damn him. He saw right through me too.

  Parker stood, his body swaying again, and Justin reached for him. “Let’s get you to bed, man.”

  “What are you doing?” a voice whispered from the lawn when the door closed behind them.

  My head shot around to find Addy there holding a towel, amused. “Why you little peeping tom.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, reaching for the towel. My body felt like it was made of goo. I could barely put one foot in front of the other and ended up crashing on the floor in Bryce’s room because Parker had passed out on the couch.

  Addy set me up with a blanket and pillow. Before she left she took a deep breath and any reservations she had about me being stupid vanished as a sympathetic expression softened her face. “I never wanted to see you two end up like this.”

  Without answering, I nodded knowing that anything I said wouldn’t matter. She was my best friend and only wanted the best for me and her brother-in-law.

  “You guys are meant to be together.”

  I looked up at her standing in the doorway. The hall light provided me enough light to see her face, and I felt the tiniest bit hopeful that maybe she was right. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  Lying in a room full of plastic dirt bikes and checkered flags, I realized I had solved absolutely nothing. If anything, I felt like I had made things worse, but I was relieved that Addy believed everything would turn out right.

  CHAPTER 23

  Rowan Jensen

  Roost

  Flying dirt kicked up by the rear tire of a motorcycle is called a roost.

  July 23, 2002

  Sean had gotten back from Alaska with his dad and I avoided him. Instead, I invaded Justin and Addy’s new house the week before my wedding and told Sean that it would be better for us to have some time apart before the wedding.

  This was also my way of getting some space from my mom who was making me crazy. She was convinced it was my graduation again and couldn’t understand why I was getting dress fittings and looking at cakes. This was why I wanted something normal and stable. For as long as I could remember, things were always changing. I was constantly reminding my mom what day it was or convincing her that she just washed that glass or whatever. That was why I couldn’t have Parker. I needed something normal. Sean was normal, and that was what I convinced myself of.

  And then there was my dad. He was just as bad and kept giving me these stupid looks that said, “I know you’re about to make a mistake,” but refused to actually speak the words.

  Justin sat down beside me on the couch as I watched Bryce attempt to steal his chips. Justin picked him up and cuddled him. “What’s with you and my brother these days?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He handed Bryce over to Addy who set some chips and salsa in front of us and then went upstairs to put him down for a nap. As soon as Bryce spotted her, he cuddled her to which made her sigh in contentment. She really was a good mom.

  “What I mean is…he showed up here the other night, drunk, and told me some things I don’t think he wanted me to know.”

  I pretended not to know that they had spoken.

  “And t
hat was?” I started shoving chip after chip in my mouth to keep from looking too obvious that I was in love with Parker and marrying Sean and that I heard them talking last night. I thought for sure Justin would see right through me. I was a lying sack of shit these days.

  “I’m not going to say what he confided in me.” He sighed, looking towards the television. “You really broke his heart though.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think you do know because if you did…” he raised his eyebrows at me “...you’d see that while you broke his, he broke yours just as much.”

  He’s more intuitive than I gave him credit for.

  “I don’t—”

  “Rowan, you can’t marry Sean when you’re in love with my brother,” Justin spoke softly as though he didn’t want anyone to hear. “It’s not fair to anyone.”

  Addy made her way back downstairs and then brought out the chicken she’d made. Conversations drifted, and I was thankful not to be talking about my fucked up situation. It made me sick any time I thought of it. Night after night, it gnawed at me. I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

  Addy gave me looks all night, like she wanted to say something too but didn’t. I knew her thoughts.

  Before I left that night, Justin said, “Don’t underestimate him, Rowan.”

  I stared at the diamond on my finger, recalling the advice Justin gave me that first summer. In theory, that was what I was doing now.

  Just when I thought Addy wasn’t going to say any more to me about my situation, she let it all out when Justin went to get another beer from the fridge. “You guys are being so stupid about this!” she said, pushing her blonde locks back into a ponytail. I knew last night wasn’t the end of what she had to say, and to be honest I needed her to set me straight. “You should be marrying Parker right now and you know it, but here you are, settling because you’ve never thought you were good enough for someone like Parker O’Neil.” Inhaling a breath, I knew she wasn’t finished. “And let me just say you’ve wrecked him time and time again. Every time you left, you crushed his soul.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be my friend.”

  “I am your friend and I hate the fact that you won’t listen to me.” Addy nodded, speaking softer now knowing she nearly woke her son. “He asked you to stay with him over and over again but you never did. I know for a fact that he asked you to stay at least three times because every time he asked and you left, guess who he called? Justin.”

  And she was right. He did ask me stay, but I refused to hear him. My heart and my soul heard what I wanted to hear. It heard what it didn’t want to change.

  The fact of the matter was I had a shitty way of dealing with my feelings, and Parker was the same way.

  “Why couldn’t you stay? What was so important here?” she asked, watching me carefully.

  I had been asking myself that very same question for years. It was for several reasons, none of which were valid. “For a while I wouldn’t stay because I wasn’t sure what I was to him. Then, after a while, I didn’t want to be that girl that I had become who only saw her boyfriend when it was convenient for him.”

  “But he wanted you there,” Addy interrupted, looking at me as though I had been blind. I had been.

  “I know…but it felt like if I stayed with him I wouldn’t have been me. I would have been the girl that followed the boy around. Then I would come back thinking I would do something with my life but I never did. I was constantly drawn back under his spell and waited for everything to change.”

  “So let me get this straight…” Addy moved closer on the couch, her arm draped over the back. “You thought if you stayed you’d be a pro ho, so every time you came back to what? The shop? Sean? Me? Your parents?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Admitting it made me feel stupid. It sounded worse than it was, or maybe it was that bad all along. “I thought that if I came back I could be my own person, but I never did anything. I just worked and tried to move on…but never could.”

  Addy shook her head, looking down at the ring on her left hand. “You two are a train wreck.”

  “Wow, thanks.” I laughed lightly, slouching next to her when Justin came back in the room.

  “She’s right, Ro.” Justin handed us both beers. “You two are train wrecks with a shit load of excuses.”

  “Both of you suck.”

  “No.” Justin smiled suggestively at Addy and lifted his hips. “She sucks.”

  Addy and I both looked at each other before laughing. Justin always knew how to lighten the mood.

  I still hadn’t figured shit out, but it felt good to laugh.

  July 24, 2002

  The next day, I avoided wedding planning and decided to stop by the shop and work Addy’s shift at the coffee shop so she could have a day off. With me working in the office more and more, Addy picked up all the shifts at the coffee shop because she could have Bryce out there with her.

  The usual customers rolled through, and I was surprised to see Parker show up around noon on his street bike. Knowing he’d never race professionally again because of the injuries to his neck and shoulders, he took every chance he could get to ride. He had metal rods put in his neck and a titanium plate in his shoulder. Racing just wasn’t wise and no sponsor wanted to take a chance like that. It didn’t stop him from riding though.

  He never looked in my direction. His head was bent watching his feet. Parker had a tough life, and it was evident by any gesture he made. His hair was as wild as ever, tousled by the wind. He appeared to have slept in his clothes.

  After three hours, he finally emerged when I was closing down. Sitting on the stool outside, I intended to relax for a while until I went back home to all the stupid wedding planning. Addy was taking care of most of it, but neither of us seemed thrilled. It was different from the excitement with her own wedding because she didn’t want me to marry Sean. Now it seemed we were planning a funeral. That right there made me feel horrible and shitty.

  Who promised to marry someone when someone else had their heart?

  Me, the same girl who never listened to her heart or the boy who asked her stay.

  “You okay?” his voice was soft and I knew what he was really asking. “Are you still marrying him?” He was cryptic as usual.

  My eyes, red and spilling over with tears, met his. The guilt tugged at my gut. “I just…need to get away.”

  He sat down beside me, our shoulders touched, and he sighed. He didn’t want to see me crying. “Then let’s get away.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Actually, it is.” He tipped his head towards the bike apprehensively. He lowered his eyes, waiting for me to deny him. “All we have to do is get gas.”

  When it came to Parker, I never thought things through. Look at our past. For the last five years, I had flown around the country following him and his career. He took my hand and showed me a love I never knew anyone could feel or have the pleasure of feeling. I didn’t think. I just went with my gut and right then, my gut told me that I needed to get away, and I needed to get away with Parker.

  CHAPTER 24

  Rowan Jensen

  The Card

  A card is a rectangular board used by the starter to countdown the start of the race. When the starter turns the card sideways, the rider knows the gate will drop within five seconds.

  July 24, 2002

  I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t call Sean. I just got on that bike with him. With my head pressed against his back, I listened to the rumbling of the bike between my legs and the feeling of Parker’s chest rising and falling for hours. When the sky turned from blue to black, we’d made it to southern Oregon’s Canyon Beach.

  We ended up getting a hotel room and then took a walk on the beach after getting a case of beer. I knew Parker didn’t like drinking because of his dad’s past, but now I’d seen him drink every day since he got back. That both concerned and saddened me because I knew I was the reason. If not for our situati
on, he wouldn’t feel the need to.

  The breeze was warm, the scent of salt water thick in the air. I could hear the waves crashing against the shore. It didn’t take long before we were sitting in the sand watching waves crash against the shore. In the warm July heat of southern Oregon, salt water and summer engulfed my senses and will power.

  Around my fourth beer, conversation seemed easy between us, flowing just as quickly as the alcohol. We were using it to escape our situation. Our words always seemed to complicate us. Now it was easier.

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t visit you.”

  His hand came up to run along his jaw, his eyes narrowing at the shore. He shook his head, contemplating his response. “I thought for sure you’d at least call. When you didn’t, I nearly gave up. I could have, easily, and I’d still be there now. But I needed to know why you didn’t.”

  “That’s why you worked so hard to recover?”

  “Part of it.”

  “What was the other?” Looking over at him, I noticed his brooding gaze moved to mine.

  “I couldn’t let them win. If I didn’t recover, all those headlines, my dad, Dusty…Kayla…they all won. If I did, I proved I could do it. But none of that mattered anyway. I’ll never ride professionally again. And I knew that even before the doctors told me. I knew it when I woke up in the hospital and saw the look on Justin and Kurt’s faces. No sponsor is going to take a chance like that.”

  Some would think he could still ride professionally, but it was just too dangerous for him and no factory sponsor would back him knowing just a simple wreck or hit to his head could paralyze him.

  “What if you ran as a privateer?” I could tell it was something he had already considered. “You did that before.”

  “Yeah, well...” he gave a disgusted snort “...racing as a privateer is a lot different these days. There’s so much to the sport that most don’t see.”

  “Do you mean the lifestyle or the racing?”

  Parker shrugged, taking another drink from his beer. “You know people think that Motocross is full of aggressive assholes, yeah, there’s some, but it’s not all that way. Take me, or even Taylor Higgins and Cam Rudd, all good clean racers looking to be the best. In a sport like that, people don’t see that. They see the guys like Dusty and Travis and think we’re all like that.” Parker looked back at me, his gaze weary. “And then there’s the women…everyone thinks because pussy is thrown your way every weekend that you’ll act on it. Not everyone is that way.” He waited and I said nothing. “Did you know that Wesley married his high school sweetheart last year? Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean all guys act on it.”