by L. E. DeLano
“Yeah. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Hey, at least tomorrow’s Friday and you can rest up. It’s not like either of us ever have anything to do on a Friday night.”
“You’re not hanging with your soccer buddies?” I look nervously over my shoulder.
“Jessa.” He gives me a look. “My father is a professor and my mother is a software developer. Who do you think I hang out with when I’m not working? Nerds like you.”
“Thanks.” I push my food away.
“Don’t be like that. I just mean that between the two of us, maybe we can find something to do this weekend. What do you think?”
My only thought at the moment is that I probably haven’t seen the last of Finn. And I really want to know how he knows where I live. It really should creep me out more, but it doesn’t. Finn feels sort of … comfortable. Like a friend. Like Ben. Okay, maybe not like Ben. I’m not obsessing over Ben’s eyes on a minute-by-minute basis. I’m sort of freaked out by how not-entirely-creepy this is, which really makes it kind of creepy. If that makes sense.
“I guess so,” I finally answer Ben. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
I make it home without any sign of Finn, but that doesn’t keep my head from swiveling left and right as I walk. I reach the front door and laugh at myself for getting so worked up. Obviously, he got the hint.
I barely make it through the door when Danny asks if I’ll play soccer with him out back. Ever since Ben started coming over, Danny’s had a bro-crush on him. He’s trying to learn how to play, and I need something to do besides sitting around worrying about crazy guys stepping out of my dreams, so I agree.
And of course, right on cue, Finn shows up. Our back lawn is unfenced, and he must’ve seen us from the sidewalk. He’s standing there watching, and this time I’m not scared—I’m starting to get really annoyed instead.
I tuck the soccer ball under my arm and walk over to him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “This is private property.”
He seems annoyed, too. “Don’t act like you don’t know me, Jessa.”
“I don’t know you. I just met you!”
“I’m not trying to make you uneasy,” he says calmly. “I’m here for a very good reason, and if you’ll just hear me out—”
“I can’t talk right now,” I say, gesturing back at Danny. “I’m playing soccer with my brother.”
“Hi!” Finn says, raising his hand to wave at Danny.
“Hi!” Danny waves back.
“Stay away from him,” I warn.
“I’m only saying hello. I thought he might be worried, since you seem like you’re arguing with me.”
“I am arguing with you. I want you to leave, and you won’t go.”
“Jessa…” He lowers his voice, and there’s a sense of urgency in it. “I was sent here to warn you.”
I look at him like he’s nuts. Because he is. “Warn me?”
“You’re in danger,” he says. “And I want you to—”
I’m shaking my head as he’s talking because I don’t want to hear this. And I definitely don’t want Danny to hear this.
“You need to leave.” My voice is firm, but he keeps going.
“Please—Jessa. I’m not joking. You have to believe me.”
“The only one who’s causing me any problems here is you,” I say. “Now leave.”
“Jessa?”
Danny is walking over now. Great.
“Leave,” I repeat.
Finn shakes his head. “You have to listen to me.”
“Just go!” I’ve had it. I hit him with the soccer ball right in the chest, and hard. It ricochets off and rolls behind me.
“Bad manners, Jessa,” Danny says, scooping up the ball. He tosses it to me, and I’m so flustered, it drops. Finn and I go for it at the same time, and we straighten up together. He’s looking down at me and both our hands are on the ball, and for a moment, I feel such déjà vu my head swims with it.
“How do I know you, Finn? Really?”
“I can explain everything,” he says softly. “Just give me a chance.”
Danny trots up next to me. “You need to say sorry,” he chides.
I roll my eyes, mostly because Finn is looking at me in a very smug way that makes me itch to hit him with the soccer ball again.
“Yes, Danny. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You hit him with the ball,” Danny reminds me.
“Yes, I did.”
“Yes, you did,” says Finn, clearly enjoying my brother pointing out my transgressions.
“You’re in trouble, Jessa,” Danny adds. “You’re in trouble, Jessa Emeline St. Clair.”
I groan audibly.
“Emeline?” Finn is smirking now.
“That’s her trouble name,” Danny supplies. “Jessa Emeline St. Clair.”
Finn raises his eyebrows, so I explain. “Whenever my mom used to get really mad at us when we were kids, she’d use all three of our names. The dreaded ‘triple name.’ You had to really be in trouble if she used it.”
“Emeline.” He’s nodding to himself, as if he thinks it suits me somehow, which irks me to no end.
“So what’s your middle name?” I ask him. “Irving? Hubert? Darth?”
He shakes his head. “I’m just Finn. Nothing else.”
“No middle name?”
“No middle name.”
“Finn is his trouble name?” Danny asks.
I clutch the soccer ball, scowling in a threatening manner at Finn’s smug face.
“Yes, Danny. Finn means trouble.”
I grab Danny’s arm and promise him popcorn to get him into the house. I don’t look back at Finn. I spend the next hour trying to forget his words and the way he looked down at me, and how incredibly long his lashes were.
Danny is right. Finn means trouble.
5
Autumn Memory
“You sleeping over, St. Clair?”
“What?” I look up from my journal to see Ben standing over me.
“Are you staying here all night? Class is over.”
We’d been doing project presentations about colonial living in AP US History class, and once mine was done, I’d pulled out my journal and tried to muddle through the mess in my brain that belonged to Finn. It isn’t working. I slam the journal shut.
“So what did you think?” I ask Ben as we walk to the door.
“What—your presentation?”
I make a face. “Was it boring?”
“Better than NyQuil,” he teases. “I could barely keep my eyes open.”
“Why did I pick agriculture?” I gripe. “What an absolute turd of an idea.”
I’m almost through the door when Mr. Draper stops me.
“Don’t forget your project, Jessa,” he reminds me.
“Can I leave it here till the end of the day? My locker is pretty full.”
Mr. Draper shakes his head apologetically. “I need the room on the table for the next class. Sorry.”
I give him a tight smile. “It’s fine. I’ll take it.”
My project consists of seeds, sprigs, and charts all mounted to a poster board. It won’t fit in my messenger bag. And I can’t roll it up—it’s attached to cardboard so it could hold the weight of the seeds and plant cuttings. I really, really don’t have room in my locker for this thing, so guess what? I get to carry a poster around to all the rest of my classes.
Perfect.
Ben walks with me toward creative writing, because his next class is in the same hall. He lets out a little snicker as I try to juggle the poster and readjust the strap on my messenger bag, since it’s slipping off my shoulder. I shoot him a glare.
“You could give me a little help here,” I point out.
“I’m not going to be seen carrying that thing,” he says. “You could just throw it away, you know. It’s made out of cardboard, paper, and dead plants. It’s not like you broke the bank building it.”
“
I spent almost three hours on it, getting it right,” I complain.
He rolls his eyes. “Where are you going to use this again? You just can’t stand to throw it away. You’re a pack rat.”
“Am not.”
“Yes, you are. You couldn’t even put it in your locker if it fit, because your last six school projects are in there.”
I don’t answer him because it makes me mad that he’s right. I just hate getting rid of stuff I worked so hard on. It doesn’t seem fair somehow, even though it’s all getting crushed and probably broken in my locker and I’m going to throw out the smashed mess at the end of the year anyway.
“Give it to me,” Ben says, holding out his hands.
“Ben…”
“Come on. We’re fixing to walk right past those big garbage cans outside the cafeteria. I can toss it on the way and you won’t have to carry it around all day long.”
“I don’t know…”
“All. Day. Long.” He raises his brows and stands there waiting. I finally put it in his hands with a disgusted look.
“Go ahead.” I roll my eyes. “Just do it now before I change my mind.”
He takes it, and I wince as he folds and crushes it into a ball. Then he jogs ahead a few paces, lobs the crumpled mass like a basketball, and sinks it perfectly on the top of the cafeteria trash, right by the door. Early lunch has already been dismissed, so it sits perched on top of the pile, resting against some tater tots. I keep walking, though I can’t help but glance over at it guiltily as I pass.
“There,” he says. “Taken care of. And I’ll be checking the Dumpsters after school, so don’t get any ideas about digging it out.”
“Whatever.”
He reaches out and holds me gently by the upper arms. “You’ll get through this, Jessa,” he says dramatically. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Have you ever taken a messenger bag to the face?”
He chucks me under the chin and trots off toward his class, calling out, “You’re an inspiration!”
I’m still shaking my head at him as I walk into creative writing class, where I find my seat, pull out my journal, and thumb through it until I find a blank page. Ms. Eversor is busy at the whiteboard putting up the day’s theme assignment as I take my seat.
“All right, everyone,” she calls out in her lilting French accent. “Quiet, please. We’ve got one more class until the publishing cutoff for this month’s issue of The Articulator. As you know, we try to put a little bit of everything into each issue of the newspaper, and the flash fiction theme for November is usually something like ‘Thankful’ or ‘Thanksgiving,’ but I think we need a change, yes?”
The class mumbles its agreement, and some of the students start calling out alternative topics—everything from “Feast” to “Death on the Dinner Table.” Ms. Eversor shakes her head, laughing.
“No, no, no. In my mother’s country, we have Tabaski. It is like Thanksgiving and Christmas all together in CÔte d’Ivoire. But it is too easy to write about a holiday,” she says. “Let’s go entirely away from the Thanksgiving theme and choose something a bit more mysterious. How about autumn? You can explore the aging process, the colors, the coming winter.… There are a lot of elements there, you see? It can be lovely, and it can be a warning of bleak things to come. So … autumn!”
Ms. Eversor waits a moment as we pull out our notebooks, laptops, and iPads. A few of the students move to the PCs at the back of the room. I remain seated, preferring the old-fashioned feel of paper and pen.
“Very well, everyone,” Ms. Eversor calls out. “Five hundred words. Begin.”
I look at the paper, letting my mind wander through the remnants of a dream I once had with leafy memories and the smell of pinecones and fireplaces. I set the pen to the paper and begin.
His hand was warm in hers as they walked through the park with feet that felt lighter due to the mere touching of their palms. The trees screamed their colors, competing with the distraction of the geese as they flew overhead. She looked up, realizing that the flock pointed in a perfect V.
“Can you believe it?” she asked. “It’s almost as if they want us to find the place.”
“We probably need to hurry,” he urged. “But I don’t want to rush you.”
“It’s okay.” She let him pull her along, clenching his hand tighter.
Her step faltered over the root of a tree that grew into the path. His arm came around her automatically, and she found herself looking up into eyes that belonged to a green time, promising renewal and the exuberance of life.
She leaned into him, grateful to have his solid warmth. It was getting harder to walk.
“I’m cold,” she gritted out, shivering.
“They said that would happen.”
“I know.”
Little by little, so much had been taken from her. Her glorious golden hair. Her body’s ability to regulate temperature. The feeling on the soles of her feet.
Her love for him.
It still remained, but not as it had been—how could it? Her love carried a terrible burden now. Every moment she loved him was another moment she encouraged him to love her in return. Every moment he loved her was one less, then one less, then one less that he could.
When she reached the end, she’d simply stop.
When he reached her end, he had to keep going.
He rubbed her arm, as if trying to put his own warmth into her skin.
“Not much farther,” he said.
“No, not much farther.” She shuffled now, her feet barely moving. She couldn’t feel from the knees down but remembered how to move her legs back and forth, back and forth. The motion of her thighs said that she was moving, but slowly.
“I think I can see it!” He shouted it a bit too loudly, and the birds in the trees took flight, raining down a riot of red, purple, gold, and orange leaves that clung to her hair and crunched under her feet.
“You’re going to get there. You’re going to get there. You’re going to get there.”
He kept chanting it over and over like a mantra as he tugged her along, pulling so hard that her legs finally gave out. She rolled on her back, staring up at the trees and the light streaming through the mostly bare branches. The leaves were soft like snow, brushing her cheeks and pillowing her body. The sun was pale, but she felt its warmth.
“NO!” she heard him shout. “No! I can carry you! I’ll carry you!”
She closed her eyes, sinking deep into the color and the smell of autumn, wrapping herself tight within it as winter began to creep in from her fingertips, where she felt his hand no more.
I look up, blinking. Then I go back and make a few minor edits after counting my words and catching a repetitive phrase. The feeling of the moment still echoes inside me: the agony in his voice, and the look in his eyes.
His green eyes.
I slam the notebook shut and walk over to an empty PC terminal at the back of the class, where I sit and surf random Wikipedia articles, pretending to be doing research until class is over.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of classes and teachers and annoying classmates that all take too much time and focus away from my thoughts. Normally, I like school okay, but today, I just can’t stand to be here.
I can’t wait to be alone somewhere, just me and my journal, figuring things out. Luckily for me, my mom is off work early today, so she can hang with Danny and I can take my time getting home. So after school, I head over to Mugsy’s, where I order my usual caramel mocha with cinnamon and then slump into a booth.
I try to distract myself by working on my flash fiction, but I’m just not feeling the flow. Finally, I push myself up and out of the booth, leaving my notebook, bag, and coat in place as I walk up to the counter to check out the selection of baked goods. I’m pretty much the only one here this time of day unless Ben comes along. Ever since we started hanging out, we’ve been semi-regulars at Mugsy’s, as long as he doesn’t have practice.
I
take my time choosing between the cranberry-and-white-chocolate scones and the fresh, hot blueberry muffins that just came out of the oven.
Why do I have to keep seeing his eyes? And I’m not just seeing them, it’s like I’m obsessing over him or something.
This has to stop. I have other homework to do. English lit and calculus have assignments due by tomorrow—maybe I should work on those instead of that stupid story. I make my purchase and return to my seat, only to find a disturbingly familiar somebody sitting across from my side of the booth, reading the story in my journal intently.
“Hey!” I snap, trying to tug it out of Finn’s hands. “That’s private.”
“Then you shouldn’t leave it open on the table where anyone could walk by and see it. Like me.” His finger follows along, and he freezes for a moment. I hear him suck in an audible breath, and then he slowly pulls his hand back from the paper. His eyes are still down, but his hand is now clenched in a fist.
“You wrote this today?” he asks, still not looking up.
“It’s an assignment. For creative writing class.”
He looks up at me and starts to say something, but his jaw tightens and he clears his throat, like he’s having a hard time getting the words out.
“It’s really good,” he says. “The imagery is fantastic.”
I slide into the booth across from him, biting my lip so he won’t see just how pleased I am with his comment.
His eyes meet mine, and the sadness in his gaze pulls at me. For a moment, I’m back in my story, looking up at those green, green eyes.
“But this is more than a story. You remember this, don’t you?” he asks, pointing to the page.
My eyes flare, but I get a grip on myself. “It was based on a dream I had once.”
He closes the journal and stares down at it until the silence becomes uncomfortable. I’m not sure what else to say.
“I remember it, too,” he says softly. “I was there.”
“You think that really happened?” I play with the paper wrapper on the muffin, unsure if I really want to know.
“I’d read about a new treatment being offered at a university across town,” he says in a soft voice. “We didn’t have change for the bus. You said you were strong enough to walk. I didn’t realize how sick you really were.” He stops a moment, swallows hard, and goes on. “Your heart gave out before we got there.” His grief pulls at me, and I have to remind myself that this is not a well-balanced person I’m dealing with.
