Even on the Darkest Night

by Allie Martin

  “You've kissed one guy, and you are a virgin. But that's not the point. The most important thing in life is to live, EJ. To see the opportunities that are right in your face and take them. That’s what you told me to get me to agree to this concert. You said ‘I feel good, Nattie. I have to do things while I still feel good.’” She tilts her head and lowers her voice, imitating me.

  I know I’ve lost so I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I don’t sound like that.”

  “Evan.” Nat always catches me off guard when she gets like this. Very few words of wisdom come from her glossed pink lips, but when they do, they are enough to turn me inside out. “I’m not saying that hooking up should be your only goal for your life. All I’m saying is, here you are. There he is. That happened,” she says, gesturing to my inked up arm. “Your favorite band is playing five feet away. It’s an opportunity to be with a guy who doesn’t have a clue about your condition. You want to know what being a regular person is like? Well, here’s your chance at one night of epic with a pretty frickin cute dude. I say take it.”

  Her arms cross tighter, and I nod.

  “You’re right.” I swipe my water off the table and stand, pausing to wait for the wave of dizziness to pass. “I’ll go talk to him. And for the record, Jeff touched my boob when I kissed him. Under the shirt." I grin when she flips me off then plugs her ears. Jeff’s her cousin and she hates when I mention him. But he is the only guy I've ever really kissed (like, full on made out with). My first technical kiss was when I was twelve at a school dance where Curtis Kalnicki convinced me it was going to be a peck on the lips but shoved his tongue in my mouth like a frog catching a fly. We both got detention. I had a few meaningless kisses after that, but guys are mostly scared of me. Jeff wasn’t. Jeff wasn’t scared at all.

  “You’re damn right, I’m right.” Nat bursts my memory bubble. “I want you to kiss that boy right now, and this time I want to know every detail.” Nat takes a long sip from her straw and goes back to her cell phone with a scowl. I can’t believe she’s mad at me for not wanting to kiss a total stranger. A tall, dark, and mysterious poet stranger.

  My heart thunders. I fight to control my breathing, but I have to talk to him. I want to talk to him. I want to be normal. I want to taste that full bottom lip, and the realization of this fact shocks me.

  Another deep breath and my hand presses against my chest almost involuntarily this time.

  My confidence slowly wanes as I get closer to Jordan. He’s glancing at me every few seconds but trying to focus on the girl who is still yelling at him. I think about turning back multiple times (my previous thoughts that were strictly along the lines of: Crap, I have no idea how to flirt, or initiate these things, shift to thoughts such as: Crap, should I save him? He seems super uncomfortable. I should probably save him...).

  “You don't get it, Jordan." The model-girl sighs, and Jordan glances to her hand, which is still firmly placed in some other guy’s hand.

  "Oh, I get it." Jordan smirks, but it's a protective sound, one that's meant to shield him from whatever’s happening inside his head. “You do this every time.”

  This is definitely an ex. The tension that grows around them swallows me up, and I know it's a recent ex. This is what it feels like when my parents stand too close to each other. A long history of love and hate—one feeling indistinguishable from the next. My mind is like a meteor shower, sending fizzling thoughts of varying brightness through my head so fast I barely catch them before they burn up. I’m not a brave person unless I absolutely have to be, but something keeps moving me forward. Confusion maybe. Intrigue? A desire to understand the coincidences of this night? This bet. Our names.

  I need answers.

  Jordan looks at me again. This time the girl follows his gaze.

  I should turn around. It’s one of the little meteor thoughts that flies across the sky of my mind, but I don’t. His obvious discomfort keeps me moving forward. The familiarity picks at me again.

  Two hearts reflected... I see something of me in him. But I have no clue what.

  "Hey," he says to me, shifting his weight through the slushy tension. Now that I’m within arms’ reach I’m committed to this stupid plan. To his stupid bet. Without thinking, I grab the front of his sweater to steady my shaking hands and step into him. His shoulders tense up as I yank on the fabric and rise onto my toes. My lips touch his, and my body leans forward, wanting to get closer to his warm earthy scent. I can smell permanent marker faintly through the taste of mint toothpaste on his breath.

  His hands cup my cheeks lightly, and he returns the pressure of a soft closed-mouth kiss. His lips stretch into a smile against mine, but he doesn’t pull away until I do. When I finally lower myself back down to flat feet, he leans back. His eyebrows have disappeared under the mass of hair sticking out under his over-sized beanie.

  His gaze flicks over my shoulder before focusing back on me, his thumbs swiping across my cheeks as if he’s dusting off my freckles.

  "You could have just said thank you, you know?" he says, and I frown. Everything comes back into focus instantaneously. The concert. The room. The people surrounding us everywhere. All of it.

  "What?" Heat creeps into my cheeks. Speedy embarrassment zips through me as I realize what I did.

  "For the two dollars."

  My body turns to ice. I spin around involuntarily and walk straight back to Nat like an idiot, sinking into my chair. She grabs my knee, and my head falls downward to loudly introduce my forehead to the tabletop.

  “When I said you should go kiss him right now, that’s not exactly what I meant,” she says between gasps of laughter.

  Friday, April 19 • 7:55 PM

  Jordan

  I lean on the wall, twirling the pen in my fingers as the last of her strawberry lip gloss lingers on my lips. I’d go over and say something to her, but she has her head on the table. Her friend is running a hand up and down her back, and Annie is glaring at me with the radiation levels of a full nuclear meltdown. I haven’t kissed anyone but Annie in three years, and the feelings that twist together knot up my insides. Annie’s waiting for me to speak, but I can’t, so I take out my pen and turn to the dark wall.

  I’m not your problem anymore... She can’t break up with me and still expect to control what I do, who I talk to, and what strange girls randomly kiss me at concerts. Bets or no bets. It’s none of her business anymore.

  Annie lets out an exasperated throaty squeal as she reads my words and yanks her boy-toy away from me. He still hasn’t looked at me, even though he’s twice my size. Part of me thinks he gets it. He gets that he’s a player in this game. Her game. Annie is the ping pong ball and Boy-Toy and I take turns driving her away.

  “He doesn’t get me the way you do, Jordie,” Annie had said the last time I took her back. She showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, and my brother refused to let her in. I stood with my forehead against the door, hand on the handle, engaged in the worst fight I’d ever been in. The fight to stay inside the apartment and listen to my brother. The fight to not go to her. Of course I went.

  She stood with arms wrapped around her stomach, scared and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen before. She reached for me when she said it, but I stepped back. I should have known better to think distance would save me.

  “He doesn’t understand those parts of me,” she repeated. The parts of her that were torn and abused. The parts of her that were hidden from everyone but me. The parts of her I saw so clearly and had been determined to fix.

  She moved closer until my back was against the cold brick of my apartment building, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. If I did, I’d see it. I didn’t want to see it.

  “He doesn’t know me like you do,” she said with warm hands on my face, ducking to look at me, but I kept my eyes fixed on ground, watching leaves dance aimlessly in the wind. He’s her Alpha man, or whatever girls call them—the big guy with muscle and brawn who makes a girl feel protected.
There has always been some evolutionary switch flickering on and off within Annie, and she would crave those qualities I didn’t have. She kept thinking he’d change for her, be more sensitive, be more observant, take an interest in her heart. She’d want to talk about it—about him, and I’d chew on my hatred, too stubborn to swallow it but too weak to spit it in her face.

  Emotional validation was my job. She’d come back to me to fill those parts of her with nice words and pretty poetry. She counted on me to fill the spaces that her past had carved from her soul. But I wouldn’t change for her either. I only bend so far.

  We were her paradox.

  She forced me to look at her, and I saw the girl at the coffee shop who glanced at me through thick lashes and innocence... I felt like the only guy in world.

  And when she kissed me...

  I kissed back.

  A heavy body hits the wall next to me, bumping me from my thoughts.

  “Did the little cutie kiss you, dude?” Rick elbows me, and I tap my finger against my lips. Evan’s kiss felt different from any kiss with Annie. It caused an indefinable shift somewhere within me that my mind can’t sort out.

  “She did, and don’t call her that. It’s creepy.”

  “Why?” Rick crosses his thick arms and smirks.

  “Why is it creepy? Do I have to explain that to you?” I tease my friend, and he punches my arm.

  “She’s short and cute, asshole.” Rick punches my shoulder and I sag under the pressure. “No fair either. That was easier than I thought.”

  “Huh?”

  “The bet.”

  “I told her about it, up at the bar.”

  “You told her?” Rick asks. “And she still kissed you?”

  “I guess. I mean, yeah, she did.”

  “And in front of Annie?” Rick elbows me. “That girl’s got balls. I like her.” The swirl of emotion begins in my mind and funnels down to a single point, stabbing through my gut. Right. Annie. Annie who refused my tickets to this concert because it would be awkward, then she comes anyway to yell at me for coming. I guess I was supposed to eat the tickets.

  “Yeah, that’s going to bite me in the ass.” I uncap my pen and begin writing on the deep burgundy wall next to the dance floor, next to the words I wrote for Annie. I’m not her problem anymore. She’s not mine. I would love to believe it.

  “Why? You aren’t with Annie anymore, man. Go have fun. Have fun with the little cutie.” He elbows me and I cringe.

  “You seriously sound like a creep when you call her that,” I say, drawing a little sun next to my words. “Her name is Evan. Evan Jordans.” I pause as Rick silently puts it together.

  “Really? Isn’t that like fate or something?”

  “Some might say so.” I push off the wall and glance back at Evan, who’s facing away from me. Her winding, spiraling, silken hair hides the body that fit nicely against mine. Too nicely.

  I attempt to make sense of what's happening.

  “Dude, Annie screwed around on you. You don’t owe her anything.”

  “But I still love her.” I regret saying it, but Rick’s throaty hack of disbelief means I didn’t escape this one.

  “You don’t love anything but words. You didn’t love Annie. You loved the words she gave you. The good and the bad ones. Like I said, you’re like a chick sometimes with all the drama.” Rick leaves me open-mouthed and spins around to walk backward away from me. Toward Evan. “If you aren’t going to chat up Little Cutie, then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I did—”

  I quickly snap the pen back into its lid and follow him. No. Not follow. I chase him. Rick has a way of getting me in trouble. He’s already introduced himself by the time I catch up.

  Evan’s big dark eyes flicker over to me. “Hi,” she says, shaking his hand. “I’m Evan. This is Natalie.”

  “Do you mind?” Rick points to the chairs across from the girls, and they don’t object. He takes the chair across from Natalie, forcing me to sit across from Evan. “So, where are you girls from?”

  Natalie purses her lips. “You’re worried that we’re creeps?” I nod at Evan. “You kissed me, remember?”

  “I am not creepy,” Evan says, crossing her thin arms over her hoodie. “You wrote on my arm after your friend bet you to try and hook up with me.”

  Rick laughs loudly, and Evan snaps her head to meet his gaze. “Jordan writes on everything, but I’ve never seen him write on strangers before.”

  “Are you some sort of poet or something?” Natalie zeros in on me, and I feel like slinking down under the table.

  “Or something.” All eyes are on me.

  “I think it’s romantic,” Natalie continues, and Evan scoffs in this way that digs at me.

  “What was that for?” I reach across the table and poke her arm. I’m assuming I can do that since she kissed me. We kind of blew through the awkwardness of meeting someone and not knowing interest levels. No shaky hands resting next to each other, waiting to see who will make contact first. Our first touch was accidental.

  “Evan hates romance,” Natalie answers for her, and I hear Evan kick her under the table.

  “My kind of woman,” Rick chimes in, but he’s leaning back in his chair as a couple girls in mini-skirts walk by.

  “I don’t hate romance. I like those stupid movies you make me watch.” Evan’s tone is stone serious, and I laugh loud as a sound stage engineer begins to test the band’s equipment.

  “It sure sounds like you like them.” I say and she glares.

  “I think romance is for suckers. It doesn’t mean I hate it.”

  Her face flushes when Rick leans onto the table and motions for her to move in. She visibly fights an embarrassed smile as she shifts closer. Rick takes her wrist and slides the arm of her hoodie to expose my words. Evan stares as her friend’s grin takes over her face.

  “My boy, Jordie, is the king of romance, baby girl. If you aren’t into sickening, heart-twisting rhymes, then...” Rick winks at me as he leans back and my chest tightens. Rick is notorious for embarrassing me by accident. This is on purpose. My poetry never rhymes.

  I’m about to be mad at him when Evan’s gaze moves from the words on her arm to me. Just like her kiss, her eyes stop my speeding mind. Everything slows down. The longer she looks at me, the emptier my head becomes. It’s peaceful, but unfamiliar, and I can’t tear myself away.

  Our staring contest is interrupted by the band, and I feel the explosion of excitement like shockwaves through the room. Evan’s eyes light up, and the true exuberance behind them makes her seem younger. Natalie grabs Evan’s forearm, and they exchange a glance I don’t understand, but it’s mischievous and mysterious. I’m about to ask when the crowd erupts into cheers.

  I’m always shocked when I see Lemming Garden play because I know these guys. They are from here, but not only that, some of them went to my high school before they signed on their label. I recognize every band member; I know every one of the five musicians by name, some even more. The bassist, Hector, used to be one of my best friends. The violin/vocalist, Sarah, dated my brother, but she dumped him for the band. It’s surreal to see these people I knew so well seen as demi-gods by people who don’t know them at all.

  “These guys your favorite band?” I say to Evan as they start the first song. She puts her hands to her ears like she can’t hear me over the music. I slide my chair around. I’m right next to her, our legs touching from hip to knee, and lean into her, inhaling the sugary smell of her skin to re-ask the question.

  “Yeah, yours?” she yells back, putting her hand on my shoulder to lean in. I shake my head.

  “Nah, not really.”

  It’s as if I’ve slapped her. “They are amazing. Why don’t you like them?”

  Sarah starts with her long, drawn out vowels echoing through the room while I contemplate whether to tell her I know them. I shrug. “I like them. They just aren’t my favorite. The writing isn’t really that strong.”

  She leans in even
further, her breath leaving a trail of questions along my neck. I see Annie on the dance floor, her arms wrapped around Boy-Toy, but she’s watching me. No, actually, she’s watching Evan.

  “The lyrics are the best part of their music. Their songs are gorgeous.”

  I put my arm across the back of her chair and shift so my cheek touches hers, my lips close to her ear. “They aren’t really. Their songs say nice things, but the words themselves don’t sound beautiful.”

  “You are a romantic, aren’t you?” Evan asks.

  “I like beautiful words. I like words that sound like what they mean.”

  Evan leans away, and I study the curves of her face. I want to touch the freckles like I did when she kissed me, but my gut twists with the freshness of Annie. I’m not her problem anymore, I remind myself. I don’t owe Annie anything. I know it’s true. I wish I felt it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like the word ‘touch.’” The song playing behind us lowers, and I can hear Hector’s signature bass vibrate through me like a heartbeat.

  “I don’t understand.” Her eyes are searching me in a way that is irritatingly familiar, wanting to pinpoint the reason I turned to poetry. Pain. Because someone who sees words the way I do must be tormented somehow. I haven’t had a perfect life, but I’ve never suffered through much more than the privilege of a broken heart. Sure my dad’s in jail, but embezzling money doesn’t make him a bad father, just a bad investment banker.

  I reach up and place my finger lightly against Evan’s soft, pale jaw and run it along her skin.

  “Touch, for example. The T and the CH are hard while the softness of the O and U prolong the word. But not nearly enough. It’s always too short. Like a touch, the word starts fast and ends abruptly, but when you’re in the middle of it, you never want it to end.”

  My finger trails to her chin and drops from her skin, but she doesn’t answer me. She blinks with dark lashes like fluttering wings. I don’t get to say anything else when the band switches songs, and Natalie screeches, grabbing Evan from my grasp.