by M. C. Cerny
“Oh, Hunter, always the jokester.” She lightly slapped my shoulder, looking back at the house even though the condensation kept us from seeing it clearly. “No indoor pool, but a screened in Jacuzzi under the back deck sounds like a nice upgradable option.”
The whine from my voice filled the truck. “Tell me what kind of budget we’re working with.” I don’t have a clue of when I agreed to actually do this, but I already regretted telling her I would do it when she squealed with delight, giving me a number that probably wouldn’t cover the permits or the supplies six weeks into this project. I dropped her off at her dad’s house with a sense of panic the next time I saw her.
I hoped like hell I had extra hard hats…
2
Taylor Jane
Ninth Grade - September
“Look, there’s the new kid!” Kristen Calloway, my best friend on the planet since we were five years old, nudged me with her boney elbow. We finished our lunch about ten minutes ago, and I hoped to use the remaining time to finish my homework and study. Her smooth voice was an excited whisper and chipper distraction from finishing my notes for class.
“Kristen, what the heck?” I looked up from studying for my biology test. We were learning about the molecules of cells and having to illustrate what they looked like. Personally, I found them to be un-color coordinated blobs in serious need of a makeover. I mean, who came up with the name mitochondria and decided it should be colored a brick red? I picked through my colored pencils and realized the one I wanted was sticking in Kristen’s hair to secure her bun.
“Kristen!” I reached up to grab it, but she batted my hand away. Smacking my lips disappointed, I guessed I would be using burnt sienna instead. I started tapping the colored pencils, outlining and shading to the new Green Day tune, “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” It was a bit of a sad song, but one that stayed with me over the summer since school started.
“Taylor!” She hissed back, dragging out the syllables in my name, nodding her head in my general direction.
Putting my pencil down, I took her math homework from between her book pages and we squared off a moment before trading items. Shaking my head, I looked up and saw who she’d pointed at earlier.
The new kid. The one everyone had been talking about since the end of the summer. Finally the speculation was over and here he was in all our freshman glory, walking with our neighbor from across the street.
“Oh fucking hell, Damien is over there already.” Breathing deeply, I counted to ten because for as long as I could remember Damien Hart and Kristen Calloway had hated each other on sight. That was an exaggeration, it was seventh grade two years ago, but close enough the way these two waged pre-teen war on each other. I swear their mothers got together and they kicked each other through the womb. Born on the same day, under the same freaking fire sign of Leo, these two could not have been more at each other’s stubborn throats unless they were twins with the same DNA. They weren’t oil and water, they were a compounded blaze I loved equally and was forced to often mediate between.
The trouble seemed to start over something in the beginning of seventh grade. Maybe a hastily scribbled note? Or another girl came between them, but neither had ever confessed what broke the friendship so deeply back then. After it all went down mysteriously, Kristen taught us all the swear words she knew in French that same year… Damien got a week of detention for saying them all in our language arts class. Then he told Kristen her last name really meant ‘pebbles’ in Norman French during genealogy week in history and had been calling her that since… I actually looked it up and for once Damien was right, making the origin Old Northern French. I had my suspicions there was more to it, but neither camp was disclosing more information. To be honest, I felt like staying neutral was my only choice since my parents weren’t moving anytime soon.
Damien was Kristen’s first kiss in seventh grade. She doesn’t know that I know, but when she was at the hospital for a broken arm she muttered something under the influence of pain killers and copious amounts of Coca-Cola from the vending machine. Her big brother, Chase, seemed to be on a mission to smash his face in until I tackled him in the hallway, reminding him that whatever happened was half Kristen’s fault. Knowing her as we did, we couldn’t discount that she might have had a part in this situation. Damien Hart owed me a favor for saving his life that day. I was simply waiting for the opportunity to cash it in.
I thought Chase and I handled things as best as we could until right before Christmas. Kristen had just gotten her cast off and the one period we didn’t have class together she went off. I mean unhinged, and bit him, leaving a mark so obvious that the girl he was taking to the holiday dance dumped him via folded note during gym class. By then it was a full-on war and I was playing Switzerland.
Luckily for me, they didn’t speak all of eighth grade, which gave me a reprieve last year, but now that we’re all in the high school building it would seem their war resumed full force for ninth grade and I had no reinforcements. I was losing faster than Napoleon in a Russian winter. Just ducky. I hoped the new kid knew what he was in for. Maybe he would be a buffer and save me since Chase was busy… well, chasing tail as an upperclassman.
“So who is he?” I looked across the cafeteria and saw him standing next to Damien, holding a tray of food like everyone else. Nothing about him blended in. For one he was taller and broader in the shoulders than Damien. Thicker muscles that you didn’t really see on ninth graders filled him out and made him look older than our age. Both had that dark chocolate brown hair and a similar smile, except his was clipped, guarded even through the angles of his teen beat magazine worthy face. From across the cafeteria, the hoard of clicky girls already spied him and most likely doodling Mrs. New Guy all over their notebooks. Looking down at my own book, I noticed the swirls and scribbles on my cellular mitochondria and scratched it out, starting my drawing over.
“Well, I heard that he’s actually related to the troll demon, Damien. Something like first cousins maybe, some trouble with the law and he had to move here. This is of course speculation because Becky Myers heard it from Clarissa Watts, who was in the same gym class as that Dolan kid who always looks at you weird.” Kristen gave a dramatic shudder, and I ignored her, watching him walk around the cafeteria, trailing behind while Damien introduced him to people. There was a quiet strength in his walk, unlike Damien who moved with boastfulness that belayed his friendly and outgoing personality.
“Is that so…” Nibbling the end of the colored pencil, I pondered the information carefully, wondering how much of it was true. Had he ever been arrested? Why did that excite me in a strange way?
“Louisa was telling me in the bathroom that she saw them talking to the football coach earlier. We were discussing the merits of brown versus black eyeliner and—”
“Brown for casual and black for Fridays and weekends.” I reminded her, nodding and coloring in squiggles of DNA.
“Smokey eyes are so classic, but not Monday morning worthy unless you fall asleep all weekend. Then you end up looking like Rocky Raccoon.”
We hummed in agreement, glad we settled on the eye makeup debate, but I was stuck wondering if he played football and would join the team that Kristen’s dad coached. Mr. Calloway was also our gym teacher and our football team went to group finals every year.
I interrupted Kristen before we got completely sidetracked. “Why don’t you just ask Damien? Wouldn’t that be the easiest?”
Kristen gasped and looked at me like I did something horrifying. From her reaction you would think I spilled my chocolate milk all over my white T-shirt and dark wash Express flare jeans my mom let me buy with my babysitting money. Sometimes I thought Kristen was better suited to drama class than the history ones her mom made her take as prelaw college requisites.
“Taylor Jane Bryant, I am going to pretend you didn’t just say that to me.” Eyes narrowed, Kristen looked ready to blow her top off, so I let it go, not realizing that her favorite pers
on finally joined us.
“Taylor. Pebbles.” Damien waggled his eyebrows acknowledging us both, coming over to our table. His confident swagger reminded me of that new boy band I wanted to see in concert for my birthday but my parents had yet to agree to.
Kristen simmered behind her math textbook, the angry heat virtually radiating into the room. Her homework suddenly looked fascinating, the way one viewed a new zoo animal, curious and yet cautious. Kristen gave Damien her own polite gesture with her middle finger, rubbing the bridge of her nose in an exaggerated fashion.
My friends are so mature.
At least I wasn’t bound under the Mutual Bestie Hate Act of 2002… or MBHA for short. “Hi, Damien.” I knew Damien since kindergarten because our families lived across the street. Damien’s mom and mine always got along and when Mrs. Hart went back to work my mom would watch Damien after school. Mrs. Calloway, a busy lawyer with her own successful practice, sent Kristen and her older brother, Chase, next door to my house to play. We were a regular group in the neighborhood. In fact, I was sure my mom was home right now baking something for all of us to eat after school later.
“Ladies….” Damien looked at me and then smirked at Kristen, who was trying her best to ignore him. “I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Hunter, Hunter Hart. He’s going to be attending school here.” So that explained their connection as Damien looked proud to introduce his cousin. It was a nice thing he was doing, whatever the circumstances, although I imagined Hunter could hold his own all right.
Kristen stood up and walked around me with her hand out offering to shake Hunter’s hand, looking him up and down, smirking right back at Damien. “I’m sorry for your relations. I hope you’ll be a more agreeable specimen than Demon here.” Kristen elbowed Damien in the gut out of her way while Hunter and I both laughed. His slight smile appeared forced at first before relaxing with us, even briefly. She gave Hunter a businesslike handshake, maintaining her composure.
“That one saves all her finger erections just for me,” Damien sneered.
“It’s because you’re special, Demon.” Kristen stuck her tongue out at him, this time giving him an obvious flip of her middle finger.
I was left perpetually rolling my eyes at those two.
“You must be Kristen, then.” Hunter moved on to look down at me next and sat in the seat across from me.
My hands nervously tapped out the end of that Green Day song I liked and our eyes met, staring. He spied my cookie with a hungry possession and back at me again. I nodded, giving him permission to take it. As much as I wanted the sugary treat laden with fat chocolate chips, I wanted him to continue sitting at our table long after the bell rang. I wanted to sketch the angles of his face and the shadows the yellow hued lights of the cafeteria cast on him. He wasn’t cocky like Damien. Instead, it was his somberness I noticed first and the way he seemed to think everything through, from his reply to his movements.
Hunter Hart was obscenely good-looking, and I saw why all the girls tittered over his arrival. He took the cookie from my tray, unapologetically biting it with straight white teeth. As he chewed it, I noticed his eyes were a strange mix of greens and golds. His hand holding the half bitten cookie was red and a scab still healed over the knuckles. It looked wicked and raw, eliciting more questions in my head I didn’t have the guts to ask. When he finished chewing he addressed me directly, “You must be Taylor Jane.”
The way he said my entire first name made me shiver like I was in trouble. No one but my parents used my full name; a rarity for me, giving me a wicked feeling. Not bad, but I wouldn’t say first crush good either. Hunter was one of those serious boys, and I doubted whatever the rumors said about him were true. He didn’t seem the type to get in trouble with the law or whatever gossip Becky and Clarissa dished out, but there was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on. Something painful behind the glint in his eyes and the false carefree attitude he projected with us.
Interrupting our visual connection, Damien broke the spell before I could figure out what made him tick satisfying my curiosity. “Oh, Hunter, nobody calls Taylor by her full name. It’s not cool at all. In fact, I call her TJ, or T-Rex when we play hoops afterschool. I mean, just look at her cute shorty arms,” Damien chided his cousin playfully holding in his arms close to his body like a T-Rex and roaring. Hunter looked up at him with a peculiar expression that stopped his silly dinosaur interpretation right away.
“I am looking at her.”
That deep voice stirred something in me I was certain only senior girls, maybe juniors, knew anything about. My stomach grumbled and I wished I had that darn cookie to shove in my mouth so I wouldn’t be tempted to say anything stupid.
“Pfft, Damien, we haven’t played basketball since you decided it was dodge ball when Kristen and Chase came over last time.”
“Aw, TJ.” He made my name sound more like Teeged, embarrassing me.
I was awful at basketball and I think Damien only played it with me because I was even worse at catching footballs.
“That’s because you can’t make a basket to save your life.” Damien chortled.
Hunter watched our overly familiar conversation and seemed sad, but not quite. The boys exchanged some weird communication without words when Hunter suddenly spoke again.
“Yeah well, I’m calling her Taylor Jane and you should too. It’s respectful to address a girl by her full name. Besides, TJ is a boy’s name. Taylor Jane is definitely a girl.” The last part he said scrunching his nose up like he smelled something unpleasant. It felt like he was informing us about a decision he was making with finality, and none of us disagreed. I mean, what would we say? It was my name, but I didn’t understand why it was big deal to him.
“I owe you a cookie tomorrow, Taylor Jane.” Hunter got up and exited the table, leaving the rest of us a little confused by his abrupt departure, the rest of the cookie in his hand as he finished it in two bites, dismissing us.
“What the hell was that about? Hey, Hunter?” Damien called out to his cousin, who waved him off, walking out of the cafeteria.
“Your cousin is a little off, Demon.” Kristen sighed and now we were back to our original trio. I liked the way he said my name and decided to let him keep doing it if it meant he would come back tomorrow and sit with us. My art notebook was at home on my desk, it would be perfect for sketching him later.
3
Hunter
Ninth Grade - September
It physically hurt having to get up and pretend everything was normal. This morning, my aunt Ginny came into the bedroom I shared with my cousin Damien to wake us up for school. A week ago I was in Michigan trying to get my shit together mentally. Today was the first day I would be leaving the house whether I wanted to or not. She was a nice enough lady, my uncle Henry too, but I didn’t know this side of my family enough to feel comfortable. My current state of mind was somewhere between a constant itch and a numb void. All I knew about New Paltz was based on my dad’s complaints about this place growing up. Inevitably I would hate being around a bunch of fake happy kids in upstate suburban New York dicking around.
Nothing about my life was normal, including the shit that had happened in the beginning of the summer. There were days I still felt the car skidding across the road as I watched my father’s hand fly out to hit my mother and her hands frantically jerking the wheel from his grip. The resounding slap and shatter of glass as we flipped over and over in the air until we landed haunted me with each rotation of the car getting closer to the painful end. My eyes had stopped crying months ago and my heart never found the words to express my grief at losing the two people I counted on most, even if they were broken themselves. They had been all I had, all I had known. The threat of violence had been my only constant.
Sleeping at night was the worst. I couldn’t stand blankets suffocating me as if I was still trapped inside the car, restrained and caught until the rescue crews had cut me out from the tangled seatbelt. Every night I
kicked the blankets off only to find them tucked around me by morning. Ginny couldn’t help herself trying to mother me. One night I caught her sneaking into the room to brush Damien’s hair back and while she didn’t touch me, she picked up the blanket from the floor and shrouded me like a mummy, pushing the loose corners down around my legs firmly. I didn’t have the heart to tell her not to. It seemed easier to let her think she was helping me and rip them off later, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest in panic by the time she left the room.
My body couldn’t seem to shut down replaying the sights, sounds, and even the smells. Fuck, I didn’t think that would be the part that stayed with me the most. Smelling burnt oil, spilled gasoline at the gas station, or coppery blood from the smallest paper cut made my stomach hurt. My dad used to work with cars and I was pretty sure that was the last thing I want to do, even if he made me his little grease monkey from the time I could walk, handing him wrenches in dirty overalls.
Damien and his parents were from my dad’s side of the family. They seemed all right. My grandparents, my mother’s parents, had come up from Alabama, taken one look at me, and said they wouldn’t have me back in July when we buried my parents at the funeral. My Uncle Henry stepped in and offered to take me versus a resigned aunt and uncle who lived down in Alabama on my mom’s side whom I’d never met either. Dad had made sure we were good and isolated up in Michigan. At least somebody wanted me, right?
Who knew, maybe I’d crave humid sunshine down south come winter and take off to live with them if things didn’t work out in New York. Damien and Uncle Henry drove out to Michigan and took me home without a complaint between them. Before they came I was staying with a neighbor, but school had started and things just weren’t working out when I got into a fight, earning a nice little suspension. That asshole shouldn’t have said what he did about my mom. I shouldn’t have punched him either as I looked down at the faint scars barely healed over my knuckles. I knew right from wrong, but in that case I didn’t care.
