Here's to Now

by Teagan Hunter

  “Most people don’t.”

  “Is that why you started the daycare?” I ask, thinking of how difficult it has to be to face that daily…or maybe she did it because of the risks she faces with pregnancy.

  “Actually, in a strange twist of fate, that was already in the works.”

  “It’s amazing how life works sometimes.” Wait. “No, sorry. I don’t mean amazing. I’m not saying your cancer is amazing. I’m saying—”

  “I get it,” she interrupts, saving me from further embarrassing myself. “I consider myself lucky because I have the daycare. I love children, always have. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who walks away from the opportunity to have a family, someone who just leaves their kid. I can’t even imagine doing that. I’ve wanted a horde of my own since I was young and babysat for practically the entire neighborhood. It guts me to think about.”

  My stomach drops. Bile rises in my throat. My body begins to ache.

  I did that. I gave that up. What we could have, it’s over—or never going to happen. Whatever. There’s no way she’ll forgive that.

  You’re going to end up hating me, is what I want to tell her…what I should tell her. I need to back away from this right now before we get in any deeper.

  I fear it’s too late though.

  “A horde, huh?” I tease instead.

  “Something like that,” she says absently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call and dump all my problems onto you.”

  “Don’t ever apologize for sharing yourself, not to me, Haley. I love learning more about you. I’m sorry I can’t be there to cure you of your boredom.”

  “You’re a good friend, Gaige.” Right. Friend. Whatever it is we have is more than a friendship, no matter how much we pretend it isn’t. We’re tied together with an invisible string, and I’ve never been pulled so tightly to someone before.

  Careful, Gaige, a taut string is likely to break.

  Yeah, yeah. Fuck off, self.

  “I’m sure Cailee doesn’t mean anything by it. This is probably a stressful time for her. I think you should give her another shot.”

  “Are you always so logical?”

  “No, hardly ever. I’m the king of bad decision-making.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “How so?”

  “In way too many ways to count, Hales,” I tell her, running a hand through my hair and ruffling it. It’s on the tip of my tongue to lay out all my bad shit, my extended criminal record, my family issues, to warn her to stay away because all I’ll end up doing is burning her trust, but I don’t, because I’m a selfish prick, just like I was when I was sixteen. I guess Benny was right; some people never change.

  “I’ll let you get back to whatever it was you’re doing.”

  “Cleaning up puke? Sure.”

  “Puke? Are you sick?”

  “No, it’s not me. It’s my little brother.”

  “I didn’t know you had a little brother.”

  She sounds like someone jammed a knife into her back and twisted it. The hurt in her words makes me realize what shit friends we truly are. In the time I’ve known Haley, we’ve grown close, and not just sexually. But, if I’m being purely honest here, we allow one another to continue hiding our faults. We don’t talk about them. The proof lies in the fact that I had no idea Haley had cancer, something a genuine friend would know. Let’s not even get into how she has no idea I have a little brother, let alone three other siblings I’m helping raise. Sure, we tell one another some secrets, but even then we aren’t truly open and honest. We still only allow half-truths, and that’s sometimes as bad as saying nothing at all.

  We may joke often about being best friends, but I realize now it’s so far out of our league.

  We’re not friends, we’re faux friends. I have enough falsity in my life; I need reality.

  Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.

  But not tonight, not right now when she’s already had a shit night and opened up a serious wound. It is not the time to go sharing my dirty secrets or for me to beg for hers.

  “Yep, and he’s a twerp.”

  “Someone related to you being twerp? You don’t say.”

  “Hey, watch it. I’m the one who supplies you pleasure.”

  “But baby, I can supply my own pleasure,” she purrs through the phone.

  “I think I just came.”

  “Liar.”

  “Tease!”

  “Guilty as charged. I’ll talk to you later, Gaige.”

  “Bye, Hales.”

  Sadness overwhelms me once I end the call, an ache forming in my chest. It’s so prominent that I have to rub my palm against the spot, trying to scrub away the hurt. It doesn’t work. I have this crushing amount of need building inside me, something that isn’t going to merely go away. I want more with Haley. I want our friends-with-benefits things to progress. I want an official relationship and a sincere friendship. I don’t want to have to say goodbye. Although we try hard to not label this and continue on pretending we’re still just friends who fuck a lot, we’re beyond that. Yet, we don’t talk about it. We just…go on.

  I know in order for us to have a real go at this, we’re going to have be open and honest. Tomorrow. That’s when I’ll talk with her and see where she’s at on this. I’ll beg her to understand why I walked away from my family, to accept my history, to believe in me.

  I promise I’ll do it tomorrow.

  Promise.

  I’m fucking awful at keeping promises.

  A week has passed since Haley opened up to me about her cancer, and I still haven’t clued her into my past fuck-ups.

  It’s crazy to think how much my life has changed since I met her over a year ago. I’ve had many, many downs, yet recently, I’ve had more ups than I can count. The best change thus far? Since we started talking again, I’m spending more time with my siblings. We’re talking weekly ice cream trips and the occasional sleepover whenever Mercy feels up to it. I’ve never had that before, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Mercy’s finally starting to trust me again after what happened with Gunner. It feels good to be trusted again.

  I tap the bar at Clyde’s and come face to face with Benny. The hulking bartender glares at me. Yeah, we still haven’t made up since we got into that scrap. He’s still convinced I’m dirty and no good for Haley.

  He’s right.

  While Haley knows I have some sort of shady past—hello, scars galore—I’m being a total pussy when it comes to divulging all my secrets. She doesn’t know my parents are dead. She doesn’t know I abandoned my family…twice.

  Basically, she doesn’t know what a complete and total dick I am.

  I’m a terrible friend, and an even worse person.

  “What are you doing here?” Benny doesn’t attempt to be pleasant in the least. Can’t say I blame the dude, especially since the last time we interacted, he had his meaty fist in my face. Yeah, he hates me.

  I lift my hands innocently. “This place has the best French fries around and it’s been too long since I’ve had them.”

  “Point?”

  “Can I get a basket?”

  He grumbles something and calls an order back through the kitchen before turning to me. “Drink?”

  “Coke.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’d love some coke.”

  Heat floods my veins as irrational anger overcomes me. I clench my fists at my sides and ground out, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  Benny pins me with his stare. “You know exactly what that means.”

  “How do you even know about that? That part of my record is sealed. I was a minor.”

  He leans across the bar, his shadow clouding me in darkness. Again, he doesn’t scare me one bit. To prove it, I lean in toward him, my eyes hard and steely. “I told you, I hear shit. I heard about the kid,” he says quietly, menacingly.

  “You don’t know shit,” I spit, trying with everyth
ing I can to not punch the bastard again.

  “I don’t? So you mean you weren’t hanging out doing coke with your buds when some punk kid overdosed and you were so stoned you didn’t do shit to help him as he died in front of you?”

  Everything spins in and out of focus. My breaths become labored and my head starts racing around like a hamster stuck on one of those wheels. I never think about that night. I never think about how it changed my life in so many ways. I definitely never think about what else happened that night.

  All I think about is how wrong Benny is.

  “You’re wrong,” I whisper, my anger powering its way through me like an electric current ramming and pushing to find its ground.

  “Wrong?” He gives a disbelieving laugh. “I doubt that.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Benny. I’ve done nothing to deserve the treatment you’ve given me, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve you sucker punching me for talking to some random girl all those months ago because you thought I was cheating on Haley, who, by the way, I wasn’t even with then. You don’t know me. You never once gave me a chance.”

  He huffs. “A chance? Why should I give you a chance? After everything I know about you? Give me one good reason.”

  Shaking my head in disbelief, I say, “You know, you claim to love those Kamden girls so much and to trust them implicitly, yet when Haley decides she wants to befriend me and obviously trusts me, you don’t want me near her. But, you don’t want me talking to anyone else either.” I curl my lip at him in disgust. “You need to make up your mind about me already. Am I trash or not? Can I be with Haley or no? Make. Up. Your. Fucking. Mind!”

  I don’t even give a shit that I yelled the last part. Good. Let other people know what a dick Benny is, how fucking judgmental he is.

  Sure, he has good reason to think I’m a little sketchy, but to try to shut me out of someone else’s life, someone who clearly wants me in it, is totally fucked.

  He stares at me, and it’s hard for me to feel myself shrinking. Confidence isn’t something I’m generally lacking, but I have my moments of self-doubt. This is one. “How long have two been dating?”

  I jerk my head back. “Dating? What? No, no. We’re not dating.”

  “How much time do you spend together?”

  “We’re together nearly every night,” I respond automatically.

  “Do you have a drawer?”

  “Yes, and a spot for my toothbrush.” I squint at him, unsure of what he’s getting at here, and frustrated as hell that he’s skirting around the important subject.

  “And who is the first person you think of in the morning? The one who makes you smile the most? The person you want to share all your big moments with? The first person who comes to mind right this very second?”

  “Haley.” It comes out almost whispered as I realize just where it is he’s going.

  “You sure you’re not dating?”

  I gulp. “Not officially.”

  “You need to redefine ‘officially’ in your book.” With that, he turns and heads over to the pick-up window.

  “No, hey, get back here!” Again with the yelling.

  He spins around after yelling something to the kitchen. “Are you innocent, Gaige?”

  “Innocent?”

  “Yeah. That shit that went down, how much of it is on you?”

  Good Lord. I feel like a boxed marked fragile that the movers just threw into the back of the truck and let bounce, bounce, bounce around—only I’ve been bouncing for years, not just miles. This conversation is throwing me over one bump after another.

  “I wasn’t there when…” I prop my elbows on the bar and drop my head to my hands, trying to scrub out the angry, gnarled scenes playing in my mind. First the lifeless body of a guy I knew, a guy I was friends with. Then the screams that ripped through me in the police station, the tears I shed, the stoic, noncommittal shrug I gave when I was escorted to jail. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “So you’re saying you are…innocent?” Benny pushes, not giving two shits that I’m half a step away from spinning out of control.

  Shrugging, I answer, “In some regards, sure. In others, I’m guilty of a lot.”

  “But in this particular one?”

  Tugging at my hair, I ground out, “Innocent.”

  Standing back, he studies me. I wonder what he sees. A killer? A man who wishes he could erase his past? One who apologizes daily to a man he knew he could never save? A man who wants nothing more than to take back those stupid words he spouted off, the ones that irrevocably altered his life? Or one who wants to go back to being ten so everything could change?

  Benny gulps in a big breath of air, his wide chest expanding even more, causing the faded Ford logo on his shirt to stretch.

  “Straight talk?”

  “You better fucking believe it.”

  “Watching your eyes die at the mere mention of that night, I believe you when you say you’re innocent, that you didn’t stand by and watch that man die. But, I can’t trust you.” He arches a brow. “However, I can trust Haley. So, here’s your chance, kid. Remember, if you break her heart, or do anything sketchy—at all—I will punch you. Again.”

  “You know I wasn’t doing anything wrong that night you hit me.”

  He doesn’t say anything, only stares.

  “Right,” I say, breaking contact with his harsh glare. “So can I get those fries?”

  Mumbling, he stalks off, grabs my basket of fries from the window, and throws them down in front of me. “Tell your girlfriend I said hi.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend!” I yell to his retreating back, his annoyance palpable as he moves down the bar, sloshing beer around.

  Why the fuck does he keep insisting Haley and I are dating? We’re not.

  I think.

  Let’s be real; we spend as much time together as couples do. We sleep together, in every sense of the word. I do keep some of my shit at her place, but she’s never met my siblings. She doesn’t know their story or even all of my story. I’m certain I don’t know all of hers either…or do I? Shit. Maybe we are dating in her head. Maybe I’m already her boyfriend and I don’t know. Are we exclusive? Because I’m exclusive.

  Dammit. I think we need to have the talk—you know, that one where we define what we are, where we make it official official.

  But, hell, am I ready for official? As much as I hate to admit it, Benny is sort of right. Some of the things we do together constitute dating, but if we make this “official”, will it change what we have? Is she going to expect more out of me? Will I expect more out of her? Are we going to transform into different people? What if “couple me” isn’t good enough anymore?

  Hold up. I’m getting myself all worked up over something that could be nothing.

  Ha! Could be nothing? Who the fuck am I kidding? Of course this is something, and it’s big, bigger than I thought it’d ever be. Who’d have ever thought going out for a beer would turn into this? I took one drunk chick home out of the kindness of my asshole heart and now my life is tangled up with hers. I’ve comforted her, watched her cry more than once, held back her hair when she was puking up her guts from the flu. All of it. I’ve seen her in every state possible: happy, sad, emotional, confused, angry, you name it. I know, I know. This…relationship seems unconventional to just about everyone else but us. We met, became instant friends, and spent an unheard of amount of time together for practical strangers. It’s worked for the last year (give or take a six-month break), but we have yet to tell anyone about our friendship. I haven’t told her about my past or, hell, even my plans for the future, but she’s divulged few secrets of her own. And yet, we’re perfectly content pretending this is something normal. And maybe it is. Who are we to judge what normal is?

  Either way, we need to figure this out. I wasn’t thinking about it before, but now it won’t get out of my head. Thoughts of Haley and me and a future are stuck to my brain like super glue.

  I ne
ed to get out of here. Being in the same place this all started isn’t helping.

  “Can I get the check? I gotta head out.”

  Benny scowls, punches some buttons on the touch screen behind the counter, rips the paper from the printer, and slams it down on the bar. Then he stands there, watching me as I slowly pull my wallet from my back pocket. I carefully count out the cash, making sure to add in a hefty tip just to piss him off even more.

  He rolls his eyes as he scoops up the bill and the money. I give him a smug smile as I say, “Keep the change.”

  Me: Busy tonight?

  Nikki: Now this one is totally a booty call.

  Me: I’ll take that as a no. Good. I’ll be by around 7.

  Nikki: I love it when you get all bossy, bosser.

  “We need to talk.”

  “T-talk?” Haley asks hesitantly.

  “Yep,” I tell her, my hands on my hips, looming over her small figure as she sits curled on the couch. “And I need you to promise to keep your hands to yourself until after we’re done talking, you little minx.”

  She giggles nervously, but scoots down the couch so I can claim “my spot”.

  I sit, but don’t let myself rest back.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  I glance over to see her twisting the blanket in her lap up into her fists. Reaching over, I still her actions, trying to give her some reassurance. “Sorry. There’s no reason to be scared. This is a good talk, I think.”

  “You think?” I nod. She takes a timid breath. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

  “What…” I start, but am unable to push the sentence out, a little apprehensive of going down this path. But…I need to know. Ever since my conversation with Benny this afternoon, I’ve been thinking about it. It’s ceaselessly bounced around back and forth in my head like a fucking bouncy ball for hours. Hours. Is she seeing anyone else? Sleeping with anyone else? Does she see this as something with potential? Do I? Round and round, and fucking round we go. It’s been a nonstop mess of questions inside my head all day. I need to get this out. “What are we?”