by Alex Rosa
“Calm down, Hailey.”
I’m anything but, and because of this I choose not to respond, staring off into the distance and letting out a not-so-surprised huff when the Ferris wheel stops with us at the top.
He lets the silence hang, too, and proving his point earlier, my stubbornness wins out when he loses his patience.
“So, are you gonna call him?”
My lips twitch as I try to hide my smile. “Who?” I ask.
He grumbles, and I know he hates this, and it serves him right. It’s about time I get some company with this irrational hatred. “C’mon. Are you?” he asks again.
I turn to see his face set in a hard line, and I hate even more that that also pleases me. “Yeah, I’m thinking I might.”
Wait, am I?
Before I can add more of an instigating caveat he says, “I don’t even know what he’s doing in town.”
I guess I don’t know why either, but I’ll make it my mission to find out. “He was nice.”
“Nice?” Caiden grumbles. “How can you say that? Do you have any idea how many times my fist has met his face and vice versa?”
I giggle. “Yeah, I do. He isn’t the same guy now.” This is something I have no evidence for other than a five-minute conversation, but I roll with it.
“He obviously still has the hots for you.”
I snort. “Shut up, Caiden. Gabe Samuels never had a crush on me. Now you’re just making shit up.”
“Well, I must have done a pretty good job hiding that one then, or it might have made it into your book among a slew of other things,” he hums. “Why the hell do you think I got into so many brawls with him, combined with the fact Brandon hated his guts?”
I’m shell shocked, my mouth going agape as I stare at Caiden, who looks anything but amused. “I never knew that.”
“I hated the way he talked about you in the locker room. I used to think it was just to get to me because he knew we were dating in high school. Ya know, thinking he did it to psych me out before practices? Guess I was wrong…” He pauses to stare at my mouth, and it has my heartbeat beginning a hard, heavy rev like an engine within my chest. “… Are you smiling over Gabe Samuels right now?”
“Are you angry right nooowww?” I ask, dragging out the tone of my words in defensive embarrassment.
“No.” He looks away, out into the abyss of the night sky, his jaw back to that tight clench I remember seeing down at the picnic table.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” I try my best to not sound like a snotty teenager.
He releases a sigh. “On the dance floor with CeeCee.”
Oh, so she’s with my best friend, I think, and then I remember that I’ve been gone a long time and that CeeCee and Kristen are probably friends, and that I might be the one interrupting the dynamics of the group friendships. This thought gives me a nasty taste in my mouth.
“She isn’t wondering where you’re at?”
He lifts his hand to fiddle with his bottom lip, like he’s been doing since we were teens, the same maneuver he couldn’t help when we were at the bar when he’d stare. This is Caiden thinking, while at the same time attempting to be considerate. It’s a Caiden trait.
“She’s self-sufficient,” he replies.
I hate that the statement makes Kristen seem smart, independent, and not the jealous type. Self-sufficient means she isn’t worried about Caiden, because she trusts what they have. I wonder if he loves her.
I’m hating this evening more and more. I try to change tack.
“Thank you for what you said about my mom. It was really great.”
Ignoring the change of direction, he says with an annoying smirk, “You don’t like me talking about Kristen, do you?”
“I like it about as much as you like the idea of me talking to Gabe.”
He blows out a low breath between his lips. “Gotcha.”
I bite my lip to stop myself, but like a bubbling geyser in my throat, the words need to escape. “Do you love her?”
I can feel his whole body tense against me. “Uh,” he says, toying with the idea. “I might. Yeah. I think it’s a possibility.”
I consider leaping off the Ferris wheel in hopes the hay bales to the right might save my fall, but I refrain from such extreme stupidity.
“That’s nice.”
That’s nice? Yeah, maybe I should jump.
“You not seeing anyone in LA?”
“No one seriously.”
“But there was someone.”
“Caiden. Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop…” I flail my hands between us. “This. Whatever this is, we need to stop.”
“I’m not allowed to know?”
“You’re allowed to know, but you’re not supposed to care.”
He turns his attention back into the open air in front of us. We let the proverbial dust settle, and the moment drags for what feels like an eternity, but we need it.
“Do you care… about me?” he asks, his voice low.
My head drops into my hands as I let out a laugh. “Do you want me to?”
“I care about you,” he says, his voice steady and anxious.
My heart melts. And I hate the desperate roundness to his eyes as he locks his stare with mine. Sure, he’s twenty-four now, but in this moment he looks like the nineteen-year-old I remember, except this one has a beard. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I cared, but you’re making things really complicated in my head.”
“Right back atcha, Hails.”
Nothing is resolved. He’s not going to listen to me, but at least we cleared up one thing: we care. That’s enough for me now, and I don’t think I could handle much more.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Caiden. It’s important to me.”
He smiles, the corners of his mouth reaching ear to ear. “Thanks.”
His smile hurts, but I reciprocate, because regardless, it’s stunning. “I’m sorry your mom passing away is what brought you back. I wish things were… different.”
I gulp down his words. Different is an understatement.
“Yeah, me, too. But at least it feels like she was in good hands. Everyone loved her.”
He peers over to his left, down below, before swinging his stare back to me. He nods, but seems in a rush now as he rubs over his bottom lip again. “You wanna know the moment I knew your book was about us?”
“No,” I reply, letting out a skirting giggle, looking away to hide my reddening cheeks. When his finger comes jabbing into my gut, I leap at the touch in such an intimate, squishy part of me. I squeal, “Caiden!”
His burly laughter rumbles between us, and he ignores my denial. “It was the first, or second chapter, I can’t remember—”
“Why don’t you go take a look at your notes to double check.”
He gives me a wry smile and tries poking me again, but I swat his finger away. If he touches me one more time, I’m going to need to change my panties, and I will take that deep, dark secret to my grave.
“What I mean is, it isn’t obvious. We’ve known each other since we were kids, but in your book, they meet for the first time their first day of school, but you made it our first day of sophomore year.”
The fact he knows that gives me chills. “Did not,” I lie.
“Can we just skip past your constant no’s now? Because it’s getting old fast.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “You wrote the character wearing this cream, lace, fitted dress, and when she stepped out of her car, the guy across the parking lot made fun of her. You said the character hated him then.”
I nod and smile.
“She didn’t hate him. You didn’t hate me then, either,” he says smugly.
He’s blending the book’s story with reality now. “Correction, the character in my book might not have, but I most definitely hated you in real life for it. You didn’t need to be such a jerk the first day of school.”
“You know why I made fun of you?” he asks. I nudge
my chin for him to go on. “Because you looked hot in that dress. You never really wore dresses before. It was super short, and holy shit, I kept trying to deny that puberty hit you that summer. You filled out that dress better than you ever had. The only way I knew how to react was to make fun of you.”
I giggle. “I know, Caiden. I know.”
“You knew?”
“Boys aren’t that hard to figure out, especially you.”
He bites down on his bottom lip, and if it wasn’t for his scruff, he might just be blushing.
“You chose an interesting way for their relationship to play out in the book.”
I suck in a breath. “Yeah, I did.”
“A lot of it was the same, but there was a huge section that was different.” He says this last part slowly, his eyes reading me, and I know what he’s referring to.
“I know.”
“It was weird reading myself in a character. I mean, you nailed a lot of what I was feeling, which is kind of terrifying, but then again, reading what was going through your head was equally as scary.”
“I know,” I repeat.
He looks down at my hands in my lap, watching my fingers nervously fiddling with one another before swinging his stare back up to me. “There’s also a lot I didn’t know and…” He clenches his jaw. “… I wish I would have known then. Like—”
The sound of a phone going off bursts our bubble, and his face falls, not in surprise, but as if he knew our time would eventually be up.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and answers without looking. I turn away.
“Hi Kris… Yeah, I am… No, it’s okay. I’m on my way… No-no, it’s fine. Meet me at the car.”
Ow. That also hurt more than I anticipated. When he hangs up, I release the breath I was holding.
“I have to go.” He leans over the Ferris wheel, putting two fingers in his mouth, and blows out a loud whistle to the operator below. The Ferris wheel soon begins to swing downward.
I nod, forcing a smile through pursed lips, wrapping my arms around my chest. “No problem.”
“Me and you will talk more, but we gotta be up early in the morning.”
We, he said we. He means he and his girlfriend.
They are we, Caiden and Kristen, and instead, he and I are singular, separate entities.
“It’s okay. Early plans?” I ask, and I try not to say this through clenched teeth.
“Oh, uh, she has to drive back home.”
I cringe when I realize she’s staying the night, but then something else dawns on me as we make it to the bottom. “She doesn’t live here?”
He shakes his head, climbing out of the basket, and I follow, tension riddling its way into my shoulders while my heartbeat picks up pace.
“No,” he says, and when he stops his strides after five steps, as if struck with what might be going through my head, he says, “Her parents live here, but she lives in Denver for school.” He swivels around slowly, the angles of his eyebrows pointing downward.
That’s over three hours away.
I gulp down his solemn look. “You’re in a long-distance relationship with her?” I ask.
There’s no hiding the hurt in my voice. He might be pissed off that I made a choice he wishes I hadn’t long ago, but I’m instantly damaged by the fact he’s in a long-distance relationship that he didn’t once consider having with me. Granted, a car ride versus a plane ride is very different, but still.
His lack of response is too much, and he’s still just standing and staring. I shrug to fill the silence, as if to excuse my incoming behavior as I reply sternly, “Good night, Caiden.” I turn around and walk the opposite direction, feeling like I need space. Lots of it now.
I think I hear my name, but I choose not to care.
Chapter Seven
I hurt.
There’s no better way to describe it.
I cried when I got home, and I cried when I woke up this morning.
I don’t remember crying this much since leaving this town.
Everything sucks. I feel sideswiped by the night.
My tears involve many things, including my mom. I moved a photo of her from the mantel and placed it on the coffee table so I could be closer to it as I slept. I might have even talked to it a few times.
Leaving is getting easier and easier to fathom. This time it almost feels like running away, but I convinced myself after a few pages of writing that I don’t belong anymore. Last night made that clear. I’m the last Elwood in town, and maybe it’d be better if I left the legacy with my mom and vanished all over again.
The sudden sound of tires outside causes my body to propel off the couch as if caught red-handed with my thoughts. It’s already eleven in the morning, and I run to a mirror in the hall worried my puffy, tear-stained face will give me away. I scurry to the kitchen sink, splashing water on my face.
I hear a knock at my front door, and I’m terrified who it might be.
“Baby Bird, let’s go swimming!”
I cringe when I hear Brandon’s voice and then the tight giggle of CeeCee that follows.
“Go away!” I shout as I enter the living room, seeing both of them beyond the screen door.
CeeCee hates the immediate rejection and opens the unlocked door. “You don’t mean that.”
I nod. “Oh, yeah I do.”
CeeCee looks over her shoulder at Brandon, both seemingly confused.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Everything. Last night sucked, and you both are a bit at fault.”
“Blame Caiden,” Brandon adds to the conversation.
“Why? Because he has a girlfriend? Newsflash: it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care. I know it naturally sucks, and it’s weird for all of us, especially me, but I’ve been gone a long time. It would be weird if he didn’t move on. Let’s be honest.”
Brandon’s brows knit together. “Do you have a boyfriend in LA?”
“No.”
“That’s weird.”
I screech a sound of frustration, but I can’t tell if it’s a sigh or a scream. Either way, I resemble a banshee. “No, it’s not. I’ve been focusing on my career. Sometimes success comes with isolation. I’m okay with that.”
Brandon’s eyebrows expressively rise. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
CeeCee jabs him in the shoulder. “Go wait outside!”
“What?” he whines.r
“Now. I need to talk to Hailey. Go wait in my Jeep.”
