by Anne Hansen
“About us.”
“Us?” She lets out a sharp laugh. “There is no us.”
I cup my hand under her chin, but she turns her face out of my grasp.
“Please.” I say the word low enough so she’s the only one who could possibly hear me.
Her eyes fly to mine, and she doesn’t try to hide the tears that streak down her pink cheeks. “Please?” She shakes her head and crosses her arms tight over her chest. “You told me we were through, Vin. You told me to stay away and never even gave me a reason that made sense. My life was falling apart and you turned your back on me. You broke my heart. Now you come to me and want… what? To mock me in front of my friends? You think I don’t know I’m driving a rustbucket? You think I don’t know how much damn work it needs? Did it ever occur to you I’m not in a position to get that work done right now?”
“I never wanted to—”
She cuts me off by poking a finger at my chest. It’s hardly a jab. It reminds me of a kitten batting at a ball of string. I’d smile except that she’s so clearly furious at me. So I shut up and let her say her piece.
“I lost everything I had left at the end of this summer. I keep thinking about my mother—” Keira clutches the gold cross her mother gave her before she died.
I want to pull her into my arms in the worst way, but her body language tells me she’s trip-wired, and the smallest thing could set her off.
One wrong move could send her running away from me, and I’m starved for every second I can get at her side.
“Believe me, Keira, if there was another way to do this, I’d be doing it.” I watch her shoulders buckle and reach out for her even though I know it’s a bad idea.
She rears back, swiping the tears off her cheeks.
“No.” She holds her hands up. “My mother taught me to treasure every second. To not care about material things. To not waste a single act of love. If you’re willing to throw what we had away for no good reason, then you have a lot to learn, Vin.” She stands straight and gives me this pitying look, like she feels bad for me. “And you can make fun of my truck if you want. Material things aren’t important to me, and I’m not about to be embarrassed or feel like things would be better if I still had my BMW. Excuse me, I have to go see my real friends.”
She turns on her heel and storms away from me. I’m dying to follow her. My hands itch to hold her, to let her cry against my chest as long and hard as she needs. I’ve never met a girl as strong as Keira…or as vulnerable. I know she puts on that pretty smile to hide all the pain she’s dealing with inside, and I feel like a failure for not being there when she needs me most.
Leo comes up behind me and watches Keira march down the long hall to the cafeteria. “So. That didn’t go very well, did it?”
“I need your help tonight. I’ll text the time and address.” I leave Leo in the parking lot and go find a nice office chick to help me out by sneaking me Keira’s file.
***
“What are we doing here again?” Leo practically yells as he cranes his neck to look at the little houses on either side of the street. He’s being way too loud for this quiet neighborhood.
“Jesus, can you shut your mouth?” I growl, striding to Keira’s truck quietly, but with confidence. Part of doing this successfully is the attitude. Unlike my dumbass friend, I’m not dressed like a burglar in a shitty TV movie. Anyone who saw me on the street would think I’m a neat, upstanding guy going to his car. It’s the way I always dress when I’m about to get into a vehicle that isn’t mine.
Of course I’m usually walking toward a way nicer vehicle than Keira’s.
The windows don’t quite go up all the way, so it’s easy enough to squeeze my hand in and take the glass off the track. I fit my arm inside, open the door, and slide into the driver’s seat. Leo gets into the passenger side, and I get to work. It’s going to be a little noisy, but I say a quick prayer that the bucket of rust doesn’t backfire on me once I get it started. Luckily, it’s such an old piece of shit, the only thing I need is the pliers I packed in my tool bag to get it started. No fancy computerized starters or blocks. I love doing things old school now and then.
I spark the wires and get the engine to purr in under two minutes, then pull out and around the corner. I check my rearview, but I don’t see any lights pop on at Keira’s place or notice anyone coming out to check on things. Which is good, because the neighborhood is even quieter than I expected.
“I think Faline’s grandma lives on that street, doesn’t she?” Leo asks.
I shrug. He flips open the glove compartment just to rifle through her things, and I reach over and snap it shut.
“What the hell, man?” he gripes. “You ask me to come out at two in the morning, make me an accessory to a felony, and I can’t even see if there’s a Lifesaver in the glove box?”
“Quit snooping through Keira’s stuff,” I say. I look around to see what I can. Rosary beads around the rearview mirror, a vanilla smelly thing hanging from the heat vent. It’s clean except for a few empty bottles of water on the back seat in a box marked ‘recycle.’
There’s no recycling in most neighborhoods around here, so I guess Keira’s bringing them to school. I feel like a loser looking through her stuff, hoping to find…I don’t know what.
“I guess you don’t want to know that I saw your ugly picture in there then,” Leo says, all casual.
I almost take down a stop sign. “What?”
Leo points at the glove compartment. “May I?” he asks, rolling his eyes.
I nod and he reaches in, hands me a picture, and crows when he finds a roll of butterscotch Lifesavers. “I knew it! She always smells like butterscotch.” He pops one in his mouth.
“How do you know what she smells like?” I mutter, but I barely hear Leo laugh and tell me I’m a possessive dick.
Because my brain is short-circuiting. Because Keira’s kept a picture of me.
I’m smiling. I don’t smile for pictures. Unless Keira is standing behind the camera, pleading with me to smile nice. I remember the day she took this. It was the day after she stood on her toes to kiss me. We’d snuck off to a lake that you could only reach by hiking up and around the staff dorms. Most people didn’t know it even existed, and, if they did, they didn’t want to waste the time and energy getting there.
But Keira was always up for anything. That day was the second time we’d gone, but it was spur of the moment. We hadn’t bothered to grab bathing suits.
“I’m really sweaty.” Keira smiled and tugged her shirt up over her head. Her tiny jean shorts just hung off her slim hips, and her red lace bra was barely holding her tits in.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my lips pulling into a return smile, my eyes glued on her.
She brushed her dark hair back off her shoulders and undid her shorts, letting them slide down her mile long legs. She stepped out, wearing nothing but a tiny pair of black panties and that red hot bra.
“I’m getting ready to swim. Come in with me.” She crooked her finger my way, but I shook my head.
“When we get back, I have to load the walk-in meat freezer. I can’t do that if my underwear are wet. I’ll freeze.” We both laughed.
Hell, I was still laughing when her hand rode up between her tits and undid the little clasp that held the cups in place. The fabric burst open, and I choked on my laugh. She slid her panties down her hips and kicked them off her feet. And I had an eyeful of the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life.
“We don’t need to wear our underwear,” she said, then rifled in her shorts pocket and held her phone up. “Your face is priceless, Vin. You can’t seriously tell me you’ve never seen a naked girl before.”
I smiled as she snapped the picture, then I stood and stripped. She watched, her eyes growing wider as each piece of clothing came off and hit the ground. Her phone fell from her hands with a thud.
“You can’t tell me you’ve never seen a naked guy before,” I teased gently.
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She bit her bottom lip and took a long breath. “Not one who looked like you.” She turned tail and ran into the water, and I followed. The was cool against my skin, and the lake stretched out so wide, it was more like an ocean.
She ducked her head under the water and swam toward me. When she came up—her black hair slicked back, droplets on her face and shoulders, those eyes big and so achingly blue—I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
She shivered. “It’s colder than I expected,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
I opened my arms. “Come here. I’ll keep you warm.”
I can still remember the sound of her giggles and the way her skin felt under my hands. Like velvet. I remember the way she looked at me, her blue eyes filled with trust. I wonder if I’ll ever see that look on her face again.
“Your uncle gonna be okay with this?” Leo asks, glancing over his shoulder nervously.
“He better be, because I’m not asking his permission.” I pull the truck into an empty dock and walk over to my toolbox. Leo is checking the fluids while I focus on getting the spark plugs worked out.
“What the hell is this?” My uncle’s clipped voice breaks my concentration when I’m nearly done.
I slide out from under the truck. “A favor for a friend.”
Uncle Gio shakes his hand at me. “No. Not in my dock it’s not. Get that jalopy outta here now. Is your head on backwards? You realize how much trouble you can be bringin’ down on us, pulling in here with that noise pollution? Every cop within ten miles will be on our fucking tail!”
I stand up and wipe my oily hands on a rag. “Look, Uncle G, I get it. It’s not the best time right now. But you’re gonna have me running boosts outside the quarry. That’s a risk too, right?” I wait for his short nod. “I have no choice about this. I’ll be done in a few hours, outta your hair, and you can call it even when I do my runs.”
“‘Even’ is you getting paid for doing what I’m paying you to do,” my uncle sneers, but he’s just blowing smoke, because he leaves me alone.
“Am I going to jail?” Leo asks with a nervous laugh.
“No. Help me with the muffler,” I say.
As we take her old piece-of-shit muffler off and grab the new parts I had the guys collect this afternoon, Leo stares at me. “Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t want her driving a piece of crap.”
“You never worried about Faline’s car,” Leo points out.
“Faline knew how to take care of herself. She wouldn’t even drive a car that didn’t have a leather interior or heated seats. Keira’s not like that.” I reach for my plier set.
Leo pushes it over to me. “Tell her you like her.”
“She knows,” I grunt.
“Then date her.” He says it like it’s the most obvious solution in the world.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I poke my head out from under the car. “Don’t you have anything better to do than play twenty questions?”
“I’d put the new tires on, but I can’t while you’re under there.” He leans back against the bench. “I guess I don’t see why you’re keeping up with all the shitty parts of being her boyfriend, but not cashing in on any of the benefits.” He pauses when I stop working. “I mean, are you?”
I shoot from under the truck and point pliers in his face. “Enough fucking questions, Leo.”
Anyone else would have the sense to be scared. But Leo never takes me too seriously. Another reason he’s my best friend. Usually that’s a good thing. Today it’s pissing me off.
“Sorry. Truly, I’m so sorry I’m concerned about you being a raving lunatic who doesn’t want to be happy,” he says as I climb back under, working as hard as I can so he can get back to work and stop grilling me. “Why wouldn’t you want to be? I mean, she’s beyond hot. No joke, seriously model good-looking. She’s smart. I’ve been trying to get my seat changed in Spanish so I can sit by her. She’s the only one acing Mondive’s tests. And she seems like a really decent person. I mean, she’s friends with all the art losers and brains and misfits. And all the popular cliques love her, too. Damn, it’s like she’s—”
“Perfect,” I snap, finishing the last fastener and coming out from under the truck for good. “She’s perfect. Don’t you get it, Leo? She’s not the kind of girl who needs to be around me.”
“Well, she’s not your usual type, that’s for sure. But it might be a good thing to move away from the Falines of this world, Vin. Your exes have been pretty shitty—good-looking for sure, but not really good people. Why not switch it up?” He jumps out of the way as I wheel the jack over.
I don’t want to discuss all the details. I don’t want to dredge it all up, but Leo’s like a dog with a damn bone. He won’t stop gnawing until I let him know every last thing.
“I met Keira this summer,” I say and Leo grabs a tire iron, I guess figuring if he works, I’ll talk. “She charmed the hell out of me. It’s obvious she’s hot. But that’s maybe one percent of what makes her amazing. She’s funny. I mean, out of nowhere, she’ll come up with something that’ll make you laugh til you’re crying. And she’s got a saint’s patience. Obviously. She put up with me. Smart as hell, passionate, hard working, a good heart...she’s the total package, no doubt. She had this great life, other than losing her mom.”
Leo nods and rubs the back of his neck. His mom’s sister died last winter, and it screwed his cousins up royally, so he’s seen that pain firsthand.
“She had the big house, the nice car, fancy academy she went to…” I gesture around the crowded garage where guys are hacking apart stolen cars as we struggle to make her lemon road-worthy. “None of this bullshit. Her future was wide open. And I thought—”
Leo tightens the lugnuts on the tire he just put on. “What? What did you think?”
Damn, it’s embarrassing to say this out loud. It sounds even more ridiculous than it did in my head.
“I thought if we could do the long distance thing, if she never saw where I came from, I could bail at the end of this year. With her. Start clean. Leave all this in my past and never look back.” I grit my teeth, embarrassed for myself.
Pathetic doesn’t begin to describe it.
Leo moves on to the next tire, his eyebrows pressed together. “So you wanted to keep her far away and hide your real life from her? What about your mom and dad? Your sister and brother? What about me? Was I ever gonna be good enough to meet her?”
“Don’t,” I warn, but Leo is staring at the bald tire he’s about to pull off.
“Forget that part, then. She wound up here instead of in her richie world. I’m sorry, I just don’t get how that’s a bad thing for you at all. Look at the bright side. I mean, it makes no sense to me, but every girl at Eastside wants to get it on with you. You’ve got a nice ride. You have a job. What else is there?”
“The girl I love loses everything she’s ever known and winds up in this shithole where she gets to see, firsthand, that I’ve been with half the girls in our high school and am on my way to being a career criminal. Tell me again the upside to all this.”
Leo stares at me for a long few seconds. “Point taken. Still, you do have a sweet ride.” He tightens the last set of lugnuts. “There. Good as new. Er, maybe not quite good as new, but good as we can do in one night. So, are you gonna be standing by the door with roses? Throw pebbles at her window to wake her up? I saw this thing on YouTube where a guy wrote ‘I love you’ in the grass outside her window in gasoline and lit it on fire when she came out to see him. Very dramatic.”
We get her truck down off the jack and do a few last minute tweaks. “Yeah, as tempting as it might be to add ‘arson’ to my long list of criminal activity, I think I’ll pass.” I motion to Leo to get in. It takes four slams for him to get the door shut. “This truck needs to be stripped, lit on fire, and pushed off a fucking cliff.”
“You could always boost her a new one,” Leo jokes.
I glare at
him and he puts his hands up.
“Alright, Jesus, calm down.” He sighs. “I hope this whole knight in shining armor things works. Your temper has been total shit the last few weeks.”
We don’t talk much on the way back. The only sound is Leo gnawing on butterscotch Lifesavers and the smooth purr of the engine. We pull in, and I get out and head to my car, Leo at my heels.
“Where are you going? She’ll probably be up for school in, like, ten or fifteen minutes,” he says, pointing to her window.
I glance back, checking to make sure there’s no movement behind the lacy white panels. “That’s why I’m getting the lead out.”
“Don’t you want to be there when she sees?” he asks.
I plant a hand on the roof of my car and frown at my best friend. “What I want is for her to wake up in her old house. I want her to get into her BMW and drive to her fancy school. I want her to be able to have her old life back. All this was just me keeping her as safe as I can while she’s stuck here, Leo. Nothing more.”
I wake up and blink, a smile on my lips. For a few gorgeous seconds, I’m living my bliss, happy after such a long dark time…
And then it hits me. The happiness that blossomed to life inside my heart this summer was as fleeting as a spring flower before the last cold snap. The darkness rolls over me more quickly than I’m prepared for.
When Vin pushed me away, it was like he extinguished my own personal sunshine. I roll on my side in the narrow twin bed and pull my knees to my chest, closing my eyes against the reality that’s so cruel it snaps and bites at me.
It would be nice to at least be in my comfortable old room while I deal with all this heartache and pain. But I’m in a brand new room, a third the size of my old one and with a view of a tiny side street lined by a few leafless trees, instead of the strip of gorgeous forest I used to look out at.
Anyway, my old queen wouldn’t have fit here even if we could have crammed it into the moving van.
I reach out and press on the glass that covers my mother’s picture on my nightstand.
It was taken just before she got sick. We were at the beach that day—she let me play hooky so we could spread out in the sun and run our toes through the sand. Nothing but the two of us laughing over the crash of the waves, the salty sea air making out lungs feel scrubbed clean, and the bright sunshine warming away every last bit of that nervous chill that had hung over our lives ever since we learned Mom’s crappy prognosis.
