by Jamie Howard
For a second she looks relieved, like she isn’t sure I’m feeling the same thing. I’m half tempted to show her just how much the same thing is eating me up inside, right here on this kitchen counter, and save the cleanup for later.
Haley clears her throat, interrupting my erotic daydream. “Is it … is it always like this for you when you’re, um, with someone?”
It’s so absurd that I have to laugh. “I’m not sure how many women you actually think I’ve been with, but it’s never been quite like this.” I wad the wet paper towels in my hand and toss them in the garbage. Then, after I make sure that she’s looking at me again, I say, “I can’t stop wanting you.”
She blinks, but not a single muscle in her face twitches. “Do you want to?”
“No. Hell no.”
She drops her eyes to the envelopes in her hand, and even though she’s not looking at me, I can see the tension ease out of her shoulders.
Ripping off a few more paper towels, I finish sopping up the rest of the damage. When I stand back up, envelopes are fanned out across the counter like Haley dropped them. Clenched between trembling fingers is a small envelope. Her face is nearly as white as the stationery.
“Haley?”
She glances up at me—eyes wide and confused. “It’s an invitation. To my sister’s baby shower.” Her hand reaches toward me, offering it up so that I can see it myself.
It’s one of those grocery-store invitations with messy handwriting spelling out all the pertinent details. A tiny yellow duck is centered on the top with little blue bubbles swirling out on either side. Strangely, the bottom half seems to be sliced off at an upward angle, clipping off the RSVP information. “This is good, right?”
She leans on the counter and covers her face with her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Dropping the invitation back on the counter, I slip my arms around her, tucking her against my chest and resting my chin on top of her head. Slowly, she circles her arms around me, and then pulls me to her even tighter. We stay like that for a while—not speaking, not moving. As much as I was ready and raring to go a few minutes ago, the urgency has faded. I’d be more than happy to spend the entire night standing here, letting her lean on me.
“Kyle?” She says it softly, but it’s so quiet in the kitchen it comes out almost like a shout.
“Yeah?”
“The party, will you go with me?” She asks just as quietly.
“Of course I will.” I don’t even hesitate. Inside my heart is paralyzed with shock, because holy crap this is a huge deal. I know what it means for her to ask me, and the feeling that’s spreading through me is a thousand times better than if I’d just gotten laid.
She pushes against my chest, and quickly swipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I sure know how to kill the mood, huh?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I glance back at the clock. Not even ten. “Do you want to be alone? ’Cause I can go if you—”
“No.” She shakes her head and slips her fingers through mine. “Stay.”
Chapter 31
Haley
“Maybe I shouldn’t go.” I saw my bottom lip between my teeth.
Tara drops her head and muffles her groan of frustration in my comforter. When she pops back up, her hair frizzes in a hundred different directions. “I am not having this conversation with you again.”
“But what if they don’t want me there?” I can see it in my mind. Everyone gathered together outside, balloons dancing on the warm summer air, plastic tablecloths pinned to the tables by plates and presents. They’re laughing and joking—until they see me.
Tara stretches back so she can pluck the invitation from my nightstand. She waves it at me. “Then why would they have sent this?”
“Maybe she just wants me to send a present.”
“To where? You don’t have her address and there was no return address on the envelope.”
“I could buy something off the registry and they’ll ship it to her.”
“There is. No. Registry.”
“Ugh.” I flop down onto the bed next to her. “Why would she chop off the RSVP section?”
She lays her hand on my forearm and squeezes. “You know why.”
Of course I do. She either doesn’t want to know if I’m coming, or she didn’t want me calling whoever was throwing the shower. Probably my mom. Which means my mom doesn’t know I’m coming and almost definitely doesn’t want me there. But Beth does. Otherwise she wouldn’t have sent the invitation. Unless Beth didn’t send the invitation. What if one of her friends stuck it in the mail and Beth didn’t know I got the invitation either?
I tap my fist against my forehead. “I need some Aleve.”
Rolling off the bed, I take care of my headache issue, and take a quick gulp of Pepto-Bismol for good measure. While I’m in the bathroom, I peek at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are pale and my smile’s strained, but at least I managed to hide the little bags underneath my eyes with some concealer.
Twisting to the side, I eye my dress. I’d debated on what to wear for hours—nothing too fancy, nothing too expensive, nothing too revealing, nothing too demure. In the end I settled on a purple and yellow paisley dress I’ve owned forever. The colors are soft and faded, the fabric silky against my skin. I run the brush through my hair one last time for good measure, then sweep my long hair behind my shoulders.
My cell phone sits on the corner of the counter, practically calling my name. Without thinking too much about it, I pick it up and type out a quick message to Clark.
Me: I’m going to my sister’s baby shower today. An invitation appeared in the mail, but all the RSVP information was cut off. I don’t know who sent it. I don’t know whether my mom really wants me there or my sister either. I have no idea how they’re going to react to seeing me. I’m kinda freaking out a little. Talk me off the ledge?
I drop my head into my hands and blow out a breath. I’ve been trying to relax practically since I got the invitation in the mail. But as many deep-breathing exercises as I’ve tried or yoga DVDs I’ve forced myself to do, nothing’s working.
My phone buzzes.
Clark: Well, someone sent the invitation, right? So that means there’s at least one person who wants you to show up today.
Me: Alright, that’s helping. What else do you have?
His response is almost immediate.
Clark: How about some guided imagery? Where’s your favorite place to go? Somewhere that calms you, relaxes you?
Me: What’s yours?
Deflecting the question to give myself time to think, I tap my fingers against the counter as I consider his question. I’m not sure it’s exactly the place he means, since I’ve gone there to do some heavy thinking and make some tough decisions, but if there’s one place on this planet I can call “my spot,” I know where it would be.
Clark: My happy place is with my family, but somehow I doubt that would work for you.
His answer makes me laugh, and I really needed that right now.
Me: For me it’s the beach. But not just any stretch of sand. There’s this one spot that’s secluded, almost always empty, really only known by locals. It’s always just me, and the sand, and the sea. It’s beautiful.
Clark: Alright, well when you start to climb out on that ledge again, picture yourself there. Hear the ocean, smell the salty air, run your fingers through the sand. I know it sounds ridiculously corny, but it works. I promise.
I send him one last message:
Me: You’re the best.
With my phone in my hand and my smile sitting easier on my face, I head back into my bedroom. Tara’s exactly where I left her, sprawled out across my bed, feet dangling off the edge. She twists her head toward me at the sound of my footsteps. “I’m really proud of you, you know.”
“For what?”
She scoots into a sitting position and crosses her legs underneath her. “For going. For spilling all the details to Kyle. For really giving him
a chance. For finally giving up this nonsense about needing to be more like Sloane.”
Have I given up on trying to be like her? I rack my brain trying to figure out when I stopped. It only takes glancing down at my dress to see that it’s at least partially true, but it’s not so much that I stopped trying as I finally wasn’t afraid to be myself. Kyle is the first person I’ve really let see me—the whole me. And as terrifying as it is to let him in that deep, I know I can trust him with it. Nothing in my life has ever brought me to life the way that being around Kyle does.
“I have to tell you,” Tara goes on, “after everything that went down with Luke, I wasn’t sure you were ever going to open up again and risk getting hurt.”
I lean against my dresser and trace a fingernail over the wood grain. “I’m afraid.” I flash a small smile at her. “I never gave this much of myself to Luke, never let him see this much of me. So, if things go south with Kyle—” I shake my head. “—I think it’ll be worse because he’ll be rejecting all of me.”
“Sweetie.” Tara gives me her sad puppy-dog eyes.
Turning around, I give her a halfhearted shrug. It’s time to change the subject. “So, are you all packed?”
She sighs—not at her lack of packing, but that I’m redirecting our talk. “You know I am. You watched me shovel all the clothes right out of the dryer and into my enormous suitcase.”
I cringe, thinking of all those wrinkled clothes. “What time are you leaving again?”
“Well, I wanted to head to the airport at eleven, but Delia insisted that if our flight left at one, that we needed to leave at ten.” Tara glances over her shoulder at my alarm clock. “So, in like fifteen minutes. What time is Kyle coming to get you?”
A knock echoes through the apartment.
“That’s him now.” I blow out a breath, hoping I can exhale some of my nervousness with it. But instead of flying away, my nerves congeal into a tangled mass in the pit of my stomach like a solid knot of twisted rubber bands.
Tara slips her arms around my neck, the scent of her sunflower shampoo tickling my nose. “You’re gonna be fine.” She sandwiches my cheeks between her hands. “If nothing else, this will give you the closure you need, right?”
Can I do that? Finally walk away and let them go if this whole thing blows up in my face? “Yeah, maybe.”
Looping my fingers through the handles of the yellow gift bag I picked out, I scoop up my purse with my other hand and go answer the door.
“Hey.” Kyle jingles his keys in his hand. “You ready?”
Tara walks up behind me and bumps me with her hip. “She’s ready.”
I turn to her. “You’ll text me when you land.”
“The very second our wheels touch down in Honolulu.”
“Alright.” I glance up at Kyle. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
* * *
I should have stuck a paper bag in my purse. Every mile closer we creep, anxiety circles up my throat—tightening, squeezing. My heart’s pounding so rapidly that I’m starting to feel light-headed.
Kyle glances at me. “So, what’s in the bag?”
“The bag?” I don’t really have a paper bag, do I?
He gestures between my feet, the sleeve of his green polo riding up his biceps. “The gift bag?”
“Right.” I force myself to swallow. “Um, it’s some onesies, gender-neutral of course, and a gift card to Babies ‘R’ Us.” A sudden thought pops into my brain. “You don’t think a hundred-dollar gift card is too much, right?”
“I don’t think—”
My brain’s not even processing that he’s speaking. “Dammit. We need to find another Babies ‘R’ Us so I can get something less. Maybe fifty dollars would have been better?” I dig through my purse, nearly upending it trying to find my phone.
“Haley. Haley.” Kyle wraps his fingers around my wrist. He divides a glance between me and the road. “Take a deep breath for me.”
I inhale through my nose until it feels like my lungs are going to explode. Then I close my eyes and let my breath burst out my mouth. Following Clark’s advice, I picture myself at the beach, pretending I can hear the rhythmic crash of the waves against the packed sand. I keep the process up until the calm I always get from visiting there starts to spread across me.
After a few minutes of it, I let my eyes flutter open just in time to see the town sign: Welcome to Cedar Creek, population 2,176. The last time I passed this sign, tears were streaming down my face, watering the holey cloth interior of my Camry, my bags tossed haphazardly across the backseat.
Bile burns in my throat, but I choke it back I down. “Stop! Pull over!”
The brakes squeal as he slams on them, and I’m thrown into my door as he swerves to the side of the road. A cloud of dirt brushes past my window.
“What? What’s the matter?” Kyle reaches for me, but gets all tangled up in his seat belt. “Are you alright?” He curses and finally manages to get the thing unbuckled.
I shake my head. “I can’t … I can’t…”
His hands cup my cheeks. “Hey, you don’t have to—”
“No, it’s not…” I thump my head back against the headrest and squeeze my eyes shut. “I can’t let you go with me without telling you what I did.”
“What do you mean?”
Running my tongue over my lips, I try and figure out how I’m going to tell him something I’ve never told another soul in the world.
“Haley,” he whispers, drawing my attention to him. His eyes lock on to mine, holding me in place. “You can trust me.”
He wants me to tell him. Wants me to open up and lay the deepest, darkest secrets of my heart in his hands. I want to, I so want to, but I’m terrified that once he’s seen exactly who I am, he’ll decide I’m not worth it after all.
I push down my fear and start at the beginning. “Growing up, my family never had a lot of money. We lived in this tiny two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town.” I gesture in the general direction where I assume the red brick building still stands. “When I was ten, my dad was in a really serious car accident. He had to have spinal surgery, and afterward there was never a day he wasn’t in pain.” When I close my eyes, I can still see the rows of prescription pills that marched across our bathroom counter. “Things got really tight after that. We were trying to scrape by on his disability checks and Mom’s measly pay from her shifts at McDonald’s. There were some nights where the only thing we had to eat were instant mashed potatoes or a can of baked beans. Sometimes there was so little in the pantry that I ate nothing at all just so Beth didn’t have to go to bed hungry.”
I can’t look at Kyle, don’t want to see the pity in his eyes. “From then on I decided that I wanted out. I knew that I never wanted my life to be like that. So, I swore off guys. No dating, no sex, no chance of a teenage pregnancy like my mom when she got pregnant with me. Everything I did was about getting the best grades I could and searching out every single scholarship I could find.
“Three weeks before I graduated, my mom found out she was pregnant again. An accident, obviously. She wanted…” I bite my tongue to try and hold the tears at bay. “She told me that I had to rescind my acceptance to the college I’d chosen. That I needed to enroll at the local community college and get a full-time job so I could help support the family and the new baby.”
The scene plays out in my mind again—the screaming, her slapping me across the face when I refused, the cold look in her eyes as she leveled a finger at the door and told me to get out. A warm tear coats my lips, tasting of salt.
I finally glance up at Kyle. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. I knew that if I stayed I’d never get out and I just—”
Kyle reaches over the center console and wraps his arms around me. I bury my face in his neck, sobbing. My whole body convulses as I fight my way through it, reliving the whole thing over again.
His fingers thread through my hair, sliding from the top of my head down to the back of
my skull. He makes small shushing noises in my ear, waiting it out until I’m calm enough to speak again.
I swipe away the tears from underneath my eyes, sure my makeup has gone down the crapper. Sniffling, I force myself to look up at him, already cringing at how he’s probably taking this.
One hand strokes down my arm. “Thank you for telling me.”
I blink at him. “That’s it? You don’t think I’m the worst person to ever walk the planet?”
“No.” He sighs and shifts a little, the leather groaning underneath him. “Look, the whole thing completely sucks. Your mom asked you to give up your dream. She never should have done that. Even if it was the best thing for your family, it wasn’t the best thing for you. You were only a kid, Haley.”
“Yeah.” I snort. “A kid who thinks she’s better than everyone else.”
“Is that what she said to you?”
I glance out the window and nod, watching a car whiz by us, the taillights fading in the distance.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting something better for yourself.”
“I did send them money.” I run a hand down my leg. “I worked my ass off, taking classes and holding down a job. Every time I got paid I’d send them a check for half of what I earned. In the beginning she cashed them. And then she stopped. I called, but no one would answer. I left messages, but they never called back.”
“Well, then it sounds to me like you did everything you could to make things right.”
I tip my face toward him. “It wasn’t enough. I was never enough.”
Chapter 32
Kyle
It isn’t until I pull up at the curb and throw the car in park that it dawns on me that I’m at a baby shower. Me, a guy, attending a baby shower. This isn’t going to be awkward at all. One look at Haley reminds me exactly why I’m here and why I couldn’t care less about walking into an embarrassing situation.
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. She grips the gift bag in her hands, her knuckles turning white from how hard she’s squeezing it. I follow her gaze out the window to the small house we’re parked in front of. It’s light blue with darker blue shutters, and a small concrete path winds its way from the street to the steps that lead to the front door. Neatly trimmed bushes sit underneath two windows on the front of the house, dotted with purple flowers. On either side, I catch a glimpse of a chain-link fence that seems to stretch out and circle the backyard. A trio of pink balloons strain against a thick cord of ribbon that’s wrapped around the gate to the right.
