Hometown Heartless

by Aarons, Carrie

  But my laptop seems to shine from my desk like a beacon out of a corny eighties movie, special effects and all, because I’ve been ignoring it. It’s almost the last week of September, every one of my college applications is filled out and ready to go, and I know which programs are at the top of my list. But I can’t send any of them.

  Because I haven’t been able to write more than five words of an essay without deleting it.

  Chastising myself, because I’m anything if not punctual and a go-getter, I march over to my desk and flip my computer open. Damn this writer’s block, damn this essay, I’m going to make it my bitch.

  As my fingers ghost over the keys, not selecting any letters but merely going through the motions of typing, I know what I should write about. I know the one thing that will sincerely come from within me, but I’m freaking terrified of opening that Pandora’s box.

  My mind flashes back to the body on the pavement during my last EMT shift, and how unnatural it was to just pack up and leave after all our other work had been completed. How empty I felt, how absolutely devastating witnessing that loss of life was.

  And the age-old question I’ve been asking myself since I decided on my dream comes rushing back: How am I supposed to be an effective nurse, how can I care for some of the most critical patients, when I fear them dying?

  Death, loss, tragic or otherwise, it’s a part of the profession. You see it nearly every day when you work in a hospital, and I’ve seen it more than once as an EMT. My coworkers, Judy, and most if not all of the nurses and doctors I’ve worked with on transfers when I ride up to the hospital in an ambulance are so accustomed to death, it doesn’t much faze them anymore.

  But I, for some reason, just can’t get past it. How do I give my all to a profession, to saving the lives of others, when I know that in a lot of the cases, the outcome won’t be positive?

  Why can’t I admit that this unnerves me so much? I think because if I do, I’ll be admitting that I’m not fit to be a nurse. I’m not fit to be in a field where we are forced to cut a piece of our souls out to give the medical care someone might need, even if it doesn’t necessarily save their life.

  I stare at the blinking cursor of my Word document for far longer than I anticipated to, until the clock reads an hour or so later that all I can do is stumble into bed, defeated by the essay once again.

  10

  Kennedy

  In the end, Rachel and I affix Bi’s pom-poms to the school banner hanging over the glass-walled office of the principal.

  Technically, Rachel does it because no way in hell was I sneaking into the school at six a.m. to pull that prank. But it had its desired effect, the round of applause by those students who know about the ongoing joke. The school week, aside from the prank, has gone on uneventfully. The three of us, and their boyfriends, eat breakfast at our usual table in the cafeteria, text secretly in classes, gossip during gym, and just do general high school kid stuff.

  I meet them at Angelo’s, the local pizza place, to do homework. Which really means Bianca fills us in on her boyfriend spelling the alphabet in her … um, private places. Apparently, this is a thing. Not that my inexperienced ass would know. I feel like such a fool now, having waited all this time for Everett. Not that I would have been letting a guy draw the ABCs with his tongue, I’m definitely not ready for that, but I could have been dating. I could have been kissing. I could have trained my mind not to think about the boy next door.

  Even though I try with all my might, I still look at the closed curtains of his windows in the shadows of my room. I haven’t seen him since he threw me over his shoulder that night of the barn party and nearly kissed me in the woods. I thought he was going to fulfill his promise right there, and I wasn’t drunk enough to forget the way our bodies touched.

  But, my life doesn’t revolve around that any longer. It can’t. So, I go about my regularly planned life. And that means that at the end of every day, we attend cheer practice.

  Rach lies on the bleachers after practice ends, a lollipop in her mouth, while Bi takes out a bottle of nail polish and sets to painting her fingers candy apple red. I just shake my head, directing my attention back to the binder of choreography I’ve been mulling over before our season even started. We have about a month before our first cheer competition, and we’re slowly but surely putting together a kick-ass routine.

  As much as our high school, and the parents of the football players who come to the games, thinks that the cheerleading squad is just a bunch of skinny girls wearing a lot of makeup and shaking their chests—we’re not. Our practices are focused, our strength and endurance can measure up to the best wide receivers on the football team, and we put together a mean tumbling and stunt routine to compete against the top high schools in the state. Last year, we were runner-up at the state cheerleading competition, and stamped our tickets to the nationwide competition in Disney World.

  It’s my job as captain to formulate a difficult and show-stopping routine, combining tumbling, a prideful cheer, and death-defying stunts. The music has to be perfect, it has to pump up the crowd and make them think what we’re doing is easy, when it’s totally not.

  Though the last of the warm days are upon us, and the sun is setting earlier than it did during the hot summer break, the sky is turning a burnt orange and the breeze is comfortable. It’s just the three of us, not wanting to drive home yet, riding out the last year of high school as long as we can.

  “So, can we discuss the elephant sitting on the town of Brentwick?” Rachel yawns, stretching out until her shirt rides up over her impressive abs.

  “I wasn’t aware there was a zoo animal sitting on the town.” I chuckle, making a swipe across my page with a red pen.

  Bi shoots me a look. “She’s talking about you and Everett. Or are we just going to keep on pretending that the soldier next door who promised to kiss you hasn’t returned home and then dragged you into the woods at the barn party?”

  I’m so damn shocked that my typically flighty, unconcerned friend just smacked me with a two-by-four of honesty. Seriously, I drop my pen and stare at her, my jaw nearly on the turf I’m sitting on.

  Rachel pushes up suddenly, her elbows resting on her knees. “Yeah, I can’t do this anymore. We’ve been keeping our distance on the subject for what feels like a fucking eternity, and I’m done. Did he fuck you against a tree? Did you whisper sweet nothings? Did the war turn him into a beast, all that pent-up sexual tension unleashing on you? God, tell me it was the last one. Make my dreams come true.”

  Honestly, I’m so stunned, I can barely roll my eyes at Rachel’s ridiculous fantasies.

  Bianca nods emphatically. “Please tell us you guys have snuck out and like done it in one of your backyards or something!”

  “You think that if I lost my virginity, I wouldn’t call both of you immediately after?” I give her a knowing look, and they shrug their shoulders.

  “You know, I thought you’d be freaking out way more than you have since he came home,” Bianca points out.

  “I am freaking out.” I sigh and realize I’ve been waiting to get this burden off my chest. “I just … I don’t know how to talk about it. I feel like I’ve spent years gushing to you guys about ‘when Everett comes home’ or this fairy tale that’s always been in my brain.”

  “And we’ve been wholeheartedly beside you. I mean, some of the things he wrote you, the way he used to look at you, hold you … it’s obvious there is some off the charts chemistry there.” Rachel gives me a thumbs-up.

  Bianca flutters her eyelashes. “Right? And the serendipity of it all, it was just too good not to root for.”

  “Did you just say serendipity? Jesus, you guys are both freaking me out even more.” I shake my arms, as if I have the heebie-jeebies.

  “We’ve been waiting eons for this info. Neither one of us wanted to come on strong, because you tend to shell up. Especially when it comes to Everett. Come on, give us the details. How do you feel? You’ve obviously se
en each other.” Rachel gives me the knowing look only your best friend can give.

  Closing my binder, I send a thanks up to the universe for giving me the two very best friends a girl could ever ask for. They know me, enough to lay off the Everett gossip until he’d been back for a while and I could get my head around it. Not that my head is anywhere near around what he’d said to me or how harsh he’d been, but at least I had time to process by myself.

  “I talked to him the first week of school. He was in the backyard when I got home after practice, and I just walked up to him. You both know I saw him when the military brought him home, and he just looked so … spooky. Like he was haunted, from the inside out. From the minute I laid eyes on him, I just … I can’t even describe it. All of those things we said and wrote to each other, they all came rushing back. So when I saw him, I hugged him. It was so stupid of me. Anyways, he shoved me off, yelled at me. Told me he was dead, got so pissed off when he found out I kissed someone else—”

  “Wait a minute, how did that come up?” Bianca screeches, moving to sit right beside me.

  I shrug. “He asked me.”

  “Oh, he brought that shit up? Boy is still in deep if he went through war and lived through torture and the first thing he wants to know is if you kept your kiss virginity.” Rachel rubs her hands together.

  But my hair just shakes in my face as I signal no. “I think he was just trying to shove my life in my face. He’s so angry. Furious, at the world. Which, I guess he has a right to be. He basically told me he had no interest in ever speaking to me again, and then he showed up to the barn party.”

  “I could kill Scott, by the way. He invited him, I had no idea he was coming. If I did, I would have totally cooked up a plan to get you that kiss that night.” Rachel rolls her eyes.

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference. Plus, I was drunk out of my mind. The EMT shift really messed me up. It was unexpected that he got all protective about me doing shots. I don’t even know why he cared, he basically tore me down verbally in every way in his backyard.

  “Because the boy is in love with you. Always has been.” Rach gives me a duh expression, and swirls the lollipop around in her mouth.

  “He’s been through a very difficult thing,” Bianca says solemnly. “But, I agree with Rach. He asked about the kiss. He came to the barn party knowing you’d be there. And that whole chivalrous, throw-you-over-his-shoulder? Shit, that was hot. You could feel the lust rolling off him. No matter what you’ve both been through, the fuck-me eyes are still there between you.”

  Just thinking about Everett pressing up against me in the woods has my heart shuddering, trying to catch its beat.

  “Whenever I envisioned the boy I’d … you know.” An angry blush marks my cheeks.

  “The boy you’d have sex with. It’s not a taboo subject, Kenny. Everyone in the world has sex, in some form or another. There are people out there who are kinky as fuck, who like to use whips and chains—”

  I cut Rachel off. “That’s more than enough, thanks. I don’t know, I’m just not as open about this as you guys. I’ve always envisioned my first time, my first love, this sounds so stupid, but I imagined it would be with Everett. Now, I kind of feel like the idiot who planned her wedding when she was five and it will never work out the way she thought it would. He is so beyond damaged, and I have to adjust my mind to that. He’s not the Everett we knew, the last name I scribbled in my notebooks. That much he’s told me. I need to kick this school girl crush and get on with my life.”

  Rachel eyes me like a hawk. “And that’s really what you want to do? Be over him?”

  As much as my heart is screaming no at me, I know it’s the only choice I have.

  “Yes.” I try to make my nod as decisive as possible, so she knows I’m serious.

  Bianca’s expression is resolved, and she blows on her nails. “All right then. We’re going to have you out there dating so much, you’re not going to have a free night of the week!”

  I roll my eyes. “Let’s please not call it dating. We’re in high school, the most we do is show up to a party, make out with a guy, and hope he wants to hold our hand in the hallway in the days following.”

  Rachel snickers. “Or in Bi’s case, have sex in the second-floor bathroom by Miss Howe’s science classroom.”

  Bianca sticks her tongue out. “You’re just mad Scott isn’t into public displays of affection.”

  We all remember the screaming match they got into when Scott asked Rachel not to sit on his lap during lunch junior year. It was like an atomic bomb could have been dropped at any moment.

  “True, I’m a little butthurt about it still. But he’s so freaking hot, I don’t care. I get him in private, which can be enough for me. But yes, we’re going to set it up so that the hottest guy in school is your next crush. He can even be a friend-with-benefits if you don’t feel like a boyfriend.”

  “Do I strike you as the friend-with-benefits type, Rach?” I chuckle, because she’s known me long enough to know that’s not the route for me.

  “Well, no. But, you can be into a guy without picturing your wedding or making vows of undying love while listening to Taylor Swift in your bedroom.” She stares pointedly.

  I don’t do that. Well, maybe I haven’t done that. In, like, a month or so. Whatever.

  As we pack up our things and then walk to our respective cars, my air blown kiss a goodbye as I duck into my driver’s seat, I can’t help but feel bittersweet. I’m glad my friends got me to open up about Everett, but it feels like talking about the brutal way he spoke to me and how he’s not the same boy, well, it feels like an ending. It feels like an acknowledgment that all the things I wanted to come true, never will.

  But at the same time, maybe this is the push I needed. To put myself out there, to consider other guys.

  My heart aches with the thought that I’ll never know how it truly feels to call Everett Brock mine, but it flutters thinking about the attention that might be heading its way.

  11

  Everett

  “Are you glad to be home?”

  Dr. Liu poses this question in our third therapy session as if it has an easy answer. I could tell her yes or no, but I know that’s not what she’s looking for. She’ll just give me that stern stare that we both know I know better.

  “That’s not an easy question to answer.” I give it to her straight.

  Last session, I answered more than two questions she asked, though begrudgingly. They didn’t scratch the surface, were just one-offs with no real thinking to be done on my part, but I think she counts it as a victory. I’m actually speaking to her, which I guess is her whole point to this.

  “How so?” she pushes me, nodding her head as if to tell me to go on.

  I sigh, raking a hand through my hair. “What you’re asking essentially boils down to if I’m happy to be back in Brentwick, rather than living in a filthy pit having my organs rearranged each day. Would I rather be out in the fucking middle of nowhere, gunning people down? Or sitting on my bed, in my hometown, fucked up from PTSD? There really isn’t a preferable answer, but any sane person would choose Brentwick. Though you and I know I’m suffering just as much as I was there.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with me.” Her pen scribbles across her notebook. “Was the military your first choice?” She changes directions, and I didn’t think she’d go this way.

  I shrug. “If you mean, did I think about doing anything else after high school, then no.”

  “Why is that? You seem like a bright young man, I’m sure you could have gone to college. You played a sport, yes?”

  I nod. “Football.”

  “Did you ever think about pursuing it after high school?” she asks.

  Sure, I had. I don’t know why, but it never appealed to me on a collegiate or professional level. The reason I loved playing football was because I got to do so with my best friends. With the coaches who had been with us since pee-wee days. I got to fuck around in t
he locker room, wear a varsity jacket, and walk out to a song I picked under those Friday night lights. There is a completely different atmosphere around high school football as opposed to the higher levels of the sport. I was passionate about the team game, not besting other athletes. So, I never really considered trying to go pro.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “But you liked the sport when you played in high school?”

  “What are you trying to get at?” I practically sneer because I don’t need anyone to try to prod me in any direction.

  Dr. Liu levels me with a gaze. “You don’t want to address what happened when you were imprisoned. And you’re telling me that you’re not happy at home, that you can’t move past what happened. The next best thing we can do is try to manually help you move on. I want you to think about what you liked before going into the military. It could be the simplest of things. Football in high school. A certain book. A slice of pizza you craved at the local Italian restaurant. Where are the things you found joy? Pick one and pursue it as a hobby or a job. Did you like working with your sports team? Go volunteer as a coach. You need to occupy your mind and your hands, because the last thing you should be doing is sitting inside, stewing. If you’re not ready to talk, then involve yourself in the community so at least you can begin to go back to a civilian life.”

  “That sounds stupid as fuck.” Deflection is a great way to not do what’s being asked of you.

  A stern brow gets thrown my way. “Do the homework. Or next session, I’m going to ask you to open up about the day you were captured.”

  Is it me, or is Dr. Liu busting my chops? She seems half-serious, and thinking about the day my tank exploded and I was carted off by screaming terrorists makes me want to black out and go catatonic.