Before & After You

by Michelle Chamberland

  And then there’s Kat. Our newly married police officer who does so much good for our community through charities and fundraisers it’s ridiculous. She’s incredible, and she inspires all of us to do better.

  And there you have it. The artist, the bartender, the scientist, and the police officer. It’s like the beginning of a terrible bar joke. But in reality, we’re kind of the best ever.

  We kick back a few more drinks and quickly fall into our usual rounds: something new, something positive, and something to expel. In no particular order.

  Maggie tells us about her daughter, Charlee, losing her first tooth this week and the adorable toothless smile she’s got going on now, and something about the insane price inflation of tooth fairy costs. We all gush over Charlee for a long while before Sita starts in.

  “Something new, I met a deliciously handsome and incredibly intelligent man the other day. Something positive, I’m positive I can get him under me. But something to expel?” she half-groans, half-whines. “He’s my student!”

  I nearly spit out my drink in a burst of laughter. “Sita!”

  Kat and Maggie echo much of the same.

  Sita holds her hands out in defense. “I know! I know. I would never. But Christ, he’s only six years younger than me. Anywhere else and I’d be all over it, but because I’m his professor and he’s my student,” she spits the word, “it makes me a total fucking creeper.”

  We all crack up at her expense.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to tamp down my amusement.

  Kat chimes in with a, “Yeah, sorry babe, but that would so make you a creep.”

  “Maybe hit him up once he’s out of your class?” Maggie adds helpfully with a shrug.

  Sita makes some sort of non-committal noise, chugging down the rest of her recently delivered martini.

  “Okay, I’m just going to say it,” Kat begins, diving into her Three S’s. “Husband and wife sex is the best. Pretty sure I got pregnant last night.”

  “You can’t possibly know that yet,” Sita sasses, always the scientist.

  Maggie scoots closer to Kat. “Wait. You guys are trying?”

  “I mean, not officially,” Kat answers. “But yesterday was a damn good effort in the name of.”

  I smile, shaking my head at her. “Nice.”

  “Oh, it was so much more than nice,” she hums the words, and we all roll into another fit of laughter.

  “And your something to expel?” Sita asks.

  “Oh, yes. That.” She diverts her attention to our bartender. “Sam! Another!” And then she turns back to us. “Hand to God, the next person to meow or purr at me in the middle of a traffic violation, is going to get a billy-club shoved up their ass.”

  I do spit my drink out at that one. Back into my cup, luckily.

  We’re all laughing, beyond tipsy, and it’s been at least two whole hours since I’ve thought about Greyson. But it’s my turn now, and I know I have to tell them about seeing him.

  I go all in. “I ran into Greyson last week.”

  All heads swivel towards me.

  “The Greyson?” Maggie treads softly.

  I nod into my Jameson and Coke.

  “What?! Where?!” Sita blurts.

  “The coffee shop. My coffee shop,” I say, swallowing back the sudden overflow of emotion. Ugh, get it together.

  But they home in on this immediately, the mood of our conversation drastically turning from loud and rambunctious to quiet and concerning. And this, this is everything.

  These girls are my everything. Loving every manic piece of me.

  I tell them every detail. The way it felt to see him again. The way I was terrified he had this whole new life I would never fit into—not that I’m supposed to fit into it or anything, but still. The way I ran off and cried into my pillow for two hours straight before putting on my big girl pants and transmuting that shit into something productive. The way I’ve been secretly hoping to run into him again, because I refuse to believe that it ends here. It can’t end here.

  They already know about our past. The way we collided in high school and left each other with two different versions of who we used to be. They know he’s a musician. A musician who unexpectedly became famous two years ago when a video of him singing in uniform overseas went viral. Now there are dozens of viral videos. I haven’t watched them, though. Couldn’t bear to after that first one.

  Rumor has it there was a slew of record labels waiting for the very minute he was honorably discharged from the military. That not days later, he was signed, working on his first studio album. And now he’s on a country-wide tour.

  He is legitimately, bona fide famous, yet somewhere in the depths of my soul, he still feels like mine. The Greyson that changed my life with one look, one word, one touch, one kiss.

  Not the world’s Greyson. But my Greyson.

  Twenty-three Before

  OKAY. SO. YES, I hadn’t once thought about kissing him the other night. But—and that was a huge but—just because I hadn’t thought about kissing him that night, did not mean that the urge to went away. If anything, it came back with a raging vengeance. Because the need to kiss him tonight felt like a living, breathing thing inside my chest, aggressively attempting to claw its way out. It was all I could think about.

  My lips, on his.

  His, on mine.

  The way his mouth was moving right now, saying…something.

  Wait. What was he saying?

  “…romanticized heartache, but a soul-deep devotion to Lenore. He can’t forget, because the raven—or his own subconscious—won’t let him, because what they had was strong enough to stay with him even after she was gone. So even if he tells himself he wants to forget, he’ll never actually allow himself to—the raven’s presence won’t allow him to—and the raven is of his own making. We can agree on that much, right?”

  Holy shit I wanted to kiss those smart and pensive words right off his mouth. But I forced myself to skim through them instead, thinking them over. He was right, dammit.

  “I guess,” I relented. “But it’s still not admirable, and I don’t think he’s choosing any of it. It’s dark, and ugly, and flat-out heartbreak to the point of insanity. I mean, he knows Lenore is dead but still thinks it could be her at his door, and he’s talking to a bird. Real or imagined, it’s crazy…having loved someone to the point that your entire reality and sanity has been altered because of it. It’s not romantic, it’s sad.”

  “And that’s why we’re not putting any of that in here,” he said, laughing under his breath as he typed some words onto the slide we were currently working on, before moving on to the next one, typing a simple: The End.

  “We’re done?!” I jumped up and clapped my hands in excitement.

  “We’re done,” he echoed, and I did a little victory dance of celebration.

  He shook his head, smiling with one side of his mouth hitched up higher than the other, and closed his laptop, setting it onto the lounge chair beside him. Then he pulled his arms above his head, stretching as he stood. I swallowed thickly, all rational thought fleeing from my mind as I watched him—watched the muscles in his arms flexing above him.

  The dimly lit water of his pool shifted and shimmered in the darkness behind him, a thin veil of steam rising from it, providing the perfect backdrop for a picture I would’ve easily punched someone in the face for. If only I’d had my damn camera.

  But then? He pulled his shirt off. Walked straight to the edge of his pool, and gracefully dove in. My heart stopped beating for at least three full beats, I’m sure of it.

  I stockpiled a million mental snapshots of that whole experience. Shirtless Greyson. The muscles in his back contracting as he raised his arms above his head and dove in. His abs disappearing beneath the surface of his pool, one by one in slow motion—at least that’s how it would forever remain in my memory, anyway. And him, swimming back towards me, droplets of water falling down his eyelashes and cheekbones. Down his nose, and li
ps, and chin.

  And then I wanted to punch myself in the face, for not having the foresight to always have my camera with me if there was even a slight possibility that Greyson would be in the vicinity. In fact, I was pretty damn sure it would go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities of my life. Way to go, Jess!

  I dragged my eyes away from him and pulled my socks and shoes off, tossing and kicking them to the side as I made my way over to the edge of his pool and sat down, slipping my feet into the warm water.

  “Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head as he moved closer. “Get in with me.”

  I blinked. Once, twice. “What?”

  “Get in the pool with me.”

  “Um…” I forced myself away from the many thoughts a shirtless Greyson approaching me conjured in my mind, but all I could really manage was a, “Yeah, no, I’m good.”

  He moved even closer, forcing water to splash up onto my knees. He’d stopped right in front of me, gripping the edges of the pool on both sides of my legs as his green eyes shined with mischief. “Am I going to have to pull you in?” he asked.

  I forced a laugh through a shaky breath. “I have nothing to change into,” was the only reply I could come up with.

  He looked at me pointedly in response. You live right down the street, his look clearly said, so his next words surprised me. “You can wear something of mine,” he offered easily, shrugging.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that those words, from his mouth, had me immediately ready to do a swan dive straight into his pool. But I managed to keep my cool, sitting firmly where I was, drawing tiny circles in the dark as night water with my legs.

  “Come on. One victory lap to celebrate,” he pouted, his bottom lip pushed out towards me, and that. Is exactly. When it happened.

  I broke. Hit my limit.

  Officially.

  Twenty-four Before

  I MEAN, HE couldn’t just do things like that!

  He was practically begging me to do it. To go ahead and press my mouth right up against that protruding bottom lip of his. And what other choice did I have?

  None. The answer is none.

  Because I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  I liked him. So much. He was funny, and smart, and kind. He was flirty, but not pushy. Charming but not douchey. He wrote music, and played instruments, and sang like he was the goddamn love child of Shawn Mendes and Brendan Urie, and somehow, somehow, he had easily become my favorite person.

  But freaking hell, I was too damn stubborn. There was still a part of me—a part that could stick itself where the sun doesn’t shine, for the record—that was holding onto my resolve, onto the determination that Greyson would make the first move.

  And for whatever reason, it felt important. That I wait for that.

  If it would ever even happen.

  He cocked his head to the side as I watched him, his eyes narrowed, assessing. I’m not sure what it was that he was trying to figure out, because I know my feelings were written clear across my face, laid bare for him to see, yet there he stood, less than a foot away, quiet. Simply studying me.

  His eyes roamed the features of my face before landing on mine and pinning themselves there.

  I sat there defiantly, my gaze never wavering from his.

  And there was something about the way we looked at each other then. A push and a pull. A storm of what ifs raging behind our eyelids.

  I swallowed thickly, biting down on my lip to keep from saying the things that desperately wanted to break free: Just do it, Greyson. Kiss me! I know you want to; I can see that you want to.

  Why won’t you just do it?

  His gaze trailed a path from my eyes to my mouth, and then back again, and I knew it. I fucking knew it. I know you so well, Greyson! I wanted to scream and shake him until he understood.

  It was killing me, the way he was looking at me like that. Like he intended for me to see exactly what it was that he wanted, even though he didn’t have the guts to say it…or do anything about it.

  I tore my eyes away from him, focusing on the ripples of water traveling methodically across his pool instead. It must have severed our connection for him too, because he finally broke the silence. “You gonna get in or what?” he asked lightly, as if the past few minutes had never happened.

  “Nope. I’m good here,” I immediately replied, looking back at him with a forced smirk, attempting to will the tension away, too.

  But then he slid his wet hands around my calves with a smirk of his own. “Guess I’ll be pulling you in then,” he said, his voice low.

  And you know what? Screw it, I thought. This was bullshit.

  I reached down into his pool and cupped a handful of water in my hands, and then proceeded to splash it right in his smug face.

  He sputtered, wiping a hand down his dripping-wet features. “What was that for?” His eyes were comically wide, but I had a point to make here. Whatever it was.

  “Because you, Greyson!” I yelled a little louder than necessary, and he looked even more confused than he did a second ago. I didn’t blame him. Even I had no idea where I was going until I got there. “If we’re going to be friends,” I continued, deciding to draw my own imaginary lines in the sand, “you can’t just, like, casually touch my legs like that, and flirt with me, and look so friggin’ attractive sometimes that it hurts, and you definitely, most certainly, cannot just rip off your shirt whenever you damn well feel like it, and then proceed to dive into pools in slow motion!” There. I said it. And fuck! It felt good. I mean, where did he get off friend-zoning me while constantly doing all this shit, anyway?

  “Rip off my shirt?” He smirked, more than a little amused. “And dive into pools in slow motion?”

  I pointed my finger in his face, digging it into his cheek. “And that! No smirking. It’s like you know how hot you are when you do it. So, knock it off!”

  He burst out in laughter. I’m sure he would’ve been doubled over if it didn’t, you know, involve him drowning himself. “Oh my god,” he said, catching his breath. “I fucking love you, Jess.”

  And, yeah.

  Record. Scratched.

  Heart. Stopped. Mind. Obliterated.

  Stick a fork in me; I was done.

  Twenty-five Before

  “YOU KNOW WHAT I mean,” he quickly said, choking out a cough and clearing his throat. And holy shit, but was he embarrassed?

  Oh my god, he was embarrassed.

  That was a first.

  And then I rolled my eyes. Because even pink-cheeked and wide-eyed, he was still way more attractive than it was fair for him to be.

  Probably even more so, if I was being honest.

  God, he sucked.

  “Do I?” I eventually responded to his statement, because being a pain in the ass and giving him shit for it was a far better option than finding myself stuck, analyzing why he’d said those three words in the first place.

  He raised his eyebrows at me, and I raised mine right back. What are you going to say about it now? I taunted him with a look.

  He bit down on his bottom lip and smiled, and before I knew what the hell was happening, I was completely submerged in Greyson’s pool.

  He’d thrown me in. He’d actually thrown me in. That shit!

  I broke the surface with a smile; I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to regret that,” I said, and immediately dove for him. I threw both of my hands over the top of his head, attempting to shove him under, but it was a useless effort. He just laughed and simply grabbed my arms, placing them back down at my sides.

  I met his eyes, watching his lips curve into a smug smile while already mentally plotting another attempt—maybe I should try to shove him down by his shoulders instead—when I noticed the small scar on the bottom of his chin. I’d never seen it before. How had I never seen it before?

  I reached out and traced the short line of it with my finger. “Where’d the scar come from?” I asked.

  His eyes immediately darte
d away. “Just some childhood accident,” he said, shrugging. He was trying to remain unaffected, but I could see the way that his breathing had picked up. And the way he was repeatedly squeezing his right hand into a tight fist beneath the surface of his pool.

  He was lying. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But something inside of me urged me to dig deeper, because I knew there was something there to find. I think I’d known that for a while now.

  I turned my hand over for him to see, water dripping down my arm and back into the pool. “This scar here,” I said, pointing at the faint line on my pointer finger, swallowing down my fear and the magnitude of this moment I’d somehow found myself in. Because it wasn’t lost on me that I was about to share something with Greyson that I’d never told a soul. My heart was pounding, my hands shaking subtly. “I split it open on the corner of a wall once. When one of my mom’s boyfriends shoved her into me.”

  He lowered his head slightly, his jaw clenching. He still wasn’t looking at me.

  “And this piece of lead,” I continued with a deep breath, pointing at the tiny grey speck at the center of my palm. “Is from when her drug dealer stabbed a pencil into my hand…” I swallowed again, forcing the unexpected—and unwelcome—onslaught of tears away this time. “To teach her a lesson when she was late on payment…

  “Joke was on him, because she didn’t care,” I finished. I wasn’t sure that last part was even audible, but the way Greyson looked at me then, his eyes pinned to mine with understanding, I knew he’d heard every word.

  My heart was pounding even harder than before. What did he think of me now?

  I slid my hand over my throat, feeling my pulse throbbing beneath my palm as time ticked by. As I watched him—thinking, breathing, swallowing, his Adam’s apple dipping down and back up again and again.

  Was I way off base? Was he silently judging me behind those green eyes of his? Was he going to say something? Anything? I was starting to feel like I’d made a huge mistake. Like I’d overstepped a boundary that Greyson clearly wasn’t ready to cross with me yet, until…