Lish isn’t sure what to make of my forwardness, so she continues with her bubbly banter. “Oooh. Sounds romantic.”
Who is this person? The old Lish would have asked for every tongue position and lewd sound. I realize there is another human next to her, and I don’t know him, even though he apparently knows a hell of a lot about me, but she brought Luke up in the first place.
The waitress appears, and I’m calmed a bit after ordering a burrito. Naturally, I judge Travis for ordering the chicken fajitas because that’s pretty much the lamest thing you can order at a Mexican restaurant, but I bite my tongue.
In fact, by the end of the dinner I have bitten my tongue so much that it may have a permanent indentation.
Dinner conversation steers away from me and toward every minute detail of Travis and Lish’s first twenty-four hours together. I consider myself lucky that Lish didn’t text the entire thing to me like I had previously expected.
The story is very meet-cute, with occasional asides of “I’ll tell you more about that later,” accompanied by a wink from Lish.
The question is: When? Travis is staying at Lish’s house. They will be together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, subtract their day jobs. When exactly will there be a later for Lish and me to speak privately?
At the end of dinner, Travis refuses to let either of us pay the bill. “My treat,” he oozes. Or maybe that was a kind gesture.
I know my face is incapable of hiding things. I’m a blusher and a pouter and a sneerer. Currently, I’m trying desperately to look pleasant and grateful, but my face feels like that of an alien disguised as a human trying to emulate a smile.
Lish sees it.
“Will you excuse us, Travis? Ladies’ room.” Lish pulls me by the arm all the way into the little señoritas’ room.
“What?” I pout.
“You are being a total butt,” she says.
“You are being a total butt,” I counter.
“How am I being a butt? I’m being as nice as I can possibly be.”
“That’s the problem! This isn’t you! If you have to be fake for Travis, is this it for the rest of your life? New, improved, wholesome Lish? No thank you.” I cross my arms.
“Aggy, I know you are prepared to not like Travis. If you suddenly found someone you wanted to be with all the time instead of me, I’d be upset, too.”
“Who said that? And who says that? First off, how can you possibly know you want to be with this guy all the time? And second, how could you choose him over me?” I shout.
There it is.
Lish, instead of looking loving and sympathetic as she should, purses her lips. “Aggy, we are both going off to college—or elsewhere,” she corrects herself. When she senses I’m about to stop her, she says, “Like it or not, Travis is my MTB. Whether or not that means he is truly meant to be, I don’t know. But I am really curious to find out. Can’t you support me in this?”
I jiggle my leg up and down impatiently. “Fine,” I concede. But that’s all I’ll give her. Lish hugs me, and I hug her back best I can from my currently arm-crossed position.
“I really do want to hear more about Luke. Maybe we can chat later?” she offers.
“Sure.” I nod.
We leave the restaurant, me alone in my car, Lish together with Travis.
Her future.
I pray he doesn’t make her my past.
CHAPTER 19
A rainy day makes time drag at Haunted Hollow. Or at least it used to. I spend a good portion of my time hiding underneath the three-by-three-foot awning that covers the ride controls, a bar stool, and a place to rest my legs until my butt falls asleep. Occasionally a bedraggled family wants a ride on the Devil’s Dinghies, but there is nowhere to protect the parents from the droplets while they wait in line. I make the offer that the child can ride as long as she wants, but by the time the boat completes its loop the parents are ready to move on to shelter.
I am hypnotized by the patter and plunk of raindrops into the ride’s water. It’s almost enough to put me to sleep. A cool summer rain, the drops feel downright chilly after eighty-degree days. The air today hasn’t pushed past seventy, and I snuggle into the Haunted Hollow hoodie I stow underneath the console for such an occasion. I shook it out before I put it on, checking for stray spiders or beetles that may have moved in. The hoodie smells of sunscreen and musty water, and I’d consider holding it under the falling rain if I thought it would imbue it with the tranquil smell.
Looking at the barely touched mural, I sigh at the recognition that I won’t have the opportunity to paint today. It was something cathartic I was looking forward to after a confusing night.
The rain switches from a light tapping to a full-on downpour. The torrent pounds the Devil’s Dinghies water angrily. Raindrops turn to hail, a few pea-size balls at first, then amassing into pellets the size of quarters. The din they create makes me flinch as they ping and plod onto the boats. I practically jump out of the booth when I feel two large arms engulf me from behind. Luke pants in my ear. “Holy shit! I was not expecting that when I ran over here.”
I turn around, his arms loosening just enough to allow me to move while remaining on my hips. His hair drips onto his already-soaked t-shirt, and now directly onto me.
“Sorry.” He backs up a little and looks around for something with which to dry himself. I offer him a backup t-shirt I find hidden crumpled behind where my hoodie was. I imagine it smells mustier than the hoodie, but Luke doesn’t seem to notice as he wipes his face and arms with the orange fabric. He rubs his hair vigorously, leaving it tousled with hunks sticking up in random directions. On a mere mortal, this look might detract from one’s attractiveness. But Luke looks positively divine. I don’t know if his intention was to hang out and talk to pass the time until the rains dissipate and we have to actually work, but my lips are on his before I can find out his true intentions.
He doesn’t seem to mind.
Luke grips my face in his gigantic palms, clammy from the rain. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling myself up on tiptoe while he crouches to meet me halfway. I can feel his soaked shirt against my neck and chin, and I shudder at the chill. He pulls away from our lip-lock to ask, “You cold?”
“It’s just … your shirt is really wet,” I point out, recognizing how lame it sounds when he’s the one actually wearing it.
The hail surrounding us slows its assault, and the racket is replaced by the symphony of rain. My body relaxes some; I wasn’t aware of how tense the machine gun–like blast on the Dinghies made me. I want to resume kissing, cognizant that when the rain dies down Luke will have to return to duty at the Ghoster.
Luke begins peeling his wet shirt over his head, like an HBO movie my mom wouldn’t let me watch as a kid. I want to protest, to tell him we’re at work: No shirts, no shoes = no dice, but he’s back onto me in an instant—and who can argue with a shirtless Luke Jacobs?
My hands travel over his shoulders, my hoodie acting as a towel for his torso.
I love kissing Luke, who seems so immediate when our lips are touching. How does he do that? Lose himself so easily, where I’m reflecting on every flick of my tongue and clack of our teeth? Or maybe he’s the same way and thinks I’m the cool one.
The dumping rain slows to a drizzle, which I’m only aware of when the sound on the shelter becomes deafeningly quiet. I press my hands to his chest to back myself away, inadvertently brushing Scarlett Dresden with my fingertips. I shudder again, this time from the reality and not the cold. Taking off clothing will never have the same sexiness as it did in the time before the Naming.
Maybe we should implement a shirts-on policy for make-out situations.
“The rain is stopping,” I pout, pretending I’m not completely distracted by the ladylike autograph on his chest. I try not to let my brain get carried away with jealousy at this girl’s fragile signature. “And you’re not wearing a shirt,” I remind Luke.
“True on both counts. I’
m going to run to my locker for a dry one before the kids come back.” Luke hastily kisses my lips, and I barely have a chance to return the kiss before he’s sprinting topless toward the staff room.
I run a finger over my bottom lip, swollen from the encounter. I’m trying so hard to live in these moments, to enjoy them for what they are and not worry about what may or may not happen in the future.
Scarlett Dresden, like Hendrix Cutter, has an annoying way of popping up to remind me that I may not have a choice.
CHAPTER 20
My mom has to know I’m not going to college. She’s got to. But she doesn’t.
“I bought you this.” She reaches into a college bookstore bag and brandishes a t-shirt emblazed with a college mascot.
“What is that?” I ask, not that I don’t know what a tiger is, nor don’t I know that it is, indeed, the mascot for the team of the college to which I was accepted. I say What is that? in the same way one might question a syringe produced at a doctor’s appointment when you expected a shot-free check-up. I don’t want to see it, and I don’t know what the hell it’s doing here.
“I know it wasn’t your style to have school spirit in high school, but college is different. You chose the school, and you’re paying up the wazoo to go there, so I damn well hope you have the spirit.” She nudges Uncle Jim, who is cooking risotto on the stove, in a conspiratorial way, and he hums a noncommitted “Mmmm” to appease my mom.
My mom really thinks I’m still going to college. I haven’t yet found the right time to smash her dream to smithereens. She wants me to be independent, to not have to rely on anyone for financial and emotional stability, which to her means getting a college degree in something sensible, leading to a lucrative career that allows my life autonomy. And I totally agree with her. Except about the college degree. Because I think that maybe my future career lies somewhere out in the world, and if I tether myself to a college program now I may completely miss the opportunity to find the career that I was destined to have.
Do I believe in destiny? I did before the MTBs appeared, but now they’ve fucked everything up. Before the Naming, I wanted to go to college. Lish and I would, of course, attend the same school, her getting a degree in chemistry while I earned mine in veterinary medicine. No matter that I’m terrified of dogs. Even back then a spark of a dream to visit Australia propelled me. I could treat their unique animals, like dingoes instead of dogs, which are wild dogs so they’re not as scary. Or more scary. But how will I know if that’s what I want to do if I never meet a dingo or a wombat or a Tasmanian devil?
Right around the time of SAT score mailings, my mom and I sat down to pore over a book of college listings. Well, she pored over it. I left about sixteen times to go to the bathroom because it made me so panicked. Mom thought that was normal. Who isn’t a little nervous about leaving home? But it’s not leaving home that worried me; I want to leave this home. There are too many memories of our family here, the one made up of me, Mom, and Dad. Australia contains not an iota of Abrams family memories. I can make my own memories, my own life.
After appeasing Mom with three college applications, bullshit essays about my dream to become a veterinarian (totally inspired by an episode of Supernatural where Sam hits a dog with his car, and he falls in love with the bland yet curly-haired vet who saves it), I built up the nerve to tell her my deferment plan. I used the word deferment because it sounded official but also like there is a possibility that I am merely putting off college for an unspecified amount of time. To sweeten the deal, I presented my deferment plan as only one year, although I knew in my heart there was no definitive time frame. The beauty of my plan is that there is no plan. That’s the whole point.
Needless to say, Mom did not go for the plan-that-is-not-a-plan. At all. To the point where she stopped the discussion with a hand, left the room, and told my uncle to inform me that dreams are fine but that they are merely dreams. Reality is the shit we don’t want to do but we have to.
And that was it.
Bleak as fuck.
Completely my mom’s outlook on life, which I get. For her. I want to change that for me, especially so I don’t end up alone in a house purchased with an ex-husband and occupied by my shut-in brother.
I want to escape, to fly away figuratively and literally on a big ol’ airplane for twenty terrifying hours until I’m on the other side of the world with only possibility guiding my way. And carnival rides.
Think my mom would be cool if I just sent her a text with all that once I get there?
CHAPTER 21
Another day off from work. I know days off are normally appreciated, even coveted, by most people, but being at work means sexy time with my not-really boyfriend and being home means way too much time to think about these heated topics:
a) How to tell my mom officially that I really would rather move to Australia than go to college.
b) My best friend may or may not be on the road to marriage and a future that does not involve us backpacking through exotic countries where we may or may not ingest toasted insects.
c) My computer and phone are fully accessible, nearby, and seem to have the disturbing ability to taunt me about searching for Hendrix Cutter.
d) As long as I’m wearing a tank top, I can see my Empty. I may have to start wearing turtlenecks in the summer.
Ugh. The Name’s itchy. Maybe. I can’t tell if it’s actually itchy or if it’s like when you hear your friend’s little sister has lice and your scalp starts to crawl. That’s how my Empty feels, so I yank on a crew-neck t-shirt. I consider the new college shirt my mom procured for me but decide that would be sending the wrong message. See point a for actual message.
What do I want to do today? Making out with Luke is high on my list. But since Luke is working, and I don’t have a jet, cake, or pizza, I consider messaging Sahana Patel, a friend more from proximity than from having much in common. We grew up on the same block and attended many of each other’s birthday parties, but lost the playdate factor in junior high when she fast-tracked it to the highest-level classes and I hovered at next-to-highest. My dad used to chide me about wasted potential, but I wasn’t about to let homework get in the way of finding out what kind of baby my human Sim and vampire Sim would make.
Maybe I’ll play the Sims today. It’s been a long time since I interacted with a bunch of pretend people.
I grab a tub of dried apricots (a snack that I only partake in when I know I’m going to be spending a lot of time alone. Toot toot) and a glass of water, and head to my bedroom.
Being an only child, my bedroom is on the larger side. What once was my dad’s but is now my mom’s office (why did he get the original office in the first place? It’s not like he worked at home) is the smallest bedroom, with Mom getting the master and Uncle Jim residing in the finished basement. Technically, Uncle Jim has the largest bedroom, and with the attic as his workspace, the largest office. With my mom always at work or school, I don’t think she cares. When my dad originally left, my mom’s first inclination was to sell the house and move into an apartment. Uncle Jim saved us from having to pack up our lives (so many boxes filled with memories that are better left taped closed) when he moved in and helped share costs. Uncle Jim also helped with a modicum of redecorating, encouraging my mom to paint the walls and buy a new bedroom set and comforter. He took the renovations a bit too far when he sold my parents’ wedding dishes (apparently a discontinued pattern that sold for a shitload on eBay) without my mom knowing and surprised her with a newer, more modern line. She cried for three days after that. Who knew dishes could mean so much to someone?
My room hasn’t changed much since I was a kid. At age eight, my parents let me choose a paint color. I chose a lavender that looked too light to me on the tiny paint sample card, so I insisted on a darker shade of the color. The man at the paint store suggested I stick with the lighter shade, since large amounts of any color will appear darker. I wasn’t going to be swayed by this man who obviously
had a vendetta against the color purple, so somehow I convinced my dad to not only go with the darker shade but to actually go with the very darkest splotch at the bottom of the card. Ten years later, and I still refuse to admit that my walls are not anywhere near the color lavender and veer dangerously close to eggplant.
I don’t mind, and the darkness makes it the perfect room in which to sleep and/or zone out to simulation computer games. I’m still a sucker for classics like Zoo Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon, but the Sims, where you basically create and control people, will always remain my number one. The beauty of the Sims is it’s almost social, but you can build walls around people you hate and make them pee themselves if you’re in that kind of mood.
The most recent edition of the Sims came with the annoying feature of MTBs, so any Sim you made automatically wasn’t ever 100 percent satisfied until they found their computer-generated soul mate. The feature annoyed players so much, kindred spirits of mine who didn’t want their computer-created humans to have their love lives dictated any more than they wanted their real love lives dictated, that the game’s production company released a second version of the same edition that did not include the MTB feature. I wasn’t about to shell out another fifty bucks, so I stayed content by playing older, pre-MTB editions of the game.
Today I settle in with the classic Sims 3, which doesn’t have as many fun expansion packs as Sims 2, but does have much better graphics. Plus, no MTB to spoil the Sim-humping bits.
I sit down at my desk, painted green by my mom and me after the dad exodus. It was originally supposed to be a place where I could write in my journal or draw comics, but once my laptop settled here the creative endeavors fell by the wayside. Unless you count my single foray into writing Doctor Who fan fiction. (Tenth Doctor, obviously.)
I touch the track pad, and my desktop glows to life. I am so tempted to spend time on the Internet, reading Tumblr pages analyzing Chris Evans’s beard or Norman Reedus’s haircut, but the more time I spend on the infinity of the web, the stronger the lure is to Google the hell out of Hendrix Cutter. He is plaguing my brain. Already he has defiled my body; what more can I give him? I double-click the Sims 3 icon before I go into searching territory I cannot unsee.
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