by Aly Martinez
See, Eliza Reynolds flew under the radar. Very few people at school knew who she was, and I intended to keep it that way. If she caught the attention of the football team, she’d be flooded with dates. So I ignored her at all costs so as to not draw any attention her way. I couldn’t risk that someone would take her away from me.
Sure, she was dating Daniel Bennett, but he was a tool. I wanted to kill him on a daily basis when I saw them together at school. But what was I supposed to do? She wasn’t mine—at least, not that anyone knew.
“What did Bennett give you?” I asked just to size up the competition. He wasn’t loaded, but he had a car and took her out on dates every weekend. I was curious, but it made her smile fall.
She mumbled something, but I couldn’t quite hear her.
“Huh?”
She looked up and repeated, “Ladybug earrings.”
I blinked at her for a minute before doubling over in laughter.
“Shut up!” she said sternly. Then she laughed right along with me.
“Doodle, just let me make sure I have this straight. He bought a girl who has never had her ears pierced and is terrified of insects, ladybug earrings?” I went back to laughing.
“Oh, it gets worse. I wasn’t sure what to say when I opened them, so I told him I loved them. Now I’m gonna have to get my ears pierced so he doesn’t feel bad.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.” I stopped laughing. “You’re scared of needles. You know that’s how they do that, right?”
“Well, holy crap. Till Page. You actually listen to me when I talk!” She smiled and wrapped her arms around my waist, hugging me again. “Thank you.”
“I hear everything you say. Even the boring stuff.”
She giggled, and I kissed the top of her head.
“The light turned off,” Quarry said, suddenly appearing, scaring us both.
Eliza must have jumped ten feet in the air.
“Jesus, Q! Don’t sneak up on people like that!” I barked as I tried to slow my own racing heart.
“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, and I immediately felt guilty for yelling at him.
“Hey, it’s all right, buddy.”
“Is this Quarry?” Eliza all but squealed.
“We should get going,” I grumbled, not wanting her to cross over into the real world.
“Yep. I’m Quarry.” He bounced on his toes.
“Wow. You’re a cutie.” Eliza squatted down in front of him, and all I could think about was that she would notice his dirty shirt.
“Come on, Q.” I started to walk away, but they both ignored me.
“Thanks!” Quarry grinned. “Hey, when I’m older, maybe we can go on a date or something?” My head snapped to his as I popped a questioning eyebrow.
“I’d really like that,” Eliza managed to say through a muffled laugh. “I should probably tell you my name first though. You know, so you can find me in a few years.”
“Oh yeah. I’ll need that. Can I have your phone number too?” he asked.
My jaw fell open. Fantastic. My six-year-old brother was even trying to take her from me.
“You are definitely related to Till.” She laughed loudly. “Well, Quarry Page, my name is Eliza Reynolds. I’ll get your brother to give you my number later. I’m really looking forward to our date.” She lifted her hand for a high five, which Quarry enthusiastically returned.
Shaking my head, I broke up Quarry’s love connection. “All right, we’ve got to go. Flint’s at home sleeping. Happy birthday, Doodle.” I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.
She picked the vase up off the windowsill and hugged it to her chest. “Thanks again. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course.” I smiled and winked. “Here. I’ll help.” I scooped her off her feet and eased her back through the window. I’d have used any excuse to touch her.
“Goodnight, Quarry!” She blew a kiss that made a slow smile creep across his lips.
As soon as we got a few steps away, Quarry started talking again. “Are you going to marry her?”
“I don’t know. You probably should have checked with me about that before you asked her out on a date. I’m not sure how I feel about you hitting on my girl,” I teased, and his smile fell. “I’m kidding.” I lightly punched his shoulder.
“Hey, why’d she climb through the window? Does her house not have a door? That would be pretty cool to climb through the windows all the time. Would you have to put a doorknob on the window though?”
“You want to hear something cool?” I interjected just to make him stop talking.
“Yeah!”
“That window she crawled into is magic.”
“Nu-uh,” he said in disbelief, but he stopped walking and turned to look at me.
“I’m serious. It’s a magical portal that takes you to a fantasy world. There are no parents or teachers. Everything is nice and clean, and the pantry is always stocked. The best part, though, is that she’s always there.”
“Is she magic too?” he breathed with wide eyes.
I thought about it for a minute before answering.
Was Eliza magic?
She is to me.
“Absolutely.”
Six months later . . .
“WHY YOU SITTIN’ IN THE dark?” Till asked as he crawled through our apartment window. I’d always wondered why he never used the door.
The power to our nightly refuge had long since been shut off. I had told Till no more stealing for me, but when he’d run an old extension cord over to the building next door, I’d made an exception for power. He’d buried it in the dirt so no one could see it, but he’d still had to replace it a few times over the years. He always made sure we had light and a connection for the small space heater I’d bought from a thrift store.
Little by little, Till fixed up that dirty, run-down apartment. His efforts wouldn’t have prevented the city from changing its condemned status, but they made it comfortable for us. He brought bits and pieces of discarded furniture as he found them. It was never anything large. I suspected he couldn’t carry couches on his own, and I was relatively sure he’d never told anyone about our place. I knew I hadn’t.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, quickly turning away to hide my tears.
“Um, I live here,” he answered in the smartass tone I had grown to love.
“No, you don’t.”
“Well, close enough.” He eyed me curiously. “Why are you cryin’?” He crossed his arms over his chest, which seemed to be growing thicker every day.
Not that I really noticed or anything. It wasn’t like I was checking him out or lusting over his body . . . daily. Nope. Not at all. Till was my best friend, the brother I’d never had . . . and the visual of every orgasm I had ever given myself.
“It’s nothing,” I said dismissively.
“Why are you cryin,’ Doodle?” he repeated, clearly not dismissed.
“It’s stupid.” I dried my eyes on the backs of my hands. “I thought you were going out with Helen Chapman tonight?” I questioned, trying to distract him.
“What? Who told you that?”
I swear, sometimes, he didn’t even remember that we went to the same school. Nothing had changed. Till and I were thick as thieves inside that apartment, but it was our little secret from the outside world—or, more accurately, Till’s secret.
“No one had to tell me. The whole school was talking about it.” I stood up off the cushions we had made into a makeshift couch on the floor.
A small smirk grew from the corner of his mouth. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
I let out a loud laugh. “Funny, that’s not the first time I’ve been told that tonight.”
He quirked an eyebrow and cocked his head, asking for further explanation, but I didn’t give it to him.
“You hungry?” I walked to the small filing cabinet he’d converted into a pantry. It was never loaded, but we usually had at least something in case
we got hungry.
On average, we spent about two hours a night in our apartment, but on the weekends, we spent almost all day if we weren’t working. My parents never even bothered to ask where I disappeared to, and eventually, I stopped sneaking out and started walking out the front door instead.
“Stop avoiding my questions.” He grabbed my arm to stop me. “What’s got you hiding out, crying in the dark?”
I let out a sigh, knowing there would be no getting out of this. Whether I told him tonight or not, I was sure he’d hear first thing Monday morning when the high school gossip train pulled into the station.
“Daniel hooked up with Crystal,” I stated emotionlessly, but my chin started to quiver.
“Bennett? No way,” he said in disbelief.
“Totally true.” I tugged my arm out of his grip and retrieved a can of ravioli and a fork. “Crystal confessed.”
He took the can from my hand but kept questioning me. “Wait. Your girl, Crystal?” Then he peeled back the pull-tab and shoveled a spoonful into his mouth.
“Yep. She called to inform me that they were star-crossed lovers. She rambled about some Romeo and Juliet bullshit then told me they had spent a night under the stars in the back of his car losing their virginity to each other.” I summarized her words with my own personal bitchy flare of sarcasm.
Till choked on a laugh, spraying cheap red sauce onto my face. With the night I’d had, I didn’t even have a reaction to having been covered with spit and ravioli. It was merely the brown icing on the shit cake.
Placing the can down, he rushed forward. “Shit. Sorry,” he chuckled. Lifting the bottom of his shirt, he wiped my face clean—including a few hidden tears that had managed to escape my eyes. “Did you tell her that Romeo was no virgin?”
My eyes snapped to his. “He wasn’t?”
“Um . . .” He stalled, nervously rocking to his toes as his eyes flashed around the room.
“Till?”
“It’s cool, Doodle. Bennett’s got one hell of a mouth.”
“What exactly is cool?” I narrowed my eyes, but my cheeks began to heat.
I was closer to Till Page than I was to anyone else in the world, but he was still a guy, and I was a seventeen-year-old girl who was still a virgin. This conversation was awkward.
“Ya know . . . You and Bennett. It’s none of my business.” Thankfully, he seemed just as uncomfortable. “I mean, you guys were together for, like, a year. Everyone kinda figured you were, anyway.”
“They figured we were what?” My embarrassment slipped as my blood began to boil. Unfortunately for me, I cried when I was angry and Till’s next words ripped open the floodgates.
“I mean, he . . . uh, told everyone that you guys were doing it.” He paused as my eyes grew wide. “Like, on the regular.”
“What!” I gasped even though I wasn’t really shocked. That was what teenage boys did right? They lied about sex. The only problem was that this lie was about me. Tears dripped down my face as I managed to croak out, “We never . . .”
“Fuck,” Till cussed, immediately stepping forward, dragging me into his chest. I could feel his heart pounding and his muscles tense as I unnecessarily ran my hands up his sides. “I’ll fix it,” he soothed.
“You planning to turn back time? Because I’m pretty sure there is no fixing this.”
Right then and there, I vowed to castrate Daniel Bennett. I’d originally intended for it to be a thought, but when I felt Till’s chest begin shaking, I realized I had issued my threat out loud.
“You’ll lie to the cops for me when I follow through with that, right? I’ll need an alibi.” I lifted my head to catch his gaze.
He barked out a laugh. “No, I don’t want to be the alibi. I’ll be happy to hold him down for you though.” He smiled, rubbing his hand up and down my back.
Till and I weren’t exactly touchy-feely, but we didn’t shy away from affection, either. When my mother had shredded the sketchbook she’d found in my backpack during our freshman year, Till had held me for hours as I’d cried. It was the first time I’d realized how much I had come to not only rely on him, but trust him as well. He knew my life and didn’t judge me because of it. We were two of a kind. We might not have been the only poor kids with screwed-up parents, but sometimes, it really felt that way.
“Oh, God. I’m going to look like such an idiot at school on Monday. Not only was I supposedly having monkey sex with Daniel, but it wasn’t even good enough to keep him from sleeping with my best friend,” I whined, stomping my foot for good measure.
“Monkey sex?” Till asked with humor filling his voice.
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
He hadn’t yet released me, so I buried my head back into his chest. If he was offering, I was taking.
“You want me to kick his ass?” He made it sound like a joke, but I knew he was very serious.
“No,” I mumbled. My answer had far less to do with worrying about Daniel’s safety and everything to do with not wanting Till to get in trouble for doing it.
“Want me to spread some shit about Crystal?” He dropped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on the top of my head.
“No. What I want you to do is find a way to bottle chlamydia so we can give it to both of them.”
“Right. I’ll begin researching that tomorrow. I know a few girls who could probably supply us with a sample.”
“Ew. That’s disgusting. Please tell me Helen isn’t one of them?” I took a step out of arms, and his eyes danced with humor.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about Helen.”
“Liar,” I accused, and his smile grew.
“Hey, you know what I bet would make you feel better?”
“Switching high schools?” I snarked over my shoulder as I walked back to the cushions on the floor.
“Nope. Scratching my head.”
“Why does your head itch? You got lice?”
“What? No!” he yelled defensively. “That’s like some little kid shit, isn’t it?”
“Mostly, but anyone can get it. Besides, how old are Flint and Quarry now anyway? They could have brought it home from school.”
“Six and eleven, but we don’t share a room or anything anymore.” He was blinking a lot and I could tell he was starting to worry.
“Till, just ’cause you sleep on the couch doesn’t mean they couldn’t have left it there for you. Come on. Sit down and I’ll check. Crystal had lice when we were in fifth grade. She was miserable.” I paused as an idea hit me. “Hey! If you really have lice, can you give it to Daniel and Crystal before getting rid of it?”
“Sure. I’d be happy to! How do I give it to them?” he asked, so genuinely interested that I couldn’t help but smile.
“Just rub your head on them or something. Maybe lend Bennett one of your beanies,” I joked, but Till stood there for a minute studying me.
“Sorry,” was all he said before diving at me.
He caught me completely off guard, and I toppled over backwards. Before I even had a chance to react, he had my arms pinned and was straddling my hips.
“What the hell!” I yelled as he began rubbing the top of his head against mine. He was thorough too, twisting his head from side to side to touch every inch of mine.
“There,” he said before finally moving off me. “Since this whole lice thing was your idea, I figured we should really experience it together.” A slow grin slid across his mouth. Obviously, he was proud of his thought process.
“Have you lost your freaking mind? Why would you try to give me lice? It wasn’t my idea! You have an itchy head, so I simply asked if you had lice. That’s it!”
“Well, shit, Doodle. I didn’t realize you would be this ungrateful. I was just trying to be a good friend so we could lean on each other for support during a difficult time.” He winked.
Like, actually winked. I probably had bugs crawling in my hair, and Till was winking.
That one moment probably summed up our
relationship better than anything else. Till always made things hard for me, but in some strange way, he always made them infinitely better as well.
Case in point.
Harder: For twenty minutes, Till lay with his head in my lap as I nervously inspected his hair to see if we had lice. We didn’t.
Better: For two hours after that, he lay with his head in my lap laughing and holding my sketchpad against his chest as I drew Crystal and Daniel voodoo dolls. I scratched his head with one hand, and he pointed out additional flaws I should add to our Juliette and her Romeo.
Occasionally, Till would go one step further and pull out a best: Just as I looked down to ask a question, I met his hazel eyes staring up at me. He didn’t look away or become awkward after being caught. Instead, a warm smile lifted the corner of his mouth. His eyes weren’t burning with desire the way I’m sure mine were, instead they were deep and content.
Yeah.
The absolute best.
When the intensity of our stare became too much, I cleared my throat and asked, “What time are social services coming tomorrow? You should probably go home.”
“Eleven.” He glanced at his watch. “You want to stay here with me tonight? I don’t feel like going back there. I need to get up early and clean that hell hole before they get there, though. She threatened to take Flint and Quarry last time if things weren’t better.”
“Crap.” I breathed.
“It’ll be okay. Flint’s done a lot the past week. Mom’s leaving to have Tammy do her nails in the morning, so I’m gonna try to make it at least look decent while she’s gone. She might not give a damn, but I do. I just can’t deal with her shit tonight.” He tried so hard to play it off as no big deal, but as he lifted his hand to toy with his bottom lip, I knew he was bothered.