by Evie Bennet
Would we have to take his dad in, too? Was I ready for that kind of responsibility?
Maybe he wanted to escape to me.
Ugh, I needed to stop letting these fantasies get away from me.
Inside, the trailer was grungier than I expected it to be. I’d imagined dark, antique furniture and I was greeted with various earth-tone hues that seemed to have gone through generations’ worth of use. Bottles littered the table, the sink, and the garbage and recycling bins. Reed didn’t drink, so that meant…
The glass made a hollow hooting noise as my fingers ran the rim.
JR Parker hadn’t been a very good daddy, had he?
Maybe that was the reason Reed had been hesitant to bring me to the trailer or let me hang around Sidewinders. With a sigh, I looked around, barely resisting the urge to tidy up. A few photos on the fridge caught my eye. There was one of Reed, clearly at Al’s, bandana pulled low on his face. Another photo showcased some of the Rattlers rallied around each other. The last one was two kids in front of what looked like a giant screen. Maybe the drive-in that Trey was talking about? They looked happy. Big smiles. The one with dark hair and the red bandana was Reed, of course, but I didn’t recognize the little girl as any of the Rattlers. Was she a cousin? A sister? He’d tell me, right?
I just needed to fix the fire alarm and get out of there before I did something stupid.
The casing of the alarm was cracked, as though someone had punched it to shut it up. Probably JR, I reasoned, disappointed by my initial impression of him. I wanted to like my father-in-law. Well, potential future father-in-law.
God, I was insane.
I carefully pried open and rearranged the wires and batteries of the fire alarm. I couldn’t test it, not without the fire department and neighbors finding out. Still, I had every confidence that it worked.
That was good. Subtle. Non-invasive.
Shoulders rolling, I looked around, curious about Reed’s residence and life. Already, I’d found out the bandana obsession traced back to his childhood. I wanted to ask him about it. I wanted to know everything.
I needed to leave.
He’d probably show it to me anyway. Eventually. Just a peek into his bathroom would be fine. Or his trash can. No, I scolded. I needed to trust him. I needed to be able to trust the person I was in love with and have him trust me.
A ringing sensation worked itself through my veins, forcing the edge of my palms into my eyelids to quiet it.
This wasn’t the same. Reed was different. I was different.
When the world quieted down, I let my hands fall. No punctures today. Needing something familiar, I sniffled and made my way to his bag in the living room, opening his laptop.
I just wanted to read the words, to feel that familiar sense of belonging. It wasn’t the same, knowing he couldn’t be on the other end of the screen. Maybe just watching whatever he’d seen last would jumpstart my connection. His movie files weren’t on his laptop, probably safely on some flash drive or on discs his room, but I checked his browser history in the hopes I’d find something.
At first, it was mostly research questions for his novel. I was so proud of him for doing his due diligence. Then, nestled amidst the madness of everything, I found my name in what seemed like infinite combinations. I was familiar with the search engine results. Elizabeth Miller, Betty Miller. No pictures. No social media. Nothing else. Nothing else to tie me or find me.
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply.
It was good he searched for me. It just meant he’d been thinking about me.
But there was something else, something I hoped was just a random blog he visited every day and had favorited in his tabs.
It wasn’t.
He’d searched for the lines of the poem I’d read aloud on our café date. How did he even remember them? And he found them. My poems. They might as well have been an altar and confessional to my twisted soul.
My whole body tensed up as my own hideous, perverted blog lit up the screen.
He wasn’t supposed to see that. He wasn’t supposed to know how deep it went.
Just like I probably wasn’t supposed to know that he knew.
How many other people knew about this? Obviously, I knew that strangers could find my words on the internet and I’d hoped maybe someone would find comfort in them, but people I knew and who knew me? It was humiliating. My thoughts were raw and obscene.
Wait, I realized. If Reed did see it and he kept talking to me, maybe that meant he didn’t mind. Maybe he liked it.
The possibility was too much to handle at once. I snapped the laptop shut, pushing it back into his bag and leaving the trailer before my heart clawed out of my chest.
What else did he know? Everything? The photos? The video?
I wanted to know everything. He did, too.
That was good, wasn’t it?
But I didn’t know everything. Sometimes it felt like I didn’t know anything about his life outside of West Ridge.
I got into my car, shut off the music and drove.
8
Home
I paced wildly by the river. No one would hear me there. The town was so small, so intimate, that I had a hard time believing gossip could be easily contained.
“Hey, Betts.” The fondness in his voice made the hammer in my chest slow down its incessant pounding, which was good, because I needed to hear him better. “You miss me already?”
“You have no idea.” The neckline of my shirt felt too tight. Stretching it, I tried not to panic. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Long day of riding, but it felt good. It’s even better now that I’m talking to you.”
Despite my anxiety, I smiled. “Really?”
“Yeah.” We both shuffled, readjusting into more comfortable positions. “So what did you do today?”
“I…”
Fixed his fire alarm.
“Worked. Um, yeah. Did some errands... fixing things. I thought about writing.” I scraped my toe into the crumbly dirt below, xo.
“Oh yeah? Anything you’re willing to share?”
“Reedsy, what you said before about my poetry? Do you think it’s good to have gaps? Like, in a relationship?”
I must’ve said it wrong, because he sounded a little alarmed, hurried like he was stepping away. “What do you mean?”
“Is it better not to tell each other everything?” The quiet ate at me, forcing me to gnaw on my lip. I knew he was just formulating what he wanted to say, but I couldn’t help myself. “I know I said I wanted all of you, and I do, but I-I’m not sure how to ask for it. Or if I should. I mean, I love what we have together.”
He took a deep breath, but his thoughts weren’t coming out, so my own bubbled up. “Not that I’m keeping things from you, I just…” I wiped my cheek, determined to keep it dry. “I don’t know how or when to say them, if I should say them or if everything will happen naturally like it should. If it’s already happening like it should. It all seems so...”
Perfect, I thought with a mix of wistfulness and dread.
“Betty…”
“What?”
“I–fuck, I don’t want to say it over the phone.”
I cupped my hand over the phone as if I could protect the words on the other end. “What?”
I love you, I filled in without it ever being said. I blinked, surprised tears scaling down my cheeks.
He didn’t say that. I just wanted him to.
But maybe he did, in his own way. Maybe he will.
“We’ll just, we’ll say whatever we want to say when we want to say it. Right?”
“Right.” I sniffed, pushing at my nose. A wet laugh broke the ice and I surrendered to being seen by him, loving in our own unique way. “Is it okay if I send you the link to my awful poetry blog? We’ll have something to read while you’re out of town. I mean, we can use anything, but I miss your voice. Your writing too, but it’s mostly your voice.”
“I’d love that, Betts. I mi
ss your voice and my writing too, even if you’re usually tearing it apart.”
“I’m not tearing it apart! I’m trying to be helpful. It’s just grammar.”
“You fix it. Make it better. I know. I’d be honored to read your voice, even if I might prefer to hear it.”
“Let me text you.”
Sniffling, smiling, I sent him the link he probably already had saved on his phone. “Try not to laugh at them.”
“I won’t. Let me just get away from the guys. They don’t have the same appreciation for wordsmithing as we do.”
“Nobody could, Reedsy. Your words are my favorite.”
“You’re my favorite, too.”
Feeling silly, blushing, I sat on a rock and wrapped my arm around my knees.
My muscles ached from bending over the hood for so long, but at least our song was in rotation. It was a good distraction. In some ways, it was an immersion—a way to keep me riding the wave of possibility. Otherwise, I’d keep thinking every rumbling motor that passed could be Reed’s.
“Don’t you play any other songs in here besides, “We Belong” by Pat Benatar?”
I whirled towards his voice, amazed I didn’t hear the bell.
“Reed!”
Without even thinking to take off my gloves, I pulled his face towards mine for an enthusiastic greeting. We wrangled between smiling and kissing, rocking in each other’s arms. He was home! Naturally, we’d have to celebrate.
“I missed you.” He sighed against my lips.
“I missed you, too.”
Positively giddy, I nuzzled my nose against his. As I pulled back, his eyes lit up with affection, a glow of satisfaction settling low in my gut.
I wanted to tell him I loved him.
“Can you get out of here or should I sneak you into one of these cars and smuggle you out like precious cargo?”
“Mr. Murphy is coming to pick up his car in an hour, so I can’t leave, but I’m yours until then.”
“You’re mine always.” His fingers slid down my waist, his gaze drifting carefully across my face, like he was checking to make sure there weren’t any cuts and bruises that shouldn’t be there. It was nice to feel so treasured, so cared for by the person I loved in return. His gaze lingered on my face, making sure I was okay with what he just said.
“Always.” I nodded, falling into our kisses. “Oh! I’m so sorry.” Snapping off my gloves, I smoothed the streak of oil on his cheekbone. “I got so excited I—”
He cradled my hand, kissing my wrist and palm. A stinging pleasure vibrated under my skin. “It’s okay.”
“Reedsy…”
Caught in a tight squeeze, we stayed together, fused like one person. He kissed my forehead, caressed my hair.
I love you, bubbled up in my mind.
I turned my head away, laying my cheek on the cool dusty leather of his jacket. The positioning made it almost feel like we were dancing.
I wondered what it would’ve been like. Dancing with Reed. Going to Prom. It was hard to imagine it could’ve been better than this, that anything could be better than what we had.
“Please tell me I get to keep you tonight.”
“Oh, you want me to stay over?”
At that point, I knew he was teasing, but I pulled my head back to look him in the eyes all the same.
Looking at his earnest smile melted away any hesitancy and restraint in my brain, crackling and disintegrating faster than an ice cube against lava. “Will you move in with me?”
“What?” His arms loosened a fraction.
Oh no. Maybe I misread things.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s crazy, but I…”
I really was crazy. How long had he even known me? A few weeks?
“I really missed you,” I finished weakly, tears lining my eyes. “I-I want to be around you all the time.”
“Betty, I’m here. I’m here.” Looking bewildered, he pulled me in for a hug.
It wasn’t a yes.
And why would it be? I was a total freak.
It was too soon. I was too much. I was supposed to let him lead. Needing someone made me weak and vulnerable and crazy. He was gone for a few days and I broke into his trailer with the wild idea I could fix things, that I could beg him to move in with me. It was pathetic. I was pathetic.
He’d rather stay in a trailer with his drunk father who punches things than with a crazy girl who stabs herself just to get rid of the pain.
I couldn’t blame him.
His thumb pressed to my lips, angling my face up until I looked into his eyes, which locked on me with sincerity. “I’m not going anywhere, not for a long time, and even then, I can almost guarantee I’ll come back.”
“Almost?”
“Assuming I don’t get plowed by a semi…”
There was some kind of mental block preventing me from imagining that possibility for real. Obviously, it was a joke. “You would still come back and haunt me though, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course.”
We chuckled into each other, the nerve endings at the tip of my spine tingling at his touch. Technically, he still hadn’t answered me. Although in a way, maybe he did.
Not right now.
But that didn’t mean never.
The toothbrush got used a few times a week and I found myself studying it after he left.
A poem seemed to drip from it, one word at a time.
There’s a buildup of your DNA
A fine coating of your dust
The hair in our brush
An outline of your boot by the door
Not a single speck I’d brush away
Yet more of you belongs here
All of you is welcome
Every scar, every smile
A dirty dish still slick from the path you ran your tongue
The same one that runs against my pulse
You’ve engraved a place inside of me
And my body, my heart, feels empty without you in it
You’re home
Your home
You’re home, love
I hesitated to post it, knowing that he’d see, that he’d know I meant for him to read it.
It was too much pressure on him, on me, on us.
Why couldn’t I just enjoy the place we’re in?
Breathing deeply, I swiped out of the app and texted him instead.
‘How do you feel about going to the Spotlight?’
The ellipses danced in front of me, rearranging themselves for a neat and tidy answer. ‘Sorry, Betts. How about I take you to the Cineplex out of town next week or we watch something on my laptop tomorrow night?’
I hadn’t specified a day. He just didn’t want to go.
“Okay,” I typed back, because what else was there to say? I didn’t have any other friends and he didn’t want me hanging out at Sidewinders and I certainly couldn’t hang out with Trey. There were clients—steady clients, especially Rattlers, but there was only so much work I wanted to do in a day and only so much it could distract me.
I needed something else. Maybe I could just go by myself.
I sat up so fast that the ends of my ponytail flicked my shoulder like a spur.
That’s what I would do if I were trying to find him, anyway. I’d go by myself and try to blend in. If I was innocently going to the movies, I wouldn’t have to hide anything. I wouldn’t have to rely on someone to make me feel engaged, either. It was unfair to put that on him.
No one could give me my own happiness. I wouldn’t let them take it away, either.
Like Frank said, “Your happiness does not, and cannot sustain itself in one person.”
So it wouldn’t.
After lacing up my boots and dressing in what I hoped was appropriate drive-in date-with-myself material, I took my car to the Spotlight. As I rolled up to a parking space, I tried to take it all in. A surprising percentage of the younger crowd was present for such a classic movie, but maybe in a town like this, going to the drive-in was
just the thing to do. I was a fraction too old to mingle with them without feeling like I was trying to overcompensate for something, so I watched the families and bystanders alongside the flickering lights, hoping for a friendly face.
But I kept looking for Reed’s, for the framing of the picture of him and the little girl that was tacked to the refrigerator.
There was so much to see and do in West Ridge beyond Reed. I just had to find it.
With no small amount of trepidation, I tightened my ponytail, dug my nails against – not into – my skin and exited the car. Trey had said there were classic cars on display, probably some like mine. I found them along the sidelines and ran my fingers along the interiors, peeking under the hoods, occasionally offering an awkward smile or introduction to the owner. The knot in my tongue would loosen when they beamed with pride over our shared appreciation for their babies.
It ended up being a good PR move. I didn’t mean it to be, but everyone wanted to check out my shop, the one they had seen open up and didn’t know too much about. I got the impression that meant they didn’t trust it. I could understand that. Trust was important.
They wouldn’t want to deal with a crazy person.
Or a con artist.
Apparently, though, after a few minutes of conversation, I earned and deserved the West Ridge small business blessing.
Over by the snack stand, I spotted some snake-emblazoned leather jackets, but no particular faces I recognized. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure what I would say or if Reed would feel weird about me approaching them.
Tonight was more about putting myself out there.
Feeling a little better, I went back to my car. It wasn’t like I was a total hermit. I made friends. Sort of. More people in West Ridge probably had a positive impression of me than before, anyway, and I knew a few more names and faces. Maybe that would help me feel more at home when I was out in town instead of wrapped in the safety of Reed’s arms.
West Ridge would be our home. I wanted to belong there—by myself and with Reed.