by Sara Daniell
We got to the movie, and Finn and Jenna sat in the row behind us. Jane, Tryston, and I didn’t want to be near them if they decided to take advantage of the dark theater. And truthfully, I didn’t want to see it if it happened. As badly as I was trying to make myself not be attracted to Finn, I was failing. There was something about him that held my attention more than other guys. Even Channing.
I had to pee so badly by the middle of the movie that I couldn’t hold it any longer. We were finally at the good part, and I was going to miss it. This always happened to me. As I was coming out of the bathroom, Finn was coming out of the men’s right across from me. I walked beside him on our way back to the movie. He nudged my side and chuckled when I almost ran into a trashcan. I burst into laughter and tried to do it back, but he dodged me. I rolled my eyes and smiled.
“You better sleep with one eye open tonight.”
“I’m like a ninja warrior, Ellie. You shouldn’t make threats like that.”
I laughed. “You’re full of it.”
He smiled as we neared the door to go in. He opened it for me. “I meant to tell you earlier that you look really nice tonight.”
I stopped midway into the door and looked at him. “Thanks. You look nice too.”
I wanted to tell him not to say things like that. I wanted to tell that him I didn’t look this way to impress him. But I kept my mouth shut for the sake of our rocky friendship.
The space between us grew oddly familiar. It was the day after I shot the gun all over again. Did he feel it too? My heart was going to beat right out of my chest. Damn him for doing this to me! I put an immediate halt to what was transpiring between us by walking back to my seat.
What was this movie again?
What was even happening?
I was pathetic. It had been a bad idea coming here tonight. Instead of watching the movie, I spent the entire time sitting on my hands so I wouldn’t go tear Jenna away from Finn and stake my claim on him.
After the movie, we all made our way out to the parking lot. I was about to get in the van when I realized I didn’t have my purse.
“Shit!” I shouted.
“What?” Jane said before she got in.
Everyone looked at me.
“My purse. I left it in my seat. I’ll go grab it and be right back.”
I hurried inside and explained to a person that worked at the theater what happened. After I found my purse, I walked back outside. I had just made it to the curb when I was grabbed by the arm. I tried to jerk away but stopped when I saw who had my arm.
Channing.
“Let me go!” I screamed and jerked my arm again until he let go.
“Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to get your attention. I’m going in to see a movie, but I’ll skip it if we can talk.”
“What part of leave me alone are you not understanding, Channing? I’ve done nothing to make you think that it’s okay to keep contacting me! Stop!”
The closer he got to me, the more I could smell the liquor on his breath. Great! He’s been drinking, which means he’s going to be ridiculous!
“Elena, it’s killing me to not talk to you!”
“Yeah, well who screwed that up, Channing? It sure as hell wasn’t me!”
He grabbed my arm again. “Please, let’s talk.”
“Channing, come on, the movie is starting,” one of his friends who was watching everything unfold said.
“No, you go. I need to talk to my girl.”
“Your girl?” I scoffed. I jerked my arm, but he was gripping it so tightly that I couldn’t free myself this time. “Channing, you’re hurting me. Please, let go,” I said through clenched teeth. I looked out into the parking lot for Jane’s burgundy van. I couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Let’s go somewhere like old times and talk.” His words were starting to slur. The alcohol was going to his head.
“Let go, Channing,” I struggled to say through the pain he was causing. Tears filled my eyes. He was scaring me. I looked around, and people were staring.
“She said let go!” I was thankful to hear Finn’s voice from behind me.
“Who the hell are you? Her new boyfriend?” Channing started laughing but didn’t let go. My arm and hand were starting to go numb.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Let go before we make you let go.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Tryston standing with him. When Finn saw the tears in my eyes, I swear I saw fire flash in his. I tried to jerk away again, but it only made Channing hold on tighter. I’m not sure what Finn and Tryston did behind me, but whatever it was, Channing didn’t like it. He let go and followed his friend into the movie theater. I rubbed my arm, and Finn put his arm around my shoulders as he and Tryston walked me back to the van. Tryston opened the door for me, and I got in.
“Are you—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped, cutting Jane off.
Nothing else was said the rest of the ride home. Well, except Jenna. She was whispering to Finn in the back, but I turned up the music to drown her out instead of using my fist to knock out her pretty little teeth. The one time I actually wanted to talk to Finn and tell him everything and cry on his shoulder, she was here.
“Jane, take me home. Please.” I rubbed the spot where Channing had held onto on my arm.
Finn: Ellie, answer me. I know I normally stay out of your business, but what happened tonight is fucked up! You have to tell me about this Channing guy now. Has he hurt you before?
That was the 17th text from Finn so far that night. I knew I owed him an explanation, because he had helped me out, but I just didn’t want him to know how messed up my life had been lately. I was broken and was scared it’d scare him away for good, if he knew. But I needed to talk to someone, and deep down, I knew I needed it to be him.
Me: It’s a long story. Too much to text.
Finn: I can call.
Me: K.
He called immediately.
“Hey,” I said as I laid back in bed. “I have to talk quietly, so I don’t wake up Nancy. She gets moody if I wake her up since her hours at work have been shitty.”
“Explain.”
I sighed heavily. “I caught Channing cheating on me with my best friend. It had been going on for four months, and I had no clue.”
“How bad did he cheat? Kissing? Sex? And I’m not justifying any type of cheating, just wondering what exactly happened.”
I explained everything. I told him how I just sat there and listened to them have sex, because I literally couldn’t get my body to move. I told him how I barely remembered the drive home because I was such a mess. I told him how I felt like a bad girlfriend for not giving it up to Channing, even though I knew it was stupid to be mad at myself for such a stupid thing.
“It’s one of the reasons why I’m so reserved now. I used to never be this way. I’m just more careful with people now.”
“One of the reasons? What are the others?”
I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t ready to discuss how badly my mom, dad, and Nancy had hurt me. “I don’t want to talk about the other reasons right now.”
“Okay. How long did you date Channing?”
“Long enough for it to hurt.” I opened my eyes and grabbed my remote to turn off the TV.
“And now he wants you back?”
“Maybe. He keeps saying he wants to talk, but I won’t let him. He said sorry, and that’s all he owed me. I don’t need anything else from him.”
“Of course you don’t. What an ass! Is he the reason for your black eye and cut lip?”
I laughed. “Yeah. Katie and I hashed it out in the old Walmart parking lot in Fredericksburg. I may or may not have been drinking and felt way too confident.”
He burst out laughing. “So alcohol gives you wings?”
I giggled. “Something like that. I broke her nose, though.”
“You? How did a tiny thing like you manage that?�
� He was still laughing.
“My mad ninja warrior skills.”
“So we have another thing in common, then.”
I laughed. “Yeah. But what’s our first?”
“We both like to smoke when we drink, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” I smiled. It felt so good to talk to Finn again. He always made me laugh. “So how are things with you and Jenna? And don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not meaning it in some creepy, stalker girl with a crush kind of way. I sincerely want to know.”
“I know, Ellie.” He laughed. “I don’t think it’s gonna work. She’s a nice girl, but there’s just no real feelings. I think we both feel the same way. She and I are thinking about just ending things, but we promised each other we’d give it a few more days to think about it.”
“What could a few days’ change if you feel that way now? You both seemed fine at the movie.”
“Well, we were until after, and we were alone. It’s complicated.” He paused and I heard a door shut. “Anyway, giving it a few more days probably won’t change anything, but she’s going out of town with her family and said we’d talk about it when she got back.”
“Oh.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “I should probably get some sleep. I have to work tomorrow.”
“Me too.”
“Finn?”
“Ellie?”
“I never asked you where you work.”
He laughed, and then I heard him yawn. “I work for my uncle at the mechanic shop he owns. You know, the shop at the four-way stop before you hit the highway toward Llano?”
“Yeah. So, that means you’re good at working on cars?”
“No, it means I’m learning, and I’m really good at keeping the shop clean and answering phones.”
I laughed. “Oh. Do you want to work on cars one day then?”
“I like welding. I think cars and how they operate is interesting, but I’d rather take shit apart and put it back together with fire.”
“You’re a mess.”
“Another thing we have in common.
I smiled so big it felt stupid. “Goodnight, Finn.”
“Night. And Ellie?”
“Yeah?”
“You deserve so much better than Channing. You’re beautiful, smart, and such a great person. I’m glad that you gave me a trial period, and that you decided I’m worthy to be your friend.”
He hung up, and I set my phone under my pillow. I had felt so heavy and burdened until I talked to him. He made me feel light and happy. Like everything I’d thought was a big deal really wasn’t. He made me feel like I could walk on hot coals without ever getting burned. It was so strange how one person could make me forget the hurt with just the sound of his laugh. Jenna would be stupid to let a guy like him go.
NO, YOU ALWAYS DO the parentheses first. Always.”
Finn looked at me with annoyance in his eyes. “But we read left to right, why don’t we do our math left to right? This is stupid.” He sighed in frustration and tapped his pencil on his desk. “Admit it, I’m never going to understand math; I’m going to fail school and be a bumfuck for the rest of my life.”
Jenna was watching us out of the corner of her eye. She and Finn did decide to end things after she got back. But for the past week and a half, she had stared at him when he interacted with anyone. It was creepy and rude.
“She’s staring again,” I said in a super quiet tone. I gave him my crazy eyes, and we both laughed.
The teacher raised a brow at us, so we quieted down. I took Finn’s math book and paper and did the problem for him. I checked my answer in the back of the book and smiled proudly when it was right. I handed the sheet and book back to him.
He leaned forward in his seat so that he was close to my ear. “If I can just look up the answer in the back of the book, what’s the point of all of this work?”
I smiled. “Dork, you have to show your work, and it only gives you the answers to the odd numbered problems.”
“I’m fucked. I’m tellin’ ya, Ellie. I’m doomed.”
I laughed quietly. “You’ll get it. I promise. Now try to do the next one, and then pass it up so I can check it. I need to work on my own homework.”
I pulled my beanie out of my back pocket and put it on. The heaters were broken at the school, and it was freezing in the old building.
It was only a few minutes before Finn passed his paper up. Wrong. So wrong. I smiled and wrote ‘bumfuck’ across the top of his paper. When I passed it back to him, I heard him burst into laughter.
LUNCH WAS WEIRD. FINN sat super close to me, kept leaning in really close to tell me things, and even surprised me with a Snickers bar. I looked down at the chocolate and frowned.
“Finn, how did you get this? No offense, but you don’t have the grades for the student lounge.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Mad ninja skills, baby.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Thank you.”
I had just started eating when Finn nudged me. I looked over at him, in the midst of my bite, and he smiled. That’s all he wanted? I waited a little longer, thinking maybe he wanted to tell me something, but he just started eating. Really? He just wanted to nudge me so that he could smile at me?
WARNING: Exit from the friend-zone.
That’s something Channing used to do to me. He’d nudge me just so he could have my attention for two seconds in a crowd of people. I didn’t know if that was just a Finn thing because he had never done it before. Why was I even thinking into this? We were friends. That was it. But he had been super flirty lately. Or was that just his fun-loving personality? I remembered Jane had told me from the get-go that he flirted with everyone.
Stop it, Ellie. Stop. It.
I started thinking about an assignment for English instead of Finn and finished eating my food.
I WAS SITTING IN the grass, smoking a cigarette behind the Kroger. Typically, I didn’t smoke unless I was drinking, but home had been super stressful lately. Nancy and Dad were fighting, and I couldn’t do anything right. I shut the door wrong. I loaded the dishwasher wrong. I set my cup down too hard. You name it; I did it wrong. I would’ve just stayed with Jane, but I felt like I was ruining my welcome there, and she was always with Tryston now anyway.
I think we were all shocked, even Tryston and Jane, when those two decided to start dating. Finn and I both thought it’d make things weird since we all hung out all the time, and no one had ever thought they would ever, like never ever date. Those two were complete opposites and argued about everything. Though since they’d been dating, the arguing had gotten slightly better.
I took another hit off the cigarette.
I wasn’t sure if the nicotine really helped with stress. Maybe it was just that smoking and chilling out from the hassle of life for five minutes calmed your soul. Inhaling and exhaling. Thinking about things and sorting them out in your mind while you smoked was like some sort of meditation.
My phone vibrated on the concrete next to me. I held the cigarette between my lips and saw Alyssa’s name.
Alyssa: Call me as soon as you see this! I know you’re at work, but it’s Dillon. I don’t want to tell you through text.
I immediately called her. I put out my cigarette and stood while it rang.
“Ellie!” Alyssa shouted through her tears. “Dillon… He… He killed himself, Ellie!”
Time stopped. I couldn’t feel the cold breeze against my skin. I couldn’t taste the nicotine on my tongue. The sound of cars driving by faded. Everything stood still until my mind finished processing what Alyssa said.
“No,” I said, slamming my back against the brick building. “You’re kidding! Dillon is always happy! He’s always the one joking around and being silly. Alyssa, there’s no way!”
She bawled into the phone. “I need you, Ellie. We all do. His mom is a mess, and we just all need to be together right now.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’ll go see if I can get off early.” I got off the phone wi
th her and hurried inside the store.
I found the night manager straightening the shelves in the soup aisle. “Craig?” I cried.
“Elena? What’s going on? Are you alright?”
I shook my head. “I just found out while I was on break that one of my friends killed himself. I was going to see if I could get off early somehow to go be with everyone?” My hands shook.
“Sure! Of course! Just leave now, and I’ll cover for you. If you need off for the funeral or anything else, just let me know.”
I hugged him. “Thank you!” I went to the break room to get my purse from my locker. I had to just lean against the metal locker for a few seconds to catch my breath. Why would a guy like Dillon commit suicide?
Dillon and I used to be super close friends, but we ended up parting ways this past year. I became so involved with Channing and was always with Katie, and we didn’t hang out like we used to. I hated that I had stopped talking to him all the time. We were still friends, but not as close as we once were. I felt horrible. What if maybe I would’ve been there for him to listen to him? I wondered if he didn’t have anyone to talk to about stuff. Or maybe he didn’t want to, and he just let the shit pile up until it became too much. But Dillon rarely complained about anything. He was always happy, and he was the guy that was always there for everyone else. Maybe he took everyone’s problems too seriously, and it got the best of him?
I pushed off the lockers and went out to my car. The 20-minute drive to Fredericksburg felt like four hours. I just wanted to get to my friends. When I finally made it to the old parking lot, I ran through the crowd of people until I reached Alyssa. I hugged her tightly while we both cried. When we pulled apart, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I could smell his familiar cologne. I turned to face Channing.
Tears fell down both of our faces. I stared up at him. I couldn’t be angry at him right now. We were all hurting, and we had to put the shit behind us for Dillon. He wrapped his arms around me and held me. I started to feel like I was suffocating, being in Channing’s arms, so I wiggled myself free. I pulled my sleeves over my fists and wiped my eyes.