Carry Your Heart

by K. Ryan

  When I read his messages, it was hard not to bang my head into the damn picnic table.

  Give me a chance. I just want to talk.

  Please, Isabelle. Just call me back.

  I still love u. Please call me.

  The pleas of a desperate ex-boyfriend were exactly that—desperate. And exasperating. And a little pathetic.

  All I could do was try to placate him long enough so he could just move on with his life and forget me. Deep down, I knew Nick probably was stupid enough to drive up here from Atlanta, where he was staying with his parents for the summer. I just had to figure out a way to make sure that didn't happen.

  Some movement to my left caught my eye and I glanced up, startled to see Ariel walking towards the garage. While she looked a little bit harder and a little bit more world-weary than I remembered, she still looked almost exactly the same. Same dark chestnut hair, same tight jeans, same high heels. She was pretty the way expensive strippers were pretty—tan, fake, heavily pancaked, and just a little bit trashy. Okay, more than a little bit trashy.

  It was like she'd been frozen in time, like a record on continual replay, and for a moment, it was painful, almost unnerving even, because she just looked so absolutely miserable.

  Ariel's dark eyes widened as she drew closer to the picnic table and I wasn't sure if it was out of shock or horror to see me sitting there. Pure judgment weighed down from Ariel's stare and it was obvious what she was thinking.

  For someone who seemed to want to leave Claremont more than anything, regardless of who drowned in her wake, I imagined Ariel was having a difficult time figuring out why the hell I would ever come back here. It was probably a fair question, too. Not like Ariel would ever ask.

  "Hey, Isabelle," Ariel started slowly, hesitation lining her face as she approached the picnic table.

  It was a sign of goodwill, even it was an artificial one, and for now, it seemed like she was willing to play nice for a change.

  "Hi, Ariel," I nodded back.

  Just as the words, how are you, were about to fall from my lips, I quickly caught myself. That was the kind of sentiment between, at the very least, acquaintances and that was definitely not what we were. Besides, the answer was pretty obvious.

  Ariel shifted uncomfortably and shoved her hands in her back pockets. "So, um, Caleb told me you were working here now. Today's your first day, right? Everything going okay so far?"

  Annoyance prickled up the back of my neck. I could only imagine the conversation they'd had about me working here...probably laughing gleefully about the poetic justice of the cheerleader's fall from grace. There'd always been a careful, passive-aggressive line in the sand between Ariel and me—I just never really knew what I'd ever done to deserve the coldness.

  I'd liked to believe Ariel probably didn't mean anything by it, at least not this time. Combining her chronic self-involvement with all the drama between her and Caleb, she probably couldn't care less what was actually going on with me.

  And that was totally fine.

  "Uh, yeah, thanks for asking," I offered, playing with the edge of my pretzel bag to deflect the awkwardness permeating the air between us.

  Ariel chewed the side of her cheek like she didn't really want to keep this conversation going either, but was too polite to just bail. "That's good to hear. So, um, I'm looking for Caleb. Is he in the shop right now?"

  "Yeah," I nodded. "I'm sure he was going to take his break soon anyways."

  Ariel didn't know if her own boyfriend was working today? Seriously?

  Her face brightened a little and the first genuine expression I'd had seen from her flickered across her face. "Okay, thanks."

  She'd already turned to head towards the garage when she stopped short and angled back to me.

  Great.

  What now?

  "Hey, Isabelle, I'm really sorry about your mom. I've never gotten a chance to tell you..."

  She trailed off nervously and started chewing on her bottom lip again.

  I'd heard it a million times, the same old, meaningless words of condolence spoken by pretty much everyone since my mom's funeral, but every time, those words stung just the same. Every time those words came my way, I knew they always came with the best of intentions, and still, every time I either wanted to slap the person who'd said them or run and hide.

  "Thanks, Ariel," I just nodded back to her, hoping she got the hint that she really could leave now and not feel guilty about it.

  Ariel forced a smile across her face and turned on her heel to head back towards the garage in search of Caleb. When she disappeared inside, I finally felt myself relax and blew out an agitated breath. It was just small talk, and to be fair, this seemed like a legitimate attempt on Ariel's part to be friendly unlike other times we'd interacted in the past, but past experience had also taught me not to trust that girl any farther than I could throw her.

  Maybe it was the fact that we'd never been friends and anytime we did interact, it always seemed like Ariel was trying too hard to be cool, to be a bitch, especially if Caleb was around and those two were basically connected by some body part all the time anyways.

  It was gross.

  Only a few minutes later, when my attention slid back to the frustrating texts glaring at me from my phone, Ariel practically sprinted out of the shop and charged blindly for her car. Bracing myself for Caleb to come barreling out after his girlfriend, I sunk a little lower on the bench to hide, but no explosions erupted in Ariel's wake.

  Caleb did appear about 30 seconds later, but it wasn't to chase Ariel down or leap in front of her car to stop her.

  Instead, he hung back a little from the garage's entrance, observing her car pull out of the parking lot with a mask of ice shielding his true emotions from any onlookers. He shoved a hand into his back pocket, groping deep inside until he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Puffing away anxiously until it was just a nub between his fingers, he flicked the burning cherry away like it was somehow the cause of all his current drama.

  I slouched even further down on the bench, my cheeks flushing with embarrassed heat at having witnessed this whole intimate scene. But I still had 10 minutes left of my break and I had just as much a right to be there as anyone. It wasn't my fault they chose to play out their exhausting breakup for the whole world to see.

  When Caleb's cold gaze flickered to the picnic table, I immediately looked down at my hands, my heart dropping down into my stomach.

  Caught red-handed.

  Great.

  More attention on myself. Just what I needed.

  This was absolutely none of my business and we weren't friends, so shock was about all I could register when he swung a leg over the side of the bench to join me at the picnic table.

  "What up, Iz."

  It wasn't really a question and he probably didn't really care about the answer either.

  "Hey, Caleb," I offered softly, my eyes focused on the Mountain Dew can in front of me.

  His sudden nearness was a little unsettling and I couldn't figure out why he'd even bothered to come over here. What did he expect me to do? Coddle him and tell him everything was going to be fine when it clearly wasn't?

  Without any other straws to grasp, I figured I might as lay it all out on the table. If he was already in a bad mood, maybe it wouldn't take much to get him to leave me alone today so I could finish out my break, and the rest of my first shift, in peace.

  "Hey, Caleb?"

  He glanced up at me with expectant, hard eyes, almost daring me to challenge him with something—anything—to get his mind off the heartache eating away at him.

  "Yeah, Iz?"

  "You think you could do me a favor?"

  "Shoot."

  "I would really appreciate it if you didn't call me that, okay?"

  He frowned, leaning forward to grab a handful of my pretzels. "Iz? What's wrong with calling you Iz?"

  "I just don't like it. I really never have and I would appreciate it if you stopped. Like...now
."

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then that cocky, self-righteous grin curled his lips. "Well, shit, if you didn't like it that much, you should've said somethin' a long time ago. Guess that means deep down, Iz, you actually kinda like it. You just don't wanna admit it."

  My eyes narrowed. "That's not what I said."

  "I know what you said," Caleb just shrugged. "I just don't think you really meant it."

  "Sure. Whatever. You're the expert in feelings today, right?"

  When he just huffed out a resentful, bitter laugh, my fists curled into tight, white balls underneath the table and my feet itched to kick him right in the shin.

  Why did I let him do this to me? He knew he was pissing me off and he was enjoying it too. All he wanted from me right now was a distraction and he was willing to take it anyway he could get it, no matter the consequence. It was like he was bipolar or something, hot and cold, sullen and then cocky.

  Screw him and his mood swings. I didn't have to be his victim today or any other day.

  When he reached for his cigarette pack, drawing one out and closing his lips around it, that was it. If it'd been any other day and if I'd been sitting across from anybody else, I might've been able to look the other way, but this was the one thing I couldn't tolerate from him right now. The one thing that triggered just about every bitter, guilt-ridden, and devastated bag of emotions I desperately tried to keep out of reach.

  Bitch mode engaged.

  "Do you mind not lighting that up?" I spat hotly.

  His face twisted into a snarl and he tugged a hand through his hair, shaking his head with mirthless laughter. "What, I can't light up a smoke now, too?"

  "I'd prefer it if you didn't," I shot back.

  Caleb was leaning forward on his elbows now, his eyes hard and calculating. "So I guess this is the part where you tell me I should quit, too, huh?"

  I just lifted a shoulder and folded my arms across my chest. "You wanna kill yourself, go right ahead. You're a big boy. Just don't blow your smoke in my face."

  "Wow, you're really off to a great start here, aren't you?" he snapped. "It's a free fucking country, you know."

  In light of recent events in both our lives, I really wished I could overlook everything that was wrong with this scenario. But because I was pissed and because I felt like being a bitch to go right along with his shitty attitude, I scrambled to my feet and snatched my pretzel bag off the table to stalk back towards the office. Smiling and nodding was the last thing on my mind right now.

  As I stomped past him, I just couldn't help myself and muttered over my shoulder, "Asshole."

  First day on my new job?

  Screw it.

  He deserved that.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Olive Branch

  Caleb

  The venom in her voice was unmistakable as Isabelle stormed away. My eyes lifted to the clear sky above me, the only calm thing in my life right now, and I wondered if I was going to have to deal with women stomping around, pissed off and disappointed with me my whole life.

  If this was all I had to look forward to, a long life looked real ugly right now.

  But as I brought the cigarette to my lips again, the truth of my error rammed its way down to my stomach—Isabelle's mom had literally just died from lung cancer.

  I really was an asshole.

  A huge, gaping, pile of shit-eating asshole.

  For the last few weeks, I'd felt like I was hovering over my own body, watching my life scatter into a thousand pieces right before my eyes. And because I had no idea how to salvage it, I'd been saying and doing a lot of shit lately I didn't really mean.

  What I'd just done to Isabelle, the way I'd talked to her—it was just completely uncalled for. This messed up situation with Ariel, which was free-falling out of my control, had completely messed with my head.

  And now?

  Now, I'd taken it out on someone who'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right about now, asshole should be my middle name.

  I scrambled off the bench, almost tripping over it and landing on my ass, and called out to her: "Hey, Iz! Shit, Isabelle..."

  Her shoulders tensed at the sound of my voice. It was going to take more than a simple apology to make amends for this particular screw-up in a long line of screw-ups. When she just kept on the path back towards the office, I jogged after her.

  All I wanted to do was apologize, even if she didn't want to listen. Not that I'd blame her right about now.

  "Isabelle, wait up," I huffed out as I hustled to get alongside her, panting from the effort. Maybe it really was time to quit smoking.

  My hand reached for her shoulder, but she jerked away from my grasp. Her lips were set in a firm, grim line, but it was her icy blue eyes that held all her emotions—she looked like she was seriously debating whether or not to punch me in the face.

  Part of me almost wished she would.

  "What do you want?" she spat back.

  "Look," I started quickly, holding my hands up in the air in defense. "I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have said that and..."

  I trailed off, realizing that we were currently standing in front of the garage and in complete view of everyone inside it. Since the intense, but brief, argument with Ariel minutes before had already humiliated me enough, the last thing I needed was for the entire shop to see me get into it with not just one, but two women today, even if I had this one coming.

  "Can you just come back to the table, please?" I pleaded, gesturing with my head towards the picnic table. "I'm an asshole. I'm a jackass. I know, I know. Just—I don't need you pissed at me too, okay?"

  I winced a little when the words flew out of my mouth. How many damned times was I going to have to apologize today?

  "Can I buy you another Mountain Dew or something?" I offered to force her hand. "You still have some time left on your break, right? Don't waste it just because I'm a dumbass."

  She shifted anxiously from side to side, clearly torn on how to play this. The expression on her face shifted from pissed to confused to weary all in the span of about two seconds and then she sighed, blowing a piece of blonde hair out of her eyes. That little movement drew my attention right to her glossy lips and as messed up as this whole thing was, I was a little in awe at how something so simple could be so...

  "Well, I was eyeing up a bag of Gardetto's too," she told me softly, graciously pulling me from my current train of thought and she looked away at the cracks in the pavement to avoid eye contact.

  I grinned even though I knew she couldn't see it. "Gardetto's it is then."

  I jogged back inside the shop to grab her request and when I rushed back outside, she was already settling back into her spot at the picnic table. Relief washed over me at the sight of her sitting there, waiting for me to make my amends and willing to accept it, and it had been way too long since I'd felt anything remotely like that.

  If we were going to have to work together, I didn't want her to hate me. Maybe if this olive branch worked, we could go back to the old banter I'd happily engaged in with her all those years ago.

  That kinda sounded fun.

  As I approached the picnic table, she was looking at something on her phone and my lips twisted a little at this avoidance tactic—I'd become pretty familiar with it myself lately, too. But then her fingers pounded furiously over the keys and I wondered if she was taking everything out on her phone instead of me.

  Good thing I'm not her phone. Christ.

  Isabelle tossed her phone back into her purse with a frustrated huff. Gingerly setting the bag in front of her, almost as if I was approaching a wild animal, I gestured towards the bench in front of me.

  "Is it alright if I sit?"

  "It's a free country," she shrugged dismissively as she tore open the bag and popped a pretzel into her mouth.

  Yeah, I deserved that and then some.

  But this was probably as good as I was going to get from her right now.

  Yeah, probabl
y in my best interest to take it, too.

  But when I swung my legs over the side of the bench and positioned myself directly in front of her, all I could come up with was...nothing. I'd planned everything out all the way to sitting down on this bench with her and after that?

  I had no idea where we went from here.

  "I'm sorry I freaked out on you back there," she told me quietly, playing with the edge of her soda can a little so she wouldn't have to look at me. "Look, my mom smoked like two packs a day and—"

  "Isabelle," I cut in quickly. She didn't need to do this and I wasn't going to let her. "You don't have to explain, okay? I get it. And I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

  She smiled sadly. "Can't say I'm sorry for calling you an asshole though."

  "Yeah, I sorta deserved that one."

  Her phone buzzed loudly from inside her purse and thankfully, gave us something else to focus on. Mild amusement, an emotion I also hadn't felt in awhile, had me biting back a smirk as her lips pressed into a grimace and she gritted her teeth.

  "Crap," she muttered, quickly reading over whatever text message had shifted her mood like this.

  "Everything alright over there?" I tossed out, figuring I might as well try to have a civil conversation with her.

  Another agitated breath blew out of her nose and she chewed anxiously on her bottom lip as she read over the text again, too deep in her own little world to even hear me.

  "It's nothing," she replied finally and tossed her phone back into her purse.

  "Sure didn't look like nothin' to me," I pressed on with an easy shrug.

  "Well, that's what it was," Isabelle informed me and then she promptly shifted her attention to the snack bag in her hands.

  A few moments of silence later and I thought my head was going to explode. The fact was I just didn't really know what to say to her. I'd completely shoved my head up my ass before and now I didn't know how the hell I was supposed to come back from that.