My indifference coupled with Miss Alcorn's zero-tolerance policy on harassment likely were two factors in Micah giving up quickly. A familiar relief came, but it was also unsettling. I felt out of practice, even after just a few weeks of not having to feel so guarded. Thankfully, Micah left me alone for the remainder of class.
By the time I saw Weston in art class, he was a nervous wreck. He sat on his stool that he'd moved to my table, his knee bobbing up and down in anticipation.
"Why are you avoiding me?" he blurted out.
"I'm not," I said, keeping my voice down, hoping he would do the same.
Mrs. Cup swept into the room, quick to threaten us if we went anywhere except straight to the old pizza place next to the mural we had been working on.
"Who doesn't have a ride?" Mrs. Cup asked.
Weston looked at me with worried eyes.
Only two students raised their hands.
"You can ride with me, or you can hitch a ride with someone else. Let me know now," Mrs. Cup said, waiting for the two students to decide.
Weston didn't take his eyes from mine. "Can I take you?"
Walking out to the parking lot, Weston offered his hand, testing the waters. The only people outside were the other art students and Mrs. Cup, so it was less awkward than before or after school, but I could feel tension radiating from his fingers the moment we touched.
As soon as his door slammed, he took a breath. "I'm sorry, Erin. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was trying to protect you. I can see now that it was stupid to talk to them without talking to you first." He waited for me to respond, clearly bracing himself for an argument.
"I'll get over it." I wasn't angry. I wasn't sure what I was, but it was weird for someone to be so...apologetic toward me.
A line formed between his eyebrows, and he turned to face forward, slamming the gear into reverse. He was unhappy with my response, and quiet, lost in thought while he drove to the vacant lot of the former pizza place. Everyone else was already standing at the brick wall, getting supplies out and ready when he pulled in and parked.
"This is new for me too, Erin," Weston said. "I didn't care if Alder dumped me. I didn't worry every night that when she left for college, I might never see her again. All of these bizarre, awful, amazing things are happening to you, and it would be completely understandable if you said you didn't have time to try to make this work with me...and I'm crazy about you, Erin. Do you have any idea how much that freaks me out?"
"You wanna talk about being freaked out? You already know that my mom is a good cook, because you've already dated her daughter. You've probably had sex in the room I sleep in. You know my house and my parents better than I do. I'm living someone else's life, Weston. So tell me more about how you're afraid of getting dumped."
I gasped and covered my mouth. He exhaled like I'd just punched him in the gut.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry I said that." My hands muffled my shrill words.
He shook his head, rubbing his bottom lip with his index finger. "There are no rules for this. I might have deserved that. I don't even know."
"Nobody deserves that. Your feelings are just as important as mine. We've both been through a lot. I'm sorry," I said, reaching for him.
He switched off the ignition and turned to pull the door handle. A jolt of fear went through me.
The door opened just a few inches, and then he paused. He turned and wrapped me in his arms. The tears I'd been holding in all day finally escaped in streams down my cheeks.
Mrs. Cup rapped on the driver's side window, and we both turned to see the top of her head. Weston pushed open his door.
"Come on, you two. You've got work to do."
I wiped my eyes with my sleeves, nodding.
When we climbed out of the truck with our paints and brushes and walked over to the wall, several pairs of eyes glared at us. If we had been anyone else, detention or at least a stern talking-to would have ensued. There was something about being an Alderman, or a Gates, or a Masterson, or a Beck. Rules didn't seem to apply to people with those last names. Not in Blackwell.
FRANKIE PRACTICALLY MASSAGED THE SOFT SERVE INTO THE blue-and-red cup in her hands. Even though she filled it with the perfect amount of ice cream and then tossed in the precise amount of strawberry sauce and bananas, she was absently chatting away about her kids and their weekend.
"I woke up with not only gum in my hair, but also two boogers and a Popsicle stick. I mean, only me, right?"
My eyebrow arched, and she shrugged, dipping a waffle cone in chocolate dip cone sauce. She stared at it for a moment until she was sure the chocolate was dry, and then shook the Blizzard concoction inside the cone without even a smear of white on the chocolate.
"Will you ever tell me your Blizzard waffle-cone-making secrets?" I asked.
"What's the point? You'll be leaving me soon."
I frowned. "I still have four months, thank you very much."
Frankie held the cone out the drive-through window and then slid the glass shut. "You don't need the money anymore, Erin. Go be a kid. Enjoy the rest of your senior year."
I made a face. "I haven't worked this long to have to ask someone for money."
"They're your parents, Erin. That's what kids do. And it's okay. You deserve it."
"I understand what you're trying to say. I still don't want to depend on someone else for money. Not even Sam and Julianne. Besides, I may or may not miss you."
"Aw," she said, flipping the OPEN sign. "I hate you."
"I hate you too."
The sound of Weston's Chevy rumbled behind the shop while we restocked and cleaned.
"I kind of miss you turning me down for rides," Frankie said.
"I kind of miss you barely asking because you know I'll say no."
"Why do you let him and you never let me?" she asked, wiping down the soft-serve machine.
"He lets me drive," I said with a smile.
She held out her hands and let them fall to her thighs. "You could have driven my piece-of-crap Taurus! All you had to do was ask!"
I chuckled as I followed her out of the storeroom. "'Night, Frankie."
"Good-night, Erin. Hi, Weston!" she said with a wave.
Weston waved back to Frankie, and then looked down to me, his elbow resting against the red paint of his door. "What?"
His maroon-and-white baseball cap was turned backward, pieces of his brown hair peeking out. He'd already had a shower, and I imagined his Old Spice body wash--which was now my favorite smell--would probably hit my nose the second I climbed into my seat.
His cheeks were flushed, and his slightly pointy nose was still a little shiny from being freshly scrubbed. The pair of emerald pools that sat within those long, dark lashes smoldered against his tanned skin.
I used to steal glances of him as often as I could, and now I could stare at him for as long as I wanted. He'd said a few times now that he loved me, and it wasn't a recent epiphany. Weston Gates had loved me since we were kids, and all that time I probably loved him too. I just didn't recognize it for what it was because I couldn't. There was no hope then. And there he was, sitting high above me in his jacked-up truck, the glasspacks announcing to the world that he was at the Dairy Queen to pick me up from work, and it was becoming a normal thing. For us and everyone else in our tiny town.
"You're not going to say sorry again for earlier, are you?" he asked, clearly not wanting to rehash it.
"No, I was kind of hoping we could stop out at the overpass before you take me home."
He beamed. "Oh yeah?" Before I could answer, he disappeared, leaning over to pull the handle of the passenger-side door and push it open. His face popped back into view. "Hop in, babe. I've got a Fanta Orange in a cooler in the back with your name on it."
I walked around and climbed in. "You're so romantic."
He pulled me closer to him and rested his hand on my thigh. "You're welcome," he said with a teasing smirk.
After a quick peck on my c
heek, he pressed on the gas and pulled out onto Main Street, making a quick left to head to the overpass. Our overpass, as he called it.
The truck hadn't been in park for ten minutes, but we were already skin to skin in the bed of his truck. I sensed hesitation as he kissed me, and I pulled back to look him in the eye.
"What's up with you?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"Liar."
"Uh...this is embarrassing," he said with a nervous chuckle.
"What's embarrassing?"
"And really inappropriate. I should have said something sooner."
"Oh God. What?" I thought of the worst possible scenarios, so that no matter what he said, it couldn't be as bad as I had imagined.
"So, after practice today, I get a text from Julianne."
"Okay?"
"Sam had some time before his late case, and they invited me over to chat. They"--he cringed--"had the talk with me."
"What talk?"
"About us. About this. About protection and--"
"Oh God! Oh no!" I said, rolling out from under him. I sat up and slipped my shirt over my head. "Please, no. Don't tell me."
He was amused, not at all concerned that my parents had spoken to him about our sex life. "They just wanted to make sure I wasn't taking advantage of your situation, and that we were, you know, being careful. They know you want to go to college, and they didn't want me screwing that up."
I covered my face with both hands.
"Do you want to know what Sam said to me?"
I shook my head. "Not really, no."
"He said"--Weston lowered his voice to mimic Sam's--"'if you're not going to marry her, then keep your hands off another man's future.'"
"Oh. Wow. Stop."
"So I said, 'Fine. Do I have your blessing to ask her?'"
"That's not funny."
Weston busted out laughing. "He said, 'No!'" He shook his head and flung his arms, imitating a very flustered Sam. "I was just messing with him."
I squinted one eye. "Please tell me you didn't admit anything."
"I did. I confirmed."
I hung my head. "That we were having sex? Or that we're using protection? I'm guessing both?"
"Correct."
I stood up and dressed. Weston didn't seem happy about it, but he didn't argue.
"Are you in a hurry to get home now?"
"Well, yeah, since now they know what we've been up to. Every minute longer I'm gone after work, they're more sure that we're out...This is bad. So embarrassing."
"We're not in middle school anymore. We're consenting adults."
"Who still live at home." I groaned. "How am I going to look them in the eye when I get back?"
"They're not naive. They already knew."
"But I didn't know they knew."
"You're confusing me."
"I don't want them to think I'm a bad person."
"You're not. And they don't," he quipped, looking away. He was holding something back.
"You're being weird. What aren't you telling me?" I asked.
He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. "They knew about Alder and me. They weren't thrilled, but they didn't freak out."
"I'm sorry I asked."
"Me too," he grumbled.
We took our Fantas to the cab of the truck and rode home in near silence. Once we pulled into the drive, I peeked at the house as if there were a monster waiting inside.
"They're not going to yell at you."
"I'm not used to all this pressure, or worrying about what parents think of me, or disappointing someone. It's stressful."
"Welcome to my life...and pretty much everyone else's," he said with a nudge and a wink.
I climbed down to the concrete, and Weston handed me my backpack. "Why did you put your apron back on?"
"I don't know. Not coming home with it on feels like the equivalent of having my shirt on backward."
"Good thinking. I'm going home and taking a cold shower."
"If Julianne and Sam are waiting at the kitchen table when I walk in to talk about periods or something, I'm blaming you."
Weston threw his head back and laughed. "It's just part of that catching you up you get to do."
My mouth pulled to the side. "It used to baffle me how ungrateful Alder was to have them. Now listen to me. I'm lucky they're not sitting in there with a case of beer, cussing at me to bring them cigarettes."
"There is no right way to do this, Erin. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself."
I nodded and slid the nylon strap over my shoulder, smiling when the Chevy didn't pull away from the curb until I had a foot in the front door. I started to walk up the stairs but noticed the kitchen light was on.
"Erin?" Julianne called, her voice shaky.
I left my backpack at the foot of the stairs and walked down the hall, leaning against the doorjamb. Julianne was sitting at the island on the first stool, her hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail at the nape of her neck. She was wearing one of Sam's T-shirts and navy-blue lounge pants. She was babysitting a coffee mug, but the liquid inside was milky brown, with a pile of marshmallows floating on top.
"How was school and work?" she asked.
I pulled my apron strap over my head and tugged at the knot at the small of my back, untying it with one hand. I rolled it up and shrugged.
"Both good, actually. How was your day?"
"Good. A bit boring. I cleaned the house, and by that I mean put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and took out the trash, because Sam's kind of a clean freak, as you might have guessed. And then I watched Days of Our Lives. That EJ is a beautiful, evil genius. I wish he and Sami would get their crap together."
I wasn't sure who EJ and Sami were, but she seemed irritated by their lack of togetherness.
"I could help with the dishes and trash. If you just show me what buttons to push on the dishwasher. I've never used one before, but it can't be that hard."
Julianne waved me away. "Please. I barely have enough to keep me busy as it is."
"Have you thought about going back to work?"
She looked at the fridge, but wasn't really looking at it. "At the clinic? I don't know. I've been a stay-at-home mom so long...Alder always seemed to have a lot for me to do. Now I don't really have that much..." Her eyes focused. "Oh, Erin, I didn't mean anything by that. I would never compare you to her. I'm going to stop talking now." She covered her eyes with her long, elegant fingers. Her nails were perfectly filed and polished with a pale mauve.
I walked over and sat down on the stool next to her. "You can talk about Alder. You raised her. You loved her. It doesn't hurt my feelings or anything."
Julianne clasped her hands together and leaned her cheek on her wrist, staring at me while shaking her head. "I know you said you've raised yourself, Erin. May I say you did a fantastic job?"
I smiled.
She slid something over to me, and I looked down. It was a smartphone.
"Sam charged it, so it's ready to go, but the charger is plugged into the outlet behind the nightstand in your room. The number is on the sticky on the back."
I turned it over to read the seven digits written in Sam's scribble on a Post-it strip.
"It's mine?"
"We'd feel better if you'd carry it."
"How much is it? I mean the phone and the monthly bill."
"We just put it on the family plan. We'll take care of it."
"Thank you, but I--"
Julianne put her hand on mine, and her eyes turned soft. "It's just a phone, Erin. We wanted to."
"O-okay. Thank you."
"Would you like some hot chocolate?"
"I'm going to take a shower and head to bed, if you don't mind."
"Oh, of course," she said, making a show of being unoffended.
The stool grated across the tile when I scooted it back to stand. Just when I reached the doorway, Julianne spoke again.
"We, uh...we talked to Weston today about
something. I'm not sure if he told you or not, but we decided too late that it was a little too personal and a little too late in the game for us to be prying."
I kept my back to her and closed my eyes.
"I'm sorry if we overstepped our bounds. We might be going a little overboard, trying to make up for lost time. Sam and I talked about it earlier. We're going to work really hard on not invading your privacy. It must be particularly difficult when you didn't have that...oversight before."
I turned around. "It's embarrassing," I admitted. "I'm not used to it. I'm feeling a little pressure, but I don't know. It's kind of nice that you cared enough to harass him about it."
Three wrinkles formed on Julianne's forehead when both her brows lifted. "Oh, okay. Well...good-night, sweetheart."
"Good-night."
"Erin?"
"Yeah?" I said, poking my head back into the doorway.
"Would it make you uncomfortable if I said that I love you? You don't have to say it back."
"I don't think it would make me uncomfortable."
She smiled. "I love you."
It was so surreal that I didn't mind returning the sentiment. "I love you too, Julianne."
I walked down the hall and could hear her sniffling as I climbed the stairs.
The pastel letters on Alder's door were gone, and I stopped in front of her door. The entire second floor was dark, but there was enough light from downstairs to see what was missing.
I wondered if they were in a box amid a bunch of boxes in Alder's room, or if Sam and Julianne had left everything the way it was. I put my hand on the knob, but thought better of it and dragged my bag down the hallway to my bedroom.
Stacks of new clothes had been laundered, folded, and placed on top of the perfectly made bed that was now covered with the duvet cover I'd chosen. It was white, with pale-green horizontal stripes across it. By Julianne's subtle reaction, I could tell it wasn't the fanciest she'd seen, but I'd already gone through three catalogs, and it was the first one I liked after I grew tired of looking. And it was green. Green was kind of my new thing, to go along with my new boyfriend, new house, new parents, and new life.
I packed away the clothes that Julianne hadn't hung up in the closet into the dresser drawers and took a shower. The steam filled the entire bathroom, and I lingered so long that my fingers began to wrinkle.
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