by Hazel Kelly
“I’ll miss you tonight.”
I leaned forward and stared at my toes. “Mmm.”
“Love you.”
I swallowed. “You too.”
I hung up the phone and ran my fingers through my hair.
How was I going to explain to him that he wasn’t the man for me? When he was such a good man? Such a kind man?
I should’ve just gotten it over with. Except we were too serious to break up over the phone. He deserved more than that. I loved him enough to at least give him that.
And tomorrow, God willing, the right words would come.
Chapter 8: Connor
The summer moon lit up my childhood bedroom as I leaned in the doorway and looked around.
It was exactly as I’d left it all those years ago. What compelled my parents to leave it alone I’ll never know, but I suppose the baseball inspired furniture- not to mention the wallpaper- made the space unsuitable for anything besides a boy’s bedroom.
Plus, they didn’t have the energy they used to.
Meanwhile, I didn’t have the time. In the nine months since I’d moved in, I’d focused on updating the downstairs just enough to make it my own place without offending my parents on their next visit. But besides the master bedroom, which I’d completely refurbished, I’d changed very little.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d come in my old room, much less let some air circulate, so I walked to the window and cracked it open.
The grassy smell of the summer air drifted in silently, breathing life back into the space.
Of course, I knew why I was in there.
It was because it reminded me of her.
And thinking about her was a distraction I wasn’t trying nearly hard enough not to indulge in.
She used to climb up to my window on a strategically placed vine crawler.
Looking back, when I consider how many times my dad thought out loud about taking it down, I realize he must’ve known.
He probably left it there because he knew she’d find a way in whether he made it easy for her or not.
We weren’t always up to no good though.
Sometimes she’d come over and simply ask me to read my Choose Your Own Adventure Books to her. She swore they were even more fun when I had to whisper.
And I adored how she’d never leave any stone unturned. She always wanted to know what all the adventures were, often making me go back two or three times to see how else the story could’ve turned out.
But our late night hangouts weren’t always innocent either.
Despite the baseball wall paper and the little league trophies on the shelf, I became a man in this room- in more ways than one thanks to her.
Sometimes during an unbearably hot summer night, we’d sneak out and go down to the lake. I remember the first time we skinny dipped, how she pressed her cold nipples against my bare chest.
We were both still virgins then, but I didn’t feel the same belligerent urgency to change that that my friends did. I wanted to lose my virginity, of course, but even then, I had this sense of calm- this certainty- that I had the rest of my life to sleep with her.
However, that’s not to say it wasn’t Earth shattering when it happened, though I realized pretty quickly that her Earth couldn’t be shattered nearly as easily as mine.
But with a little practice, I got the hang of it.
I remember the first time she came for me. I remember how it felt to feel her charged body clench around me and melt. I’d never felt so alive, so sure in my purpose, so confident in my abilities as a man.
I admit I walked a little taller after that.
For four years, I embraced every single way she changed me.
And I watched her change, too. When she first moved to Glastonbury, she was effectively in pieces. Not that she was to blame.
In middle school and junior high, when my parents were supporting every goddamn sneeze I successfully caught with a tissue and writing embarrassing little notes for my lunch bag, she was going through hell.
It was bad enough early on for her, having a drunk for a mom who didn’t even know who her real father was, much less where he might be found. But when her mom’s boyfriend started getting out of line, she did everything she could to stay out of the way.
There wasn’t an after school club she wouldn’t feign interest in to keep from going home.
But soon the guilt of not trying to protect her mom ate away at her, and she started spending more time at the house. God knows she had the scars to prove it.
She was thirteen when she found out she had a grandmother living a few states away. She begged her mom to leave with her, begged her to acknowledge what a bad guy her boyfriend had become.
Instead of hearing her out, her mom called her names she could never bring herself to repeat.
She got on a bus the next day.
And I think that’s why I was drawn to her. Because she gave off this energy that only people who are survivors give off.
It sounds crazy, but even though she’d seen more darkness than anyone I’d ever met in my thirteen years, she still managed to cast more light than I ever thought a person could.
And I basked in it every second I got, grateful for every corner of her soul she bared to me.
That was only one of the reasons I’d love her forever, though at the time I was falling, I didn’t realize what a curse that love might become.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I reached for it without lifting my head off the ancient Yankees pillowcase.
“Evening friend.”
“Billy Porter was a great call,” Dave said. “The mayor loved the idea. Even the stupid sump pump bit.”
I laughed and sat up. “Brilliant. I hope you took credit for it?”
“As if I’d give it to you.”
“Good.”
“I also inquired with the town council about the basketball court.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
“They said there’s a small pot of money that’s supposed to go towards the renovations, but they don’t have anyone to oversee the project.”
“So it’s been on hold.”
“Yeah,” he said. “For three years.”
“Wow.”
“So I put your name forward and said you were the guy to talk to.”
I craned my neck forward. “Come again?”
“You can thank me later.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“Because you’re the guy for the job.”
I furrowed my brow. “How do you figure?”
“Because, stupid, that park is where Bark in the Park used to be held.”
“I remember.”
“So when we throw a grand re-opening of the park,” he said. “We’ll tell everyone to bring their pets.”
“Pets don’t play basketball.”
“I’m aware of that,” he said. “But I bet the grateful parents of basketball playing kids would be impressed to know that there’s a new vet in town who loves kids as much as he loves animals.”
“So, basically, you didn’t want the job.”
“I’d love to do it myself, but between the kids and the gangland warfare, I’ve got my hands full.”
I sighed. “On a scale of one to ten, how much did you commit me to this?”
“You have a meeting with the mayor next week.”
“Christ, Dave.”
“Someday your children will thank me.”
I wrapped my hand around my forehead. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just make sure you believe it by nine o’clock Monday morning.”
Flashback: Laney
My first day of high school was the first day the contents of my lunch were ever a surprise.
I told my grandma that I could make my own lunch, that I’d been doing it since I was in second grade, but she insisted.
And there was a real note inside, written in her f
lowing cursive. It said she loved me and hoped I was having a nice first day of school.
It might’ve made me cry if I weren’t so good at not showing weakness, sadness, and anything else bullies could smell that might make me a target.
I was used to getting picked on enough at home. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that shit at school.
But inside I was crying, crying and thinking about all those fake notes I’d written myself over the years so other kids might believe I had normal parents, too. Parents that didn’t shout and break things and piss themselves.
I chose to sit alone that day.
Making friends wasn’t a priority for me then. I suppose it never had been. Surviving was all that mattered. Surviving and making sure Grandma Helly and my teachers liked me so I’d never have to go home.
And I was ready to dine alone, too. I had a pretty book Helly gave me and, thanks to her note, I had a bookmark.
However, it was surprisingly hard to concentrate on the words with the hostile sounds of the unfamiliar cafeteria going on around me.
But I did my best, taking bites as I turned the pages.
And then everything changed.
Because the last thing I was ever expecting happened.
A handsome boy sat down across from me. “Hey,” he said, popping his soda open.
I lifted my eyes from the page I’d been rereading for the sixth time.
He had sun kissed blond hair and blue eyes that were a much darker shade than mine. “Whatcha reading?”
“I Capture the Castle.”
“Never heard of it,” he said. “Is it any good?”
“I don’t know. I just started it.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
I furrowed my brow and studied his face. “Should I?”
“I live next door.”
“Oh.”
“We’re neighbors.”
“Right.” I prayed silently that he wouldn’t ask me any of the questions I didn’t want to answer, any of the questions that made me want to sit alone in the first place- like why I moved to Glastonbury and where I came from.
I didn’t have answers to those questions that I liked, and the truth certainly wouldn’t do. I could hardly tell this fresh faced, obviously loved kid that I was here because my mom’s boyfriend broke a beer bottle over my arm when I got between them during a fight.
I couldn’t say I arrived with a suitcase that had nothing in it but a box of perfectly sharpened colored pencils, three pairs of clean underwear, and a duckling stuffed animal I still slept with like a two year old.
He’d look at me like I was a two headed liar.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Laney.”
“I’m Connor.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You want to walk home together after school?” he asked. “Since we’re going the same way?”
“Sure.”
“Cool,” he said. “I’ll meet you by the flagpole.”
“Okay.”
“You doing anything on Friday?” he asked.
I took a bite of my sandwich and covered my mouth with my hand. “Like what?”
“A few of us are gonna go down to the lake and have a bonfire.”
I squinted at him. “Why are you telling me this?”
He swallowed the second to last bite of his sandwich. “I thought you might want to come. Since you’re new and don’t know anybody.”
“Oh.”
“Well?”
“Can I think about it?”
“Yeah, sure.” He tossed the last bite of sandwich in his mouth.
There was something refreshingly unaggressive about him, something gentle, something that made me feel comfortable enough to lean forward so I could hear him better.
“Do you like lizards?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Cause I have one,” he said. “I could show it to you if you want.”
“Okay.”
“Who’s your favorite superhero?”
I couldn’t believe how nice it was to have someone ask me my opinion, especially about something so meaningless. “Batman, I guess.”
“Batman?” He scrunched his face. “I guess you’re not as smart as you look.”
“Just because I have glasses doesn’t mean I’m smart.”
“I know,” he said. “I like them, by the way.”
I swallowed.
“But in case you’re wondering, the correct answer is Spiderman.”
“I didn’t know there was a correct answer.”
“You have much to learn,” he said.
I laughed at his seriousness and the sound echoed through my body in a way I didn’t recognize.
“Have you seen Spiderman 2?” he asked.
“I never saw the first one.”
His eyebrows jumped up his face. “What?!”
I shrugged.
“Oh my god you have to see it. I have it. You can borrow it. Or we can watch it together. I never get sick of it.”
“Okay,” I said. “If you insist.”
“I do insist,” he said. “Urgently.”
I laughed again and my heart lifted.
“Maybe we could watch it after school today,” he said. “It’s not like we’ll have homework on day one.”
“I’ll have to ask my grandma.”
“Helly?” he asked. “She’s a huge Spiderman fan. She’ll definitely be cool with it.”
“She’s a huge Spiderman fan?”
He nodded. “Maybe even bigger than me.”
“If you say so.”
The rest of lunch was full of surprises, all thanks to the handsome blond boy who talked to me like he’d known me for years.
Even when his friends called him over to their table, he waved them away with his hand and said we were in the middle of a serious discussion.
Which of course we weren’t.
He was just telling me how lizards can regenerate their tails with an obscene enthusiasm I’d only felt once before when I got a free tiger spoon at the bottom of a bowl of Frosted Flakes.
But his passion was so awesome to witness I couldn’t believe my luck.
We walked home together that day and watched Spiderman one and two.
And as I watched the scene with the upside down kiss, I felt a pinch in my guts and realized I wanted to be more than friends with the boy next door.
Chapter 9: Laney
“Morning,” I said, pushing the screen door open.
Helly was pottering around the garden with a basket full of weeds in one hand and a pruner in the other. “Morning,” she said, bending over to yank something offensive out of the ground. “I thought you might want to sleep in.”
“I tried,” I said. “But my room is so sunny, and the birds are so loud. Lovely, but loud.”
“As long as you’re rested,” she said.
I sat on the back stoop and set my tea down beside me. “I am.”
“I’ve only got a few more fugitives to track down,” she said, scanning the flowerbed at her feet. “Then I’m going to make you the delicious breakfast you refused yesterday.”
“That sounds great.”
“Oh- and I wanted to show you something,” she said, chucking another weed in the flat basket.
“What is it?”
She set the basket down and wiped her hands on her thighs. “Come here.”
I stood up and followed her over to the shed.
She pulled the metal latch to the left and swung the creaky red door open. “Ta da!”
“What’s all this?” I asked, looking around. The first thing I noticed was my old easel at the back, which was covered by a familiar paint splattered sheet.
Next my eyes were drawn to several clear garbage bags lining the walls. The closest one was full of empty toilet paper rolls. Another was full of packing peanuts. Across the shed there were two more, one full of old newspapers and another with what appeared t
o be pieces of broken lawn ornaments.
Finally, I squinted at a bucket on the floor filled with broken shards of colored glass.
“It’s stuff I’ve been saving for you,” she said.
“For me?”
“Yeah,” she said. “In case you get a hankering to make something crazy like you used to. I want you to know I’m prepared.”
I furrowed my brow. “Are those broken lawn ornaments?”
“Are you opposed to working with new mediums?”
“Not opposed,” I said, struggling to find the words. “I just haven’t made anything out of junk since I was at school.”
“It’s only junk until you make something out of it,” she said, stepping in the shed and spinning around as if she were in Aladdin’s cave.
“It was very thoughtful of you to do this, Grandma.”
She smiled. “Wasn’t it, though? Remember when you made that life size chicken out of macaroni?”
“I do.”
“And when you made that Rube Goldberg funnel that drained water into the cat’s trough?”
I nodded. “That’s another weekend I won’t soon forget.”
“I thought you might make a snowman with the packing peanuts,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be fun to have a snowman in the middle of summer?”
I pursed my lips. “I’m not sure the neighbors would love it if you put a trash statue in the yard.”
“Who gives a scratch what they think? What matters is that you enjoy yourself.”
She was so excited I wasn’t sure how to let her down gently. How do you tell someone they’ve been wasting their time when they’re inexplicably excited about the mundane trash they’ve been hoarding?
“I was thinking you could try making your own stained glass, too,” she said, pointing at the bucket. “The stuff in the shops is so dated, and I’d love something for the back window in the sitting room.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t expect you to get started on an empty stomach, of course,” she said, stepping back onto the grass. “I just wanted to let you know this was all in here for you. And as always, I’m happy to get anything else you think you might need.”
I glanced back at the easel once more. It looked smaller than I remembered and sadly neglected.