by Ace Gray
Mercifully I catch myself and keep my balance as I scoot toward the kitchen. Carefully opening each cabinet, I find coffee filters, ground beans, and spices.
For a moment, I shove down the anxiety gnarled in my shoulders. Going through familiar motions puts up a shield against the million business related things that must be popping up on my phone. It barely protects me from the thought that AJ is laying in a bed maybe fifteen feet from me, but I find a way to manage. Ritual saves me as I make coffee the way that I’ve made it for the past three years.
I find a pitcher and line the neck with a filter. Grounds sprinkle in easily. I smirk as I turn a tea kettle on. AJ has fresh cream in his fridge so I gamble that, much like high school, he still turns his coffee a caramel color.
On his gas range, I start to bloom spices in a sauce pan. The good ones too—a cinnamon stick, cloves and grated nutmeg. When they start to fill the house with a delicious aroma, I add cream, sugar and allspice. By the time everything comes to the perfect temperature, the house smells like Christmas and I don’t much care that I’ve lost my phone.
“What are you doing?”
A groggy voice pulls me from stirring the aromatic cream. My shoulders shoot to my ears as my eyes dart from the pot to AJ.
Good Christ.
He’s shirtless.
And in pajama pants that hang sinfully well from his hips.
For the first time since I’ve seen him, I’m angry with him. Livid actually, and just for being him. He looks amazing. Painfully so without his shirt on. AJ was always gorgeous, but in the years since we’ve been apart, he’s blossomed. Or whatever the reverse of blossom is. Because he’s not soft and silky like a flower. He’s sculpted. Like marble chiseled into a perfect statue. And he’s not mine, nor will he ever be again.
He’s hurt me far too badly for that.
“I’m making coffee.” I finally find the words to answer him even though they’re small, breathy words.
“There’s a coffee pot for that.”
He leans against the counter and nonchalantly points to the drip coffee maker beside him. I try very hard not to notice that every muscle in his body ripples as he does it. My eyes fall to the gorgeous hardwood floors and I stare at the intricate floor seaming instead.
“It’s better this way,” I reply simply. “You still take cream, right?”
“Yeah.” AJ’s being gruff and it cuts straight through and silences me.
Christmas smells envelop and swirl around us like so many unspoken words when I turn to shut off the whistling tea kettle. Gently, I pour steeping water into the filter, artfully making the pour-over cups I’ve become accustomed too.
“Where did you learn to make coffee like this?”
AJ is watching me intently—I’d felt it long before he asked—and I have to blow out a deep breath to answer. “Seattle. That’s where I live now.”
“I know,” he says softly and I chance a look at him. He’s crossed his arms and his chest is something straight off of a billboard. “What’s so special about this cream.”
“My life revolves around spices and flavor profiles.” I naturally smile at the mixes I’ve made for my bourbon.
“I thought you were a scientist?” His voice reverts to harsh as he refers to my college education, and condescendingly so.
“It was a practical science degree. I work in flavor profiles and aging now.” I try not to get defensive but pain’s snarling in my chest.
AJ has always misunderstood my love of science as something lab-based. He made a point to tell me how much he hated beakers, flasks and lab coats the moment I discussed my college plans. Science and Scotland. I’d wanted out of Willow Creek, desperately, and wanted science to be my ticket. Edinburgh seemed just far enough away. And with a university that specialized in practical application of the sciences, I’d all but ran.
He’d proven that it wasn’t science he disliked that day.
Standing across the kitchen right now, AJ’s remembering the same series of events. I can tell by the way his face contorts, the same wrinkles mar his face that did back then, they’re just deeper, warier now. Something tells me he remembers everything differently, but now is not the time or place.
“Here,” I say softly as I hold out a mug for him.
He tentatively reaches out, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes at the coffee as if I may be handing him poison. When our hands brush, electricity shoots straight to my spiritless heart. I suck in a deep breath and his face twists up all over again.
“Thanks for letting me stay here last night.” I raise my mug to him.
“It was that or leave you in a snowbank,” he grumbles before taking a sip. “Whoa.” His eyes light up despite himself.
“Thanks for not leaving me in a snowbank,” I say with a smirk.
“I’d say anytime, but I really hope it never happens again, Cam.”
His words are a knife to my gut.
“I prefer Camilla now.” I try not to let my bottom lip tremble as we look intently at each other. Tension is ratcheting up in the small space, it’s weaving its way up me like smokey tendrils, getting dangerously close to my neck. It will squeeze when it gets there.
I clear my throat, and before I think them over, I vomit out the words, “Can we start fresh?”
I’m holding my breath. Despite everything, I want his answer to be yes. He slugs back coffee before slamming the cup down, sloshing the creamy liquid onto beautiful butcher block countertops.
“You broke my heart, Cam!” he bellows, and I can’t help but cower.
As smoothly as my quaking hand will allow, I set my mug down. Absentmindedly, I run my hand along the smooth wood below it. Everything in me is shutting down, piece by piece. If I could, I’d fade to black right here in front of him.
“Seems we remember things a little bit differently.” My voice is barely louder than a whisper. It’s choked and garbled, and since I can’t, it is withering away. “You broke mine first.”
“Sabotage” Beastie Boys
Cam Collins has gutted me twice.
I remember all too well how she clams up when she’s really hurt. She hides inside herself, hoping to just disappear. And now she’s retreated so far inside herself that I can’t see the luminescence in her eyes anymore. Which can only mean one thing—she’s telling the truth.
My insides are reacting violently to her admission. I want to console her. I want to continue shouting at her. I want clarity.
But instead, I’m frozen as she silently slinks past me, a terrified, timid creature. I guess she collects her coat and slips on her shoes just a moment before my front door slams. Hard. The sound reverberates through me and jolts me back to life. I bolt toward the door, determined to get her back inside, get an explanation.
My hand is resting on the doorknob when she slides on my icy sidewalk. She reaches up for a branch to catch herself, losing its pile of snow on top of her head. Fluffy powder slides down from the crown of her head and disappears beneath the green wool neck of her coat. She still can’t find her balance and her legs wheel for a moment before she crashes to the pavement. Her ass hits so hard, it jostles my bones.
I know Cam is crying long before she sags her head into her hands and her shoulders start shaking. Wounded pride was the quickest way to cut Cam deep and judging by the heap she is on my front walk, it still is.
I want to go to her. I’m compelled to console her, but I stop, my hand still frozen on the door. Knowing that I saw the whole mess will only hurt her more. I can’t kiss it and make it better like I used to. I won’t. And judging by what she just said to me, she doesn’t want me to.
How dare she say that anyway?
I broke her heart? I hurt her?
I’ve been replaying her words for years like a bitter talisman to ward off other heartbreak. I can’t stay here Jay. I won’t. She’d paused like her words were the continuation of some conversation we’d already had. Like I knew what was coming, what she was going to say.
And Edinburgh to Willow Creek… It took her forever to continue but in that moment, I felt the axe swinging over my head. It’s a gap we can’t close. Even then I didn’t think she was referring to an ocean. A minute later it had been made crystal fucking clear.
But she was still the one that had wrecked me. Worse than breaking up, breaking my heart, she’d never come right out and said what the real issue was. There was always something unspoken behind our splintering break up.
Never in a million years did I expect it to be that I’d broken her.
It’s ludicrous.
And bubbles the fury of hellfire inside me.
My hand falls from the doorknob and I storm back to my bedroom. I need to run or burn off steam somehow. Her insolence…
I shove my legs through Carharts, yank on a thermal, and jam my feet into boots. I’m tromping around my house, laces untied, looking for my iPod. It’s going to take more than physical exertion to burn this…this…whatever out of me.
When I burst out my front door, sweater in hand, iPod in mouth, Cam has vanished. Only the tiny circles left by stilettos cut down my path. I can’t help but compare them to the matching gunshots she riddled through my heart this morning. I kick at them with my boots then realize I never stopped to tie them. I crouch down and my earbuds hit my knee, drawing my attention to the snow.
There’s the tiniest bit of blood on the snow beneath my boot. Looking up, I’m directly under the tree branch Cam grabbed.
Shit.
I’m even more upset at the sight that I didn’t go to her, that she was even here, and rage propels me up and toward my truck. As soon as I yank open the door, I chuck my crap into the passenger seat, ignoring how the door bounces on its hinges and how my iPod clatters around. I rev my engine and slide the slightest bit as I gun my truck out of my driveway.
When Tony Pritchers—Or rather, Officer Pritchers—waves his arm wildly out of his patrol car, I realize I’m speeding and slam on the brakes as I gesture an I’m sorry. He shakes his finger but smiles underneath his sunglasses.
Soon town turns into outlying buildings, then into the cemetery, before breaking open into the rolling sage and snow-covered hills. I’m winding along the river road I know all too well relishing the crisp whiteness of the valley, the way green pokes out here or there, and how glassy rushing water attracts snow speckled livestock. When I turn off the highway, I really gun it and my new Nissan fishtails again, the small bit of recklessness does nothing to quench what’s churning through me.
My parents’ log cabin comes into view. Usually it’s reassuring but not today. Today, I can picture Cam sitting on the steps like she used to when I had ranch chores or she beat me home. She always looked smaller the way she balled up on herself. Every fiber of my being wanted to protect that fragile little being. And when the breeze would dance in her chocolatey waves of hair, she seemed like an angel, and I knew she’d been sent to look out for me.
But now she has a straight-out-of-a-magazine raven black haircut that hangs fashionably straight and unruffled. The severe cut makes her eyes seem hauntingly green rather than gold and her lips a bloody, bloody red. And it is her lips, not her lipstick, I noticed when I watched her sleep last night.
Fuckfuckfuck.
Mom’s not here so I slam the car into park near the woodpile and sync my iPod to the stereo. The Beastie Boys come blaring through the speakers and I throw open the doors so the sounds can fill the small valley around me. There’s the faintest echo off the hills.
I roll my shoulders and crack my neck side to side before grabbing the axe from its home beside the pile. It swings idly by my side as the music picks up pace. My eyes pinch and my face crinkles as I start bobbing my head in time with the beats. After only a breath, I swing the axe. It splits the wood easily. So easily in fact, the halves fly apart.
Automatically, I grab another piece and split it. Before long I’ve found a rhythm that has my heart pounding and my shirt sweaty. Mom’s going to have two full cords of wood cut before New Years. Relief is pumping in time with my blood as I bend and flex and work myself into a lather.
When Sabotage comes on, I automatically scream along with the opening line, going King Kong on the wood in front of me. I’m going to split Cam Collins out of my soul if it kills me. And when The Beastie Boys scream again, me in perfect unison, I believe I’ll succeed.
But then the music cuts off, leaving me hanging. My axe comes down halfheartedly on the piece of wood in front of me and gets lodged in the log.
“Hey honey, whatcha doing?”
I turn to find my mom leisurely leaning against the hood of my truck, twirling my keys on her fingers.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I try to keep the edge out of my voice.
“Looks like you’re trying to shake the ghost of Cam Collins.” She purses her lips in the way only moms can. I sigh. She knows me so well. “Sherry Lucas told me she’s here.”
Damn Sherry Lucas and her goddamn big mouth.
“Yeah, she’s here.” I can’t bear to look her in the eye so I twist back to the log and work the axe out. Wordlessly, I swing and split the piece of in front of me.
“I would’ve known even if Sherry didn’t say anything. No one gets under your collar like her.”
I go back to splitting wood, trying to find the rhythm I had before.
“AJ, stop,” she calls after me. “You’re going to kill yourself. And over some girl that’ll blow out as quickly as she blew in.”
My instinct is to yell at her, to defend Cam. She isn’t just some girl. Besides, I’m mad at myself every bit as much as I’m mad at her. And I’m confused. Really fucking confused. Even hurt splits through my chest.
She’s leaving. Again.
There’s no way to summarize everything I’m feeling. There’s not even a real way to explain it.
“Mom,” I say in an exasperated voice, hoping she’ll leave me alone. On this anyway.
“No, don’t you mom me. Look I love Cam, I always have, but Cam is the kind of girl that’s never satisfied. She’s gotta barrel through life one thing to the next, never appreciating what she has in front of her. She’d take you down her path kicking and screaming, unconcerned with what your dreams are. Cam needs to be single and Cam needs to leave town.” She shoves her hands on her hips and narrows her gaze as if she’s the end all, be all, on Cam Collins.
Yesterday I would have agreed. Hell, twelve hours ago I would have agreed, but this morning…
I can’t think about that. I can’t think about Cam’s words or Mom’s words or my feelings. But I can walk over, grab my keys, turn on my car and move from Sabotage to the aptly named Get It Together.
“Drowning” Banks
“Lamb, what’s going on?” My mom uses her favorite pet name as she reaches over and pats my thigh from the driver’s seat. “You’ve been somewhere else since you walked into the office this morning.”
It’s an automatic reaction to look down and trace the Band-Aid on my palm. It covers the gash from the tree, but more importantly, it keeps the memory at bay. Sort of. Okay, not really. But tracing the outline is comforting.
“It’s just hard, Mom.” I shrug without taking my eyes off my palm.
“I thought you said that Mike and Jimmy and Janie were great. That it was fun to play pool. And you got a little choked up when you saw Trigg carries your bourbon.” She squeezes my thigh reassuringly.
“That was nice, but…” I trail off.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Mom about AJ. I can count the number of times I’ve lied to her on one hand. Every single time was about spending the night with AJ.
Fuck.
And the prospect of seeing him play hockey tonight, dripping in sweat, is making it even worse. So is his genuine shock at my accusation that he broke me first. If I could retreat into myself and never deal with him again, I would.
I thought I’d hardened myself enough to deal with him, maybe even be friendly, but no. There is no armor a
round my heart he can’t decimate.
“Lamby, I’m gonna go get a spot. When you’re ready.” Mom pats my shoulder and slides out of the Subaru.
I sit staring unblinking at the outdoor bleachers around the hockey rink. They’re filling up and it’s still thirty minutes until the puck drops. But the alumni hockey game is the biggest event on the holiday social calendar besides the tree lighting in early December. My high school reunion had fifteen people attend but I’ve seen thirty kids I graduated with walk past our parking space in the last twenty minutes.
My head sags into my hands and I try very hard not to cry or curl up on the floor. I’m measuring dimensions, seriously considering it, when an odd knock on the window startles me.
Mike’s shaggy blonde hair is sticking out haphazardly from under his black beanie and his smile unfurls like smoke across his face. His knock is muffled because he’s wearing his gear already. Oversized and permanently curled hockey gloves make for a softer knock against glass.
When I sit like an idiot statue for a moment, he slips them off and shoves them under his arm before opening the door on his own.
“Hiding again?” He chuckles. “Come on. Last night wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
No, but this morning…
“It wasn’t terrible,” I answer because last night wasn’t bad at all.
Mike offers me his elbow so I unbuckle and take it. He hasn’t laced his shoes so it takes the two of us a few minutes to amble over to the stands. I stumble once or twice on his laces but he keeps me upright.
Thank God.
I’d be particularly mortified if I fell here. In front of everyone. One tumble would certainly send me back to the floorboards of my mom’s car.
“Cheer for me, okay?” He elbows me hard enough that I slip on the ice patch that has formed between bleachers.
I’m going down I can feel it. I’ve worn wedge Sorels with heavy tread that I thought were sensible compared to the Louboutins of yesterday, but I’m teetering and can’t recover all the same. My arms are flailing, my core is flexing, I’m thinking back to every yoga balance challenge I’ve ever done and nothing. I don’t think I’ve fallen once in Seattle but here…