by Jolene Perry
Music blares from inside the house and for a minute I wonder if they moved the party here before—oh, shit. They’re listening to me. Not just me, I guess, but my band. Thinking of how she’ll react if she knows makes my gut ache. Everything will change if she knows. It’ll suck if she starts treating me the way other girls do. Will she not give me shit and ride snowmachines and stuff with me if she knows I’m Bishop Riley, pill-head and drummer for Burn instead of Bishop Ripe, moody guy from California?
Wait. Pill-head?
“Gramps! Come here! You can’t go out there!” Penny screams fanatically. The sound of her voice, the hitch of pain in it makes me shove the door open. I’ll probably regret it when she yells at me for walking into her house, but something doesn’t feel right.
Gramps runs around the corner toward the door, buck-naked. Like seriously naked, and I definitely don’t think I should have walked in, but the wild look in his eyes isn’t the Gramps I know.
“I’m a grown man! I know what I’m doing.” There’s a hard edge to his voice I never expected to hear from him.
Penny rounds the corner next and her red-rimmed eyes catch mine. All sorts of things flash across her face: pain, embarrassment, fear, anger, and it doesn’t even bother me that I can read her because this? This is serious. Something is wrong with Gramps.
I’m frozen, not sure what to do, standing in their open doorway, cold air flooding inside. My music pumping through the speakers with a naked Gramps and a broken Penny standing in front of me. No, not broken, but cracked. I don’t think anything can completely break her.
“Get out!” She stomps toward me. “This isn’t your business.” She’s right in front of me and I’m still stuck in the same place. I see her chin quiver and then Gramps’s head drops like he’s confused.
“Pen—”
“Please?” Her voice cracks as she speaks. “I don’t want you to see him like this.” One tear, just one brims over and trickles down her face.
I want to wipe it away.
I want to fix this, in a way I can’t fix anything else in my life.
“Let me help. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.” There are so many questions shoving their way into my head right now: what is this? How often does it happen? But right now, none of it matters. The only things that do are Gramps and Penny.
She wipes her eyes, even though there aren’t more tears. I wish I knew how she does it. She’s like a brick wall, so strong and sturdy. “He wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”
She right, but it’s still not okay to leave her with it. “And like I said, you shouldn’t have to deal with it alone.” My hand is shaking, but this time not because of anxiety or the need to be medicated, but because I want to touch her. Feel the soft skin that holds in so much strength. I’ve spent weeks here, and I never would have imagined she lived with something like this going on.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I’m not a damn kid! If I want to go outside, I can damn well go outside.” Gramps is coming our way now. I don’t wait for Penny’s permission and step around her to head him off.
“Where ya goin’ old man?” I try to tease but it comes out flat. Hopefully, he doesn’t catch on. “It’s cold as hell out there. You wanna go out, we’ll go out, but let’s get your working clothes on. That engine is way too greasy.” I have no idea what I’m saying. If I sound like an idiot or if it will do any good, but it’s all that comes to me. “And what’s this shit you’re listening to? I thought you had good taste in music.” It’s a risk, bringing it up, but if the Gramps I know is in there, it’ll work.
That secretive, cocky Gramps grin curves one side of his mouth, and I think he’s in there. Whatever’s going on, the Gramps who works with me on cars realizes this is funny—knows there’s something familiar and a private joke that he’s in on.
“Don’t call me old man, Rookie, and you’re right…the music is shit.” He laughs and the fist squeezing my chest tightens slightly.
“It’s not that bad. Maybe you need to get your hearing aids changed. Now show me where your room is so we can find your stuff and go work on the car.”
He wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I try and forget the fact that I have a naked old man next to me. While we walk, I turn my head, trying to catch Penny’s eyes and hoping I’m doing the right thing. She’s standing where I left her, her ripe, cherry red lips in an “O,” but I swear, there’s something different in her eyes. Something I’ve never seen before when she looked at me.
Gramps leads me to his room. Penny’s behind us. Things suddenly decide to go our way when I see there’s a pair of sweatpants laid out on Gramps bed. Maybe he was changing when something switched in his brain. Is this normal? So many questions.
“Why don’t you put those on?” I let go of him. “If you still feel like it, we can go work on the Corvette after you’re dressed.”
His eyelids flutter, and his shoulders slump, looking drained. Gramps sits on the bed and starts to put on the pants. “I’m not feeling very well, son. Think we could put off the car till tomorrow?”
My body stiffens at the word son. Not in a bad way, but in a way that actually makes me feel like more than the Bishop Riley I thought about earlier. More than any kind of Bishop I’ve ever been. A better Bishop. “Absolutely. I’ll be here.”
“I’ll help him into bed.” Penny steps up beside me and touches my arm. “There’re some pills in his bathroom. They’re color-coded. I need the ones in the purple container. Can you grab them for me?”
“Yeah…sure.” I’m concentrating on the way it felt to hear him call me son and the feel of her hand against my skin that her words don’t sink in until I’m standing in the bathroom, which I swear could double as a pharmacy. Sleeping pills, pain pills, I recognize them all. My mouth gets dry. My heart rate spikes. I want them. I can’t believe how much. It’s the stress. Has to be. Worrying about Maryanne getting in trouble, the band, Mom at home without me when Dad had called not long before. He’s been leaving us alone now, but what if he doesn’t? And Gramps…Jesus, Gramps. I could take one and no one would notice. I deserve that. After this crazy night, I could use something to take the edge off.
My whole arm shakes when I pick up the container.
One, one, one. I could take one. That wouldn’t be so bad. The lid twists between my fingertips.
“Did you find it?” Penny calls from the other room. Her voice breaks through the daze taking me over.
Shit. “Umm…Yeah. Be right there.” I peek out of the room. She’s not coming. No one would know, especially if I do it right here. Drink some water from the sink or take it dry, and make this whole night disappear. I want it to be gone. Not to have to know Gramps goes through this.
Gramps.
The guy I work on the Corvette with every day. The one who treats me like an equal and talks to me. Penny jumps into my head next. She wouldn’t be this damn weak. There’s Gary, too. He just told me he’s proud of me. And mom. It would kill her to think of me downing pills, especially at a time like this. It’s still a fight. My fingers don’t want to obey, but I manage to toss the bottle on the counter. I can’t do it. Not from them. But damn, I want to…so bad.
I grab the purple container and get my ass out of the room as fast as I can. My hands are quivering so bad it almost slips out of them a million times before I get it to Penny. “Here. You good, now?” Please be okay. I need to get out of here.
She gives me a small smile before giving Gramps the pill. He seems to be better now, more like himself. He takes it before Penny tells him goodnight. We’re to the door before he says, “Lucky? Bishop? I love you guys.” And then he closes his eyes.
I love you guys… Maybe he wouldn’t if he knew what I wanted to do with his pills.
“Follow me.” Penny doesn’t wait for my reply as she starts walking up the stairs. I feel like shit. I’m confused, ashamed, and on edge. My feet are begging to take me to Gary’s again for my anxiety meds. Back in the house f
or Gramps…just to check on Gramps, but I follow her anyway up to a smaller set of stairs—almost like a ladder. She pushes open a door in the ceiling, and we crawl through into something the size of an apartment, but open with windows on all sides.
“What is this place?” I take in the open space, all the windows, and I bet if it wasn’t black outside, we could see forever from up here. The walls are wood like everywhere else in the house, but there’s actually carpet instead of worn plywood floors.
“Gramps built it for me after my dad died, but first I was too young and didn’t want to be here alone, and now my room is close to where Gramps sleeps so I can listen for him.”
There’re a few blankets and stacks of massive pillows on the ground. She must come here often. Penny sits. Right as I’m about to ask her what just happened, she says, “Thanks… That was… Thanks.”
I sit down next to her. “No problem. What’s wrong with him?” I hate the words because I don’t want anything to be wrong with him.
“Mild dementia. The beginnings of Alzheimer’s. He’s fine most of the time, but he loses it sometimes. I mean, he’s okay a lot, but once in a while he isn’t, and tonight… That’s new.”
“Damn. That sucks. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She shrugs. There’s a soft light in the corner giving me just enough lighting to see her. “He wouldn’t want you to. It’s hard. You know him. He’s amazing. It kills me to see him lose himself like that.” She blinks again before she pulls in this deep breath and tries to smile. Even now, she doesn’t want me to think she’s not tough.
“Yeah…me too.” It also kills me to see her like this. To know that she’s much more than the Snow Queen who has every guy in town wrapped around her finger. Which is bull because I’ve known that, but this takes it to a whole new level.
She pulls her knees up, resting her forehead in her hands for a moment before straightening. “How did the night get so screwed up?”
Damned if I don’t wish I had the answer for her. All the answers to whatever she wants to know.
“The game was incredible and then the stupid party…and now Gramps. Ugh! Sometimes life sucks, ya know?”
Story of my life. “Yeah, I do know.”
She turns to look at me. Her eyes are so blue, this wild shade that doesn’t seem real, and it’s like they can see through me, into me. And I want to see into her. To know what’s inside her, but I don’t. All I do know is I need to take away the pained look in them. To see them bright and happy like when we were on the snowmachines.
“Thanks.” She glances down, almost embarrassed, and it does something to me because she’s all strength and sure of herself, but I’m making her cheeks pink and making her tongue sneak out of her mouth to trace her bottom lip.
“You already said that.”
And then she smiles, looking at me again. “You’re such a jerk.”
And damned if I know what comes over me, but I can’t stop myself from leaning forward. From cupping her soft cheek and then pushing my hand through her white-blond hair. The light glimmers off and then I don’t see, don’t know anything else, but the feel of her lips as I cover them with mine.
She gives me a startled “Oh” and then opens up so I can slip my tongue inside. My lip ring presses against her mouth. She tastes sweet, but slightly salty like tears. Then her tongue is moving against mine, like she’s trying to taste every part of me the way I want to taste every part of her.
I suck her lip into my mouth, before my tongue moves in to explore her again. Everything else is forgotten, only calm and need pushing me, making me lean forward to taste her deeper. One of my hands grabs her waist while the other slides behind her neck. Deeper, I want to get as deep as I can until suddenly her lips are gone.
“Bishop… I can’t… Not… I just can’t.”
Penny gives me one last look and then she gets up and walks out.
Bishop Riley fucks up again. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
Chapter Twelve
PENNY
I sit in first period, wishing I could go home.
What’s wrong with me? A guy I like kissed me. While sober. After helping with one of the worst nights of my life, and I said I can’t?
My kisses so far include one with Mitch, which he didn’t want, and a kiss that completely melted me from the inside out.
And that was the one I chose to reject?
I have some serious damage.
It was too much. Too soon. And Gramps—logically I know he’s not going to get better, but his good days still make me hope. And then nights like last night crush any ideas I have of him going back to how he was before the dementia started.
But when I think about last night, Bishop sort of clouds over everything else. It’s just that the kiss was intense. I didn’t know how much he’d want. How far he’d want to go, and I panicked.
And without Bishop, where would I have been with Gramps? He wasn’t listening to me at all, and Mitch never answered his text proving my theory that I’ve lost him in a way I didn’t expect.
I pull in a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. I’ll tell Bishop about why I backed away from his kiss after school, or at least hint that I’m all for doing it again. And try not to think about how I might have lost my best friend because he went from always being there to letting twelve hours go by without responding to my need for help.
The bell rings, and I jump. Crap. Good thing I don’t need this class to graduate, because I have no idea what we talked about today.
“Penny?” Mitch’s familiar voice crawls up my spine.
I don’t stop moving. I was gearing up to talk to Bishop, not Mitch.
“Penny.” He grabs my arm, spinning me around with this big, worried, sad face he does so well. “Is everything okay? I’m sorry, I—”
I pull my arm from him and start up the hall. “Check your texts, Mitch.” If he gives me that sad face again, I’ll give him a black eye. I hate it when he treats me like I’m fragile. It makes me feel breakable, which I despise. I’m not that girl. I’m the tough girl. The world needs both kinds, right? Only right now I feel like I could shatter.
“Penny.” He touches my arm again from behind, but I jerk it away because facing Mitch right now might end in another wave of tears.
Three more steps to the stairs.
“Dammit! Penny!”
I start jogging down. Mitch is right on my tail. I spin before he grabs me and knock his arm away because I can’t handle the kind of excuse he’s about to give me.
“I just want to talk, okay?” His face is an even mix of the pity I hate and sadness.
“Do you?” This time it’s me who steps toward him, and he backs up like I wanted him to, only I don’t want to be arguing with him at all.
He shrugs with his armful of books. “I just got your text this morning. I’m so sorry, Pen.”
I think about Gramps and the dancing and how for the first time Mitch didn’t come when I called. “You left me,” I whisper, only I didn’t mean to. The way Dad left me. The way Mom’s leaving me now, and the way Gramps’s memory is taking him away.
“I left? Penny, you’re the one who left the party.” He pulls in a deep breath as he leans back. “Wait. We’re talking about two different things. I think.”
I try to shake my head, but I’m slowly going numb so I’m not sure if it works. “How long did it take you notice I was gone? I got home to a naked Gramps last night and you were the only person I knew to call. And you didn’t answer.”
He stares at me for a moment, absorbing everything. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t check my phone until this morning. It’s that I—”
“I don’t want your excuses right now.” I spin and walk away.
“Penny,” he pleads.
I grit my teeth. “Not. Right. Now.”
I hear Mitch’s books hit the ground about two seconds before his fist connects with the nearest locker.
Mitch’s frustration or hurt or anger a
lways ends in him bloodying his stupid knuckles. And he should feel bad. I feel hollowed out and horrible that he didn’t answer when I needed him, but even as that thought goes through my head, I know it’s more than missing one text. It’s all the things that ran through my head at the party last night. How I’m losing him along with everyone else.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” he calls. “Okay?”
I’m definitely not okay. Not yet.
…
“Penny!” a girl yells from across the parking lot. It’s hard to tell if it’s an angry yell, or a get-my-attention yell. It’s not like I have a lot, or really any girls that are friends, so I spin around.
Tiny little Rebecca’s coming my way, her face flat. Not angry, not happy, just…confused. This is not what I need.
The snow’s almost gone on the roadways now, and the slush is getting all over her shoes, but she doesn’t seem to notice. This surprises me because she’s someone who squeals at every tease, and the kind of person I’d expect to be worried about shoes.
But do I actually want to talk to Mitch’s girlfriend knowing she probably knows about my freak-out in the stairway?
Not so much.
I jerk open my truck door, and she sprints to where I’m standing. “No! Wait!”
“I have nothing to say to you.” I tighten my jaw but don’t climb in. Why am I not climbing in?
“Yeah? Well have a whole lot to say to you.” She sticks her chin out, but she’s about six inches shorter than I am, so her action impresses me a bit because she’s not backing down.
This whole situation is… It’s just so cheesy teen movie ridiculous that I laugh.
She reaches out and pushes my truck door closed, stopping my laugh. Whoa.
Anger presses in where the hurt and fear and worry has been. “What do you want, Rebecca?” I’m tired and I’m thinking and feeling way too much for one person.