by Sadie Allen
“Go put something warmer on and come with me.”
Was he crazy?
“I can’t.”
Good girls didn’t sneak out of their houses. My parents would have him arrested if they caught him at my window.
“Why not?”
I opened my mouth to list all the reasons this was probably a bad idea, but I couldn’t get past one word. “Because …”
I paused. Wait. Why couldn’t I? I was a teenager. I was supposed to break the rules, right?
I had never done drugs, smoked, drank, or had sex with my boyfriend—well, ex-boyfriend. I had never broken curfew. I was in the top ten percent of my class, on the A honor roll, and had never gotten in trouble at school, not even a dress code violation. My picture was probably in the dictionary under “model student.” I had worked myself into knots trying to be perfect that it was literally killing me. I deserved to have some fun.
I stepped away from the window, and Sterling’s expression fell. I stayed him with my hand then went to my dresser to grab a pair of black leggings and to my closet to grab a sweatshirt. Then I limped to the bathroom to change. I didn’t bother with a bra since the cami had a shelf bra and the sweatshirt covered my braless boobs anyway.
Texas in February was funny. You never knew what the weather would do. Tonight, it was cold and wintery. The grass, brown and brittle. Tomorrow, it could rain or the sun would be shining, making you think spring was early. Then, the day after, it would snow, or it could be in the nineties and feel like summer. Who knew?
I never followed the weather because it was always wrong. I just never put my winter clothes up and dressed in layers. It was easier to take something off or put something on than have nothing.
I came out, grabbed my tennis shoes by the bed, and stuffed sock-covered feet into them.
“Don’t forget your crutches,” Sterling reminded me.
I got up and grabbed them, handing them to him through the window.
“Do you need help?”
I started to shake my head, but then thought he might need to catch me. Although my room was at ground level, it wasn’t like I climbed out of windows regularly. And with a bum leg, I didn’t want to hurt myself further.
I crouched and reached for Sterling. His hands were large and cold in mine as he took my weight when I swung my good leg through then my injured one until I sat on the ledge.
“You good?” Sterling asked, handing me my crutches.
I nodded and got them under me before shoving off.
We slowly made our way to the small wooded area that separated my house from the next-door neighbor’s. The moon was full, so it wasn’t all that dark, more like someone held a flashlight above our heads.
I looked over my shoulder at the driveway and thought it was weird not seeing my dad’s car parked in the circle driveway. Weird, yet not unwelcome.
I hadn’t heard from him since he left. No phone call or text message, only radio silence. Which was again odd, but not unwelcome. It was freeing not having to worry about my every move and every word. I could breathe for the first time in years, and it was … amazing. This was probably how inmates felt when they were released from prison.
My mother had been in her room all evening. Hopefully, she was asleep now. We should be in the clear unless my dad decided to come home right now, which was unlikely since it was after two in the morning. Still, a niggle of worry tickled the back of my mind. Not about getting caught, but that there was something very wrong happening between my parents.
We—more like I—had stumbled halfway through the wooded area when Sterling muttered, “This won’t work.” He stopped me with a hand to my arm, and before I could finish blinking, I was in his arms for the second time that day.
“My crutches,” I hissed.
“You don’t need them.”
I gave my head a small shake as I replied, “Excuse me? I think I should be the judge of that.”
“We don’t have all night,” he stated, still trekking through the wilderness—not much wilderness since we were in a subdivision—like I was inconveniencing him.
“Maybe you should just take me back to my house.” I tried to cross my arms over my chest, but he suddenly dipped me low like he was going to drop me.
With a cry, I wrapped my arms around him like a clinging vine.
He chuckled. “Hush, princess.”
“Princess?” I asked in outrage. I was not a princess. My parents might have bought everything any teenager would ever desire, but I hadn’t asked for it. I hadn’t even wanted half of it, but they had still bought it to keep up with appearances. It wouldn’t do for me not to have something Laura, Sarah, and Ariel had.
“Yeah. Princess.”
“Are you making fun of me?” I seethed.
“No,” he answered in a voice filled with laughter.
I looked up into his face and saw that his eyes were dancing, and his mouth was caught in a self-satisfied smile.
“Sterling!” I whisper-yelled.
He stopped and tucked his chin down to look at me, eyes still twinkling, but the smile gone. “Ally, I just want to show you something, and then I’ll bring you back, okay?”
I stared at him for a minute, thinking this whole situation was surreal. Every moment I spent with him felt that way. He was too … everything to be real. He had to be a dream.
I quelled the urge to pinch myself as I gazed into his extraordinary eyes. They flared to life, going from a twinkle to a smolder.
“Okay,” I responded breathily.
I could feel myself drawing closer to him like a moth drawn to a flame. I could feel his breath fan across my face as our eyes stayed locked to one another’s. My body began to tremble in his arms, and that seemed to bank the embers that glowed in his eyes. He tore them away, and I immediately mourned the loss. Then he gave his head a slight shake before putting us back in motion.
When we got to his car parked on the street that ran behind my house and a few blocks down, he slowly set me on my feet. He reached in his pocket and unearthed a set of keys, then unlocked and opened the car door.
Before I could move to get in, he picked me up again. I saw this was becoming a habit with him.
“This really isn’t necessary.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt worse because of me, so I’ll just carry you if I need you somewhere.”
I rolled my eyes rather than answer. I had a feeling anything I would have said in reply would have been pointless.
He ran around the front of the primer-colored vintage car, got in, cranked the motor, and put it in drive.
“Where are we going?” I was curious, and I had to admit, excited at the same time.
My heart pounded in my chest, and my skin tingled. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I had snuck out of my house. Not only that, I had snuck out with a boy. And not just any boy; it was Sterling Chapman. Sterling Chapman who had a lip ring and an old muscle car. I knew it was a muscle car because the engine growled like a beast. I practically vibrated along with the engine.
“You’ll see,” he answered, the smirk back.
I didn’t want to creep him out by just sitting there and staring at him, so I tore my eyes away and focused on the scenery out the passenger window. I watched it fly by as we made it out of the subdivision and toward town.
“What did your last message mean?” Sterling’s rumbly voice cut into my contemplation.
“What message?”
I knew what he was talking about; I just didn’t want to sound too eager to volunteer the information about Miles and me, or the nonexistence of Miles and me. I honestly didn’t know what was going on between Sterling and me, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to hope this meant something to him.
“On Snapchat. You said something like, He didn’t say that exactly. You trying to tell me something? Or were you being literal?”
“I broke up with Miles,” I blurted.
So much for playing it cool.
; I didn’t look at him. I just kept my eyes trained on the passing landscape. I had read somewhere that silence could be deafening. In that moment, I understood the phrase. The silence was so loud I could hear every shift of his body and the rustling of his clothes. I didn’t realize I had been biting my lip until the coppery tang of blood hit my tongue.
I rubbed my hands down my thighs and listened to the sound of the tires moving over the blacktop.
We turned off onto a road that led to the lake, giving me an idea of where he was taking me. He had mentioned Westbank Park a few days ago, so I wondered if he was taking me to the pier he had wanted me to meet him at the other day.
As we took another turn, I saw the sign declaring “Westbank Park” with a large, white arrow pointing in the direction we were traveling.
He pulled through the iron gate and into the graveled parking lot, stopping the car in the deserted lot. Then we just sat there, staring out the windshield at the lake in the distance, lost in our own thoughts.
“I’m glad you broke up with him. He was a douche, Ally,” Sterling said, his tone carrying a bitter tinge.
I quickly cut my eyes to him and saw that he wasn’t looking at me. He was still staring straight ahead, his jaw flexing. His eyes were distant, not like he was staring out at the lake, but at something else, maybe a memory? The harsh lines of his face were made more prominent by the moonlight that streamed through the glass. He looked older, more serious. There was also something different about his face that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I searched, starting with his eyes, lingering on the blades of his cheekbones, and then dipped to his plush mouth and strong jaw, then back up again. It took me a minute, but I finally noticed the lip ring was gone, leaving a small hole where it had once been.
“Where’s your lip ring?” I asked, sounding harsher than I had intended, but I was disappointed he had taken it out. I had always been curious about it, like what it would feel like against my own lips. Was it cool to the touch, or warm from resting against his skin? I had this recurring fantasy of testing it with my tongue.
The question must have jolted him out of wherever his mind had gone because his answer drew me from my not-so-innocent pondering.
“Mrs. Cook said it had to come out for the musical.”
“Oh.” I didn’t try to hide my disappointment. Elodie had said Sterling got the role of Danny when we had talked after she got my backpack for me.
“Did you like it, princess?”
I narrowed my eyes, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer.
“You don’t have to answer that. It’s written all over your face,” he announced as he opened the door and unfolded himself from the car. Before he closed it, he stuck his head back in and looked at me from under his brows. “Don’t even think about getting out without me. So, sit tight.”
Had he read my mind? If so, I was in trouble.
I sat there like he had asked. It wouldn’t do to hurt myself trying to get around just to spite him.
A moment later, he was opening my door and scooping me out of the passenger seat. I again found myself with my arms wrapped around his neck.
As he walked toward the water, I warned, “If you throw me in and leave me there, I will kill you.”
“Now, what have I done to give you the impression that’s something I would do?”
I said nothing as we headed, not for the pretty picnic area that was set up by the lake, but toward another wooded area. Sterling was definitely getting his workout in tonight.
“Do you need to rest? You’ve been hauling me around a lot today.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
And I guessed he was. He didn’t sound winded as he moved along the wooded shore.
I didn’t know how he could see where he was going since the canopy above had blocked most of the light from the moon. However, a few minutes later, we emerged into a small area that was cleared just enough to reveal a pier. It wasn’t new, but it wasn’t old. The wood was weathered, yet it still looked solid.
“I didn’t know this was here,” I whispered.
“That’s probably because you and your girlfriends never moved past the picnic area,” he replied sardonically.
He was right. They had roped off a small area for swimming at the picnic area, but the girls and I never swam. We just sunbathed in our bikinis on the shore. Lake water was beneath us, as Laura would say. The only time we came here was because the guys wanted to. We could swim at any one of our houses, but the lake had less supervision.
“How do you know that?”
Had he seen us? Had he been up here during the summer and I never noticed?
“Just a wild guess,” he muttered.
His footsteps sounded hollow as he walked down the pier with me still in his arms. When we got to the end, he set me down, and I slowly untangled my arms from around his neck, resting them on his shoulders.
Sterling wasn’t looking at me; he was concentrating on digging something from his pocket. When he pulled it out, I saw it was his phone. I started to lift my hands off him when his voice stopped me.
“Keep your hands there.” The light from the screen illuminated his face as he moved his fingers over it.
It was chilly, and the sweatshirt wasn’t doing much against the breeze as it came off the water. It was peaceful, though, with the sound of the water lapping the shore.
The soft sounds of music flowed from his phone as he reached behind him to put it away. Then he moved his now free hands under my sweatshirt, gently gripping my hips before swaying us.
“Um, what are we doing?” I asked hesitantly.
His fingertips were burning a hole through the material of my leggings. Then, when I felt his thumb brush my bare skin, it was like a shock of electricity.
“We’re dancing really slow.”
That wasn’t what I meant, and he knew it. Was he interested in me? Was this a date? How could I be on a date and not know it? I always knew when I was on a date with Miles.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. My heart felt lighter than it ever had in my life. If this was a date, it was the best one I had ever had.
I licked my lips and looked up to see Sterling gazing down at me. Neither of us said anything as we moved in motion with the song, the lyrics seeming to wrap around us.
I broke eye contact and leaned forward, resting my forehead against his hoodie-covered chest, breathing in the clean scent of him.
The emotions were too much, too intense.
I was born under a dark cloud. I had never been what you would call a happy person. Not even as a child. Happiness was always a fleeting feeling, tinged with inevitability. An inevitability that something would happen to snatch it away. But slow dancing on this pier, defying everything I knew to be right, I had a glimpse of true happiness. Of freedom. I wasn’t thinking about the future. I was thinking about tonight. Right now. The lyrics of this unconventionally romantic song stirring something inside me.
When it was over, we stood in each other’s arms, not moving, lost in the moment and in each other’s presence and warmth. I wanted to burrow inside Sterling and never leave. I knew when I looked back on this, I would note it as one of those life-changing occurrences.
“What song was that?” I asked quietly, though there was no one else to hear me. The moment just felt too fragile, as if any noise would shatter its beauty.
“‘First Day of My Life’ by Bright Eyes,” he murmured just as quietly. I didn’t know if he was being quiet because I was, or if he was feeling all I was feeling.
“I love it.” My voice was thick and sounded foreign.
“Good.”
I walked into the kitchen, surprised to see my dad, hair wet, seated at the bar with a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. I wanted to ask when he had gotten home and where he had been, but … I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I had a feeling something was coming. It was looming over our heads like a guillotine. The a
tmosphere in the house was different. Where there had been no tension between my parents before, it was practically a corporeal thing now.
My mom was at the table on her laptop, but when I came into the room, she quickly shut it.
“Morning,” I called, my eyes darting between the two adults in the room.
My dad grunted, while my mom greeted, “Morning, honey.”
I saw Mom from this weekend was back.
“Do you want me to fix you breakfast? I can make bacon and eggs.”
I stopped and stared at her. Bacon and eggs? I hadn’t had either of those things in … I didn’t know how long.
My eyes darted toward my dad, whose face was like thunder. My father was a man who could communicate everything he wanted to say with a look, and the look he was shooting me and my mother said, “don’t even think about it.”
I opened my mouth to tell her “no, thanks,” but my dad decided to reiterate his point by saying, “Ally, you’re going to be down for a while, so it’s important not to pack on the pounds. You—”
“Lay off, Derek.” Mom gave him a look filled with warning.
My gaze shot to my mom then my dad, who shut his mouth then got up like his butt was on fire. He threw his still full bowl into the sink then stormed out of the room without another word.
“Mom …” I swung my head toward her, about to ask what was going on. I might not have wanted to know before, but if she had Derek Everly on the run, I wanted in on the secret.
She just shook her head at me and said, “He has another business trip to get ready for, and he’s in a hurry.”
Sure. I squinted at her and tried to get a read on her expression, which was carefully blank.
I opened my mouth again to ask where he was off to and where he had gone the last time, but she cut me off again.
“So, bacon and eggs?” Her face transformed from blank to faux cheerful.
I nodded, hobbling my way to the table and sitting down. I watched her closely, looking for a sign of something that would clue me in on what was going on as she quickly and efficiently fixed me breakfast then set it in front of me.