The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories

by Brina Courtney

  “I know.” I nodded seriously. “I know.”

  “The first man and woman?”

  I looked over my shoulder, feigning paranoia. “Sugar cane”

  “Wow.” William gasped. “Wow.”

  If humoring me wasn’t enough, William interlaced his fingers as if in prayer. By itself, this drew more than one look from the diner’s other patrons, but when he closed his eyes and started mumbling to himself I was certain I might die of literal embarrassment. I grimaced into my hand, turning to the wall and closing my own eyes.

  “What Jumper? You’ve converted me!” Laughing still, he hit the booth table with his fist. “Take all my money! Where’s the compound? Where do I sign up?”

  I couldn’t help it—I laughed.

  When the food came, we both ate, though admittedly, I ate faster and probably more too. Hardly looking up from my plate, I never could have known for sure.

  “Damn Jumper, eat much?”

  I poured more syrup over my hash browns. “Last meal.” I shrugged. “What can I say?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw him tense, but he didn’t say anything, not even a joke, and for some reason, that bothered me more than I wanted to let on.

  “Lighten-up William Do-gooder O’Reilly.” I stared at the dirty linoleum floor. “I think it’s safe to say you met your good deed quota for the day. Hell, maybe even the week.”

  “I’ll admit” He crumbled a piece of bacon in his hands until it turned to dust. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you asked me to take you back to that overpass.”

  I swallowed the food in my mouth. “What makes you think I still won’t?”

  William smiled like he had just heard the greatest joke in the world. “Cause our agreement was that I’d take you to any place you wanted to go.”

  “Yeah...”

  “Place Jumper not places. You said you were hungry, so I brought you to one of the crappiest diners in southern California. I don’t have to take you anywhere else.”

  “Ah.” I wiped my hands on a napkin feeling full and stupid, relieved and mad all at once. “A clever way to get rid of me.”

  “I’m not trying to get rid of you Jumper, just trying to bide some time.” He shoved a bite of pancake in his mouth and smiled.

  I frowned, a stomachache quickly growing. “Bide me some time you mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe this syrup deity of yours will save you after all.”

  To this I said nothing, picking at the rest of meal in silence and the awkwardness I had become so familiar with over the last several months. And, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed I could not avoid looking at the overaged waitress—her wrinkled hands impossible to ignore for some reason.

  Once the initial syrup high and William’s laughter began to wear off, the fresh heaviness of the meal started settling. My stomach wasn’t bothering me too badly, but the self-awareness hit me as I began to feel embarrassed and annoyed at myself that I had let so much show—exposed what I shouldn’t have in my moments of weakness. How could I have let a stranger talk me off the ledge after I had been so determined? So sure?

  How could I have been weak enough to let him see me cry?

  William paid the tired looking waitress from a large stack of money, letting her keep the change and surely giving her the thrill of her night like he had given me. If I wasn’t so snowed under the weight of my own shame I might have even asked him about it—or at least would have let theories roll around in my head.

  After walking outside, William opened the door for me and I felt strangely obliged to let him do that much considering my sudden mortification forced me to look at the floor—and then the street—I couldn’t have found the door handle if I had wanted to.

  It was well into Saturday now, but even if it was a weekday, the rush hour traffic probably wouldn’t have started for a good hour. Maybe, I mused if I hurried, I could get back to Port Elizabeth Street before sunrise.

  “You have someplace to go Jumper? Other than the afterlife that is?”

  I told him exactly where my car was—the brief smile he showed me in return making me cringe because of the victory he so clearly thought he had achieved. When he realized just how close my car was to the overpass, however, it shrank back and I scolded myself.

  Making William frown seemed to be just one of many regrets I would take with me. And while my instincts told me he wasn’t trying to be cruel, it was clear I had overstayed my welcome and someone who looked like him, who was kind and interesting and clearly well-off must have had a girlfriend at home—hell, maybe even a wife and kid. While I probably could have found a way to hurt myself right then and there, I didn’t want to burden him anymore than I already had, didn’t want to risk making him feel guilty or responsible when he had already been so damn nice to me. Therefore, I would play the nice good girl my mother had raised me to be, get in my car when he drove me there and let him think he had done a good deed. If nothing else, I could give William that for his trouble.

  We were quiet on the drive and I literally bit my tongue, keeping my eyes shut and pretending I didn’t feel his eyes on me. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to be driving slower than before, and when it occurred to me why, I almost started laughing out of the sheer ridiculousness of it.

  The poor guy probably thought I was going to jump straight out of his car and into oncoming traffic.

  When we finally did get to the medical office parking lot, my car looked strangely foreign to me—smaller somehow and unimportant compared to all the vehicles I had been exposed to that night. Without hesitation, I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door to escape. It would be awhile before I had an opportunity like this again, but that was okay too. Maybe I could plan it out even better, try again at a note, or even try to make it look like an accident—

  “Hey Jumper, are you gonna be okay?”

  I looked forward then back to him. “My car is here.”

  I got out before he could stop me or say anything else charming to remind me of what a screw up I was, how dismal my existence had been. But just so he wouldn’t think of me too terribly, before I closed the door behind me, I forced myself to smile (the way Mom had taught me) and said thanks.

  “Um, thank you for breakfast—dinner—whatever.”

  As quick as I could without quite running, I walked to my car and started it up as if I had meant to do that all along. I waited for William to pull away but he didn’t, even then, and I had the most distinct feeling he wouldn’t—at least not until I was safely on my way somewhere else.

  I waved to the rearview mirror then, cursed to myself silently. William still didn’t budge.

  William Do-gooder O’Reilly was serious about his responsibilities.

  Well, wasn’t that nice?

  I pulled out slowly, not bothering to hide how miserable I felt or how annoyed I was when I saw his car imitate mine motion for motion as I drove towards my house. Knowing it was childish, I didn’t bother with my blinkers or headlights the entire way home: a nerd’s rebellion. Briefly, I glanced at the clock on the radio. Though the morning hadn’t quite reached five, the sun was well on its way to coming up, so even if I wanted to, there wouldn’t have been a chance of jumping from the bridge without being spotted beforehand.

  Leaving the clock, my gaze returned to the rearview mirror. William was still there, following at a safe distance. He wasn’t going to try and follow me home was he? Surely his intervention ended hours ago.

  At my first red light, I looked back to see he had disappeared, leaving the road behind me as empty as the house would be when I got back to it—a testament to just how little my absence in the world would have made if William hadn’t come along. The more I thought about it, the less I thought I could handle it—the emptiness of my house, and my life.

  I gripped the wheel and released it, gripped it, and released it. The sky around me was getting lighter and lighter as the minutes passed. Before long, the joggers would
be out, the young mothers with their sleepless babies and playful pets.

  Judging by the way the sun moved across the garage, I sat in my car for a good hour before I got out and lugged myself inside the house. Once again, I was terribly sleepy, ready to close my eyes but no longer sure how to make it permanent—my ambition to die just as great, but not as aggressive.

  I slept until mid-afternoon, something I hadn’t done since the depression started. Yet how exactly it had started was fuzzy. Even before the event, there was a feeling of dissociation that I felt from my friends. Between the National Guard, backpacking through Europe and internships in DC by the time the end of junior year rolled around almost everyone I hung out with had grand, big plans for after high school. I, on the other hand was going to stay at home and go to college—a decision that everyone assured me was both practical and smart.

  Wise. That’s what I had been, wise.

  What I failed to tell my friends and teachers was my lack of choice in the matter. Mom and Dad were both adamant on helping me with college—Mom, however, was the only one who put conditions on it, saying that I had to pick a realistic major, something along the lines of computer science, or medical technology. Anything, she insisted that resulted in a reliable paycheck and reputable career.

  After four years of nagging, I finally picked business as a major—the only decision that had made her and Dad truly proud. And since Dad’s alma mater gave me a better shot at getting in, I applied to Southern California University as a safety school, looking for more of a reprieve from Mom than anything else.

  My real goal was Texas A&M; not, however, for its academics or even its famous football team, but rather because it had been a lifelong dream of his. At the time any wants and needs of his had been my own.

  We were soul mates after all.

  It feels strange to think about it—even though it’s been well over a year since he broke my heart—how true love, soul mate, and all that other stuff can change tenses so quickly. Wasn’t true love supposed to be forever? If there was someone made for everyone, and only one someone, how were you supposed to go on when your one and only didn’t want you anymore?

  The small clique of girls I had been friendly with were supportive in the beginning, hanging out with me until I cried my eyes out and binged on ice cream and Fritos only to gradually give-up when the novelty of a brokenhearted friend wore off. In the end, I couldn’t blame them for it. After all it wasn’t their fault that they were going away to school, had lives of their own and dreams to attend to. Even Mom had been supportive that first week, saving her ‘I told you sos’ for a day or two until she couldn’t stand my blubbering anymore and told me I needed to get over it.

  God knows, I sure as hell tried.

  Once the worst of the loneliness set in, it was hard to think about anything else—about how much I hated college or my late blooming awkwardness around my new classmates. It was like being lost all of the time. Unable to ask for directions, I had spent most of the last two summer feeling sorry for myself and interning at Dad’s office—delivering coffee and making sure phones, touchpads, and computer’s were charged. I think it was entirely possible that the only reason I still kept going to class every day was so I didn’t have to listen to my parents complain otherwise.

  When all the friends who promised to come home for the summer after freshman year didn’t, I began spending more time at work, going in early and staying even after I punched out, just so I could pretend to have somewhere to be. The thing I discovered about loneliness though (the only evidence of reading my way through positive thinking and self-help books) was that being alone makes you more observant, and, like the world’s worst philosopher, I began seeing the terrible in people, the dark corners in every room, and the sadness in each pair of eyes.

  It was at the beginning of my sophomore year in college that I really began to think that if I was really lucky, a meteorite would crush me from the sky above.

  It may as well have ended right then and there, because once I got the idea of ending my life, it was all I could think about. Literally. My grades fell as I imagined all the creative ways to die, to fall asleep and never have to drag myself through another pointless day ever again. I researched the odds of getting kill by a foul ball at a baseball game. Tried to calculate how much of Dad’s good beer I’d have to drink before I died of alcohol poisoning. If I antagonized a large dog, what was the likelihood it would rip my throat out?

  Overall, I had come up 67 different ways to die—only 16 of them being very realistic for me. Keeping them in my head, I never wrote them down, all too aware of Mom’s propensity for going through other people’s things and having no desire to get hopped up on antidepressants.

  Once fully awake I got up and went to the bathroom. The diner food after a day of not eating, cramped my stomach and I regretted my lack of jumping more than ever. Looking in the mirror certainly didn’t help either. A string of syrup had a piece of hair stuck to the side of my lip, and though I didn’t think it was possible, it only made me feel more pathetic. I leaned forward and pulled my eyelids down. My irises were dark, but plain, just like my hair and the rest of me. I hadn’t been graced with Mom’s naturally luscious lips—as she loved to frequently tell me—but at least like a lot of Italian girls, I didn’t have facial hair all over the place. Overall, I thought my only other positive physical features were my tapering chin and the fact that my skin hadn’t broken out since sophomore year when Mom had all but insisted I go on the pill.

  After brushing my teeth twice, I got in the shower, standing directly under the shower-head so that the pressure might soothe my headache. Only a few minutes later did I make myself reach for the shampoo and then the conditioner. It was difficult, but I did it anyway. My depression had worked its way into in my arms and my fingers and I could barely scrub the smell of grease and syrup out of my hair.

  Yet thinking of syrup brought me back to the memory of William and I cringed.

  Why did he have to be there? Why couldn’t he just have driven away? More importantly, why did he have to be so damn nice about everything?

  I hardly had any clean clothes left, but I did manage to find a clean pair of pajama pants and an old tank top. When I became completely conscious of the laundry situation, I threw a few things into the washer. I hadn’t minded inconveniencing Mom with dirty clothes beyond the grave, but if I had to keep living a little while longer, then clean clothes were a basic necessity.

  Closing the doors to the utility room I stepped out into the hallway and ran my crooked toes against the carpet. For their tenth anniversary Dad paid for Mom to re-carpet the upstairs and get drapes custom made for every window other than the little vent thing in the attic. I thought it was funny, considering neither of them were around enough to appreciate it, and once they were up, Mom decided that she hated the color in the dining room, and never should have let me choose the colors for my room.

  At least, William spent his money on something he was passionate about—obviously all of the street racers did. I didn’t know much about cars—other than the typical price of an oil change—but from what I had seen, racers spent more on lights than what I made working at the bakery a month. Mom and even Dad would probably snuff at that, turn up their noses and talk about the practicalities of a certified pre-owned Volvo, the racers seemed to genuinely love their cars, loved the racing, and I envied them.

  Envied that they loved something and got that love back in spades.

  I wandered around the house, desperate for something to do other than lingering in my thoughts. My homework was backed-up, but I couldn’t make myself do it anymore than I could make myself text my parents one last time. So, I retreated to the kitchen instead—a messy place of worship for when I knew I had to make myself get up and do something. I preheated the oven and got out the mixing bowls, though not with even an ounce of the enthusiasm I used to have.

  While working, I flicked on the TV wedged between two cupboards—a good dis
traction to keep me from feeling alone. But even when I began the routine of preparing the icing bag and flipping through the channels, I found that nothing could distract me.

  For the cake batter I added the Dutch chocolate, four, eggs, and water before I started stirring. Though I had a few recipes memorized—nailed down in my head like a carving on a tree—experimenting was still the greatest thing to do. When that exactly stopped being fun too, I hardly remembered. Probably around the time Mom quit encouraging me to playing in the kitchen, and do other, more productive things with my life.

  When I finished the mix I stirred harder, less consistently like cooking shows had taught me. There was something intriguing about being reckless, breaking the rules—even in this small way. I almost laughed to myself. Even if they were far from my favorite, it was too bad I didn’t have the ingredients for a French-toast maple cake—a silent dedication to William Do-gooder. The thought of him alone inspired the image of tires spinning in my head, and before I knew it, bits of egg and flour had splattered on the counter and side of the refrigerator.

  I chucked a little louder to myself. So maybe I was crazy after all and so maybe I shouldn’t have said thank you for keeping me from jumping, but I definitely should have said thank you for taking me to the race. William was right about that if nothing else: everyone should see at least one street race before they die.

  The first batch had only been in the oven for a couple of minutes when the doorbell rang, the annoying chime that Mom had custom picked out reminding me of her every time someone came to the door. Luckily, that was almost as infrequent as Mom and Dad being in the same building for more than one night.

  I put the last of the dishes in the washer and headed for the window. Odds were that it was just a salesman, one of those Avon ladies my mom always made best friends with. Yet, when I looked through the blinds I could have fallen over.

  What in the hell was William doing here?

  I ran my fingers through my hair just as the bell rang again. Who did this guy think he was anyway coming to my house like this? Just because he saved my life, didn’t mean I owed him anything. But what if he thought I did? Tried to blackmail me for money or something? I ran over our conversations in my memory and tried to recall whether or not I had told him about how much I wanted to keep my suicide away from everybody else. I didn’t think I had, but what if he could sense it anyway? Knew it just like he knew I was about to jump and held it over me?