by Amy Sparling
“I’ll walk you outside,” I say.
The old Corolla she shares with her dad is sitting in our driveway. It was her car before her dad’s truck was demolished. Apparently they didn’t have full coverage insurance on it so they were shit out of luck in getting a new one. I’ve done the math a few times, and I know I could afford to buy Ella a new car and make the payments for her each month, but I haven’t mentioned it. Ella is strong and independent and she wouldn’t take a gift like that from me anyway.
I walk with her down my driveway and then I open her car door for her. “Hey,” I say just before she climbs inside.
“Yeah?” she says, turning to me. There’s something sad in her eyes, but I can’t figure out what. Things were fine earlier. We went to the mall and stopped at a Starbucks and then played foosball with Dakota for a while. This entire day was fine, and now she’s acting weird.
I swallow back all of my thoughts because there’s no point in bringing it all up right now when she has to leave. “I love you,” I say instead of everything I’m feeling.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I love you, too.”
She gets in her car and I hover there in the open door so she can’t close it yet. “Have a nice dinner,” I say. “Call me later if you want.”
She nods. I step back and close her door, then watch her start the engine and slowly back away. Just a few months ago, she’d have walked through the grass to her house next door, but now she lives all the way across town.
Once her headlights disappear, I turn toward to the right and stare at the empty lot that used to have Ella’s house. The contractors did a great job of removing every piece of debris, leaving only a concrete slab where a house used to be. I think about where Ella’s bedroom window used to be, about her front door, where I’d always go over there as a kid, and then the years that passed when I’d pretend she didn’t live there because I thought she hated me. Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about Ella. She’s been through a lot and she’s handled it really well. She’s stronger than I am, that’s for sure.
My phone buzzes and I take it out of my pocket to find a stupid weather alert. I slide it away without a second thought. There’s a hurricane in the Gulf, but it’s headed toward Louisiana, not Texas. Unlike that freak tornado last year, this storm isn’t my problem.
###
I’m half asleep in my bed, half watching a Netflix marathon when my phone rings. The sound is so loud it makes me jump, and I knock the phone to the floor. Blinking my eyes, I sit up and retrieve the phone, which now has Ella’s beautiful face on it. I answer her call.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Ethan,” she says. She sounds weird. Maybe she’s tired. “Can you come over? Like, right now?”
I check the time, and it’s just after eleven. “You asking for a booty call?” I say playfully.
She sighs.
Okay … clearly this isn’t a time for jokes. I clear my throat. “Yeah babe, I’ll be right over.”
A funny thing happened when I turned eighteen and graduated high school. My parents got really chill. I guess because I’m a legal adult now, they just stopped putting rules on me. My dad said it’s also because I’m a good kid, so he doesn’t worry. I know I can leave the house right now without asking permission, but it still feels weird. I guess I haven’t been an adult very long.
Dakota is still awake in her room, so I tell her I’m headed to Ella’s.
“Gross,” she says. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”
I leave before she says anything else. As far as I’m concerned, my fourteen year old sister doesn’t need to know a damn thing about my sex life. Hell, I wish she didn’t even know what the word sex even means.
My chest is tight with anxiety as I make the twenty minute drive to Ella’s house. She sounded off, and although we have a great relationship, I keep getting these awful thoughts like maybe she’s about to break up with me. Maybe she’s met someone else. Maybe she thinks I’m just holding her back since she’s about to go off to college. By the time I pull into her driveway, I’ve worried myself into a panic.
I get out of my truck and close the door quietly and then make my way toward the front of the house. I start to send her a text to see if she wants me to knock or wait for her since her parents are probably sleeping.
“Hey.”
I jump. Ella is standing right here, in the darkness, waiting on me. “Shit,” I breathe. “I didn’t see you there.”
She grins. That’s good, right? It means this isn’t a break up visit. “Sorry, I wanted some fresh air so I came out here to wait for you.”
I want to kiss her but I’m still scared as to what this meeting is about. “What’s going on?” I ask.
She throws her arms around me and buries her face in my chest. “My mother.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “What happened?”
She looks up at me and shakes her head, like she can’t believe whatever she’s about to say.
“My freaking mother … UGH!”
“Babe?” I say, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “What is it?”
“So there’s that stupid hurricane that’s hitting New Orleans,” she says. I nod for her to continue. “Mom just volunteered to go work at their hospitals over there. I guess they’re expecting a lot of hurt people or whatever, so they asked for nurse volunteers. And my mom signed up!”
“Wow,” I say. I’m having trouble understanding since my mind is still so relieved that this isn’t a break up meeting. Ella still loves me. Things are good. But this isn’t about me right now, it’s about her. “When does your mom leave?”
“Tomorrow,” she says, tossing her hands in the air. “And Dad is going with her too. Can you believe this shit? They didn’t learn their lesson from that tornado? They just want to rush out into harm’s way to help people?”
I take both of her hands in mine. “Well, babe, I think it’s kind of nice of them. Hospitals are built to withstand hurricanes, so they’ll be okay if they’re inside.”
She huffs, her nostrils flaring. “I mean, I know. I know you’re right, but … I’m just mad. I don’t want them to leave.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say, squeezing her hands. “They’re doing a good thing. And you’ll be staying here, right?”
“Hell yes I am,” she says. “I want nothing to do with any natural disasters.”
I smile and tilt her chin up, kissing her softly. “You could probably come stay at my house while they’re gone,” I offer.
She gives me the first real smile I’ve seen on her in days. “Or you could stay here.”
I slide my hands around her waist and pull her tightly to me. I cannot describe how good it feels to know that everything is okay with us. “Even better.”
Chapter 3
Tuesday morning arrives too quickly. My parents are in the kitchen when I wake up, looking bright and happy unlike most mornings when they look like me—the walking dead. We aren’t a morning type of family, but they’re so excited about their stupid trip to the next state over, that Mom’s even made breakfast for us.
“Waffles!” she says when I enter. “I’ve got strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream for toppings.”
“Awesome,” I say, grabbing a plate and slinking into a chair next to Dad. He’s looking up the weather channel on the iPad he has for work. We have a television in the living room, but no cable, and the antenna signal isn’t very good, so most TV-watching gets done on the iPad.
“Morning, Punk,” he says, not taking his eyes off the screen which shows a radar of the approaching hurricane.
“When is that thing supposed to hit land?” I ask.
“Friday,” Mom says, dropping a waffle on my plate. She takes her plate and sits across from me, reaching for the whipped cream and sliced fruit. “We’re leaving today so we’ll be there well before it arrives.”
“So you’ll be indoors the whole time?” I ask.
Mom nods. “Th
ere’s an entire wing of the hospital that’s just dorms for staff. Dad and I have a room booked and we’ll be able to go from there to the hospital without stepping outside. It’s all very safe.”
“The hospital is built to withstand a category 4 hurricane direct hit,” Dad says.
Right now, the hurricane is a category 5, which doesn’t do much to put my mind at ease. I stab my waffle with the knife and fork and saw it into smaller pieces. Mom’s waffles are amazing, but I have very little appetite right now. Last year when I came home to a destroyed house and found my dad hiding in the bathtub of what used to be our bathroom, I thought that was the most scared I’d ever be for my parents. Now they’re both walking right into the storm instead of staying safe here in Texas.
I heave a sigh. “Why do ya’ll have to go?”
Mom looks at Dad, and they share one of their husband-wife looks that they understand and I don’t. Finally, Dad speaks.
“Punk, when we lost everything last year, the community came together to help us. The Poes took us in, the clean up crew donated their time, and even my coworkers gave me their unused sick days so I could take off work and still get paid. Your mom and I want to give back somehow. We think this is a good option. The people of New Orleans are about to get hit hard, and many will lose homes, power, maybe even their lives. We want to help.”
I feel like a freaking five year old right now because instead of admitting that my parents are awesome, selfless heroes, I just want to stomp my foot and pout and tell them to stay. I try to put my trust in their confidence. My parents are good people, and they’re not stupid. If there was a serious danger of them getting hurt, I bet they wouldn’t go.
I smile as best as I can. “Just be careful. I’ll miss you guys.”
“We’ll be back a few days before you go off to college,” Mom says. “We’ll have to take you and Ethan out to a fancy dinner to celebrate.”
“Sounds fun,” I say, but my stomach does a little flip flop at the mention of college and now I’m even less hungry.
After breakfast, I drive my parents to the airport. Usually, they’d just drive themselves to New Orleans since it’s not very far but the odds of their car getting destroyed in the hospital’s parking lot are too high to risk it. So the good news is that I get to keep the Corolla for the next few days. After we say our goodbyes, I’m driving myself back home and I can’t seem to get the radio to go loud enough to block out all the thoughts that are bothering me.
I’m worried about my parents, but not so much anymore. I did some research on the hospital after breakfast and it turns out that building is pretty strong. They have backup generators and flood gates and all kinds of safety features. My parents will be fine. I worry that the people of Louisiana won’t be so fine, but at least my parents will be okay. Hopefully the residents along the coast will evacuate on time, even if they lose their homes in the process.
When I get home, I’m still feeling like crap. I don’t think it’s my parents anymore. I think I’m just so worried about starting college and the possibility of losing Ethan in our long distance relationship that I tried to put all the blame on my parents. The fact is, they will come home in a few days when the hurricane is over. Ethan will always live hours away once school starts. In a perfect world, Ethan would also have culinary dreams and we could go to the same school and open a restaurant together once we graduate and never have to be apart at all.
Of course, real life isn’t like that.
As soon as I get home from the airport, my best friend April calls. “Perfect timing,” I say instead of a hello. “I just got home from the airport and I need something to take my mind off everything.”
“Well, I was going to suggest getting a pizza for lunch but that doesn’t seem very crisis-fixing,” April says with a laugh.
“Pizza can work miracles, but I’m not sure it can fix this one.” I sigh into the phone as I sit in the Corolla and stare up at my rental house. “Pizza wouldn’t hurt though. What’s Toby doing? Is he coming with us?”
April started dating Toby a few months ago. He’s one of Ethan’s best friends, so it makes for great double dates. April’s relationship isn’t in peril though, since they’re both attending the local community college this year.
“Nope, I told him I needed some girl time,” April says. “I think he’s going over to Ethan’s.”
“Girl time is definitely needed,” I say. “Do you want to come over?”
My rental house may be small and lacking in furniture, but April’s house has her six little brothers and sisters in it, and that’s worse than not having furniture or cable TV.
April arrives with our favorite brick oven pizza from this small hole-in-the-wall pizzeria we discovered on this side of town after I moved here. We eat it on the back patio, because unlike the tiny house, the patio is huge. It’s a wooden deck that stretches across the entire back of the house, and extends out into the yard. There’s built in tiki lamps and a covered pergola and a sound system. Whoever owned this house before renting it out really loved to hang out in the back yard.
I wait until the pizza is gone to tell my best friend what’s been bugging me. I tell her about how I can’t stop stressing that Ethan and I will be one of those couples that can’t stay together after I move away.
April’s long blond hair is pulled into a messy bun that bobs on top of her head as she talks. “Well…” she begins, and I can tell she’s trying hard to think of the perfect best friend thing to say. “I mean, it’ll be hard being apart, but it’s not too far. Didn’t Ethan say he’ll see you every weekend?”
I nod. “But that’s just stuff that people say. Soon enough, he’ll get tired of driving up there and I’ll get tired of driving down here. Our visits will go from once a weekend to once a month to—”
“Ella!” April’s hand grabs mine and squeezes. “You’re spiraling. Take a deep breath.”
I do as she says and inhale slowly. I look out at our large backyard and stare at the leaves on the trees as they sway gently in the breeze. On this side of town, the houses are spread out with several acres of land in between. Unlike in my old neighborhood where each house had ten feet of space between it, I could probably scream bloody murder right now and no one but April would hear it.
I exhale and turn to her. “I have an idea.”
Her eyes widen. “Uh oh…”
“No,” I say with a laugh. “I have a good idea. Let’s have a party.”
April’s eyebrows shoot up. “Come again?”
“A party,” I say, as my mind works out the details. “Here. In the backyard.”
“You’re not really a party person,” she says, eyeing me like she thinks I’ve been kidnapped and replaced with a clone who has more personality.
I roll my eyes. “Not a huge party. Just like ... me, you, Ethan, Toby, and a few friends. We can call it a going off to college party. One last fun time together before everything changes.”
A smile slides onto my best friend’s lips. She glances out at the patio, as if she’s picturing the party in her mind. I go on. “We can get pizza, drinks, blast the music out here…”
She nods. “I like it. Let’s do it.”
“Friday,” I say. “My parents aren’t coming home until next week and that gives us two days to plan it and invite people and clean up my house.”
April laughs. “Your house is pretty clean. I mean, there’s hardly anything in it.”
“You’re right,” I say, frowning. “We’ve lived here for months and sometimes my mind still thinks I’m at my old house. I would have had to clean up the old house.”
She puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a comforting smile. “Maybe this party is exactly what you need. Some end of summer stress relief and fun.”
Over the next hour, April and I choose a guest list, limiting it to about twenty people. We don’t want the cops to get called or anything crazy, we just want this to be a fun night with people we care about. I call Ethan who is with Toby
, and they immediately offer to buy the pizza and drinks. Toby says his older brother can get us beer, and I’m a little hesitant, but I don’t say no. Beer makes everyone happy, so I agree but only if we have at least 5 designated drivers by the end of the night to take everyone home. At first I plan on being one of them because it seems really stupid to get drunk at your own house. I need to be sober to make sure no one does anything idiotic like set the house on fire or steal my mom’s jewelry. But then I think about how getting a little buzz might be exactly what I need to face Ethan with my problems. A dose of liquid courage might help me talk to him.
And we need to talk.
He doesn’t see it, but I do. We need to talk about the fact that I’m moving away for two years, and how a lot can change in that time frame. I don’t want to break up. That’s the last thing I want—but I’m so scared that he’ll drift away and then break up with me. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I don’t need beer to fix this problem. Talking with my boyfriend won’t change the future, it just might delay it a little. If we both promise to stay together, then maybe we’ll believe it. But distance changes people. It makes them grow apart. The thought of losing Ethan makes my heart rip in two. He is my best friend, my favorite person to be around. He’s gorgeous and loving and sweet. Losing him would be the worst thing ever.
I don’t think I need beer.