The Fire Between High & Lo

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  “Yeah.”

  “He got me that one year for Christmas, and we started the tradition that every night we’d listen and sing a song before I went to bed. Then, in the morning, we’d wake up and sing a song, too. Modern music, oldies, anything. It was our thing. Sometimes my sister Erika would come in and sing with us, sometimes Mom would yell for us to turn down the sounds, but we always laughed and smiled.”

  “Is that why there’s always music playing at night when I come to see you?”

  “Yeah. It’s funny how I play all the same songs that he and I used to, but now the lyrics all seem so different.”

  We kept the conversation going all night long.

  I fed her raspberries while she fed me her dreams.

  She fed me raspberries while I fed her my fears.

  We stared out at the night sky, feeling safe and free for a while.

  “Do you ever think about how insane people are?” I asked. “There are over three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. Three hundred billion specks of light reminding us of all that is out there in the universe. Three hundred billion flames that look so small. Yet they are literally bigger than you could ever imagine. There are all these different galaxies, all these different worlds that we have never, and will never discover.

  “There’s so much wonder in the world, but instead of giving a damn, and taking the time to come to the realization that we are all very, very, small in a very, very miniature place, we like to pretend we are the alphas of the whole universe. We like to make ourselves feel big. And we each like to make our way seem like the best way, and our hurts seem like the biggest hurts, when really, we are nothing more than a tiny burning dot that makes up a part of the giant sky. A tiny dot that no one would even notice was missing. A tiny dot, that will soon enough be replaced by another speck which thinks it’s more important than it actually is. I just wish people would sometimes stop fighting about stupid mundane things like race, sexual orientation, and reality television. I wish they would remember how small they are and take five minutes a day to look up to the sky and breathe.”

  “Logan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love your mind.”

  “Alyssa?”

  “Yeah?”

  I’m falling in love with you…

  “Thanks for tonight. You have no clue how much I needed this. You have no clue how much I needed you.” I lightly squeezed her hand. “You’re my greatest high.”

  Chapter Five

  Logan

  “Lo! Lo! Lo!” Alyssa screamed a week later, running toward me in the pouring rain. I was on the highest stair of the ladder, working on cleaning the third floor windows from the outside. Obviously Ma only asked me to clean them when it was pouring rain outside. Alyssa’s voice rattled me, making me send the bucket of water (which was mainly rain water) crashing to the ground.

  “God, Alyssa!” I shouted toward her.

  She gave me a slight frown, holding a bright yellow polka dot umbrella over her head. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Cleaning the windows.”

  “But it’s raining.”

  No shit, Sherlock, I thought to myself. But then I realized it wasn’t Alyssa’s fault that I was cleaning the windows and she didn’t deserve my bad attitude. I climbed down the steps of the ladder and stared at my friend. She took one large step toward me and held the umbrella over both of us.

  “Your mom made you do that?” she questioned with the saddest looking eyes I’d ever seen.

  I didn’t reply.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, slightly angered. I didn’t live in the kind of place that Alyssa did. I lived in a shit neighborhood, and it wasn’t the safest place for any person, especially someone like Alyssa. There was a basketball court down the street where more drug deals happened than games. There were the individuals who stood on the street corners from morning to night, hustling each other, trying to make an extra buck. There were the prostitutes who walked up and down the streets, strung out. And there were the gun shots that were always heard, but luckily I never saw them hit any targets.

  I hated this place. These streets. These people.

  And I hated that Alyssa showed up here sometimes.

  She blinked a few times as if she’d forgotten her reason for coming over.

  “Oh yeah!” she said, her frown turning into a full blown grin. “Ass-Crack called me! I wanted him to come to my piano recital tonight, but he didn’t call me back, remember? Until now! He just called me and said he could make it!” She squeaked. I blinked, unmoved.

  Ass-Crack was known for making these kinds of promises to Alyssa and he always had a way of backing out at the last minute.

  “Don’t do that,” she said, pointing a finger at me.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t give me that, ‘Stop getting your hopes up, Alyssa,’ look. It’s not like I called him, Logan. He called me. He wants to be there.” She couldn’t stop smiling. It actually made me sad for her. I’d never seen someone who was so in need of feeling wanted in all of my life.

  You’re wanted, Alyssa Marie Walters. Promise.

  “I wasn’t giving you that look,” I lied. I was definitely giving her that look.

  “Okay. Let’s do pros and cons of the situation,” she suggested. Before Alyssa and I graduated high school that past June, we were in a history class where the teacher made us make pro and con lists for all of the wars that ever happened. It was so freaking annoying, plus, our teacher had the most monotone voice ever. So since then, Alyssa and I started doing pro and con lists for any and everything, using monotone voices of course.

  “Pro number one,” she said, her voice becoming numbingly bored. “He shows up.”

  “Con number one, he doesn’t,” I replied.

  She wiggled her nose in annoyance. “Pro number two, he shows up with flowers. He called and asked me what my favorite flower was. You don’t do that if you’re not bringing someone flowers!”

  Daisies. Ass-Crack should’ve known her favorite flower.

  “Con number two, he calls and cancels last minute.”

  “Pro number three,” she said, placing her hand on her hip. “He shows up and tells me how amazing I am. And how proud of me he is. And how much he missed me and loves me.” I go to open my mouth and she shushed me, dropping her monotone sound. “Listen, Lo. No more cons. I need you to look at me and be happy for me, okay? Even if it’s a fake happy!” She kept smiling with a high-pitch sound of excitement in her voice, but her eyes and hiccups always told how Alyssa was really feeling. She was nervous, scared that he’d let her down again.

  So I put on a smile for her, because I didn’t want her to be nervous or scared. I wanted her to actually feel as happy as she pretended to be. “This is good, Alyssa,” I said, lightly nudging her in the arm. “He’s coming!”

  A deep exhale left her and she nodded. “He’s totally going to be there.”

  “Of course he is,” I said with a fake confidence. “Because if there’s anyone in the world worth showing up for, it’s Alyssa-Fucking-Walters!”

  Her cheeks reddened and she nodded. “That’s me! Alyssa-Fucking-Walters!” She dug into her back pocket and pulled out a ticket that was in a zip-lock baggie. “Okay. So I need your help. I’m paranoid about Mom finding out I’ve been trying to talk to Dad. I don’t want him anywhere near our house. So I told Dad he could pick up the ticket from you here.” Alyssa looked at me with hopeful eyes that her plan was okay. It didn’t go unnoticed to me that she was now calling him “dad” again instead of Ass-Crack. That made me sadder for her.

  I really freaking hoped he showed up.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. Her eyes filled with tears and she handed me the umbrella to hold so she could wipe her tears away.

  “You’re the best friend a girl could ever have.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek a total of six times.

  And I pretended not to notice how my heart flipped six times too.r />
  She didn’t notice it, did she? She didn’t notice how she sparked my heart each time she stood near me.

  Chapter Six

  Alyssa

  “How was your rehearsal?” Mom asked, when I came back from Logan’s house. Instead of going to rehearsal, I drove over to his place and begged him to give a ticket to Dad. I couldn’t tell Mom that though—she wouldn’t understand. She sat inside of her office, typing away at her computer, doing what she did best, working. She had a glass of wine sitting next to her, along with the whole bottle beside the glass. She didn’t look up toward me, and before I could reply, she said, “Toss any of your dirty clothes into the laundry basket in the bathroom. Then if you could, wash them and fold the load in the dryer.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And I made a lasagna, if you want to toss that into the oven at four forty-five for an hour.”

  “Okay.”

  “And please, Alyssa.” She stopped typing and turned my way, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can you stop leaving your shoes in the front hall? It’s honestly two steps to the left to put them in the closet.”

  I glanced down the hallway at my Converse shoes laying tossed in the hallway. “I put them in the closet.”

  She gave me a “bullcrap” frown. “Put them in the closet, please.”

  I put them in the closet.

  When dinner came along, Mom and I sat at the dining room table, her looking down at her cell phone, answering emails, and me looking down at my cell phone, commenting on Facebook posts.

  “The lasagna tastes different,” I said, poking my fork around it.

  “I used egg white omelets instead of pasta.”

  “But isn’t it lasagna because of the noodle? Like, the name of the noodle is legit called lasagna. Without it, we are just eating eggs, sauce, and cheese.”

  “This way it has less carbs, and you know how I told you that you should be watching your carbs before you go out to college. The freshman fifteen weight gain is a real thing, and plus, I read an article about how those who are already overweight tend to gain more weight than the normal people.”

  “Than the normal people? Are you saying I’m not normal?” I felt my chest tighten a bit.

  Mom dramatically rolled her eyes. “You’re overly sensitive, Alyssa. I wish you could be more stable like your sister Erika. Plus, her eating habits are ten times better than yours. I’m merely stating the facts. You need to watch what you’re eating more, that’s all.” She quickly changed the subject. “You never told me how your rehearsal was,” she said, taking a bite of her dinner.

  “It was fine,” I replied. “You know me and the piano, same ol’ same ol’.”

  She huffed. “Yeah, I know. Sorry I can’t make it to the recital thing tonight. I have too much work.”

  Over the top, dramatic eye-roll from me, which she didn’t notice. She never made it to any of my recitals, because she always thought music was a hobby, not a life choice. When she found out I was going to college to study music therapy, she almost refused to help pay for my schooling, until my sister Erika talked her out of it. Even though my sister was just like my mom when it came to being realistic, she still believed in my music. Maybe because her boyfriend Kellan was a musician, and she loved him and the depth of an artist.

  Sometimes I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time when Mom wasn’t so harsh—wasn’t so ruthless. In my memories, I sort of remembered her smiling. But maybe those moments were just my imagination, wishing for something beautiful to hold on to. Did she become cold the day Dad walked out? Or did his warmth just hide her icy soul for a while?

  “I think I’m going to head to the music hall to get ready for tonight. Thanks for dinner, Mom,” I said, as she poured herself some more wine.

  “Yup.”

  As I tossed on my light jacket, my Converse, and my handcrafted purse that Dad bought me when he traveled to South America for a concert, Mom called after me. “Alyssa!”

  “Yes, Mom?”

  “Start the dishwasher before you go. And go dry that load of clothes. And pick me up a pint of ice cream from Bally’s Cream Shop. Make sure to skip getting some for yourself, though. You know, freshman fifteen and all.”

  ***

  I felt like my chest was caught on fire.

  Seat 4A was empty still when I peeked out from behind the stage. He was coming, I promised myself. He called me, he said he would be there, I thought. With daisies.

  I loved daisies, they were my favorite flowers, and Dad knew that and was going to bring them to me. Because he promised he would.

  “You’re up next, Alyssa,” my instructor said. I could feel my heart pounding against my ribcage. It felt as if I were falling apart with every step I took toward the piano. I was suffocating, knowing that he wasn’t sitting out there, lightheaded knowing that everything out of his mouth was nothing but lies. Lies. Hurtful, useless lies.

  And then I looked up.

  Pro.

  Seat 4A was filled.

  He came.

  I relaxed against the piano bench and allowed myself to get lost in the keys. My fingers connected to the piano, making magic happen. Making the sounds of my soul fill the space. I didn’t mean to cry, but a few tears fell as I played. When I finished, I stood and took a bow. The audience wasn’t supposed to applaud until after everyone performed, so the bad players wouldn’t feel terrible when they didn’t receive the loud roars of the room. But the boy in seat 4A was standing with a single daisy in his hands, clapping like crazy, hooting and hollering.

  I smiled at the boy with a suit too big for him.

  Quick, without thought, I ran into the audience and wrapped him into a hug. “The ticket was for you, anyway,” I lied into his shoulder.

  That’s when he held me tighter.

  Who needed Ass-Crack, anyway? I had Logan Francis Silverstone.

  That was good enough for me.

  Chapter Seven

  Logan

  “Your suit is too big,” she said, tugging at the sleeves that hung past my fingertips. The single daisy I gave her sat behind her left ear since we left the recital.

  “It’s Kellan’s,” I explained. “He drove out to drop it off when I realized Ass-Crack wasn’t going to make it.”

  “You’re swimming in it,” Alyssa joked. “But you still look handsome. I’ve never seen you dressed up before. Did you like the recital? It wasn’t my best performance.”

  “It was perfect.”

  “Thanks, Lo. I think we should do something fun tonight. Don’t you think? I think we should, oh I don’t know…do something wild!” She was talking and talking and talking, something she was very good at. As she walked, she spun in circles, smiling and talking, talking and smiling.

  But I wasn’t completely listening to her, because my mind was somewhere else.

  I wanted to keep telling Alyssa how amazing she was at the piano recital, how she was better than everyone else who performed. How she made me feel alive just from how her fingers played the keys. How she made my eyes never falter from her the whole time. How when she hugged me, I wanted to never let her go. How I sometimes thought about her when I was doing random things like brushing my teeth, or combing my hair, or searching for clean socks. I wanted to tell her everything I was thinking because all my thoughts were her.

  I wanted to tell her how I felt about her. I wanted to tell her how I was falling for her. I wanted to tell her how I loved her wild hair, and loved her mouth that was always chattering about something or another.

  I wanted to…

  “Logan,” she whispered, frozen still on the sidewalk. My hands somehow landed against her lower back and I guided her closer to me. My breaths were falling from my lips as they hovered inches away from her mouth. Her hot exhales were mixing deep with my heavy inhales as both of our bodies shook in each other’s hold. “What are you doing?”

  What was I doing? Why were our lips so close? Why were our bodies pressed against each other? Why cou
ld I not break my stare? Why was I falling in love with my best friend?

  “Truth or lie?” I asked.

  “Lie,” she whispered.

  “I’m fixing the flower in your hair,” I said, combing her curls behind her ear. “Now ask me again.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked as I moved closer, feeling her words brush against my lips.

  “Truth or lie?”

  “Truth.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” I told her. “Not even just now, I mean all the time. Morning, afternoon, night, you’re on my mind. I can’t stop thinking about kissing you, either. I can’t stop thinking about kissing you slow. It has to be slow, though. Because the slower it goes, the longer it will last. And I want it to last.”

  “That’s the truth?” she softly spoke, staring at my lips as she hiccupped once.

  “That’s the truth. But if you don’t want me to kiss you, I won’t. If you want me to lie, I’ll lie.”

  Her eyes locked with mine, and her hands fell against my chest. My heartbeats hammered against her fingertips as she inched closer to me. She bit her bottom lip and a tiny smile found its way to her. “You’re my best friend,” she whispered, tugging on the bottom of her polka dot dress. “You’re the first person I think of when I wake up. You’re the one that I miss when you’re not lying in bed with me. You’re the only thing that ever felt right to me, Lo. And if I were honest, I’d say that I wanted you to kiss me. Not just once, but a lot.”

  Our bodies wrapped together, and I felt her nerves racing through her as she kept hiccupping.

  “Nervous?” I asked.

  “Nervous,” she replied.

  It was awkward, but at the same time felt exactly how I’d always hoped it would. Like we were meant to be.

  I shrugged.

  She shrugged.

  I laughed.

  She laughed.

  I parted my lips.

  She parted her lips.

  I leaned in.

  She leaned in.

  And my life changed forever.