by Autumn Grey
Her nostrils flare, and she bites out, “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”
I blink at her, confused.
“So which one is it?” After a beat, she adds, “My reputation. The one that says I’m a bitch or the one that says I’m easy?”
Wait, what just happened?
Understanding dawns on me and dread quickly follows behind. I want to kick my ass all the way out of Deb’s Diner. “Grace—”
“So you’re here to see if you can get lucky, aren’t you? Jesus. I thought that shit would stay in high school after graduation.” She slumps back in her seat and drops her gaze to her laptop. “Leave.”
I study her for a few seconds. “Shit, Grace. That’s not what I meant.”
“Leave,” she bites out, but I can hear the pain she’s trying so hard to hide through the anger.
I scoot out of the booth and stand in the aisle, but her gaze remains on the table in front of her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I glance around the restaurant before taking a step in her direction and stop. “You’re terrified of anyone getting close to you. I get it. But don’t slam doors in the face of someone who’s just trying to be your friend. Not everyone is like those guys back in high school.” I lean my head closer. Still, her head stays down. “I know you try so hard to be forgotten, Grace, but I see you. And now I know you see me, too.”
With that, I pull back and spin around without waiting for her response. But before I can get far, she calls my name. I stop and face her once more. Her gaze meets mine.
“Fuck you, Solomon Callan.”
I flinch at her words. “All I want is to be your friend,” I say again.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Haven’t you heard? Talking to me or being seen with me is enough to tarnish the reputation of a good boy like you.”
Wow, this conversation went south real quick. From the looks of it, there’s no way of repairing the damage I’ve caused with my careless words.
I walk back to our booth where Ivan is still seated, feeling like a monumental asshole.
“Looks like you made quite an impression,” he muses as soon as I settle across from him.
“You think?” I retort.
It rubs me the wrong way that she thinks so low of me. Clearly, she needs some sort of enlightenment. I might rub one out every now and then while thinking about that elegant curve of her neck—God, forgive me—but getting in her pants is not what I had in mind when I approached her.
I grab the menu and pretend to peruse it. “Let’s order; I’m starving. If I have to wait one more second, I might end up eating my own foot.”
“She’s probably just having a bad day,” Ivan mutters, obviously trying to excuse her behavior.
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Or she’s PMSing,” he muses thoughtfully. “MJ turns into a foul-mouthed beast when she’s going through that.” He pauses. “Speak of the devil . . .” He trails off as the sound of a door squeaking closed joins the diner’s hubbub.
I look up and see MJ, Ivan’s girlfriend, scoot in next to him on the seat and plant a kiss on his mouth. She and Ivan have known each other since childhood, before her parents packed up and left Portland for New York. They only started dating after graduation a few weeks ago when she came back to Portland to visit her grandmother.
She leans back and focuses her green eyes on me, smiling. “Did you finally talk to her?”
“Hello to you, too, Mary-Jane,” I say, shooting Ivan a lethal glare. I should have known that nothing is sacred when it comes to these two. Of course he’d tell his girlfriend everything.
She tucks her brown locks behind her ear, unmoved by my sarcastic tone, and grins at me while pulling out a yellow paper from her front shirt pocket. She lays it flat on the table and presses her palm on it to remove the wrinkles, then slides it in my direction.
“Sublime Chaos will be playing at Mike’s Bar as part of the Fourth of July entertainment. You should totally ask her to go with you before someone else does.”
Ivan and I share a look. We both know the chances of someone asking her are quite slim. MJ spent most of her high school years in New York and only came back here to visit her grandmother during the holidays. She has no idea about the rumors that followed Grace through high school.
All of a sudden, I want to ask Grace to go with me—strictly as friends—if only to prove to her that not everyone from high school is an asshole.
My gaze flickers to the booth at the back, only to find Grace watching me. Before I can read her expression, she ducks her head and starts fumbling with the papers scattered across her table.
“So plan B,” Ivan says, and I focus on him again.
I raise my eyebrows. “There’s a plan B?”
“If you’re planning to go to war, you always need a plan B.” I start to protest, but he waves his hand, dismissing my words. “Anyway, as I was saying . . .”
I tune him out as my mind wanders back to Grace. That girl needs a friend. I saw her, saw the fear written all over her face that I’ve never noticed before today. There was bitterness and loneliness there, too. For just a second, she reminded me a little of Seth when he first joined the youth group. I hate that life has changed her from that ten-year-old girl with an optimistic smile and encouraging words.
She’s like a rose whose petals have been trampled on so many times that the only form of protection she found was to build a fort of thorns around herself. Keep everyone at arm’s length.
I’ll find a way to get through those thorns.
I’ll show her I can be the friend she needs, even if she doesn’t realize it.
Stunned into silence, I watch Sol’s long legs cover the distance back to the booth where Ivan is sitting. In mere minutes, he literally tipped my world upside down with just a few words and managed to take my mind off my current predicament of tackling the Brown issue with my mom.
I sigh, reluctantly admiring the way his gray T-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, and the way those shorts hug his hips.
I shiver involuntarily, my eyes squeezing shut in an attempt to squash the sight of him still haunting my vision.
Wrong move.
The mental image of his eyes is all I can see behind my closed lids; the way he looked at me—still a bit shy, but there was also playfulness in them and a hint of . . . something wild. Something that wanted to be let loose.
To explore.
In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him look at me like that.
He probably doesn’t realize what’s simmering inside, but I can see it clearly because I recognize those same things inside myself. Every time I look in the mirror, my reflection stares back at me, and I see a yearning for freedom in it, the need to run wild.
My eyes open, and I take a fortifying breath before focusing on Sol. Regret slams into me.
Why am I so paranoid? Sol was just trying to be friendly, and I treated him as though he’s the enemy.
This is what happens when you are so busy trying to keep everyone at arm’s length.
I learned early on that boys hurt you and break you. I love living in my own world and ignoring everyone. Ignoring the twinge of loneliness I sometimes get when I see couples holding hands and sharing tender smiles and sweet kisses.
Admittedly, ever since the pep rally at Winston High three years ago that brought my reputation crumbling down around me, I kept my head down. I chose to ignore everyone at school and bide my time. I knew they talked behind my back and actively avoided me like I was contagious. The people I thought were my friends dropped me like I was garbage. Something nasty they couldn’t stand to be near. So I armed myself with confidence and disinterest and stopped giving a shit about anyone but myself. It was like surviving a jungle filled with snakes and creepy-crawlies.
I bite my cheek to smother a reluctant grin when he looks over his broad shoulder at me. And when he slides back into the seat ac
ross from Ivan, a gust of air rushes out of my mouth, the weight of it knocking me back in my seat.
Wow.
I force my gaze back to my laptop.
I can’t remember the last time anyone was as determined to talk to me as he seemed to be. I want to ignore the fluttering inside my belly and brush him off, but his words cut through me like a well wielded sword. I want to go back into my little bubble where I feel secure from my own insecurities, but I’m not sure it’s even possible now.
Something fills my chest. Something warm and foreign. I bite my bottom lip when a goofy smile threatens to split my mouth into two.
On a scale of one to ten, Sol is definitely a fifteen—a tall, lean-muscled giant of a boy-man with a mop of longish, dark hair he keeps hidden under a baseball cap. A strong, square, scruffy jaw, broad shoulders, trim waist, and narrow hips giving way to long legs. When he put his elbows on the table, I almost licked my lips at the sight of all the veins running up his arms and hands.
My breath catches in my throat as I realize I’ve memorized so much of Sol without even trying or meaning to. And now I’d lumped him with the rest of the assholes in school.
Part of me is desperate to believe he wants to be my friend. I want to believe he can be trusted. The way he watched me with rapt attention sitting across from me, those blue eyes made me feel like I was free-falling into the wide-open sky. Even though he seemed nervous, it didn’t stop him from approaching me and talking to me.
It’d taken him eight freaking years to gather the courage to finally talk to me.
Oh my God. I’m such a bitch.
My thoughts are interrupted when a familiar girl with dark brown hair enters the diner and glances around. She seems to find what she’s looking for, and a dazzling grin takes over her face as she heads to the booth Ivan and Sol are occupying. Even from here, I see her cheeks flush across her tanned face.
Mary-Jane Walker, known around town as MJ, is stunning. She’s slightly taller than me. I’m shorter with a body full of curves. She walks with purpose and confidence as if she’s already figured out her whole life. I can see why Ivan can’t take his eyes off her. He is just as confident as she is. I like him. He and Sol were the only people in Winston High who were always kind and smiled at me, even when my only response was a sour look of disbelief.
“Okay, you’re officially freaking me out.”
Those words snap me back to the present. I jerk upright in my seat and look up at my mom leaning over the table with both hands planted flat on its surface.
I clutch the silver pendant attached to my necklace nervously and stare at my laptop’s screen to avoid her gaze. “I’m almost done working on—”
“Grace, sweetheart.”
I stop talking and look up at her.
“Smiling looks good on you.”
In her voice, I hear wonder and hope. In her wavering gaze, I see shadows swirling in the brown depths. There are bags under her eyes, evidence that she hasn’t slept in days.
Her fingers twitch as they sweep back a dreadlock from her forehead. She sits down across from me, momentarily swaying sideways before righting herself and smiling reassuringly. Even from this distance, I can smell it. The faint smell of alcohol slams into me.
My stomach twists as realization hits me. She’s been drinking even though she’s trying to hide it by smiling at me. Then the reason she’s drunk hits me, sending panic through my body. I’ve been so busy freaking out about my own issues I completely forgot how sad she gets around this time of the year.
Alcohol seems to numb the pain. On most days, my mom is one of the strongest people I know, but not today. And not for the next few days.
I hate my father for turning her into a mess after he left when she was pregnant with me. Hate the cloud of hopelessness that hangs over her and the sudden fear that shadows her eyes. She must have loved him so much that the memory of him cripples her emotionally. It’s actually terrifying knowing I probably have the same capacity to love someone that much and that it could destroy me in the process. Which is why I don’t blame her or beg her to stop. I believe we all experience heartache in different ways. Some have it worse than others, and if alcohol dulls the pain a few days every year, I won’t stop her.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
Instead of answering me, she lays her hand on the table between us with the palm facing up. Instinctively, I place mine atop hers. She grasps it firmly, then fixes her gaze on mine. I watch the fear in them recede. Does she think I’ll abandon her too?
“You know you’re stuck with me, right?” I tell her. “Nothing will ever separate us. Never gonna leave the way my—”
She nods quickly. “I know, sweetheart.” She falls silent, her eyes losing focus for a few seconds. Then she shudders and blinks several times, her grip on my hand becoming desperate. “I want to tell you so much. So much, Grace. . .”
My heartbeat accelerates in my chest. The sudden change in her scares me, and I’m not sure I want her to tell me whatever it is that has her looking so destroyed.
She takes a deep breath, and the distressed look vanishes as quickly as it had appeared.
“You’re a godsend,” she says, her words speaking her truth. “You know that, right?”
She gave up everything for me. When I look up into her eyes, the blinding love shining in their depths comforts me.
“I know,” I whisper, still shaken from the change in her seconds ago.
“I wouldn’t trade you for anything, Gracie.”
That much is true. I’m alive and breathing because she traded her dreams to keep me. Yet I’m about to burst her bubble about the Brown issue.
“I want you to be happy,” she says, and I see and hear the truth in her words.
“I am happy,” I reply, but the words sound forced in my ears.
She studies me for a few moments in silence, then finally sighs. She pats my hand and stands up, swaying on her feet. And even though she’s drunk out of her mind, her words are steady as she says, “Go talk to Sol.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “But he’s a—”
“Boy. He’s a boy, I know.” She swallows hard, washing away the words burning her tongue. “Gavin hurt you, but that doesn’t mean all boys will treat you the same.”
I want to tell her the same thing. I want to tell her just because my coward of a father walked out on us doesn’t mean all men are bad. But I suspect that won’t go over very well. Sometimes I get the feeling there’s more to the story than my father simply leaving. Even my grandparents haven’t been able to shed light on what happened eighteen years ago.
Mom avoids men like the plague—except Father Foster and Mark, Beverly’s fiancé—which is why I’m surprised she’s pushing me to talk to Sol. I wish she had someone who loved and cherished her like she deserves.
She wets her lips and whispers, “I haven’t seen you smile in a long time. Until now. He made you smile.” She pauses, eyes turning misty. “It pains me to see you hurting.”
It breaks my heart to see you hurting, too, Mom. I swallow those words and just nod.
From over Mom’s shoulder, I see Beverly—Mom’s best friend and the other half of Deb’s Diner—heading for us. She eyes me with sympathy, understanding clear in her eyes before turning to my mom. She angles her body, partially shielding us from the growing lunch crowd, and I’m so grateful. Sol keeps sneaking looks in my direction. I’m not sure how long I can keep my shit together as I watch my mom.
Beverly is a year older than my mom. They’ve known each other since Mom arrived in town eighteen years ago, pregnant and almost penniless. Beverly took her in and gave her a place to stay in her family’s home until Mom could stand on her own two feet. I have a feeling she knows more than I do about my mom and her life in New York.
Beverly slides one arm over my mom’s shoulder. “Why don’t we let Grace finish the bookkeeping, Debs?”
Mom’s gaze darts to my laptop, then back to my face, eyes swimming with tears. I b
reathe through my nose slowly, trying to keep my own tears at bay. I hate seeing her like this, but I just have to remind myself she needs this and that in a few days, it will be over.
“I have a little surprise for you later,” I tell her, eager to tell her anything to cheer her up. “After we close the diner.”
Immediately, her eyes light up, and she gives me a wobbly, teary smile. “I love surprises.”
“Good.” I exhale, relieved, and grin at her. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, sweetheart.”
Beverly raises a brow at me in question, and I subtly nod to let her know I’ll tell her about my plan as soon as Mom’s out of earshot. My mom suddenly grips Beverly’s arm, halting their progress, and leans forward to whisper something in her ear. Her friend nods vigorously and tries to pull her past the counter to the back office.
Mom wipes her cheeks with her free hand. This time, the words are much louder when she says, “I don’t think I can tell—I . . . I can’t lose her, Bev.”
“You won’t,” Beverly reassures her, then murmurs something as she leads my mom the rest of the way.
The second they walk away, I let my shoulders drop and bury my face in my hands.
What the hell is she talking about? And why would she think she’s going to lose me, even after I reassured her?
Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you very much for turning Mom into this version of herself.
Does he ever think about me? Is he married? Does he have a family, maybe a daughter? Could I be replaced so easily?
My hands curl into fists against my eyes, and I breathe in deeply.
Just a few more days, Grace, and she’ll be back to normal.
I drop my hands from my face, but the hairs on the back of my neck are tingling like crazy. My gaze, like a compass pointing to a destination, zeroes in on Sol. He’s watching me with a troubled look on his face. He’s always watching me, but I’ve never given it a second thought. I used to brush it off back in high school, never holding his gaze for too long. But after our little chat today, his glances feel more tangible, and they seem to hold more meaning.