Loose

by Coo Sweet

  "Listen, I need to go. Can we do something tomorrow? Hang after school?"

  The interruption had given Jasmin time to think about what she was doing. The confidence she felt when she’d dialed Sage’s number was slipping away.

  "I don't know...I…" Jasmin stammered.

  "Come on. Nothing serious. Just hanging," said Sage.

  "I'll think about it, okay? Let you know at lunch."

  "Alright. Fair enough. See you tomorrow. I’m glad you called."

  "I am too. See you at school," Jasmin said.

  Sage clicked the phone off. He pressed his lips together. He worked the corners of his mouth back and forth. His shining disposition had lost some of its luster.

  He made a quick sweep of the room before heading to dinner. He put away a magazine Peyton had read, straightened objects on his desk. He smoothed the creases on his bed, even though he'd be in it soon.

  Satisfied with the way things looked, Sage reached under the bed. He dragged the notebook out and flipped through the pages. His expression wavered from indifference to outright disgust. He slammed the notebook shut.

  At the dinner table, Nadine and Halloran watched Sage with concern etched on their faces. His head was down, and he picked at his dinner. He might as well have been eating tasteless cardboard for all the enthusiasm he showed. Several cryptic glances passed between his parents. Unable to take the tension any longer, Nadine cleared her throat.

  "What were you so deep in thought about earlier? I had to call you to the table three times."

  Sage looked up. His eyes were blank, unfocused.

  "Sorry, Ma. I must've been daydreaming. It was nothing. Lots of stuff going on at school…you know?”

  Alright, way to get to the root of the problem, Nadine thought. She peered at her husband for back-up.

  "So who was the young lady that called? She sounded nice," said Halloran.

  “Yeah, unlike that rude heifer who called earlier,” Nadine chimed in. “She slammed the phone down without even saying bye.”

  Sage’s color drained a little.

  "Someone else called today? What was her name?" Sage asked, suddenly more animated than he’d been since they’d started eating.

  "Robin, Raiden...something like that. I could barely understand her," Nadine said.

  Sage stabbed a bite of food, shoved it in his mouth.

  "So what's her name…uh…their names?" his dad tried again.

  "Rav--I mean Jasmin. She's new at school. I met her yesterday.”

  "And the other one? The one who hung up on me," asked Nadine.

  "That was probably, Raven."

  "So, what’re you doing, son? Trying to exercise all your options?" Halloran asked with a chuckle.

  Nadine shot him a look that warned don’t make me hurt you.

  "What? You know I was only kidding, baby," said Halloran.

  "They're both just friends from school. No big deal," Sage said.

  His tone elicited a raised eyebrow from Nadine. He realized he had struck a nerve and rushed to smooth it over.

  "Dinner's really good tonight, Ma. Any left?"

  "Thank you. Sure. There's more, but it looks like your plate's pretty full already," Nadine said, casting a stern eye toward her son.

  "Oh. Right."

  Sage started shoveling food in his mouth. Happy to see someone else on the hot seat, Halloran risked a tiny smile in Nadine’s direction. She glared at him, picked up her knife and tore into her food.

  Chapter 10

  Sage lay in bed staring vacantly at the ceiling. Nadine breezed in with a stack of folded clothes that she placed in his dresser drawers.

  “Hey, baby. Not sleepy yet?” she asked.

  When he didn’t answer, she glanced over her shoulder. Sage looked like he was ruminating on the answer to world peace, or something equally important.

  Nadine walked over to the bed. She sat close to him and stroked his forehead. It startled him, like he was just now noticing she had come into the room.

  “You okay, Sage?”

  He managed to form his mouth into a sad smile to bolster the lie he was about to tell.

  "Sure, Ma. I’m fine."

  "Really? Because if this is your fine face, I’d sure hate to see your not so fine face."

  Her attempt at humor was lost on him. His eyes started to mist up. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded, but the tortured look on his face begged Nadine to press him.

  "Come on, baby. Tell me what's wrong."

  That’s when the tears spilled. He swiped them away and dropped his chin to his chest. Nadine placed a shaky hand under it and made him look at her.

  “What is it, son? Tell me.”

  Sage exhaled deeply, "Serenity."

  "What? What about her?" asked Nadine, with her brows knitted together and her mouth set in a grim line. Sage gulped for air, trying to compose himself.

  "I can't get her off my mind lately. She’s like this black cloud always hanging around in the spaces there. I close my eyes, and I see her like she’s standing right in front of me," Sage whimpered.

  "Oh, baby, I’m sorry. It's been so long. We’d hoped you had--"

  "Put it behind me? Trust me, I've tried. I try...all the time. I just can’t shake that scene, Ma. Can’t shake thoughts of her."

  "Sage, we didn't know you were still struggling with this. Do you want to see the doctor again? Would that help?"

  "I don’t know…maybe. Or maybe I just need to push harder to work through it," Sage said.

  More tears slid down his cheeks. Nadine flicked them away like hot ashes. She pulled Sage tight to her chest and squeezed him hard.

  "Can I ask you something, Ma?" he whispered into the hollow of her neck.

  "Anything, baby. You know that."

  Sage pulled away from her and steeled himself for what he was about to say.

  "How long do you honor a promise you made to someone who's gone? Someone you'll never see again?"

  "Oh, Sage, who's to say? It depends. That’s something you have to decide, but I will say this…whatever you do…don't let the past steal your present. Life's too short to keep grasping at things you can’t change."

  Sage closed his eyes. When he opened them, he grunted as if he’d just rolled a huge boulder off his chest. He nodded in affirmation of his mother’s advice. Seemingly resolute now, his face mellowed.

  Nadine breathed a big sigh of relief. She pulled Sage back into her arms. His body loosened--surrendered to her embrace.

  "Thanks, Ma."

  "For what, baby? Looks like you figured things out just fine. Now get some sleep. You need it."

  She kissed her boy on his forehead and got up from the bed.

  "Love you, Ma."

  "Love you, too, baby."

  Nadine left the room.

  The second she was out the door, Sage got up and went to his dresser. He retrieved the box with Serenity's earring in it. He took the box and buried it at the back of his bottom drawer deep under the clothes where he was less likely to stumble upon it.

  The atmosphere at Peyton’s was full of unpleasant memories and personal regrets, too. When he’d gotten home from the Gentry’s, his house was dark and quiet. That was nothing new. It was just he and his mom living there.

  Peyton had lost his dad to a car accident when he was still a baby. His older sister moved out and went away to college when Peyton started high school. Since his mother worked the night shift at a local hospital, Peyton was used to eating alone and keeping himself entertained when she wasn’t there. Sometimes in ways she definitely wouldn’t have approved of.
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br />   As soon as he stepped through the door he started his nightly ritual. He flipped on every light in the house except the one in his mom’s room. Then he turned on the widescreen television in their den. Last, he turned on the television and the stereo system in his bedroom.

  When he’d first started what seemed like a personal quest to single-handedly keep their local power company in business, Peyton’s mom had complained fiercely. She didn’t appreciate the rising cost of her monthly utility bill.

  So Peyton had been forced to pull out the big gun in parental guilt tripping. He complained about being left home alone so much while his mother worked long hours as an emergency room nurse. Sure enough, that did the trick. His mom never mentioned the bill to him again.

  Once his immediate surroundings were illuminated and filled with sound, Peyton got busy on the dinner his mom had left in the fridge for him. She knew how to rattle some pots and pans, and perhaps to ease more of that pesky old parental guilt, she always fixed his favorite meals.

  Tonight’s selection was a spicy Thai dish Peyton really loved. He ate it cold while he sat in front of the widescreen television. Normally he wouldn’t have eaten in the den. He didn’t like the feelings that room stirred up when he was home alone.

  The den was where his mom displayed a lot of pictures of her late husband. She thought it was important for her son to have abundant visual mementos of his father, since Peyton had been so young when he’d passed away.

  Sometimes Peyton thought it was kind of pointless. How do you miss something you barely remember having?

  Nights like tonight--when he’d had cool moments messing around with Halloran--made it especially painful being around all those reminders of what was absent from his life, yet he’d chosen that spot to eat his dinner.

  Looking at the photos of the handsome, fun loving man he would never really know made Peyton’s food stick in his throat. That, in turn, made his thoughts drift to the ridiculous possibility of a slow, painful demise from choking to death on his mom’s Thai food.

  For some reason, though, he’d felt compelled to subject himself to the pain of being alone in this room with the photographs and mementos that rattled those ghostly chains. The chains which anchored him to his dead father.

  As much as he hated to admit it, Peyton knew exactly why he was there in that space. Serenity. Plain and simple. Whenever Sage forced him to talk about her or some random stimulus caused memories of her to hijack his thoughts, he felt the need to punish himself. Not so much because of something he’d personally done to her, but the things he’d wanted to do, and the things some other doggish, horny boy had succeeded in doing.

  After all, wasn’t that why she was dead? Because some dick had spilled his seed in her, got her pregnant, then left her to deal with the situation on her own? In so many ways, Peyton was that boy. A boy who used girls for what he could get then cast them aside like old basketball shoes.

  As much as Peyton recognized that in himself, he felt powerless to fix it. He needed all those connections with random females. Nothing else seemed to fill that gaping hole inside him. That place just below the surface of his emotions where he buried his longing for a father he never got to know. The same place he hid his desire for a relationship like the one Sage and Halloran shared.

  Sitting there in front of the television, Peyton forced the food into his mouth and choked it down with tears. Tears for dead Serenity, and tears for his dead father.

  Chapter 11

  Tia’s phone rang just before she sprinted out the door for school. She almost didn’t answer it, but when she glimpsed Raven’s number on the caller ID, she scooped it up with a quickness. It had to be something juicy or it could’ve waited until they hooked up at their lockers.

  “Hey, girl. What up? Why aren’t you on your way to school?” Tia asked.

  Raven cleared her throat, “I feel like shit, T. Cramps. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah. I feel you. So what’s up? You want company or something?”

  Tia perked up at the thought of a ditch day--even if it was with Raven.

  “Nah. Actually, I need a favor. Think you could do something for me?”

  “For sure. You know I got your back. What is it?” Tia asked.

  “There’s a little problem I need to fix…”

  Tia got to school early, before the masses started rolling in. She casually strolled down an empty hallway until she came to a particular locker. She glanced over her shoulder then reached into her purse and pulled out a note. Tia slipped the note into one of the slots on the locker door. A devious grin spread across her face.

  By the time Jasmin made it to the same hallway it vibrated with activity. She forged through the crush of bodies with an easy, determined stride. When she reached the row of lockers she stepped to hers and spun the lock.

  Jasmin unlatched the door, and a note fell out. She smiled. Must be from Sage. She scooped the note up and unfolded it.

  Her smile faded as soon as she started reading: Bitch, stay away from my man. Or I'll mop this school with your ass!

  The words made Jasmin’s breath catch in her throat. She flung the note away from her, scrubbing her hands on her shirt like she'd been contaminated by some caustic substance. She bit her lip to stall the tears pooling in her eyes.

  A random foot in the crowd stepped squarely on the note and kept right on trekking. The sight of the dirty black shoeprint contrasted against the clean white paper made Jasmin’s vision blur.

  She snatched the note off the ground and crammed it in her backpack. Jasmin scanned the sea of faces swirling around her, foolishly thinking she could get a fix on a likely suspect. Even if she had seen Tia hanging around a few lockers away from hers, Jasmin wouldn’t have recognized her as someone to be leery of.

  Royally pissed and deeply hurt, she slammed the locker door shut. She tucked her head down and tackled the swirling concourse of bodies in the hallway.

  At lunchtime the cafeteria was full of the usual chaos--blaring music, banging trays, unceasing chatter. Sage walked in. He zoned in on Jasmin right away. Sage bounded over to her table like a big goofy puppy. All smiley-faced, he confidently commandeered a seat across from her.

  "Hey, what's up?" he chirped.

  Jasmin gave him a look icy enough to induce frost-bite. She grabbed her things and switched tables. Sage followed her, his face full of question marks.

  "Hey, what's wrong? What did--" Sage asked.

  "Stay away from me, okay? Don't speak to me. Don’t call me. Don't even let me cross your thoughts. You’re a liar, Sage. And the last thing I need in my life is another lying man." Jasmin threw a wadded napkin at his chest to emphasize her point. She got up and stormed out of the room.

  Sage was paralyzed, too stunned to give chase.

  At home after school, Sage sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. The phone rang. He ignored two rings. Then something dawned on him and he lunged for the cordless. It might be Jasmin.

  "Hello!" He didn’t even try to disguise his breathlessness.

  "Sage?" It was Raven.

  Sage exhaled loudly.

  "Yeah. What do you want?"

  "I need to see you. Can you come over?" said Raven.

  The sound of tears in her voice softened the tension in his body.

  "What's wrong, Raven?" he asked. His tone a lot more patient than it had been seconds ago.

  "Just come. Please?" Raven wept softly into his ear.

  "Calm down, okay? I'm on my way. See you in a few." Sage grabbed his keys and dashed out the door.

  They sat on the couch in her living room. Raven sniffled, passing a tissue from one hand to the other. Her eyes were puffy from crying. There was a faint bruise on one side of her
face, and her nose was slightly swollen.

  Sage couldn’t stop staring at the marks on her. He rubbed her back to try and distract himself.

  "This have anything to do with me being here the other day?" Sage asked.

  "No. She had a rough day at work. Came home in a bad mood. Guess I was the easiest thing to take it out on."

  "She ever hit you before?"

  "A few times. Not in the face though. That's why I skipped--"