by Emily Bishop
Wasn’t that all anybody wanted?
Eric cut the engine outside of a barn house, painted red and molding out. It was clear it had been abandoned years ago. The pavement was crackled, and grass poked through. Out there, the silence was peppered only with the sounds of crickets. The sky wasn’t as light and sunny as it had been, and instead was laced with purple—hinting at the onset of evening.
“Where are we?” I asked Eric, sliding from the side of the motorbike. I waited, hands on my hips, watching the sunlight bounce from the windows of the barn house.
“Some old shitty house someone abandoned,” Eric said, standing beside me. Our hands hung at our sides, no more than a few inches away. My fingers flickered, yearning to touch his. But I held back, not sure what this all meant. What he wanted from me. Or what, exactly, I expected from him.
“Okay,” was all I said, waiting. I decided to let him make the first move. To let him tell me why we were here. I took several steps toward the barn house. Inside the kitchen window, I could still see a coffee maker, all set up. As if someone was expecting to awaken in the morning, ready to burn their tongues to meet the day.
Eric called from behind me.
“Why the hell are you going to the carnival dance with that asshole, Freddy?”
At the door of the barn house, I spun on a toe, eyeing him. Lifting an eyebrow, I assessed him. Between us, the air was expectant. I half wondered if he’d dart toward me, thrust me against the barn house door and take me. Finally take me. After all those years slumbering beside one another, our eyes darting mid-sleep, hungry for a future that involved only us.
Above us, the air shifted, the winds changed. Tree branches flickered left and right, casting shadows across his face. My sass was dissipating in the silence, and my heart burst, reminding me that he’d asked a question I hadn’t yet answered.
“My mom and dad really want it,” I finally said.
“And that’s enough for you?” Eric demanded.
I brought my slight shoulders skyward, unsure of anything anymore. His dark eyes burned in the air between us, making me feel terribly small. No longer the cheerleading captain, the straight-A student, the “girl who was going somewhere.” Rather, Eric could whittle me down, make me remember who I was. Normally, I was grateful to him for this. Not now.
“Fuck off, Eric. It’s not like you’re even graduating,” I told him.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Eric demanded. “You think that school is the end-all, be-all, don’t you? I thought you were smarter than that, Olivia. I thought you could see through people like Freddy.”
“I’m the cheerleading captain, Eric!” I shrieked. “I’ve signed up for this life. And it makes my parents happy. It makes the school happy. I get scholarships from this shit.” I scuffed my foot against the stoop of the barn house, on a spot that had been sanded down, presumably by a million forgotten boots. “Plus, this is my last month of it. After this, I’m escaping. I’m going to college, Eric. I’m going to run fast and far…”
“Then don’t stoop to that asshole!” Eric cried, his eyes flickering with anger. “You are better than all that. And hell, if you’re not careful, you’ll get stuck in this stupid-ass town with some asshole kid of Freddy’s. You’ll have some asshole football husband who demands, I don’t know, nachos for dinner and that you wear your cheerleading outfit to fuck in. And I can’t handle it, Olivia! I know you’re fucking better than all of this. I won’t stand for it.”
He smacked his fist into the palm of his other hand. He approached me as he rammed his fist into his palm once more. The glint in his eyes reminded me of his father, the eternally scary Isaac Holzman, and I backed toward his motorbike, quivering.
“Don’t be such a dick, Eric!” But this did nothing but force Eric’s hand into the nearest kitchen window, scattering glass atop the counters. I stared, my lips open wide. The glass poked into his skin, causing great gushes of blood to filter off, dripping to the ground and onto his pants.
“Jesus, Eric,” I cried, striding forward. With a quick motion, I pulled my shirt over my head and began to rip it into strands. Standing in only my bra and my miniskirt, I was conscious of Eric’s eyes roving over my skin. But the panic was too great for any sexual act. Quickly, I wrapped up Eric’s hand, tamping the blood. My nostrils flared, I glared at him.
“Are you going to fucking get over it, or are you going to kill yourself over something as stupid as the fucking high school carnival dance?” I demanded. “Let’s go.”
I followed him, wordless, back toward the bike. He drove us, his hand still seeping through my T-shirt, about two blocks from my house, where I hopped off—without speaking—and scampered the back way through the trees, toward my bedroom window.
Deep inside, there was nothing but an urgent desire to spread my legs for this eighteen-year-old man. To tell him there was no one else but him. To tell him that I didn’t want to go to the carnival dance with Freddy—that I’d wanted to be with Eric Holzman, and only Eric Holzman, since I’d been a much younger, much stupider girl.
But I didn’t have the strength.
I boosted open the small cracked window to my bedroom from the backyard, slipping my leg through and landing, soft, on the carpet on the other side. Huffing, running my fingers up and down the length of my torso, I stared at my wide-open door. Through the crack, I could hear my parents fighting. It wasn’t something they did often, not if they thought I was around. Creeping toward the staircase, I eased my forehead against the wall, craning to hear, tugging a shirt on as I did.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you want her to stay in this town? Be with us? Have a life in Randall?” my father was spewing. “Jesus Christ, it’s as if you want her to go off and sleep with half the guys at the nearest college. You know what goes on there, don’t you? Drugs. Alcohol.”
They were talking about me.
“But if she settles down with Freddy, gets a good job downtown…” my father continued.
“It’s not like we’ll lose her if she leaves,” my mother sighed. “I just… When you told me to set up this date with Freddy—tell his mom, you know, that it would be a good idea… I didn’t think she’d go through with it. I thought she was smarter than that.”
“No. She knows what’s good for her. She knows she needs to stay here. Take care of her roots. Take care of her parents. Give us grandchildren.”
It was so strange, hearing my father echo back precisely what Eric had said back at the barn house. I backed toward my bed, splaying my hands over my mouth, feeling tears oozing from my eyes. On my nightstand sat the letter that stated I’d gotten into the university in Raleigh: area of study to be determined. “There is so much to learn out there,” my English teacher had told us, her eyes directly upon me. “So much outside of this little town of Randall. I hope you all remember that. And don’t get bogged down with—with silly high school relationships. Just because you love your boyfriend right now, doesn’t mean he’s worth giving up your entire life for. Know that.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to picture it: the first day at the university in Raleigh, the trees wide and shuffling with vibrant green, the dorms filling with other bright-eyed students, pillows pressed beneath their arms, their parents bucking up the steps and carrying boxes. Tears shed, yet words assured: this was the necessary step toward the rest of your life. This would allow you to find your destiny.
But a pang of regret flashed through me, even as I envisioned this world. Eric, this man whom I ached for. Where would he wind up, after the curtain was drawn on our high school years? I imagined sneaking him into my dorm just as he’d snuck into my bedroom at night since we were eight, nine years old. I imagined him slipping beneath the sheets, his fingers flickering along my thighs and finding refuge between my legs. I would spread my legs wide, open myself to him. I would whisper, “I’ve never done it before.” Because I knew, somewhere in my heart, that I wouldn’t have. Not yet. Not before him.
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br /> I wouldn’t do it with Freddy, the night of the carnival. I would do my duty as his date, and give him a dance. But then, I would leave Randall and forge a new life, elsewhere. And, if I could, I would take Eric along with me. We’d only ever needed one another.
Chapter 17
Olivia
Present Day
From the front porch, I watched the line of townspeople stumble toward the funeral home in their Sunday best. They wore black shoes, which shone against the pavement, and they whirled their hand toward me on the stoop.
We’d only just arrived back from the hotel. Max had been silent the entire way, conscious that my thoughts were racing a mile a minute. He understood that Grandpa was a problem—he just didn’t realize how big of a problem. I didn’t want to let him in on that. Kids should be kids, unlike what I’d experienced, what Eric had.
When I’d turned my phone back on, upon walking through the door, I’d found myself faced with the harsh reality that my father had been hunting for us. That he’d alerted the police about our absence. His texts were blisteringly angry, sure that I’d run off with Eric. “You know what’s going to happen to you if you wind up with him,” one text read. “I’ve given my life for you, Olivia. I’ve made sacrifices, like any good father would. And this is how you treat me? I suppose you don’t want to be taken care of anymore. But do you know what it’s like out there in the real world? Do you know what it’s going to be like without my money coming in?”
My father had been the only constant in my life for twelve goddamn years.
And now, I had to fight it with everything I had.
I refused fear, but it kinda crept up on me, regardless.
And now. The funeral. My feet itched to walk there. I yearned to wrap my arms around Eric and whisper that everything would be all right. Not that he needed my reassurance, now. He was a man.
Hank, the ex-footballer and man Eric and I had run into at the steakhouse, rounded the corner, stumbling around the large front bush I’d forgotten to trim. His smile, once attractive, shifted toward me. He saluted me, looking me up and down from the toes of my sandals to the top of my head.
“Well, there she is,” Hank said, as if he had walked directly past my house just to heckle me. “I suppose I expected to see you up at the funeral home with that old man of yours.” He clucked his tongue, searching behind me, into the darkness of the screen door. “Course, I know how old Mayor Thames feels about Eric. A bad seed, he always said, and still does. You should hear the shit he says about him at the government meetings. The fact that he fucked you at that carnival, when you could have had Freddy… Man, you would have been town royalty, you know that? Your daddy thinks you threw your life away.”
My hands clenched into fists. “You done?” I asked.
“Not even close, sweetheart. The rest of the town thinks so, too,” he continued, leering. “Old Freddy still talks about what a big waste of time all that was for him, when he could have had Cynthia. I dropped the ball on that one, ha! Didn’t I? She ran out on me.”
Flashing ponytails. Hank, in his convertible, driving Cynthia away. The smell of Eric’s motorbike, as I’d slid out from cheerleading practice, my heart hungry for the wind through my hair. Freddy in math class, tilting that thick head of his toward me. “What do you say we, you know. Go to the dance together? Football captain. Cheerleading captain. It’s mathematical. Wouldn’t you say?”
“You can’t fucking say no,” Cynthia had whispered, her teeth clacking on her gum. “To Freddy? No fucking way.”
The screen door creaked behind me, the steps of my son against the floorboards on the porch. Hank’s smile twitched slightly.
“It’s time for you to leave, Hank,” I said.
Hank continued to leer. “Why, don’t you see that the sidewalk belongs to everyone? You see that don’t ya, son?” He called to Max. “That’s something you have to learn about the government. You pay your taxes, you can walk on the sidewalk. Now, your dead grandaddy down at the funeral home, you know he evaded his taxes?”
Max tore toward the side of the porch, reaching for an old baseball bat. He ripped it through the air, making a swipe, continuing to stare at Hank. Hank’s smile fell away, making his cheeks dumpy on either side.
“Get away from our house,” Max shouted. “And if I see you at my grandfather’s funeral, I’ll give you a scar worse than my mother’s!” Max cried out. “Get the hell away from us!”
I gripped the baseball bat and took it from him. “Easy, honey. Easy. You can’t let them get to you like that.” But the fact was, they got to us both. This town didn’t only hate Eric. It hated us too, and it was past time we got out of this damn place.
After the funeral, I’d ask Eric to take us with him. Fuck it, I’d promise anything to make that happen. I’d work late hours at a diner, take any job I could to give the kids the future they deserved.
Enough was enough.
“Get lost, Hank. You’re not worth my time.”
Hank actually stepped back as if I’d smacked him full on.
Out front, another stream of townspeople passed us, darting toward the funeral home. Were they leering at Eric’s tragedy? Did they just want to spot the man they’d once forced out of town—see if their damage had been done?
It hadn’t. Eric was different. He would protect us. He wouldn’t abandon us. And the glint in Max’s eyes assured me he needed his father, a fresh start, just as much as I did. I smiled at my son.
“What?” he whispered.
“We have to go,” I told him. “We have to go support your father. He needs us right now. And we need him too.”
Max reached for my hand, and we walked toward the sidewalk, my blue dress rippling over my thighs, and the clouds parting from the sun. Down the street, on the corner, Rachel and her ten-year-old son, Raffi, stood at the stop sign, wearing black. Her son, his skin a deep mahogany and his eyes black, was carrying a casserole dish, filled with green beans. Rachel hollered at us as we approached, her black curls whipping in the wind.
“Olivia! Max!”
I lifted my hand toward her, resolution beaming from my smile. When we reached her, she wrapped her arms around me, weaving her hand over my back. She whispered into my ear, forcing my smile to dissipate.
“Your dad. He’s been on a rampage,” she told me. “Out all over town looking for you.”
But I shook my head. “Rachel, you’ve known me a long time.”
Rachel nodded, pressing her lips together. She studied me for a moment. “Since we were just idiot girls,” she finally said, bringing back those flashing first images of us: twenty-something, lost, with toddlers. Racing around the play place at the local fast food joint, straining to survive.
“You know I’ve tried to stay here and build a good life for Max. I’ve tried to be good to my father, because he helped me when everything went so, so wrong. But Eric’s back. And he’s ready for us. And we’re going to go with him. To finally become a family.”
Rachel tugged me closer to her, pressing her chin against my shoulder. “Baby, I’m so happy for you. So freaking happy. But baby, watch out for him. The mayor. He’s—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I told her.
“Okay. Okay,” Rachel sighed, placing her hand atop Raffi’s shoulder. “Let’s walk the rest of the way. I want to meet this mystery man from all those letters. I want to see who you’ve been hung up on all these years.”
We hurried toward the funeral home. As we walked, my heart floated somewhere in my throat. Each thought was a firework, popping from ear to ear. Hope. It wasn’t something I’d allowed myself in almost twelve years.
But now, rounding toward the funeral home, set on telling Eric it was time to try—to really do this—I felt sure everything was going to be all right.
The door to the funeral home was propped open already for a line of townspeople carrying various trays of baked goods, of casseroles, chattering mildly with one another. As we approached, their chatter
fell away. They eyed me then drew their line of sight toward Max. “My, they look just exactly alike,” someone muttered. I hunted for this onlooker, wanting to stab them with a steely gaze. But they were lost in the crowd. Just another judgmental asshole from Randall. Just another person who’d forced Eric away.
I set my jaw and strode toward the door, cutting in front of the twenty-odd there. Max stepped up behind me, wearing a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. We weren’t dressed for a funeral. But then again—was this truly a funeral for us? It felt more like a joining of souls. It felt more like a reason to pull together the pieces of a dilapidated life and from its mismatched parts build a new and better whole.
Eric stood at the front of the funeral hall, with Maggie propped up in his left arm. She sucked mildly at her thumb, her eyes large and fearful and gazing out at the massive crowd. Eric’s free hand shook the hand of the old tennis coach, someone Eric surely hadn’t had a lick of conversation with when he’d lived in town. Yet, it seemed the old man bumbled word after word from chapped lips, forcing Eric to listen. God, this was hell for him. I really felt for him. I did.
I stepped toward Eric, casting my eyes toward the dead man in the coffin. I’d last seen Isaac Holzman at the liquor store, probably two months before. He’d been fumbling with change, tossing quarters on the counter to pay for another bottle of whiskey. I’d rushed back into the street immediately, my throat constricting. I couldn’t see him. The rush of memories was too great.
Eric’s eyes met mine across the crowd. Immediately, a smile cut between his cheeks. His eyes grew light. Adjusting Maggie against his side, he raised his free hand and beckoned toward Max and I. The movement was clear. Sure. “You’re my family, too. Come up here. Come help me.”
We needed one another. My heart burst against my chest as I slipped my fingers through Max’s, guiding us toward the front. The crowd parted, a Red Sea, as we neared him. Around us, they muttered their gossip, but it slipped away from us like water.