Rewind to You

by Laura Johnston

  Awkward.

  I pull myself together. “My name is Austin. I’ll be your waiter tonight.”

  Some salt-and-pepper-haired dude in a pinstriped suit snaps his fingers. Kyle’s dad, no doubt, and obviously the one picking up the check tonight. “One firecracker calamari.” He studies the menu, oblivious to the silent and tense interchange going on at the table around him. “And the Aqua Star spiced shrimp to start us off.”

  He orders drinks all around. I jot everything down, as if I’m going to be the one serving it. I have a good idea now what all those text messages from Sienna were about. “We’ll have that right out for you, sir.” I try my best to smile, not making eye contact with anyone but Kyle.

  I turn and leave.

  I’m already untying my apron when I run into Jason near the kitchen. “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” he says and accepts the notepad of orders for the party of five I’m not about to serve.

  “Cover for me tonight, after all?”

  He studies my face. “You bet. Is something up?”

  I take one last glance toward Sienna’s table and see her head turned, searching the dining room. I nod in her direction. “That’s her.”

  When you wait tables with someone just about every night, you can’t help but learn a few things about them. Jason’s one of those prying types, too, so he’s heard about Sienna.

  Jason follows my gesture and eyes the table, no doubt spotting Kyle’s arm on Sienna’s shoulders, his fingers touching the skin of her arm. “I take it he’s not her brother.”

  I chuck my apron and grab my keys. “Thanks, man.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Sienna

  I stand when I see Austin leave. “Please excuse me. I have to use the restroom.”

  Kyle stares me down with a look in his eyes that tells me he’s on to something and he doesn’t like the smell of it. Crap. I tried desperately to convince our parents to eat somewhere else, unsure whether Austin would be working tonight.

  I fake composure as I exit the dining room. When I round the corner, I start jogging to catch up with Austin, my heels clacking against the glossy tile. “Austin!” I call out, spotting him at the end of the hallway. “Austin,” I say again when he doesn’t turn, but I’m sure he heard me the first time.

  His feet stop, and I see his strong composure deflate, like the air slowly seeping from a balloon. It isn’t until I touch his arm that he turns.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea they were staying here until today. I tried to text you, but you never replied. I really didn’t have a say in it. Promise. They sprung this dinner on me last minute.”

  He holds a finger to my lips, stopping the nervous stream of words flowing from my mouth. The touch is so gentle, so tender. Really, I don’t deserve it. His finger slides gently down my chin, and then he pulls away, like I have a “no trespassing” sign across my mouth.

  “You’d better get back to your dinner,” he says with a tight jaw, avoiding eye contact. He turns to leave.

  I grab his arm. “Austin.”

  He shrugs me off.

  “Austin.”

  “What?” he asks, whirling around to face me again. “What do you want me to say, Sienna? It’s fine? Well, it’s not!” He points in the general direction of the dining room, all tenderness gone. “The last thing I want to do is watch that. I tried not to think about this today. You and him. Together. I wasn’t going to let it get to me.” He holds a finger up like a warning signal, pain bleeding from his eyes. “Spend the weekend with your boyfriend. Do whatever you want, for all I care. But don’t—”

  I cup his face in my hands and cut his sentence in half with a kiss. I feel his resistance at first, but then he gives in, his lips moving between mine with an intensity that makes me hold my breath. He pulls away, and I rock back onto my heels.

  “I’m going to Florida this fall,” he says, his voice husky, almost a whisper, “and you’re going back to Virginia, with him. What happens to us then?”

  His eyes drift up and focus behind me as though he’s just noticed something. I turn and feel the air snatched from my lungs when I see my mom standing down the hallway, watching everything.

  I turn back. Before I get a chance to say a word, a look crosses his face, a guarded one I’ve never seen before.

  “Make up your mind,” he says before disappearing into the elevator.

  I barely turn before a hand wraps around my arm and yanks me into the bathroom. The door slams shut behind me, and I look up into my mom’s fiery eyes. I’m unprepared for the hard slap across my face.

  Shocked speechless, I stare at my mom. I touch my cheek, doubting I deserve such a cutting rebuke. Baffled and ashamed.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispers, but there is nothing soft about her tone. “They could have seen you!”

  “You slapped me.” I state the obvious, anger flaring up.

  “You deserved it.”

  “I deserved that?”

  “Oh, please, Sienna,” she says with disdain. “A gentleman takes you out to a nice dinner and you sneak off to kiss another guy?”

  I open my mouth to defend myself, but then I see her side, consider how terrible this must look. My mom is the epitome of everything traditional and civilized. I have to remind myself she grew up in Georgia, where Southern hospitality and propriety mean everything, at least to her family. One simply has no right acting like this, not in my mom’s book.

  “I’m sorry.” I hate the words coming from my mouth. I shouldn’t have to apologize, but it’s what I always end up doing. Even now as I say these two simple words, I see how much they mean to her. I let out a deep breath, exhaling bitter resentment.

  My dad’s death shattered my mom’s social life. All the outings she enjoyed with him as a couple came to a rude stop when she became a widow. It’s that simple. She sees less of the Prices now as a result. I know how much this weekend with them, how much their company on the painful anniversary of my dad’s death, means to her.

  Mom folds her arms, looking at me like I’m an issue she’s about to set straight. “Mess things up with Kyle, and you and your brother will be packing your bags for home.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whisper with a sharp pinch of desperation, wondering why she hates Austin so. I suppose now that she and Gary aren’t an item, she’d be perfectly happy cutting our vacation short and going home. But, not only would leaving Georgia kill me, it would devastate Spencer. He’s bouncing off the walls these days, excited about a party that his buddies on Tybee are planning. If Spencer misses the highlight of his entire summer, he’ll sink into depression. Literally.

  “I just need some time to figure this out,” I say, watching her for any sign of empathy.

  “Time?” she asks. “I don’t understand you, Sienna. You need time to figure things out? With him?”

  “His name is Austin.”

  “I don’t care if he has a name. This isn’t hard to figure out!” An arrogant expression flickers across her beautifully made-up face. “After all, he was the one waiting on us.”

  She turns and marches out the door, the angry beat of her high heels fading into silence.

  I’m standing on the porch of the beach house after a long and uncomfortable dinner, when I sense Kyle approaching. I see his shadow in the moonlight before he wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me into him.

  “Hey,” he says.

  Try as I may, I cannot relax in his arms. I want to tell him about Austin, but my mom’s threat hangs like a lead weight on my tongue. Kyle leans down and presses his lips against my neck. I slither away.

  “Kyle,” I say, at the exact moment he begins to speak.

  “Go ahead,” I say, happy for the delay.

  “Weird how Austin was supposed to be our waiter tonight, but he bailed out.”

  I play stupid, feeling the strain in my throat at broaching the subject. “You know him?”

  “Do you kn
ow him?” he asks. When I don’t reply immediately, he spins me around so I meet his eyes.

  “I was supposed to meet up with a friend on River Street in Savannah one night.”

  Kyle laughs. “That geek, Brian?”

  I shove him, putting a buffer of space between us. “Be nice! Anyway, it fell through, and I was alone—”

  “At night?” he cuts in. “On some street in downtown Savannah?”

  “I was fine,” I say, despite the truth of what happened. “I ran into Austin, and we figured out we were both from Virginia, so we hung out.”

  “Hung out, huh? With a loser from Ghettobrook High?”

  “It’s Meadowbrook.”

  “I don’t give a—” Kyle lets out a stream of curses that would put any high school hallway to shame, punctuated with words here and there I grasp despite my shock. “What were you doing alone on River Street with that—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “I can think of worse names to call him,” Kyle says, all the aggression he saves for the football field coming out now.

  “What’s your deal? How do you even know him?” I ask, surprised either Austin or Kyle would remember each other so well after one football game.

  “Oh, I know him,” Kyle says. “You don’t realize what he’s like, what he’s capable of. You don’t even know who he is, do you?”

  “Why don’t you tell me, Kyle; who is he?”

  “Jake Braham.”

  “What?”

  “Jack Braham,” Kyle repeats. “Austin never mentioned him?”

  “No. Why?”

  “What about his dad?” Kyle asks. “Did Austin ever tell you about him?”

  This, above all, strikes a shaky chord within me. “What about his dad?”

  Kyle chuckles. “Austin really hasn’t told you a thing, has he? I’m not surprised.”

  I’m silenced.

  Kyle grins as he senses my cluelessness. “Oh, Sienna, you’re so naive.”

  This isn’t the first time he’s said this, and I’m sick of it. I’m naive. So what? Maybe it’s better that way. I stand strong, keeping up the pretense. “Who’s Jake Braham?”

  “He went to Ghettobrook, too, and he also went to juvie for selling drugs.”

  “Why should I care?”

  Kyle leans against the porch railing. “Because he’s one of Austin’s best friends.”

  Spurred by a sudden impulse to defend Austin, I’m about to deny it. Then I’m reminded of how little Austin has told me about himself, and I hate the thought that perhaps there’s a reason.

  “Honestly, Sienna, do you think you know him?”

  Yes! And no. Maybe Austin’s friend is a loser, but he isn’t. It seems like so long ago when I met Austin on River Street. But, really, it’s been three weeks. The memory of Austin’s friends, Evan and Landon, and what happened to my dad heaves a torrent of emotions to the surface, planting a seed of doubt. And I begin to wonder: How hard would it have been for Austin to put on a bogus front for three short weeks?

  Kyle shakes his head. “You don’t know him. He’s violent. Total freak.”

  “Violent?” The word rolls off my tongue with all the disbelief it rouses within me. “Kyle, he may have some punk friends, but Austin isn’t violent.”

  “Believe me, Sienna, he is.” Kyle lifts his arm. “Remember this?”

  It takes a second for me to remember the fractured bones in Kyle’s forearm that cost him a painful recovery and the demise of his football dreams. Yes, Kyle dreamed of college football, professional football, all of it. His dad has connections, too. We all thought he’d make it. Then some jerk at a sports grill broke his arm.

  Shock hits me like a numbing wave as I realize what he’s implying. “You’re saying Austin was the one who broke your arm?”

  Kyle nods.

  “What?” I say.

  “It’s true,” Kyle says.

  I cross my arms over my chest, looking away. How is it Austin failed to mention this? And what other details is he keeping from me?

  “That loser came into the grill after the game, all high-and-mighty. Then his friend, that Jake guy, called me a—I won’t say the word because you and your mom don’t like swear words—picking a fight.”

  Kyle’s clarification annoys me, hinting at similarities between me and my mom that I hate to admit, especially after she slapped me.

  “It got out of hand,” Kyle explains. “Nothing serious at first. But then Austin decided to finish it off. Went psycho. Oh, he’s no gentleman, Sienna. The owner kicked him out of the grill and everything.”

  “All of you were kicked out of the grill.”

  “Because of him.”

  The memory of me fading into my second seizure at the mercy of two drunks floats to the surface. Really, Austin didn’t need to throw them down, did he? Was I too blinded by the circumstances to see the aggression Kyle is accusing him of? Seeing my dad then reopened a deep wound that made my heart weak, rendering it vulnerable and eager for anything to fill the void. How is it I never recognized that I met Austin in a moment of weakness? His impossibly good looks and endless charm swept me off my feet. He filled the void.

  “What about his dad?” The question is out before I can take it back.

  “He’s in prison too,” Kyle replies.

  My gaze drifts up, finds Kyle. My heart contracts inside, compressed from all angles. “How do you know?”

  “Stuff spreads. Around the locker room. It’s not hard to figure out, Sienna.”

  So much I didn’t know about Austin, so much he never told me.

  “He thinks he’s something else, some big football star, when in truth he’s a nobody like the rest of his druggie friends. I’ll bet he gets smashed every weekend. Probably sleeps around, too.”

  “Kyle,” I snap.

  “Remember our junior prom?”

  “Kyle—” I say again, sensing his determination can only mean one thing: The way I feel for Austin is painted all over my face. Kyle knows more than I ever dreamed of telling him.

  “You wore that pink dress to the dance, the one that made your hair look like gold and your eyes look like . . . like . . . I don’t know, but they were awesome.”

  I glance away to the wooden balcony, to the moth dancing beneath the porch light, to anything but Kyle. The emotions these memories bring back are reluctantly endearing. I remember Kyle onstage as he was crowned prom king. I watched from below, of course, the girl who was lucky enough to be with Kyle Price. He was popular, athletic, and the secret crush of a number of girls from our school. Kyle comes from a great family, too, and has always had his life mapped out ahead of him, a sure track to the top.

  “Remember the time we Rollerbladed around the park? We sat down and when we opened our sodas they exploded all over us? Or the time I gave you this ring?”

  Kyle’s fingers touch mine, slowly pulling my hand up to eye level. The little diamond flickers in the dim porch light. A persuasive half-grin pulls at his lips. Lips I know well.

  “I have something for you,” he says, and I let Kyle lead me to the porch swing. He hands me a present wrapped far too perfectly for Kyle to have done it himself. I hold it, losing my grip on the fraying thread of belief that Austin is the person I think he is.

  Good luck finding a night when I’m not around. That’s what Austin said. He knew I had a boyfriend. He baited me and reeled me in. Lied to me, even, by omission. I was so charmed, I let it all happen. He left me blinded to the possibility that I’m only one of many who have been wooed by his good looks, blinded to the possibility that he could be just another player. And perhaps someday he’ll walk away for good with no promise of until next time.

  Still, as I unravel the ribbon and peel back the wrapping, I battle with conflicting images in my mind: the reflection of the Austin I’ve come to know and the picture Kyle has painted. I try to make sense of it, to blend them into one whole, but it’s like trying to mix water and oil.

  “I thought you’d like
this,” Kyle says.

  A lump lodges in my throat as I stare down at the framed picture in my hands. The photo is old, one taken before digital cameras. It’s a memory I don’t have, my dad sitting in the dirt holding the hands of a toddler with blond curls. It’s our garden, and I can’t be more than two years old in this picture.

  “Oh, Kyle, how did you—”

  “Your mom helped me find it.” His arm slips around me. I smile, so mesmerized by the photo, I don’t realize how much I’ve relaxed until I’m completely leaning against Kyle’s chest. “I know how hard this year has been for you. I feel like I’ve come to know your dad even better since he passed away, you’ve told me so much about him.”

  I throw him a wary glance, never expecting how much this simple confirmation would mean to me. Kyle was listening all along. And this whole time I thought he didn’t care. The fact that I discounted his concern leaves me with an awful sense of guilt.

  I have no idea who leans in first or who initiates the kiss, but our lips touch in a way that is so familiar I can’t draw back. I’m not even sure I want to.

  Our lips meet again and again. He pulls me closer, and I wait to feel something I might never feel in Kyle’s arms.

  “Wanna head to the beach?” he asks, his breath hot on my neck. “Away from the parentals?”

  “Kyle,” his dad calls from the patio door with uncanny timing. Ted Price calls out again, says it’s time for them to head back to the hotel, and I feel something like relief. My emotions are so whacked though, I have no clear idea what I’m feeling.

  Kyle kisses me one last time, his mouth demanding, reluctant to go. And when I finally draw back, I have no idea how I should feel about anything.

  I just feel empty.

  CHAPTER 31

  Austin

  I pace the sand. I wander through the pavilion, practically feeling the seconds tick by.

  I’m at the pier. See u soon?

  I glance at the text I sent to Sienna, my desperate act of idiocy after another sleepless night. She didn’t even reply. I’m pathetic. It was a craptastic evening after I left the Aqua Star. That should go without saying. While Sienna did who knows what? Don’t go there. I can’t let my thoughts slither that way again. Thus, the sleepless night. I don’t bother questioning what has gotten into me. One word: love. And one thing I’ve learned this summer is that love can get you to do some stupid things.