“Oh, yeah. You were too busy scowling at Ellie and her new mystery man.”
“I think it’s your turn to fuck off.”
He laughs. “So where’s your shit?”
We head back to my room and spend the next half hour carting boxes out to my truck. We work mostly in silence; I can tell Jet is hung over and he’s never been very effusive in the morning. I’m not complaining—my thoughts are spinning as I try to come up with a way to convince Ellie that she and I are perfect for each other—as much more than fuck buddies.
“So I take it the two of you patched things up?” Jet finally asks as he loads my last suitcase into the back of my truck. “You and Ellie, I mean.”
I grunt, heaving a box into place behind the suitcase. “Yeah.”
“The last I saw, you were following her into her room, right? Was she pissed that you had me send the other guy packing?”
“No, she was cool.”
He watches me as I adjust the bungee cords around my belongings. “And you’re not going to fill me in, are you?”
I grin at him over my shoulder. “Guess not.”
“Whatever man. So long as you’re cool, I’m cool.”
I straighten up to face him. “Then I guess we’re both cool. Thanks for your help, this would have taken me forever on my own.”
He shakes his head. “No problem. Your, uh, parents around to see you off?”
I look back towards the empty, quiet house. “Nah, they had to go in to work today.” I try to ignore the clenching of my stomach at the thought. It’s never a good sign for the business when they both have to work Sundays.
His voice grows more cautious. “And Phoebe?”
I tense at my sister’s name. “Haven’t seen her since I’ve been home.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something that would—”
I hold up a hand. “It’s fine.” I look back at the silent, empty house. “It’s weird, though. Leaving without anyone here.”
I turn my attention back to my best friend and we look at each other for a moment before Jet looks away, obviously uncomfortable. “Gonna miss you, man.”
I nod, feeling a lump come to my throat. I’d rather not be leaving, for a lot of reasons. But a main one is the guy standing in front of me. Will he still be here, healthy and whole, when I come home again?
“Thanks, Fred,” he continues, eyes firmly on the ground. “I don’t think I said that before.”
“For what?”
He finally looks up at me, and I’m shocked to see wetness in his eyes. Jet Taylor does not cry. “You saved my life. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
It’s my turn to look away, uncomfortable. I can barely think of that morning without feeling like I’m going to hurl. How he didn’t answer when I pounded on his bedroom door. How I’d finally broken the door down to find him laying on the floor, white as a sheet. Not breathing.
I shake my head, wanting to dispel the image. “You’re going to take care of yourself, right?” I ask, my voice gruff. “No more fucking around?”
He grins. “I think Zoe would kick my ass if I tried anything that stupid.”
I stare at him, hard, not in the mood for joking. He sobers up. “I mean it. I’m good, Fred. You can stop worrying about me.”
Like I’ll ever stop worrying about you, I think, shaking my head. “I hope so,” I tell him instead. “I really do. Because I don’t think I can deal with something like that again.”
He’s starting to get a little pissed, I can tell. His jaw is tight and hands are clenched in his pockets. “You won’t have to. I’m telling you. Things are good.”
I nod, because what else can I do? “I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay? I’ll come down some weekend and we can chill.”
He moves in to hug me, wrapping both arms around me. I hug him back, silently wishing that everything he said is true, that I don’t need to worry about him, that he really will be fine. “Drive safe.”
“I will.”
Then he’s releasing me, slapping my back before heading to his car. He stops at the driver’s door and raises an arm. “See ya.”
“Bye, Jet.”
I watch him drive away before turning back to the house. I need to get on the road myself. I walk through the empty house, taking a last look through the quiet rooms, making sure I left nothing behind. I pull my keys out to lock up, trying to silence the voice in my head that had hoped my dad would make a surprise appearance before I left. Silly to think like that. We said goodbye last night, before I left for the party. Besides, if he’s working Sundays, there’s a good reason for it.
I spend the first hour of my drive worrying about what that reason might be. My dad’s construction business was hit hard by the economic downturn. People just aren’t building new houses right now. Last summer things had seemed better, but since I arrived home in May my dad has been at the office or out on a job site pretty much constantly.
Jet is always telling me that I worry too much. My doctor told me the same thing two years ago when he found the first signs of my ulcer. An ulcer on a twenty-one-year-old kid—it’s pretty pathetic. I’ve tried a lot of things to alleviate the anxiousness that has plagued me since I was ten—meditation, sports, music, even yoga. Therapy. Medication. None of it helps for long.
As I near my apartment, I try to think positively. It’s a new school year. It will be nice to see some of my friends on campus. I’m only a semester away from graduation. And, for all my doubts, Jet really does seem to be doing better. Maybe this year will be the chance for me to relax a little bit. Have fun.
At the word fun my thoughts immediately shift to Ellie and it’s crazy how fast the remaining anxiousness fades away. She shouldn’t have this kind of effect on me, not after such a short amount of time. But thinking about her, re-living our night together, remembering the silly, fun shit we did all summer—all of it has me smiling and tapping my feet along to the music from my stereo for the rest of the drive.
I meet my landlord to get my keys and hurry to get all my stuff inside before it gets too late. It was a hell of a lot faster doing this with Jet than it is on my own, and there’s no elevator in my building, but I finally get the last box up the stairs before dark.
I try chilling out with the TV on for the rest of the night, leaving the unpacking till the morning, but that only lasts for a few minutes. I have a hard time relaxing in the middle of chaos and mess. Instead I set to work on organizing my clothes in my dresser, getting the bed made and linens stored, and placing all my books, DVDs, and CDs on their proper shelf. Feeling much better now that the essentials are taken care of, I pull out my laptop and collapse on the couch, my feet up on the coffee table.
I mess around on Facebook and Twitter before checking my school email. Amongst the typical back to school reminders about bookstore hours and orientations, there’s an email to the engineering department. The heading reads simply, Internship Opportunity.
I open the mail, my interest slightly piqued. As I read, though, my excitement grows. This looks cool. Like, really cool. There’s an engineering firm in the city partnering with the department. The position is normally reserved for seniors in their final semester but they had a student drop out and, therefore, have one open space. Immediately I fire off a response to my advisor, letting him know of my interest, crossing my fingers that I’m not too late.
For the rest of the night I try to keep my mind occupied with other things—there’s a baseball game on TV and my Facebook feed is steadily filling up with school friends returning to campus. But I can’t quite get the thought of the internship out of my head. The experience would be great and, more importantly, would look awesome on my resume. Plus it’s a paid position, which is uncommon. I can use every bit of spare money I can find. My education is completely financed by student loans and scholarships, which doesn’t leave a lot left over for spending money. A paid internship though…
It’s not until
I finally lay down to sleep that I allow myself to think about the other benefit of the internship. It’s in the city, not here in Ann Arbor. And the city is only twenty minutes from Jet and my parents. Twenty minutes for Ellie.
Her laughing eyes dance around in my head until I finally fall asleep.
Chapter Six
Ellie
“Mom? You home?”
I step into the living room of my mother’s house, immediately struck by the smell of pot. I scowl. The living room, predictably, is a mess. Clothes and shoes are scattered around, along with takeout boxes and empty cans of Diet Coke.
“God,” I mutter, stepping over a pile of CDs. “Mom!”
I hear giggling from her bedroom and stomp off in that direction. The door is open, saving me from the trouble of barging in. From the hallway I can see her laying on the bed, one leg resting on the headboard, hands behind her head. She’s smiling at the ceiling dreamily in a way that tells me she is totally baked.
“Mom,” I snap, pushing the door the rest of the way open so I can enter the room.
Her head pops up and her smile grows. “Ellie, baby. I wasn’t expecting you, sweetheart.”
“Apparently,” I mutter, my eyes scanning the room. Her companion is sitting on the floor, leaning against her dresser. I don’t recognize him—but then again, most of my mother’s suitors have a habit of bleeding together in my mind.
“Baby, do you remember Ed?” she gestures lazily at the man who shakes long, sandy brown hair out of his eyes and raises a hand in greeting.
“He-ey,” he says, drawing out the syllable. I roll my eyes and turn back to my mother.
“Kitchen,” I mutter, turning to go. I hear her moving on the bed as I leave the room, then quiet sounds of her talking to Ed fading as I make my way down the hall.
The kitchen is even more messy than the living room. She hasn’t washed the dishes in days, by the looks of things. I pull open the fridge—nearly empty, just like I thought. Of course there’s a six-pack of beer in there. She doesn’t have any milk or juice, but heaven forbid she runs out of beer.
She appears in the doorway to the hall, pulling a flowered silk robe around her petite frame.
“It’s so good to see you, sweetie,” she says, coming forward to brush my hair out of my face. She smiles, patting my cheek. “You look lovely as ever.”
I reluctantly have to admit that she does, too. You’d think that with the amount of partying she does, she’d be haggard by now. But no, my mother somehow maintains her delicate, white creamy complexion. Her eyes are admittedly red from the weed she’d just partaken in, but otherwise they are large and deep blue, just like mine. In fact, we look just similar enough to often be mistaken for sisters. My mother has the same dark, thick curls, the same petite stature—actually, she’s a full inch shorter than me. Somehow it annoys me even more, that she’s still so beautiful when the house, and her life, are such a mess.
“Why isn’t there any food, mom?” I snap, stepping away from her caress.
“I guess I forgot to go to the store,” she says lightly, opening the fridge to grab a beer. She takes it back to the table, pushing a pile of papers from one of the chairs so she can sit down. I lean against the counter, crossing my arms.
“You managed to get your hands on beer and pot,” I remind her. “You couldn’t get some bread while you were at it?”
“Ed brought the good stuff.” She holds up a hand so she can inspect her manicure. Her fingernails are bright purple today, vivid against her pale skin.
I sigh, wishing I could be surprised, but I had fully expected her to tell me that the guy in her room was here because he could supply her with what she wanted. It was classic Jackie Canter.
“You need to eat, Mom. I’m not here anymore to make sure you have groceries. You need to start taking some responsibility.”
She looks up, smiling. “Oh, Ellie. You worry too much. I just haven’t been hungry, that’s all.”
I close my eyes, trying not to scream. It was only a week ago that she had called me, whimpering about how hard it was to run the house without me. Of course, she hadn’t been baked then. Weed had always had the effect of chilling my mother out and making her forget about the essentials.
When I don’t reply, she stands, approaching me. “Come on, Ellie, baby. Don’t lecture me. You’re way too pretty to sound like such an old woman.” I stiffen as her arms come around me. “Ellie,” she sing-songs in her soft, sweet voice. “Pretty, pretty Ellie Rose. Give your momma a break.”
“This place is a disaster,” I mutter. “You live like a hobo.”
She giggles into my shoulder. “That’s because I don’t have my Ellie here to take care of me. You know I was never any good at housekeeping. Remember the Windex disaster?”
I fight not to smile. My mother had once attempted to clean the windows with what she thought was Windex but what was in fact bathroom cleaner. Every surface of glass in the house had been a sticky, sudsy mess.
When I don’t respond she sighs and pulls back. “You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I argue, even though I am, a little. “I’m worried. You shouldn’t be living like this.”
Her eyes get even wider, immediately filling with tears. “It’s hard for me,” she whispers in that wounded voice I hate. “You know I’ve never been very good at keeping it all together, Ells. I try, I really do, but it’s so hard when I’m all by myself.” Her eyes search mine, imploring.
I sigh and hug her back. It’s hard not to respond when she goes all hurt-little-girl on me. The thing is, she isn’t lying. It is hard for her to keep it all together. It always has been, ever since I was kid. She’d only been eighteen when she had me, for God’s sake, I couldn’t blame her for not being able to cope. She did a pretty good job of pretending she could deal with her life for the first few years. But it hadn’t lasted—by the time my dad started driving a truck, leaving us alone for such long stretches of time, she pretty much gave up all pretense of being a wife and mom, choosing instead to spend her time doing what she did best—partying and generally acting like a teenager. When my dad left for good, it had only gotten worse.
I could get mad at her every single day, and it wouldn’t change anything. I could guilt her and berate her, and it would only make it worse. The simple fact was that my mother just wasn’t an independent person. She was too immature and needy to ever truly control her own life. It was the reason she had always relied on me to keep things going. The reason there was a steady stream of boyfriends and new husbands. She couldn’t handle things alone, no matter how much I might want her to change.
So I do what I always do—I sigh, roll up my sleeves, and start cleaning the kitchen.
“You don’t have to do that, Ellie,” she says weakly.
“Whatever, Mom.”
She doesn’t argue again. Instead she perches back in her chair, pulling her knees up to her chest, and watches me as I work.
“Tell me all about the apartment,” she says brightly, all tears and self-pity forgotten. “How much fun are you girls having?”
“It’s been pretty great,” I admit. I’d been begging Zoe to move out of her mom’s house for years, partly to give me a reason to move myself. And it was amazing, to live with a girlfriend and have fun, to act our ages, instead of both being responsible for our adult parents. So I tell my mom about the party we’d thrown for Fred, about the poker game we’d hosted with Jet and Hunter and Everett. About the movie marathons we’d partaken in, and the way we liked to sit up late talking over a bottle of wine. Her eyes sparkle as I talked.
“I’m so happy for you, sweetie.” She grins at me. “You’re living exactly the life you should be. You’re young, you’re having fun.” A ghost of a frown comes over her face, and I just know that she’s thinking about all the things she’d missed out on by having me so young.
“You’re one to talk mom,” I say, trying to ignore the surge of guilt in my chest. “You’re not exactly an old fogey,
you know.”
She laughs her familiar, tinkly laugh. The sound always makes me feel a twinge of pride, a desire to make her laugh again. “You have a point.”
Once the dishes are done and most of the garbage thrown out, I look at the clock over the microwave. “I should probably get going. I’m supposed to meet Hunter for lunch.”
“Hunter.” Her face lights up. “Oh, I miss him. You’ll have to bring him over soon, dear.” My mother has been crazy about Hunter since the first time she met him. She goes on and on about his fashion sense, his humor, his bravery at being openly out in a family that shunned him for it. He lived here for a month after he was kicked out of his own home—it was the only time in recent memory that she’d acted like a mom, doting on him and spoiling him, cooking actual dinner every night, cuddling with both of us on the couch while we watched TV together. “We’ll show him what a real home is like,” she had told me firmly, her anger at his parents making her eyes fierce. By the time he was ready to get an apartment she’d pretty much lost interest in the “real home” concept, but that was okay. It was nice while it lasted.
“I will, Mom,” I tell her, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “Maybe I’ll stop by with a burrito or something when we’re done.”
She waves her hands. “You don’t have to do that.” Her voice takes on the martyr tone I’m so used to. “You go have fun with your friend. Live your life. You don’t need to worry about your old mom.”
But I know, even as she hugs me back, that I’ll be right back here in a matter of hours with food for her. It’s just the way things are and there’s no point in getting mad at her for it. Just like there’s no point in feeling bad that she’d forgotten about my interview this morning. My mother is a lot of things—friendly, gorgeous, fun, loving. What’s the point in getting all worked up about the things that she isn’t?
***
“So,” Hunter says, the moment he slips into the passenger seat of my old Honda. “How’d it go?”
“Good,” I tell him, putting the car into reverse. “I think it went really good.”
Escape With You Page 5