Advice from a Sunflower

by Jen Stevens

  Chapter 4

  Lyla

  15 years old

  “How do you think you did on the chem test today?” Eli asks from his bus seat beside me on the way home from school. His dark hair has fallen into his face and he flips his head to the side to get it back into place. He’s grown it out long enough to reach his ears, but it never looks messy or unkempt like the other guys.

  I swoon. “I think I did all right. How about you?”

  “Probably better than I’m expecting, but I never know with Fifer. I can’t figure out his testing style.”

  Eli is a nerd. There’s no getting around it. He has two options for his future: college or the military, like his dad. There’s no way in hell he’s making it through boot camp alive, so naturally he’s thrown everything he has into making it into a top-notch school.

  The thing with him is, he wouldn’t be considered a nerd if his situation were different. Girls like what they see when they take the time to look at him. Guys enjoy talking to him when he pulls his head out of his books and interacts. His social status is strictly self-inflicted. He chose to only speak to the weird looking Scott sister and quietly pine after the pretty one. He could have anything he wants, yet he settles on this.

  I wish I had the luxury.

  “What are you thinking about that’s causing that frown? I’m sure you didn’t do that bad.”

  Oh, and he cares. He’s compassionate. He notices things that most guys ignore. I shake the thoughts out of my head before they go any further.

  “Nothing, I’m fine. I’m sure you did great on your test.”

  I notice the bus nearing our stop and stand up before the driver even slows down.

  I’m blocked in by Eli, but I hope he takes my readiness as a sign that our conversation is over. When the driver finally pulls the doors open, I push past him and practically jog down the street to my house, ignoring the dirty looks I get from everyone I pass.

  Two years. That’s all I have to get through before I’m away from this horrible place and all the people in it. Including Eli and his ignorant teenage boy mind that can recognize when my face drops from a sad thought, but not that I’m falling completely in love with him more and more with every conversation we have.

  Marnie and Denise make quick work of getting ready before they each leave to spend their evenings outside of our sad little home. I cook myself dinner and then spend the rest of the night writing out a fictional romance that’s been dancing around my mind for the past week, squeezing nearly ten thousand words out before I pass out on my computer. The last thing I remember are the creaks and moans coming from the basement, begging to be heard and tended to.

  After all this time, I still haven’t gotten used to it.

  Chapter 5

  Lyla

  16 years old

  Halloween in The Hollow is no different than any other weekday night, the only exception being that the creeps pass for normal in their everyday clothes and girls like Marnie get to dress as their inner vixens without being judged for it.

  I’ve never liked dressing up and going door-to-door, begging my neighbors for candy. They usually never have it anyway. Most of the people on our side of town don’t even have money for groceries to feed their family on a regular basis, and their food stamps aren’t reloaded until the beginning of the month. I wonder every year why we can’t get together and just move the holiday over one day. That way the kids don’t have to listen to every adult complain about how much they wanted to buy candy this year, they just couldn’t make it work and to come back the next day.

  Now that we’re in high school, Halloween is less about candy and trick-or-treating and more about dressing in as little as possible and getting drunk in the woods just behind Old Man McFarland’s property. He’s a deaf elderly man with no neighbors for miles, so it’s the perfect place for teenagers to act out their hormonal urges as loudly as they like without being harassed by the police.

  The police are usually too busy on Halloween handling the drunk adults to bother with a little innocent partying from their kids. Denise has always found herself in the bull pin on November first, screaming into the phone for one of us to come bail her out. She and her church friends stand in the middle of the town’s square and preach about the shame of worshipping the devil and celebrating a pagan holiday. Someone usually initiates a debate with her that ends in some sort of altercation and the police are called. Most times, the sheriff waives the majority of her fee for Marnie and me, making us promise to give him free coffee at the diner we both waitress at part-time in exchange. He finishes his negotiation with a wink in Marnie’s direction as his eyes linger over her low-cut shirt.

  This Halloween is no different than any other, except Marnie has taken an interest in my social life and is now trying to force me into going out to the woods with her.

  “Come on, Mouse. We’re juniors now. That means upperclassmen. Don’t you want to have some fun for once in your life?” she goads, spreading a third layer of bronzer over her face.

  She seems to be ignoring the fact that her neck is five shades lighter than her face now and there’s a clear line where the makeup ends and her natural skin tone begins. I don’t have the heart to point it out.

  “I’ll have fun right here in my bed,” I insist, patting down my ratty comforter while trying to regain my train of thought for a scene I’m working on in my most recent short story. The characters have been bothering me all day and it only took Marnie five minutes to make me completely lose it.

  She must be satisfied with the shade of orange that’s now spread across her cheeks because she closes the compact container and slams it onto her vanity.

  “I’m serious. Next year we’ll be seniors and you’ll probably have some ridiculous college prep that you’ll insist on doing. Then you’re off to college. Please, just come out with me this once.”

  I don’t understand her sudden interest in my social life, or her need to involve me in hers. She’s practically ignored me all summer, barely spending time at home before the school year began. So much so, that Denise threatened putting prison bars on our bedroom windows.

  Her lips puff out in a pathetic frown and I finally give in, slamming my laptop on a defeated sigh. The story wasn’t going to come back to me anytime soon, anyway.

  “Fine,” I relent, earning a high-pitched squeal as she reopens her vanity drawer.

  No one does anything special to decorate the woods. I always pictured pretty lights hanging in the trees and tables set up with drinks the way I’ve seen in movies. A mystical forest filled with teenage mayhem. Instead, the only light is coming from the full moon above and a wimpy bonfire that Chase Wilks is manning, completely stoned and distracted by Caitlyn, Marnie’s best friend for the moment, sitting on his lap.

  A keg sits in a muddy spot with red plastic cups littering the ground around it and the other drinks are sitting in the beds of pickup trucks surrounding the area. In order to grab one, you have to pay the owner of the truck in some way. Anything from a kiss to a blow job will do. Marnie has already planted herself next to Josh Melkis, her boytoy of the evening, and has left me alone to wander through the crowd of our intoxicated classmates.

  “I never thought I’d see you at one of these things,” a male voice whispers directly into my ear once I stop beside a tree set back away from the crowd. I feel his breath against my neck and step forward, my fists balled at my sides to see who it belongs to.

  Ryan Atkins. Captain of the baseball team and former plaything of my sister’s.

  “Hell must have frozen over,” he adds, taking a sip from his muddy cup.

  “I guess so.”

  I glance around to see who else I know that could get me out of any further interaction with him but come up short. I’m just as invisible to these people here as I am in school.

  “Did you finally come to your senses and join us lower specimens here on earth, Angel?” he pushes.

  An insult and a compliment all tied
together in one. I wonder what Marnie ever saw in this asshat. I refuse to give him the attention he craves, but he won’t take the hint. His arm begins to snake around my side and creeps its way up to my chest under my sweater. I try to push it away, but he’s surprisingly strong and manages to get me pinned to the tree with my hands behind my back without anyone noticing.

  “Seriously, stop it. Get away from me,” I protest, attempting to wiggle out of his touch.

  “It’ll be fun, I promise. Just loosen up a bit so I can pull that stick out of your ass and replace it with something more enjoyable.”

  He lifts my shirt and presses himself against me, a cold chill slithering up my spine behind his touch.

  “She said stop, Atkins,” someone says from behind us.

  I wince as Ryan turns to see who it is, smashing my hand against the rough bark of the tree under our combined weight.

  “Eli! My man. Hey, Mouse, Eli came to join in the fun.”

  “Seriously. Let go of her. She’s here with me,” Eli presses, walking around us to show his face in the bonfire light.

  Ryan loosens his grip on my wrists and nods to Eli, shoving me over to him like a ragdoll. I nearly fall face-first into the ground before Eli catches my hands, and I land hard on my knees. They exchange a handshake above my head as Ryan mumbles something to him and then walks away.

  He and Eli became friends when Eli joined the baseball team last spring. He promised me that it was just for more padding on his college applications when I griped about it being out of his character to join organized sports.

  “More opportunity for scholarships,” he’d said. He swore that it wouldn’t affect our friendship—what little we had left of one.

  That was, until he joined and surpassed guys on the team who had been sitting on the bench for two years. It didn’t take long for our bus ride talks to come to a screeching halt as he began having practices before and after school, catching rides home with his teammates. Then, he quickly started attracting the attention of every girl in the school as they realized what a beautiful creature he truly was when his face wasn’t buried in homework or books. Before I knew it, he had moved all his books out of my locker, and we barely saw each other passing in the hallways anymore.

  “He’s an asshole,” he mumbles as I climb back up to my feet.

  I try to brush the dirt off my jeans, but it’s caked into the fabric from the impact of my fall. It’s going to be a nightmare to scrub out later, especially with our washer being broken.

  When I refuse to respond, he crosses his arms over his chest and leans against a tree. He looks so natural and comfortable in his skin now, a stark contrast from the wiry boy I once knew. His wispy black hair is tucked back into his worn-down baseball hat, little strands peeking out from the sides. It’s no wonder girls swarm him at school.

  “What are you doing here, Mouse? This isn’t typically your scene.”

  “My scene?” I bite out, my bitter tone matching the one Marnie has spewed at me for years. I’d be proud if I wasn’t already so flustered. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was being confined to specific scenes by you now. What would you say is my scene, Eli? My bedroom? The library? And what happens when I stray from that scene and find myself somewhere that I don’t belong? I get attacked?”

  I lift my hands to put air quotes around the word ‘scene’ for dramatics, then immediately feel stupid. He’s the only person who’s ever given me enough time to get my thoughts out and the first thing I do after months of not speaking is punish him with an anxiety-ridden rant.

  He shakes his head at me, his eyes finding the dark, starless sky before returning back to my flushed face. “Chill out. I wasn’t saying you don’t belong here. I just meant that you don’t typically come to these things.”

  Neither did you, I want to say but hold the words back before they jump off my tongue. If he hadn’t been here, Ryan would have been having his way with me in the back of some broken down pickup truck by now.

  “Marnie made me come,” I explain in a lowered voice, staring down at my Chucks. The light blue canvas is almost completely stained with brown from walking in all the mud and dirt. It took me three months to save up for these shoes and now they’re ruined.

  I hate this town.

  “Since when do you listen to her?”

  My head moves back and forth pathetically. “I’m not sure. Maybe I had a brain aneurysm. I should probably make a stop at the hospital on my way home.”

  He smiles a little at my crude joke and then we fall into an awkward, lingering silence. When I can’t take anymore, I clear my throat and lift my hand in a wave, stepping away from him to begin my walk home. I’ve had enough excitement for one night.

  “Why don’t you let me drive you? It’s probably not safe to walk alone after such significant head trauma.”

  I stop, considering the offer for a few seconds. “Don’t you want to stay and hang out?”

  “No, I’ve made my rounds. I need to get home and study for an Anatomy test, anyway.”

  My shoulders lift in a shrug, which he takes as acceptance and leads me over to his car.

  “Nice ride,” I compliment, running my fingers over the dated, red leather dash.

  His dad bought it for him over the summer to get back and forth from practice after he joined a summer league. My guess was that he was proud to finally see Eli doing something that slightly resembled him in a way. I wondered what his mother thought about him being out in The Hollow every weekend. She probably harassed him about it, terrified of what could happen to her most prized possession in the shadows of night. I only knew about the car from Marnie, who had apparently warmed back up to the idea of hanging out with him again when his social status rose.

  “Thanks,” is all he says, turning the radio down and switching the station.

  It was on a modern rap and hip-hop radio station before—nothing the Eli I knew would ever be caught dead listening to. I pretend not to notice when I realize his cheeks are darkening in embarrassment.

  “So, how have you been? I don’t see you around much anymore.”

  Of course, the first thing I think to say to ease the tension is a jab at him. My hand lifts to my forehead, wiping away a layer of sweat that’s begun forming at my hairline.

  This is ridiculous. Eli and I have known each other our entire lives; there’s no reason to be this way around him.

  He looks over at me from the side, careful to keep his stare directed toward the road. “I’ve been around. Busy with practices and homework.”

  My head bobs a little too fast for a nod, instead looking more like I’m having some sort of attack instead of the cool, understanding look I was going for. “Nice.”

  He turns the vehicle off the town’s main road toward our neighborhood and I find myself wishing we had more time than we do. A short ride home doesn’t seem like enough anymore, not when I have no idea when he’ll bother giving me his time again. I start to panic, the small sheen of sweat now gathering into tiny beads begging to stream down my face. My fingers blindly feel around the door for a button or a crank to open the window but come up short.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, finally turning his head in my direction.

  “Why can’t I open this window? I’m suffocating in here, and there’s no way to get any fresh air in this stuffy car…” my mouth keeps rambling on, panicked.

  Eli pulls the car over on one of the side streets and leans his body over mine, reaching for a button that was sitting right beside my hand. The window goes down and a rush of cool, autumn air blows onto my soaked scalp.

  “Better?”

  I sit still, my head hanging out the side of the car for a few moments before I answer.

  “Yes,” I breathe, bringing my face back in.

  “Can I start moving again?”

  “Sure.”

  The awkwardness from before has returned, only now it feels like a tangible, living thing sitting in the back seat and instead of dreading our departu
re, I’m looking forward to it. With any luck, I won’t have to see him again for at least a few weeks. That’ll give him time to forget what a complete nutcase I am.

  When he pulls up to the curb in front of his house and shifts into park, I’ve already got my hand on the lever to open the door and escape this alternate reality I’ve found myself in. The one where I go out with the rest of my classmates on a weeknight and being alone with Eli throws me into a full-blown panic attack. I have to wake up from this nightmare.

  “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you around,” I spit out, whipping the door open.

  His hand lands on top of my arm, stopping me from rising out of the seat. “Wait a second.”

  I settle back again, inhaling deeply to calm my erratic breathing. “What?”

  “Do you have anything going on right now?”

  My brows knit together skeptically as I turn to face his honest stare. “Um…”

  “It’s fine if you’re busy. I was just thinking we haven’t hung out in a while, and I have some new bands I found that I’ve been wanting to show you…” His words hang awkwardly in the air between us as they taper off.

  An invitation. So, our time didn’t have to end after a short drive home.

  The logical part of my brain reminds me that this won’t end well for me. Sure, this was a harmless thing when we used to be best friends, but he’s since morphed into the boy that I like—really, really like—who, last I checked, was head over heels over my sister. Or Emma Taylor. Or any other girl who I’ve seen hanging all over him that’s the absolute opposite of me. To him, this is just old friends hanging out. To me, it’s more, and that’s why it’s going to hurt so bad in the end, when I go back home, and we return to our usual routine of ignoring each other.

  But unable to say no, I still find myself agreeing and following him into his bungalow, up the familiar steps that lead to his room, and right onto the couch beside his bed that I laid claim to many years ago.