My Life as an Album (Books 1-4): A small town, southern fiction series

by LJ Evans

  You weren’t going to leave me alone until I came out.

  I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, slipped a lightweight sweatshirt over my camisole pajama top, and headed barefoot to the stairs.

  I knew how to hit every stair without making it creak, and I did so. No way did I want Mama to know I was heading out at the break of dawn to meet you in the tree house. Although, let’s face it, having sex in the tree house with our parents two yards away wasn’t a likely possibility this morning.

  I opened the back door quietly, shut it just as quietly, and flew on the dew and rose petal strewn grass to the tree house ladder. I made it all the way up to the last rung when your hand reached out to help me up the rest of the way. You swung me into your arms and were kissing me in that gloriously intense way before I could even catch my breath.

  After a long moment, I pulled away and rested my head on your chest. Your arms were around my waist, and I was pulled up so tight next to you that an ant couldn’t have found its way in between us.

  You had your chin resting on my head. Peace.

  “I’m sorry,” you said.

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  You lifted my face with your hand, and even though I was very self-conscious of my hideousness this morning, I let you stare down into my face. You kissed both my puffy eyes and then, somehow, drew me into an even tighter hug. I went back to resting my head on your chest.

  “I love you, Cami,” you said.

  “I love you too,” I said back.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  “But I’m leaving.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to wait for me.”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Hadn’t I been waiting for you all my life? Would it be any different with you a couple hours away in Knoxville? Wouldn’t I still be waiting for you?

  “I mean it, Cami.” And of course, I knew you did mean it because you were using Cami. “I want you to be a normal sophomore girl. I want you to flirt, and go to dances, and date boys, and just worry about being a high school teenager.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” your voice broke like you were trying hard to keep it together. “Because if you don’t, I won’t be able to forgive myself for being so selfish.”

  “You’re n—″

  But you cut me off. “I was selfish enough to think I could have this summer with you and that it wouldn’t matter. But if I leave, and you don’t have the normal high school experiences that you should, I’ll know that I’m responsible for you missing out on a huge part of life. Your high school years can’t be done again. There’s no do-over. You deserve to live it to the fullest.”

  I couldn’t believe it, but I started to cry again. At that time, I didn’t know that one person could cry that much. “I don’t want to have any experiences that don’t include you.”

  You squeezed me. “God, Cam. I know. And that’s exactly what makes me hate myself more.”

  You held me tight like that for a long, long time. Till the sun had already come up, and our mamas were wondering what had happened to us. And the thing is, if I had known how much your words were true, about the no do-overs, I wouldn’t have agreed with you that morning. I would have forced the issue more. But…I didn’t.

  You’d think my mama would have thrown a tizzy fit with me coming into the house in the early morning in my pajamas, but when she saw my face, she knew she didn’t have to worry about my body. Instead, she had to worry about my soul.

  Superman

  “I swear I'll be with you someday…

  'Cause I loved you from the very first day.”

  - Taylor Swift

  My superman. My gorgeous, mosaic-eyed Superman. I had to watch you spread your cape and fly away. With your mother’s beautiful eyes, and your father’s calm. How could I ever say anything but “I love you?” You were flying away. On the wings of, “I love you.”

  It was that very next Wednesday that we drove you to college. Your daddy and mama drove in your daddy’s truck loaded with your stuff in the back. You and I drove in your Camaro. We had the music turned up loud and the windows down.

  We both tried to be lighthearted. I think I especially tried to hide my pain because I wanted you to enjoy college. Every aspect of it. I didn’t want you to be worried about some little girl back home with a broken heart. And I realized that was probably what you were thinking about me. You wanted me to go back and enjoy every part of high school too. Like I didn’t have a broken heart. A heart that you’d broken. Again.

  I could have easily put the song, “Tied Together with a Smile,” here because that’s also how I felt. Like I was putting on my smiley face for you and the world, but inside I was broken, and not sure how I was going to get through.

  But let’s face it, you were a god among men. I had to let you fly. I had to let you move away. I was scared as hell that you’d find some sexy college girl, and that she’d earn your heart in a way some silly fifteen-year-old never could. Hadn’t our mamas and daddies found each other in college?

  But…I also knew, as my mama was fond of reminding me, that if I tried to hold on too tight to you, that it would just make the string brittle, and that it’d break. Just like if you tried to hold a horse too tight, it shied away.

  So, my brave face was on.

  We moved you into your dorm. We got to meet some of your football teammates as you were all in the same building together. Your roommate seemed nice. Not a dumb jock at all, even though he mistook me for your little sister. It was then that we both felt our age difference again. Like we’d been able to deny it all summer, but now, in the cold hard world, it was still there.

  We went to lunch with Craig’s family who had moved him into his dorm too. At least you had a friend somewhere on campus. And before I was ready, it was time to leave. You walked us out to the truck. You kissed me in front of your parents. Hard and long. As if you thought it was our last kiss. As if it was going to be the only one you’d ever get from me again.

  Your parents got in the truck. I think it was still hard for them to see us like that.

  “Cami.”

  I nodded, afraid to speak because the smile was just barely there.

  “Promise me you’ll have fun.”

  I nodded. “Ditto.”

  You nodded too.

  “Just make sure you find someone better than a cheerleader to fool around with,” I said, trying hard to have my old Cam sarcasm that I used to tease you with.

  You smiled, hugged me tight, kissed me on the top of my nose, and then walked away. I watched, knowing you’d look back, and you did. You waved and winked at me. I loved your wink.

  I climbed into the cab. Your mama put her arm around me and handed me a family-sized box of Kleenex, but I didn’t cry. That wasn’t me. What I wanted was the water so I could swim myself to exhaustion, where I wouldn’t have to think. And when we got home, that’s exactly what I did: biked to the lake and swam until I was shriveled and beyond tired, beyond thinking. Until my shriveled body matched my shriveled heart.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  I had two weeks of summer left before school started. Coach was happy you’d left. Well, I mean, he wasn’t HAPPY, but I certainly turned my focus onto my dives which did make him happy. I got a few new dives that I’d been practicing, and that was something good in a pile of misery. I’d missed qualifying to zones that year because I’d not been very focused during the summer at the regional events. Let’s just say, I’d had some other things on my brain. I still had some chances to compete better through the winter, but Coach and I were really focused on getting ready for the spring season.

  I also got my driver’s permit. I’d been eligible to get it in July… but I hadn’t needed to drive. I’d had you. Anyway, Daddy was thrilled that I got my permit. Probably because he got to teach me something. I never realized how much you’d taught me. How much I hadn
’t let anyone else but you teach me things. And the truth was, I knew that if you were home, you would be teaching me to drive. So, it made it all bittersweet. But I tried to be nice, for Daddy’s sake.

  When I wasn’t diving or driving, I was out riding horses with Matt and Wynn, or hanging out with my gang of friends that had somehow popped out of nowhere at the lake.

  What I’m saying is, I kept busy. And I talked with you. We still texted each other and called each other every day. Multiple times a day. But…we both had a wall up now. We were afraid to tell each other too much. We didn’t want to be moving on, but we didn’t want to appear to not be moving on because we knew that was what each of us was hoping for the other.

  Complicated. Backwards. But it was what we’d moved on to.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  School started, and I had a lot of offers for dates. It was weird. Your dating me and then leaving gave this huge opening for all the boys. I continued to flirt and smile. If nothing else, it made Wynn happy. She had Pete, and Pete seemed nice enough. But sometimes he reminded me a little too much of Paul. And somehow Wynn was always looking for a double date. I don’t think Pete liked that part.

  I slipped into this weird routine of studying with Mia. Probably because we used your room, and it still smelled like you. Chocolate cookies, football, and boy. Mia didn’t seem to mind being the center of attention, even though she knew it was only because you were gone. She didn’t mind being your replacement. I was lucky to be surrounded by really good people. Wynn. Mia. Our families.

  I got better grades because I wasn’t distracted by you and your girlfriends. Or drooling over you. Mia was a good distraction because she’d become extremely popular with the boys. Her size D’s probably didn’t hurt. Weird that your little sister had boobs double mine. I’d never advanced past a B. Anyway, all of a sudden I was the smart, older sister with a worldful of advice for the younger sister starting her ventures into the boyfriend world.

  I missed your first football game. Not that you played much. You were on the bench, backup QB. You were only a freshman. Tennessee already had a superstar QB. But you got to throw a couple passes at the end of the game because they were winning by 28 points. I missed it. Your family went. I missed it because of a meet of my own.

  I tried not to care. Mia came back bubbling with having had a chance to hug you, and she gave me a hug that was supposed to be from you to me. And I love your sister, but it isn’t the same hugging her. She doesn’t smell like you or have your strength in the arms.

  She also told me that you had a dozen girls crawling all over you after the game. Flirting, saying hello. I asked her what she told you about me, and she laughed and said basically the same: I had boys crawling all over me, saying hello.

  I asked how you took it. She shrugged, couldn’t say. But you were going to an after party at some fraternity that a lot of the jocks belonged to. I couldn’t really see you in a fraternity. I mean, I could see a fraternity wanting you. You were a god among men, after all. Easy on the eyes, superstar arm, girls flocked to you like ants to chocolate cake. But you were pretty independent and not into the hazing and club mentality.

  I made a choice after that not to go to any of the games your family went to. I didn’t think I could bear to see you and be one of the fan club again. To not have any claims on you. To have the super lionesses consider me the sister’s friend.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  Homecoming came, and I went with a boy named Luke. He was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed. Pretty much your opposite. Other than the tall and built thing. My mama was thrilled to buy me a pretty dress and shiny shoes. They let Luke drive me to the dance.

  The dance was good, but Luke’s hands on me made me feel like screaming. They seemed soft and clumsy compared to yours. The thing was, he was a really, really nice guy. So, I let him hold me, and I let him kiss me good night on the porch. But his lips were wet and soft and not at all the intense, demanding kiss that I was used to from you.

  I think he knew that I wasn’t that into him because he was going out with another girl by the end of the week. I wasn’t upset. Wynn thought I might be. His new girlfriend thought I might be. She came up and stammered an apology to me, like I was going to go off the rails and hit her.

  I did have a reputation for knocking out my enemies. News of the locker room incident from your freshman year was still going strong. I just smiled and wished her well. I think that made her more nervous, like I was waiting to pounce. It was then that I realized that, to her, I was the lioness… weird…to have others consider me like that.

  I was “living high school” like you’d asked me to. Mia must have sent you a picture of me and Luke at Homecoming because you sent it back to me with a note that told me you thought the dress was perfect and wished you’d been able to… see me in it. I wondered if that was what you really had been going to write.

  You were “living college” too. You’d had a date to your first Homecoming as a Tennessee Vol. But Mia hadn’t sent me a picture. I just heard she was someone from your bio class. Interested in being a doctor. Smart. Pretty, no doubt. But I didn’t want to hear more about her. Mia was good to me. She knew I couldn’t bear even the thought of you with another girl.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  It wasn’t until Halloween had come and gone that I felt life start to trickle back into me. You were going to be home for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. I could count the days now.

  I hadn’t seen you in person in almost three months. I’m not sure how I survived it. Skype and FaceTime just aren’t the same thing. My mama saw the change in me. She saw the nervous energy that came out instead of the full-force dedication to forgetting you.

  But then you ruined it. You decided not to come home. I was so irritated with you. You told all of us that it was because you were doing extra training and trying not to fall behind with your courses that were harder than you expected.

  I knew the truth. You were avoiding me.

  I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me just when I was starting to breathe again. It must be like how an asthmatic person feels when released from the hospital after a severe attack, only to find the grass and tree pollen at an all-time high.

  I wanted to stay in and grumble all weekend, but finally, on Saturday, Wynn and Mia wore me down and dragged me to the movies. We were standing in line for the popcorn when I felt a strong arm go around my neck and shoulders and someone tall rub the top of my head with knuckles. My heart skipped a beat until I heard a deep, “Hey, Super Girl.”

  You never called me Super Girl. Dolphin. Cam. Cami. Never Super Girl. I turned around to see Blake smiling down at me with that shaggy hair of his and his dimples. I’m sure my disappointment radiated off of me because Blake one-arm hugged me even as I called him, “Traitor.”

  “I’ll forgive you that as long as you promise me you aren’t here to see that stupid girly chick flick,” Blake teased back without letting me go, and at the same time, referring to the poster of two teens holding hands as they jumped into the ocean.

  “As if,” I said with my typical growl. I pushed at his side, and he let me go with a grin.

  I looked around for his entourage and there was none. Not even his brother Matt.

  “So, I see that no one else could stand to be seen with you.”

  Blake chuckled at me. “I’m on my way to the music store and caught a glimpse of you in the doorway. Just wanted to say hi.”

  He tried to rub my head again, and I punched him playfully in the arm. “Matt says you’ve still been riding and that you’re getting so good at jumping that you hardly ever end up in the creek any more.”

  I wanted to hit him again at the same time I felt myself turn as red as a turnip. I mean, I had gotten pretty good, but I didn’t know that Matt and Blake talked about me at all.

  “Well… I am me,” I said, trying to project a little of my little-kid sass that I used to use on this big guy.

  “But
Matt’s such a liar,” Blake said at the same time, and I went to punch him again, but he dodged me.

  “Wanna bet?” I groused.

  He laughed heartily at me. I kind of missed his laugh. He’d always been the one to lighten the mood on the street or at the lake when anyone was starting to go at it. No one was around anymore to stop all hell breaking loose. Not even you.

  “Okay. I’ll pick you up at eight. You can show me your moves,” he said as we moved up toward the register.

  “In the morning?” I pouted.

  “I’m heading out in the afternoon so it has to be early. What? Are you too much of a princess these days to get out of bed before noon?” Blake said with a casual hand toward the miniskirt and flouncy top I had on. I still had my boots.

  I snorted. “Hell no.”

  “Okay then, I’ll see you at eight, Super Girl.”

  And he was gone out the door of the theater before I could give him another sassy retort.

  The next morning, I was in my riding gear and out on the porch before Blake even pulled into my yard. He jumped out to open the door for me, but I had already scrambled into the passenger seat before he got around the hood.

  He just shook his head and climbed in. We rode in silence for a few minutes while he played with the radio dial. “How’s Ole Miss?” I asked with a growl.

  He burst into a smile the size of Texas. “It’s awesome. I’d recommend it to you as well, but I have a feelin’ you’ll be following someone to UTK.”

  “As if I’d ever be traitor enough to go to school in Mississippi!”

  Blake just laughed and shook his head and turned up the radio. I’d forgotten how much he loved music. Any kind, but especially country rock.

  “You still playing?” I asked him.

  “Got a band together. We’re shit, but it’s fun.”