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

by LJ Evans

  You did draw back, but it wasn’t in sorrow or regret this time. It was because it was damn cold and time to take me home to face the music.

  When my parents saw my bruised cheek, they wanted to press charges against Seth, but once I pointed out that I’d hit him first, they grew quiet. I’d always been in trouble for hitting. Being aggressive. At that point, I think everyone was just glad that you’d shown up. Like always. To be my hero.

  When I asked about it, how you’d known, you’d said that you’d been fuming about the cliff dive for two weeks, and when I hadn’t responded to you the last couple days, you’d wanted to come home and read me the Riot Act. You’d been about five minutes from home when Mia had called and told you things were out of control, and that she was worried about me.

  And this time, when you had your arm around my waist and promised my parents that you weren’t going to let Seth ever hurt me again, I think my parents were relieved. Maybe they realized that I’d always be reckless without you, and that you there, pushing the hair out of my face and looking at me with adoring eyes, was a hell of a lot better than me driving on the back of Seth’s motorcycle and getting hit by a boy. I think they thought that at least with you, I was safe.

  And I was.

  You were good to me; good for me. That next day, I decided to take you on a horseback ride out at Matt’s grandparents’ ranch with a group of my friends. We were just getting ready to leave when Seth’s motorcycle pulled into the driveway.

  You were down the steps, blocking his path to me so fast that the June bugs wouldn’t have been able to keep up. Seth set his helmet on the handlebars and eyed you and me. You had your arms crossed, legs spread out, and were ready to block any move that Seth made to get to me.

  I guess I had been expecting this. Seth always came back to apologize. Always. This time, though, I wasn’t in the same place I’d been every time he’d said sorry before. I had you. God. I had you. That was all that mattered, but as I looked down from the porch to Seth’s bruised face, I did feel something. It was sorrow and guilt because I knew this was my fault.

  I knew when I’d started all this with Seth that I could never be what Seth wanted or needed. I’d never have been able to give him the piece of my heart that was reserved for you, regardless of how he’d treated me. I slid down the steps and under your arm as you tried to block me from leaving your protection.

  “It’s okay,” I told you as I walked to the motorcycle where Seth still sat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said just as Seth said the matching words.

  He reached out to touch my bruised face, and I could feel you take two steps toward me. I turned to you and shook my head. I had this. I didn’t need you and Seth going all out testosterone when Seth and I both knew that this was it.

  Seth’s fingers dropped to the handlebars.

  “I’m going back to the city,” Seth said.

  This surprised me. I thought of his parents and the bad place it had been for him, and guilt swarmed me. “Why?” I asked with sadness.

  “I’m just as destructive here as I was there. I thought maybe…” his voice faded away with a shrug. “I got into an art school in Manhattan.”

  It was so like Seth to keep something huge like this to himself. It didn’t surprise me, but it did kind of explain his over-the-top emotions lately. He’d been waiting for an answer and Seth was never good at waiting.

  “I’ve been trying to decide what to do for about a week,” he continued, grabbing at his helmet strap. “This,” he glanced at me and then at you, glaring behind me, “just made me realize it’s the right thing. My grandparents have agreed to pay for it. I won’t have to see my dad…”

  I hugged him. And you were behind me in a nanosecond. But I smiled at Seth. “I’m so happy for you, Seth. Really. I am.”

  Seth smiled that wicked smile of his at me one last time. “Yeah. I’m happy for you too.” Then he looked at you, “Don’t let her get away this time, dipshit!”

  And I had to hold you back as Seth slammed his helmet on and took off down the driveway. Funny. All I felt was happiness for him. I wasn’t angry at him anymore, or me, or at any of the stupid shit he and I had done when we were together. I was just happy that there was a possibility of life working out for him. And for me.

  I turned into you, and you swallowed me into your arms with a hug so tight that I knew I’d never have to say goodbye to you again.

  We were silent on our way out to Matt’s granddaddy’s ranch, and it reminded me briefly of the drive Blake and I had made what felt like a lifetime ago now. When we pulled up to the barn, Matt and the gang were ready and waiting. He had his girlfriend with him. They were quite the matching pair in a way Matt and I had never been. Matt had my typical horse saddled up, and he had a gentle mare that he handed off to you. It was kind of funny because you weren’t really a horse-riding guy. Football: fine. Horseback: not so much. Which was your own sin being from the South and all.

  I laughed my ass off as you tried to get into the saddle, which of course, just challenged you to do it with a smile and some panache. But let’s face it, horses and you might just have been like footballs and me. Opposing forces. So after about an hour of you sliding around in the saddle, I finally took mercy on you and told Matt that we were going to stop and head back. Matt laughed a knowing laugh and went on with the group.

  I dismounted and you followed suit with a look that was almost pure relief, and you didn’t even get upset when I laughed at you. Instead, you wrapped my fingers in yours as we walked the horses back, and I felt like I’d come home after being out in the cold and rain for a very long time.

  “I gave up football,” you told me. We’d been together almost 24 hours, and you were just now dropping this bombshell on me?

  “What?” I exclaimed and pulled away to look at you.

  You fidgeted with the reigns. “I had to make a decision in April. Coach needed an answer so that he could recruit a strong quarterback for next season. I was going to start…”

  Your voice trailed away. I wrapped my arms around you and you buried your head in the nape of my neck. We stood there forever. I kissed your cheek and your eyelids, and then you were devouring me. Like we’d never kissed before. Like it was the first time and the last time and every time that we’d missed in between. Your hands were all over my body. I couldn’t keep up. But we were standing in the middle of a ranch in the middle of the day, and it wasn’t going to go anywhere. We kissed until you seemed to expend the sadness and the anger at losing something that meant so much to you. And for that one time, you had a little of Seth in you. But it wasn’t like you were punishing me like Seth had, instead, it was like you, too, were coming home.

  After a long, long time, you stopped, and looked into my eyes and smiled. Then, you grabbed my hand, and we made our way back to the ranch where we left the horses with Matt’s granddaddy, and drove home.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  You had to go back to school the next day. I had four weeks left, and you had just two. When you went back to school, you had to give up your scholarship and your position on the team. And your status changed. You became, for the first time in your life, a spectator. Your parents weren’t upset about the scholarship. They were happy. It meant that you were getting the insulin pump, and that, hopefully, you’d be regulating your levels better. Which meant we’d all have to worry about you less. Or so we all thought.

  We Skyped and talked every day. You’d tell me about your classes. I’d tell you about stupid school stuff. And even though we were three years apart, and in different worlds, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. It was almost like we were on your bed together doing homework and talking about the stuff that happened that day.

  There were people who talked smack. You robbing the cradle, me being jailbait, on and on. But the thing was, I think most of those same people would say it had been inevitable. I had known all along that you belonged to me. You were mine. And for the fir
st time in a couple years, I was at peace again. Truly smiling again, not the pasted smile that I’d used for two years to make you think I was living it up. This was a real, happy smile.

  What I didn’t know was that, even with the insulin pump, you were having a hard time regulating things. Your levels were jumping up and down. You were having bouts where you couldn’t remember what had happened for the last hour. You didn’t tell me that. But I found out when you came home for the summer.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  We had gone camping. Just the two of us. I know. Seems weird that our parents had gone from “no rooms, no alone time, blah, blah, blah,” to “go ahead, go camping by yourselves over the weekend.” Especially as I was still only seventeen. But somehow, being with you made me seem more grown up. And I was going into my senior year of high school, and after that, I’d be out on my own. You were twenty. You’d already been out on your own for two years. They could have said no, but they didn’t. Don’t judge them. Remember, I wasn’t an easy child.

  We didn’t go far. Just an hour away from home. We’d brought our fishing poles and cards and plenty of food. And though I thought about the possibilities of what the time alone with you could mean, sleeping next to you in a tent with no one on earth around, I hadn’t really thought it all through. I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten over the whole “you’re younger than me” thing enough to go the next step. So, for me, it was just about having time with you after we’d been deprived of it for so long.

  As I helped you put up the tent, I kept teasing you. I was wiggling my butt in my short shorts, and laughing at every mistake you made. I’d throw things at you, and purposely not get close enough to let you touch me. When you tried to grab my hand or kiss me, I would skip out of reach and smile at you. I knew I was playing with fire, but I’d learned a few things from Seth.

  You waggled your finger at me when you went inside to put down the sleeping bags and the blankets, and for the first time, I was a little nervous. I kept the picnic table between me and the tent while I put out the beach chairs and fishing gear. When you came out, I looked up and you had this look on your face that made my heart go thud louder than before. Your eyes were that dark, pond color. But you weren’t angry. It was another emotion that was there. One that I was just starting to learn.

  You came over to my side of the picnic table. “Payback is hell,” you said and inched closer as I inched away.

  “Jake…” I said, trying to sound a lot like my mama scolding us as kids, but it came out breathless and my chest was heaving, and you noticed and smiled a knowing little smile.

  I moved in a flash, but you chased me down, threw me over your shoulder like you had that time I’d escaped your Camaro after tossing Brittney against the dash, and you threw me into the tent.

  It wasn’t the most comfortable place in the world. Hard ground with sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, but you didn’t seem to care. You pounced on top of me and wrestled me to a standstill with my arms above my head. And you started kissing me in a way that made me moan all the way down to my inner core. Your lips touched every soft place on me that they could reach, and when you felt the fight go out of me, you let my arms go and I got to touch you back. I’d learned a few things from Seth that made you groan, too, and eventually reach in your bag for a condom box.

  I went gladly over the edge with you. No one needed to push me. I was happy to have my legs wrapped around you. Happy to be as close to you as I could possibly get. It was like this was what I had been created for. To be with you. And I’d waited two long years for you to come around to the fact that this was where you belonged too. Well, really, seventeen long years, but I’ll give you some of those because I’d been just a kid.

  We didn’t fish much. We didn’t play cards much. We didn’t even leave the tent much. Except for food. And bathroom breaks. And to dive in the lake to cool off. But for most of that glorious weekend, we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. There was always some part of us touching the other. A knee, a leg, a foot, a finger.

  It was perfect and beautiful, and I think my mama had known what was going to happen, because she’d packed a box of condoms in my bag, too, when I hadn’t realized it. When I showed you, you grinned like crazy, and said you’d never be able to look my mama in the eyes again.

  On Sunday, we were packing up to go when you started acting funny. Like in the old days. Sort of delirious and saying stupid things. I asked you what your level was. You griped at me to mind my own business, which wasn’t a good sign. The truck was loaded when you hit the ground. I pulled out the sugar tabs that you had stored in a bag and put one under your tongue and coaxed you back some. But you were still really out of it.

  I drove like hell to the nearest hospital. By this time you were throwing up, and I was truly panicked. When we got to the hospital, I was practically screaming at the ladies in the ER. The doctor, a woman, came out and tried to make sense of what I was saying. She asked if I knew your last levels. I didn’t, but the pump stored some of that information, but you’d had it off a lot while we were involved in… other activities. They wheeled you away and wouldn’t let me go with you.

  I flashed back to my freshman year, but this time I was way more freaked out. I knew the vomiting wasn’t a good thing. I called Mama first. My teeth were chattering so hard that she couldn’t understand me. I went up to the nurses’ station and handed the phone to someone behind the desk. The nurse explained to Mama what was happening. Mama told the nurse that she and your parents were on the way.

  It took almost an hour for them to get there. And when they did arrive, Scott and Marina were wild-eyed. My mama had driven. Daddy was out of town at a car show. I told them that the doctors hadn’t told me anything. Wouldn’t let me see you.

  Eventually, the woman doctor joined us. She said that your ketones were extremely high. Asked if we’d known how high they had been and for how long. None of us knew. You’d been taking care of things on your own while you’d been away. We knew things were bad enough for you to give up football. But no one had known just how bad things had gotten because you hadn’t wanted us to know.

  She explained that the ketones might come back in line as they got your glucose level under control and flushed out your system, but that it was also a possibility that you had some permanent kidney damage from your levels being out of whack for too long. I didn’t really understand what that meant. She left. Marina and Scott seemed to understand though.

  “What does she mean?”

  “It means his kidneys could be gone,” Scott said, deadpan. No emotion. Just the facts.

  “What?” I looked at him incredulous. Kidney failure was something that happened to old people. Alcoholics and people who were far, far older than you.

  Mama put her arms around me. I pushed her away and went to the nurse, demanding to see you. Surprisingly, she told me where you were. I stormed in on you. You were hooked up to wires and machines, but I didn’t care. I came right up and punched you in the shoulder. Repeatedly.

  You let me. Finally, you said in a really tired voice, “Coach Daniels is going to be pissed if you break your hand with regionals coming up.”

  Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Instead, I crawled into the bed with you, laid my head on your chest, and you put your arm around me. “You’re a shit,” I said.

  “I know,” you said back.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  They held you for two days. Mama made me go home and shower and change, but then I went back and wouldn’t leave until they released you. I drove you home. You were exhausted. You slept for another couple days. I hung out in your room. Brought you food. Made you get up and go outside and enjoy the summer sun.

  Later in the week, you went back to Doc Wilson so he could check your ketones again. They had gotten better, still weren’t great, but were more in line with what they needed to be. They ran some more tests. They were still worried about your kidneys, but thought th
ey’d be okay with the pump and keeping your levels in check.

  They said that you’d just gotten out of whack over the weekend because of all the hiking and activity. I tried really hard not to blush at the thought of the activity that we had primarily been engaged in and the reason you’d had your pump off so much.

  Life went back to normal as much as it could. You took to working out at the gym and swimming with me instead of football practice. We spent evenings together at home or at the lake. Sometimes we’d be with my friends or any of your friends that had come home for the summer, which was less and less as they got lives away from our little town.

  And even though we often couldn’t find the right place to truly be together like we had in the tent, camping, there were moments when no one was home, or no one seemed to care what we were doing, and we could be together. The way we both wanted to be together. I was more careful though. Sometimes I didn’t even want you to remove the pump, and I always made you put it right back on. I think you were embarrassed at first because you’d always been the perfect god, and now there was this thing hanging on to you that proved you weren’t. But mostly you just did it. Because you knew you had too.

  And we definitely had our lighter moments. Do you remember the one towards the end of summer as Coach and I were getting ready for the last competitions of the season, when I told Coach I had to wrap it up because you were picking me up?

  Coach winked at me, “God, I love it when I’m right. Those three years are nothing but a blink now, aren’t they?”

  He was gloating. I threw a wet towel at him, “Stop being such a sniveling know-it-all.”

  “I believe that cost you twenty more laps,” he said, his smile remaining. I ignored him. But he easily blocked my path and pointed to the pool.

  You sauntered in to find out what was taking me so long. “What’s the hold up?”

  “Coach wants me to do twenty more laps.” My hands were on my hips in defiance.

  You smiled at Coach and me. “What’d you do?”