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

by LJ Evans

  I threw a towel at him too.

  “Coach?” you directed the question to him.

  “Just called me a sniveling know-it-all. I’ve heard worse. But she still owes me twenty.”

  You looked at me and grinned. “Shit, I think she owes you fifty.”

  “No way.” My arms were crossed but you slowly made your way to me. I was wary. And put some distance between me and the pool.

  When you reached me, you kissed me. I pushed away a little. “Did you like that, Cam?”

  I didn’t know how to respond to this attack.

  “I hope you did, because that will be the last one you get until you decide to do the fifty laps,” you continued.

  I moved toward the pool and looked back at you with a sly smile of my own. “Okay, buddy. Be that way. Side with the old man, but you know that won’t get you what you want either.”

  And I dove in, splashing you. It took you a minute to follow me. You had to disconnect the pump, but it was still a lot faster than I would have expected.

  Coach watched all of this, busted out laughing, and then tossed the keys to the school on a table and left.

  After that, you focused your athletic energy into me, and Coach let you. You were way tougher on me than he ever was. Of course, you didn’t have all the knowledge that he did, but you were a quick learn. And you’d been watching me dive for nearly eight years. And you knew my body in ways no one ever would. So, it kind of made you the perfect coach.

  By the time I got to regionals, I was in really good shape. I got to zones, and at zones, I made it to nationals. At nationals, I made the team of six that would represent the USA at the worlds in England.

  We were going to Europe! It was crazy. Coach said that he should have had you coaching me all along. But you and I smiled and knew that it would never have worked back then. You and I were different now. We were a team in a way that we hadn’t quite been a team before.

  You had already decided to take the fall off of school. You were still battling with your glucose levels and ketones on a daily basis, and everyone agreed that you should take the semester off. So, the good thing for me was that you were going with me to Europe.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  I missed the first three weeks of my senior year going to worlds. There were five of us that went: Mama, Daddy, Coach, you, and I. We got to explore London and stroll along the Thames. You shared a room with Coach, and I was wishing that I was just a year older, and I could tell my parents to go to hell, that I was sharing a room with you. But… I don’t think my mama or my daddy would have appreciated that as a senior in high school.

  I was nervous as hell at the worlds. I normally didn’t think of the meets as competition. Mostly thought of it as time in the air, flying through the sky like it didn’t matter. But you’d put so much energy into me that I didn’t want to disappoint you.

  You were there every time I came out of the water. Telling me what to do different. And I didn’t even try to kiss you even though I wanted to. You were in your business mode. Like when we were little and you were teaching me anything, you’d never let me fool around.

  In the end, I came away with the bronze. A bronze! At worlds! Sure, it wasn’t a gold, but I was thrilled. I couldn’t contain my smile, and this time I could kiss you, and you kissed me back. Of course, that made the papers. Diver kissing coach. It was kind of laughable, but the USA Diving Committee didn’t think so. They told Coach that you wouldn’t be able to be at the poolside anymore. You didn’t care, you were already talking about next year.

  Stay Stay Stay

  “And I'll be loving you for quite some time

  no one else is gonna love me when I get mad, mad, mad

  so I think that it's best if we both stay.”

  - Taylor Swift

  I just heard this song the other day, and it made me remember my senior year and college recruitment and us. We didn’t fight very often. Even if we did, it mostly ended in a wrestling match with laughter and kisses. I think it helped that we both knew, deep down, that we’d already been apart and that it was hell, and that the best thing that could ever happen to us was to be together. But… there were still times. Times when loving me wasn’t easy. Times when loving you wasn’t easy, but where we both made the choice to hang in there together and just stay.

  When we got back from worlds, colleges came courting me. It felt weird to be the star like you had been. It was a heady feeling, and I could hardly believe that your ego hadn’t ever gotten bigger than it had with all these people telling you what a superstar you were. I was thrilled at the attention, but I wasn’t going anywhere. The only place I was going was wherever you went. If that meant we went back to UTK, then that was fine with me.

  One day, after Texas A&M had left our house because I’d basically told them there was nothing they could offer me that would make me accept them, you got really mad at me.

  “What the hell was that?” you asked with those lake-colored eyes.

  I shrugged.

  “Why would you blow them off like that?”

  “I’m just being honest. I’m not going to Texas.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Do you think I’m going to go that far away from you? Now? After all we’ve been through?” I yelled back.

  “I’m not going to let you throw away your future because you think we can’t be apart for a few weeks at a time,” you stormed at me.

  “I’ve wasted enough of my life being away from you,” I told you back.

  “Cam, we have our whole lives ahead of us,” you told me and tried to pull me to you, but I pushed you away and stormed out.

  It wasn’t you that came and found me in the tree house. It was Mama. I was a little surprised by that.

  “You know, Camdyn, if you’re going to have a grown-up relationship, you can’t go running to a tree house every time you have a fight.” But she sat down next to me. After a few moments, she pulled my hair back and began braiding it like she used to when I was younger and would fight her tooth and nail because I hated sitting there that long while you were already out on the street playing.

  “What is it that you’re afraid of?” she asked me.

  “I’m afraid that he’ll move on without me again.”

  “Do you really think he ever moved on?” When I didn’t answer, she kept going, “Camdyn. He’s been waiting for you since before you were born. He’s not going anywhere without you.”

  Just then you hollered up at me. I stood up and looked out of the tree house to see you with your old shoulder pads on over your t-shirt.

  “Come down here and fight me fair and square,” you said. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “How is that fair?” I said, referring to the pads.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve felt your right hook. I figure if you’re going to hit me, I need some kind of protection.”

  I looked over at Mama. She was smiling too.

  She stood up and rubbed my face with her hand. “You’ve always been more his than mine.”

  It was the second time she’d told me that. I hugged her, and then jumped out of the tree like I used to when I was little, from the window. You picked me up and squeezed me, and I punched your padded shoulders. We were wrestling on the ground by the time Mama climbed off the ladder.

  “Get a room, you two,” she said as she went into the house. That stopped us dead in our tracks. We looked at each other in shock, and then just busted up laughing.

  In the end, you accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere without you. And I accepted that you didn’t want me to give up my chance of a college scholarship to tag after you. We talked it over and decided that you’d transfer to wherever the best offer came from. Whichever offer came in that was a place we both wanted to live and would accept your UTK credits.

  I guess most parents would never have agreed to that; to let their teenage daughter move away to college with some guy. But you w
eren’t just some guy. And everyone knew that even if they paid for two apartments, one for you and one for me, or if I lived in the dorms, and they paid for that, the place I’d really be was wherever you were. Hadn’t I grown up in your bedroom? So, they all came to accept that you and I were together. There was nothing that was going to break us apart. Nothing. At that time, that’s what it seemed like.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  You took some extension courses for the second semester. UTK was glad to let you do it because you’d been a football hero and because of your health issues. All I cared about was that you were there every day when I came home. My senior year didn’t seem so important anymore. It was just a means to an end. A means to getting us into our own place together.

  In January, the college that I accepted was Virginia Tech. It wasn’t necessarily the highest ranked. But it had made the most generous offer, and would accept most of your units and you. And they wouldn’t make me live on campus which suited us to a T.

  Coach was devastated to be losing me. But he liked the coaches at Virginia Tech better than the coaches at Texas A&M, so that was a plus. He felt like it was a better fit as well. He also knew that you were going with me and wouldn’t let anyone push me into things that I shouldn’t be doing.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  The high school wouldn’t let you attend prom because you were 21 and that just seemed way too old to be going to prom. And the truth was, it was. Prom was like child’s play for you. And it suddenly seemed that way to me too. I didn’t really want to participate in it at all. So, instead, we took a trip. We flew out to Virginia Tech and went apartment shopping. Just the two of us.

  It felt weird to be walking through the airport, holding hands and being able to kiss each other all we wanted without people staring at us like we were a bit , as folks at home had been doing for the entire year.

  We found this simple little one bedroom that was close enough to campus for us to walk or ride our bikes, but wasn’t overloaded with partying teenagers. If the landlord was surprised by our ages or our moving in together, he didn’t say anything. He’d probably seen just about everything in a college town. We signed the lease for a move in date of July 1st.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  When graduation came, it seemed really anticlimactic. My family was there to cheer me on, but you were the person in the stands that I had eyes for. Wynn cried so much after that, I thought she might become a rain cloud. She was going to Tennessee State in Nashville. And my one true girl friend and I just didn’t know how to say goodbye.

  Two weeks later, you and I were packing up the Jeep and the Camaro with our things. We’d shipped some furniture out that you’d been using at UTK, but most of our stuff was in our cars. My mama cried almost as hard as Wynn had. Even my daddy got teary-eyed.

  But somehow, the fact that you were going with me made it not so hard for them. And maybe because I was with you, it was easier for your mama and daddy to let you go, after the struggles you’d had all year keeping everything in balance. We’d look out for each other, like we always did. At least, that’s what I thought would happen. It turns out that you were better at keeping secrets than I thought.

  Treacherous

  “And I’ll do anything you say

  if you say it with your hands.”

  - Swift & Wilson

  God, this song makes me think of you. Of those times in our apartment. The slow, warm nights. Your hands. My hands. Us. Together. The song is sexy and slow, like it always felt like we were when we were together, hidden away in our apartment in Virginia.

  It didn’t feel like we were playing house. I’m sure to people older and more experienced than us, that is what it would appear to be. You were taking summer classes to get caught up on a few things. That’s why we’d come out early. Well, and so I could start training with my new coaches.

  We almost always walked together to campus with our fingers entwined, like we’d always been this way. Sometimes we’d bike together, but that didn’t seem as fun anymore because we couldn’t touch each other as easily biking. And no matter who was done with class or practice first, we waited for the other so that we could go back to our little piece of heaven together.

  I mean, it wasn’t really heaven. It was just a grungy college apartment. Clean. But old and bare bones. Neither of us were really decorators. Or as it turns out, were we very good cleaners. Or chefs. We ate a lot of pizza. And take out. And mac and cheese. You had to be as careful with carbs as you were with the sugar, so we had veggies and protein in there. But to us, it was heaven. In many ways, we lived our life in a bubble. We didn’t make friends with the neighbors. Didn’t make friends with people in classes. We had eyes only for ourselves. As if we hadn’t known each other all our lives. As if we were two strangers who had fallen in love and needed to get to know all there was to know about each other.

  When I was gone, all I could think about was getting back to you. To the feel of your hands on my skin. And if you were the one gone, you were the one racing back to me. And the first thing you did was pull me to you and kiss me like you’d been gone for months. We were making up for years of lost time. We were making up for the year we’d had to live in our separate houses even though we’d wanted to be like this. Next to each other. Skin to skin. I guess that summer was like being on a honeymoon. I guess we could have been a newly married couple. We might as well have been because we did everything together.

  When we went grocery shopping to pick out our meager supplies, knowing that we wouldn’t cook much of anything, you wouldn’t wander far away. You’d be near me, touching me, reaching past me to grab something and kissing me on the way back.

  Completely disgusting stuff. I know.

  Girl stuff. Romantic stuff. Stuff that I never thought I’d care about, but that you showed me that I did. That it mattered to me that you thought I was beautiful, and that my limited curves were all you needed and were lovelier than any other person you’d been with.

  Sometimes, when I’d open my eyes in the morning, you’d be there staring at me with a leg over on top of mine, a hand resting on the curve of my waist. I’d say, “What?” thinking I had snot or drool or something down my face.

  “You’re just so damn beautiful,” you’d tell me with a smile. With those mosaic eyes lighting up like fireworks.

  And all I knew how to do was kiss you. Because I still wasn’t very good with compliments. Even if they were from you. Even if they were words I’d wanted to hear from you since I was nine years old.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  My poor mama. I think she must have thought I’d forgotten her because I hardly ever called or texted, and completely forget an actual snail mail letter. The truth was, I had forgotten her. I had forgotten everything but you. Summer was a Hollywood movie. A romance that didn’t seem to end, and that I didn’t want to end.

  When classes started in the fall, and I had more consistent dive practice, we were drawn apart a little more. And when we were home, we both had a boatload of schoolwork to do. We had to set ground rules, because if one of us touched the other, it was all over. There’d be no studying.

  It was kind of fun though, for me, to break the rules. I’m smiling as I write this because, when had I ever been a rule follower? What made you think this would be different? You’d always get mad at me, remember? But it was in that cute way you’d come to get mad at me. Hardly ever with dark, pond colored eyes, but more an exasperated, I-know-you’re-gonna-win kind of eyes. Eyes that knew it was gonna be fun to have me break the rules, and you try to stop me. With eyes lighting up like fireworks.

  To punish me, you tried studying at the library. But I knew where to find you there too. And really, I knew exactly how to get what I wanted now. I knew exactly where to kiss you and touch you. You’d flush a million shades of red when I was really bold in the library. Who knew that Jake Carter Phillips could actually blush? And I loved the fact that I could make you do it. I loved that Seth had taught
me ways of not playing fair. And… I could win a lot this way. It was intoxicating. I felt like I had a whole lot more power over you than I ever had before. Sex. Guys are putty for sex. Too bad I couldn’t have used that when I was twelve.

  One day, a couple weeks into the school year, the sororities and fraternities came out of the woodwork, advertising rush week. We were in the quad, studying together between classes, but the chaos in the quad was demanding our attention. We both gave up studying and stretched out on the lawn. I had my head on your stomach while we watched. I could feel you watching me. I always knew when you were. Hadn’t I always?

  Finally, you pulled my hand up and kissed it, and then said, “I feel like an ass.”

  That wasn’t what I had expected, so I rolled over to look into your eyes. “Why?”

  “Because of me, you’ll miss out on all that.”

  “It’s not because of you. I wouldn’t be doing that anyway.”

  “But you’d be going out and partying with your teammates and chugging back beers and winning hearts.”

  “You said pretty much the same thing when you went away and left me in high school and look how that ended up.”

  You were silent, looking at me, searching my face for any regret of which there was none.

  “I don’t want any of that. Not even a little bit,” I told you, meaning it with all my heart. You stared a little longer. I finally pulled your head down and whispered, “Shut up and kiss me.”

  And you did, long and hard, before pulling back.

  “I guess it’s good,” you said with a slow grin, “because I’ve learned my lesson. I sure as hell wouldn’t be letting you ride away on the back of some damn motorcycle.”

  I reached up and kissed you again before popping open the button on your jeans and then making a break for our bikes with you chasing after me. I wasn’t going to make it to biology today. I had better ways to learn about the human body.

  My life with you did make me stand out a little from the rest of the dive team who were leading the normal party lifestyle of most college students. I probably did miss out on stuff that was normal and important to developing your own sense of self. But it was worth it every time I rolled over in bed and felt you next to me. Every time I got to curl up next to you at night and fall asleep with your arm thrown across my body in that protective way that you’d come to do without even knowing it. All of that would never, ever leave me. All of that was forever worth any loss of anything “normal” I should have been doing. I’d give anything and everything up for those minutes together. They were the most precious moments in the world. Ingrained in my memories more than any other moments in my life.