DREAMS of 18

by A. Kent, Saffron

  At this, I had to look at him because… what?

  “What?” I repeated my thought.

  He had his arms crossed over his chest as he raised his eyebrows at me. “You are. It’s because he’s such a hardass, isn’t it? You’re scared of him.”

  “I’m not scared of your dad.”

  Quite the opposite, actually. I was afraid of the fact that I wasn’t afraid of his dad at all. I was afraid that if his dad looked at me in front of Brian, I’d blush so badly that my secret would come out.

  “Come on, Vi. You can tell me.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You can tell me anything. You can tell me all your secrets.”

  Um, I think not.

  I threw a pencil at him and his goofy moves. “You’re crazy.”

  He thumped a fist on his chest, going all macho on me. “What, you think I can’t protect you? Come on, Vi, I can take my dad for you. You know I’ll keep you safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  I wrinkled my nose when he winked at me. “Yeah, why don’t you save your flirting for the girls who’re actually interested?”

  “Well, if you gave me one indication that you are one of those girls, I’d leave everyone for you.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and his strangely grave voice before going back to my homework.

  But then, that’s Brian.

  Completely crazy and goofy and oozing with boyish charm. Every girl at school wants him and every boy wants to be his friend. So totally different than my weird, shy self and somehow we’re friends.

  Anyway, after a lot of avoidance and making myself scarce around Mr. Edwards, it’s safe to say that I haven’t exchanged a single word with him in two years.

  So how can it be love?

  How can it be that gravity-defying, soul-deep, bone-tingling, epic-as-fuck connection when we haven’t done something as basic as have a conversation?

  It can’t be and it’s not.

  I don’t even know the man. Not really.

  All I have is a few scraps of useless information that I’ve either observed or heard from his son. That shirt-touching thing? It didn’t happen because I broke into Mr. Edwards’s room in the middle of the night to try to feel his clothes up. It happened because I was helping Brian with the laundry and I just… accidentally on purpose touched it a little.

  Even so, how would Brian react if he knew that I was some kind of a creepy information-hoarder? That I watch his dad at night and that I love his plaid shirts?

  He would flip out and dump me as his friend, that’s what.

  But more than that, he’d be hurt and I can’t do that to him. I can’t hurt the only friend I’ve got.

  So I’ve decided to leave.

  We’ve graduated from school now and I’ll leave at the end of summer and go to a small college on the west coast. Brian is going to Columbia – his dream school. In fact, he’s leaving early to start his new campus job there and even though we’ll be apart, and I’ll once again be friendless, I couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves it for being such a hard worker.

  But that’s like, a month away.

  Right now, it’s a little before midnight. In only a few minutes, I’ll be eighteen and I’m sneaking out the window of my bedroom on the second floor. But instead of climbing up to the roof, I’m making my way down using the branches of the tree that’s been there for as long as I can remember.

  My family went to sleep ages ago and like always, they’re not going to remember my special day. Hence, I’m making my own arrangements.

  It started with a little piña colada, the stuff for which I stole from my parents’ liquor cabinet. I made myself one while listening to “The Piña Colada Song.” Just seemed appropriate for the occasion.

  Now on tipsy legs, I make my way across the driveway and step into Mr. Edwards’s backyard. It’s all dark and silvery and is visible in outlines, except for one thing.

  This little garden toward the back – a rose garden.

  It’s laid out in a semi-circle at the far corner, adjacent to the wooden fence, and somehow the fat, buttery moon is directly up above it. I can see the roses, a mix of red and pink, their stems swaying slightly with the midnight-summer breeze.

  As soon as I reach it, I kneel down on the ground. I’m in my shorts so the blades of dry grass tickle my bare knees and calves. Bending down carefully because, well, I am a little buzzed, I smell the nearest rose.

  A rush goes through me as the scent hits my nostrils.

  It slams the back of my mouth and fills up my lungs like smoke. Like a big drag of marijuana that makes you a little dizzy and lightheaded. A little euphoric. Brian insisted that I try it last year for the first time and we couldn’t get the grins off our faces for hours.

  Smelling these roses is sort of like that.

  It makes me smile stupidly. I rub the tip of my nose against the velvet petals, feeling mellow and happy.

  It’s his garden, see.

  Mr. Edwards’s.

  He’s the one who grows these beautiful, fragile, colorful things. This is his passion project.

  I’ve seen him kneel right where I’m kneeling. He bends the same way as me, curling his big, muscular body over these plants. He turns the soil, waters it, weeds out the dried leaves, the dying petals.

  He takes care of them with his dusky and what I assume to be work-roughened hands. All in the darkness of the night, like he’s doing something bad and criminal and can’t bear for anyone to find out this little spot of softness in him.

  It’s hard to believe that someone so rugged and so harsh like him likes to grow these pretty, soft flowers. So hard to reconcile this with his silent, athletic, beastly personality, but there you go.

  The beast likes the beauty of the roses.

  Once I’m done smelling them, I focus on the ones that appear to be on the verge of dying.

  There are a few of them and reaching over, I pluck them all off. I have four dying roses, all red once upon a time but now yellowed and curled over the edges.

  I can’t see them crumbling so I pick them off just when they are about to fall apart and put them in the pages of The Diary of a Shrinking Violet.

  I bundle my roses together, careful of the thorns, and stand up. My legs are a little unsteady from the booze but I manage.

  As soon as I turn around though, I almost come back down on my knees.

  Because right in front of me, not even five feet away, is Mr. Edwards.

  Mr. Edwards.

  The man that I’ve just been thinking about. Although I’m always thinking about him, but still. He is here.

  Here.

  Like, right in front of me.

  I blink.

  Yup, still there.

  How is that possible?

  Am I dreaming?

  I have to be.

  He’s not supposed to be here. He’s not supposed to be home tonight.

  “Should I be calling 911?”

  His voice in the quiet of the night makes me flinch. It’s a reaction suitable for voices that you haven’t heard before.

  It’s not true in this case, though.

  I’ve heard Mr. Edwards talk before. Either with Brian or with a student at school, with neighbors. He doesn’t talk much. But he does offer occasional dry, sarcastic, sometimes cutting comebacks.

  “You do understand English, don’t you?” he asks again, in a low, dusted-with-sand voice. A mix of a growl and a hum.

  This time with a slight rise of his eyebrows and an arrogant, almost a superior look on his face that again, I’ve seen a number of times before.

  “I…”

  “You what?”

  Okay, for the last time… is he really talking to me?

  “I’m not sure.” I answer my own question, which he obviously takes to be the answer to his question.

  “You’re not sure about what?”

  “I’m not sure if…” I suppress the urge to glance back t
o see if there’s someone else around, and continue, “If you’re real.”

  What a stupid thing to say, Violet.

  At this, he takes a moment to answer. His eyebrows have come down, but now there’s a frown between them. Not dark and deep like when one of his players fails to circuit around the field within the specified time, but light and somewhat curious.

  “Why, you do this a lot?”

  “Do what a lot?”

  “See things that are not there.”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. So I try to get my act together.

  “This is going horribly wrong.” I lick my dry lips because Jesus Christ, I’m talking to him. “I’m sorry. I, uh, you probably don’t know who I am. I’m Violet. Violet Moore. I, uh, live next door. With my parents and my sister. Her name’s Fiona. You’ve probably seen her around. She’s in college right now but she’s visiting.”

  Yikes.

  What a moment to ramble.

  “Oh, um, and I’m a friend of Brian’s,” I continue with a slight smile. “I go to school with him. In fact, I go to the same school you coach at. Go…” I squint, trying to get our mascot right. “I wanna say wolves. Go wolves?”

  I pump a lazy fist up in the air for emphasis.

  The truth is that I know nothing about sports and even less about football. Before the Edwardses came into my life, I hadn’t even seen a single game played, either in real life or on TV.

  But now, I see them.

  Well, mostly I see Mr. Edwards, standing on the sidelines of the field, looking fierce and scary. But still.

  “Lions,” he murmurs, his gaze flicking to the fist for a second before coming back to me, his arms folded across his chest.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Go Lions. Not wolves.”

  “Right. Go Lions.” I lick my lips again – why the fuck am I running out of moisture when I’m sweating so much? “I don’t know a lot about football, to be honest.”

  Mr. Edwards tips his chin at me. “So, a friend of Brian’s, what are you doing sneaking into my backyard in the middle of the night, stealing my roses?”

  Oh, fuck.

  I’d completely forgotten about the flowers. Now, I feel them plastered to my rapidly breathing chest, my fingers wrapped around the stems in a death-grip.

  Should I lie?

  And say what? I am holding the flowers.

  Besides, I don’t wanna lie to Mr. Edwards. I lie to everyone now and then but I never wanna lie to him.

  I tuck my hair behind my ears with my free hand and explain, “I only took the dying ones. Not the good ones.”

  Like that makes it any better. But I honestly don’t know what else to say.

  Mr. Edwards throws them a distracted glance like he couldn’t care less about the flowers. “Yeah? Why not the good ones?”

  At his question, I lower my eyes to them. I finger the yellowed edges lightly. Some of the petals are so loosened and dry that a puff of air could make them fall apart.

  Poor babies.

  “Because no one else wants the bad ones,” I say.

  “And you do.”

  I look up. “Yes. I always want the bad ones.”

  Bad things. Bad roses. Bad crushes.

  His frown gets even deeper. I almost wonder if he’s doing himself a permanent injury by frowning this much. “Why’s that?”

  “Because everyone wants something pretty,” I blurt out, even though I have a feeling the answer won’t matter to him. Nothing about me matters to anyone so why would something change now?

  Even so, I keep going. “Something that’s fresh and beautiful. Something that’s perfect. But then, what about the things that are imperfect? Things that might not be as pretty or as conventional. Things that might be weird, outdated or outcast? They’re not in much demand, are they? They’re not wanted. But I do. I want them. So they don’t feel rejected.”

  Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever talked this much. Not to a person I’ve never spoken with before. I’m usually the non-talker but something about Mr. Edwards is making me wanna talk.

  Something about him has sucked away all my shyness. Or maybe it’s the buzz of piña colada.

  Throughout my heartfelt speech, he kept his focus on my face, on my un-pretty, un-beautiful and imperfect face.

  But now, his eyes have moved.

  They’re hazel, by the way. He’s got hazel-colored, chameleon eyes. They change color. They go from green to brown to green again. I’ve never seen it happen in real life, though. I’ve only seen photos that Brian has showed me.

  And his chameleon eyes are on my hands.

  I look down and find that I’m moving my finger up and down the bumpy stems of the roses, grazing the thorns slightly. Not only that. My thumb is flicking the fragile petals, very slowly and carefully, lovingly even.

  At his continued stare, my hands blush.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  I focus back on him and catch the end of his eyes flicking up and coming back to me. Although I do witness the complete clench of his jaw. His almost bearded jaw.

  He’s annoyed, I think.

  “No,” I reply on a whisper that comes out strangled. “I mean, they won’t care.”

  “They won’t care you’re talking to a strange man in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re not a stranger. You’re my neighbor.”

  He leans toward me, even though we’re still a few feet apart. And I swear to God, I feel the air around me grow hotter because he moved a micro-inch toward me.

  “That’s how little girls like you end up getting kidnapped. Because they think talking to their neighbor when everyone else is sleeping is a great fucking idea.”

  God, he’s so stern.

  I mean, I knew that. But I didn’t know the effect it would have on me if he got stern with me, specifically.

  All the wrong effects. The quickening of my breaths and the urge to smile.

  Seriously, how am I not shy in front of him?

  Not to mention, I didn’t know how it would feel when someone called me little.

  I know I’m little.

  I’m 5’2” on my best day and he’s at least 6’5” on all of his. I was right the first day I saw him. He is the tallest, broadest man, at least in Cherryville, Connecticut. He towers over everyone that I know and now that he called me little, I should be embarrassed by my size.

  Shouldn’t I?

  But again, I’m not. No embarrassment. No shyness.

  All I can think about is how he can pick me up with one hand and how I can perch on his thigh like it was a log from a tree.

  “Are you going to kidnap me?” I ask with amusement in my voice.

  “No, I don’t want the hassle. I’m more of a serial killer type.”

  Oh man, he’s funny.

  “You can’t murder me, Mr. Edwards. You’ll end up in jail.”

  He takes a few moments to answer. “Strangely, I don’t care about that right now.”

  I look down at my red sneakers for a second, trying to control my smile. “I –"

  “Leave.”

  A muscle jumps on his cheek and everything slows down inside of me. I have to part my lips to drag in a breath because, well, I’m not afraid at all.

  I’m not afraid of that lash of a sound that came out of him.

  But I saw something. When I was looking down at my sneakers, I saw his shoes.

  They aren’t his usual hiking boots – he’s had the same pair since he moved in. He isn’t wearing his usual jeans, either. Also, not his plaid shirt.

  I can’t believe I didn’t notice before.

  He’s in fancy clothes.

  Being single, every once in a while, Mr. Edwards puts on fancy clothes – dress shirt, neatly pressed pants and dress shoes – and goes out on a date.

  I knew he was go
ing to go out tonight; Brian told me. But I didn’t know that he was going to go out out.

  He hasn’t been on very many dates but he does go out sometimes. And every time he does, I picture him with a sophisticated, pink-champagne drinking, lobster-eating woman and it feels like someone’s sticking me with needles or peeling off my skin or making me eat strawberries when I don’t want to.

  My nod is jerky, as all my smiles and euphoria go out of me. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  I take a couple of steps toward my house. But my feet prove to be drunk and uncooperative, making me flounder.

  Even before my world tips, I know I’m going to fall.

  Miraculously though, I don’t.

  Instead, I’m plastered against something solid and heated. Something expansive and breathing.

  I’m plastered against Mr. Edwards.

  “You’re drunk,” he bites out as his fingers dig into the sleeves of my t-shirt.

  “I’m not,” I say automatically, staring up at him, my hand catching hold of his shirt at his chest.

  Soft, soft fabric hiding hard, sculpted pecs that I’ve seen on summer days when he takes his shirt off and mows the lawn.

  “I can smell it on you,” he growls.

  “I could be a little tipsy though,” I reply quickly.

  His eyes – those gorgeous eyes – narrow.

  “But only because it’s my birthday,” I add.

  “So you thought taking it out on your liver was a good idea.”

  “No. I was just… listening to this song and it made me want a piña colada.”

  “Unless it’s your twenty-first birthday, which I don’t think it is, you should’ve made it a virgin.”

  “I’m eighteen.”

  At my blurted-out reply, the muscle on his cheek lunges. It’s not a jump; it’s a tight lunge. His fingers jerk around my arm.

  “Definitely a virgin, then,” he says and his voice goes harsh as well.

  My teeth find my lower lip and bite it hard.

  Virgin.

  Yeah, I’m definitely that.

  Of course, he didn’t mean it that way. It’s my own dirty, twisted mind.

  “And you’re eighteen years older than me. So that makes you thirty-six,” I say needlessly.

  “If you’re trying to impress me with your math skills, you should know that it’s useless. Try Mr. Gunderson.”