by A. R. Perry
Not even twelve hours to go. Twelve hours separated me from either heartbreak or happiness. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I got up and threw on my jeans and a hoodie with the plan of taking a drive to clear my head. My dad passed out early after a couple of glasses of scotch, so it wasn’t as if he would notice.
I grabbed my keys from the hook next to the door then slipped out as quietly as possible. I had gotten good at it over the years so really, I had no reason to be jumpy. That was, until I bumped into a body on my porch.
No joke, I almost screamed. Almost.
Lily jumped back, her hand flying to her heart as I gripped my stomach and tried to breathe.
“You scared the crap out of me!” Lily whisper-yelled, her heightened anxiety making her voice come out higher than normal.
“I scared you? You’re the one skulking around my porch.”
She glanced away, but even in the yellow glow from my porch light I could see her cheeks turn pink.
“Yeah…well… I kind of couldn’t wait to talk to you, but then I changed my mind. I changed my mind about ten times since I’ve been standing out here, actually.”
Her words gave me hope. A ray of sunshine cutting through the cloudiness in my heart. I reached for her hand, surprised when she didn’t pull away, and tugged her down the steps toward the gate that led to my backyard. “I want to show you something.”
“Now?” she asked but didn’t put up a fight.
Yes. Now.
She was there and the second I saw her face I knew I couldn’t wait until morning. Especially when I noticed how puffy her eyes were. They looked like that the day after my mom died. I knew she had been crying and if it was because of me, which I had a hunch it was, I wanted to take those bad feelings away.
I reached over the top of the fence and undid the latch, thankful that my dad’s room faced the other way.
“Close your eyes.” I stopped before we turned the corner and my surprise came into view.
“Is this where you murder me? ‘Cause it kind of feels like that type of moment.”
“Please,” I snorted. “If I wanted to murder you, I had plenty of time at the lake house. A perfect place to dump the body too like that one creepy movie where the guy has a garden of dead women under the lake.”
“Cabin by the Lake!” Lily smacked my arm and giggled. “I always knew you connected with that character too much.”
“You caught me.” I smiled and covered her eyes with my hand. “Now close ‘em and keep ‘em closed till I tell you.”
“Exactly what a killer would say.” She laughed but did as I said, her eyelashes tickling my palm as her eyes closed.
With a stomach full of what had to be raging wasps, I led her to the middle of my backyard where I had sweated all day building an amazing replica of the tree house we had as kids. Except this time, I built it on the ground.
“Okay, open them.” I let her go and stepped to the side.
Lily did as I said. It took her a moment, but I knew the exact second she noticed it because her breath caught in her throat and her hand reached out to grip my arm.
“Parker… Is this our old fort?”
“As close as I could get it. Had to put it on the ground since Dad ripped down our tree.”
Her eyes found mine, wide with what I hoped was excitement because I sure as hell was.
“Why?”
“Come here, let me show you.”
She took my hand as I led her up to the small entrance. I tried to make the walls higher, but we still had to duck to get through the front door.
I switched on the camping lantern I had taken from the garage and watched carefully as Lily took in the decorations I covered the walls with. Finding those photos had come in handy after all and it was worth it to see the look on her face.
“Parker…”
“Lily.” I squeezed her hand, trying to ignore the shaking in mine. “I’m terrible with how I feel. It used to take my mom pointing it out before I even understood it. That was true with everything. Swimming. Writing. You…” Her eyes met mine and I swallowed hard not knowing if I should continue.
“Me?”
“Yeah, Lily, you. See, my mom picked up on it first. The day you busted your face on that hill I was out of my mind with worry. When they didn’t let me go to the hospital with you to get your stitches, I locked myself in my room and refused to come out until you got back.”
“Later that night my mom pulled me aside and asked me what made me so scared. The fact that you were hurt or the fact that you wouldn’t talk to me about it? It was that moment I realized losing you would be like taking all the color out of the world. And I loved color.”
Lily’s breath picked up and she squeezed my hand so hard I thought it might break. But I didn’t shy away. A broken bone would be a hell of a lot better than a broken heart.
“It was a secret I kept to myself for a while… For seven years.” I grinned, trying to ease some of the tension, but Lily didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “My plan was to tell you at Christmas the year we turned thirteen. It was your favorite holiday, and I thought maybe I could make it mine too if you felt the same way. Only problem was, my mom died that summer. Suddenly the color really was gone from my world. Light too. It left me in such a dark place that I didn’t want to drag you down with me. I wanted to preserve your light.”
Lily stepped closer, her free hand trailing up my arm until it rested on my shoulder.
“My mom always knew about how I felt and suddenly I didn’t have anyone in my corner. No one to root for us or tell me how to feel. I shut down right when you needed me most and when I finally came to my senses, we were over. You had Madison and Milo and I figured I did it to myself so I would have to live with it. Problem was, every day felt like walking through mud and when I would see you in the halls that mud became a little easier to tread. But you refused to acknowledge me so I went about getting your attention in the only way I knew how. You always were a hothead.”
Laughing, Lily brought her face closer to mine. I wanted to wrap her up in a tight hug and kiss the breath right out of her, but I needed to finish. Four years of unrequited love couldn’t be silenced.
“What happened at the lake wasn’t what you thought. My plan was to spend that week fixing all the damage four years and a crap-ton of resentment caused. But every time we came close, one of us would shut down. See, the thing I never thought of was how wrecked our hearts were. And what you walked in on would never have happened if I didn’t throw Tracy in your face in a last-ditch effort to get your attention. Nothing happened, you need to know that. I need you to know—”
Lily’s lips crashed into mine, taking me by surprise. I took a staggered step backward, about all the room the tiny space would allow, before my spine pressed into the wall. Lily’s hands were in my hair in an instant, her body flush against my chest as she dominated my mouth in a way I had never experienced.
Her tongue ran laps around mine, as if she needed to get it all out before something ruined it. Before we ruined it.
Not a chance of that happening this time.
I broke away from her with a gentle shove. There was nothing I wanted more than to continue, but I needed to get one last thing out.
“Lily, I love you. I’ve loved you since the day you took my dare and raced down that hill even though you knew it would end badly. I might be terrible at expressing myself, so I built you this fort and filled it with photographic evidence of our love. Platonic and not.”
I tapped a photo of us at twelve, both dressed up for our first official school dance.
Her eyes took in the picture as a smile spread across her beautiful lips. “I almost kissed you that night. But you ran off with Marco Flores to TP Principal Beck’s car.”
“Guess I need to make up for that.” I threaded my hands into her hair, bringing her face to mine. She placed a gentle peck on my lips before leaning back.
“In case you were wondering, Hayes… I love you too
.”
My heart glowed in my chest. A lightness I hadn’t felt since my mom was alive. Those three words were all I ever wanted to hear from her mouth.
“Truth or dare?”
Lily bit her lip in an effort to keep the grin off her face. “Dare.”
“I dare you to spend the rest of your life being honest with your feelings and not letting the crappy shit in our past scare you off.”
She pretended to think about it before bringing her mouth to mine again. “Only if you’re right by my side,” she whispered against my lips.
I couldn’t think of one good reason why not. So I answered with a kiss.
“Okay, smile.” My mom held up her phone and snapped a photo of Parker and me next to his car. Apparently once word got out that we were officially a thing, my mom took that to mean documenting every single day.
“We’re going to be late.” I covered my face as she tried to take another photo. Parker, being no help at all, cheesed it up at my side with an arm draped over my shoulders.
“Okay. Okay.” She dropped her phone long enough that I left my defenses down. And…that’s when she snapped another photo.
I’m sure I looked charming. Couldn’t wait to see what kind of expression that picture caught.
“Bye, Mom!” I yelled as I climbed into the car.
“Have a great first day!” She gave me an over-the-top wave before she went back inside. I was positive the neighbors must think she was crazy.
“Think your mom will ever get over the fact that we’re together?” Parker asked as he started the engine.
“Highly doubtful. Like I said, it’s her dream come true.”
“My mom too.” Parker grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers as he drove away from the curb.
“Senior year,” I sighed. “How’s that going to feel without swimming?”
He grimaced and bobbed one shoulder. Over the summer he sat down and talked to his dad about quitting the swim team. To say his father had a coronary would be an understatement. I sat with Parker the whole time as his dad yelled until he ran out of steam. When Parker finally admitted that swimming reminded him too much of his mom, Mr. Hayes gave in.
They came to the agreement that his dad would rent out the lake house when we weren’t up there. It would help pay for college but Parker still needed a job to offset the costs. Luckily for me, we both scored jobs at the mall. Food court dates had gotten a little stale, but as long as I was with him, it didn’t matter too much.
We pulled into the senior parking lot and right away I spotted Madison with a very smug-looking Aiden wrapped around her. It was disgusting, but all my fault so I couldn’t complain.
True to my word, I set them up. All it took was a surprise blind date to make her realize how crazy she was about him. And they had been inseparable ever since. One giant pile of PDA that on most days made me want to gag. Parker and I were a little more low-key.
I didn’t want anyone getting ideas about how amazing my boyfriend was. And the things that boy could do to my body with a single kiss would make the female population weak in the knees just by witnessing it.
“It’s the Maiden monster,” Parker joked, as he parked in the spot next to my flushed best friend.
“I’m surprised they are out in the daylight.”
Parker flashed me his grin that I came to realize wasn’t so cocky after all as he climbed out of the car.
“Eww, break it up.” I hip-checked Madison as I closed my door. “Young children around. We don’t want to frighten them.”
“We’re in the senior parking lot,” Madison said between kisses. “Besides, can’t be worse than the show Parker put on at the bonfire.”
Ouch. Sore subject. But I brushed it away. We couldn’t spend our lives looking to the past. It had a way of hindering the present.
Parker slung his arm around my shoulders. “Should I get the hose?” he whispered in my ear.
“Only if it’s attached to a fire truck. Pretty sure that’s what we’ll need to break them apart.”
Aiden groaned and pulled away to send a dirty look in my direction. “We can hear you.”
“That was the point, genius.”
“Buy me a cookie?” Madison pouted with her hands knotted in Aiden’s shirt.
“My cookie wants a cookie? You got it.” He turned around so she could launch off the back of his truck onto his back.
“Are we that gross?” I asked Parker.
“Yes!” Maiden answered then broke into simultaneous giggles.
So gross.
“Come on, cookie,” Parker mocked in the most obnoxious lovey-dovey voice he could muster as he led me toward the front entrance.
Senior year.
I gazed up at the building in a new way. When I entered high school, my heart was still raw from the loss of Parker. Walking in on my last first day ever as a high school student with Parker right next to me, I couldn’t keep my heart rate down or the smile from my face.
In a very short period, we would be adults. The following year, Parker and I planned on attending the same college. With a scholarship out of the picture, he had to settle on a different path, one that didn’t include an out-of-state college. I always dreamed of going to UDUB and with it close to home we would be able to save money. He said he didn’t care as long as he was with me. He was still undecided on what he wanted to major in, so to him, the campus we attended didn’t make much of a difference.
Never in a million years did I think a stupid dare at an even stupider high school party would lead me back to the boy I loved and lost so many years before.
I guess sometimes, you just need to take the long route. In the end, you might appreciate it a hell of a lot more. Scars and all.
About the Author
A.R. Perry is an American-born author who has lived all over the US due to her wanderlust husband. She has a degree in photography and massage therapy yet somehow works in human resources.
When she's not working, reading, or writing she can be found sleeping because the day is practically done. Thank goodness for coffee, chocolate, and Panic! At The Disco or nothing would ever get done.