Abi and the Boy She Loves

by Kelsie Stelting

  When I opened the door, his eyes widened.

  I gripped my shawl tighter, looking down at the dress. “Is it too much? I can change.”

  “No, no no.” He took my hand and pulled me to him. “You look amazing.”

  I looped my arms around him, through the gap between his crutches and his sides, and put my chin on his chest. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  His eyes sparkled, a light returning that I’d missed seeing there. Part of me hoped he was proposing tonight, just so I could seal forever with him.

  I tilted my chin up and kissed him deeply, not worrying about my lipstick or that we were standing in the doorway where anyone in the hall could see. This was Jon. I would never get tired of kissing him. Never be afraid to show anyone else how much I loved him. How happy I was to have him in my life.

  His voice was husky as he breathed, “Keep this up, and we won’t make it to the restaurant.”

  By the heaviness of his eyelids and the heat in his breath, I knew he was telling the truth.

  It had been a while, which I was feeling pretty intensely right about now. I barely managed to tear myself apart from him and grab my clutch from my desk. “Let’s go.”

  We walked down to his car, and I drove us using directions he pulled up on his phone. The map led us to a tall building in downtown Austin. We rode an elevator up more than twenty floors and then stepped onto a beautiful patio.

  Heat radiated from torches stationed throughout the area, and delicate flowers and votive candles rested on each table. But the most amazing thing was the view. My eyes drank in the city, the lights sparkling all around like a bed of stars shining just for us.

  “It’s stunning,” I breathed.

  He rested his hand on a bare patch of skin above my waist. “It’s all for you.”

  A smile touched my lips. For a second, I pretended he’d lit the city, individually touched every light so I could have this moment. “I love you,” I said and pressed my lips to his.

  He smiled against my kiss. “I love you more.”

  I shook my head, knowing there was no way that was true.

  A waiter came and sat us at a table for two, and I was so enthralled with the beautiful table setting and the sights around us, I barely managed to take in the menu. It didn’t have prices, which probably was a good thing, because there was no way I’d let Jon spend too much money on me.

  Someone took our orders and menus, and then Jon put his hands on the table, palms up. An invitation.

  I rested my hands on his, loving the feel of him, of us. “What’s all this for?” I asked.

  He shrugged, a small smile on his lips.

  “Really,” I said, short of breath. Was I ready for a proposal? Did I want that? I still didn’t know.

  He glanced back over the city. “I had to let you know, even though I can’t run track, and I won’t be going to nationals, and I’m not...good at anything anymore...” His eyes met mine again, the candlelight flickering in his pupils. “I still want to give you the world.”

  If only he knew he already had. It was sitting right in front of me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I walked into my dorm after track practice, expecting to find emptiness but seeing something else instead. “What are you two doing here?”

  Jon sat in my desk chair while Anika lay on her stomach on the rug, her laptop in front of her.

  She laughed, getting to her knees. “Good to see you too.”

  I went to her and crouched to hug her, even though my legs protested.

  Then I caught sight of what Jon held in his hands. “Is that...are you cross-stitching?”

  His cheeks went red as he set it down. “I’ve applied for every job I could find and my mom sent it and I’m bored and—” at Anika’s laughter, he said, “sue me,” and picked it back up.

  Anika and I exchanged glances.

  “Abi,” she said, standing up, “you have to see this sink in the girls’ bathroom. Someone left a fish in there.”

  “It’s alive?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “But it’s just a goldfish,” Jon quipped. “They could have left something cooler.”

  I dropped my drawstring bag by the bed and said, “Show me.”

  The second we got out of the dorm, she whispered, “What happened? Jon wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Just that he got hurt skiing and then he asked me so many questions about my break, I couldn’t get any information out of him.”

  “Figures.” I lifted a corner of my lips in a sad smile. He was deflecting. I relayed the whole horrible event to her, and her eyes were wide as she pushed the community bathroom door open.

  “Is there really a fish?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” She led me around to a sink, and sure enough, there was a tiny goldfish with a feeding chart written on the mirror in lipstick. His name was written in big, bold letters across the top.

  Cletus

  “Terrible name for a fish,” Anika muttered.

  I nodded, lost in thought. The fish reminded me of the Einstein quote Mr. Pelosi shared with me. “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

  Jon was the fish right now, judging his life on the ability to run. The problem was the measures he’d always used to judge himself weren’t applicable anymore. Would he realize that? My eyes misted over, and when blinking away the moisture didn’t cut it, I wiped at them.

  Anika put an arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder for a second. “I’m sorry break was hard.”

  All I had left in me was a nod before we turned and walked back to my own beautiful, broken fish.

  Jon was terrible at cross-stitching. But I was now the semi-proud owner of a messy cross-stitched heart.

  Thank God classes were starting.

  Even though Jon didn’t have anywhere to be until ten, he got up early and walked across campus with me to my first class—a course called Comparative Politics I couldn’t wait to start. When we reached the stairs at the building’s entrance, I stopped for our goodbye.

  Jon went to the handrail, though, and started up. “I’m walking you to the door.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, following him up the stairs. I had to make myself slow down as to not outpace him. “You didn’t need to come with me across campus, and you definitely don’t need to take all these stairs.”

  “If you didn’t want me to come, you could have said so,” he grumbled. “But it’s not like I have anything else going on. I’m bored out of my skull.”

  I softened, feeling sorry for him. I should have realized this was as much for him as it was for me. “What are you going to do until class?” I asked as we topped the stairs.

  He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe grab a coffee.”

  “You keep drinking four-dollar lattes, and your parents are going to cut you off.”

  His expression tightened. “If one of those jobs would call me back, I would be able to pay for it myself.”

  “You’ll hear back,” I reassured him.

  He refused to look me in the eyes. “You don’t know that. I have no experience. No skills. No physical ability to do anything. I doubt I’m at the top of anyone’s list.”

  I frowned. When he got like this, I couldn’t argue with him. I just stayed quiet until we reached the classroom, then lifted to my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you after practice tonight.”

  “We’re not getting lunch?”

  “I have therapy, remember?”

  He looked off to the side. “Guess I forgot.”

  I picked at the end of my backpack strap, trying to decide whether I should bring it up again or not. I decided to go for it. “You know, you could come with me and set up an appointment. I’m sure it would help.”

  “Abi, we talked about this. I don’t need a shrink. I need a job.”r />
  The hourly bell rang, punctuating his point.

  I shook my head. “I’ve got to go to class. I’ll see you later.”

  “Bye,” he said, clearly frustrated.

  We walked our separate ways, and the ache in my chest only grew.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted to my therapist in session after spending the first half hour telling her about break and all its tragedies. “He’s irritable, bored, and he has no drive anymore. It’s like he lost all of his purpose, but I don’t know why. It wasn’t like track was the game plan anyway. He wanted to be a social worker. Now, it seems like all that matters is his injury.”

  Her dark eyes glanced from her notebook to me. “I can’t diagnose him without seeing him, but it sounds like he’s depressed.”

  “He is!” I cried, causing her to scribble in her notebook. I looked down at my hands, trying to get my emotions in check, but that only made speaking over the growing knot in my chest even harder. “I thought the first day was hard, when he got hurt and I had to sit with him as he cried over not being able to run. His whole body shook. And then I thought it was hard when his pain medicine wore off the first time and I heard him, screaming out with pain. I thought it was hard when he suffered through physical therapy for the first time.” My throat got tight. “But this, watching him lose himself.” I swallowed. “It’s worse than all of that. It feels like I’ve lost him too.”

  My chest heaved with the weight of my cries and both of our losses. “Why am I crying?” I asked. “It’s not like it’s happening to me. I should just be able to support him, but I-I...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “can’t,” even though my lips ached to.

  “Abi,” she said. “You’ve been through so much this year. The fact that you’re sitting in front of me, cohesively stating your emotions and needs is nothing short of a miracle.” She glanced at the clock. “And you’ve spent almost the whole hour trying to help someone else with their needs. What about you? Are you still having flashbacks? Nightmares?”

  I blinked. Me? I hadn’t thought of myself in weeks. Slowly, I shook my head. “I’ve been so wrapped up in Jon...”

  Her smile was soft. “Don’t let your healing get pushed to the back burner. It matters too.”

  She made me promise to practice self-care after our session, but I didn’t need her extra push. Therapy always wore me out. I left feeling like I’d been run over by a truck, my eyes stinging and skin raw from the deluge of tears that accompanied my sessions without fail. I walked back to my dorm with my hood up and earphones in, praying I wouldn’t run into anyone, but also not wanting to be alone.

  Anika was a welcome sight in the dorm, sitting in front of her desk.

  “Hey.” She smiled up at me, then her expression sobered as she took me in. “Therapy day?”

  I nodded, shrugging off my coat.

  “Sorry,” she said and paused. “Want to watch some Sex and the City? It always cheers me up.”

  “What?” I asked. “What’s Sex in the City? It sounds like a porno.”

  Her laughter was almost contagious. “Sex and the City. It makes me feel better, you know if I’ve had a long day or got a bad grade or—”

  “I know what you said; I just don’t know what you’re talking about,” I elaborated.

  Anika’s hands froze on her paper as she stared at me open-mouthed. “No. Freaking. Way. Miranda? Carrie?”

  “Brandy? Tiffany?” I half-heartedly teased.

  She pretended to pull at her hair in exasperation. “Where have you been living?”

  “Under a rock, apparently.”

  “Right?” She went to get the remote and then crawled into her bunk. “You’ve got to see this. It doesn’t get really good until season two, but you need the backstory.”

  Thankful for a distraction, I climbed into my own bed. “Please, keep talking.” I meant that wholeheartedly.

  Anika talked me through the first three episodes until I was finally relaxed enough to drift off to sleep, curled under my blankets.

  When I woke up, there were a few text messages and a string of new emails waiting in my notifications. All from Jon.

  Sex and the City still played on the TV, even though Anika was gone, a note on her desk. Probably saying she was at the library. That girl studied like crazy.

  I looked down at my phone, reading my texts.

  Jon: Call me?

  Jon: Are you okay?

  I hit dial on my phone and scrolled through my emails as it rang. Jon had forwarded me rejection letter after rejection letter from all of his job applications. My heart hurt for him, at how cast-off he must have been feeling.

  “Hello? Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just fell asleep after my appointment. It sounds like you’ve had a rough day.”

  “A rough day is losing ten dollars. A rough day is stepping in a pile of dog poo. This is...well, worse than that.”

  I could relate. “So, you’re okay?”

  “If okay means completely unemployable, then yes.”

  “This can’t be everywhere you’ve applied,” I pointed out. “When I was looking for jobs in Woodman, it took me forever to get answers. I’m probably still getting rejection emails.”

  “It’s not everywhere.” He sighed. “But the odds aren’t looking good.”

  I sat up on my bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “Look, you don’t need everyone to like you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” A defensive edge colored his voice.

  I back-pedalled so fast I could practically feel my toes scraping my throat. “It just means that you only need one person to hire you. Right? You’re just looking for one job?”

  He let out another sigh. “Right. But it would be nice to have options.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “And a million dollars.”

  “And someone up here to cuddle with.”

  I smiled for the first time in our whole conversation. “I might be able to arrange that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep.” I pulled my blanket back and started crawling down from bed. “I’ll have my people call your people.”

  “And by that you mean?”

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Around nine, I woke to a call from my grandma.

  Jon rolled over in bed, half-asleep. “Send it to voicemail.”

  “That’s okay.” I hit silence and kissed his cheek. “I need to go back to my room anyway.”

  He mumbled out those three special words, “I love you,” and was snoring before it rang again. I climbed out of his bed, slipped on my shoes, and got to the hallway before returning Grandma’s call.

  “You called me back.” The way she said it almost made it seem like she was disappointed.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I ventured.

  Grandma was quiet for a moment. I pictured her rubbing her temples, her eyes closed.

  Each of my senses went on high alert, and I paused in the hallway. “What’s going on?”

  “Abi, I have good news and bad news.”

  My heart sped. In my situation, you’d take anything you could. “Good news.”

  “Eric Shepherd took a plea bargain. He’s serving a twenty-five-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

  I staggered back and leaned against the wall. I almost didn’t know how I should feel. Relieved I wouldn’t have to see Eric face to face? Scared of what would happen after year twenty-five? Angry he didn’t get more time? But I knew deep down the person who deserved to pay most was my father. He’d earned every day of his sentence and more.

  “Abi?” she said softly.

  “Mm?”

  “That’s good news, right? No trial?”

  “I guess,” I said. And maybe it was. I would be nearly fifty years old before Eric got out of prison. Would likely have children and maybe grandchildren and marriage anniversaries into the do
uble digits. But something kept me from celebrating. “The bad news?”

  Grandma let out a heavy sigh. “They set your father’s parole hearing for a month from today.”

  The floor dropped out from under me, and I was falling, powerless to stop the descent. At least, that’s what it felt like. That, and like all the air had been sucked from the room. I slid down against the hallway wall, just trying to keep from passing out.

  “Abi?”

  I managed to take a breath and clear the fog clouding my eyes. “When did they decide on that?”

  The pause before she spoke told me more than words could. She’d been holding on to this for a while now. “Honey, you’ve had the world on your shoulders for the last few weeks.”

  Few weeks? “When did you find out?”

  “The first day Jon was in the hospital.”

  I could hardly wrap my mind around it. While Jon was sitting in the hospital, when Glen tried to talk me into dropping out, plans were being made to give my dad a chance at life as a free man. How could this be?

  “I spoke with Glen, and he said if you want to make a statement in the hearing, you can submit one via video in his office, or...” She breathed another heavy sigh. Sharing the news was weighing on her as much as receiving it was on me.

  “Or what, Gram?”

  “You could go to the prison yourself.”

  I drew my knees to my chest and held my head in my hands. When would this all be over? When would my past stop following me? Why couldn’t I be a normal, supportive girlfriend and just focus on my hurting boyfriend?

  He was snoring just a few doors down, but I couldn’t go to him. Not right now. Not now that he was actually sleeping and feeling good after all the rejection letters and we’d had a good night together. Not just to worry him over something that had apparently been in the works for a while now.

  “What are you going to do, Abi?”

  I stared at the ceiling, at a water stain that looked like a brown ink blot test. “Can you just tell me what to do?”