by Ella Fields
“But he’s still not your boyfriend,” Adela said, skirting a rogue soccer ball some kid was kicking down the sidewalk.
His mom chased after him, and I licked the bubblegum ice cream from the side of my waffle cone. “No.” I sighed, licking my lips. “And to make matters worse, I’m pretty sure I told him I loved him.” It sucked. What we’d done together in the car that night played on repeat nonstop. Impossible to ignore even though I was starting to desperately need to.
Adela stopped, and I winced when I saw her shocked expression. “Bad, huh?”
She started walking again, tossing her half-eaten tub of cookie-dough ice cream into a trash can. “That depends. What did he say?”
“Uh, well,” I hemmed.
“Well?” She all but screeched.
“Well…” My shoulders slumped as the admission barreled free. “Nothing.”
Adela was stunned into silence, and I tore off a chunk of my ice-cream cone to keep from snapping or screaming.
“Stevie…” she started.
“I blame the beach. And the vodka. Definitely the vodka.” I made my feet move faster as the businesses changed to houses, my Chucks scuffing against the cracked concrete.
“Wait,” she said, catching up. “It’s okay, you know.”
“That I’m in love with my brother’s best friend?” I scoffed, tossing my cone into someone’s trash at the curb, then brushing my sticky hands over my cutoffs. “Or that I let him touch me all over before admitting I was in love with him, only for him to say nothing?”
Adela pursed her lips, her shoulders rising to hug her ears. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not as if you can help how you feel.” She grinned. “It’s a stupid rule. I’ve been crushing on Hendrix for years.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s different, Del.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But have you seen Everett since?”
“No, he’s either been at the garage or working on that damn bus. And if he’s working on the bus, he’s never alone.”
“You don’t think he wants to talk to you?”
The sound of the ocean, the passing cars, and the kids playing outside blurred with my muffled thoughts as the sun beat a harsh tempo over my skin.
“Trust me,” I said as we rounded the corner, then crossed the road. “If he wanted to talk to me, he’d have found a way by now.”
We cut through an alleyway, emerging onto my street, which was three streets away from Adela’s. “Will you be okay?” She stopped two houses up from mine.
I knew she wasn’t referring to Everett not saying he loved me. No, she was asking because they were leaving soon. With or without a new drummer. But I knew. I think I’d always known, even before they purchased the bus, that he wouldn’t stay.
“I’ll have to be,” I said, quiet as I gazed at Everett’s house.
The grass had grown two feet since Everett last mowed it a couple of months ago. That wasn’t what shocked me, though. It was the sight of what had to be his mom outside. A gray cotton nightgown hung from her thin frame, matching the curls in her limp honey blond hair. Leaning up off the porch steps, she seemed to be trying to shut the front window.
She grabbed it, slipped, and landed in the overgrown, weed-strewn garden, cursing as pain no doubt radiated up her legs from the jarring impact. Her cigarette fell from her mouth, and she shoved the tangled mess of hair from her weathered face, bending over to pick it up.
The window remained half open.
I glanced at Adela, who was worrying her lip between her teeth, then I looked back at the cursing, muttering woman. A woman who had to have been beautiful once upon a time. Before life stole that beauty and the light from her familiar green eyes.
“You need some help?” I called out.
She turned, her empty eyes narrowing on us. “Fuck off, little slut.” Then she marched up the driveway. The screen door screeched, slamming closed behind her.
Adela’s brows jumped. “Did she just…?”
“Uh, yup.”
Judging from her puzzled, creased expression, the same one I knew I had to be wearing, she was thinking the same thing. We wouldn’t want to stay there either.
Sighing, I said goodbye when we crossed the road, and Adela headed to the alley that cut through to the next street over.
About to head inside, I paused when I noticed someone had squashed one of my azaleas. Grabbing a spade from the side of the house, I walked around the giant yellow bus that was now painted a solid black and inspected the flower bed behind it.
My stomach drooped when I saw the squashed and wilting cluster. Not much could be done for it, other than to tell someone off. Which I planned to do as soon as Hendrix arrived home.
After taking a shower, I wrapped my hair in a towel, entering the kitchen just as the guys, hollering at each other, bounded inside. They were all here, even Graham.
Everett was the last to arrive and only stalled a second to stare at me before drifting into the kitchen. He didn’t stay. Instead, he walked right into the garage.
I swallowed the thorns invading and cutting my throat, and pasted on a smile. “What’s going on?”
“This fucker over here,” Hendrix said, giving Graham a noogie, “failed to give his beloved college an answer on time. They pulled his scholarship.”
Mouth gaping, I blinked at Graham, who was shoving my brother away. “And this is good news?”
Graham shrugged, not looking the least bit disappointed.
“What do you even mean, Steve?” Hendrix laughed. “Of course, it is. It means he’s coming with us, duh.” He smacked the wall above the door leading into the garage, letting out a hoot as he disappeared.
“Can’t let them have all the fun without me,” Graham said, following Dale, the sound of Hendrix tearing into his guitar greeting them.
“Well, congrats,” I said, belatedly realizing I’d forgotten to harass Hendrix about my azaleas.
I was tempted to go in there. To take the opportunity to see Everett. To watch him. Even if he’d just outright ignored my existence. If only I could’ve made my feet move.
Something that’d once felt as normal as breathing now felt wrong.
It grew worse, the pain I’d tried to ignore in my chest. But I couldn’t bring myself to regret saying those three words to him. It wasn’t a lie. It was a truth that’d sat deep for months, that’d grown roots over time, only growing stronger. Once it’d sprouted, there was no way to bury it. No way to smother it.
It was there, out in the open and starving from lack of warmth. And judging from the glances Mom was giving me over dinner that night, not so easy to hide.
Jumping out of Adela’s car, I told her I’d call tomorrow.
She turned and sped off down the street, and I slung my overnight bag over my shoulder just as Dale’s car pulled up.
I smiled, trying to swallow the memories of the previous weekend that emerged with the force of a battering ram, then halted when the window wound down and a voice that wasn’t Dale’s called out, “Get in, Clover.”
“Everett?” I raised my hand to block the sun, stepping closer. Peering inside the car, I found him leaning over the steering wheel, Ray-Bans and a white shirt on. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Called in sick and told Dale I needed his ride to go to the doctor. Get in.”
Briefly, I looked back at the house before shoving my duffel into the back seat and then climbing into the front.
“Where are we going?” I clipped on my seat belt.
Without so much as a glance at his own house, he turned at the end of the cul-de-sac, then veered right at the end of the street. “You’ll see,” he said. “I’ve been an ass, but even though I’m often an ass, in this case, I want a chance to try to explain myself.”
I pursed my lips to hide my smile, but ignored his hand when he tried to reach for mine. “No touching until the talking has taken place.” My smile wiggled free. “Maybe.”
His teeth slid over his li
p, and he took the next turn. “Whatever you say, beautiful.”
A dancing sensation prickled my skin at the endearment, and I kept my eyes focused out the window to keep them from gluing to him.
In buzzing silence, we took the highway for twenty minutes before pulling into an old run-down truck stop. Everett came around the car, offering his hand to help me out.
I gave him a look that said no exceptions, then smirked when he huffed a laugh and shut the door behind me.
The little bell above the door announced our arrival, and I felt a thrill shoot through my veins, making each step lighter as I headed toward a booth in the back.
We were out together. In public. Granted, the likelihood someone we knew would happen upon this place midmorning on a weekday was slim, but still, the excitement was real all the same.
A waitress with the name tag Bev took our order, and I hesitated, knowing I only had twenty dollars in my duffel, which was still in the car.
Everett noticed and grabbed my hand. I let him, blinking as he ordered my favorite, two plates of waffles with ice cream and maple syrup, milkshakes, and waters.
“I got it, don’t worry,” he said once the waitress walked away.
I stared at a cross-stitched rooster hanging on the wall behind his head, then sighed. “We can eat and bail,” I joked.
The tic in his jaw and the slight tightening of his hand over mine said he didn’t think I was funny. “I don’t steal everything.”
Hendrix had once told me how Everett easily pocketed candy bars and other miscellaneous items, completely undetected. So I didn’t quite know what to believe. I didn’t judge; I just didn’t want any part of it.
“Okay,” I said, leaving it at that.
He removed his sunglasses, noticing the way I eyed them as he hung them from the neck of his shirt. “I paid for them too. Thirty dollars at the thrift store.” His lips twitched. “They’re not even fake.”
“Bargain,” I muttered as Bev slid our waters and shakes over the table. I thanked her, smiling up at her weathered face and taking in the beautiful orange curls that hung around it.
She beamed back, then strutted to a table on the opposite side of the diner.
“You’re mad. I get it.”
“Do you?” I unwrapped a straw and dunked it into my ice water before taking a sip.
Everett’s eyes dipped to my mouth, then returned to mine. “I didn’t know what to say, okay?”
“I told you,” I said, putting the glass down and pulling the shake over. “You didn’t need to say anything. You also didn’t need to avoid me.”
He sat back in the ripped blood red vinyl seat, twining his fingers together and squeezing. His mouth opened and closed, his tongue prodding at his lips while his eyes crawled over my face. “I care about you a fucking lot, Clover.” He swallowed, wrenching his hands apart and shoving one through his hair, slicking the messy strands back. “And other than the band, I don’t care about anything else, so please believe me when I say that means something.”
I did believe it meant something. “You should’ve just said that. I’m not expecting us to get serious. I know you’re leaving. I’ve known it since you bought that bus.” I paused, dropping my lashes to the table. “I think I knew before then.”
“Then how is it fair I do this to you? To either of us?”
“It’s not fair,” I said quietly. “But what else is there to do, ignore it?” We’d ignored it for too long, neglected it, yet it thrived anyway.
He took a long sip of water, eyeing me over the cup. “I’ve ignored it since I first laid eyes on you,” he admitted, lowering the glass and running his fingers over the condensation. “I’m fucking tired of ignoring it, but I can’t exactly take you with me when I go, can I?”
“Well,” I hemmed, excitement a growing army that couldn’t be defeated. “You could but—”
“Hendrix,” he said with a rough exhale. “I don’t even know how we’d begin to explain it to him.”
“Is there any point in saying anything?” I asked. “Not when you’re leaving. When you do, whatever this is, it ends.”
We stared then, the minutes ticking by as other customers coughed, laughed, and talked quietly around us.
Biting his lip, Everett stole my hand and watched his fingers trace the creases spanning my palm. “Do you really believe it’ll ever end?”
Our food arrived before I could answer, and I thanked Bev again, dragging my plate close.
We ate in silence, and being that I hadn’t eaten since the pizza Adela and I had ordered at her place the night before, I nearly demolished the whole lot.
“Whoa, Clover.” Everett let out a gentle laugh.
I withheld the belch that needed out and drank small sips of water as I watched him finish his food.
“So,” he said, pushing his plate away after scooping up the last mouthful of ice cream from it. “No one knows this. Not from around here anyway.”
I reached over the table, swiping the ice cream smeared over his top lip. He nipped at my thumb, then grabbed and sucked the remnants from it.
Liquid heat pooled in my full stomach, and I took my hand back, gesturing for him to continue.
Looking around the diner, he cleared his throat, then shifted in his seat. “I had a younger brother. He was eight when he died.” My heart dissolved into ash. “That’s why… the reason we moved here.”
“I’m sorry, Ever.” I blinked to keep my eyes clear, trying to accept what he’d said. “God. What happened?”
He shook his head. “Not ready to get into that. I don’t know if I ever will be, but my parents…” He sighed. “They were bad before, but at least they had jobs and tried to appear as functioning members of society. Even when they were half-tanked all the time.”
“Then they got worse,” I said, remembering what his mom had called me just last week.
He nodded, and sensing he was done talking about it, I took his hand in mine and held it.
Staring down at them, he sat so still. I wasn’t sure he was breathing until finally, his shoulders drooped a little. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
He tucked a twenty and a ten under our dirty plates, then held my hand until I was seated back in Dale’s car.
We took the long way home, choosing the backroads that gave way to breathtaking views of the ocean. But even that didn’t seem to remove the somberness from Everett’s expression.
I leaned over and clicked on the radio, searching until I registered the guitar riff from “Start Me Up” by The Rolling Stones.
Sure, I couldn’t sing to save my life, but I didn’t let that stop me. I wound down the window, belting out the chorus at the top of my lungs until finally, Everett quit laughing and joined in.
Long after we’d returned Dale’s car and walked back to my place, Everett was humming the same song while he held me, sprawled beneath me on my bed.
He didn’t try to make a move, and content to listen to the peaceful thud of his heart as he hummed, stirring the top of my hair, I didn’t either. My eyes drifted closed, my body relaxed, draped over the strong lines of his.
Sometime later, I woke alone to the sound of shouts and screams echoing down the hall into my cracked open bedroom door.
Bleary-eyed and wondering how Everett got out without anyone noticing, I forced myself up and made my way outside, adjusting my tank as I neared the front door and the commotion got louder.
It opened to the sound of a grunting, growling bus engine, and the sight of the guys climbing and jumping all over each other. “America, here we come!”
Confidence was fickle. It arrived when you least expected it and bailed when you most needed it.
I couldn’t rely on alcohol to see me through every transaction I was lucky enough to have with Everett.
So I’d ditched my classics and tales of young love, and ordered some romance novels online. Mom had a few in her room, but I’d already read those, and given the time period they were set in, I figured
it would be wise to learn from something a little more modern.
“Oh boy,” I muttered, turning the page. This woman was due home any moment, and her husband was waiting for her. Her angry and betrayed husband.
Somehow, I’d gotten too caught up in the stories to pay much attention to the sex scenes, but I couldn’t find it within me to care all that much. Not when this woman was about to be kicked out on the street. I made a mental note to give this one to Adela when I was done.
“What are you doing?”
The book fell as a silent screech barreled up my throat. “Ever,” I panted, hand on my pulsing chest. “A little warning.”
“Nah.” Lips sliding into his cheek, he tapped the windowsill. “I like watching you when you think no one is looking.” Before I could even blink, he said, “Meet me out front.”
Reaching for my book, I deposited it on the nightstand, and with only a brief glance at the bedroom door, I threw back the bedding.
After shuffling into a cardigan to hide the absence of my bra, I shimmied out the window and rounded the side of the house.
Leaning against the back of the bus, Everett stomped out his cigarette, then gestured for me to hurry.
“Where are we going? I have no shoes, and I’m in my pajamas.”
“The ocean doesn’t care.”
Laughing, I lit up inside when his hand clasped mine, and we raced down the alleyway and side streets leading to the beach.
The air was warm, the crickets chirping between breaks of the crashing waves.
Everett kicked off his boots at the base of the stairs, then tugged me onto the vacant stretch of sand.
Lying down, his fingers memorizing mine, he murmured, “I get it now.”
Tearing my attention from the stars, I peeked over at him. The half-moon gave glimpses of his jaw, his nose and mouth shadowed. His eyes stayed fixed on the night sky. “Get what?”
“The glow worms.”
Turning back to face the sky, I smiled. “Oh.”
Some minutes passed, and thanks to his hypnotic touch and the lull of the sea, my eyes began to lose the battle, fluttering closed.