A Risk Worth Taking (27 page)

Summer

“Don't worry
about hurting me, if that's what you're afraid of. I want to get hurt. At least
I´ll feel something for a change.”

―Katie
Kacvinsky,
Awaken

Orange
paper bags with jack o’ lantern cutouts littered the walk from the front door
to the garage. I stepped over the remnants of a fake web and cut across the
grass instead, zipping my jacket as I went. The cold was still more of a hint
than a real thing but the chill that clung to me wasn’t from the weather and
never seemed to leave. Even when I stood under the spray of my shower at
maximum heat, I was perpetually cold. Unless I drank. Which I hadn’t done after
that first week. Casey had made me promise.

Metal
clanged and curses flew inside the garage. Casey’s scuffed boots stuck out from
underneath the hood of my dad’s truck. Wrenches, an oil pan, and blackened rags
were spread around the floor within arm’s reach from where he lay. Frank stood
nearby wearing a flannel jacket I gave him four Christmases ago, a beer in his
hand. He was trying not to laugh at Casey’s creative use of the English
language.

“Hey,
Summer,” Frank greeted as I walked in.

Casey
slid free of the truck and looked up at me from the wheeled cart he lay on. His
cheeks were dark with grease and his forehead shone with perspiration despite
the chill in the air. “Thought you were cleaning up the trick-or-treating
damage,” he said.

I
shrugged. “If I slack long enough, Mazie will pay the neighbor kids to do it.”

“I
like your go get ‘em attitude,” he said.

“I
thought you were supposed to start sealing the houses today,” I pointed out.

He
grimaced. “You think the neighbor kids will do that too?”

Frank
snorted. “Sure, we’ll just give ‘em some bubble wrap and Scotch tape and see
what they come up with.”

My
dad walked in behind me, his hand pressing against the small of my back in a
gesture meant to be comforting. “Hey,” he said, giving me a forced smile.

I
didn’t answer. In the beginning, I’d tried forcing myself to smile right back,
but that got old fast. I’d quit pretending right around the time I quit
drinking. Three weeks later and I still didn’t have the mental energy to do
more than go through the motions.

“Mazie
says she’s got a hot chocolate with your name on it,” my dad said.

“I’m
okay,” I told him with a shrug.

He
frowned but deliberately brightened almost immediately. Sometimes it made me
feel bad to see him trying so hard when I gave so little effort back. “Your
mom’s coming by later. Said something about getting you to ride into town with
her for furniture.”

“Furniture
for what?” Frank asked.

“Some
house she’s listing off Culver Creek Road,” my dad said.

A
sharp pang rocketed through my chest. My throat tightened and my eyes instantly
burned with unshed tears. It was ridiculous how my body reacted to the mere
mention of the road that led to our hillside. I hadn’t been back there since
the day I’d asked Ford to stay. The memory of his expression, the fear and
finality I’d seen in his eyes even before he’d spoken the words, “I’m sorry,”
had crushed me.

I
should never have asked him to stay. Should never have said the words out loud.

We’d
had an agreement all summer. In the fall, he would leave. In the meantime, we
would love each other. The fact that it ended didn’t detract from how special
it’d been while it lasted. I stood by that belief even now. Especially now. In
the moments when the pain crippled me and made it hard to breathe or think past
the hurt, I still didn’t regret a single second. I just hated that all I had
were memories. All I would ever have were memories. And even though I knew the
pain would lessen as the memories faded, I clung to them like a life raft in a
roiling sea. I didn’t want to let go.

I
missed him. And I loved him more than ever. And on top of it all, I hated him
for being the one to escape. The familiarity of my surroundings was its own
kind of agony. The way the morning sun lit the plastic of the greenhouses, the
sound of Goose being cranked and then beat on when it died, the dirt road that
led to Casey’s house—all of it taunted me. My childhood memories had been
replaced with images of shared dirt bike rides, a chase down the driveway, a
tumble in the mud … He was everywhere. Mostly, he was in my soul.

“Summer?”
my dad prompted.

I
blinked, forcing myself back to the moment. The garage. Three of the four men
I’d ever loved stood watching me, waiting for an answer, all of them patient
with my daydreams full of grief. “Can you help your mom with the furniture?”

“Um.
Yeah, that’s fine,” I said, turning back to the house. I pulled my jacket
tighter and crossed my arms, trying to ward off the chill that seemed to wind
its way so far into my bones, it’d become the main ingredient of my heart.

Ford

"Where
you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly
walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like
hell."

—Edna St.
Vincent Millay

I
picked up the bag of sprouting herbs amidst damp soil and carried it to the
planter’s box I’d set up in my new workspace. Halfway there, my foot caught on
a stray cord—probably one of the three space heaters I’d bought after freezing
my ass off that first week—and I stumbled. I regained my footing without face
planting but not before the bag went flying. When it landed, the bottom corner
burst open, sending dark soil and green stems in all directions. 

“Shit,”
I swore to the empty greenhouse.

I
bent down and scraped what I could back into the bag. If I was quick, maybe
these babies would be okay. I was not starting over. Not after losing the
lavender in the move. I’d shipped it priority airmail and done all the
paperwork for living plants—but it’d still arrived wilted and past saving. Half
the project had to be scrapped and started over.

And
it wasn’t just the plants. Everything had gone haywire since leaving Virginia.
I’d battled a cold the first week after arriving, made worse by the draft
coming through a broken window I’d found in my apartment—which had turned out
to be the second story of a weather-sealed barn. The barn loft had actually
been a plus, until I realized weather-sealed in South Dakota really only meant
it kept the snow out. My bed was cold as hell at night.

I
tried not to let my mind wander to the other reason my bed felt cold these
days.

I
moved to the next box. From another bag, I dropped seeds into tiny holes made
with my finger in the dirt. When I’d dropped all the seeds, I covered and
watered them before wrapping the entire box in plastic. By the time I’d
finished and locked up, the sun was setting and the temperature had plummeted.

I
pulled my jacket around me as I made the walk back to my loft. Darla was parked
around the side with a cover over her. Not much need for driving here. Not much
else going on either between the expanses of space that made up this quiet
farm. The growing season was shorter than Virginia’s by a couple of months;
harvest time was long gone—along with the seasonal crew. All that remained was
the owner and his wife and a few goats they kept in the barn for milk. I’d had
worse neighbors.

I
took a breath and let it out, stopping behind Darla’s tailgate to stare at the
view. I had to admit, the scenery had been worth a trip. The rolling hills to
my left seemed to go on forever, one tumbling against another like ocean waves.
To my right and straight ahead were flat plains that made up hayfields during
warmer months. Now, it was barren and dormant until the spring thaw.

I’d
been surprised to discover the topography here wasn’t unlike the farmland I’d
left behind on the east coast. Except for the healthy layer of snow that
already covered the ground, I couldn’t have told them apart.

Snow.
In early November. After a lifetime spent in warmer climates I thought I’d be
glad to see it, but I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate the stuff. It seemed
more like a barrier to me, blocking the memory of what I’d left behind. It
masked every similar detail, muffled every noise. The quiet of the tiny farm made
me miss the raucous noise that accompanied mealtimes with the Heritage crew.
The buzz of conversation around the coffeepot in the mornings and the water
cooler in the afternoons. And despite the fact that I’d hated every second of
that damned humidity, I missed the hot Virginia sun—and her. God, I fucking
missed her.

Like
every other time I pictured Summer’s face, my chest ached. There weren’t many
seconds of the day I didn’t have her face in my mind, but today it hurt worse.
Sharper. I coughed. Leftovers from my cold—or from the pain radiating through
my chest like a heart attack.

As
long as I lived, I’d never forget the look on her face when I’d told her no.
Living with the guilt became my penance. I deserved it and so much worse.

My
phone rang, echoing against the stillness. I fished it from my pocket as I
headed inside and checked the screen. My mom. Again. I was all out of fake
cheer today. Voicemail would have to do.

I
stomped the snow from my boots, kicked them off, and hurried upstairs to the
heated loft above. Inside, I peeled out of my coat and took a beer out of the
fridge. The sound of the can popping open made me think of beers consumed while
standing in the garage, to the soundtrack of Casey cursing and beating on the
belly of the tractor with a wrench. How was it possible I missed that so much?

My
phone buzzed again. I moved to silence it until I saw the name on the screen.
My fingers hovered over the touch screen, stilled by nerves that all but
knocked the air from my lungs. Even though it wasn’t
her
—I hadn’t spoken
to her since that day on the hill—it was the next best thing. My stomach jumped
into my throat, making it hard to swallow that last swig of beer before
answering. I cleared my throat, determined to sound normal.

“Hey,
man. I was just thinking about you,” I said after swiping the screen with my
thumb.

“About
me, huh?” said the voice on the other end. “Damn, the heat of one summer with
me and your brain is so baked, you forgot who you’re supposed to daydream
about.”

I
laughed around another swig from my can. “Casey, you ass. What do you want?”

“Just
checking up on ya. Are your fingers too frozen up there to text a guy back?”

“Nah,
I’ve just been busy settling in,” I said, shaking my head at the hard time he
was giving me.

I
deserved it. Casey and I had been tight by the time I left. We’d promised to
keep in touch and then I’d gone and ignored him these past few weeks. It was
too tempting to ask about her, though, and I couldn’t do that. Not when I
hadn’t so much as called her. But I couldn’t do that either. She’d made it
clear this would be easiest for her. A clean break. I wasn’t sure how cutting
your best friend off “cold turkey” made the transition easier, but she hadn’t
called me once  and although I’d pulled her number up on my phone countless
times, I’d never hit the “send” button. Not yet.

“Yeah,
settling in. Sure, we’ll call it that.”

I
frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

 “You
know exactly what it means. Have you had enough yet or what?”

“Enough
of what?”

“Being
miserable. Making her miserable.”

“She’s
miserable?”

“Bro.”
Casey laughed humorlessly. “Banging my head against the wall makes more sense
than you do right now.”

“You
sound like my damn mother,” I growled.

“For
once, I’ll take being compared to someone’s mother. Now get your shit together
and get back here.”

“Casey
…”

“Don’t
argue with me.”

“I
can’t come back.” Saying the words out loud pained me like an arrow to the
right ventricle. This conversation was exactly why I hadn’t called or texted.

“Why
not? Oh. Right. Living the dream. And how’s that working out for you?”

I
gritted my teeth. Not because he was wrong, but because he might be right.
South Dakota had been a stepping stone in a dream journey. A life I wanted—no,
needed—to experience outside the confines of a home and utility bills and
someone waiting for me to come home at night. I’d seen that growing up and
while he never said it, I knew my dad wished for more. And had settled for me.
I wouldn’t do the same.

I
would go. Travel. See the world. On my own terms. My own schedule. It’s why I’d
given up everything back in Grayson to come here, even though all I wanted was
her. I told myself it would fade over time, the pain, the sense I’d lost the
only thing truly worth holding on to.   But so far, the only thing that had
faded was my own happiness. And my so-called “dream” was officially making me
miserable. But I wasn’t about to admit that out loud. To Casey or myself.

“I
need to be on my own,” I told him, my tone harsher than I’d intended. “Free.
Not tied down.”

“If
that’s what you call being with her, then you’re a horse’s ass and you don’t
deserve her.”

The
click as he hung up was audible. I tossed the phone aside and chugged my beer.
Casey was right about one thing. I was a horse’s ass.