Authors: Juliana Stone
me into this evening with Nathan.
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Nathan followed and slid into the chair opposite me and smiled
at some girl who shouted at him from the cotton candy stand.
I filled my mouth with way too much sugar and glanced
over to the girl who held hands with a boy as they walked by.
Her eyes lingered on me for several seconds, and then she whis-
pered something into her boyfriend’s ear. He turned, nodded at
Nathan, and then stared at me for so long I raised an eyebrow
and stared right back.
He smiled.
She yanked on her boyfriend’s arm and pulled him toward
the midway, but not before she got her bitch on, raised her
eyebrows in return, and flipped me a mental bird.
I smirked and shoved another spoonful of sundae into my
mouth. I wanted her to know that her attitude didn’t bother me.
But it did. And that was something new too. What the hell?
“Why are you here?” Nathan asked as he scooped a good
amount of peaches and whipped cream into his mouth.
“Um, because Gram made me?”
His blue eyes settled on me, and there was nowhere to hide.
He sat back in his chair and studied me intently, his eyes so clear they reminded me of the summer sky. For a moment, I forgot
that I didn’t like him.
He grinned, and I glanced down at my dessert, exhaling hard
as a rush of heat rolled through me.
“That’s not what I meant. Why are you here in Louisiana
with your grandmother?”
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Panic hit me— it froze everything inside me— but then I did
what I always did. I deflected.
“Why was your driver’s license suspended?”
His smile disappeared, and his eyes narrowed in a way that told
me everything. His shoulders hunched forward and he frowned.
“Is this what we’re going to do? Play a stupid game?” He
paused and then pushed his sundae away.
I watched him in silence, and though the last thing I wanted
to do was eat, I shoved another spoonful of the melting crap
into my mouth. At least this way, I couldn’t open it and make
things worse.
Another shout of “Hey Nate,” slid between us, but he didn’t
bother to look up— he just stared down at the table like it was
the most interesting thing in the world. I forced myself to
swallow the ice cream— it was either that or puke— and then I
pushed my bowl away as well.
I was about to apologize, something I didn’t do much of
these days, but when I opened my mouth to speak, he glanced
up, and the words I was about to say, two simple little words,
I’m
sorry
, died in my throat.
Nathan Everets looked exactly the way I felt most of the time.
He looked haunted. Sort of…broken.
He pushed a long strand of hair off his face, his eyes never
leaving mine. “I can’t drive because I was involved in an accident two months ago. A bad one.”
“Oh,” I managed to get out. “Look, you don’t have to…”
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Shit, I didn’t want to do this with him. I didn’t want him to
share with me, because then he’d expect me to share back, and
there was no way in hell I wanted anyone to know anything
about me. Period.
I couldn’t talk about Malcolm.
I
couldn’t.
“I left a party with my best friend Trevor and our girlfriends.”
And yet I was helpless to stop him. Helpless to look anywhere
other than into his eyes, because for some reason, the pain that
I saw there let me know I wasn’t the only one…
I
wasn’t the only one who hated herself.
Nathan shook his head, and that piece of hair fell back across
his cheek. I found myself focusing on it, watching as it lifted in the slight breeze and tickled the edge of his nose.
“I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember getting into the
car.” He leaned forward now, his voice louder. Angrier. “That’s
how incredibly stupid I was. Me. The guy who was supposed to
stay sober. Clean.”
“I drove Trevor’s car down County Road 9, and somewhere
between the party and the old Dixon farm, I wrapped it around
a hydro pole.”
He kept clenching and unclenching his fist.
“I only broke my left pinky finger, if you can believe it, and
other than a few bruises and cuts from flying glass, I was good to go. The girls were okay too, a few minor scratches but nothing
serious. We were all knocked out, but Trevor…” His voice
trailed off and he finally glanced away.
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It was then that I realized I’d been holding my breath.
“You don’t, you don’t have to…I don’t want to know,” I whis-
pered. And suddenly I didn’t. I didn’t want to know anything
about Nathan Everets and this Trevor guy.
He shoved away from the table suddenly. “Let’s get out of here.”
I followed Nathan through the crowd, half running to keep
up with him, but then maybe he was trying to get away from me.
He finally stopped near the edge of the midway, and the sounds,
the laughter was so loud that I turned away and faced craft alley.
We were surrounded by families, by teenagers and kids who
were having a blast. They were laughing and shouting, and why
shouldn’t they? What was not to like? If you were into peaches,
that is. There was every kind of dessert imaginable, rides and
games, and over on the other side, I saw a stage with instru-
ments, drums and guitars. So there was entertainment too.
There was everything that most normal people needed to
have a good time, except I wasn’t normal, and the more smiling
faces I saw, the angrier I got.
It wasn’t fair.
“I wish they would shut up.”
“Huh?” Nathan glanced down at me, his hands shoved into
his pockets, his expression blank.
“Everyone.” I gestured toward the Ferris wheel. “Everything.
It’s too loud.”
His cell dinged, for the twentieth time, and I snapped. “Aren’t
you going to answer that?”
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Nathan grabbed his phone and glanced down at it.
I assumed it was his girlfriend, his “at the moment girl-
friend,” and I looked away in disgust, my eyes falling upon a
cotton candy stand. A little boy who looked to be six or seven
was in line for a stick, smiling up at his dad as the two of them waited. When the lady handed him his prize, the vibrant pink
color caught my attention.
For a few moments, it was all I saw. Pink. Fluffy. The
little boy.
Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and I lifted a heavy
chunk of hair and pulled it forward over my shoulder. I couldn’t
take my eyes off the treat, and when the little boy dug in, his
mouth grabbing for the biggest piece he could get, I wanted to
yell at him.
Be
careful. You’ll get that crap in your hair, and then your mother
will be mad, and then I’ll have to…
“Monroe, are you all right?”
“What?” I shook my head and exhaled a long, shaky breath. I
thought of my bed. Of the pills I no longer had. And I glanced
down at my wrist, at the single, solitary scar that was there. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t flashy. Kind of like me.
It was a testament to the real me. The weak part. The part
that couldn’t do anything right.
“Monroe?”
“I hate it here,” I said quietly.
Nathan glanced at his cell one more time, his long fingers
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running over the screen. “If I ask you to take me somewhere,
will you?”
“You’re not some kind of criminal, are you?” I thought of
his suspension and realized I didn’t know much of anything
about him.
“Nope,” he answered. “Not the kind you need to be afraid
of, anyway.”
My gaze returned to the little boy whose face was all but swal-
lowed by the large stick of cotton candy, and I knew if I stayed, I would be sick.
“Sure,” I said and took a step forward, “as long as you promise
there aren’t any rides, games, or peaches.”
Or
kids.
“I promise,” he said as he fell in step beside me.
For the first time today, I relaxed a bit. “So, where are we going?”
We were almost to the parking lot when he answered, his
voice not only subdued and maybe distracted but definitely sad.
“The hospital.”
Wait. What?
That wasn’t what I had expected to hear. A party maybe. Or an
underage club— if they had them out here in the boonies— but
the hospital?
And yet, the sea of happy that existed here at the Peach
Festival was so thick I felt like I was drowning. Even though I
hated hospitals, I couldn’t deny that, at the moment, they were
more my speed.
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Anyplace other than here was where I wanted to be. “Okay,”
I answered. “Let’s go.”
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I stared at the text again, my heart pounding so hard I was sure
Monroe heard it. They’re gone for now. Can you make it?
Did I want to? Did I want to make it?
“Turn left at the lights.”
We passed Sheriff Bellafonte’s car parked next to the bus stop
and I looked away, glad that Monroe’s lead foot was relaxing
a bit. Up ahead, I saw the hospital, and I told Monroe where
to park for free, on Fraser Street just to the right. She pulled
in along the sidewalk, and I pretended not to notice when she
bumped the curb.
Foo Fighters were playing on the radio, and the air that blew
out the vents was colder than I liked. Guess the northern girl
wasn’t used to our steamy summers, but I liked the heat.
I blew out a long, hot breath, my foot tapping an insane beat
on the floor. I was nervous, and I felt like my head was going to explode, but I kept it cool. I had to.
“Are you going to be long?” Monroe asked.
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She tapped her fingers along the steering wheel, and when
she turned to look at me, for one second— for one perfect
second— I thought she had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.
“Nathan?” she asked.
“Call me Nate,” I said as I reached for the door handle.
“What?”
“Nate,” I said again and opened the door. “It’s what my friends
call me. Nathan is saved for the parents and everyone else.”
I rounded the car and stared down at her.
“So we’re friends now?” she said, her fingers still tapping the
steering wheel, tap, tap, tap, in rapid succession.
“Are you coming?” I asked instead, moving back so she could
open the door. She hadn’t even asked why I was here or what I
was going to do, which I found interesting. I wondered if it was
because she was afraid to ask, but then I decided it was more that she didn’t give a crap. She wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type, and I guess that was another thing that I kinda sorta liked about her.
She wasn’t clingy or needy or begging me for something
that I couldn’t give her. It was nice to be with someone who
had no expectations.
Just last week, Rachel had gotten all heavy on me, afraid that
I was mad at her about something and that I was going to break
up with her. She begged me to tell her that everything was going
to be all right, and I gave in.
But the lie still stuck in my throat, and when I thought about
it, I felt sick.
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Monroe glanced behind me, toward the hospital. I’m sure she
thought I was a freak. Hell, I probably was. What kind of guy
brings a girl to the hospital? A girl he hardly knows? And yet, I needed her. I needed
someone
, and I guess it sucked for Monroe that she was the only person around.
“Come on,” I repeated, my hand held out.
I could pour on the charm. Smile a certain way and lean
against the car. Stare into her eyes like she was the most
important girl in the world. I knew what girls liked and I also
knew what I could get away with. But I didn’t think any of
that would work with this particular girl. Her bullshit meter
seemed to be sharp.
So I waited. And I hoped she couldn’t tell that I was basically
shitting my pants at the thought of going in there by myself.
“You’re weird,” she said softly.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” I smirked.
She shook her head, but there was a slight smile around the
corner of her mouth, and for some reason, it felt good to know
I’d put it there.
I stepped back, and she opened her door.
We headed up Fraser to the corner and waited for the light
to change. When it did, I grabbed her hand— an automatic
thing— and was surprised that she let me.
I was also really surprised at how small and soft her hand was.
She didn’t have those fake four- inch things that Rachel and a lot of her girlfriends had. Shit, you could poke a guy’s eyes out if