Authors: Ember Chase
“At least you’re honest about it.
” Of course she had to call me fucking honest. “I’d… be…” she sputters like it’s hurting her to say it, “insanely jealous, too.”
“Then let’s fucking do this old school. Wanna go steady?” I flirt. “I’m a pretty swell guy.”
She is particularly stunning when she laughs. “I guess we could try that, sure.” And even hotter when she blushes. “Do I get to wear your varsity jacket and your class ring, too?”
“I c
an dig them out for you, if you want,” I tease.
“Are
we going to have chaperones?”
“No.” I take her hand and kiss it formally. “We aren’t. Because I think our first
official date is happening right now and it involves a few bong rips, cold pizza, and eventually a nap because we are both totally exhausted.”
“That sounds
amazing
.”
“
Yes, it does.”
I shock her when I scoop her into my arms and stumble toward
s my room. When I put her down, our eyes lock and we have one of those moments. I don’t even try to stop myself from kissing her, my head spinning when she kisses me back. But it’s soft. Sweet. No tongue, no ass grabbing, just a kiss that isn’t going anywhere. So why does it feel like it’s going everywhere?
Hanging out together
will be a lot less awkward now. And considerably more fun. She starts fading fast after she smokes a bowl and eats a slice of pizza, falling asleep against my chest. I want to drift off with her, but I can’t stop thinking about the mess I’ve just made. This is such a horrible thing to do. She’ll figure it all out one day, it’s inevitable, and then what do I say? Maybe this old school thing will help, at least she’ll know I wasn’t in it for the sex. But she’s
Piper
. There’s no way she’ll let this slide, not that I deserve it. A normal chick, maybe, but not her. No fucking way.
Maya
“Thanks for
showing me your pictures.”
“Thanks for subtly convincing Gloria to invite her boyfriend over so I can have you for the whole weekend.”
Isaac exhales loudly, leaning over to kiss my shoulder. “Two whole days.”
“And nights,” I remind him, pecking his cheek as I crawl to the other end of the bed to
retrieve another photo album.
“Do you have a headache?”
“Yeah, a little bit. But I had so much fun last night.”
“Good.” Isaac glances at the first page and back at me. “Your hair is so
beautiful.”
“Right now or back then?”
“Both. And it’s the practically the same size, but you’re so little.”
“Yeah,” I giggle, nuzzling against his arm as I wrap myself up in the comforter. I flash on fighting
with my mother when she gave up trying to brush it the day she took this picture, so the craziness he loves so much it is pretty intense. “It was past my knees at one point, but I had a growth spurt before I started walking on it.”
“
I hope your kids inherit it.”
“
My
kids?”
“Y
eah.”
I
draw in nervous breath. “Not our kids?” I ask quietly.
“T
hey’ll be yours either way.”
“
Either way?”
“
Shit happens.” Is he seriously just going to leave it like that? I nudge him with my elbow and kiss his bicep while he sighs. “Like this falling apart and you marrying someone else. But then it gets better and I show up ten years later and you have to make a shitty choice. Then we drop your well-adjusted, crazy haired kids that I absolutely adore off on the weekends to visit some guy I eventually learn not to hate. Shit like that.”
Well, that was specific.
“Do you run such depressing scenarios through your head all the time?”
“
Pretty much. Though I consider that particular scenario one of the happiest.”
“Isaac—”
“Your sister is so skinny,” he changes the subject, his brow furrowing as he looks at a picture of Laurel leaning against my Uncle’s front porch. “So is your mom.”
“She was man chasing when these were taken.”
“Yeah, but…” he trails off, flipping ahead a few pages. She just keeps getting thinner.
“She had just left my
bio Dad. We were pretty poor.”
“
As in, going hungry poor?”
“They
sort of were, I guess. I always ate like a bird anyway, I don’t really remember being hungry. We were living with my Uncle, but all he had was a roof to give us. Apparently my father was withholding all support hoping she’d come back. She probably would have it he hadn’t fucked my aunt. I was only three, it’s a little fuzzy.”
“So your Dad was sleeping with her sister?”
“Amongst other women.”
“See any parallels there?”
“Yes, Dr. Isaac, I do. Not going back to him was, quote, ‘the biggest mistake of her life.’ Maybe I didn’t want to make the same one.”
“I
didn’t mean to get all serious,” he replies uncomfortably.
“Oh, it’s fine. I was
very happy at my uncle’s. His yard was awesome as you can see.”
“The mountains are gorgeous.”
“Aren’t they? It was beautiful out there, everything was so green. It smelled incredible and there were zillions of bug to collect.”
“Looks like someone had a good friend, too,
” he jokes, flipping to a page with nothing but pictures of me rolling around with my uncle’s dog.
“Blue!”
I squeal. “I loved that dog so much. We were inseparable that summer.”
“I can see that. There is dirt all over you in practically every one of these pictures.”
“Yeah, I was a rough and tumble little kid. Note the lack of shoes.”
“Some things never change I guess,” he teases.
“Oh. Here’s a picture of my Dad, Garrett’s father. He was visiting Georgia frequently looking for land to buy, I think for timber. My mom finally got a job at this shitty gas station diner. The owner was really nice, he let her bring me to work.”
“You were probably very well behaved,” he says sarcastically.
“Hey, I did okay. And I was really cute, I could get away with a lot.”
“You were
so
fucking cute. You haven’t grown out of that yet, you know.”
“Mom always said I helped her get good tips. I helped her get my Dad, too.”
Isaac looks up from the album to stare at me instead. “Oh really. How?”
“Tricks. I used to sit by the register and I knew how much everybody owed before they got rang out
. Most of them ordered the same things every day, so I remembered. They all thought it was pretty neat, but he was intrigued, so he started testing me.”
“Testing you?”
“Just little memory games. He’d tell me a song lyric or something and ask me to recite it back when he came in a few days later. He and my mom hit it off, mainly because she pretended to be a completely different person, which was fine by me.”
Because she’s a crazy bitch when she’s being herself
. “He brought those cards in one day, the ones where you flip them over and have to remember where they are to match them up?” Isaac nods. “I am pretty awesome at that game. He was impressed.”
“But they didn’t hit it off enough for him to stick around, huh?”
he assumes correctly.
“Nope
. Just long enough for him to knock her up.” I take the album back when he gets to the end. “No more, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine,” he says, bringing my hand to his lips for his signature fingertip kissing ritual. I miss this so much when he’s not around.
“What do you want to do today?”
“Nothing,” I answer emphatically. “Just you, several times of course.” He laughs, flashing me that cocky smile I wish I could see every day. “And you can feed me, too. I have a taste for biscuits now.”
“Of course you do. You probably started smelling them when we got to the diner pictures.”
“Pretty much.”
Rubbing my eyes, I stumble after him into the kitchen. He picks me up and sits me on the counter. “I miss watching you cook.”
“Me too.”
“You’re so fucking hot,” I gasp when he pushes up the sleeves of his pajama shirt.
“Want me to lose the shirt
completely?”
“Yes!” I squeal, biting my lip and swinging my feet back and forth as he pull
s it over his head. Oh, I love it when his pants hang off his hips like that.
Yummy
. “Want me to lose mine?”
Chuckling, he shakes his head. “Do you want biscuits or not?” Just as I’m about to tell him breakfast can wait, my stomach grumbles so loudly he hears it. “That answer overrides anything that was about to come out of your mouth.”
“Alright…” I grumble.
“Drink this,” Isaac insists, handing me a glass of water. “And watch me cook.” I take a sip and sit cross-legged on the counter. Junior mewls and jumps up next to me, purring her way into my lap. “I guess it would be hypocritical to make her get down, huh?”
She answers his question with a yowl and we both laugh. These normal moments are so precious and we get a whole weekend’s worth. Most people get a lifetime, I guess, but I’d like to think that we appreciate them more because we might not. When I can bear to think about it. His big smile, his flour covered hands, his bare feet. The way he flexes his muscles excessively as he mixes the dough by hand, just so I can see them. The way he pecks the tip of my nose when he pulls me into his arms and stands us in front of the counter so he can work behind me, kissing my neck as he wraps his hands around mine and uses them to push the rolling pin. I’ll remember every single perfect detail forever. I am so fucking lucky, no matter what happens.
Jace
“Are you sure they can handle it
, Jace?” Isaac asks as soon as Oliver leaves.
“Positive. 100%, man. This is what we do.”
He sits back and covers his face with is hands for a few seconds. “But bar hopping? What if they lose them? Or worse, notice them?”
“They won’t,
I promise. And they’ll be in public, Luke’s not going to try anything.”
“I guess.”
To say things have been tense between us is an understatement. He’s still so pissed off, it’s practically radiating off him every time he sees me. I don’t know how to fix it, I can’t even figure out how to bring it up. The last thing I need is for him to freak out on me. But what if something happens to him? It could, he is really pushing it. I can’t even let myself think about that shit, it makes me sick.
“Do you want to watch them get ready?” I
suggest quietly, flinching in case he explodes. Isaac glares at me, his freaky eyes burning with hatred. But instead of clenching his fists, he starts tapping his thumb against his thigh the way he always does when he’s trying to resist. “Well, I do.”
Isaac
scoffs, but relaxes when I flip on the big monitor I brought into the living room. “Want me to make some fucking popcorn, too?”
“That would actually
be pretty awesome.”
“Fuck you, Jace.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
He starts to argue back, but then Maya shouts out, “Piper, did you find that bag o
f her clothes?” Both of our heads turn toward the screen and we sit on the end of the couch. He’s just as curious about this mandatory girl’s night out thing as I am.
“Yes.”
Something is off about Piper’s voice. They’re both in their respective rooms and we can’t see them. It’s so fucking frustrating.
“Is her blue skirt still okay? I think I might be able to wear it.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Piper answers, her voice cracking.
“Are you crying?”
“No,” she lies. Maya stomps out into the living room.
“We aren’t allowed to cry, that’
s the rule.”
“I know, but… I can’t help it.”
Piper appears in her doorway with tears streaming down her face, holding a red suit case.
“
What the hell kind of girl’s night out is this?” I glance nervously at Isaac who simply shrugs back at me. “Piper looks so upset. Maybe I should go over there.”
“You can’t,
” he reminds me.
“But… this really fucking sucks.”
“Welcome to my world.”
Before I can try to justify a
n incredibly stupid idea, Piper’s voice quakes through the speakers. “I don’t remember half of this stuff.”
“Oh,” Maya whispers, holding her hand out as Piper steps further into the living room. For the first time, I almost wish I couldn’t see her so clearly
. I feel so useless. “Well, which one do you want to know about?”
“You look at all this stuff and know exactly what it is, don’t you?”
“For the most part, yeah.”
“This.” Piper holds up a headband. “When the hell did she wear this?”
“We were twelve. It was the Holiday dance.”
“And these?”
“She wore those earrings all the time. Her mom gave them to her for her fourteenth birthday.”
“Oh yeah. She loved them. How could I have forgotten about that?”
“That’s probably why they stuck out. You remember all the important stuff, Pipes.”
“Ashlyn was the first one to call me that.” Isaac’s spine stiffens just like mine does. We’d pretty much figured
it out, but now we’re sure. “Do you remember that? The first time we smoked pot at the lake house.”
“Yes,” Maya
laughs softly. “I hated it. I still do.”
“You can see it, can’t you? You can
see
her.”
“
Sort of, I guess.”
“You told me how it works, you can’t take it back. You’re standing right next to her in your head, right now. You can see every fucking detail. You can probably even smell that cheap
brown sugar body spray she loved so much and the shitty weed.”
“Piper…” Maya squirms a little and looks away, starting to choke up, setting Isaac on edge as he rubs his hands together. I know exactly what that’s like now.
“You’re so lucky.”
“I’m not feeling
that lucky right now.”
“In twenty years, you’ll still be able to stand there and look over at her face. But I can barely see it now. What will I have then?”
“Pictures. Videos. Those earrings. And you’ll still have memories, Piper.”
“No, I won’t,” she sobs, her fist closing tightly around the handle
of that bag. “It’s been eight years and it’s just getting harder and harder to look at that stuff. She looks like such a kid to me now.”
“
Yeah, I know. And I have to look at her every time I think about her. It’s not a blessing.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere tonight.”
“We’re supposed to be celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?”
Piper shouts. “The day she fucking died?”
“That’s what we decided to do.”
“Yeah, when
we
were fucking kids.”
“That’s what she would have wanted.”
“We don’t know that. We just
think
that’s what she would want. The same way we think she’d like the Thai restaurant close to our house better than the one downtown and we go there for her birthday every year. But we could be totally wrong about that. We could be totally wrong about Thai food in general!” Piper rages. This must be one of those freak outs she says she has. “Maybe that was just a phase. Ashlyn might want Mexican food on her birthday. Or steak. Or maybe she’d want to stay in. Hell, she could even be a fucking vegan or something. But we’ll still go get Thai food in March because that’s what we
think
she would want.”
Maya just stares at her speechlessly.
“Because that’s where she wanted to go when she turned fifteen. And she’s still fifteen. And we’re going to a bar right now, but how do we know it’s the bar she would have picked? How do we know that we’re drinking the right things? What do you think she would want to drink, Maya?” she shrieks. “Hurricanes? Martinis? Tequila shots? Craft beer?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either! Maybe she would want an Iron Lady if she knew what that was. Or maybe she would hate that. Maybe she wouldn’t have even wanted to go out to a bar, maybe she would have wanted to go to a casino or something because she didn’t even like to drink. Or maybe she would by now, because she was drinking bullshit back then because she was only fifteen! Or maybe she would have started drinking way too much in college like I did and her parents would have dragged her off to rehab and she’d be sober now so she couldn’t drink at all.”
“I don’t think that would have happened.”
“But we’ll never know! Because she’s still fifteen. We graduated high school, and she was still fifteen. We’ll graduate college this year, and she’ll still be fifteen. In twenty years, we’ll be married, or even divorced, with jobs, kids and
Ashlyn
will still be
fif-fucking-teen
!”
“Don’t—” Before Maya can stop her,
Piper hurls the suitcase across the room, sending those mementos flying everywhere. She instantly regrets it, sinking to her knees and scrambling around on the floor to gather them up.
“Where’s the other earring?” she
cries frantically. “I lost it.”
“No, you didn’t
. I have it,” Maya assures her as she crawls out from under the desk. “It’s right here.”
She scampers back to Piper, who throws her arms around her neck and screams into her shoulder. Neither of them say anything for a long fucking time. I can’t stand hearing those sounds come out of
her. It’s torture.
“We really shouldn’t be watching this,” I whisper, choking on the air.
Isaac grabs my wrist when I reach forward to turn it off. “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?” he snaps, his eyes flaring as I pull my hand from his grasp.
“Fuck you. I’m turning it off.”
“Fucking typical. Just run away when it stops being all fun and games and starts to get a little messy.” Glaring at me, he flicks the monitor back on. Piper is still crumpled in a heap on the floor sobbing as Maya holds her. I should be doing that.
“Y
ou think I wanted to do this?” I yell. “I know it’s fucking doomed. I couldn’t help it.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t even fucking try. You are going to take what you want, move on, and leave her
broken hearted. The next time she’s sobbing on the floor, it will be for you, but you’ll be balls deep in someone else and too busy to care.”
“Isaac, stop fucking acting like you give a shit about what happens to Piper. You just don’t want to get in trouble.
Maya will forgive you. She’ll believe you when you tell her it’s all my fault, that it wasn’t part of the program. Piper will never look at me the same way, that’s not how she is. I don’t blame her, if she wasn’t like that I wouldn’t have fallen in love her to begin with.”
He’s about to rip into me when his eyes widen.
That shut you up didn’t it, assclown?
“Did you just use the ‘L’ word?”
“Y
es.” Holy shit. I did. “Not that I can fucking tell her.” Not that I
would
fucking tell her. What if she doesn’t say it back? That is absolutely terrifying to think about. Motherfucker! How did I let this happen? “I don’t want to make it worse. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to say to her. I lost her before it even started and I tried to keep it from starting, I really did. I do not want to do this to her. I do not want to go through this myself. I never had a fucking choice. You know what that’s like.”
“Jace, I—”
“I never told you something, Maya.” Both of our heads whip toward the screen when Piper speaks. “We were fighting.”
“Huh?”
“Me and Ashlyn. We weren’t talking when she died. For almost a month.”
“You weren’t… Oh, Piper. I…” she stammers, throwing her arms around Piper’s shoulders as she starts to break down again.
“We were fighting because of
him.
I had a major crush on Chuck too. Huge. I liked him a lot more than she did, well, maybe not.
Probably
not, I don’t know, but he picked her over me and I couldn’t stand it and… you know how I get. So we weren’t talking at all for the whole month. And I was being a total bitch, spreading rumors to get him to break up with her, antagonizing her to make her look crazy. I was
very
fucking creative. Ashlyn hated me. She fucking hated me. And I never got a chance to make up for it. I’m surprised she isn’t haunting my ass.”
“She didn’t hate you.”
“Yes, she did.”
“Well, maybe in the moment, but she didn’t
hate you
hate you. It would have worn off in like five minutes like it always did.”
“What do you mean?”
Piper sniffles, sitting up on her heels.
“You didn’t keep hating her when she
lied and told everybody you liked sucking on Marshall’s toes in eighth grade. You got over that immediately and both had a great time telling everyone that you dumped him because he had a little dick, even though he totally broke up with you.”
“Oh, my God,” she laughs. “That’s right.”
“In sixth grade, she cut off a big chunk of your hair because Joe Freeman borrowed your pencil instead of hers.”
Piper covers her goofy smile with both her hands and squeals. “She was so fucking lucky
that I wanted a bob, I almost killed her.”
“Almost killed her? You were pissed off for a less than day and then told everybody you both planned that so your mom would let you cut it off.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that now.”
“Think back, Pip
es. There was a lot more.”
“Wow. You’re right. My memory isn’t that great, even for a normal person, but… I guess I don’t like t
o think about it. I have a really fucking hard time thinking about her at all. I just see red.”
“
It doesn’t mean you weren’t close. That’s just how you two were, especially when it came to boys. I was always in the middle. It kind of sucked, to be honest with you.”
“Yeah, I guess you were. Sorry.”
“I don’t care. We were kids, Piper. Kids do stupid shit. Like…” Maya trails off. “I don’t think I want to go out, either. But I am really hungry. Let’s just order a pizza or something.”
“Like what, Maya?”
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, just tell me.”
“You don’t want to hear it,” Maya says, getting up and walking over to the drawer where they keep all the menus. Piper trots over and pokes her in the ribs. “I really don’t want to fight.”