Isabelle sits on the landing of the stairway in the foyer with her arms crossed over her chest. Her cheeks are red, there’s moisture rimming the bottom of her eyes, but it’s not sadness that’s radiating from her, it’s anger. I have the urge to give her a high-five.
My sister is in time-out. She didn’t remove every item off her dresser and dust every inch. She only dusted the areas in front of her porcelain dolls and that didn’t follow my father’s explicit instructions. Therefore, she’s being punished.
In the living room, Dad sits with his computer on his lap, and he types. Occasionally he glances over the top of the screen to confirm my sister’s doing what she’s told. Control. My father thrives off of it.
“Did you take out the garbage, Scarlett?” Dad must not like me lingering.
I don’t answer him, but I do leave the couch and head to the kitchen. Funny, as I leave, Mom passes me and takes my seat on the couch. She can talk forgiveness, but she doesn’t seem to trust Dad alone with Isabelle either. Mom takes up her knitting like that was her plan, but once in the kitchen I see the pan caked in lasagna in the sink.
I yank the bag out of the can and twist it up. I’d love to take the overflowing garbage and dump it over his head. Instead, I yank open the back door and walk the bag to the trash cans that are lined up neatly against the garage.
The autumn evening is clear and brisk. Across the street the lights are on in Jesse’s trailer, and I can spot smoke and smell the burning embers from a bonfire in one of the fields. Since my freshman year, I’ve sat envious at my bedroom window and watched as Jesse has led his friends from the driveway to his back field. I hated them for being so happy together. I hated them more that I wasn’t invited.
If I wanted to be invited tonight, I could be. But something has been holding me back. A hesitation. A distrust. It’s almost nine. I could be across the road and part of the action in three hours, but I don’t know if I should or if he wants me there.
A shadow in the night, and I squint to make out the movement. My heart picks up speed when I hear footsteps—fear that it’s Jesse, fear that it’s not, fear of my father poking his head out and finding me with anyone.
Not wanting to take the risk of being caught, I head for the house but stop at the sound of my name being called by a female voice: “Scarlett.”
Veronica walks into the light from the overhead lamp hanging from the garage. I sneak a quick peek at the house. “What are you doing here?”
Veronica’s eyes are ice-cold blue, and when she tilts her head, her short blond curls bounce along her shoulder. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and I imagine you’re like the rest of your friends and think I’m garbage.”
I flinch as if she had hit me in the stomach because it doesn’t feel good for anyone to admit they aren’t liked. “I don’t think that.”
She ignores me. “But Jesse, Nazareth, Leo and I—we’re friends. Real friends. We will do anything to help each other.”
“Okay,” I say slowly.
She crosses her arms over her chest and purses her lips like I’m releasing the smell equivalent to a skunk. “Jesse’s upset and for some stupid reason he wants you.”
“He sent you here?”
“No. He said you couldn’t come, but Jesse never says he wants anything, but then he had to go and say that he wished you were there. You better figure out how to see him tonight or I swear to God I will take you out on Monday.”
I double blink; she pivots on her toes and leaves.
“Why is Jesse upset?” I call out.
Veronica doesn’t answer as she keeps walking.
* * *
I drop to the ground and inhale deeply to steady my shaking hands. Climbing down the tree was easy. It was that first leap from my window to the limb that was death defying. I can’t grasp the level of stupidity and courage I must have had when I was younger. I don’t remember ever thinking before I leapt out that window to Jesse when I was a kid.
I wipe my clammy hands against my jeans as I walk across the street. It’s eleven-thirty. My mom had a headache, and my father sent us to bed early, around nine. Jesse said he’d meet me at midnight, but I couldn’t wait thirty more minutes, though it may have been less intimidating to have Jesse waiting for me at the bottom of the tree instead of me strolling up to his yard.
I pass the trailer, and four figures circle a bonfire in Jesse’s back field. At least it’s not a long walk from his trailer yet it’s still far enough away that my parents couldn’t make me out from their bedroom window. Jesse and his friends are loud and full of cheer, guitar chords are being plucked and occasionally there’s laughter.
Nerves threaten to swallow me whole yet I walk into the firelight. The conversation halts. Shock covers Nazareth’s and Leo’s faces, Veronica offers a satisfied smirk, and when I lay my gaze on Jesse I have to prevent myself from laughing with how wide his eyes have become. “Tink?”
“Tink?” Veronica repeats as she turns her head toward him. “Is that what you said?”
Jesse ignores her and scrambles to his feet. He sways, just a tad, and his smile is a bit goofy. This is new, at least for me. Jesse’s some level of inebriated.
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
He chuckles and flips the baseball cap on his head backward. “Not yet, but I’m working on it. Won’t lie, I do have a good buzz going on.” Jesse yanks his cell out of his pocket. “I’m sorry I messed up, Tink. I had my alarm set for eleven-fifty. I don’t know what happened.”
“Seriously, did anyone else hear that?” Veronica asks. “Or am I experiencing delusions? I mean, I knew it was going to happen at some point, but I didn’t think it would happen tonight. Do I look crazy to you?”
She looks over at Nazareth, and he nods in agreement. Veronica bobs her head as if the answer was a gimme, and then drinks from a can of beer.
“I don’t know what happened.” Jesse checks the time on his cell, and his mood lightens as he looks at me with the most adorable expression. Sort of like a cuddly puppy. “You’re early.”
“Yeah.” Poetic, I know, but with so many eyes on me, I’ll admit to being self-conscious.
Leo opens a cooler, reaches in and tosses a can of beer to Nazareth, who plants it in the dirt next to another unopened can. Leo then tosses one to Jesse, who catches it with one hand.
“Want one, Scarlett?” Leo asks with a friendly grin.
I twine and untwine my fingers. I’m not a drinker. It’s not like I’ve had much of an opportunity to decide if it’s for me, but now is a bizarre time to experiment. “No, thank you.”
“Who’s polite at a bonfire?” Veronica asks everyone and no one.
“The better question is, who’s polite around us?” Leo pops open his can of beer.
“Maybe we should try manners,” Veronica says, and then her face brightens as if she has the best idea ever. “We should talk in English accents. Doesn’t that mean we have manners?”
“Have you had your rabies shots, V?” Leo asks. “Because I’m worried about your brain. Connecting those two thoughts together is weird. Even for you.”
She sticks her tongue out at him and then the two of them lapse into a fit of giggles. They then push on each other as if they’re five-year-old siblings. This entire situation is strange.
Nazareth strums chords on the guitar, and Veronica announces, “Sing-along!”
Leo groans as he dramatically flops to the ground like a fish.
“What d’you think?” Jesse tilts his head toward his friends. “Want to sit?”
“Okay.”
Jesse surprises me when he takes my hand, loosely linking his fingers with mine, and guides me over to where he was sitting. The grass is cool, the weather cooler, and I’m grateful when Jesse sits close to me because the sweater I have on isn’t enough to keep out the chill. There’s a bit of a letdown when he releases my hand, but I take comfort in how his shoulder brushes against mine.
Above us are a million stars, and beyond the scent of the smoldering wood and smoke, I taste the night air. Hundreds of memories of my childhood flood my mind—of laughter, of being free with Jesse.
Nazareth starts a new song, and this time Jesse sings along. Not to all the parts, just certain lyrics, and I can’t help but smile that he gets half of those wrong. They harass him for it, he harasses them back, but the teasing is good-natured and fun.
Jesse has a smooth voice, can hit some notes, but not others. But he doesn’t care that he’s not perfect. Doesn’t care he’s not precisely right. He sings, loudly when the song is fun, a bit softer when the lyrics are serious. I envy him because while I’ll tap my foot along to the beat, while I’ll laugh along with them, I don’t sing, which is a shame.
I want to. If it counts, I sing in my head, but there’s a lost connection between my heart and my mouth.
At a faster song, Leo pulls Veronica up to dance, and he has an easy way of moving his body around hers. He teases her through most of the dance, cracking jokes, and Veronica laughs, so much that I smile just from the pure joy of watching someone else being happy. The song changes, he draws her close, she rests her head on his shoulder, and for a moment, there’s a pang of jealousy. I want to feel as peaceful in that brief second as she does.
Leo places his hand on her back, but she jerks then pushes him away. She laughs, but it’s forced. She sits, so does he, neither of them acknowledging that brief moment and that makes me sad.
The songs become mellow, the joining in less frequent. Finally, Nazareth plays a song that is slow, that is sorrowful, and he’s the only one who sings. He has a melodic voice, a deep voice. Somehow the beauty is found in the pain of the words. I stare at him, enamored. How is it that every word, every note describes me so well when he’s a stranger to me and I’m a stranger to him?
Jesse watches the fire and finishes his beer. The twinkle in his eye has been replaced with a bleary-eyed look that causes me to place my hand over his. Jesse threads our fingers together, and my body aches with his gentle squeeze. I don’t know what’s broken him tonight or maybe Jesse is like me, hurting all the time, and puts on a show for the world.
“You’re cold,” Jesse says.
I am. The fire’s dying, and the temperature has dropped as the stars have moved. We’ve been out here for an hour, maybe two, but I’m not ready to go home. “I’m okay.”
“Come on.” Jesse stands and pulls me up with him. “I’ll get you a hoodie.”
He keeps my hand as we walk past his friends. Both Leo and Nazareth reach up and offer Jesse their fists for a bump as he passes. They tell him that they’ll take care of the fire. Jesse tells them we’ll be coming back.
When we leave the circle of light created by the fire, Jesse slips an arm around my shoulder. He draws me into the shelter of his body, and I greedily inhale his rich, dark scent. His touch is warm, it’s strong and makes me feel as if I belong.
The sliding back door isn’t locked and we go in. Jesse releases me and flicks on the kitchen light. I freeze in the middle of the room, lost in a snow globe of a memory. It’s been years since I’ve been here, years since Jesse’s grandmother gave me hot oatmeal cookies with a glass of milk, and the sadness of her passing causes my heart to sink.
What’s it like for Jesse to walk in here every day knowing she’s gone? “I’m sorry.”
Jesse’s eyes are red and heavy. “For what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
He takes off his cap, tosses it onto the kitchen table and runs his fingers through his red hair, causing it to stick up in multiple directions. “I know I promised you that I’d take you some place special, but I swear I’ll take you on another night. I’m afraid I’ll pass out between here and there, and that would suck for us both.”
“Because you’re buzzed?” I tease.
He releases a glorious smile. “Because I’m drunk.”
At least he’s honest. “So this is you drunk?”
His smile fades. “I guess so. It’s been a weird day, and that’s left me messed up in the head, sort of like I’ve been hit by the right hook of a heavyweight belt winner.”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Jesse closes his eyes then rubs his hand over his face. The answer is no, and I’m mad at myself because I don’t know how to make him better. I turn away, hoping doing so will give me a revelation of what to do, and I’m surprised to find on the fridge a picture of Jesse and me.
“Gran never forgave me for when I stopped being your friend,” Jesse says. “I think that’s why she picked you for the vote. Her way of forcing me to stop being a jackass.”
My lips lift up briefly, but then fall. “I miss her.”
He releases a long breath. “I do, too. Can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
He goes down the hall, I follow and when he reaches Suzanne’s room, he pauses. One of his hands is on the knob, and the other is on the closed door. I reach out and touch his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No,” he says, but opens the door anyway. He walks in, and several beats pass before he turns on the light. Suzanne’s room is like I remember, down to the crocheted blanket on the bed.
“I haven’t been in here since after she died.” Jesse’s voice isn’t quite his own. Before I can say anything, he moves through the room, opens the drawer of her bedside table and takes out a book. He tosses it to me and then moves to the record player in the corner. “That’s yours.”
The old, worn book is heavy in my hand and the title steals my breath: Peter and Wendy. “Jesse, I can’t. You said Suzanne used to read this to you.”
“She did.” Jesse slips a record out of an album sleeve, places it on the record player then delicately drops the needle onto the vinyl. There’s a crackling sound coming from the speakers and then there’s a guitar being strummed. The song is rough yet has a smooth country twang, and it’s a sad song about blue eyes crying and rain.
Jesse turns up the speakers and walks out of the room, ignoring me as I try to return the book to him.
“She read me that book because of you. I know she’d want you to have it, and if that’s not enough for you, then I want you to have it. You’re southern-mannered enough to not turn your nose up to a gift.”
He’s right, I am, and I press the book to my chest, wishing it were Suzanne I was hugging.
Another click of a light and Jesse walks into the room he and his mother used to share. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe. Jesse stands in the middle of the room, seemingly unaware I’m there, and he strips off his shirt. He’s gorgeous. A pure waterfall of muscle, and his jeans ride low enough that I’m incapable of coherent thought. My mouth immediately dries out, and I’m flustered. I should move. I should stay. I should definitely stop staring.
Jesse looks up, spots me, and his lips move into a pirate smile. “That’s a beautiful blush spreading across your face.”
I overly roll my eyes. “You’re half naked, and I thought you were getting me a hoodie.”
“True, but I had meant to change my shirt earlier then got distracted. V has a way of plowing in and taking over.” He roots through a drawer, not finding what he’s searching for.
I survey the room, and it’s exactly how I remember except the bed his mother used to sleep in is missing. We didn’t hang much in here, only when it was raining so hard Suzanne refused to let us out for fear of flash flooding. Otherwise, the outdoors was too appealing.
The walls are still covered with a wallpaper of maps. State maps, county maps, national maps. Maps of foreign countries, maps of highway systems, maps of mountain ranges. I step into the room and brush my fingers along my name in second-grade print alongside Jesse’s on the map of California. Putting our toes in the Pacific Ocean—that was our dream.
“I can’t believe you still have these,” I say.
Jesse looks over at our names on the wall then at the other maps overlapping each other. “When Mom was crashing here, she used to sit with me in the dark and point a flashlight at each map and tell me the places she wanted to visit. She knew every town, every route and every sight to be seen along the way.”
“She visited them?” It’s odd. I know only a little about his mom, and even less about her death.
“Not a one. Mom left the state once, and doing that killed her. It nearly killed me, too.”
Jesse turns his back, and I suck in an audible breath. There’s a scar running along Jesse’s right shoulder blade. It’s not long, and if I weren’t this close, I probably wouldn’t have seen it, but the scar is thick, it’s rigid and it causes a chill along my spine. “What happened to you?”
“Don’t guess you’ve seen that before, huh?”
“No.” My voice is a combination of a whisper and a croak.
“That happened a few weeks before I cut you out.” Looking dead on his feet, Jesse drops onto his bed. He appears so emotionally and physically drained, like he could sleep for years.
“Do you want me to go?” I ask.
“No, but I understand if you do.”
I don’t want to go so that means I need to do something. Steeling myself against the nerves tickling my stomach, I weigh the pros and cons of standing in front of Jesse or sitting on his bed. I choose his bed because my own fatigue is catching up. I don’t sit as if I own the place. Instead, I’m perched on the edge of the bed, a few inches away from him, and my heart beats so hard I can scarcely breathe.
“How did you get the scar?” I ask.
“My dad hit me with a chair.”
My stomach surges to my throat. “Your dad hit you? I . . .” My forehead wrinkles. “I didn’t even know you saw your dad.”
“I didn’t, not much. I’d see him for a weekend here and there. Maybe once a year. It turns out Mom had been seeing him on and off between the guys she was dating. Part of their sleeping arrangement was for her to leave the kid with Gran. Not sure if you know, but I’m a downer.”
He tries to smile at his joke, but he fails, and I reach out and place my hand over his. He laces his fingers with mine and nudges me closer. I give into the gravitational pull and rest my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but it sucks all the same.”
Jesse’s mom was an in-and-out type of parent. She’d leave a guy, show up here at Suzanne’s with Jesse in tow, find a new guy, leave Jesse with Suzanne, then come and get Jesse to live with her. Jesse would never be gone longer than two weeks. As a child, I never thought to ask what was going on. I was happy my best friend was home.
“Your dad hit you?” I whisper-ask, and I hate how I hurt for him, yet at the same time I have this strange hope that there’s someone else who could possibly understand my life.
“Once.”
I lift my head. “Once?”
He raises one eyebrow. “Isn’t once enough?”
Blood drains from my body, leaving me dizzy, and Jesse’s eyes flicker over my face. “What’s wrong?”
I shudder from the ice overtaking me. “I’m just tired.”
Jesse lifts his hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. His hot fingers graze my cheek and my skin tingles with his touch. “Someday, you’re going to trust me enough to let me in.”
I’m terrified to trust, yet I’m terrified not to. I’m terrified Jesse’s going to touch me again in the same way, that causes every cell to spark to life, and I’m even more terrified I’m never going to feel his hands on my body again.
“Do you want me to walk you home?” he asks.
“Do you want me to go home?”
“Scarlett, there are two times that I can breathe in deeply without wincing in pain, and being with you is one of them. If I could, I’d keep you here forever.”
Jesse stares at my lips, and his attention there causes me to lick them. His eyes darken and butterfly wings flap wildly in my chest.
“You’re saying things that don’t make sense.”
The rebellious spark to him returns. “You know you’re beautiful, right?”
Heat floods my cheeks, and Jesse brushes his fingers along my face again. They linger along the skin of my neck causing pleasing goosebumps to form.
“You’re definitely drunk,” I whisper.
He lightly chuckles and tugs on my hand, which he still holds. Jesse slips up his bed, tempting me to go along with him. “Lay with me, Scarlett.”
Just when my cheeks couldn’t get much hotter, they do.
“I swear on my land that laying with you is all I want.” His green eyes soften, and I melt. “For a few minutes, I want to feel okay, and when I touch you, it’s the closest I am to being whole. If you don’t feel the same, I promise I’ll back off.”
Warmth at the idea of lying next to him, of touching him and of him touching me. “If I lay with you, then what does that make us? I don’t think friends do this.”
“Do you want to lay with me?” he asks.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“Do you need us to stay only friends?”
I glance down because . . . “I don’t know.”
“How about you lay with me tonight, and then we’ll go back to friends tomorrow.”
“Okay.” That I can do. At least, it’s what I think I can do. I scoot up the bed, and as Jesse rests his head on his pillow, I allow myself to place my head on his chest. My arm goes across his stomach as he wraps me tight to him.
Every nerve ending is on fire, so aware of his hands on my body, so aware of his legs brushing against mine. Jesse nuzzles his nose into my hair, and when his breath caresses my neck, my skin becomes insanely sensitive.
A part of me wants so badly to lift my head and allow him the opportunity to kiss me, to allow myself the opportunity to kiss him in return, but I can’t. I’m too afraid.
Jesse rubs his hand along my back, slowly, methodically, and I hold on tighter to him, wishing I never had to let go.