Hendrix
My body rests against the seat, and my temple is cool against the window. The August heat was so intense I doubt there’s water left in my body. Every muscle is already asleep, but my mind is halfway awake. Axle hums along to Fall Out Boy on the radio, I’m guessing to keep himself awake on the ride home. Our job was an hour away, and I nailed in more shingles than I can count in the past ten hours. I’m tired, Axle’s tired, yet I’m semi-awake in the passenger seat.
Elle. I’m waiting on Elle. She’s been gone a week. First traveling with her Mom to New York for a shopping trip, and then to DC with her dad. She was supposed to return sometime today, but her flights kept getting delayed due to storms on the East Coast.
My cell’s in my hand as I wait for it to vibrate, for me to know that the past week of being without her is almost over. I’ve got a crazy hum in my brain, beneath my skin, that begs for me to hold her again. One week apart was too long.
Axle’s car slows and I open my eyes. He’s heading off the freeway and we’re almost home. I check my cell in case I had fallen asleep, but it confirms I didn’t miss anything. Dammit, Elle, where are you?
“Still nothing?” Axle asks.
“Nada.”
“From neither Elle nor on the audition?”
“Nothing,” I confirm. This week, I auditioned for the youth performing arts high school, and I nailed it. I played both the guitar and the drums, and it’s the only flawless thing I’ve done in my life. Now I wait.
“So you and Elle,” Axle says like he asked a question, and I circle my neck.
“Don’t start.” My brother likes her, but he’s concerned with good reason. We’re the definition of doomed. Star-crossed and all that bull. But I’m not ready to give her up, and it appears she feels the same way about me.
“Not what you think,” he says, “so take a step back. Though since you brought it up, dating the governor’s daughter without his consent is stupid. Dating her with his consent would still be borderline stupid.”
I scrub both hands over my face. I’m too damned tired for this. “Drop me off. I’ll walk home.”
“But that’s not why I’m bringing her up.”
I roll my head against the headrest to look at him. Axle’s focused on the road. One hand on the steering wheel with his fingers tapping out the strands of the chords of the song on the radio. “Are you being safe with her?”
Damn if that wasn’t direct. “I know how to use a condom.”
“Considering you don’t have any baby mamas at the door screaming for money, I’ve guessed that, but I saw how you and Elle kissed goodbye last Sunday. I also saw the look on her face when she pulled away, and I saw the same expression on you. This ain’t a hookup, and I don’t want a conversation with you down the road where you explain you forgot to use the condom because you were swept up in a moment. Moment or not, you cover up, you got me?”
Couldn’t get it any more loud and clear if he screamed it point-blank in my ear. “No babies. I understand.” I pause, playing out the next statement in my head because I’m not the kind of guy to talk girls in a locker room. “How I feel about her—she’s different.”
Axle switches hands he’s driving with. “I know. Different looks good on you, Drix.”
“I said, she’s different.”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye as he pulls into our driveway. “I heard you.”
Axle turns off the car, followed by the headlights, and neither of us move to exit. Our front porch light is on, and light also pours from our living room. Shadows moving behind a curtain and there’s a strange tug at my heart because this house is finally becoming a home.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask.
“Once.”
“What’s it like?”
He flips the car keys around his finger. “Like you didn’t know a piece of you was missing until they smiled at you, and then you realized what it felt like to be whole.”
The front door opens, and Holiday waves at us to come in. She’s smiling, and that’s a good indication she listened and spent the day with Dominic, Kellen and Marcus instead of her asshole boyfriend. They offered to take her to the lake, and as she steps onto the stoop, a part of me rests at seeing her bathing suit straps poking out from beyond her T-shirt. Point for the home team. For today, she chose her family.
We leave the car and head straight for the garage to unload our tools. The two of us talk trash. How I was faster than him pounding in shingles, but he nailed straighter than me. We argue over playlists in case we land a gig. I want anything with a strong beat. He’s insistent we add slow songs for couples to dance. I tell him slow songs are for wusses. He tells me I’m an asshole. I tell him to kiss my ass. We eventually finish up and trudge toward the back door of the house.
All I want is a shower, hot food, a bed and then for Elle to call. There’d be nothing better than to listen to her sweet voice until I fall asleep.
“I call dibs on the shower,” Axle says.
“Try for first and I’ll kick your ass,” I say, and he chuckles behind me.
Back door open, I step into the kitchen and loud voices ring out, “Surprise!”
Startled, I go still, then glance around the room. It’s my sister, Dominic, Kellen and Marcus. I narrow my eyes, since I don’t get what the surprise is. “What’s going on?”
Holiday rocks on her toes. “You got a letter today. From the youth performing arts program.”
My heart stops in my chest. “Where is it?’
“I already opened it. You got in and this is your surprise party.”
I hold my breath because I don’t know if I heard her right. “I did what?”
“Got in.” My entire body vibrates at the glorious sound of Elle’s voice, and Dominic and Marcus split apart to show her coming in from down the hallway. Each and every time I see her, she takes my breath away, and this time it’s no different.
Her long hair is loose around her shoulders, and the blue cotton dress she has on makes me think of all the ways I’d love to take it off. Elle extends her hand, and in her fingers is a letter addressed to me.
“You were supposed to come in the front,” Holiday says. “I had it all planned out. Elle was going to be standing their waiting for you with the letter, and then you two would kiss and be happy, and then we’d all join in and jump up and down with you, but you ruined it. Front door, Axle. What part don’t you get of front door?”
“When have we used the front door?” Axle claps a hand on my shoulder. “Congrats. You deserve this.”
I don’t say anything in response as I’m too busy memorizing every part of Elle. The letter. I should read the letter. Confirm the words myself. “I got in?”
Elle nods. “Yes.”
The room sways as a wave of emotion slams into me. My mind’s a mess, too many thoughts colliding all at once. Then another wave smashes into me, and it feels a lot like guilt. I hurt people, and now I’m getting this. I hurt people, and I don’t understand why good things are happening to me now. I hurt people physically. I hurt people emotionally, and my eyes immediately go to Holiday. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
All of the chatter ceases, and Holiday blinks. “What?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when I was in jail, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you before. I let you down, and I’m done letting you down. I promise you, I’m going to be here. I’m going to go to this school, and I’m going to make something better out of who I am. And then me and Axle, we’re going to get you to someplace better. Help you be whoever you want to be. I promise you can trust me.”
Thor runs into the kitchen and through my legs, and I don’t know what to say anymore. I got in. I got into the youth performing arts program. One year ago, I was a selfish bastard, and I pounded my way through life one hit and punch at a time. One year ago, I was a wreck, handing over my life for a stick of a needle or swallow of the bottle. One year ago, I was on a path to death, and now I have a real chance at life.
Emotion burns me up from the inside out, and I don’t know how to handle it. The therapist said to talk, he said to leave if I couldn’t contain myself, but this feeling isn’t anger. It’s something that resembles a ball of fire. It’s powerful, and it causes my eyes to sting and my hands to shake.
I look over at Elle, and my voice is unrecognizably hoarse. “I got in.”
She’s smiling at me, pure softness in that joy. “You got in.”
I step toward her. One foot, then another, and when I reach her, Elle falls into me. Her arms around my neck, her fingertips sliding along my skin, her warmth surrounds me, and all the chaos in my mind ceases. There’s quiet and peace, and that ball of fire isn’t raging, but instead is burning. Slowly, deeply, in such a way that I’m fine with being consumed.
“You deserve this,” she whispers. “You deserve to be happy.”
Is this what this is? Happy? If it is, I want more of it. Never in my life have I had a taste of a drug that’s as potent as this moment. Feeling whole with her in my arms, this triumphant feeling that I can take on the world. No more wasting away. No more letting someone else control my life. I’m the master of my own destiny.
“I love you, Elle.” I lower my head and I kiss her lips.