Eleven Years Ago
What makes you feel alive?
My family. Their imperfections. Their fierce love. Their unconditional worry. Their dedication to a lost cause. To me.
THE NIGHT BEFORE MILLIE LEFT for New York wasn’t much different than any other night. We slept in the same bed, even though we had separate rooms. Feet on the wall, staring at the ceiling, hugging a pillow or each other. That was our signature position. Sometimes it was my bed. Sometimes it was hers. I hated that I loved sleeping in her bed because it smelled like him. They weren’t having sex, but his scent was everywhere.
On her sheets. On her desk. In my soul.
This time we were in my room, and the glow-in-the-dark stars gazed back at us. I always loved stars. They reminded me how small my problems were in this big universe.
“Dean and I slept together,” she croaked into the gloom and took my hand in hers. I stiffened, my eyes fluttering shut. Think about stars.
Everything stopped. My lungs burned, my body ached, and tears burned the back of my nose. The room grew darker; my breaths became heavier. She didn’t know. My sister, who was so perceptive, knew everything about me, about my body, about my health, my friends and taste in music, didn’t even know what her boyfriend did to me. Just hearing his name made my heart prickle. My stomach flipped, wave after wave of warmth swirling inside it. But, of course, she was blind to my feelings. She was too busy with hers.
“Was it good?” I faked a smile. And I hated her. And I hated him. But most of all, I hated myself.
She shrugged one shoulder. It brushed against mine. “It was a mistake.”
“You think?”
“I know.” We were still staring at the ceiling and not at each other, and for that, I was grateful. “Our whole relationship is. I think he’s with me because he tries to protect me from Vicious. He doesn’t understand it only fuels the fire in this guy.”
“And you?” I managed to ask through the ball of tears twisting in my throat.
“And me…” Her grip on my hand tightened. “I like Dean. Who doesn’t? He is the definition of fun. But I don’t…”
Love him. Like I do.
“We’re trying to make us happen, but there’s something missing. The magic. He says he’s in this one hundred percent. He acts this way, too. He never asked me about Harvard, though. Not that I blame him, but he just applied, enrolled, and made plans without me. Anyway…it’s cool. It’s not like I want to go with him. Hey, Rosie?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your dream?”
I blinked one time, then another. She didn’t know it, but I was fighting tears, and not just because she had lost her virginity to the guy I loved.
“I don’t have a dream.” The answer came after a few seconds of me trying to regulate my pulse.
“Why?”
“Because what’s the point? I won’t have time to pursue it.”
Instead of arguing, Millie took a different approach. She tilted her body in my direction, brushed my cheek with her thumb, and asked, “And if time wasn’t an issue?”
“Then…I guess to be a mother would be nice. I mean, yeah, I want to be financially independent. Maybe become a graphic designer or a nurse or whatever. But what I really want is to take care of someone and love them wholly and unconditionally. And, of course, do it someplace cool.”
“I think you’d make a great mama. Where would you live if you had the chance?” She smiled. I didn’t know where she was going. I didn’t know she was going at all.
“New York?” I contemplated. “Yeah. The Big Apple. Seems like a good place to disappear in.”
She smiled in the darkness. “Then that’s where I’ll take you.”
Eleven Years Ago
I bumped knuckles with Matt Burton after the game, kicking off the heavy mud from my feet. Football season was over months ago, and we’d graduated a week ago, but we sometimes played scrimmages in neighboring cities. Especially with other private schools that were part of the crazy expensive football program All Saints High signed up for every year. This time we were in Sausalito. We’d won. With Trent riding the bench and watching us play—his cast was yellow, old, and smelled like a stale fart—it was my job to guide the Saints of All Saints High from a twenty-five-point hole against the St. John’s Rangers. It was impossible, until it wasn’t, and we scored nineteen points in the final quarter. We made all the plays. We were fucking fantastic, and as the first quarterback playing his very last game for his high school, I didn’t fail to notice—Vicious’s absence in the game (Hawaii vacation) made no difference at all.
Not only did we not need him, but his temper and rah-rah crap proved to be distracting. Case in point, we’d lost the previous flag football game in Monterey, and he was there, double douche canoe galore.
“Gotta love the scrimmages.” Burton slapped my back, and I did the same to him. Jaime approached me, his blond hair dripping sweat to his forehead and messing up his war paint. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me into a hug.
“Amazing throw.” He rubbed the dark strips on my cheek like he was my fucking girlfriend.
“Amazing everything, dude. It’s me.” I kissed each of my biceps, looking dead serious but obviously screwing around. He punched my pecs and laughed as we all made our way in the rain back to Coach Rowland. Twenty minutes later we were taking showers, getting ready to hop on the bus back to Todos Santos. We’d be sleeping through the nine-hour ride, but it was a small price to pay for all that glory.
After I got out of the showers, I pulled fresh clothes from my duffel bag, ready to get dressed. As I did, a note fell out, drifting to the floor. I caught it before it got wet, recognizing my girlfriend’s handwriting. Did she leave me a good luck letter? That wasn’t out of character for Millie. She was so fucking sweet, it sometimes felt like too much. A casual smile stamped on my face, I began to read.
Dean,
This is the most difficult thing I’ve had to do. I’m not even sure how to start. The one thing I want you to know before you read this is that it’s not you. I care about you so much. You’ve given me what no one else in this town ever has. Security, respect, time, and love.
My smile melted into a frown. It didn’t sound like a good luck letter. It sounded like a goodbye letter. Someone slapped my back as they made their way to another bench in the locker room, and someone else shouted next to my ear. They were all tuned out.
I have to go away. Trust me when I say I have to. Something has happened that I cannot undo. Since the last thing I want is to complicate your life, I need to leave you behind. Please don’t try to find me. It will only make matters worse. I want you to follow your dreams and live your life.
I don’t deserve your loyalty, Dean. I never did.
Taking a big gulp of air, I read the last paragraph, feeling my hands clutching the paper tighter.
You’re the most alive person I know. Walking away from you is hard, but staying in Todos Santos would be even harder. I hope you understand, and in time, I even greedily ask you to forgive me.
I’ve met someone else.
Love,
Millie
Eleven Years Ago
What was I doing knocking on their door, and which sister was I hoping to see, Millie or Rosie? I knew the answer to the last question. I just felt like a fucking tool about admitting it.
Millie and I were done. It was for the best. I saw what love looked like. I saw it on Jaime and our Lit teacher, Mel. Love felt like dipping each other in gasoline and burning together. Love felt like dancing with madness in the dark, watching all of its bright lights. Love felt like gasping for air when your lungs were already full.
Love. Wasn’t. This.
Now she was gone, and my thoughts immediately drifted to her sister. The worst part was that I wasn’t mad at Emilia. I was a tad frustrated. And…
Don’t say relieved. Don’t even think it, douche.
Fuck it. But I was.
Charlene LeBlanc answered the door. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was waiting on my sorry ass to show up on her porch at seven in the morning on a Sunday. Or that she had been crying for hours, by the look of it.
“Can I see your daughter?” I asked. Subconsciously, I didn’t refer to her by name because I wanted to leave it to fate. Aside from seeing Rosie here and there at school, swaying her ass in a short denim skirt and lecturing people about the British history of punk rock, I hadn’t seen her properly in months. Millie, I’d seen all the time. Not that she saw me. Apparently, she never really saw me at all.
“She’s gone.” Her mom dabbed her nose in a piece of tissue that should’ve been replaced two blows ago. “Been screening my calls all night. What happened? Did you two have a fight?”
I shook my head. Last time I spoke to Millie, we were making plans to go watch a movie. We hadn’t had sex since that first time when we celebrated her eighteenth birthday. I think we both weren’t feeling it, but admitting it out loud was unnecessary. I was headed to Harvard in a few weeks.
“No, ma’am. I’m as surprised as you are.”
She invited me in, and I recited every single encounter I’d had with Millie over the last month, leaving out the part where I deflowered her for the safety of my neck. Charlene looked distraught, right on the verge of a heart attack, then her husband joined us from their bedroom and asked more questions, trying to milk from me a confession I didn’t owe anyone.
Finally, after thirty minutes, Rosie emerged from her bedroom. She was the one I wanted to speak to. If someone had answers, or even clues, it’d be her.
“Can I borrow you for a second?” I asked, getting up from my chair. She still had sleep in her eyes and was wearing nothing but a huge New York Dolls tank top that left her long, tan legs bare and beautiful. I tried to ignore them, looking away to make sure the eighteen-year-old dick that was attached to my body wouldn’t accidentally salute her in front of her parents. “Meet me by the pool?”
She nodded, too startled and sleepy to protest. A few minutes later, she came out to the pool, still wearing nothing but her top and flip-flops. I loved her devotion to flip-flops, even though every time they smacked the floor, I wanted to burn them down. I got up from a sun lounger and paced, lacing my fingers behind my neck.
“Where is she?” I asked. Rosie looked down, but didn’t answer.
“Okay, fine. You don’t have to tell me. But do you know?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “She texted me earlier.”
“Is she safe?” My voice was strangled. I was worried about Millie, but I was also worried about Rosie. She was extremely attached to her older sister. Me, I knew I’d get over my ex-girlfriend in no time. It was my ego that needed a stroke.
“She’s safe,” Rosie confirmed, smoothing her bed hair with her fingers.
“Do you know why she did it?”
“I have an idea.”
“Are you waiting for a special invitation before you share it?”
She shook her head, ignoring the general assholeness that was me. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know it puts you in a horrible spot, but I can’t. You know where my loyalty lies.”
There was a brief moment of silence before our arms found each other and we clasped one another in a deadly hug. I say deadly not because I squeezed her and she squeezed me like we were trying to bleed the truth and the lies and everything in-between away from our bodies, but also because it felt fatal.
I don’t want you to die.
I don’t want to stop seeing you now that I’ve graduated.
I’ve been in love with your snarky ass ever since you opened the door for me, and now I’m hurting like you ran over me, and I have no idea how to fix this shit for us.
Minutes have passed before we disconnected. When I looked down at her, tears were running freely on her cheeks, and I knew it was a rare sight. In school, she was that fierce bitch no one dared to mess with.
“Thank you,” I said, for the hug. Maybe even for the tears.
She smoothed a hand over my chest. “You deserve someone who is yours. Just yours. No one else’s.”
“Rosie,” I called out for her when she started making her way back to the servants’ house. It felt like goodbye, and I didn’t want it to be. I had to put a spin on that encounter. She turned her head to look at me.
“Don’t be a stranger.”
She smiled. “Being strangers is exactly who we should be, Cole.”