Four Letter Word

She had the coolest hair on the show, Brian!

I laughed and dropped my head back against the Adirondack chair I was lounging in, my bare feet braced on the railing that wrapped around the deck and my eyes skyward, watching an airplane’s lights blink against dark blue night.

Two and a half weeks of Wild and I was hooked on our conversations, every single type of conversation with her.

Talking. Texting. Random thoughts she’d share with me. Invading questions I avoided and ones like this that were simple and pointless and I knew, deep in my marrow and veins and ventricles, persuaded answers from me she’d never forget, because that’s the kind of girl Sydney was.

A forever girl. A note-taker. A memorizer.

If it was important or insignificant, she held on to it. It didn’t matter.

She held on.

She’d remember fifty years from now what movie role I would want to star in or what my last meal on earth would be. Even if we didn’t still have this, she’d remember and think back, smiling with those dimples she told me she inherited from her mother, the ones she liked instead to say she inherited from her brother.

He was the coolest person she’d ever met.

We shared and laughed. Fuck, she made me laugh a lot. Talked real shit, too. Personal shit that walked the line of too personal, and if it faltered, I’d cut it down and divert her, because I couldn’t …I couldn’t.

She asked me if I lived at the beach, saying she knew I was in North Carolina because of my area code and that it was okay, I could tell her and maybe, Trouble, oh, my God, wouldn’t it be amazing if we both lived in the same town?

She asked me what type of business I owned, because I gave vague job information to pacify her and she wanted more, she wanted everything, what and where and how long.

She wanted what I spent my days doing, because she had my nights.

Just tell me, Brian. What’s the big deal?

She asked my age and what I looked like. If my hair was dark or long or soft if she touched it, if it curled fresh out of the shower or if it fell annoyingly in my eyes.

What color are they, Brian? Brown and green and gold like mine? Tell me.

She asked me what detergent I used so she could use it, too, and imagine she never had to ask these questions, because she knew me and my smell. My habits and hates. She knew my nose was poker straight and my jaw was square and clean shaven. She knew I was tall enough that her ear could rest against my heart, and my hands were bigger than hers and I liked to hold tighter, just a little tighter than she did.

I gave what I could, and only what I could, my fingers itching to type more, just tell her, fuck it, and my tongue pressing against my palate to prevent speech.

She couldn’t know too much. She could never know.

Never.

I gave her enough so I could still have her, but I took everything.

Every fucking thing. It was mine and she wanted me to have it. She gave it up. She was perfect that way. She was perfect in every way.

Red hair. Hazel eyes. Moles she hated, two on her face and two on her neck. The scar that ran in the bend in her elbow from a bicycle accident when she was eight and the piercing on her belly she got on a dare when she was sixteen, lying and saying she was eighteen to get it.

How she loved to cook but couldn’t do it well enough, leaving her with four recipes she held dear and perfected.

How she drank Godiva Milk Chocolate Hot Cocoa every night with whole milk, nothing less, adding her own mini marshmallows so she could control the sweetness and liking it that way, and drinking it no matter what the temperature was outside.

How she loved a winter sky and the first signs of spring, and how she donated blood every year because it was important and everyone should do it.

If you could save a life, what’s stopping you?

I took it all and it was good. So fucking good.

But I took only what I could handle.

I knew if I let her tell me where she worked, I would go there no matter how far away it was and I would look at her closely and openly where she could see it, where she could see me, and I didn’t know if she was the type of girl who watched porn. We talked about everything but we didn’t talk about shit like that. It didn’t seem important. But I couldn’t risk her recognizing me and reacting, ending this when I wasn’t nearly finished.

If I allowed her to tell me her last name, I’d search. If I allowed her to tell me where she lived, I’d move.

My world was one miserable mistake-shaping second after another, except for the breaks in my misery that belonged to her.

And no way was I ready to give that up.

Best two and a half weeks of my life came from a girl who was never meant to give me anything.

And she was giving me everything.

I was still smiling with the sounds of waves and wind surrounding me as I focused on the life in my hands, typed my question, and waited.

What about you, Wild? Who do you want to have dinner with?

That smile vanished the second I read her response.

Alive? You. Dead? Barrett.

Because what the fuck was worth smiling over. She’d never get her shot at either.

Chapter Eight

SYDNEY

Girls’ nights are awesome just being what they are, getting together with your friends and getting loud and laughing a lot, but throw in a theme and a very creative wardrobe courtesy of your best friend and they become a whole new level of awesome.

And tonight’s theme was eighties night.

I was in luck. Red hair teased out and sprayed stiff looked totally kick-ass on me.

I felt wild. I liked feeling wild. It made me think of Brian.