16 Years Ago

“Woooo! Senior year is over!!! Screw you, Waterson High!” Laura Camellia screamed from atop a picnic table.

Tia Camellia, her older sister, planted a firm hand over the back of Laura’s shorts and tugged her down. “You’re not even a senior yet, Laura.”

“Well, you are, T. And one of us has to celebrate the fact that you’re getting out of that hell hole.” Laura straightened her teeny tiny tank top by yanking it another tantalizing inch down her chest.

“Waterson wasn’t that bad,” Tia said, yanking Laura’s tank top back up.

Laura blinked her large blue eyes at her sister. “T, I know you always look to the sunny side, but come on. That place has been a living hell for you.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

The fact was, her time at Waterson High School hadn’t been very good. Living hell might have been pushing it. But with her flat chest, thick glasses and mousy brown hair, Tia was at best, ignored and at worst, ridiculed daily. Generally the boys were the ones doing the ignoring and the girls were the ones doing the ridiculing.

Tia glanced across the crowded backyard toward the pool area. It was lit with Tiki candles and blinking Christmas lights someone had strung up for the party. The eerie blue light rippling up from the pool made the thirty or so kids at the pool’s edges look like ghosts. Except for Sara Humphrey. Who somehow still managed to look like a movie star. Her long blonde hair tumbled over her tan shoulders. Her tiny pink bikini glowed in the light, drawing even more attention to her body than her large breasts did.

Tia sighed. She wasn’t jealous of Sara. But as she was practically the president of the Tia-Camellia-is-the-worst-kind-of-nerd club, Tia tended to steer clear of her. Which was why Tia was standing with her sister on the other end of the backyard.

Tia supposed it wasn’t that big of a deal. There were plenty of things to do at this party besides swim. Half the senior class was here, chomping at the bit to cut loose after graduation. Nobody passed up a party at Elijah Bird’s house.

Certainly not Tia. Who just happened to be in love with Elijah. Well, she suspected she was in love with him. The rational side of her brain admitted that it was hard to confirm considering she’d never actually spoken to him outside of class. Just a few scattered words here and there throughout their four years in the same high school.

But the irrational side of her couldn’t think what the hell that feeling could be if it wasn’t love. Tia caught sight of Elijah across the party. He was shirtless. His feet painted circles in the pool water as he sat on the edge, talking to his friend Jay Brady. Elijah’s shaggy brown hair curled over his forehead and his eyes crinkled in the smile he always seemed to be wearing. The same smile that made something in Tia’s stomach pull tight. Made her feel like she’d swallowed a goldfish.

God. She didn’t stand a chance. It just wasn’t fair that someone so handsome would also look so friendly as well. Weren’t hot people supposed to smolder? And scare off all the normal-looking people who weren’t supposed to even fantasize about them? But no such luck with Elijah. Even when they’d just been comparing notes in English class, he’d somehow had the ability to make her feel, in those brief moments, like she was his best friend. Like she had all of his attention no matter what. Like she was safe and cared for, as long as she stayed close to him.

She didn’t kid herself into thinking that Elijah actually felt that way. It was just the way he was. He made everybody feel special. He couldn’t help it.

Tia bit her lip as that beautiful smile turned her way. But he wasn’t looking across the yard at her, he was turning to Sara Humphrey, who’d just plunked herself right down next to him.

So maybe Tia was a little bit jealous of Sara. Not of her body or of her social standing. But of her ability to do that. Just walk up to Elijah and plunk herself down like she knew she’d be welcomed.

“You gonna finally tell him?” Laura asked softly, following Tia’s line of sight. She was the only person on God’s green earth that Tia would have breathed a word to about this particular matter. And as it was, Laura had guessed more than she’d been told.

Tia watched Sara Humphrey lean into Elijah, her bikini top pressing into his arm and her mouth at his ear. He shook his head at whatever she said.

“Maybe later.” When she wouldn’t have to bushwhack her way through Sara Humphrey’s vitriol to be able to speak to him.

“Hey, Camellias,” a deep voice rumbled behind them, and Laura and Tia turned to see Marcus Marinos walking up behind them. His black hair was a dark smudge on his head, his wide shoulders filling out his t-shirt. He towered over the two girls. The evening light shadowed his smooth face, deepening the purple under each eye, the bruising around his crooked nose.

“Hey, Marcus!” Laura chirped, accepting the unopened beer he handed her way.  Tia automatically took the beer out of Laura’s hands. Laura grimaced at her sister, but wasn’t going to waste this chance to talk to such a hottie. She pointed to her own nose and eyes. “Starting to look a lot better.”

“Yeah,” Marcus brought his hand up to the bruising. “Still hurts like a bitch, though.”

Tia cocked her head to one side, surveying the injury. “What happened?”

Both Marcus and Laura blinked at her like she was from Mars.

“You didn’t hear?” Laura asked, incredulously.

Tia shrugged, she was used to this kind of reaction. Sometimes she felt like she lived on a different wavelength from the rest of her classmates; important gossip didn’t always make it to her. And she supposed that pretty much anything that happened to Marcus Marinos was probably important gossip, considering he was one of the most good looking guys in school.

“Football injury,” Marcus said, a little chagrin on his still handsome face.

Tia’s stomach flipped. Whenever she thought of football, she thought of Elijah. He was the quarterback of the football team. She’d gone to every game just to see the graceful way his body juked and bounded around the field. He ran like a cheetah, she’d always thought. His body was lean and muscular, low to the ground and fiercely determined to get where he was going. She furrowed her brow. “Football injury? But the season’s been over for months.”

“Yeah.” Marcus traced a hand over his black hair, leaned forward, uncapped the beer in Tia’s hand. “It was a pick-up game. Brady elbowed me in the face.”

“On purpose?” Tia’s eyes went wide. She knew that Elijah, Jay Brady, and Marcus had all been best friends since kindergarten.

Marcus chuffed out a laugh. “Nah. You couldn’t rile up that dude if you maced him. He just caught me by accident. Dude can catch a wave like butter, but on dry land he’s a total klutz.”

“Oh yeah,” Laura said. “I’ve seen some pictures of him surfing before. Didn’t he win a big competition or something?”

“Or something.” Humor glinted in Marcus’s eyes, but as he looked down at the two girls in front of him, Marcus found he wasn’t all that interested in talking up his friend’s accomplishments. “You enjoying the party? Get a chance to swim yet?”

“Not yet,” Tia’s eyes skittered back over toward Sara Humphrey. She saw, with a distinct dipping in her stomach, that she now had one leg draped over Elijah’s lap.

Laura looked that way as well. “Marcus, are Elijah and Sara Humphrey together or something?”

Marcus squinted over at them. “Sara and Eli? Nah. But sure looks like they might be for tonight.”

Suddenly Tia felt as if she might be ill. Great. So, now if she even got the chance to pull Elijah away from Sara for a word with him, she’d officially be cockblocking. That was exactly the way she wanted that conversation to go. She could just imagine it.

Her: Hey, Elijah, I’ve loved you for four years. But I’m a nerdy dork who probably won’t be ready to do much more than kiss a little bit.

Him: Um. Can we wrap this up? I’ve got Sara Humphrey panting for it right over there.

Tia passed her opened beer to Laura. “I’m gonna find the bathroom real quick.”

“You alright?” Laura narrowed her eyes at her sister, knowing full well how much Marcus’s words must have hurt her.

“Yup. Back in a sec.”

Tia skirted around groups of kids sitting around on the deck, pushed her way through the keg line, and slipped unnoticed through the dark living room where the recent grads were just lumps under blankets, cuddling and canoodling with a movie on as an excuse. She wasn’t sure where the bathroom was, but she ducked down a hallway, passed a room with a sewing machine and shelves of books. The next room looked like some kind of home office.

And the next room stopped her in her tracks. It was Elijah’s room. It had to be. It was painted a dark blue with two big windows to the front yard. A chunky laptop computer sat on a desk riddled with papers and dog-eared text books. She knew he was a good student. It was one of the things she loved about him. In fact, he was a good enough student, and good enough at football, that he’d had an early acceptance to the University of Michigan.

Tia had gotten in there as well. But she just couldn’t justify passing up her acceptance to Harvard. She knew she wanted to attend med school there. And no matter how much she was into Elijah, her rational side would never let her pass up that opportunity. Not for a boy she’d never had a personal conversation with.

Almost unwillingly, Tia stepped into his room. She didn’t want to intrude on his space. But it was so much quieter back here. And she wasn’t going to do anything disrespectful. He’d never even know she’d gone in there. It was tidy and smelled of clean sweat. She laid a hand on the damp t-shirt he’d tossed over the back of his computer chair. It was clammy with sweat. He must have soaked it through earlier that day.

Tia sat down in the computer chair the second she had that thought. God. Why did the thought of him sweating through a shirt make her mouth water?

Looking down, she saw two gigantic running shoes tumbled on the floor in front of her. Timidly, Tia lifted one slender foot out of her sandal and slipped it into Elijah’s shoe. Her foot was swallowed inside of it. A shiver ran over her skin.

Tia took a deep breath and put her own sandal back on as she glanced around the room. She would have expected posters of half-naked girls or maybe his favorite sports teams. But this was yet another example of why he was just so great. He had a colorful Keith Haring print and a few different pictures of he and Marcus and Jay at various ages. Eleven years old in baseball uniforms, arms slung around one another’s shoulders, grass stains on their knees. Sixteen years old and dressed for a dance of some kind, they all looked dapper in suits, the flower in Jay’s boutonnière already crushed and wilting.

Tia’s eyes fell to Elijah’s bed. The faded green sheets were rumpled as if he’d just gotten out of bed. She wondered, with both a flipping and a tightening in her stomach, how many girls he’d had in that bed. Even though she was alone in the room and no one could see her ogling Elijah Bird’s bed, Tia blushed, had to look away. Her gaze skittered to a picture on the nightstand. She crossed the room to get a better look.

She bent to see it, but didn’t dare pick it up. Elijah and a woman who had to be his mother. She had the same tawny eyes. Honey gold and so kind. Elijah was probably eight when the picture was taken. In it he had a neon green popsicle mustache and one of his eyebrows raised for the camera. His mother’s face laughed at the camera, one of her palms on the side of Elijah’s face, pulling him into her shoulder.

Tia found herself grinning at the photo. There was just so much palpable love and joy in it. It was contagious.

Alright. She’d snooped enough. She didn’t want to invade his privacy. But one step across his floor and she froze.

“Come on, Elijah! It’ll be fun.” Sara Humphrey’s voice carried down the hallway. Shit. Double shit. They were coming this way. Tia looked wildly around the room.

“Not really my scene, Humphrey.” His deep voice rumbled down the hall and even in her panicked state, it sent shivers down Tia’s back.

Some place to hide. Some place to hide now. Tia looked wildly around the room and settled for jamming herself between the wall and the foot of his bed. They wouldn’t see her here unless they stood directly across from where she crouched. But, as she heard their footsteps approaching, she realized that this was a front row seat to seeing her favorite person and her least favorite person maul each other’s goodies.

Oh god. What had she done?

Her heart in her throat, Tia let out a long, low breath of relief when she heard them open the door next to Elijah’s and tromp down what sounded like basement stairs. She did not, in the least, want to think about what they were about to do in the basement. But she was at least thankful that they weren’t going to do it three inches from her.

Ok. She needed to get the hell out of here before she got caught in his room. Tia was almost to the door when something caught her eye on his desk. His yearbook.

She sighed in the direction that Elijah and Sara had gone. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that Elijah was probably going to be busy for the rest of the night. Tia sighed hard, swallowed down the crushing disappointment of missing her chance to tell Elijah how she felt face to face. But she kept her gaze on his yearbook, quickly crossing the room.

She picked it up and flipped through. No signatures. Of course not. None of the cool kids bothered to get their yearbooks signed, they already knew how much they’d be missed.

Tia teased her bottom lip between her teeth before taking a deep breath and deciding what she was going to do. She grabbed a pen from his desk and let it rip. She couldn’t say it to his face. But at least she could get it out there. And like she was drawing it up out of her—like fresh, cool water from a well—Tia wrote down exactly how she felt about Elijah Bird.