-Ellie-
I was drunk.
I had just lost the contents of my stomach along the side of Shane’s Chevy Challenger, which stopped all efforts on his part to put his hands down my pants.
“F*cking hell, Ellie!” he screamed, pulling the over on the side of the backcountry road to have a look at the damage.
“You pinstriped his car, Ells!” Dania cackled from the back seat. The sweet smell of the joint between her lips wafted my way and I waved the smoke out of my face. My throat started to constrict and mouth began to water.
I was going to puke again.
I shoved the passenger side door open and collapsed on my knees as I heaved again. My head was pounding and my stomach clenched in a vice. Why had I agreed to a shoot out with Stu? Why had I thought it a good idea to slam back six shots of Evan Williams?
I collapsed into the gravel, my face an inch from the pile of vomit I had just expelled.
“Come on, Ellie! We’re already late!” Reggie yelled. I groaned and rolled my face into the dirt.
Welcome to a typical Saturday night, full of bad alcohol and shitty choices.
“Pick her up, Shane and get her back in the car!” Dania said and I knew she was annoyed. I was ruining her night. She had plans to meet up with a guy named Brock at the field party we were heading to. She was wearing her f*ck me red shoes and slut on a mission halter-top.
Reggie and Stu were trying to be discrete as they felt each other up beside a stoned Dania and I was once again drunk and trying to fend off the unwanted advances of Shane.
My life was stuck on an endless loop and I wanted desperately to hit the fast forward button.
“She sure as f*ck ain’t gettin’ in my car if she’s gonna barf again,” Shane grumbled, the driver’s side door slamming shut as he got back in, leaving me sprawled out on the side of the road.
“She’s a hot mess. Leave her ass here,” Stu suggested. Clearly he wasn’t aiming to become my BFF anytime soon.
“We can’t leave her here. Get out and pick her up, Shane!” Dania demanded, her voice heavy and thick from the weed she had smoked.
I heard a car door open and hands lift me up in a less than gentle manner. I was shoved unceremoniously back into the front seat and the door slammed, catching my hair.
“Oww,” I moaned, trying to move my head. My scalp was on fire as my hair pulled taut against my skin. I fumbled for the door handle and whimpered as I tried to move my head.
“My hair,” I slurred.
Dania leaned over the back of the seat and rubbed my head. “Your hair looks beautiful,” she giggled. Shane pulled back out onto the road, my head knocking into the window as he swerved. I grabbed the hunk of trapped hair at the base of my skull and gave it a vicious yank. It came loose, leaving a good portion stuck in the door.
My scalp burned and I felt sick again but I swallowed down the bile that filled my mouth and closed my eyes. Dania and Reggie were laughing in the back seat; smoke filled the car as they lit up another joint. They passed it to Shane who took it and sucked it between his thin lips.
He held it out for me to take but I shook my head.
“It’ll stop you from getting sick again,” Dania urged, rubbing the back of my head. There were times, even when she was high and acting stupid, that I could remember why she was my friend. For all of her faults, there was a streak of gentleness that made her almost bearable.
And I made sure to notice it when I saw it. I didn’t miss the way she rubbed her protruding belly when she thought no one was looking. I recognized the soft, dreamy expression on her face when she talked about the baby she was carrying, even as she tried to deny she felt anything.
And she looked after me. When I hadn’t been able to take care of myself, she was there. And she was the one person in my life who had never turned her back on me. She was all I had.
I leaned into the soft pressure of her fingers against the back of my skull. Shane leaned over, one hand still on the steering wheel, the other pressing the smoking roach to my mouth.
“Suck it like a cock, Ells,” he leered and I would have rolled my eyes if I didn’t feel like I was going to puke again.
I smacked his hand away. Even if he didn’t care about passing our random drug tests, I sure as hell did. I rolled the window down so I could breathe in some fresh air.
It helped. After a few minutes my stomach started to feel better.
Shane pulled into a field a few minutes later and our motley crew lumbered out in a giant heap. Reggie and Stu disappeared only moments after arriving. Dania, after giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, ran over to a guy who was sat in a lawn chair by the bonfire.
Shane, who had clearly been turned off by my outstanding version of The Exorcist, left me by myself on the outskirts of the party.
And then I was alone.
I was always freaking alone.
I leaned against Shane’s car and watched people I had known most of my life drinking, laughing, and enjoying themselves. It seemed so shallow and useless. My head was buzzing and I was a long way from being sober but the dope in my system was making me entirely too introspective.
The scene in front of me was like a frozen moment in time. Unchanging. The same thing every weekend. The same shitty beer and out of date music. The same people getting lucky in the back somebody’s van while the rest of the party got wasted. I could see Chris Donald’s fashioning a beer bong by cutting off the bottom of a milk jug and attaching it to a long piece of plastic tubing. I had seen him do this exact same thing a thousand times before. And I knew that in fifteen minutes he’d be passed out on the ground.
I watched Shelly Clements lift her shirt and show everyone her newest nipple piercing. Her tits, while a bit saggier than they had been in high school, were still large enough to get the guys’ attention.
Each of these people carried on, as if nothing else existed. There was a great big world outside the boundaries of Wellsburg, West Virginia, but no one seemed particularly eager to see it. And my friends and I fit right into this stagnant purgatory. Here I was, drunk and hating it. Sneering disparagingly but unwilling to turn that judgment on myself.
I turned away from the party and headed toward the thick growth of trees at the edge of the field. I could barely stand upright and fell down several times but I kept moving forward.
I disappeared into the brush and headed north. I knew these woods like the back of my hand and if I continued for a half a mile, I’d find the road. I would walk back to town. In my fuzzy, alcohol soaked mind, trekking the ten miles back to Wellsburg beat hanging out with the high school rejects.
Branches snagged at my clothes and my legs were getting scratched raw by brambles. A gnat flew into my mouth and lodged itself in the back of my throat, making me gag.
The farther I walked, the clearer my head became. The weed had started to wear off and my head was throbbing.
I broke through the trees expecting to find the main road and was surprised to find myself at the edge of a very familiar piece of property.
The moon was full and lit up the manicured yard in front of me. A house stood off in the distance, surrounded by a group of out buildings that I remembered all too well.
I blinked at the uneasy sense of déjà vu. In my mind’s eye I didn’t see the freshly painted structure with bright blue shutters. I didn’t see the repaired shed at the edge of the long driveway.
I flashed back in time and all I could see was smoke and flames.
I felt dizzy and my eyes filled with sudden tears that took me by surprise.
Not being able to stop myself, I started walking across the lawn. I was like a woman possessed and I felt like I was trapped in a time warp, marching the same path I had done on that particular night all those years ago.
I could swear I still smelled the scent of burning wood and I thought I was going to be sick again.
The grass tickled my feet by my thin flip-flops. I wanted to leave. I wanted to run far, far away. But my traitorous legs kept on going.
I stopped at the steps leading up to the house. I ran my hand along the obviously new bannister, recalling when I had watched it crumble into ash. My hands shook as I touched the new wood, cool beneath my fingers.
I looked up at the dark windows and wondered who lived there now. I wondered if they loved it as much as I had. For a brief moment in time this had been my sanctuary. I had been happy here. Well, as happy as a girl like me ever could be.
I heard a noise behind me and I dropped my hand from the banister as I stumbled backwards. I was trespassing and the last thing I needed was another run in with the local police department.
I hurried around the side of the house and hid behind one of the buildings that like the house had been recently painted. I could still smell the fumes heavy in the humid air.
“I can see you.” A voice rose up out of the darkness and I jumped. I couldn’t help my reaction. His sudden appearance freaked me out.
I pressed myself against the side of the building, feeling foolish for being there in the first place. Why hadn’t I left as soon as I had realized where I was? What had compelled me to venture onto the property in the first place?
“What are you doing here?” he asked me and I could barely make out the black silhouette in the moonlight.
“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to find the road,” I excused, annoyed that my voice sounded breathless and weak in my ears.
Being here after all this time was doing crazy things to my head and my heart. And seeing him now, when my memories of this place were making me feel uncharacteristically vulnerable, was almost too much.
Flynn walked into a swath of light that filtered out from the back of the house and regarded me steadily.
“The road is over there,” he pointed back toward the trees in the direction I had just come from.
I laughed nervously. “Yeah I know. I had forgotten this place was here,” I answered lamely. It was a lie of course. Maybe subconsciously this is where I had been heading all along. Maybe I wanted to come here.
Because I could never forget this place, no matter how much I wanted to.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded roughly, trying to hide my growing sense of unease.
Flynn’s hands clenched together in front of him as he looked up at the large, white farmhouse. “I live here,” he said shortly.
My stomach dropped to my feet at his statement. He was living here?
“I thought it had been sold…” I began.
“No, I took it off the market last year after my mom died,” Flynn said and I heard emotion in his voice for the first time.
Then I registered what he had said and I felt an uncomfortable familiar crush of feeling.
“I’m sorry, Flynn,” I told him sincerely. Because I was. I recognized the look of grief on his face as surely as if it had been my own. I wasn’t one to empathize. It was almost impossible for me to identify with the emotions of others, but it had always been different with Flynn.
And for the first time in six years I identified and felt someone else’s feelings as if they were my own.
It scared me shitless.
Flynn’s eyes that had been shadowed and dark flickered my way and met mine for an instant. A flash of understanding arched out between us. Awareness that I had thought dead and buried under the mountain of our past.
“Thanks,” Flynn responded, his voice cracking on the one, simple word.
We stood silent. Locked in place by the weight of a thousand memories and words unspoken.
I wasn’t quite sober enough for the heaviness of the moment. It was overwhelming me. I thought I would suffocate in the tension.
“Did you do the work on the house?” I asked him, not knowing what else to say. I should probably just leave but for some reason, I couldn’t make my feet travel back the way they had come.
I didn’t want to go backwards.
Flynn nodded and looked back up at the house. I remembered that the shutters had once been yellow. I recalled flowerbeds overrun with blossoms and an apple tree laden down with fruit. His mother’s banana bread and hot cider on a cold fall night.
These memories slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about any of this in years.
But being here, with Flynn, it came flooding back whether I wanted it to or not.
“Do you want to come inside?” Flynn asked me and I shook my head. I couldn’t go in there. Definitely not now.
Taking my refusal at face value, Flynn didn’t argue, he didn’t even comment. Instead he sat down on a small bench and watched me while I raged internally.
There was always something so easy about being with Flynn. Even as I was embroiled in resentment and age-old bitterness, I couldn’t deny the effortlessness in which we were together.
An ocean of time separated us from the kids we once were together, yet I was surprised to find those people still there, beneath the surface.
“I planted some flowers. The ones you liked are there. The yellow ones with the black center,” Flynn said suddenly, breaking the quiet. I blinked in confusion.
What was he talking about?
“You used to pick them on the way home. They grew by the road near the bridge. You would wrap the stems together and then throw them in the water. You said they were too pretty. They were your favorites.” He seemed to be reciting from a book, his sentences monotone and fluid.
How the hell did he remember all this shit about me? Whereas I had made a conscientious effort to forget, it seemed Flynn’s memories were as vivid as ever. I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Black Eyed Susans,” I said softly, rubbing my temples, my head throbbing.
“That’s a stupid name,” Flynn replied.
I barked out a laugh. I couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, it’s a stupid f*cking name,” I agreed tiredly.
“You shouldn’t cuss like that,” he admonished. He had always hated when I swore. Yet another ridiculous detail that had gotten stuck in my head.
Flynn got up and disappeared around the side of the building and I wondered if he had gone back inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had left me without another word. Flynn wasn’t one for things like closure. He was abrupt and final.
But he came back a few minutes later with a handful of yellow flowers. He held them out toward me. “Here. These are for you,” he said, handing me the bouquet an impatient shake.
I slowly reached out and took them from him. Our fingers brushed briefly and I recognized his instant recoil. His hands clasped together in front of him and I watched as he started to methodically rub them together.
“Thanks,” I said, holding the flowers limply. I knew never to be surprised by what life threw at you, but I was shocked as hell by the direction my evening had taken. I hadn’t expected to find an odd sense of comfort in the presence of the person I hoped to never see again.
“Are you going to come by the art studio?” Flynn asked abruptly.
I remembered our conversation days before and how rudely I had turned him down. I had been hateful and mean. Clearly that hadn’t deterred him. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him where to shove it in the most inelegant way possible, but there was something in the air that made rejecting him seem impossible.
Maybe it was this place that had inexplicably always felt like a home. Maybe it was standing here, with Flynn, being reminded of a time when things made a perfect sort of sense.
Maybe it was the fact that I was still slightly inebriated and not in my right mind.
Whatever it was, my inhibitions were gone.
“Sure,” I found myself saying. Even though Flynn wasn’t looking at me, I thought I could make out the edges of his smile.
“Good,” he answered. He finally looked up at me and the ghost of a smile was still painted on his lips. “You look cold. You should dress better,” he said, indicating my bare legs and tiny top.
I snorted. “I’m cool. But thanks for your opinion,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.
“You look cold. I’m going to get you a jacket,” he pressed and I shook my head.
“Flynn, I’m fine,” I assured him firmly, knowing that once he was stuck on an idea he wouldn’t let it drop.
“Why were you in the woods?” Flynn asked.
“Uh, I was walking home from a party,” I answered.
“A party,” he intoned in his oddly pleasing voice.
“Yeah. It kind of sucked,” I said, surreptitiously rubbing my arms, not wanting to admit that I was in fact quite chilly.
“Why did it suck?” Flynn’s eyes fell to where my arms were crossed over my chest. He stared long enough for me to know he was enjoying the view of my nipples poking through my shirt.
“Dude, my eyes are up here,” I snapped, annoyed at the way I flushed under his gaze. Most guys would have had the decency to look embarrassed at being caught ogling. As I said many times, Flynn wasn’t most guys.
“Why did it suck?” he asked me again.
I shrugged. “Just the same ole’ same ole’, you know?” I said, not wanting to get into all the reasons I had left. Like it even mattered. I knew for a fact that it was most likely my friends hadn’t even noticed that I left.
“I don’t know. I don’t go to parties,” he responded.
I wasn’t entirely surprised by his confession. Flynn had always avoided social situations. When we were fifteen I thought he was ridiculous because he never went out. I had been in the midst of my own raging social life that involved delinquency and foolish decisions. But that was before I realized how hard it was for Flynn to be around other people. He struggled with daily interactions in a way the rest of us took for granted. And why would he choose to hang out with people who never once made him feel like he belonged?
Myself included.
“That’s not true. We went to a party once,” I said, before I could censor myself. My mouth fused shut and I wished I could take back my words. The last thing I wanted was to connect with him over that particular shared memory.
Especially one that was so horrible.
From the look on Flynn’s face I knew he was remembering that night all those years ago with perfect clarity. But unlike me, he wasn’t one to hold back what was on his mind.
“Your friends put my head in the cooler and then made me leave,” he stated flatly. I winced. Even though I had convinced myself I had gotten over my Flynn laced guilt, I still felt it rearing its shameful head.
I had taken him with me to a party at Stu’s, whose parents were out of town. Stu lived in a trailer park by the river and the drinking was primarily happening in his fenced in back yard.
It was in a less savory side of town so the typical collection of high school dropouts, stoners and preppy kids trying to seem hard-core were there. I knew better than to take Flynn there. He had been adamant that he didn’t want to go.
He had been anxious yet I had pushed him even knowing what kind of reception he would be given. I don’t know why I had done that; what I had hoped to prove by dragging him there. I had known that my friends would gang up on him. So why hadn’t I listened when he had pleaded to stay at his house and watch television?
Because I had always been selfish. I had always had a hard time thinking of anyone but myself. I had wanted to go. And that was the end of it.
I had been working overtime to keep my friendship with Flynn a secret so I must have been experiencing some temporary insanity when I had made the suggestion.
So we had gone to Stu’s party. And it had been a disaster. And I had done nothing to stop Flynn’s humiliation.
I hadn’t stopped my friends as they tormented him. I had actually joined in as everyone started changing “Freaky Flynn” over and over again. Flynn had gotten violently angry, turning over a table and kicking over lawn chairs. He had clawed at their hands as they lifted him up and dunked him in the ice-cold beer cooler headfirst. I had forced myself to laugh through all of it, encouraging Shane and Dania as they tossed him out the back gate and locked it behind him.
And I silently hated myself the whole time.
I had remained at the party like a coward instead of going after him to make sure he was all right. I had been thanked by everyone for bringing the night’s entertainment and then I proceeded to get wasted.
I had buried my guilt under a deep layer of alcohol and drugs.
And Flynn had forgiven me, even when I couldn’t apologize. He always did. I wasn’t sure who was the bigger idiot. Flynn for accepting an apology I could never verbalize or me for not being brave enough to say it.
“I waited out here all night for you to come by after I left that party. But you never came,” Flynn went on. His words were matter of fact. Not an accusation, just the simple truth. I could picture the Flynn Hendrick of years ago, huddled up on the bench, shivering in his wet clothes.
“What’s the point in talking about shit that’s already happened, Flynn? What’s done is done,” I said harshly, my voice rough with emotions I was trying like hell to put a lid on.
Flynn didn’t say anything at my outburst. He continued to look at the ground, refusing to meet my eyes. And perhaps that was for the best. Because the sight of the piercing green would undo me.
“I’d better go.” It was long past time for me to leave. I had pushed beyond the reasonable limits for this less than pleasant walk down memory lane.
“Okay,” Flynn said. Though a part of me wished he would stop me. But he had never asked me to stick around. Not even when we were friends a lifetime ago. He had always let me leave.
I realized I was more than a little resentful about that.
Because just once I’d like someone to ask me to stay. I needed to feel wanted. And the one person who had ever made me feel like that was incapable of verbalizing it when I needed so desperately to hear it.
“I’ll see ya around,” I threw over my shoulder as I headed back across the darkened yard.
Flynn stayed quiet. And his silence pierced the thick walls around my heart.