—SEVENTEEN—
Bree barrels through my foyer later that week with a box of doughnuts, interrupting my afternoon nap on the couch with Walden, who is curled up in a ball near my feet. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever actually made the effort to hop up here with me.
The backside of my arm is draped over my forehead as I grumble a hello to my sister, peering over at her with only one eye open. This is the first day off I’ve had in months, so I kind of just want to go back to sleep.
“Oh, my God… look at your dog, Parker.”
Bree’s chipper voice has me blinking both eyes open as I pull myself halfway up by the arms. I glance at the black and white furball at the end of the couch, all withered and bony, with dark moles and skin tags casing his skin. “He looks old as fuck,” I mumble, then scrub a palm down my face.
“His hair is growing in,” Bree beams. “I thought he looked different when you dropped him off the other day.”
She dashes—legitimately dashes—over to us, her brown curls bouncing with each step. My eyebrow arches with skepticism. “Doubtful.”
“I’m serious. Look at these fresh patches of hair. Did you change his diet?”
“No. He eats the kibble you bought a psychotic amount of, and sometimes that nasty shit in a can that looks like gelatinous slug guts.”
“Seems to be working. Keep it up.”
“Slug guts noted.”
Bree leans over the back of the couch, giving Walden a scratch between his ears that causes the poor animal to startle awake because he’s deaf as bricks. “Sorry, pup. Didn’t mean to scare you,” she coos, her smile wide.
Walden lets out a heavy sigh and goes back to sleep. Lucky bastard.
Heaving my legs over the side of the couch, I scratch at my overgrown stubble and throw my sister a quick glance. I do a double-take when I discover her studying me with that knowing smirk, her chestnut eyes glittering. “What?”
“You’re finally getting laid, aren’t you?”
“What the fuck?”
Bree puckers her lips, staring at me, all squinty and scrutinizing. “You are.”
“You’re clearly under the influence of something.”
“So are you,” she quips. “What’s her name?”
“Bye.”
“Parker, come on. Your house is the cleanest it’s probably ever been, your dog is suddenly sprouting fur like a Chia Pet, and…” She paces over to my side of the couch and twirls a manicured finger in front of my face. “This.”
“My perpetual scowl?”
“You look… different.”
An aggravated groan escapes me as I push myself up from the couch cushions and storm away, already knowing she’s going to follow. Relentless. “Wishful thinking, Bree. I’m still the same old joyless curmudgeon you’ve come to know, and for some unknown reason, love.”
Bree trails me into the kitchen, her never-ending optimism trailing with her. She coils her fingers around my wrist to stop my intentional avoidance. “Hey. Stop for a second.”
Closing my eyes, my jaw tight, I slowly spin to face her.
“Parker.”
“Bree,” I drawl.
“Will you look at me, please?”
Fucking hell. I appease her request, but make sure I do it as miserably as possible—eyebrows pinched, lips pressed together, glare indignant. Bree’s gaze slides over me like she’s studying for a final exam, soaking up each line and crease, memorizing every detail. She’s in research mode. Her little nose scrunches up, making it look like the freckles peppering her high cheekbones scatter and spread. Her thick, dark eyebrows wrinkle with curiosity. I let out something that falls between a sigh and a huff, laced with exasperation, and fold my arms over my chest. “Are you done?”
Bree’s taupe-tinged lips curl up. “Who is she?”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I open my mouth to speak, then clamp it shut. My teeth grind and grate, the muscles in my arms twitching. I’m not planning on indulging Bree because it means nothing—she means nothing—but it slips out anyway. “She’s just someone I met at those dumb fucking meetings you forced me into.”
“Oh, my God…”
I’m appalled when she starts to cry. “What are you doing? Don’t fucking do that. Why are you doing that?”
Bree throws herself at me with a strained whimper, wrapping me up in a bone-crushing hug and weeping into the front of my shirt. Her hair smells like it did when we were kids, something like baby powder and wild orchids, and I can’t help but deflate a little as the crimpy curls tickle my nose. “It’s nothing… and it’s not going anywhere.”
“It’s not nothing, Parker. It’s not.” She pulls her cheek from my chest, wiping away tearstains with the back of her wrist, then she presses her palm up against my heart. “One year ago, I thought I was going to lose you, but you were given a second chance. A chance I never thought you’d ever learn to appreciate.”
I stiffen, glancing away and blowing out a hard breath. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it is.”
“Your happiness is a big deal, little brother. It’s a huge freakin’ deal.” Bree gifts me with a watery smile, sniffling as she takes a step back. “I won’t hound you for details. I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.”
“Good. There are no details, and also, I’d rather jump into a pit of ravenous beavers than have that conversation with you.”
She knocks me on the shoulder with a playful fist. “I’ll break you down eventually,” she says, traipsing towards the box of assorted doughnuts and plucking a glazed blueberry from the mix. Bree takes a big bite and mumbles through the crumbs, “Just stay away from beaver pits until then.”
Evening falls, and I make my way over to my rolling chair when my cell phone pings with a message notification: Magnolia.
It’s been a few days since the tornado touched down in Delavan—when Melody and I cleaned up the debris littering her neighborhood street, mostly in silence, not sure what to say to one another after what transpired between us in that darkened den. But I caught her staring at me from time to time, lost in her thoughts with a somewhat dreamy look in her eyes. Pensive, yet whimsical. It was unnerving. That whole goddamn day was unnerving, so I haven’t spoken to her since, and I’m dreading our next meeting together.
I’ve talked to Magnolia, though.
She’s my outlet. She’s an anonymous stranger I can vent to, joke with, and even get vulnerable with—all things I can’t do in my day-to-day life.
I can be myself with her. I can be the person I would likely be right now if life hadn’t completely fucked me over.
Pulling up my Gmail account, I click on her little message box.
Magnolia: Tell me a confession.
Me: The pink Starburst is by far the worst flavor.
Magnolia: We’re no longer friends.
Friends. Is that what we are?
I’m pretty sure I have no friends—except maybe Owen, but I don’t think an eight-year-old boy I just met really counts.
Is this widowed stranger in my computer screen that I’ve never even seen considered a… friend? The notion seems ludicrous, but I don’t correct her because I don’t fucking know.
Me: Your turn.
A few moments pass before she responds.
Magnolia: I do have a confession… and it’s probably TMI, but I can’t talk to anyone else about it. You’re kind of like my secret diary, only you talk back to me and give oddly good advice sometimes.
Hmm. Interesting.
Me: Sometimes? I’m offended.
Magnolia: You don’t get offended.
Me: Touché. Okay, hit me.
Magnolia: You won’t judge?
Me: Never.
Another long pause, and then:
Magnolia: Okay… I miss sex.
My fingertips stall on the keyboard, barely grazing the keys. I wasn’t exactly expecting that, and I’m fairly certain I’m the worst possible person to give advice on the subject.
I’ve had sex twice. Fucking twice in my entire thirty-two years of life. I lost my virginity to some awkward classmate when I was sixteen because I thought it was something I had to do. It was weird and terrible, and I ignored her for the next two years of high school.
Then it happened again on my twenty-first birthday. One of Bree’s tipsy friends dragged me up to her bedroom, hopped on my dick, and five minutes later I decided I had no desire to ever do that again.
While I’m inherently attracted to women in the physical sense, my emotional connection to them has always been nonexistent, if not bordering on toxic.
Whenever I look at a woman, I see my mother. They all morph into her, with her sneering laugh, her beady, yellowing eyes, her blanched skin. Her long, brittle talons that would scratch at me, leaving bloody nail marks in their wake, and her dark, wiry hair, always hanging loose and greasy around her sunken-in face.
They’re all girls like Gwen and the rest of my foster sisters—all except for Bree. Sniveling, mocking, cruel. They’re like my foster mother, with her sharp, pointy features and a thin mouth that never smiled.
They’re all the girls in swim class who would laugh at me because I refused to take my shirt off in the pool, too horrified to put my grisly scars on display.
One of the girls ripped it off of me once, then humiliated me in front of the entire class, pointing and laughing at the evidence of my abuse.
I still never take my shirt off in public, even when I’m working outside in the ninety-degree heat, and it’s probably just another reason why I’ve had no interest in sex.
I’m too… exposed.
Swallowing, I shoot her the only feasible advice that comes to mind.
Me: So, have sex.
Magnolia: It’s not that simple. I haven’t been with anyone since… him. I haven’t been with anyone before him. It’s always been him. Only him.
My mind wanders, and I can’t help but wonder if Melody has slept with anyone since her husband died. Maybe she rotates men in and out of her bed like a goddamn Ferris wheel.
Or maybe not.
Maybe she’s lonely and celibate. Maybe the moment we shared together in her basement was as alarming and out of character for her as it was for me.
I send my reply.
Me: And now it’s only you. What are you going to do about it?
Magnolia: Stew in my loneliness and complain to you, apparently.
Me: Cop-out. The Magnolia I know stopped wilting a long time ago.
Magnolia: Maybe.
Falling against the chairback with a heavy breath, I roll it side to side, chewing on my lip as I ponder a response.
And then that response comes spewing out of me like vomit.
Me: Advice time. Here it comes…
Magnolia: Oh, boy.
Me: I think you need to go have sex. Raw, dirty, messy sex. The hair-pulling, biting, scratching kind. The kind that turns you inside-out and reinvents you. You need to come so hard, you forget about everything else, and you shatter into a million pieces, blinded by stars and galaxies, until you’re fucking free-falling, levitating, weightless. Screaming and begging. And the only thing you can think about is doing it all over again.
I click send before thinking it through, and then I have instant regret. Especially after three solid minutes tick by and nothing.
Fuck.
What the hell was that? Where did it come from?
I’ve never experienced that shit before. Is that what… I want?
Wondering if I scared her the fuck away, I attempt to fill the silence.
Me: I lose you? Too much?
She finally responds.
Magnolia: No. I’m just sitting here trying to figure out if that was supposed to be a suggestion or an offer.
Wait… what?
I blink at the screen, scanning over her words at least a dozen times.
Double fuck.
I’m not sure what the hell to say to that, as it was entirely unexpected, so naturally, I continue to spew more absurdity.
Me: What do you want it to be?
Magnolia: I’m trying to figure that out, too.
I rub both palms up and down my face with a strained exhale.
Triple fuck.
This conversation has taken multiple wrong turns into Too-Many-Fucks-To-Count-Ville, and I’m not sure how to get back on track. The truth is, I don’t want to screw up what we have right now because I genuinely like what we have. I don’t have to carry around my heavy armor and back-breaking baggage. I can be… free.
Taking our relationship in a sexual direction will only mess it all up, and I’ll lose that.
I’ve lost enough.
Me: You know we can’t do that.
Her disappointment radiates through the laptop before her words even appear.
Magnolia: I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry.
Me: My fault. I shouldn’t have said all that shit.
Magnolia: No, I’m glad you did.
Me: Are you going to take my advice?
Magnolia: I don’t know. There IS someone who makes me feel… something. But he’s emotionally unavailable. And possibly gay.
Me: Emotions are overrated. Can’t help you with the gay part, though.
Magnolia: Me and my complicated life. Thank you for listening.
I’m mid-response when another message pops up.
Magnolia: Zephyr?
Me: Yeah?
Magnolia: Did you see the sunrise this morning?
My thumb flicks along my bottom lip as I stare at the screen.
Her and the damn sunrise. She asks me this question all the time, but my answer is always the same. It won’t change.
Me: I did. But I don’t think I saw what you saw.
We say our goodbyes a few minutes later, and I shuffle off to bed with Walden at my heels, plugging my phone into the charging port as I climb beneath the slate gray bedsheets. I’m surprised when it bursts to life with a new text message, and even more surprised when I glance at the sender and discover Melody’s name. I swipe it open.
Melody: This is a long shot, and I understand if you don’t want to… but I’m going to the lake tomorrow after the group meeting. I’ve spent over a year of my life being scared. Scared to heal, scared to move forward, scared to be alone. I’m done being scared, so I’m going to dance instead. There’s nothing scary about dancing.
I’m going to dance until I can swim.
One more message follows, and I almost choke on my breath.
Melody: I thought maybe you would want to dance with me.