Epilogue #6
dad’s stone. I get that you do,” she replied.
“Honey!”
They both looked in
the direction of the call.
The dad was looking
impatient and not too hip on his daughter chatting with Jag.
The brother had the
same exact look.
“Be right there,”
she yelled back.
“I’ll let you go,
but you know how to get me, you need me, yeah?” Jag asked.
He was talking about
exchanging notes.
What he wanted to do
was get her number.
“Yeah,” she
answered. “Thanks,” she said, tucking her black hair behind her ear.
And he wondered
about her mom. The dad was tall and blond.
She was not either.
Nor was her brother.
She stepped off the
curb and said, “Later?”
This was the time he
should ask for her number or give her his.
But how did he do
that when her brother and father were right there?
“Later,” he said,
though he didn’t know how that would happen, unless she left him a note, which
could be intercepted by someone other than Hound, like Dutch or his mom, and
they wouldn’t be as cool about it.
He watched her walk
to her dad and brother, thinking he shouldn’t.
But he just couldn’t
stop.
She said something
to her pops when she skirted him to get in the backseat, and after she did, the
man looked right to Jag.
He then dipped his
chin Jag’s way.
Well, shit.
She’d told him that
Jag was Note Guy.
And the dude was
cool.
Jag gave him the
salute he’d seen Hound give every once in a while, finger to temple and out.
The man quirked a
grin, lifted his chin this time, and angled into his car.
The brother glared
at him.
Jag ignored that,
tried to catch sight of her in the car, but couldn’t.
So he walked into
Arby’s, hoping like hell there was a “later.”
Later turned
out to be later.
The next time Jag
saw her, it was at a party, and well over a year had passed.
She hadn’t left him
a note.
Since she hadn’t, he
hadn’t left her one either.
And he hadn’t
because he didn’t want to be that jerk, creeping on some girl who’d lost her
mom, doing it by leaving notes on her mom’s tombstone.
The party where he
saw her was a party she shouldn’t have been at.
He knew her the
instant he saw her, even though she’d grown up—a lot—in the time in
between.
He’d never forget
her, though.
Never.
And the second she
locked eyes on him, he knew she hadn’t forgotten him either.
The minute she saw
him, she immediately looked guilty.
As she should.
He was eighteen. He
was the son of a biker (actually two, but only one was blood). It was a rough
crowd, and a big one, everyone (that he knew) was of age (or at least, not a
minor). There was definitely booze, some drugs, some folk who he knew could get
rowdy, and not in a good way.
Jag could be there.
She was maybe
sixteen, at most, seventeen.
She had no business
anywhere near there.
He went right to
her, fighting his way through the crowd to get where she was.
And when he got
close, he saw she’d already started tatting up.
Shit.
Not huge tattoos,
little ones here and there on her arms, her fingers.
He had no problem
with tats. He had some of his own.
But at sixteen?
Nope.
The first thing he
wanted to talk about when he saw her again was to ask her name. It seemed like
forever since that birthday, their note exchange, running into each other at
Arby’s, and he’d thought about it a lot.
Was she an Ann? Or
Amy? Andrea? Amanda? Abby? Audrey?
He didn’t ask her
name or say hi.
He said, “You got a
lift home?”
“Yeah,” she’d
muttered.
Mm-hmm.
She knew she had no
business being there.
“Then get them and
get outta here,” he ordered.
He saw right away
some attitude start surfacing.
“I’m just havin’ fun.”
“You can have fun.
Just not here.”
“I’m all right
here.”
Jag shook his head
decisively. “No, you’re not. You’re too fuckin’ young to be here. Can you even
drive yet?”
Chin tilt and,
“Yeah. And by the way, I’m my own lift. I don’t need anyone to drive me around.
I can take care of myself.”
Oh yeah.
The attitude was
surfacing, and he sensed she was digging in.
So it was time to
blow past this and get her safe.
“Your dad is
probably worried like fuck about you.”
That did it.
She looked away.
Hung her head.
Caught herself doing
that and looked back to him, trying to keep her chin high.
“A, go home,” he
urged.
“J, you’re a pain,”
she retorted.
She remembered his
initial.
That felt good.
It also spoke to
their connection.
So, it wasn’t all in
his head. It wasn’t only on his side.
It was on hers too.
He put his hand out
toward her. “Let’s go.”
It didn’t take real
long before she put her hand in his.
He led them through
the crowd like he was her bodyguard.
He took some shit
along the way from friends and acquaintances about showing and then immediately
nabbing the prettiest girl there.
Jag stopped once
through this, when some asshole called her “talent.”
He was in staredown with the asshole when A put her hand on his back
and said, “He’s a douche. Let it go. I don’t care. I am talent and he’s
never gonna get that lucky.”
She was right.
Still, Jag gave it a
couple more seconds to make his point before he broke contact and kept moving.
Her car was parked
at the curb and it was nice. A solid Honda a dad would think his girl was safe
in.
She beeped it and he
opened the door for her.
“So, you’re, like, a
gentleman?” she teased.
“My dad is dead, I
was raised by my mom, so yeah. A woman raises you, you got no choice but to
learn to treat women right, unless you’re a moron or born a dickhead.”
She kept eye contact
with him all the time he said this, but when he was done, she looked away.
“A—” he started.
“You know it hasn’t
gotten better,” she told the road.
He felt like an
imposter.
Because, yeah, he
knew that.
But she’d been
fourteen (fifteen?) when her mom died.
He’d been three when
his dad was gone.
He still said, “It
doesn’t get better. You just get used to it.”
She looked back to
him and she looked pissed.
Or hurt.
He’d get it when she
said, “My dad’s dating someone.”
For her, it was a
betrayal.
For him, if his mom
got her shit together and started moving on, it’d be a relief.
Which was why he
said, “That’s good.”
And now she was
definitely pissed. “No, it isn’t. She died, like, yesterday.”
“It wasn’t
yesterday, A,” he said softly.
She got that
stubborn expression on her face before she turned her attention to her toes.
He got closer to
her.
Not too close, but
close.
She looked up at
him.
Perfect height, even
if she had on heels.
He was tall, he
wasn’t into short women.
But he wasn’t into
tall women either.
She wasn’t either.
Yeah.
Perfect.
“My mom isn’t over
my dad and we’ll just say my dad’s been gone way longer than your mom has, A,
and it sucks,” he shared. “It fuckin’ hurts. Every day, wakin’
up, and seein’ her in pain. I get it doesn’t feel
good seein’ him with another chick or thinkin’ what that means about how he felt about your ma.
But trust me, the alternative is way fuckin’ worse.”
“It just…makes me
remember, not that I’d forget. But the pain comes back, you know?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know, seein’ as Ma hasn’t gone there. But I
just want her to be happy. That’s, like, the only thing in this world I want.
Because she’s the mom who made it so I want for nothing else, so it’s more
like, I need that for her. You get me?”
She nodded and said,
“I’m sorry, J. That does sound like it sucks.”
“Don’t be too hard
on your dad and don’t make him worry about you. It’s not cool.”
She nodded again and
started to fold into her car.
He was about to ask
her her name, get her number. She was underage, but just.
And they’d just had
the deepest conversation he’d had since Hound sat him down to share about the
birds and the bees and how he’d knock Jag’s block off if he took a girl
ungloved.
But someone called
his name and he looked to the house they’d exited.
Some dude he knew
was shouting something.
Jag called, “What?”
And in that time,
she got in her car, closed her door and her Honda started.
When he heard the
engine catch, he looked down and through the window at her.
She waved, gave him
a smile she didn’t really mean because she was sad and had learned too young
how big life could suck.
And he stepped back
wide when she pulled her car out of the spot and drove away.
The next time
he saw her was maybe a year later. At a concert. At the Gothic.
She was coming his
way when he spotted her. She’d seen him before he saw her.
She smiled and
waved.
She looked good,
happier.
He still saw the
weight she carried, that he carried too.
But yeah.
Happier.
And he was glad to
see that.
He waved back and
started her way.
But since it was a
punk act they were catching, and they were in the mosh pit, a wave hit the pit,
they both got caught up in it, he lost sight of her, and even if he looked (all
night), he didn’t see her again.
That was a serious
bummer.
Though, he was glad
to know they liked the same kind of music.
Just because they
liked the same kind of music.
But also because it
meant they might run into each other again.
He saw her a
few months later at Taste of Colorado downtown.
They caught up then.
She was with a dude.
He was with a chick.
But she dragged that
dude right to Jagger, smiling big.
And Jag stood next
to his chick, watching her do it, smiling big right back.
“Hey, J,” she
greeted.
“Hey, A,” he’d
returned.
And Christ.
Yeah.
She just got
prettier and prettier.
She barely glanced
at his chick when she started up their convo, which did not go over well with
his chick.
Or her dude, who Jag
felt no remorse about the fact it seemed she forgot he was even there.
“So cool to finally
run into you again. I was gonna leave you a note at
our place, but the last time I went to visit mom, there was this other dude who
looked like you there,” she told him. “And I didn’t want him to get it.”
And he knew what she
meant.
Our place.
Reaching out using