Chapter 2 #6
Snorting at myself, I listened for a few minutes and then announced grandly, “This one’s for you, you smooch stealing, slick bastard,” and attempted, quite horribly if I had to speak on it, to sing along to Cypress’ secret love.
By the time I pulled up to the house I’d mangled three more songs, a stupid, goofy smile on my face as I gave up trying to keep up with the last song and put the car in park.
Catchy shit, I had to admit.
Locking the car up, I made my way towards the front steps. I was just shy of reaching the door, humming along to the earworm from the radio I feared had clearly infected my brain— a pleasant distraction— when I caught movement through the corner of my eye.
Shoving my hand into my bag, my fingers curled around the small self defense spray canister rolling around in there as I turned sharply.
“Jus’ Elm. No shoot,” that familiar, haunting, once upon a time comforting, voice from my childhood rumbled out.
“How the hell did you beat me… home?” My voice trailed off as he popped out from the side of the house looking bashful as hell.
“Truck,” he grunted out, meaning he’d driven his truck.
A truck I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of, so he must have hauled ass past me flying down the back road behind my house.
The Tree boys’ vehicles were not exactly quiet but to be fair I’d been blasting my music.
Cy took it as his personal mission to make sure all their trucks roared.
Why was Elm sneaking around back to beat me home?
My gaze darted down his thick frame, past a blast from the past plastered to his chest, the customary unbuttoned flannel over it, pausing briefly on the box in his hands.
Familiar stickers plastered to the side had my insides feeling like they’d gone from soupy and all over the place to congealed.
I knew that box.
My heart sank at the sight of it.
That used to be our box, shared items we kept in there together. It was THE box. Guessing he meant to give it back, my heart dropped.
“What do you want?” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. My chest felt like he’d stabbed it and then just dropped a weight on it with no sign of that crushing burden letting up as I freely bled out.
Elm flinched but stood tall.
I supposed if he felt he needed to firmly shut the door on this part of his life, he’d best do what needed doing. I understood it— I’d love it if I was capable of doing the same— didn’t have to be a willing participant. I mean, did I?
“Pru,” he grunted out.
I had the door open, struggling not to react in some pathetic, embarrassing way I might regret.
“Is that mine? I don’t recall leaving anything behind.” Feigning an indifference I most certainly wasn’t feeling, I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. My eyes were already stinging with unshed tears.
This was not one of my better moments. I didn’t have it in me to put up walls, to scrounge up a brave front. I was tired, weathered, frayed, beaten to hell and then some.
My defiance was more denial of that last shred of anything I had to hold onto being taken from me.
As much as I fought in my head, going round and round over adolescent bull that didn’t mean anything anymore, that hope that maybe there was a legitimate reason for shunning me, one that had nothing to do with me, that vindication that it wasn’t something I’d unknowingly done to be severed from the only true friend I’d ever had, I held onto that hope with everything I had left. That’s all I really have left.
I should let him get this, whatever it is, over with. Maybe he needs this to move past, to quit holding on to shit that no longer matters, just like I was.
Damn it all, I wasn’t feeling very generous right now.
My frayed nerves had frayed nerves.
Regardless of what I wanted to do, here we were.
This… whatever he wanted to call it— last meet up— the final nail in the coffin of what had once been our friendship— this was going to cut deep.
“Just leave it by the door, yeah?” I muttered. Lower, I grumbled as I stepped inside the house, “I’ve got a lifetime’s worth of shit to sort through and cram into boxes.” Grimacing, I huffed out under my breath, “Or toss to the curb.”
“Pru,” he grunted out louder, so loud he knew I heard him and couldn’t pretend I hadn’t.
“If you come anywhere near me with that envelope, I’m going to shove it between your fuzzy cheeks, deep where the sun don’t shine,” I warned him. “Believe you me, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Come at me with it, I’m more than willin’-”
“Pru.” My name was a rough grumble bordering on a growl.
Spinning around with a glare, moisture glistening in my eyes, I growled right back, “What?!”
It’s been an eternity, it feels like, since I was standing this close to him. Elm had a very specific scent to him. When he was riled, which rarely happened with Mr. Keep-it-all-to-himself, I’d swear it grew stronger, thicker in the air.
One look at my face, the waterworks threatening, he dipped and the box thumped lightly at his feet. Before I knew what was what, he was scooping me up and hugging me to him tight.
A soft, rumbling croon left him.
Stunned speechless, I dangled in his hold, arms limp at my sides, legs dangling.
As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he tucked my head against his chest and pressed the side of his face to my beanie covered head.
A mangled hiccup left me, any sense of dignity I swore I wasn’t going to lose in front of him, of all people, was lost somewhere in the muffled noises I was making, sucking in lungfuls of his scent— a scent I’d know anywhere— sunshine, a hint of pine, that very specific smell the fresh, cool morning air carried clinging to him like it seeped from his pores.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled into his shirt front. The ragged blue and red flannel he was sporting over a faded Say Anything shirt was looking so worn and old, at first glance anyone else might’ve guessed it was a hand-me-down from Forest.
But I knew that shirt. It had been two sizes too big when I’d proudly presented it to him but I’d known he’d love it, despite the size discrepancy— that was the only size they’d had left when Mom drove me three towns over to get it.
He’d grow into it, I’d told him. It was the last birthday I’d spent with him.
The thing was snug on him now, hugging his chest and thick shoulders, molded to him.
For reasons I didn’t care to get into, this made the feeling in the pit of my stomach, dredging up emotions that seeped through my eyes, worse.
I was shaking so hard by this point, I trembled in his arms.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, struggling to get it together and keep it that way, at least long enough to get him to leave me and let me return to wallowing in peace.
My attempts to dislodge him were met with firm but gentle resistance.
“S’kay, Pru. S’kay,” he rumbled out softly as he began stroking a hand down my back comfortingly, the other hand easily banding me to him like he was holding a doll and not a plush-sized adult human being.
Shaking my head, I started to squirm to be free more insistently.
I couldn’t do this. He was only comforting me because he felt bad for me. He was probably trying to put himself in my shoes and all that BS. Elm was a good guy like that at heart. His compassion was one of the things I’d loved about him. It made him rejecting me all the more confusing.
“Really. I’m fine,” I lied as I strangled the pained sound that wanted to follow that load of malarkey, forcing it down with the rest of the bullshit I’ve been struggling to push down, keep at bay, deep down into that growing, gnawing pit threatening to tear my guts apart.
Elm released me, reluctantly. I was careful to avoid his gaze.
I knew what I’d see if I met it. I knew him.
A lot of time has passed, feck knows it had, but he was still that same boy from before, from all those summers laying outside on our backs trying to identify stars, easily talking about our hopes, wants, dreams. He was the same boy who’d held me when my pet lizard Zilla died and I’d cried buckets.
He’d enlisted Cy and Birch to preside at Zilla’s funeral.
It had been a tasteful affair with daisies from my mom’s garden, Dad’s old shoe box, and an old Led Zeppelin CD we’d pilfered from Sunny playing in the background.
I still smiled and sometimes laughed thinking about the whole thing.
My feet touched the welcome mat and he let go slowly, like he was afraid I couldn’t stand on my own, like I might fall apart at his feet if he wasn’t my tether.
“I’m fine.” There was definitely an echo in here. If I kept saying it, maybe it would become my truth. My hands shot out as I shuffled back so I could grab onto the doorway for support.
“‘Kay if Pru not fine,” he rumbled out softly.
“Why?” I blurted. I’d finally dragged my gaze away from that box at our feet, met his deep green eyes which were themselves glistening with moisture, and it was the first thing that popped out of my mouth.
Elm began to fidget in place. His gaze darted around as if to search out the answer but apparently there were none forthcoming from my parents’ front porch. Soon to be some stranger’s front stoop.
I didn’t need to explain my question. I knew he knew exactly what I meant.
Why did you leave me, dump me, forget I existed? What horrible crime of friendship had I committed to deserve such treatment? Why did you stop loving me back?
The longer I stared at him, waiting, hoping for something to finally make sense, the harder it was to accept that maybe there wasn’t a justifiable reason to it, any of it, at all. Sometimes, shitty as it was for me, I could have just been a blip to him.
“You know what, nevermind. I don’t care.
” My voice had hardened. I didn’t mean to sound so angry but I was.
The idea he’d simply dropped me like a hot potato because he could, no explanation, no real reasoning behind it, because I cramped his preteen lifestyle, who the hell knew, because boys can be fickle?