9. Shane
Shane
“What kind of music do you like?” Nik asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my room as she swipes her hands back and forth across the tan carpet.
After running into her at the park, I’ve started meeting her there every afternoon. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she started coming over after the shop closed on her days off from the diner too.
It’s not a romantic thing. We’re just friends, I guess.
We couldn’t be like that even if I wanted to because of my sister anyway.
I don’t really know what’s happening to be honest, I just know I want to be around her.
I’ve never laughed as hard as I do when I’m with Nik, and the only time I don’t think about getting high is when I’m with her.
I’ve managed to stay mostly clean since the day I ran into her at the park a month ago.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “All kinds of shit, I guess. Classic country, rock ‘n’ roll…”
She rolls her eyes, flipping her cobalt hair over her shoulder. “You just think you’re so cool, huh?”
I guess she got tired of pink because she showed up here with blue ends a few days ago. It fits her. She is mean, but under all that poison, I think she’s mostly just sad.
I flip her off and lie back on my bed. “What about you?”
She purses her lips, thinking about it for a second. “I like something I can dance or cry to.”
I lift my head, meeting her eyes. “Yeah, okay. That tracks.”
Her eyes roam over my room, taking it in. It’s pretty bare; I didn’t really have much I wanted to bring with me when I moved in. She lights up when she spots the beat-up Epiphone in the corner.
Shit.
“Can you play that?”
No.
I nod.
“Show me,” she demands.
“No.”
“Yes.” She stands and grabs it.
“I said no.”
“Why?” She pops her hip and places a hand on it. “Do you suck or something? I mean, I literally couldn’t think you were any less cool than I already do.”
I sigh, rolling off the bed and snatching my guitar from her grip.
“If you tell anyone about this, I will push you into traffic.”
She laughs and flops back on the floor, staring up at me. “Okay, but if you play ‘Wonderwall,’ I won’t be able to tolerate you anymore.”
I cock my head at her and glare. “Shut up.”
She giggles, nudging my leg with her blue-painted toes. “Okay, come on already.”
I let out a deep breath and roll my eyes. After grabbing a pick from my nightstand, I start playing “Traveling Alone” by Jason Isbell.
Her face falls as she watches my hands move.
I smirk.
She really expected me to suck.
I’ve spent hours with this instrument. No one else really knows. I mean, Gabe might since we lived together, but not because I’ve told him. It’s not something I do for anyone else, just something to keep my hands and mind busy.
With that being said, the way she’s looking at me makes me want to never stop. I want to keep those eyes on me forever.
And… That’s a fucking problem. Reel it in, dumbass.
When I’m done, she stares at me for a second. Something tender swirling in her green irises, I think we were about to have a real moment for once.
But then her mouth spreads into a grin. “I mean, you’re not that good.”
I toss it down on the bed and lunge for her.
She jumps up with a squeal, darting to the living room with her blonde-and-blue hair swaying behind her. She makes it to the couch before I grab her around the waist with one arm and lift her off the floor.
“Put me down!” She laughs so hard she’s almost impossible to understand.
“No. You’re done.”
Then, walking her across the room, I open the front door and throw her out of my apartment before shutting it in her face.
“You fucking asshole!” she shouts, banging on it from the other side. “Let me back in.”
“Nope.”
“Shane! Open this goddamn door!”
I do as requested and smirk, leaning a shoulder on the doorframe. “Tell me how cool and talented you think I am, and I’ll think about letting you in.”
“Ew, no.” She scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’d rather choke on my own tongue.”
“Okay,” I say, shutting it on her again.
“Okay, fine!” she shouts. “I was pretty surprised at how good you are.”
This time as I open the door, I quirk a brow. “And cool.”
She rolls her eyes. “And you’re a little cool.”
“And unbearably hot.”
“Do not push your luck, asshole.” She shoves her way back into the living room.
It takes mere weeks for Nik to become one of my best friends. And before I know it, I’m spending every day counting down the minutes until I can see her again.
That scares the living shit out of me.
But not enough to keep me from continuing to show up to our spot every day for lunch.
So, to say I’m bothered when she abruptly stops showing up, would be an understatement.
For three days, her phone goes to voicemail every time I call.
At my wits end, I decide to show up at her house.
If she thinks she can just ignore me, and I’ll go away, she’s mistaken.
I park my bike on the curb outside her house and hop off before jogging up to the front door and ringing the bell.
I’ve dropped my sister off here a few times, but I’ve never been inside.
It’s a small two-story house, and there are a few plants hanging on the porch.
A sketchbook sits on the table beside a rocking chair.
I can picture her, sitting there with the morning sun shining on her face and her legs tucked under her while she draws.
She’d be barefoot or have her Dr. Martins sitting in front of her.
I think she hates shoes. She’s never said that, but she has them off more often than not. Anytime she sits down anywhere, she slips her feet out.
Is that why she leaves them untied all the time?
The front door opens and a small blonde woman that looks like an older, shorter version of Nik appears.
Her brows pinch. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah. Is Nik here?”
She looks over her shoulder into the house, then back to me, running her hands down the front of her jeans. “She is, but she’s not feeling well.”
“Oh.”
“I can tell her you stopped by…” She cocks her head. “Uh… What was your name?”
“Shane.”
“Shane.” She nods, but the tone of her voice says she has no idea who I am. “I’ll tell her you came by.”
“Yeah. Just um, tell her to call me when she’s feeling better.”
She nods again before closing the door.
I hop off the porch and head toward my bike before turning back over my shoulder. The curtains pull closed on the second floor just as I lift my chin to glance up at what I think might be her window.
The number of times I check my phone over the long week of silence is embarrassing. We’ve only been hanging out for a few weeks. Why should I care if she just decides she doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore out of nowhere.
I’ve just about come to terms with that when she sends me a text saying she’ll meet me at the park.
When I pull up, she’s sitting on our bench with her legs tucked under her and her boots on the ground. She’s in a giant, long-sleeve T-shirt and biker shorts.
“Hey!” I shout over the rumble of my bike from the curb.
When she turns over her shoulder, I know something’s not right. Her shoulders sag, and her lips only barely lift into a smile as she waves. I’d planned to call her out for totally standing me up this week, but now I have a better idea.
Gesturing for her to get on, I shout, “Come on!”
Her brows pinch, and she doesn’t move until I pat the spot behind me on the bike. Then, she slides her feet into her boots and jogs over.
“Where are we going?” she asks, climbing on behind me.
“We’re taking a break today.”
She narrows her eyes but doesn’t say anything, just wraps her arms around my middle, pressing her cheek to my back.
God, I’m so fucked because why does she feel like she fits perfectly right here? Like that place on my back was handcrafted for her to lay her head against.
Just before I take off, my eyes snag on the bandage peeking out from under the sleeve of her shirt.
My stomach turns sour, but I break my stare and take off. I want to reach back and grab her leg. I don’t obviously, that’d be crossing a line. Just the fact that I want to this much is bad enough.
I’m not sure I take a single breath the entire drive.
Part of me never wants to stop—wants to just keep driving forever with her right here on the back.
Maybe we could just ride until there’s nothing left to hurt either of us anymore.
Maybe I could take her far enough away to escape whatever is making her so sad. The blue that lives inside her.
When we make it to the parking lot, and I turn off the bike, she climbs off and drops her eyes to the pavement.
“Are you feeling better?”
Her eyes flick to me for a minute, but it’s like she’s lost somewhere in her mind.
She blinks, then nods before staring right back at the ground.
I don’t push.
The Nik I know has been replaced by the girl I saw that day on the bridge. This Nik makes it hard for me to breathe, like she might just vanish right before my eyes if I say the wrong thing.
I try and fail to form a sentence that might make her transform back into the other girl before taking her hand and walking her toward the theater. “Come on.”
She grins.
It’s faint, but it’s something. I usually only have an hour to sit at the park before I have to get back to work, but I never miss a day, and Jon didn’t seem to care when I texted him that I was taking the rest of the afternoon off. We had a light day today and would probably be done early anyway.
We get our snacks and pick a movie.
Nik sits in the seat next to me, her legs crossed under her and a bucket of popcorn on her lap. I did this once with my sister, and it almost felt like a vacation from our real life. I thought Nik might need that.
“Have you seen this?”
She shakes her head.
The fact that she hasn’t made a single smart-ass comment since I picked her up is killing me. I’m practically craving her to tell me she hates me.
She doesn’t make a peep the entire time the movie plays, just watching, but also not watching.
Like she’s a million miles from here. My chest pulls and squeezes.
The pit in my stomach screams for me to fix it, but I don’t know what to do.
I don’t even know what’s wrong, let alone how to make it right.
But I’m a complete moron because I don’t say anything either.
Luckily, she’s loosened up a little by the time the first movie ends, and I’ve finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Wanna tell me what happened?”
She turns her head slowly in my direction. “What do you mean?”
“This week? You just stopped showing up.”
She fakes a smile. “I was just sick.”
My eyes drop to where her sleeve’s ridden up, and the bandage is visible again.
She yanks it down. “I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
She searches my face like she’s waiting for me to say something else, but I’m not going to push. She’ll tell me if she wants to.
Turning away, she chews her lip and sucks in a sharp breath.
Just when I think she’s not going to say anything else, she takes a final, deep breath, puts the popcorn on the floor, and adjusts in her seat to face me.
Her eyes drop. “I—” She pauses to swallow. “I have… issues.”
I try not to grin because there’s no way she doesn’t know I have fucking issues too. I’m the fucking town issue. “Okay…?”
“I have these…” She shakes her head. “Episodes…? Anyway, I just get really overwhelmed by everything, and I can’t think or breathe. I just want to crawl out of my skin.”
I don’t move, don’t breathe, just wait for her to work out what she wants to say and hope it’ll be something different than what I know she’s going to say. That I’m reading this wrong, and there’s a different explanation that doesn’t make my heart feel like it’s splintering.
“When I was younger my mom took me to a few different psychologists. They all put me on one medication or another. I tried it for a while, but I don’t like how the meds make me feel. Eventually, I got better at convincing my mom that I was taking whatever they gave me.”
She picks at the bandage on her forearm, and my stomach sinks. An image of her sitting on that bridge flashes through my mind.
“I can’t really explain it. Sometimes it’s like I feel too much, and other times it’s like I’m completely numb. I think that’s just as fucking annoying.”
She grabs her arm.
“I don’t really want to die. I just want to feel…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know, different? Better? It releases some of that pressure, but I didn’t mean for it to be that deep.”
I nod, but I want to grab her and hug her.
Who the fuck am I? Not a hugger, I’ll tell you that much.
“Anyway, shit just kind of sucks right now. My mom caught me in the bathroom. Now, I’m on new meds.”
“Are they helping?”
“I’m just really tired.” She shrugs. “I guess it takes time for them to kick in, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
The corners of her mouth lift just slightly. “It’s fine.”
The second movie starts, and she turns back to the screen while I hold back my screaming heart.
I hate that she’s struggling. She kicks her feet up on the seat in front of her and pops a milk dud in her mouth.
As she watches the screen, I watch her, trying to figure out what it is about this girl that has me in such a trance.
I know if I try to hug her, she’ll probably smack me.
If I baby her, she’s going to shut down.
But I need to touch her, so I throw an arm around her shoulders and pray she doesn’t freak out.
She doesn’t.
Instead, a faint smile ghosts her lips, and she leans her head on my shoulder.
I’m done for.