“Well, he does some covers of artists like Jack Johnson, but he also writes a lot of original stuff. He mostly plays clubs, but his manager has been trying to get him a music deal. Of course, the girls all go crazy over him. That part has taken some getting used to for me.”
“I’m sure it’s hard.”
“Yeah. Big time.” She tilted her head. “What about you? No boyfriend?”
“I just got out of a relationship.”
I spent the next half-hour rehashing to her what happened with Adam. Jade was really easy to talk to, and I could tell it really upset her to find out about Adam’s cheating on me.
“Well, better to find out these things now while you’re still young than to waste a decade with someone like that.”
“You’re very right.”
“We’ll have to find you someone this summer. I’ve seen a lot of hot guys walking around here today.”
“Really? Because the only ones I’ve seen were holding each other’s hands.”
She laughed. “No. There were others.”
“I’m really not looking to get into another relationship.”
“Who said anything about that? You need to get laid…have some fun, especially after what that dick of an ex did to you. You deserve a hot summer fling, someone who knocks your socks off, someone you can’t stop thinking about even when they’re not around.”
Sadly, it’s your boyfriend that I can’t get out of my head at the moment.
She meant well, so I just smiled and nodded even though I had no intention of sleeping with anyone this summer.
On our way home, we passed Sandy’s on the Beach, a restaurant that was known for live music at night and really good food. A sign out front read, Temporary Summer Help Wanted. Since there was a university just over the bridge, a lot of the students went home in the summer, leaving some of the local restaurants in need of temporary wait staff.
I stopped short in front of the entrance. “Do you mind if I go in and inquire about this?”
“Sure. I’d actually like to check it out, too.”
It turned out that Sandy’s was desperate for summer help. Both Jade and I had waitressing experience, so we sat down and filled out applications. By the time we walked out of there, we each had a job. The manager basically told us we could work any night we wanted. The extra money and flexibility was impossible to pass up. Jade was particularly happy that he’d told her it was no problem if she had to suddenly cancel a shift in the event she got called back to Manhattan for an audition. We were each going to start tomorrow.
That night, Jade thought we should celebrate our new jobs over dinner and drinks on the upper deck back at the house. It hadn’t dawned on me how peaceful being away from Justin all day had been.
When we walked in the door, butterflies started to swarm in my stomach again as soon as I smelled his cologne. Justin was standing in the kitchen drinking a beer when Jade ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Justin was tall—over six feet—but Jade wasn’t that much shorter than him. Next to both of them, I was basically a midget.
God, he cleaned up nice.
Justin had changed out of his camouflage shorts from earlier into dark jeans and a gray shirt with black stripes that hugged his chest. He’d done something to his hair that I couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe washed it? Whatever it was, it brought out the blue in his eyes—eyes that were now gazing into Jade’s.
She ran her fingers through his hair then kissed him. “I missed you, babe. Guess what? We both got jobs at this restaurant on the beach.”
“Did you tell them you could get called back to New York anytime?”
“The guy said it didn’t matter. He said I could basically just work whenever I want.”
“Really. That sounds a bit shady to me. But whatever. You sure he doesn’t just want in your pants, Jade?”
“He said the same thing to me,” I interrupted.
“Well, then it can’t be that.”
It took me a bit to realize that he’d just insulted me.
Jade intercepted before I could muster up a comeback. “It’s mild out. How about we all have dinner on the upstairs deck tonight. We could barbecue that steak I have marinating in the fridge.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t like red meat, so I just kept quiet. He would probably think I was looking for an excuse not to have dinner with them.
Kill him with kindness.
“I’m not that great of a cook, but I can make a big salad.”
Justin smacked the counter. “Great. I’ll start the grill while Amelia tosses her big salad.”
He started to walk outside when I yelled after him.
“You know what Nana would say to you right now? She’d tell you to go wash your dirty mouth out with soap.”
He turned around and lifted his brow. “Soap wouldn’t cut it.”
I suppose I should have been happy that he was talking to me as opposed to pretending I wasn’t there. I guess we were making progress?
After chopping up lettuce, carrots, red onion, tomatoes and cucumbers, I dressed the salad with homemade honey mustard vinaigrette.
I carried it upstairs where Justin and Jade were already sitting down at the table. Jade had poured three glasses of Merlot, and Justin was sipping one as he looked over at the waves, which were rough tonight.
Once we started eating, Justin wouldn’t look at me or make conversation. I filled my plate with salad and bread, and it took a while before anyone noticed that I wasn’t eating anything else.
Jade’s mouth was full when she said, “You didn’t even touch the steak.”
“I don’t really like to eat meat.”
Justin chuckled. “Is that why you can’t find a man?”
I dropped my fork. “You’re a prick. Seriously. I don’t recognize you anymore. How were we ever best friends?”
“I used to ask myself that all the time before I stopped giving a shit.”
I got up from the table and went downstairs. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I breathed in and out slowly to calm myself down.
Jade came up quietly behind me. “I really don’t get what’s going on between you two or why he refuses to talk about it. Are you sure you guys never dated?”
“I told you, Jade. It wasn’t anything like that.”
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“I think he should be the one to explain it to you. Honestly, I don’t want to piss him off any more than I already have by overstepping my bounds. Besides, I can honestly say that if he’s mad, it’s because of the way I left…my running away. Anything that happened before that is irrelevant now. He’s pissed because of how I handled it.”
“Let’s just go back upstairs and try to have a nice dinner.”
Back on the upper deck, Justin was stone-faced, pouring more wine into his glass. A part of me wanted to slap him across the face, but another part felt guilty that I had caused so much anger in him. He said he didn’t care, but I refused to believe he would be acting up like this if he didn’t.
I touched his arm. “Will you just talk to me?”
He whipped his arm away. “I’m over it. I’m not talking about anything.”
“Will you do it for Nana?”
His head flipped up, and his beautiful blue eyes darkened. “Stop fucking bringing her into this. Your grandmother was a wonderful woman. She was the mother I never had. She never turned her back on me like pretty much everyone else in my life. This house is a representation of Mrs. H., which is why I’m here. I’m not here because of you. You want me to talk, but what you don’t seem to understand is that I don’t have anything to say about anything that happened almost a decade ago. I’ve erased it all. It’s too late, Amelia. I don’t care if you and Jade become friends, alright? But don’t bother trying to get through to me because we’re not gonna be friends. You put me in a shit mood, and I don’t want to spend this whole summer in a shit mood. We’re roommates. Nothing more. Stop pretendi
ng there is something more to it. Stop pretending to like the goddamn coffee. Stop pretending everything is just great. Cut the shit and see things for what they are. We don’t mean anything to each other.” He got up and took his plate. “I’m done, Jade. I’ll see you in the room.”
Jade and I sat in silence, listening to nothing but the sound of the waves crashing beneath us.
“I’m so sorry, Amelia.”
“Please. Don’t, okay? He’s right. Sometimes, you can’t fix things.” Despite the complacent words that had come out of my mouth, a tear fell down my cheek.
***
Eleven Years Earlier
Mom had left to go out again. Lord knows where she went or with whom. I could never count on my mother, Patricia, for anything. There were only two people I could depend on in my life: Nana and Justin.
The one good thing about Mom leaving me alone most nights was that it allowed me to sneak out of the house and go wherever I wanted. Nana assumed my mother was home half of the time, so she couldn’t stop me.
Justin and I were planning to meet in fifteen minutes. We were going to the mall to hang out with some of the other eighth graders from school. These kids were part of the cool crowd that Justin and I had been trying to break into. Because the two of us mainly hung out with each other, we really weren’t associated with any one clique.
He was waiting at the corner with his hands in his pockets. I loved when he wore his baseball cap backwards and the way the dirty blond strands of hair peeked out of the sides. I was starting to notice little things like that more and more lately. It was hard not to.
He walked toward me. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
Justin started to run. “We have to hurry up. The next bus is in five minutes.”
I didn’t know why the thought of hanging out with these kids was making me so nervous. Justin didn’t seem nervous at all. He was more confident than me in general.
When we stepped inside the mall, the fluorescent lights were a sharp contrast to the dark winter outside. We were supposed to be meeting these kids at the food court, so we made our way to a map of the three-story building.
My heart was pounding as we approached the two boys and a girl who were standing outside of an Auntie Annie’s pretzel stand. Justin could tell I was on edge.
“Don’t be nervous, Patch.”
The first thing I remember hearing out of Chandler’s mouth was, “What the hell is that?”
“What?”
“Did you shit yourself, Amelia?”
My heart was now beating out of my chest as I looked down at myself. I knew that despite my nerves, I hadn’t lost control of my bowels. One knows if that happens, right? No. This was not poop; it was blood. I wasn’t prepared for it because it was the first time I’d ever gotten my period. At thirteen, I was later than most of the other girls I knew. This was probably the worst timing imaginable.
Justin looked down then up into my panicked eyes.
I mouthed to him, “It’s blood.”
Without hesitation, he gave me a quick nod as if to say that he had it covered.
“It’s blood,” he said.
“Blood? Ew…gross!” the other boy, Ethan, said.
“Amelia stabbed herself with my knife on the way here.”
I’d been looking down, but I whipped my head up and looked over at my friend incredulously.
Chandler’s eyes widened. “She stabbed herself?”
“Yeah.” Justin smiled. To my surprise, he took a pocket knife out of his jacket. “See this here? I carry it everywhere with me. It’s a Swiss Army knife. Anyway, I was showing it to Amelia on the bus. I dared her to stab herself in the abdomen. Crazy girl that she is, she actually did it. So, anyway, she’s got blood on her pants now.”
“Are you joking?”
“Wish I was, dude.”
The three of them looked at each other before Chandler said, “That’s the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!”
Ethan smacked my arm. “Seriously, Amelia. That’s some epic shit right there.”
Justin laughed. “Yeah, so anyway…we figured we’d come say ‘hey’ since we were almost here anyway…but we should probably get her to the emergency room.”
“Cool, man. Let us know how it goes.”
“Alright.”
“What the heck did you just do?” I whispered as we walked away.
“Don’t say anything. Just walk.”
The cool night air hit us as we exited the rotating doors of the mall. We stood on the sidewalk and stared at each other for a moment before breaking into hysterical laughter.
“I can’t believe you came up with that crazy story.”
“Not that you should be ashamed of the truth, but I knew you were embarrassed. So, I wanted to do something. You were pulling on your hair like crazy.”
“I was? I didn’t even realize.”
“Yeah. You do that when you’re really nervous.”
“I never knew you noticed that.”
His eyes travelled down to my lips for a moment when he said, “I notice everything about you.”
Feeling suddenly flush, I changed the subject. “I never knew you carried a knife.”
“I always do. You know, in case something happens when we’re out. I need to be able to protect you.”
My heart that was beating for those jerks just a moment ago was now beating incessantly for an entirely different reason.
“I’d better get home.”
“There’s a drug store right there. Why don’t you go get something. Ask them if they have a bathroom you can use.”
I went inside and used the money I had reserved for video games at the mall arcade to buy a box of maxi pads and some cheap granny underwear. I’d tackle tampons later when I had time to figure out how to use them.
When I emerged, Justin took off his hoodie and handed it to me. “Here, wrap this around your waist.”
“Thank you.”
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“What do you mean? I have to get home! I have blood all over my pants.”
“No one can see it with my jacket wrapped around you.”
“I still don’t feel comfortable.”
“I really don’t want to go back home tonight, Patch. I know where we can go…where we won’t know anyone. It’s some place I go by myself sometimes. Come on.”
Justin led me down the sidewalks of Providence. After about ten minutes, we turned a corner and approached a small red building. I looked up at the illuminated sign.
“This is a movie theater?”
“Yup. They show the kind of movies that nobody knows about or that people don’t talk about. The best part? They don’t even care how old you are here.”
“Are they bad movies?”
“No. Not like those naked kind of movies, the ones I told you my dad watches. No. These ones are like foreign with subtitles and stuff.”
Justin bought two tickets and a popcorn for us to share. The theater smelled musty and was practically empty, which was perfect considering I didn’t want to see anyone tonight. Even though the seats were sticky, this was just what I needed.
The movie was a French film with subtitles, called L’Amour Vrai. The cinematography was mesmerizing, and the plot was more serious than the comedies we normally watched. But it was perfect. Perfect not only because of what was on the big screen but because of who was next to me. I lay my head on Justin’s shoulder and thanked God for a friend who always knew exactly what I needed. There was also a twinge of something unidentifiable running through me, a gnawing feeling that would eventually identify itself over time and reach its pinnacle shortly before I ran away from it all.
That wasn’t the last independent film Justin and I would watch together at the little red theater. That place became our secret hangout over the next couple of years. Indie movies became our thing. Going there wasn’t about being seen at the big cinema or running into people from school. It was
a place where we could both escape from reality without being watched, a place where we could be together and get lost in a different world at the same time.
The following afternoon, I listened from my window as Justin sat on Nana’s stoop, playing a new song I’d never heard him perform before. It sounded like I Touch Myself by the Divinyls, but he’d changed it to I Stab Myself.
Gotta love that kid.
CHAPTER 4
A couple of weeks passed, and things hadn’t gotten any better between Justin and me. Rather than taunt me, he’d resigned himself to just ignoring me altogether.
The house had four bedrooms. Since I’d turned one of them into an exercise room, Justin used the other one as an office during the day. His muffled voice could often be heard from behind the door as he made work calls. Apparently, the company he worked for sold business solutions software.
Jade and I were working almost every night at Sandy’s as well as the occasional afternoon. One day in particular, we were on break when we overheard the restaurant owner, Salvatore, complaining that the band who performed most nights had suddenly quit. Sandy’s was probably the most popular spot on the entire island for live music. That’s what it was known for even more than the food. So, this didn’t bode well for business.
Jade’s voice was low. “I wonder if Justin would be interested in playing here.”
I’d been feeling kind of sick as it was this afternoon, but the mere mention of his name made my stomach feel even more unsettled.
“You think he would want to perform in a place like this?”
“Well, he’s used to bigger venues, but it’s not like he’s doing anything else. He took the summer off, but I get the feeling he actually regrets it. He’s been in a horrible mood since we got here. I think he’s itching to play again. It might do him some good to get back in the game for a bit on a smaller scale. It’s not like there would be any pressure. No one knows him out here.”
The thought of getting to see Justin perform gave me goosebumps. On one hand, it would be amazing. On the other, I knew it would be painful for me to have to endure him here at night. His actually agreeing to it probably wouldn’t pan out, so I vowed not to obsess over it unless it became a reality.