The Boy Next Door

  He looks like some kind of model. The shaggy hair with the perpetual five o’clock shadow and hipster glasses—it’s the perfect look for adult Dash. The square jaw, the high cheekbones, the smooth, tanned skin. The long-lashed hazel eyes and flawless lips. It’s unfair that he’s even hotter than he used to be.

  I wish I didn’t want to touch his stupid hair. I wish the eyes behind those glasses didn’t look at me so gently, as if he’s preternaturally aware of all my thoughts, as if he feels bad for what he did when logically I know he doesn’t.

  If he did, he would have called or emailed.

  If he cared for me at all, he would never have left the way he did.

  I don’t look back at him, at least not for any length of time. I just…can’t.

  The elevator opens, and I almost push the ONE button and ride back down. But Dash extends his arm, as if he’s waving me in front of him, and he looks so polite, so innocent and nice, it makes me want to claw his face off.

  Who does he think he is?

  Suddenly I don’t care why he turned out how he did. I’m not thinking about the past, about the way he hurt me—worse than mom’s death, even—I’m thinking of now, and all I want to do is hurt him back.

  I’m keeping this assignment, the one where I have to make a movie about a dove with Dash, and I’m doing it because I can’t be done with this, with him. Not until I feel more satisfied. Less…used.

  I put my calm, cool, just-business cloak back on and keep it there as we walk to our studio space—Dash a step behind me, my shoulders so tight they ache. When we get into the room, Dash instructs his animation people to start making bird models, while I touch base with Carrie, Meredith, and Bryan. It’s awkward that I’m technically in charge of them. I get it that Weiss—Dash’s boss, and the intern coordinator—wants to test our leadership skills, but it’s still weird since I’m the youngest. It doesn’t take me long to realize we can’t really do much work without more plot details. According to the instructions Dash gave me yesterday, it’s up to him and me to finalize that.

  I sit in a chair near his and roll over to him, reminding myself to breathe as he lifts his eyes from his computer’s keyboard.

  “Yes?” The word is slightly sharp.

  I square my shoulders. “I think we need to have a little powwow.”

  His brows arch; his lips press together, making him look slightly like a duck.

  “About the plot.”

  “Okay.” He steeples his fingers, looking at me like he’s waiting on me to talk.

  “I think she should be a girl dove. Definitely inexperienced,” I say to my notepad. “Used to living in the cage… We could go older, like she’s spent her whole life in the cage, but that seems kind of depressing.”

  I slant my gaze toward Dash and find him looking thoughtful, with his fingers still tented. “Agreed.”

  “So she’s like sixteen in bird years. Whatever that is. She’s a teen bird. We can work out all the logistics later, but basically she gets let out and I think that’s our starting point. Does she have family? Where’d she come from? What’s the end point?” I drum my fingers on the pearly-sleek surface of the desk.

  “What do you think?” His voice is low and quiet, making my stomach feel unsteady.

  “I think Meredith was right, we can’t go too Nemo. So she should have a teenage feel, not like thirteen, maybe more like eighteen even. That’s the feeling. Because of course, we won’t say her age. I’m not sure her family should be in the picture.” I press my lips together. “Maybe there should be one family member. Or one old friend. Someone she has in mind when she first gets out. And she quickly decides she won’t see him—or her—again. So she meets a bunch of animals and people, and at the end, she finds this person. Animal,” I correct.

  Dash nods slowly.

  “Maybe we should drop back and talk about her character. Name, traits, that kind of thing. From what I remember from my last internship, you animators will need those details.”

  “I’m fine listening to your plot ideas for now. If you want to keep on with it,” he says.

  There’s this awful moment where our gazes are locked, and it feels comfortable. Just for a heartbeat. Dash knows I do my best thinking out loud. I need to talk things through. He never did mind listening to me ramble.

  Heat suffuses my throat and face. My eyes sting slightly. I should cut straight to Dove, or whatever the hell her name is; fast-track that so we figure out what kind of bird she is so this conversation can be over. Instead, I keep talking general plot stuff, with Dash’s eyes on my face.

  “I read—we did some research yesterday afternoon and found that baby doves in the wild have a high mortality rate. The mother pushes them out of the nest after two weeks and forgets about them. She’ll lay new eggs and forget about the old ones.” I swallow hard, willing my voice steady. “Sometimes other birds will help these abandoned ones. Kind of like adoption. Anyway, maybe she should have a sister she really wants to find. Or a brother. They were kicked out of the nest together and they helped each other.”

  “I like that.” He looks approving.

  “So, her mom sucked. But maybe she had a sibling or two. Maybe they’re who she goes looking for.”

  Dash’s eyes are all over my face. Yes, my mother had her wreck en route to a man she was cheating with. Yes, she was pregnant. Dash knows how I used to cry sometimes about it when I first found out. “Maybe when she saw the bright light or whatever, she didn’t want to stay with dad and me. She didn’t fight to stay. Would she have left us if she’d lived? Why didn’t she want us, but she wanted a new family?”

  I inhale deeply. How much I hate it that he knows these things.

  “I think I like that,” I continue. “Our girl decides to search for her brother and sister. I feel like the film should be about her journey. Maybe at first she wants to get into a home again, into a cage, where she’d feel comfortable and safe. So she meets a friend as she flies around the neighborhood. Then maybe she meets another bird or something. I don’t know.” I rub my forehead, feeling drained. “I think the end could definitely be her finding her brother and sister, and them living somewhere awesome. I don’t know what that would entail. A bird sanctuary? Wild life refuge? Not sure. Let’s talk about her, though. Basic personality traits so your team can get going on that.”

  I make sure to keep my voice even and slightly energized. Not cheery, but professional. When I dare another look at Dash, his face is solemn.

  “She probably should have a certain Dory type of quality. A little clumsy or naïve or something? Kind of adventurous. What should we name her?” I ask.

  “What about Dove.” It’s more statement than question.

  “Just Dove?” My blood pressure spikes at the sound of my old nickname.

  He shrugs. “It’s nice.”

  “Is it?”

  Dash blinks, then says slowly, “I think so.”

  “It’s not very…meaningful.”

  “No?”

  “A little lacking, in my mind.” Score one for Amelia!

  “Seems like the kind of thing you’d call a bird,” he says. “Something simple.”

  “Simple.”

  Dash’s eyebrows arch. “For a bird.”

  “The bird doesn’t even deserve a name?”

  “I think maybe she does,” says Meredith; she’s rolled over in her chair.

  Dash shakes his head. “It’s like Mr. Cat.”

  At one point long ago, Dash and Lexie had a cat called Mr. Cat.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Bryan asks, looking lost.

  “That’s a strange name for a cat,” I say, as if I’ve never heard it.

  Dash runs a hand back through his hair, pressing his lips together for a moment before he says, “Sometimes people go for simple names.” He looks around the room. “In my experience with test groups, we’ve found the audience responds better to more general character names.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” sa
ys Ashley, Dash’s fellow animator.

  “I guess so,” I say. “I’m not sold yet, though.”

  “We’ll think on it,” Bryan says, winking at me.

  “We’re going to go over some software stuff,” Dash says, waving Adam and Ashley to his desk.

  Carrie, Bryan, Meredith, and I spend the next hour discussing story. It’s a fun enough discussion, meaning there is no excuse for how thoroughly Dash holds my attention. I note everything he does: finishing his meeting, giving Adam and Ashley marching orders, putting on headphones, checking his phone, checking his phone again, rubbing his hand back through his stupid pretty hair, touching his glasses. He’s a few feet away from me, to my right. In my periphery, I notice him take out a pack of gum and catch myself waiting to hear the punch of gum through foil. Instead I hear the whisper of a wrapper. Trident. Sweet mint.

  Is he really still chewing that stuff?

  I bite down on my bottom lip, my mind whirling. I’ve told myself so many times that he’s so different than he was; that over time, people change so much sometimes you can’t recognize them even if you’re in a small studio making a film with them.

  But here he is with his fucking Trident Sweet Mint gum. I can even smell it now.

  I toss a glance over my shoulder. When Dash’s eyes meet mine, I get up.

  Bathroom break. I’ve earned one.

  I step back out and almost run right into him. His hand wraps around my elbow loosely.

  “Sorry, Am.”

  I jerk my arm away. “Amelia.”

  “Right.” His eyes widen slightly as he stuffs his hands into his pockets.

  “What are you doing out here? Stalking me?”

  He nods at something behind me.

  “What?”

  I turn around and realize: it’s a unisex bathroom.

  Perfect.

  “Sorry.” I stalk past him, moving fast as hell, because seriously, I’m embarrassed. For the thousandth time, I think of going home, just calling the internship coordinator, John Weiss, and telling him I can’t. I can’t with Dash. But then I’ll never know.

  Maybe I should just admit…I want to know. How could I not? Dash’s jetting out of town the morning after what happened has been one of my life’s biggest mysteries, right up there with what was my mother thinking and the Titanic. Maybe I don’t even want to know, but I deserve to. Dash deserves to have to tell me.

  I think that’s what I really want. On the last day of this internship, I’m going to accost him in the parking lot and demand he tell me. I owe poor, fifteen-year-old Amelia that much. Nineteen-year-old Amelia who ended every relationship just shy of sex and let a lot of nice guys get away. Twenty-two-year-old Amelia who doesn’t trust anybody to be what they seem to be.

  By the time he comes back into the studio room, my crew and I have fanned out at our own computers, typing up the ideas we just brainstormed. I’m banging comfortably on the keyboard, feeling in my element.

  Fuck Dash.

  I don’t want him. Even though he’s close and smells like our old gum, I wouldn’t kiss him if my life depended on it. Even though he’s acting nice and being weird and serious and quiet and not as rude today, I don’t feel sorry for him. He did this. Not me. I would have walked through fire for Dash. He couldn’t even stay in town a couple hours for me. Hell, he couldn’t even call.

  I put my own pair of ear buds in my ears and crank up the one Coldplay album I like: A Rush of Blood to the Head. It’s not perfect, but I really like the energy. Quiet fury.

  When my computer tells me it’s noon, I decide to get the hell out of dodge and take a liberal lunch break. I stand up, and Dash stands with me. Like a shadow.

  “Am—I mean, Amelia.”

  I take a slow breath before I turn to face him.

  “Hey… Look.” He looks so big and tall, so…grim. “I was hoping you might take a walk with me,” he says, too soft for any ears but mine. I’m sure shock and confusion twist my face; I see them echoed in his features. “To see birds,” he clarifies. “I need to watch them fly.”

  “Okayyy…”

  I see him double down on his resolve. “There’s a park near here, a block or two. It has a pond. I wanted you to walk with me—if you don’t have other plans.”

  “I don’t.” Damn me. “But I don’t think I want to go.” Good save, Amelia. Good job. I see his brow rumple and feel a shot of glee. Take that, asshole.

  His face softens. So does his voice. “Please?”

  I blink. And of course, I fold.

  Nine

  Dash

  I know she doesn’t really want to do it. That’s the hardest part of this: I can still read her like a book. I know she doesn’t want to work with me, but she can’t pull the plug either. I know she hates me, and she cares, too—despite her own good sense.

  She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t. I don’t know what she went through after I left that day—Lex and her stopped being close their senior year—but I know I must have hurt her.

  I had no idea I’d see Amelia again until yesterday morning, when Weiss emailed me her CV and I nearly lost my breakfast. For the few weeks prior, he’d mentioned her a few times without saying her name, telling me he had a beautiful, brilliant intern for me.

  “Smart as a whip,” he said proudly. “You’re going to love her.”

  Truer words have never been spoken.

  As we ride the elevator down to the lobby in silence, my mind slips back to the night we shared out on the roof of my house, right before I left for art school in Rhode Island. Her convincing me—or trying to—that I would love it up in Providence. By then, everything had gone to hell, and I thought nothing would ever be good again. But I remember her trying. How much I wanted to kiss her right before I left, and how I hugged her hard instead.

  I remember one of my college roommates asking if I was joking when I told him, one night when we were doing shrooms, that I was in love with a fifteen-year-old, my sister’s best friend.

  “Quaint,” that smug hipster had said. “And kind of rapey.”

  I smacked him so hard, he had a purple rim around his eye the next day. “I haven’t had sex with her, you fuck.”

  All that year, that long, hard, awful year, I had to stay away from Georgia, and I ached for Ammy. It was strangely, terribly simple, what I wanted: just to sit with her and listen to her comments on a movie. To hear her voice or touch her hand or shoulder.

  At night, after class and art and Frisbee or soccer or whatever we had going, I would strip down to my boxers, lie under my covers, and pretend she was beside me. That her hands were on me. That her sweet, soft voice was in my ear. I thought of calling her ten thousand times, but…couldn’t.

  I know it hurt her. She told me it did.

  And what happened the next summer by the lake… That was unforgivable.

  I can see it in the way she moves, even as we cross the lobby: anger. Once upon a time, this girl loved me. I never deserved it, but she gave it to me anyway. She gave me her heart and her body, and I broke her.

  I feel like shit as we walk in silence toward the small park about three blocks away from Imagine’s geodesic building.

  I want to tell her something, but I’m not sure what. I can’t tell her the truth, that’s for fucking sure. It would wreck me, but it would be hell on her as well. I rub my temple, trying to think. I haven’t thought about that shit in quite a while. It hadn’t crossed my mind for probably a year before Weiss called.

  Amelia slows her pace, and I notice she’s looking at a pet store. “Do you want to go inside? Like…see them in their cages?”

  I can tell she does, so I nod and get the door for her. They don’t have doves, but six parakeets and one parrot that screeches, “Have a nice day!”

  Amelia’s kneeling down before I get a chance to see the reason why, but it’s apparent soon enough: puppies.

  They’re white with brown spots, floppy-eared like those quintessential pups in children’s board book
s and cartoons.

  “Oh my goodness… How sweet are you?” she coos, rubbing one long, brown ear.

  I look around the room, searching for the reptiles, because there’s no fucking way I’m getting hard from seeing her rub a damn dog’s ear.

  “Yes… What a good boy—or girl. And look at your sister, maybe brother. You have a brown ring around your eye, you little sweetie. Yes you do…”

  I grit my teeth as Ammy fusses over the puppies. It’s weird to hear her going on and on the way she is, using that adoring tone of voice. Her manner seems so different since I saw her again. I realize as I listen to her, she’s just different with me.

  It makes me mad.

  Mad at myself.

  Finally she stands, and with the briefest, most apathetic glance at me, she steps toward the door. I follow her outside, walking a half step behind her for the rest of the block, before I realize that I’ll need to pull ahead, since she has no clue where we’re headed. I find I like her eyes on me, even like walking beside her. It gives me a strange feeling… A certain restfulness I don’t have words for.

  Then we’re rounding a busy street corner, and just beyond a cement parking deck, I see the park pond and big, green trees around it. People are there with dogs and strollers; I see a couple on a bench, the man’s arm wrapped around the woman’s shoulders.

  Beside me, I can feel her grow more stormy. The feeling intensifies as we step off the sidewalk and start crossing the grassy field beside the pond. Ducks paddle in the water, birds crisscross from tree to tree. I look up, watching them glide—as if I need to watch birds fly. I could animate a bird if I had seen it fly just once.

  I wait for her to steer our course, kind of hoping she’ll sit on one of the benches so I can sit beside her. Instead she stops at the water’s edge and looks out at the dark green pond. It’s not big, maybe the size of a football field. There’s not much to look at, but you wouldn’t know it from her face. She looks transfixed, her round eyes clear, her mouth soft and curious. She can’t keep her features that way long, though. Pretty soon her mouth is tighter. She pulls sunglasses out of her purse, staring at them for a moment before sliding them on her face.