“I didn’t know you had a little sister.”
He continued playing the video game as he spoke. “When I was five, I begged my mom to take Lizzie and me out for ice cream, even though she was already tired from working at the diner. When we went, we were in a bad car accident and Lizzie ended up being in a coma for weeks. The doctors told us that for a three-year-old she fought hard, but wasn’t going to make it. Then one day, she was just gone.”
“God. I’m so sorry, Si.”
He kept playing the game, but his focus was elsewhere. “Then they found out Mom would have trouble getting pregnant again due to the same accident, so they spent years trying to have another.”
“You blame yourself?”
“Wouldn’t you? If it wasn’t for me, my little sister would still be here. And Mom and Dad would’ve had more kids, and they wouldn’t have been going through hell these past years. I’m the reason their lives are screwed up.”
“Dude, you were just a kid. You didn’t cause the accident.”
“Didn’t I, though? We should’ve never even been out. We should’ve…” I could see the guilt in his eyes as he tapped the triangle button on the controller four times hard, before he moved to the square button and hit it four times, too. “Next topic?” he asked, not wanting to talk about it anymore. I wouldn’t push him to keep talking. Therefore I went to a lighter subject.
“So, I was thinking about Aria—”
“Well, duh.” He smirked, growing comfortable again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that every second of every day you’re eye-loving the hell out of her.”
“Dude, shut up. I’m not. Anyway, I need an idea for her birthday gift since I missed it.”
Simon arched a brow. “And you’re asking my advice?” I nodded. “Well, get her anything related to art. She was actually talking about this one thing, but it’s kind of expensive.”
“What is it?”
He proceeded to tell me, and the price made me cringe. I hadn’t seen that kind of money in a long time, but it was the perfect gift, which only left me one option.
* * *
“I need eighty dollars,” I said to Lance after school one day as he moved things around his shop. Whenever Dad didn’t want me around the house, I would go to Lance’s music store and mess around with some of the instruments.
“For what?”
“A school project.”
“What kind of school project makes you pay eighty bucks?”
“I don’t know. Public school is weird. They even make you eat cow intestines, I think.”
“I definitely remember it being pig intestines when I went there. They sure are uppity nowadays. That’s the problem with your generation. You boneheads are eating like kings and queens.” He leaned back against a box and narrowed his eyes on me. “So really, what’s the money for?”
“I want to take a friend somewhere.”
“What friend?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“They don’t have a name, actually.”
“Mhmm. Is it a girl friend?”
“No gender, either.”
“This is about that one girl, isn’t it?”
“What girl?”
“Art. The girl who played the drums like complete shit, and is the reason for that stupid grin on your face whenever I bring her up.”
“Oh, her?”
“Yes, her.”
“Yes,” I replied. “It’s about her.”
“Once again slipping into the uncool uncle role: do you think that’s a good idea with the whole walking dead thing forming in her gut?”
“You think she’s having a zombie baby?” The weekend before Lance had forced me to binge watch The Walking Dead with him. I couldn’t sleep for days after watching it, but shit, it was addicting.
“Hell, maybe it is a zombie baby. I’ve been on LSD before, so I’ve seen some pretty weird shit. But seriously, Levi. Human hearts are like this.” He held up a plate of Daisy’s newest vegan cookies. “They are perfect when looking at them from a distance but then, when you pick them up,” he lifted a cookie and it began to crumble, “they have a way of breaking. You two are young. She already has a lot going on. You have a lot going on. So you both should protect your hearts.”
I nodded, slowly. “So…about that eighty dollars…”
He rolled his eyes. “Take out the trash, sweep the floors, and then we’ll talk.”
That pretty much meant yes.
21 Levi
On Friday, Connor was annoying me once again during gym class. “We have to go to this party tomorrow night. You don’t understand the utmost importance of this,” Connor barked, bouncing a basketball around. “Tori Eisenhower parties are like taking a trip to the Playboy mansion. So many boobs.”
“You’ve been to one of Tori’s parties?” I asked.
“No, but I’ve heard. And she invited you?!” He shook his head in disbelief. “Only the top of the top get invited to her parties. We need to go.”
“Sorry, man. Not interested.”