-Ellie-
Living in a small town really sucked sometimes. Well, most of the time, but some days were worse than others.
Particularly when you were trying to avoid someone.
Flynn was everywhere and nowhere.
I’d see him in places I hadn’t expected him to be but he’d never show himself when I was actually looking.
I could admit I was becoming slightly obsessed with knowing where he was and what he was doing.
I couldn’t sort out in my f*cked up head why I was so fixated on him. My emotions were a jumbled mess. I resented Flynn Hendrick reappearing in the small, dreary world I inhabited as though he had a right to be there.
But his appearance did one thing. It snapped me out of my self-pitying funk.
So I returned to my English class. Professor Smith seemed surprised when I returned for the Thursday morning class but he didn’t bring up my abrupt and angry exit earlier in the week. Casey, Davis, and Andrew gave me shaky smiles but made sure to sit several desks away from me.
I tried to ignore the sideways glances I was given by the other students and I gloried in a small sense of accomplishment when I was able to swallow my angry retorts and not tell them to take a picture because it lasted longer.
I buried my nose in the textbook and lost myself in the dark, depressing world of Edgar Allen Poe. And I actually became excited when we were given our first essay topic on the use of fear in Poe’s short stories.
I found myself sitting in the library after class, reading through my assignment, writing notes in the margins. For the first time I felt like perhaps, just maybe, I could do this.
“How’s the class going?” the short, stocky woman with the flower print shirt and socks up to her knees asked as she sat across from me a week later.
I was sitting in Wellsburg’s only excuse for a coffee shop. And that was giving it a lot of credit. In reality, Darla’s Drink and Dine was a collection of four tables pushed into the corner of a thrift shop.
Darla, the owner, had a low-end commercial coffee machine and made fresh donuts every morning. It was her one saving grace. If it weren’t for those freaking donuts, she’d have no business at all.
I shrugged, dusting powdered sugar off my fingers. “It’s going,” I said. I was the queen of evasive. But the woman with shrewd eyes behind wire rimmed glasses was entirely too astute for my defensive tactics.
“You’re loving it,” Julie Waterman stated with a small smile after wiping a bead of coffee from her upper lip.
Julie Waterman was in her early forties but dressed like somebody’s grandma. She was pushy and in your face and exactly the type of person that drove me bat shit crazy. But I liked her. As much as I was capable of liking anyone.
She was the foster care worker who had been assigned my case when I was only six years old. She had been fresh out of college and was one of those idealistic, change the world types.
I remembered so little about my early childhood. Flashes of memories here and there. Most of what I remembered was ugly. Being taken out of my home after being found alone. I had been abandoned by my mother five days previously. I had been eating things out of the cabinet that I could reach and by the time police broke down the door, I was starving and dehydrated. Apparently, the school had alerted the authorities, saying they hadn’t seen me in a while and my mother hadn’t called me in sick.
I remembered the first horrible foster home I had lived in. There had been three older children who resented the sudden appearance of a young girl, who refused to talk. A shadow child who had been rendered mute by her experiences.
The eldest girl would pinch me when her mother wasn’t looking, leaving bruises on my pale skin. The boy, who was only a few years older than me, would lock me in closets. Sometimes for hours, until their mother would come looking for me.
My foster mother never asked why I was sat huddled in a closet with the door locked from the outside. She turned the other cheek when her three children spat in my food so I couldn’t eat my dinner. She ignored the names they called me under their breath. The nasty truths they’d throw at me when they thought she was out of hearing.
Your mom didn’t want you.
We don’t want you.
No one will ever love you.
Those were harsh words for a child to hear. Especially one who had already been to hell.
And I never said anything to anyone about the way they treated me. I kept it buried deep inside me. I never cried. I never screamed. I never spoke.
Mostly because I went almost an entire year without saying anything.
My words had failed me. I had nothing to say. So I kept silent, lost in the world inside my head.
But smashed in between those memories were those of a young social worker with kind eyes and a soft voice who refused to give up on me. Julie had been my one and only constant in a chaotic, out of control life. She tried really hard to make up for the shitty hand I had been dealt, but she could only do so much.
I had seen how much it hurt her when my foster families couldn’t handle me anymore and invariably sent me back. I knew it broke her heart each and every time she had to pick me up, sometimes in the middle of the night, and take me to yet another home that didn’t want me.
I remembered the way she bit down on her lip to stop the tears from falling as I curled into a ball on her backseat, my stuffed dog, Clyde, tucked beneath my shirt. She hadn’t wanted me to see the grief on her face. But I had. Even if my own grief had bled out of me a long time ago.
She had tried to turn my life around. She got me counseling. She tried to coax me into sitting through support groups. She insisted that I get evaluation after evaluation to determine what exactly was wrong with me. To get answers to why I was unable to connect with anyone or anything. To find out if what was broken inside me could ever be fixed.
When I was seven, some therapist diagnosed me with Reactive Attachment Disorder brought on by a lack of nurturing and my traumatic past. My label did nothing to make me any more loveable or easier to deal with.
Even armed with the understanding of what made me the way I was, my foster families were never equipped to handle the angry, violent girl who had invaded their homes.
So I would have to leave. I never settled. I never allowed myself to get comfortable. Because I knew it would be over soon enough. Even the nice ones never lasted long.
My life had been a series of temporary situations.
But Julie continued to try. I’d give her that.
And I could still see the disappointment on her face when I was carted off to juvie six years ago. Her tears were the only ones that fell.
So now, even though I had outgrown her services years ago, she still insisted on “touching base” with me every few months. And living in a small town, we ran into each other a lot more than that.
It wasn’t a coincidence that she stopped by on my shifts at JAC’s, even though she lived and worked across town.
And she, more than most people, knew when I was bullshitting and evading. She sipped on her coffee, a brown lock of hair flopping in her face.
“You do. I can tell. I’m so glad!” she enthused and I knew a grilling session was imminent.
I rolled my eyes but didn’t deny her statement. What was the point? She was right.
“Are you going to take any more classes?” Julie asked, dumping more sugar into her coffee.
“Let’s just take one day at a time, okay?” I said watching her over the rim of my tea mug.
Julie was saying something. Her mouth was moving but I didn’t hear the sounds coming out. Because at that moment the bell tinkled above the door and I nonchalantly lifted my eyes toward the momentary distraction.
And froze.
I swear to f*cking god, was nowhere safe from Flynn Hendrick’s all too visible ghost?
He came inside, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He walked slowly toward the cashier and then stopped, staring up at the menu boards. He stood there for at least five minutes, not noticing the fact that a line was forming behind him. He took his time. Deliberating carefully as though he were developing a plan for world peace as he stood there.
Finally he gave his order and then took out a wad of money from his pocket and meticulously laid it out on the counter, making sure to count out the exact amount so change wasn’t necessary.
I knew he was mumbling to himself, counting out loud, his fingers hovering above the coins. He would take as long as he needed to in order to get it right.
I knew this because I had seen him do it a hundred times before. I recognized his pattern and his routine as though I were watching a movie I had once memorized but had forgotten I knew so well.
“Ellie!” Julie snapped her fingers in front of my face, making me blink and forcing my eyes back to her.
“Did you hear anything I just said?” she asked me, smiling in bemusement. Only Julie Waterman could find my complete lack of manners endearing.
“Sorry, I’ve got to go.” I grabbed my bag and dropped some money on the table. I chanced a look at Flynn and saw that he was still counting out his money and the people behind him were getting angrier by the minute.
“Where are you going?” Julie asked, getting a concerned look on her face was reserved solely for me. She followed my not so subtle gaze to Flynn who had finally handed over his money and was tapping his fingers against the counter in a perfect, controlled rhythm.
That was new.
I had at one time been intimately familiar with his ticks. But this was one I hadn’t seen before.
But a lot can change in six years.
Julie frowned, the line between her eyebrows deepening and I watched her try to place the very good-looking, but extremely awkward man that had entirely too much of my attention.
“Is that?” Julie began but I cut her off.
I needed to get out of there before Flynn saw me. I didn’t want an exchange. I didn’t want any interaction. I desperately wanted to continue living my life the way it was before he had danced back into it.
We hadn’t shared a single word in the three weeks since he first came into JAC’s but already my world felt tight and restrictive. He took up too much space and I resented him for that.
“I’ve really got to go,” I said hurriedly, picking up my to go cup and giving Julie a frazzled smile and hurried toward the door.
Just as Flynn was heading in the same direction.
Smash. Crash.
Shit.
I had my mocha dripped down my front, plastering my shirt to my boobs. And I wasn’t wearing a bra. Great, now the entire coffee shop was getting a good, long look at my nipples.
“Sorry,” Flynn mumbled, holding his hands out as coffee dripped from his fingers. He hadn’t realized it was me yet and I wondered what the likelihood was that I could still make it out the door without him seeing me.
Slim to none.
“Ellie,” he said flatly, raising his head and meeting my eyes briefly before lowering them again.
“Flynn,” I said just as evenly. I pulled at the soaked material that was stuck to my skin. “Can you get me some napkins?” I asked, irritated that this moment I had been trying to avoid at all costs had happened in the most public and embarrassing way possible.
“Sure. Sorry,” he said quickly, grabbing a stack of napkins from the counter. We had everyone’s attention. I purposefully made eye contact with a few of the gawkers closest to me and they quickly resumed their conversations.
Being the town hot head had its advantages.
Flynn came back and started patting at my chest with napkins. He rubbed over my breasts, trying to mop up the liquid, not aware of the fact that he was essentially groping me.
For a man who didn’t like to be touched, he was spending an inordinate amount of time touching me in an obliviously intimate way.
I snatched the napkins from his hands and took a step back. “I’ve got it,” I said through gritted teeth. Flynn’s cheeks blazed red and he dropped the rest of the pile onto the floor.
“Sorry,” he muttered again.
“Stop saying sorry,” I barked, wiping the rest of the coffee off my bare arms. It was a good thing I was only wearing a tank top. I didn’t have time to go home before my shift, so I was going to have to suffer through six hours of smelling like dried coffee.
“Sorry,” Flynn said again and I snorted. Flynn’s lips quirked as if deciding whether he wanted to smile or not.
We stood there stiffly, the coffee slowly drying into a sticky mess across my skin. I tried not to stare at him, but it was hard. I thought I’d never see him again. I had counted on the fact that I’d never have to be face to face with this confusing, conflicting range of emotions.
He was still cute and unassuming. His shy smile still sweet yet uneasy. He still wore his brown hair messy and longish around his forehead and ears and he was still the only person to ever make me feel edgy and unsure.
I hated that I knew the details of his face. I hated that I knew his favorite television show and the way he ate his cereal (dry and with two spoonfuls of sugar). I hated that I had at one time catalogued these seemingly inconsequential details with a resolute dedication. Because at one time they had mattered.
But the girl that had known these things had died a long time ago. I had destroyed her. Flynn had ruined her. She was six feet under an unyielding earth.
“Mocha latte three sugars,” Flynn muttered, scratching the back of his neck.
“What?” I asked, frowning.
“That’s what you drink. Mocha latte with three sugars. You’d bring it to school in your blue thermos and drink the entire thing before the first bell rang.” Flynn’s flat voice reciting such an innocent detail made my stomach clench.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I blustered, feeling unreasonably annoyed by his recollection.
“It was September third the first time I saw you drinking it and I asked you why you had coffee when it was so hot out. You told me to f*ck off.”
For some reason, his words made me flush in embarrassment. His memory sounded about right. I had had very little patience for Flynn’s idiosyncrasies in the beginning of our acquaintance. He had irritated me and thrown me off balance and I had reacted in the only way I had ever been able to…with nastiness.
“How the hell to do you remember stuff like that?” I bit out, flustered. Flynn shrugged but didn’t bother to answer. The door opened behind his back and a woman shoved passed us as we blocked the entrance. She harrumphed under her breath with an irritated expelling of breath.
“Is there a problem?” I asked coldly and the woman’s eyes widened for a moment before scurrying off toward the counter. I had that affect on people.
I turned back to Flynn who had finally lifted his eyes and watched me steadily. He stared at me as though he were studying me. His intense gaze had always made me uncomfortable. I had never been sure how to handle his intense scrutiny and I didn’t know how to handle it now.
I turned my face away, breaking our eye contact. Flynn Hendrick was the only person to ever make me back away. I never hid or ran from conflict. I faced things head on and bulldozed my way through them with an aggressive and self-destructive force.
But Flynn made me retreat.
“I’ve seen you at the community college. Do you go there?” Flynn asked, his voice hovering and halting as he spoke. His inflections were typically off.
“Yeah. I do,” I told him, not offering details.
Flynn frowned. Fine lines at the corner of his eyes crinkled his skin and I found myself watching his face in fascination. I had always found his reactions to be different and oddly interesting. And while he had clearly schooled himself on appropriate emotions over the years, he still came across as stilted and awkward.
“I saw you outside my studio. You were watching me.” I flushed again and this time with mortification. I didn’t know how to respond to his forthright observation but I also felt relief that he wasn’t aware of how often I had looked for him in the past few weeks.
“So?” I mumbled, eyeing the door behind his back, ready to make my quick getaway.
“You used to do that a lot. Watch me draw. I liked it,” Flynn said, his lips turning up into a small smile. He didn’t know how to be anything but honest and not for the first time, I found that refreshing.
“Yeah I did,” I admitted, trying to control the twitch in my lips that threatened to curve up into a full-blown smile.
“You can come by and watch me. It would be nice. That way you can look without standing in the hallway,” Flynn suggested and I grimaced.
“It was just the one time. I saw you and was curious about what you were doing there. That’s it,” I lied, shuffling my weight from one leg to the other. I was aware that we were standing in the middle of the coffee shop and were obviously the most interesting thing these people had seen for quite a while. And no amount of glares would make them look away.
“I use the art studio three times a week. I couldn’t bring a lot of my supplies with me so I’m using their kiln,” he said as though that explained anything.
“Okay,” I replied. I wanted to ask him why he had moved back. I had thought that out of all the places in the world he could live, Wellsburg, West Virginia would be the last place he’d end up.
I wanted to know about his art and what he was working on. I was curious about what he had done with his life in the six years since I had seen him last. I wanted to know if he hated me and blamed me as I suspected he did.
But I didn’t ask any of those things. I could never give voice to the fascination that I always had for Freaky Flynn Hendrick. I couldn’t acknowledge in any way that he intrigued me. Or that standing in front of him after all this time reminded me of things I was only too happy to leave in the past.
“I could get you another coffee,” Flynn said suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. His habit of changing topics was just as disconcerting as it always was. I needed to take notes if I was hoping to keep up with him.
I looked down at my brown stained shirt and shook my head. “That’s all right. I think I’ve had my fill of coffee for one day,” I told him dryly.
Anyone else would have looked ashamed for dumping coffee on an innocent person. Anyone else would have picked up on my irritation and overall discomfort and not pressed for further conversation. But Flynn wasn’t like anyone else. He was clueless and socially maladjusted and right now he was being a huge pain in my ass.
“You like your coffee. I’ll get you another one. Or here, take mine,” he insisted holding out his to go cup and I crunched my teeth together hard enough to break enamel.
“I don’t want a f*cking coffee, Flynn! So back off!” My voice rose. The whispering in the coffee shop went up a notch.
Flynn cocked his head to one side, his hair obscuring his eyes. “You’re mad,” he deduced.
“I’m not mad. I just don’t want any damn coffee. Look, this has been swell, but I’ve got to get to work.” I moved around him, careful not to brush against him.
“I’d like it if you could come by the studio and sit with me sometime,” he said before I could leave.
I should have left it. I should have ignored him and kept on moving. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to end this before I allowed anything resembling friendship to infiltrate our non-relationship. I was not going to repeat past mistakes.
I pivoted on my foot and turned to face him again. His eyes met mine and then skittered away nervously.
“Why would I do that, Flynn?” I demanded. He didn’t say anything. But I pressed on, making sure I communicated exactly what I needed him to hear.
“Why would I want to spend time with you? It’s been six years since I’ve seen you and truthfully I could have gone another six quite easily.” My heart slammed into my ribcage and I felt a strange twisting in my gut as I threw my words at him like knives.
He didn’t look at me. He stared resolutely at the floor and I wasn’t entirely sure he heard me at all. He closed in on himself and that annoying twinge manifested as guilt.
I let out a frustrated breath and turned around, my back to Flynn and pushed through the coffee shop door and out into the humid, August heat.
I stood there a moment, looking up and down the quiet and desolate street, my chest painfully tight.
I wanted to look over my shoulder, back into the coffee shop. The urge to turn around was overwhelming. But I wouldn’t let myself. I denied myself the right to look again on the man I had just torn down as easily as I had done six years ago.
But it was for the best.
If there was one thing I knew it was that Flynn and I only brought each other pain.
And I had learned that the past was best left behind us.