Mud spots her face, cakes in her hair, and stains her clothes. Half of that mud Beth gained on our trip in. I should have told her what she looked like before we went to the party, but Beth was laughing. Smiling. I selfishly held on to the moment.
On top of that, Isaiah said I made her cry. I assess the small beauty in front of me. There’s more to her, I know there is. I saw it in her eyes when she laughed with me in the Jeep.
Felt it in her touch as we danced.
I must be losing my mind. “One beer.”
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Beth
STRAW IS SOFT TO LIE ON.
Sort of scratchy.
Comfortable.
Great for weightlessness.
It smells musty and dusty and dirty. The
corners of my lips flinch in a moment of joy.
Musty. Dusty. And dirty. Those words flow well together. Staring at the shadows from the light created by the camping lantern Ryan found in the corner of Scott’s barn, I inhale deeply. I’m finally high.
Not pot high. Ryan’s too straitlaced for that.
Airy in alcohol would be a better description.
Three beers. Isaiah would laugh his ass off.
Three beers and I’m floating. Guess that’s what happens when you stay sober for a couple of weeks in a row.
Isaiah.
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My chest aches.
“My best friend is pissed at me and I’m
pissed at him.” I’m the first to break the silence beyond the crack and hiss of beer cans popping open and the rustle and cooing of birds in the rafters. “My only friend.”
In slow motion, Ryan rolls his head to look at me. He sits on the ground with his torso sloppily supported by a stack of baled hay. A glaze covers his light brown eyes. I give him major props. At six beers, the boy has drunk me under the table. Correction—under bales of hay. “Which one?”
“Isaiah,” I say and my heart twists. “He’s the guy with the tattoos.”
“Is the other one your boyfriend?”
I mean to chuckle. Instead it comes out more of a snort and a hiccup. Ryan laughs at me, but I’m so weightless I don’t care. “Noah? No, he’s helplessly in love with some insane chick.
Besides, Noah and I aren’t friends. We’re more like siblings.”
“Really?” The disbelief oozes from Ryan.
“You don’t resemble each other.”
I wave my hand frantically in the air. “No.
We’re not related. Noah can’t stand me, but he HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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loves me. Takes up for me. Like siblings.”
Love. I purposely knock the back of my
head against the ground in frustration. Isaiah said he loved me. I search the cobwebbed corridors of my emotions and try to imagine loving him back. All I find is a hollow emptiness. Is that what love is? Emptiness?
Ryan narrows his eyes for a deep-in-thought expression, but six beers in an hour tells me he probably spaced out. “So you don’t have a boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
Ryan cracks open another beer. I start to protest as he has infiltrated my stash, but decide against it. I want weightless, not puking. I have to return to Scott’s in three hours and coherency will be required.
“Why is Isaiah mad at you?” he asks.
“He loves me,” I say without thinking, and immediately regret it. “And other things.”
“Do you love him back?” That’s the fastest Ryan has responded since his second beer.
I sigh heavily. Do I? “I’d throw myself in front of a bus to push him out of the way.” If it would save him. If it would make him happy.
That’s love, right?
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“I’d do that for most people, but it
doesn’t mean that I love them.”
“Oh.” Oh. Then I have no idea what love is.
“What other things?” he prods.
Other things? Oh yeah, Ryan asked why
Isaiah is mad at me. I shake my head back and forth, causing the straw to crackle. “You wouldn’t understand. My problems…” My mom. “My family isn’t perfect. We have
problems.”
Ryan chuckles and sips his beer.
I rise on my elbows. “What’s so damn
funny?”
Ryan tilts back the beer and I watch his
throat move as he swallows. He crushes the empty can in his hand. “Perfect. Family.
Problems. Gay brothers.”
We’re obviously not talking about me and
Isaiah anymore. “You’re drunk.”
“Good.” Even inebriated, the ache I saw
earlier while he was carrying me out of the Jeep darkens his eyes.
“Is that why you got defensive with the
football asshole?” I ask. “Because you have a gay brother?”
Ryan tosses the can near the other empty
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ones and rubs his eyes. “Yes. And if you
don’t mind, I’d prefer not to talk about it. Or talk at all.”
“Fine.” I can do silence. My arms fall over my head as I plop back onto the straw. Isaiah would let me talk. I could rattle on about anything…ribbons and dresses, and he’d placate me when I questioned whether I was too harsh with Noah. Sometimes I think about what life would be like if I gave Echo a break.
I mean, she does make Noah happy and Isaiah likes her. Sometimes she’s cool.
“You’re talking,” says Ryan. “In fact, you’ve been talking since you finished your first beer.”
I blink and close my mouth, not having
realized that I had verbalized a thing.