Monroe
“You’re right about one thing. I do have a type, and you’re not it.”
Ouchie.
Or at least it would be an ouchie if I cared. Which I didn’t. Not really. I was used to people backing away from me. It was usually in response to me opening my mouth and saying something nasty, which was easy enough to do when your parents were just grateful that you spoke at all.
I knew I’d been a bitch in the past, just as I’d been right now. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.
And sure, my therapist told me it was my way of keeping my distance—of avoiding contact, but whatever. For the most part, I preferred to be alone, which was why this whole festival thing was stupid.
I grabbed my peach sundae and chose a seat as far away from anyone as I could. I didn’t do crowds real well, so for the hundredth time, I asked myself why I had let Gram manipulate me into this evening with Nathan.
Nathan followed and slid into the chair opposite me and smiled at some girl who shouted at him from the cotton candy stand.
I filled my mouth with way too much sugar and glanced over to the girl who held hands with a boy as they walked by. Her eyes lingered on me for several seconds, and then she whispered something into her boyfriend’s ear. He turned, nodded at Nathan, and then stared at me for so long I raised an eyebrow and stared right back.
He smiled.
She yanked on her boyfriend’s arm and pulled him toward the midway, but not before she got her bitch on, raised her eyebrows in return, and flipped me a mental bird.
I smirked and shoved another spoonful of sundae into my mouth. I wanted her to know that her attitude didn’t bother me.
But it did. And that was something new too. What the hell?
“Why are you here?” Nathan asked as he scooped a good amount of peaches and whipped cream into his mouth.
“Um, because Gram made me?”
His blue eyes settled on me, and there was nowhere to hide. He sat back in his chair and studied me intently, his eyes so clear they reminded me of the summer sky. For a moment, I forgot that I didn’t like him.
He grinned, and I glanced down at my dessert, exhaling hard as a rush of heat rolled through me.
“That’s not what I meant. Why are you here in Louisiana with your grandmother?”
Panic hit me—it froze everything inside me—but then I did what I always did. I deflected.
“Why was your driver’s license suspended?”
His smile disappeared, and his eyes narrowed in a way that told me everything. His shoulders hunched forward and he frowned.
“Is this what we’re going to do? Play a stupid game?” He paused and then pushed his sundae away.
I watched him in silence, and though the last thing I wanted to do was eat, I shoved another spoonful of the melting crap into my mouth. At least this way, I couldn’t open it and make things worse.
Another shout of “Hey Nate,” slid between us, but he didn’t bother to look up—he just stared down at the table like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I forced myself to swallow the ice cream—it was either that or puke—and then I pushed my bowl away as well.
I was about to apologize, something I didn’t do much of these days, but when I opened my mouth to speak, he glanced up, and the words I was about to say, two simple little words, I’m sorry, died in my throat.
Nathan Everets looked exactly the way I felt most of the time. He looked haunted. Sort of…broken.
He pushed a long strand of hair off his face, his eyes never leaving mine. “I can’t drive because I was involved in an accident three months ago. A bad one.”
“Oh,” I managed to get out. “Look, you don’t have to…” Shit, I didn’t want to do this with him. I didn’t want him to share with me, because then he’d expect me to share back, and there was no way in hell I wanted anyone to know anything about me. Period.
I couldn’t talk about Malcolm. I couldn’t.
“I left a party with my best friend, Trevor, and our girlfriends.”
And yet I was helpless to stop him. Helpless to look anywhere other than into his eyes, because for some reason, the pain that I saw there let me know I wasn’t the only one…
I wasn’t the only one who hated herself.
Nathan shook his head, and that piece of hair fell back across his cheek. I found myself focusing on it, watching as it lifted in the slight breeze and tickled the edge of his nose.
“I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember getting into the car.” He leaned forward now, his voice louder. Angrier. “That’s how incredibly stupid I was. Me. The guy who was supposed to stay sober. Clean.”
“I drove Trevor’s car down State Route 9, and somewhere between the party and the old Dixon farm, I wrapped it around a hydro pole.”
He kept clenching and unclenching his fist.
“I only broke my left pinky finger, if you can believe it, and other than a few bruises and cuts from flying glass, I was good to go. The girls were okay too, a few minor scratches but nothing serious. We were all knocked out, but Trevor…” His voice trailed off and he finally glanced away.
It was then that I realized I’d been holding my breath.
“You don’t, you don’t have to…I don’t want to know,” I whispered. And suddenly I didn’t. I didn’t want to know anything about Nathan Everets and this Trevor guy.
He shoved away from the table suddenly. “Let’s get out of here.”
I followed Nathan through the crowd, half running to keep up with him, but then maybe he was trying to get away from me. He finally stopped near the edge of the midway, and the sounds, the laughter was so loud that I turned away and faced craft alley.
We were surrounded by families, by teenagers and kids who were having a blast. They were laughing and shouting, and why shouldn’t they? What was not to like? If you were into peaches, that is. There was every kind of dessert imaginable, rides and games, and over on the other side, I saw a stage with instruments, drums and guitars. So there was entertainment too.
There was everything that most normal people needed to have a good time. Except I wasn’t normal, and the more smiling faces I saw, the angrier I got.
It wasn’t fair.
“I wish they would shut up.”
“Huh?” Nathan glanced down at me, his hands shoved into his pockets, his expression blank.
“Everyone.” I gestured toward the Ferris wheel. “Everything. It’s too loud.”
His cell dinged, for the twentieth time, and I snapped. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
Nathan grabbed his phone and glanced down at it.
I assumed it was his girlfriend, his “at the moment girlfriend,” and I looked away in disgust, my eyes falling upon a cotton candy stand. A little boy who looked to be six or seven was in line for a stick, smiling up at his dad as the two of them waited. When the lady handed him his prize, the vibrant pink color caught my attention.
For a few moments, it was all I saw. Pink. Fluffy. The little boy.
Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and I lifted a heavy chunk of hair and pulled it forward over my shoulder. I couldn’t take my eyes off the treat, and when the little boy dug in, his mouth grabbing for the biggest piece he could get, I wanted to yell at him.
Be careful. You’ll get that crap in your hair, and then your mother will be mad, and then I’ll have to…
“Monroe, are you all right?”
“What?” I shook my head and exhaled a long, shaky breath. I thought of my bed. Of the pills I no longer had. And I glanced down at my wrist, at the single, solitary scar that was there. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t flashy. Kind of like me.
It was a testament to the real me. The weak part. The part that couldn’t do anything right.
“Monroe?”
“I hate it here,” I said quietly.
Nathan glanced at his cell one more time, his long fingers running over the screen. “If I ask you to take me somewhere, will you?”
“You’re not some kind of criminal, are you?” I thought of his suspension and realized I didn’t know much of anything about him.
“Nope,” he answered. “Not the kind you need to be afraid of, anyway.”
My gaze returned to the little boy whose face was all but swallowed by the large stick of cotton candy, and I knew if I stayed, I would be sick.
“Sure,” I said and took a step forward, “as long as you promise there aren’t any rides, games, or peaches.”
Or kids.
“I promise,” he said as he fell in step beside me.
For the first time today, I relaxed a bit. “So, where are we going?”
We were almost to the parking lot when he answered, his voice not only subdued and maybe distracted but definitely sad.
“The hospital.”
Wait. What?
That wasn’t what I had expected to hear. A party maybe. Or an underage club—if they had them out here in the boonies—but the hospital?
And yet, the sea of happy that existed here at the Peach Festival was so thick I felt like I was drowning. Even though I hated hospitals, I couldn’t deny that, at the moment, they were more my speed.
Anyplace other than here was where I wanted to be. “Okay,” I answered. “Let’s go.”