Landslide (25 page)

“Yeah. I don’t really feel like it and I don’t have a costume, so…I’m just gonna stay in tonight and see if I can maybe get through that freaking O-chem chapter.”

“Okay, well if you change your mind, I bought a cave woman costume when Darren and I were still together and were gonna go as Mr. and Mrs. Neanderthal.” She opens the closet to retrieve the costume, and then tosses it on her bed. “You’re welcome to wear it and you know where we’ll be.”

“Thanks. I might stop by later if I don’t go blind reading first.” I’m totally lying of course. I have no intention of leaving this room tonight, or studying anything, especially organic chemistry.

“Cool. Text me if you decide to come…I’ll meet you out front so you don’t waste your night searching for us.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I lie again, “Have fun.”

Shelby leaves and I heave a long-suffering sigh of relief at the click of the door. It’s not that she isn’t nice or is ever a nightmare roommate, it’s just…she’s happily settled into her life here and by doing that, the contrast of me feeling like I don’t belong is glaring.

At first I reach for the drawer of my nightstand, wherein a picture of Holden is stashed away. I keep it there for the times I either need to see his face and be reminded that this is where I wanted to be, or when I just want to cry and indulge my feelings of loneliness. I stop myself though, and remember the package from my grandma that I got a day or two ago but was saving for when I want a taste of home. She usually sends me baked goods and sometimes that’s all I need to keep me from giving in to the temptation hiding within a drawer.

The box is bigger than most she’s sent me, and a small thrill trickles through my body in anticipation of what could be inside. Opening it and seeing the contents, my jaw drops. A gloomy cloud of utter homesickness settles over me, at once overcasting completely the yumminess and sunny memories that UPS was supposed to deliver in the form of cake, cookies, caramels, brownies, and a picture quilt.

My grandma had told me she joined a new sewing group and was working on something she’d never done before. I’m guessing the blanket with dozens of pictures of Cole and me from not only when we were children, but also from our summer trip that are printed directly onto patches of fabric and sewn together is the finished product of her favorite new pastime. A short note she’d written on lilac paper and safety-pinned to the quilt explains she made one exactly like mine for Cole, but I shouldn’t say anything because she’s waiting to send it until closer to Christmas. Although I don’t know how he feels about it really, I think it’s sweet that she’s sort of adopted him and has been sending him little care packages too. I know he appreciates them and devours everything he’s sent within minutes; however, I don’t know if they ever make him long for home like they do me sometimes. Like right now.

All I want is to go home.

Pouring over images spread across my lap and remembering the smell of home, how it sounds, and what it even feels like, I reach for my phone and dial Cole. His phones rings and rings, and after the sixth one, I’m rewarded with only hearing the sound of his voicemail. I hesitate, not knowing if I want to leave a message, and feeling even more alone than before. It’s the first time he’s ever not answered. After a few uncertain seconds, I sniffle and then stutter my way through telling him that I miss him and just wanted to hear his voice. I can’t be upset with him for not answering. He has a life in Las Vegas now and talking tonight isn’t on the calendar. Tomorrow afternoon is, but tomorrow suddenly feels like a lifetime away.

Knowing this is going to be one of those times I’ll wake up regretting eating every morsel of baked goodness at my disposal in one sitting, I shrug my shoulders and pull the quilt from the box, bringing it up closer to my chin in preparation to hunker down with an entire pound cake and probably two dozen cookies. I go to drop the empty box on the floor beside my bed and hear something slide and tumble inside it.

Great, there’s more…

The small, square, and nauseating, pristine white jewelry box that I dump out along with a sealed manila envelope that has my name written in Holden’s mother’s handwriting on it lands on my lap and I don’t move, petrified of being stung by the deadly venomous scorpion steadily staring back at me. Its beady eyes meet mine and taunt me, daring me to reach out and touch it…to run my trembling fingers over the soft leather and then crack it open to see what it’s made of; to know if what’s in its core will poison and kill off the little of what’s left in mine.

Challenge accepted, I square my shoulders and pick it up. So far so good. My eyes close and I gulp down another huge breath before opening it, the creaking of tight-fitted hinges ricocheting off my bones and echoing throughout my whole, empty body. Girding myself for what I’m sure will be enormously painful and next to impossible to live through just looking at it, I open my eyes. The monstrous sight before me immediately replaces deep-welling melancholy with outraged fury that saturates every fiber of my being…

22

“Chalk Outline”

—Cole—

Erica: Ready to FT?

Figures. The one time I’m not ready, she’s right on schedule. Already buck-ass naked and thanking God I invested a ridiculous amount of money in a life proof phone case, I test the temperature of my motel room’s shower and step into the steamy enclosure with my phone in hand. I don’t make a habit out of talking to Erica or anyone else when I’m in the bathroom, honestly, but she has a tendency of catching me with my pants down. I work my ass off as a bar-back at a pool in one of the Vegas hotels, and normally I would put off cleansing myself of the filth and grime that comes with spending ten or more hours with obnoxious, drunk guests, and bartenders who are mostly either cocksuckers or hellbitches depending on gender, until after Erica and I hang up or end our FaceTime chats. However, scrubbing the repulsiveness of last night off of me can’t wait another second. Raising the temperature of my shower to a level of scalding sterilization, I reply and give her a heads up.

Me: Sure, but you should know you’ll be taking a shower with me via FaceTime. :-P

Erica: How about speakerphone? LOL

Me: That works. And sorry for not answering last night. I have something to tell you though.

Erica: Ditto.

Standing under the sanitizing water, I congratulate myself in that there’s no way on God’s green Earth that whatever she has to tell me will outdo what I have to tell her. And that’s not even counting that I have two somethings to tell her because both will win hands down on their own. Still undecided about whether to lead with the fact that I’m taking this shower in Oregon about five miles from her, or whether to first tell her about the night I had that prompted me to jump in my car and drive all night and day to get here, which entailed being hounded by some of the guys I work with to go to a strip club with them only to be hit on by my own fucking mother, I place my phone on the narrow fiberglass shelf next to me and then lean forward on the shower wall. With my head resting on my crossed arms, I blow out a breath, feeling exhausted as fuck after being in the car for fourteen hours combined with no sleep for more than twenty-four hours now. Although, after two months of living with only phone and video calls to satisfy the void I let her leave in me, I’m also inordinately wired about getting to actually see Erica in person.

I fucking shit you not, though. My own mom hit on me. Like my phone case, a fake ID declaring me to be hardly more than six months older than I actually am was procured and invested in almost upon arriving in Vegas. It enabled me to go out for a beer after working a job that’s harder than anything I’ve ever done before with more cash from one day than I’ve ever made in a week. Last night was the twenty-first birthday of one of my fellow underage employee friends and we went out and had a fake ID burning party for him. At the end of the night we ended up at this sleazy strip joint off the main drag and that’s where it all came full circle for me.
 

One of my buddies was getting a lap dance from one stripper who, from the looks of her, shouldn’t have ever gotten on the pole in the first place, and this, actually, kind of attractive older chick solicits me for one. At first I was tempted, but then I remembered my origins and got skeeved out. She was all over me though; touching me in places and in ways a person should never feel as comfortable as she did with a complete stranger.

She was also saying shit like how I remind her of someone she remembers being a lot of fun, how much she loves the color of my eyes, that people don’t see eyes like mine very often, and that they make her hot…blah blah blah. I mean come on; my eyes are fucking brown. They’re not exactly exotic or even an unusual shade of brown. They’re the same color as my dad’s and probably something like seventy percent of everyone else’s living on planet Earth—just normal, plain, every day brown. Sort of similar to the color of my wallet, which at the time I was sure was the only reason she was even trying to get into my pants in the first place. Whatever.

Then when we’re leaving and I was halfway through the door, I felt an arm snake around my waist and something placed in my hand as this now somewhat familiar voice purred in my ear from behind me. “I know I’m probably old enough to be your mother, but just think about it,” she said, and left me standing there with my mouth hanging open staring at a napkin with disturbingly familiar handwriting on it. Her napkin note read,
I get off at 2, come back if you want to as well.
It has the woman’s phone number on it and her name. Fucking Candi with a goddamned heart in place of the dot over the i.

While this unwelcome and totally warped sense of pride filled me—having put two and two together with her really awful, but...kinda honest pick-up lines, all bringing me to the conclusion that my dad was clearly a good enough lay to leave a lasting impression—I still hurled. At least I made it to the garbage bins outside to do it though.

From there, I see I missed Erica’s call at some point during the utmost profane and dehumanizing of nights, and it’s a no-brainer for me to get right in my car, call in sick for the following day, buckle up, and drive straight through the night and most of the next day to Oregon, intending to surprise Erica for the weekend and see what I can do about wiping the degradation from myself while ridding her of the loneliness that was clearly evident in the message she left me. I didn’t even pack a bag. Although now, I’m sort of kicking myself for not packing up altogether and getting out of town for good. I don’t know where I want to go or if it’s a good time to move here, but I ain’t staying in Vegas and chancing another run-in with my cougar mommy. Fuck. That. Uh-uh.

The sound of my phone makes me jump and I realize I’d been on the verge of falling asleep. Our proximity to one another though and knowing how soon I’ll get to hug her gives me a boost that no energy drink can even fathom bottling.

“Hey, you go first,” I tell her and grab the soap, thinking that if I go first, I probably won’t ever hear her news because she’ll be too busy squealing with happiness.

She’s been pretty miserable if I’m any decent judge. I’ve kept every trace of I told you so from our conversations though, and I’ve been better than good about letting her figure out her mistake in coming here on her own. Even when that included me literally biting my tongue until it bled when she told me she was going to the first home football game. Afterwards when she called with her status report, she said she made it through the whole game without crying; however, it took everything in me to not jump on a plane right then so I could get here in time to either hold her while she bawled after the fact, or stop her from doing it at all because, well… Having to endure listening to Erica cry on the phone and not being able to do jack shit about it is
the
single worst thing about playing the waiting game with any degree of patience.

All lathered up, I realize a grin wider than the Grand Canyon has spread across my face with the knowledge that once she tells me whatever it is she has to say, I get to tell her my story and then follow it up by inviting her to dinner, live, not like when we make dinner plans and eat takeout together on FaceTime.

“Holden was gonna ask me to marry him.” The smile on my lips all but vanishes in an instant. “He even bought a ring. His parents gave it to my grandma with some pictures and a letter for me explaining that they’ve sold their house and everything they own, and are planning on traveling the world for the foreseeable future. I guess we inspired them to do it with our road trip. My grandma sent the ring and letter in a care package the other day… I just opened it last night.”
 

Oh my fucking God. Of course, THAT’S the one phone call you miss.
 

I pull a hand over my mouth, dragging my jaw open only to leave it hanging there collecting hot water without any words or even sound forthcoming.

“He bought a fucking ring, Cole. Did you know? Did he tell you he was gonna propose?”

I blow out a careful breath. “Yeah. I did. He showed it to me when he was home at Christmas.”

“What did you say?”

“Um, about what? The ring or about asking you to marry him?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Can I honestly admit to her that I made a very small attempt at dissuading the guy she’s in love with from asking her to marry him? I didn’t know it at the time, although now I think I was so affronted by the idea because I knew she’d say yes without thought or question. And I absolutely didn’t want her to. Because I wanted her for myself. I wanted her for myself and I was pissed off and in denial that I’d handed her over to Holden on a silver platter without even realizing that’s what I’d done.

I even think that’s why I never showed up to Erica’s New Year’s Eve party and spent the rest of Holden’s life avoiding the two of them. I’d slowly been backing way off from both of them because I wasn’t ready or willing, or maybe both, to acknowledge my feelings for her because I knew they would never be reciprocated with Holden in the picture, and I didn’t have it in me to even
try
to win her away from someone I considered my best friend. I still don’t.