Lily of the Valley (10 page)

Chapter 9

Alana ends up spending the night after the show. I wish I could figure out the endless conflict I have between what I know is right and how much fun it is to fuck my best friend. Although logically, we’re not doing anything wrong, I do care for her far more than I ever show her.

Fortunately, I guess, she ended up getting drunk and hitting on Devon, so I lost track of them. By the time we were ready to leave, she’d probably fucked Devon’s brains out, so she was too tired for me when we got back. Now, the morning after, she is lying strewn across my bed and I’m trying to decide what to do with her. I somehow managed to get the day off today, and now I have hung-over Alana in my bed and no idea what to do with myself.

I kick her a little to see if she’ll respond, but she just grunts and rolls over. I move to my chair and turn on the Xbox. Maybe shooting something will help. I think I dreamed last night, although I don’t remember it clearly. Still, my head is swimming with thoughts of lovely Lily and I need a distraction. I feel a little proud that I choose Xbox over sex or alcohol, but virtual zombies don’t dull the ache the same way. I’ve nearly maxed out the achievements on the game by the time Alana wakes up and joins the living.

“What time is it?”

She’s still wearing her clothes from the night before. I ended up sleeping in a twisted position around her passed out body.

“Like four.” Fuck. A zombie gets past me.

“In the afternoon?”

“Uh huh.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You clearly needed to sleep it off,” I tell her.

She gets up and takes the controller from my hand. I don’t even protest. I already beat the game; I’m just trying to get the last few achievements. It’s a little irritating that she turns off the console without saying anything, but I’m not surprised anymore.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she says.

“Where? You’re a mess. And you smell like shit.”

“You’re a sweetheart. I’ll take a shower and you can take me for a ride.”

I shrug and gather an old t-shirt she can wear, walking her to the girls’ side for her shower. The lounge on this side of the hall is much nicer. They have flowers and some kind of dried smelly shit in a glass bowl on the coffee table. We have old pizza. I sit and wait for Alana, hoping that Lily will walk by, that I can see her, that we can talk.

She doesn’t come into the lounge at any point and, when Alana is showered, we leave campus. I don’t know where to go, but I drive with her hanging on to me until we’re nearly back home. There is a weird part of me wired to this place, especially with Alana near me, and I wonder if that’s part of why I can’t fall for her.

I stop in the town next to ours by one of those old meetinghouse churches. There’s a gazebo on the grounds, although it’s rotting and falling apart.

“Here?” Alana looks around her, confused.

“I realized I was just heading home. Force of habit.”

“So you stopped here?”

“I don’t know.”

I lean against my bike and take out a pack of cigarettes. Everything is so incomprehensible and I feel myself slipping. I can’t tell Alana or she’ll panic, but the heavy weight of misery that ebbs and flows in my life is starting to come back in full-blown waves.

I light a cigarette and walk to the rotting frame of the gazebo. It’s probably condemned, but I go up the steps and sit in the middle, somewhat hoping the whole thing will crash down over me and end it all right here.

Alana follows and steals one of my cigarettes. We sit, smoking, until she puts a hand on my knee. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“You’re shutting down again. Don’t shut down, Jack. You know I’m here. I can handle it. I’ve learned how to handle it.”

“I don’t even know what
it
is. How can anyone handle it?”

She sighs and looks out over the churchyard. “Do you think she’ll make you happy?”

“It’s not really a matter of debate. She hates me.”

“You don’t help yourself, you know. Make a fucking effort. I know how you are. You act like an asshole, like it will somehow insulate you against feeling a thing.”

“It’s worked so far.”

“Has it?”

“Besides, you’re the one who keeps reminding me that I’m a fucking idiot.”

“I’ve always been what you need when you need it. It hurts like hell that you need something I can’t be, but I’m not gonna stop being your friend just because you need more.”

“You know we’re a mess?” I ask her.

“I do. But the mess is the only thing I know and the only thing that keeps me going. I’ll always be here, no matter what. I think you need to start opening up, though. You’re falling apart and I saw it when you looked at her. You want to be something else. But you can’t. Not if you fight it.”

“That’s not what you told me last night.”

“Hell, I don’t know what I am, either.” She laughs, a sad and hopeless laugh, and wraps herself in my arms. Again, I wish I loved her, because I can’t imagine a life without Alana. But I know she’s right. Lily has made me want to be something I’m not, and it scares me even though I can’t stop hoping it could happen.

“I don’t have a shot,” I whisper.

“Not if you don’t try. Maybe start by being nice. She looks a little too sweet for what you are.”

“That hurts.”

She takes my hand and links her fingers with mine. “I’m sorry. But you need to face that part of it. You know how people judge. Just be prepared for it with her. I promise you she isn’t perfect, even if you want her to be.”

I don’t say anything. I know Alana’s right, but every time I look at Lily’s beautiful eyes and smell her strawberry hair, I can’t imagine a way she could be anything but.

****

The week flies by and it’s Thursday night before I know it. I haven’t had much time to do anything but work, study, and practice. With exams coming up, I’m also trying to focus more on school. Classes come easy to me, but I take my scholarship seriously and I value it.

When you’re an antisocial person, you find studying comes a lot more naturally, of course. I’ve spent most nights in my room reviewing content and that’s the plan tonight as well. I’m thwarted though as I walk into the dorm after getting off work, feeling nasty from the sticky heat of the kitchen. Because the weather is in that switch to fall mode, every building is obscenely hot to make up for the chill that’s in the air. It’s a pleasant chill, though, and I’m debating about taking a shower and studying outside on the quad when someone almost knocks me over.

It’s Lily. Her eyes are wet and full of a burning rage. It’s an emotion I recognize well. She’s determined and it takes me a second to catch my breath after she walks into me. I reach out a hand; she’s shaking and I want to comfort her, but she doesn’t even notice.

“Hey, where are you running off to? Lose your glass slipper?”

As always, she misunderstands my caustic humor. “Fuck you.”

“Ouch. What happened?”

“Get out of my way.”

She starts to push past me, but I know this feeling. I live it almost daily. I take her arm and turn her to face me. The intensity mixed with the greenish blue of her eyes hits me deep in my belly. She’s standing here, ready to fight, ready to run, and all I can think about is how unbelievably beautiful she is.

“Hey. Hold on,” I say. “Let me take a quick shower and we can go for a ride. You look like you need to get a little wild.”

“You have no idea,” she replies.

I can’t believe this is happening, but I’m not going to argue. I need to clean up because I smell terrible, but I don’t want her to leave.

“I’ll be down in like ten minutes,” I tell her, and I hope she waits. I nearly trip on my way to the shower, so desperate to hurry up to get back to her. It feels like the longest shower ever. Once I’m dressed, I head back to the lobby, half expecting her to be gone. Thankfully, she isn’t, but she is tapping her foot. I wonder how much longer she would’ve waited.

“Come on,” I say and lead her to the lot where my bike is. She doesn’t speak and I’m afraid to find out this is some kind of delusion. Anything I say could ruin the moment and I want to wait until I at least have her with me off campus before I test it. She doesn’t ask for a plan and I debate. I consider taking her to a park somewhere, to the café, somewhere we could talk. However, she digs her fingers into me as we ride and I realize that whatever led her to this point is something she needs to forget.

Because it’s the only way I know how to deal with that kind of pain, I bring her to a bar. It’s a small townie bar, but I know Liam will serve us. He’s a friend of Liz’s and he’s been serving me for years. It’s one of the perks of knowing people in a small town where everyone is desperate to escape.

Strawberries doesn’t strike me as a drinker, so I start slow. I grab two beers and bring them back to the table where she settles herself. She sips the shitty beer like it’s fine champagne and I can’t help but smile.

“What?” she snaps at me.

“You’re looking like you need to disappear. It ain’t gonna happen if you nurse that.”

“What do you mean?”

God, this girl is too fucking precious. “Drink faster,” I tell her.

“I don’t really drink,” she replies.

No kidding.
“Well, I’d suggest you start. Whatever shit you’re dealing with – it’s still gonna be there in the morning. Maybe tonight – let it go.”

It’s probably bad advice, but I don’t care. I’ve been through too much to think about the morality of drowning my pain in alcohol. It’s kept me from suicide watch for several years, so I’ll take it. If that’s a problem, too fucking bad. This girl and whatever problems she has are no match for the shit that’s been my life – and she can afford to take a step over the line once in a while. I get the impression she thinks the line is straddled by a fucking brick wall. It’s my mission to break through that wall for her.

She stares at me and holds my gaze. It’s a challenge again. I don’t know how tonight will end, but I almost get down on my knees and pray that it ends with her in my bed. I need to be with this girl in the same way I need fucking oxygen and I don’t know that I can deny it anymore. Her lip turns up in a quirky smile. She grabs the beer, downing it, and then she slams the glass on the table. Well, fuck. Maybe she really does have a wild side.

“Problems gone?” I tease.

“Nope. My life still sucks.”

She says it in the cutest way possible. I wonder what she would think if she knew about mine. I don’t know how to respond, so I suggest something a little harder. At this point, I need it as bad as she does. I’m fighting my entire body and mind by not reaching across the table and undressing her.

“Bring me whatever you think will make tonight have never happened.”

Whiskey it is. I order two shots, but Lily downs both of them before I can even sit.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Two more. I don’t want to feel anything.”

I shrug. It’s stupid. If she gets drunk, my one chance with her will be spent holding her hair while she pukes or helping her up the stairs at the dorm. However, I do what she asks because I’m so happy to have the chance to be here with her tonight, even if it is sad and meaningless. I haven’t had anything except a little beer, but it’s better this way. I want to remember her eyes and the way she looks.

I bring back the other shots and they’re gone almost immediately. I sit, not sure more alcohol is a good idea. She looks at me, the hurt obvious in her face, and I want to make whatever is hurting her go away.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asks me.

“When I need to forget. Which I guess is a lot by most people’s standards.”

“What do you need to forget?”

Wow. Not the time to go there.
“Nothing that is going to help you disappear.”

“But this works?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes, I just wake up feeling like shit. And then I remember. And feel like shit some more.”

Lily reaches across the table, looking for any last drops of whiskey in the shot glasses, but her hand brushes mine and my entire body tenses. Does she know what I’m thinking? Does she know what I want with her? Do
I
know what I want with her? Yes, it is physical and I can’t stop thinking about bringing her back to my room and helping her forget in a whole different way. There’s something else, though. I want to hold her, to shelter her from pain, to have her lift her face toward me with her eyes sparkling. I want to kiss her, to see if her lips taste like strawberries. I don’t know how to feel all of this.

“Why are you even talking to me?” she asks. “I thought you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you. I just thought I hated your type.”

“So you don’t hate my type? Or I’m not the type you thought?”

“Good question,” I answer.

“Why did you invite me out?”

“Seemed like the right thing to do. You can’t seem to stop running into me, princess.”

“I’m not a princess. I’m nothing.” She looks at me again and I swear, I will say or do anything to make her keep looking at me this way. I can’t remember a time when anyone has looked at me like this.

There is no way she’s nothing. She matters to me, and although I may be an expert in worthlessness, I know she is not. “I really doubt that,” I counter. 

“It’s true.”

The hurt I feel at her sadness is palpable. I move the glasses aside and brush her hand with mine. “Princess, you’re more than you think you are. And whatever made you come here tonight is not worth your time.”

She looks down and makes a small choking sound. I think she’s about to cry, but when I ask if she’s okay, she looks at me again and it’s all gone.
She’s
gone, back to staring at me like I’m nothing to her and as if the pain she’s in is my fault.

“I’m not gonna puke on you,” she snaps. “Calm down. I just don’t have anything to say. You’re getting all serious on me.”

And we’re back.

Screw it. If she wants to play games, I can play. For a moment, I thought I could be open with someone. I thought there was a way my pain could be something less than pointless suffering, that it would make us closer in our misery. Now, I figure fuck it all.