Lily of the Valley (2 page)

“You know how I feel about socializing,” I reply.

“I do, but usually you fake it for the first few days of the semester. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I confess. “I just couldn’t deal. For two years, it didn’t get to me. Okay, well, not as much, but seeing all those kids, mom and dad smiling and hugging and everyone just so ... normal? It bugged me today.”

She rests her hand over mine. “Normal is a state of mind. No one’s as picture perfect as they look. Some just cover the cracks better.”

“Yeah,” I say but I don’t look at her. I know all about faking it.

I feel so undeserving of the way Sandee treats me; it’s become especially true recently. I was picking up my check one night when she came in to get hers and she had her son with her. The way she looked at him broke my heart. No one has ever looked at me that way.

“Coffee?” She moves her hand, giving me space. I nod. It’s late for coffee, meaning it’s probably been burning for hours, but there’s something familiar about being here. It’s one of the only things I know that’s familiar in a good way.

“I added something special for you, Jack.”

She’d get in a lot of trouble if anyone knew that she sneaks whiskey into my coffee on nights like this. Luckily, no one here actually cares. I let the burn of the scorched coffee as well as the alcohol soothe what’s aching to burst from me.

Sandee drops off the checks at the few tables occupied by customers and then returns to sit next to me. She’s breaking a lot of rules tonight, but no one seems to notice.

“Honey, I’m worried about you.”

“You said that.”

“Are you okay?”

How do I answer that? Each year, I get more hopeless than the one before. Here is this woman, ten years older than I am but with the same haunted look, trying to piece me back together. From most people, this kind of concern would make me react with rage, with bitterness. But Sandee has been there, I can tell. She hasn’t told me her story, but I really don’t need to hear it. I met her son, I know she’s been having trouble with the school system because they refuse to address his mild autism, and I know it’s just the two of them and their cats. I don’t ask where her son’s dad is, and she doesn’t volunteer the information. Instead, we cling to companionship the only way we know how – with a little desperation and a lot of booze.

“I’m fine. I told you.”

“Did you go see your Mom today?”

I nod. Before moving in, I made my regular visit to the cemetery. Nothing there ever changes. It’s both a relief and a constant reminder. Even my grandmother stopped going a while ago, but I can’t. I can’t just not go.

“You don’t have to say it,” I tell Sandee. “I know she’s not there.”

At one point, during my father’s trial, when I refused to take his side on the stand, he nearly kicked me across the lawyer’s office.
“Your mother was a fucking junkie, and you meant shit to her. Asking to go up there every weekend, leaving flowers on her grave? You’re wasting your time. She’s dead and good riddance to her. There’s nothing in that grave because, even if there is a soul, that bitch didn’t have one.”
The lawyers later came to work out guardianship one afternoon when I was home and shook their heads when they saw me. Was it guilt they felt? Irritation? Something else? I don’t know, but fuck them. That’s what I know now.

“You do what you need to do. She’s there if you want her to be there.”

“You know, they spelled her fucking name wrong. Right there on the tombstone. E-V-E-L-Y-N. It was Eveline, with an I-N-E. And no one bothered to fix it. I remember being led to a plastic folding chair out on the cemetery lawn, the gaping hole my last physical memory of my mother, and looking up. That fucking Y. By the time we noticed, it was done and they said it would cost us several hundred dollars to change it. Like it was our fault.”

“Shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It doesn’t matter. They couldn’t really change it, even if they’d put up a new one. They did it and you can’t fix something that deeply ingrained, can you? It’s been dug in too far. That Y is not going anywhere, no matter if I cry, punch something, or just give up.”

“Things can always be fixed.” Sandee’s a regular source of inspiration, but her optimism wears me down right now. I don’t get how some things can be fixed.

Whenever I think of my family, either then or now, all I feel is rage. Rage at my mother for turning out like she did, rage at my father for his actions, rage at the way the world shits on your dreams, and rage sometimes at myself. For existing.

“Hey, can I get some chicken strips? And honey mustard. None of that fake ass barbecue crap.”

Sandee shakes her head, realizing I’m shutting down the serious, and goes to the kitchen to place the order. I don’t know why she doesn’t yell it. There’s almost no one left and the few who are are in the process of leaving. Still, the moment of solitude has a beautiful sting to it.

I’m not even hungry anymore; I just ordered something to change the subject. When Sandee comes back ten minutes later with my order, having left me alone to brood or whatever it is she imagines I do, I don’t want to look at the chicken strips. But the look on her face tells me that she’ll be devastated if I don’t, as if these undercooked slabs of meat will heal me in all my broken places. I know it’s the mother in her, but that phrase remains alien to me. However, I force myself to eat the chicken.

“I was thinking. That girl, Alana. Do you talk to her about these things?” Sandee asks.

I think of Alana. Beautiful Alana. Alabaster skin, dark hair, eyes that could destroy you. It’s been nearly six years since I met her and I still can’t believe how beautiful she is. We had our fun, our requisite, fumbling high school relationship, but it didn’t work.

Alana looks like a doll and, inside, she’s like a doll. Hollow. I don’t mean shallow or vapid. The girl is brilliant and could challenge me academically. However, I’ve known her long enough, and known her in every single way, that I also know that her eyes go dead after she has sex, even though it’s only for a split second. It’s a deadness I recognize and it terrifies me. Sometimes I think she’s reflecting my own eyes back to me.

I shake my head and focus on Sandee. “We talk.”

“Do you
talk
talk?”

“What kind of question is that? Yes, we talk. We talk about all kinds of things.”

Like how Alana was eleven when her father started to touch her. Like how when she fucks, she’s an animal, because she can’t stop seeing his face. Like how she knows I know and yet she continues to sleep with me, because neither of us thinks we belong with anyone else.

“Maybe she would be good for you.”

“We don’t date,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Well, she dated my friend, Dave. And I would rather see them work than see us fail.”

“You don’t know you would fail.”

“I do. Besides, she only comes to visit to get laid.”

“She comes to visit because she loves you. As much as you love her.”

I eat the chicken faster, because if my mouth is full, I can ignore what Sandee said. She’s right. I know how Alana feels, but I can’t give her anything of myself. I hate myself when I’m with her for everything she knows about me. There’s too much history between us. For some people, that makes a relationship, but when you’re people like me and Alana, it destroys it.

Sandee is also correct that I love Alana. I just don’t love her in the way she still hopes I will. Thinking about it only depresses me, though. Because now I feel undeserving of both Sandee and Alana.

“You know, Sandee, you really suck at cheering people up.”

She looks sad for a second and I regret teasing her. What was I thinking? She’s been through as much as I have, if not more, and here I am acting like I have the right to claim misery for myself.

“Well, then, finish your chicken and get the fuck out.”

Is our friendship normal? No. I doubt it. But she knows how to make me feel. Feeling is good, as long as it’s in small doses, and in safe places, like here - with Sandee, the truckers, my chicken, and the whiskey-soaked dregs of my coffee.

Chapter 2

Day one of school and I forgot to set the alarm. Sandee was kind enough to bring me my own bottle of whiskey, which I finished immediately upon returning to the dorm. And now, with a headache and a hangover, I run to my first class, managing somehow to get there just as the professor shuts the door.

“I do not tolerate tardiness,” he says and makes a point to look directly at me. What the fuck? I was here before he shut the door. “And you will earn every last decimal of your grade. Do not come to me at midterm with a sad story about your alcoholic father and your poor abused mom and tell me that
they
are the reason
you
could not write a paper on digital design. Because I do not care for your stories, as you do not care about mine.”

Part of me hates him, but another part of me respects him for being honest. I know how many kids do exactly what he said – cry to their professors at midterm and end of term, even though they wrote no papers and attended no classes. The worst part is that the professors always say yes.
Always
. Then the assholes go back to the dorm and brag to their friends about how they pretended daddy was a drunk. And two weeks later, drunk old dad shows up in his Lexus and the family rides off into the sunset, both assholes still ignorant as fuck. Meanwhile, I actually do earn every last decimal as this professor – I look down – Dr. Ahorn has suggested we do. I can’t afford a school like this, but all that math homework in high school got me near perfect SATs, which then got me a nice scholarship package. It’s just too bad this school is overrun by douche satchels.

I don’t pay attention to class today – any of them. I can read. For some reason, we waste a day each semester reviewing everything in the syllabus. What I don’t understand is why a prestigious college would use a day of learning – which equals approximately $443.75 – to ensure that we can read a piece of paper. Sometimes two pieces. Ideally, every single student here has the basic reading skills to do just that. But no, we read the paper. Four times for me today.

Sometimes, I wonder why I came here. I hate almost all of them. Living on campus can be really tough. There was the option of commuting, although it wasn’t an easy drive, but I’d done almost the same commute working at the café. My grandmother makes the same commute every weekend for the prison. So it could have been done. But the scholarship came with a dorm room and it was a change of scenery. It isn’t far enough, but it was something. Finishing here will mean opportunity – a chance to get farther away. I just wonder if there is anywhere far enough.

I need to get off campus, but when I get out of classes, I have a text from Alana. She wants to come see me. I sigh. I can’t say no. With Dave overseas in the military, I’m all she’s got. She’s still stuck at home, fortunately with just her mom now, while she takes a few classes at the community college at night. I don’t know where her dad went, she doesn’t tell me, and neither of us cares.

I know Alana. Wanting to come see me means she sent the text when she was halfway here. There’s no way to stop her when she wants to visit. I text her back that I’m looking forward to seeing her and hit the shower.

She’s quick, which means she drove way too fast. I’ve barely made it out of the shower before she’s at my door. I almost lecture her, but I can’t speak as she starts pulling my clothes off, her hands moving faster over my body than my brain can process. I don’t even know if she shut the door, but it’s closed, so I guess she must have.

She has my shirt off and moves to my belt, and then to my pants. I should stop her. I should tell her she’s better than this, but she’s hungry and my cock is not listening to anything. Every time I touch Alana, I feel a hint of guilt, but then she gets ahold of my cock. Broken or not, caring or not, a beautiful woman’s mouth wrapped over my shaft is not something I can say no to.

Alana’s lips envelop me and Christ, she is amazing. I don’t even know how I stay standing. Her fingers tease me behind my balls and I feel like I’m going to come almost instantly. Her tongue swirls around the tip of my cock and when she slides it under the head, I lose it. I grab her head and push her against me, my cock all the way down her throat. I come and she swallows, continuing to move her head slowly along the length of me while the shivers subside. When I’m coherent again, I unclench my hands in her hair and she looks up at me. She runs her tongue along her stunning lips and smiles.

“I missed you,” she says.

“You missed fucking.”

She stands up. “That, too.”

Alana’s body is amazing. There are tiny white scars reaching across her thighs from something that happened to her when she was a kid, but she’s never told me what caused them. If I touch them, she shuts down, so I’ve learned not to touch them.

Now, she undresses, and my cock stirs again at the sight of her. Her tits are my favorite part of her. I reach out and caress them. After she steps out of her jeans, she grabs one of my hands and slips it between her legs. The wet heat of her pussy is all it takes to make me rock hard.

“How?” I ask her.

Alana always dictates how things go, the position we use, and how long it lasts. She needs to be in control of something. We tried switching roles a few times, but she can’t be submissive and I can’t argue with her.

“Just real. Nothing kinky. I just want to be with you. We haven’t been together lately. You were so busy with packing and everything.” She pouts and I hate myself a little bit more. I should break this off with her. It isn’t fair and I know she doesn’t think she deserves more, but she does. Yet all of my logic and emotion disappear when she pushes my fingers further into her cunt. “Touch me, Jack.”

I do as she asks, bringing her body to the edge before sinking to my knees in front of her. The smell of her, the taste of her – so familiar. I slide my tongue inside of her pussy. Her fingernails dig into my scalp and I tease her clit while she pushes herself against my face. I need more than this, though, so as she starts to crest, I move away, knowing what will come next and how needy she will be.