I sink onto the swing and watch him walk away, and I know I should feel relief because I let go of this burden and forgave, but all I feel is empty. I watch him walk up the steps and onto the porch. Gloria stumbles over to him, obviously drunk. He plucks the drink out of her hand, downs it, and then tosses the cup. She starts to protest, but he wraps his arms around her and kisses her.
I can’t breathe.
I know that kiss. I know the way it consumes you, makes you feel like the only thing he’ll ever need, like you’re more than air, more than human, more than you’ve ever been before. It makes my toes curl in my damp boots and my breath catch. I don’t blame her for raising her arms and sliding a small hand behind his neck after a minute, holding onto him while his big hands circle her little waist, making her feel small and protected. I don’t blame her for what happens next.
My chest caves in slowly, but I hardly feel it. Tears blur my eyes, but I don’t look away. Not even when he draws away, takes her hand, and pulls her toward the door, and they disappear inside the house together.
I tell myself what I’ve been telling myself all summer.
I can’t break more than I’m already broken.
forty-two
Harper Apple
I don’t know how long I sit there. I don’t hear the party inside, the voices, the chime when a few notifications go off on my phone, or the steady thrum of the rain. I don’t see the big house with the manicured bushes along the back, below the screened porch. I don’t smell the rain and the dirt, wet asphalt and leaves. And I don’t feel anything.
The next thing I notice is someone walking across the grass toward me, his silhouette cast by the lights in the house behind him. He’s big, but I know it’s not Royal. I know the way Royal moves, the deliberate way he places his feet.
Even when he gets closer, I don’t look at him. I don’t care who it is. It doesn’t matter.
He pulls a crumpled plastic poncho from his pocket and lays it at the base of the tree and sits. I see the light glint off his glasses, but I’m not scared.
“Rylan’s gone apeshit because he can’t find Gloria,” Baron says, his voice totally devoid of concern, like he’s just making conversation.
“You think he’ll hurt Royal?” I ask.
“If I thought he’d hurt Royal, I wouldn’t be out here.”
I nod. We sit in silence for a minute, and the sounds fill in around us. I notice that my hair is soaked, that I can feel cold water running down my scalp and into the neck of my jacket.
“How’d you know I was out here?”
“I always know where you are,” he says. “Call me Stalker Boy.”
“I thought you were Evil Genius Boy, or Drug Chemist Boy, or Psycho Boy.”
“I wear many hats.”
A cheer goes up from in the house, and some guys start whooping and hollering. They’re probably doing keg stands or taking body shots. I don’t care.
“Butwhyare you out here?” I ask Baron.
“Don’t worry, I’ll sit with Royal and his regret when he’s done fucking Gloria,” he says. “Right now, you’re more interesting.”
“How do you know he’ll regret it?”
“The same way I know you’re sitting here regretting whatever just went down that sent him back to her,” Baron says. He shifts against the tree to dig something out of his pocket, and in some detached way, I hope it’s a joint. It’s just one of his fucking suckers, though. He starts unwrapping it, the crinkling plastic noises adding to the dripping rain and the party sounds inside.
I push my toes against the soggy earth, making the swing move in tiny circles. I picture little boy Gideon out on this swing with the wooden seat that’s soaked my ass and the long ropes rising to the branches high above, hidden in the dense foliage.
“I’m not sure regret it the right word,” I say.
Baron pauses with his sucker halfway to his mouth and cocks his head to one side. In my mind, his face blurs with his father’s. “Are you crying?”
I wipe my cheek, but my fingers were already wet. “I don’t know. It’s raining.”
Baron puts his sucker in, leans his head back against the tree trunk, and looks up into the black cloud of leaves. “I wonder that, too, sometimes. Like, how do you know if you’re really feeling the right thing, or if your brain has just told you that’s the right thing to feel, so you think you’re feeling it?”