Ever: The Ever Trilogy, Book One (Volume 1) (10 page)

Before I could even make it to the living room, Frankie stepped in front of me, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Don’t go over there, Doll.”

“What? Why?”

“That guy’s not good for you, Ever.”

“Oh god, not you too.
Why
? Because he’s older than me? He’s just a guy, Frankie. Just a guy who lives next door. Just a guy who took me out on two dates.
Two
!”

“Two? But I thought you—” He paused, and then shook his head as if shaking away confusion.

Ugh.
He had only known about one of the dates. I closed my eyes.
Too late now.

”Never mind. Look. This isn’t about his age, Ever. It’s more than that. Just don’t go over there. Please.”

He sounded strange. I knew he was holding something back from me which
should
have caused me to pause, caused me to question him. I
should
have talked to him like friends do, asked him what’s wrong, but I couldn’t get a grip on all the commotion in my head. I felt pathetic and silly after being dropped by Toby. Especially after only two dates. How could he even decide he didn’t like me in such a short time? I didn’t even understand.

Jessie had just totally yelled at me, which upset me
way
more than it should have, but now I was frustrated and angry and felt like everything was coming to a head.

Frankie’s attempt to stop me from seeing Toby … well, it just set me off. I glared at his big, translucent eyes boring into mine, and realized my hidden feelings for him were at a boiling point. I was mad. At him, at Jessie, at Toby … and I was hurt.

Instead of telling Frankie the truth, that I had absolutely
no
intention of seeing Toby again anyway, or that I’d rather spend every day of the rest of my life here, in this house, with
him
, I fed a little fuel to the fire. Damn my stubborn streak.

“Why, Frankie? Tell me
why
. Or I’m going over there. Right now.” I squared my shoulders, puffed up my chest, and crossed my arms, trying to give my best stubborn look while threatening him with my new neighbor. I’m sure I just managed to look like an angry toddler instead, but I was too annoyed to care.

Frankie’s mouth opened, and I could tell he was about to say something. He stopped himself, his mouth shutting defiantly. I watched him, with my heart pounding in my ears, as a few different emotions crossed over his face. First pain—my heart pinched. Then … confusion, maybe … and then outright indignation settled tightly over his features. I saw that one plain as day. He could be as stubborn as me when he set his mind to it.

Well, we’d learned well from each other, and two could play that game.

I rolled my eyes, purposely dramatic. He was exasperating.

“Exactly. You’ve got nothing. Now, get out of my way, Frankie, and stay out of my life. I can see whomever I choose.”

I stomped past him, surprised at my rotten attitude toward him and the terrible words that had just flown from my mouth, but I was too far gone to rectify it.

“Wow. He hasn’t called you in four days, Ever. I just didn’t know you were so”—he added a long pause, just to drive it home—”
pathetic
.”

I stopped, inhaling quickly. The last word lingered in the air between us. It felt like he had just stabbed me in the back. He’d deliberately sounded out each syllable.
Pa-the-tic.
Coming from him, I couldn’t imagine anything else hurting me worse. I slowly turned around to face him, my eyes already filling up with tears, but he was gone. The fire inside me fizzled out instantaneously, quickly replaced with sorrow, and I no longer cared to antagonize Frankie, argue with Jessie, or ponder the why’s and what if’s surrounding Toby.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I headed to my room, silently crying, and shut the door, content to cry and pout privately. It took Jessie almost an hour to realize I wasn’t next door hanging out with Toby. Before long, I heard a knock on my door. I didn’t respond, so she stuck in her head.

“Aw, Ever, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have made you go over there. What did Toby say? You want me to go kick his ass?”

Though the thought of my sparkly best friend defending my honor had my lips trying to curl up into a smile, I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to tell her Frankie made me cry.

“I’m really sorry, Ev. Boys are
so
stupid. You know that.”

“Really?” I looked up at her from my tear-streaked pillow, unable to keep the snark out of my voice. “You don’t seem to think so.”

She sat down next to me on the bed and smoothed my hair. “Only because I know how silly they are, Ever. I’m never serious about them. That’s what’s different about you and me. I know you aren’t like that, and I shouldn’t have ignored how hurt you’ve been this week. I’m sorry I made you go over there. Geez, Ev, I’m sorry I even pushed you to go out with Toby in the first place. I shouldn’t have. I just … well, you’re feelings for Fr—”

“It’s not something Toby said. I never went next door.”

“Oh. What? Why are you so sad then? Oh, is it me? I’m sorry; you know I was just giving you a hard time. I’m not really mad at you. I just want to have fun with my best friend, and you’ve been in such a funk lately.”

“No Jess, it’s not you,” I said, wishing I didn’t have to clarify the real reason I’d been crying.

“It’s me.”

We both turned quickly to the doorway, startled by Frankie’s voice.

“Oh shoot, Frankie, you can’t be in here! Shoo! Shoo!” She jumped up and made little shooing motions with her hands, trying to get him to head back out the door, but Frankie just stared intently at me as if Jessie wasn’t even in the room with us.

“It’s okay, Jess. Can you give us a minute?”

Jessie looked from me to Frankie and back again, pausing briefly each time, trying to make sense of the obviously tense situation between us, before finally deciding she might as well leave.

“Mhmm,” she said with a suspicious tone in her voice. “Well, it’s getting late, and I’m supposed to have dinner with Susan tonight anyway, so I’ll leave the two of you kids alone.” She turned back to me, pointing an accusatory finger in my face and whispered, “
You
better call me later. We have to talk.”

With that she was out the door, dialing her cell phone as she made her way down the hall. Frankie held my stare, and we remained locked in silence while we listened to Jessie confirm her dinner plans with an obviously inebriated Susan, gather her things from the backyard, and then leave through the side gate. At the click of the gate popping back into place, I exhaled loudly, as if I’d been holding my breath since she’d left my bedroom.

“Can I come in?”

“Oh, you
ask
now, do you? Well, in that case,
no
. I don’t want you to come in. You can stay right where you are.”

I turned and lay down on the bed, my nose against the wall and my back toward Frankie. When he spoke next, he was right behind me, and I turned to see him sitting on my bed.

I tried to give him my best scowl.

“Oh, Doll, don’t be mad at me. There’s stuff I can’t tell you, and things I can’t talk to you about. But you have to believe me when I say that Toby isn’t good for you.”

“Seriously, Frankie? This is what you want to talk to me about? Here I was thinking you wanted to apologize for what you said earlier, but you just want to talk more about the neighbor! Big deal, Frankie! We went on
two
dates! And he hasn’t even called!”

My voice faltered as I admitted to Frankie that I hadn’t heard from Toby. Somehow, admitting to Frankie that I was a loser made it all the more real. My tears resumed their annoying flow from my eyes.

When I’d finally put myself out there, when I’d finally
tried
to get over my feelings for Frankie and had
some
semblance of a normal life, I ended up getting burned and crying to him. Look what moving on got me: a broken heart and embarrassment so thick I could almost taste it. I liked Toby. I really did. On top of that disappointment, my feelings for Frankie had become so convoluted, I had absolutely no idea which end was up. Half the time, I wanted to scream at him and drive him away, and the other time, I wanted to profess my love for him and run into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Doll. I wish I could explain. And I am sorry for hurting you. I
never
want to hurt you. And I’m sorry he hurt you too, Ev. Really I am, but … it’s for the best. You have to stay away from him.”

“Leave me alone, Frankie. Go tell my parents not to worry about how old Toby is. I can’t imagine I’ll be seeing him again anyway. He’s obviously not interested.”

“Oh, I doubt tha—”

“Just
go
, Frankie. Please.”

I grabbed my headphones and reached to turn on the computer. Once it was booted up, I clicked on Pandora, which was programmed to an old Jewel song list my mom had created in my account long ago. I left the poor-me station on, and as Jewel crooned about loneliness, followed by Sarah McLachlan singing that depressing animal shelter theme song, their sadness seemed perfectly fitting for my mood. I turned the volume up as loud as I could stand, and I didn’t wait to see Frankie leave. Curled on my side with my nose pressed to the wall, tears streamed silently down my cheeks until I feared my tear ducts would dry up for good. That honestly wouldn’t have been a bad thing.

I fell asleep listening to various women sing about broken hearts and shattered dreams, pondering how a person could go from no love life at all, to one as messed up as mine in just a matter of days. And yet, it could still easily be classified as not even being a love life in the first place.

Frankie is right. I
am
pathetic.

My room was dark when I woke up, and judging by the time, I’d been sleeping for about five hours. It was just after eight in the evening.

I turned around to an empty room and took off my headphones, stretching after my ridiculously long nap to a chorus of growls coming from my stomach. I had slept right through dinner. Frankie must have told my mom I was upset because she hadn’t tried to rouse me to eat. I looked over to my desk, to a note from my mom propped up against a plate of food. I glanced down at Gollum who’d been such a good boy—guarding the food for me while I slept. I patted him on the head.

“Good boy.”

The note informed me that my mom and dad were out with the Robinsons, which meant that our neighborhood gossip—and my mom’s best friend—Sharon, would get to hear all about my dates with the new boy next door, including his age. Maybe my mom would follow that shocker up with the fact that not only was he too old for her precious daughter, but he’d also totally burned her.

Super.

I knew I shouldn’t be assuming that a group of adults had nothing better to do than sit around talking about me. I also knew better than to assume that my mom would discuss my private life behind my back. But hey, when you’re having as good of a pity party as I was having, you just go with it.

Dinner was a turkey, lettuce, and tomato sandwich and some wavy Lay’s potato chips. The sight of them triggered another rumble from my stomach. I moved to my desk and switched off Pandora—which had long been silent waiting for me to respond to the question of “Are you still listening?” I opened up Gmail to check if I’d missed anything life-altering. Just a few spam emails and a sale at my favorite online clothing store. I spent a few minutes absently browsing the spring clearance items and digging into my sandwich.

Halfway through inhaling my dinner, hungrier than I’d even realized, I heard a light rapping noise at my window. I looked up, startled to find Toby looking in at me. I felt both elation and anger. I swallowed my last bite hard, and it went down in an un-chewed lump. Luckily I’d been chewing the sandwich and not the chips, or I would have choked to death in front of him. I got up quickly and ran to my bathroom to check my teeth for any remaining chunks of sandwich. Nothing like a little piece of lettuce in your teeth to really turn a guy’s head. My hair was a matted black mess, and I looked like I had just woken up, which was probably because I had, but there wasn’t any time to fix it. I told myself I was going with a sexy tousled look.
Yeah right.
The puffy bags around my eyes were a clear indication that I’d cried myself out earlier.
Awesome.
Nothing sexy about that.

When I returned to my room, Toby had a confused look on his face, probably wondering why I had run away from him so strangely in the first place. I quickly shut my bedroom door, wishing I had a lock on it, and headed to open the window. Toby stepped back a bit, smiling at me expectantly, and his previous look of confusion was replaced with a look of satisfaction as his eyes roamed over me. I realized I was still in my black and white polka-dot bikini—with only my black crocheted cover-up on over it.

A very thin, very see-through cover-up.

Ha. Screw it.
Still feeling angry and hurt, I decided I didn’t mind. Let him see what he was missing. Again, I was stricken with a brazen confidence that was so unlike me. Or was it? I was beginning to wonder.

He had more of my favorite flowers in his hand, which this time wasn’t strange since I’d since confirmed that anemones were indeed my favorite. The sight of the black and white flowers made those blissful butterflies return to my stomach—butterflies that clearly ignored the anger my mind was telling me to feel, going instead with the rhythm of my excited heart.
Stupid, stupid butterflies.

I opened the window, and he started quickly apologizing for his absence the last few days. My defenses instantly melted away; damn them. Smiling from ear to ear, I quickly put a finger to my lips to stop him and then turned on my television, attempting to hopefully muffle the sound of our conversation. I didn’t want my parents to hear me talking if they came home early. I also wanted to avoid attracting a certain other member of the household.

With a little help from Toby, I popped the screen off the window as quietly as I could then climbed down onto the grass. Before I was even all the way out the window, he’d dropped the flowers and his arms were around me, helping me down. Once on the ground, he didn’t let go of me, and I felt the heat of his fingers on my back, one hand below the other, splaying openly as if to feel my entire back at the same time. I felt my own body heating up in response to those strong hands, regardless of my better judgment.