"Abby? You dead?" A voice asked, casting a shadow over me, bringing me out of my daydream and back into the present. I kept my eyes closed.
"Yes,” I said. “I'm dead." I might as well have been.
"Well, you look awfully cute for a dead girl."
“Thanks, Owen.” I sat up, shading my eyes with my hands. The afternoon sun peaked around Owen, framing him in a full-body halo.
"What’re you doing down there?" Owen asked.
"Nothing that matters,” I answered. “What are you doing here?"
Owen stared down at me with the same grin he always had plastered on his face. I swear his cheeks must hurt at the end of the day. "Uncle Cole called and asked if I could come give you a hand with your…" He looked over to the tarp. “Crap?”
"Owen, I would love for you to help me. There’s a huge problem, though, one your kind uncle didn’t think much of before carrying out the eviction.” I was starting to shout. Owen didn't deserve my wrath, but I couldn't help what was coming out.
"And what problem is that?"
“I don’t have anywhere to take it!” I threw my arms up in defeat before hanging my head between my knees.
Owen sat down next to me. "Well," he said, lighting a cigarette, "as I see it you have two options." He took a drag and turned his head to the side to blow the smoke away from me.
"And what might those be?” I asked, talking from between my knees.
"You could either sit around here and have a first class pity party for yourself or you could come and have some drinks tonight at the woods party with me and think about all this—” he motioned to the tarp and the boards on the windows “—tomorrow. Seems like you got it all waterproofed and whatnot, so what's one night? Besides, you look like you could use a little time to forget.”
“That’s probably not the best idea, Owen.” It was an awful idea, actually. I hadn’t avoided being social my entire life for the fun of it, or because I thought I didn’t belong. I avoided them because I knew I didn’t belong. Not only in the town, not only with the kids from my high school.
I didn’t belong anywhere.
“Well, what else you gonna do? Stare at this shit all night until it magically does something different other than be a pile of shit?”
Would it be so bad to pretend for one night I wasn’t the punch line in some universal joke being told at my expense?
“Fine,” I said, giving in. I could think about all this later. I mean, what were my other options anyway?
Did I even have any?
"Well come on, then!" Owen looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he hustled over to his truck and opened the passenger door for me. I stood and brushed the grass from my legs. This time, Owen didn’t offer to help me up. He knew I could do it on my own. And he wasn’t looking for an excuse to touch me, which made me feel better about hanging out with him.
I’d use the night out the same way I’d been using Nan’s scotch, as a way to forget, a way to slip into a state of numbness, even if it was just for a little while.
Maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad after all?
***
Smoke rose from the fire in the center of the clearing, hissing like snakes being charmed. It crackled and popped, growing larger and reaching further into the night sky. A shorter boy wearing a white cowboy hat stood just outside the flames, feeding it dried brush and branches. Trucks of all makes and models formed a wagon-wheel, parked with their tailgates facing inward toward the fire. One of the larger trucks held a keg and a huge bag of red Solo cups, while another had all its windows down and was blaring country music from one of the local stations. Groups of girls or couples with their arms around one another occupied most of the tailgates. A group of guys gathered by the keg, talking loudly about truck tires and challenging each other to a game of ‘who can drink more’.
Why on earth did I agree to come here? I thought. I tugged on the long sleeves of my hoodie, pulling them over my wrists. It was a nervous habit. Owen must have been reading my mind, because he stepped away from his man-groupies by the keg and came over to where I sat on the open tailgate of his truck.
“You look like you could use a beer,” he said, offering me a cup.
I took it from him and downed most of it in one gulp.
I was going to need much, much more.
“Thanks,” I said. I gave him my best fake smile. Careful not to spill his own beer, Owen hopped up onto the tailgate in one fluid motion, taking a seat next to me. “You don’t have to be afraid of these folks, you know. Most of them you’ve gone to school with for a long time.” He tried to playfully nudge me with his elbow, but I dodged the contact.
I looked around the fire at the people I had known for years, but really didn’t know at all. Each time I made eye contact with a new person it was met with sneers and whispers.
I held my empty cup out to Owen. “Maybe, I’m just not a group person,” I offered. Or maybe I had nothing in common with these people besides a zip code—although considering I’d just become homeless, I was without a zip code, too. Technically, we didn’t share shit anymore.
I needed more beer.
Being drunk was the only way I wasn’t going to scratch the skin off my face from being so damned uncomfortable, surrounded by all of them. Owen happily obliged and kept the beer flowing all night.
A few hours later and too many beers to count, couples started pairing off and disappearing into the woods. Trucks, which just hours ago brought in fresh-faced kids ready to party, now left with the disheveled remnants of those same kids. Limp, passed-out bodies tangled together in the cabs and beds.
There were only a few handfuls of party-goers left. I sat on a log swaying to the music being played on a guitar by a younger kid named Will. I’d spent the last couple hours listening to him play while trying to stump him with my requests. Whether I asked him to play Garth Brooks or Offspring, he just laughed and started playing. I think he was as amused as I was.
Owen came over to me frequently, keeping my beer cup full. But, he spent most of his time chatting with his friends on the other side of the fire. None of them had bothered to say a word to me, but every so often, I would catch Owen staring at me through the flames.
When I felt the space on the log next to me shift, I assumed Owen had come back and brought me round number…I lost count. “Thanks,” I said, reaching out to take my cup from him without taking my eyes off Will. He was on the second chorus of “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. The kid should’ve tried out for one of those TV talent shows.
“You’re welcome.” The voice wasn’t Owen’s. A shiver of recognition crept up my spine. When I turned around, I came face to face with the beautiful blue-eyed psychopath from the junkyard.
Had I just thought of him as being beautiful?
Yep.
Jake was still dressed in head-to-toe black, in a tight t-shirt and jeans. He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket. His tattoos seemed to glisten under the light of the moon. As opposed to the moment when he was threatening my life, he looked much more relaxed this time around. Maybe, it was an illusion resulting from the firelight casting shadows on his face. No, it wasn’t the fire, I realized.
He really was beautiful.
He pushed his hair behind his ears and ran a hand down his goatee. “Hi, Abby,” he said, like we were old friends.
What was I supposed to say to this guy? He’d caught me sleeping in his dad’s junkyard. He’d held a gun to my head. Hey how ‘bout dem Jets, didn’t exactly feel like the way to start the conversation either.
My stomach flip-flopped as if I were falling.
I straightened my shoulders and pushed away the thoughts I was having about his looks and the circumstances under which we met. “You packing tonight?” I asked him. I turned back around and pretended to focus my attentions back on Will, who was just starting on the first notes of Colt Ford’s, “Riding Through The Country”.
Then, I hiccupped.
I felt the redness of my embarrassment creeping up my cheeks. I couldn’t look back at him. I could hear him laughing, and not just a giggle, but very full, very deep laughter. He slid in closer, his lips a breath away from my ear when he whispered, “I’m always packing, Bee.” His tone turned very serious. The way he’d said my name caused the hairs on my neck to stand at attention.
Did he just call me Bee?
“Jake! You made it!” A girl wearing tight jeans and a scrap of a tank top ran up to Jake and threw herself into his lap.
“Alissa,” he said sternly, “I’m talking with Abby. Go wait with Jessica ‘til I’m done.” He wasn’t angry, but his tone was firm. He made it clear that he was having a conversation with me, and the bimbo wasn’t invited.
Alissa looked me up and down and with disapproving eyes. She scrunched up her nose. “Why are you wasting your time with her, Jake? She ain’t nothin’ but a freak ‘round here. Did you know that no one has ever seen her wear nothin’ but sweatshirts and long sleeves—even on them hotter than hell days?” She glared at me, and I glared back. “Yeah, she’s hiding something under there all right. It might be a hump or something. Stacey says she hides pregnancies and sells the babies on eBay. Personally, I think maybe she’s got scales or something under there. Or something even more hideous.”