Page 5 of Something Good
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s at least get some ice cream.” Jimmy and I shoved our way through the throngs of teenagers, eventually falling into line at the ordering window. Thankfully, I’d gotten paid today, so at least I could cover a couple of shakes for us. Mom hadn’t been home for the better part of a week and groceries were low, so our choices for dinner had been generic microwave mac and cheese or Ramen. Needless to say, I was still hungry.
We made our purchases and then fought our way through the crowd around to the picnic tables on the patio in the back, trying to find a spot to sit. In a town the size of Astaire, there were only so many things to do on a Friday night in the summer. Cruise down Main Street, party at the lake, or hang at Sherry’s Soft-Serv, a local ice cream and burger joint in the center of town. Itwas one of those old-school drive-in places with spots for cars to pull up and order over a speaker. Roller-skating servers brought orders on trays that could sit on your car window. There wasn’t any indoor eating space, but there were a couple of walk-up windows and a patio area with picnic tables.
A few years back, the owners had added a second patio out back so the crowds of teenagers who flocked there on Friday and Saturday nights had a place to hang that wouldn’t deter other customers from placing orders up front. It hadn’t really worked, as now the frontandback were overrun with teenagers.
There really wasn’t a place to sit, so we found a spot to stand in the back against the wooden fence behind the property. Kids all around us stood in clusters or sat on top of tables laughing, flirting, and passing judgment on everyone around them.
It was everything I’d loathed about high school. I didn’t give a shit about who was dating who, who got drunk and puked all over their daddy’s brand-new car, or who’d gotten busted for weed and was now grounded for the rest of the summer.
None of that mattered to a kid like me who couldn’t even afford name-brand mac and cheese and wore clothes from Walmart and thrift stores. My mom bounced from asshole boyfriend to asshole boyfriend, spent most of her time drunk or high, and often went days without even coming home. My father had left us three days after Jimmy was born, and since then, the three of us had lived in an eight-hundred-and-fifty-square-foot two-bedroom rental house with a leaky roof and a cracked foundation. I couldn’t be bothered to give a flying fuck who was wearing the latest Jordans or who’d banged Ashley Summerville. Again.
But Jimmy had really wanted to come tonight. His freshman year had been rough. His anxiety made it difficult for him to make friends, so he’d spent a lot of the year at home studying when he wasn’t at school. I knew there were maybe one or twokids he talked to occasionally, but I’d never met them. Still, he was determined to have a normal high school experience, and even though our life was anything but normal, and though that didn’t mean shit to me, I wanted it for him.
I surreptitiously watched him as his eyes roved over the crowd moving around us. I caught him tracking the movements of a group of girls huddled around a table near us. One of the girls tossed her hair and laughed at something her friend was saying, and I could practically see the longing on Jimmy’s face as he watched them.
I was just going to ask him about those girls when movement beyond their table caught my eye. Like a camera switching focus from foreground to background, the group of girls blurred and my attention became solely focused on the guy walking behind them. He had dark hair and light skin with just a dusting of freckles, and though I couldn’t see their color from here, I knew his eyes were blue.
Will approached another table, all smiles as he greeted Jason Whitt and a bunch of other dude-bro types. Jason said something, and Will threw his head back and laughed, a whisper of the sound floating through the crowd among all the other noise. My stomach clenched at the sight of him. He was so damn perfect. The golden boy in the preppy clothes with a smile that could light up the entire town. Lust coiled uncomfortably in my gut. Dammit. I didn’t want to want him. Not Will. He wasn’t for me.
“Wasn’t he your friend in elementary school?” Jimmy asked. It hadn’t occurred to me that Jimmy would remember or recognize him since he’d only just finished second grade when Will had moved.
“Uh, yeah, kinda,” I hedged, not wanting to give away too much.
“Not ‘kinda.’ I remember him. You guys were always together. He was nice to me.”
Willhadbeen nice to Jimmy, always letting him tag along when Mom had been on another bender and I’d had no choice but to bring Jimmy with me. But that was a long time ago, and people change. I was a skater punk with an attitude, and Will was the golden boy with the perfect life. We had nothing in common. There weren’t any threads of that friendship left. He’d made sure of it when he hadn’t written back.
“That was a long time ago. I heard he just moved back last week, and I’m sure he’ll probably be gone at the end of summer.”
“Have you talked to him since he came back?”
I thought about the day I’d run into him at the boulder in the woods. Over the years, I’d convinced myself it wasn’t a big deal that he hadn’t written me, that I was over something that had happened when we were eleven. But when confronted with the reality of him once again, I’d taken one look at his preppy clothes, at the way they showed off his athletic build, with his perfectly styled hair and sun-kissed skin, and I’d been filled with anger.
I’d spent the last seven years scraping out an existence in this shitty town, and he’d left me behind without a backward glance. He’d sent me one letter. One. And I’d never heard from him again. Yet he’d had the nerve to look hurt when I’d told him he was dead to me. He was the one who hadn’t responded to my letter, effectively cutting himself out of my life. What was I supposed to do? Pine for him? For a friendship he’d walked away from? What a bunch of bullshit.
“No, I haven’t spoken to him,” I said, more bite in my tone than I intended. Jimmy didn’t seem to notice.
“You should talk to him. You guys were such good?—”
“Drop it, Jimmy.”
“But—”
“I said, drop it,” I snapped. I felt bad for being a dick to him, but sometimes that was the only way to get through to him when he’d latched on to something.
We stood in silence for a while, sipping our milkshakes and watching the crowd move around us. God, this wassonot my scene.
I wanted desperately to leave, to just flee and head over to Joey’s, where I knew a party was going down, but I couldn’t leave Jimmy, so I stayed rooted to the spot.
Damn, my stupid conscience.
I tried to ignore Will. Tried to look literally anywhere else, but my eyes were drawn to him against my will. To the way his tee fit over his broad chest. To the sliver of skin at his waist when he stretched his arms. To the curve of his tight ass in those preppy shorts.
When Jimmy didn’t return from throwing away his shake, I diverted my attention from Will to look for him. I spotted him a little way away, sitting at another table with a couple of kids who looked to be his age. They were dressed in that same awkward way Jimmy dressed, like they were trying to be preppy but didn’t have the funds to buy name brands or the eye to put together an outfit that made sense.
The girl on Jimmy’s right was talking animatedly about something. Her glasses kept slipping down her nose in her excitement. Jimmy and the boy on his other side were leaning in, listening to her every word, smiling at whatever she was saying. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him and it gave me a pang to see.
Feeling like my job here was done, I shot him a text letting him know I was leaving and bounced.
