Read Everything You Want Online
Authors: Macyn Like
Everything You Want
EVERYTHING YOU WANT
By
Macyn Like
Everything You
Want
Copyright
©
2013 by Macyn Like
Cover
Design by L. Hogan
All
rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
in any manner without the written permission of the publisher except for the
use of brief quotations by a reviewer in a book review.
This
book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
1
Marissa
There were a lot of places I would rather
find myself on a Friday night than crouched in my bathtub with a frightened
fifty-pound Basset Hound on my lap. My two cats were curled up behind the
toilet, upon which my ancient radio sat blasting the local weather. I had
gathered all the pillows from around my apartment and stuffed them in the
bathtub with the dog and me, but I didn’t know why. It wouldn’t do any
good.
This past tornado season was seriously
making me regret renting a top floor apartment. There were four units in
the small building I lived in, and when I signed my contract there were two available,
one on the upper floor and the one below. I chose the upper one for the
small balcony off the living room, but at that moment, the balcony didn’t seem
as appealing as the safety of the bathroom directly below.
Of course, I thought I was past all of
that. It was late August. Wasn’t tornado season supposed to be over
in May or June? Even so, it normally would not have been a problem.
Normally my neighbor, Betty, would have dragged me downstairs by now, but I
hadn’t heard from her, which was strange because I was pretty positive she
never left her apartment. Go figure the first time she would be away was
during the storm of the century. Maybe she just forgot about me. I
wasn’t risking hauling my cats and dog downstairs in this weather to find out.
“We’re getting reports of a funnel
cloud spotted in western Shelby County,” the weatherman on the radio announced.
Western. Okay. I lived in the
eastern part of the county. That gave me some time. Maybe it would
fizzle out by the time it reached here. I began to sigh in relief, but
was cut short when the weatherman added an impromptu, “heading northeast at forty
miles per hour.”
Crap. Thunder cracked outside and I
squeezed my dog, Tulip, a little closer. I looked over at my cats,
tangled together behind the toilet bowl. I clicked for them to join me,
but it was a lost cause. They never got near the bathtub. Water or
no water, they hated it.
Another loud burst of thunder and the
electricity went out. Great. I knew I should have replaced the
batteries in the old radio. Now I wouldn’t even know when it was coming.
All of a sudden I heard a pounding on my
door. Marissa!” I heard Betty yell out. “Marissa!”
Tulip let out a short bark as I tried to
scoot out from underneath her. I rushed through the dark apartment to the
door, flinging it open to find my seventy-five-year-old neighbor in a pale blue
raincoat and fuzzy pink house shoes.
“Marissa, what are you still doing up
here?” she asked.
“I thought you weren’t home,” I said.
“I’m always home! I just fell
asleep watching my soaps. I didn’t know it was supposed to get this
bad. Come on, let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Okay, just let me grab my cats.”
I made my way back to the bathroom and
plucked the two cats out from behind the toilet. When I walked outside, Betty
was at the apartment next door, demanding that the guy follow us down, which
was useless. He never came down during severe weather. He looked
like one of those dark artistic types. I’d always thought he probably
enjoyed the storms. Got the creative juices flowing or whatever. I
scooted past them, smiling at him briefly as I hurried down the staircase in
front of his door. I chuckled as I saw Betty grab his arm out of the
corner of my eye. I betted he would be more easily persuaded to come down
if it was apartment A, Aimee the Zumba instructor, demanding him to follow her
instead of little old Betty.
The sky had taken on an eerie greenish
tint that made me feel a little queasy. I heard Tulip
bump-bump,
bump-bump, bump-bump
behind me on the stairs as I ran down. I waited
for Betty at the bottom by her door. The rain was blowing in sideways,
soaking my animals and me, but with both cats struggling under my arms, I
couldn’t manage to open the door.
I looked up to see Betty pulling my
neighbor guy down the stairs with her. I was anxious and drenched, but I
couldn’t help but smile. Betty finally got her way.
“Why are you just standing there?” she
yelled when they reached the bottom.
I nodded to the cats.
Betty shook her head as she pushed past
me to open the door. She wasn’t a fan of my cats, or cats in
general. Neither was her tiny dog, Paris, who began yipping wildly at my
feet as I stepped in. Neighbor Guy smiled at me and took my gray tabby
cat, George from under my left arm. Tulip followed me inside, glued to my
right calf.
Betty already had flashlights set up in
the living room and kitchen. A small radio on the kitchen table informed
us that a tornado had been spotted near a street about ten miles from us.
Neighbor Guy and George took a seat on the couch. I sat my other cat, Oatmeal,
down beside them and scooped up Paris, who was barking his poor little head
off. I stroked his tiny back until he quieted, and then sat on the worn floral
print couch, at the opposite end from Neighbor Guy. I glanced at him out
of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t see much with only one small flashlight
on the coffee table, but I could see that he was petting George and whispering
something in his small gray ear.
Neighbor Guy had long, dark brown hair
that hung an inch or so past his shoulders, which he usually wore twisted up in
a messy ponytail/bun thing at the nape of his neck. A few damp strands
had fallen out and were clinging to his right cheek. He was wearing a
long sleeved gray thermal shirt, covering up arms I had always suspected were
covered in tattoos. His dark jeans were faded and loose, and even in dim
light I could tell that his black sneakers were all but falling apart.
I’d never made eye contact with him before. He made me nervous. I’d
be kidding myself if I said it was because of the long hair and the (suspected)
tattoos. No, it was because underneath all of that, he was actually a fairly
decent looking guy. And when I said fairly decent, I meant probably the
most attractive man I had ever seen. He was tall, lean, and his tight
shirts were evidence of the fact that he was more than well built under all
those long sleeves. Even though I had never looked directly into his
eyes, I knew they were a beautiful sky blue, framed by lashes that were too
long, thick and pretty to belong to a guy.
It was strange that we had never spoken,
since he was such an integral part of my life these days. The walls in
the apartment building were paper thin, and I could hear him almost all of the
time. Showering in the morning, listening to music after work, hanging
out with his friends on the weekend, watching TV in the middle of the
night. It would get on most people’s nerves, but not mine. I found
it was comforting, in an odd way, just knowing he was there. It made me
feel less alone.
What could I say? I hadn’t made
many friends since I left Oxford in May. All of my college friends had
either stayed there or moved home, not that I’d had that many of them,
anyway. I’d made at least one good acquaintance at the bank where I
worked, but we never hung out outside of work. My apartment was generally
quiet, to say the least. So I didn’t mind his noise.
“Paris!” Betty called.
“I’ve got him,” I said, jumping off the
couch and walking into the kitchen where she sat at the small table. I handed
over the dog and listened as the weatherman encouraged people on our block to
take cover.
“Everybody into the bathroom,” Betty commanded,
walking out into the living room. Neighbor Guy was already following her,
my cat still in his arms.
I could hear hail start to pound on the
windows. “What about Aimee?” I asked.
“She’s not home. I already
checked,” Betty said.
I scooped Oatmeal off the couch and
followed them into the small, old bathroom, which smelled like it had recently
been doused in bleach, Tulip still at my heels. Betty had brought the
radio and a flashlight into the bathroom and sat them on the counter beside the
sink. I heard the weatherman mention a street just a few blocks away from
ours. I squeezed the cat tighter to my chest. For all my years of
living in the South, I’d never actually been in a tornado. There had been
lots of close calls, but never one to go right over my head.
The sirens began wailing outside, and I
felt myself start to shake. Neighbor Guy helped Betty slowly climb into
the bathtub with Paris under her arm. I helped Tulip into the tub with her,
and then picked Oatmeal back up and gave her a reassuring squeeze as I leaned
against the counter.
“Betty, have you ever done this before?”
I asked, trying to keep my voice even, and failing miserably.
“A few times, but it’s been so long ago.”
I swallowed. It seemed to me that
the sirens were getting louder, even though I knew they weren’t. I felt a
hand softly touch my waist, and Neighbor Guy gently pulled me against his
chest. I let myself lean on him, and buried my head in Oatmeal’s fur.
A couple of minutes later, we heard a
sound like a train roaring in the distance.
“Here she comes, kids!” Betty shouted
over the noise.
Neighbor Guy pulled me into the bathtub
with Betty and I squatted down next to Tulip. Betty pushed a puffy, lacy
comforter over our heads and Neighbor Guy sat George down next to Oatmeal in my
lap. I was shaking uncontrollably as the roaring sound drew closer and
Neighbor Guy put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, a cat
under each arm, and wrapped my legs around Tulip. Just as the sound
became deafening I felt Neighbor Guy’s other arm wrap around my waist and he
buried his head in my hair.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
2
Kieran
It was over. I was pretty sure it
had missed us, but none of us had moved. It was quiet, except for the
weatherman on the radio, announcing warnings for the next county over.
She was still in my arms.
I’d wanted to get close to her for
months. I must have imagined holding her in my arms a thousand
times. There was never a tornado in the picture, but now that it had come
and gone, and everyone was okay, I’d take it.
The older woman was the first to
speak. “I think it’s okay to get out now.” She pulled the blanket
off our heads and sat her little dog on the ground before pulling herself up.
I removed my head from the girl’s soft,
apple scented hair and stood, pulling her up with me. She sat the cats
beside the little dog and then bent down to help the Basset Hound out. I
kept my hand on the small of her back. Now that I was finally touching
her, I didn’t think I could stop.
We followed the old woman outside.
It was still raining, but nothing like it had been before. The sign for
our apartment building was lying in the middle of the road. The roof was
missing several shingles, but that was it. The apartment building across
the street got it worse. Part of the roof was ripped off on the left side
and a few windows were blown out. Debris littered the parking lot, but
the cars looked okay, mostly. I could see a few dings from the hail, but
they were all intact. Other people were beginning to come out to inspect
the damage. I kept my hand lightly on her back as we stood there,
silently taking it all in.
