Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart (4 page)

“I like what it reveals. What it says about the town.”

“What does it say about the town?”

“You tell me,” he urges. And here goes the eye roll. Kennedy laughs. “What is it about that question that results in eye mocking?”

“Eye mocking?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. If I raise it any more, I’ll look like Peter Falk from Grandma’s favorite show,
Columbo
.

“Yes, that’s what eye-rolling is. Mocking with the optic nerves. Now, answer the question.”

“Which one? The one about what trash reveals about the town or the one about why I find your question pretentious?”

Kennedy laughs even harder. Rumble. Mountain-man laugh. “Either one. I’m pretty flexible.”

“Finnnnneeee,” I drawl. “Give me space. I need to think,” I reply, shooing him away from me. Kennedy holds up his hands in mock surrender and takes several steps away from me.

Temporarily, I forget about everything before this moment. The reasons I shouldn’t be talking to this boy. It’s the first honest conversation I’ve had in forever.

I pull my hands to my hips and squint. I bite on my bottom lip and hold my breath. It’s a strange routine, but it’s what I do when I investigate, break down a picture to see if it’s worthy of adding to my portfolio or not. Once I’m able to tune out the fact that Kennedy probably thinks I look like a giant ass, the picture begins to bubble and jump out at me.

All in all, it’s not a very good picture. At least not technique-wise. The light’s all wrong, and I did, in fact, use the wrong lens. But there is something to be said about the contents of the picture itself.

“What do you see?” Kennedy whispers next to me.

“It’s funny, but if I were going to write a book about this town, I’d include this one.” I sneak a peek at Kennedy to catch him laughing at me, but he merely nods for me to continue. I clear my throat. “It says a ton about this place. And not in one of those obvious
let’s take a picture of a cool statue and place it on the cover
ways. Not that we don’t have those. These darn trash cans are Belltown.”

“You think Belltown is a piece of shit?”

“Of course not! This is my home we’re talking about. I might want to get the hell out of Commune-Dodge, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kick someone’s ass for talking bad about it. No, the picture shows our isolation. Our loneliness and connection all at the same time. Separate from the outside world, shut off, but as you stare at row after row of trash cans, it reveals a sort of parasitic relationship.”

The joys of living in a mountain town in Virginia.
Not
to be confused with West Virginia.

“You got all that from trash cans?” Kennedy muses.

I shrug. “Yeah. I mean, just the story behind this says a lot. Town ravaged by a line of crazy, torrential storms. Streets flooded. People so desperate to protect their own that they won’t let in outside sanitation to help clean it up. And no one complains. Not one single person. Emerson would have loved this place. Fucking self-reliance, man.”

“You cuss a lot,” Kennedy randomly interjects.

“Sexual frustration,” I joke.

My stomach drops.

I did not just say that. It’s not like I didn’t just have sex hours before…but it had been different. It was almost like I was outside my body, not really rooted in the place. Put hand here. Arch back like this. Make that one noise now. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like us.
Don’t think about that. Focus on the photo.

“I think we’re done here.”

I blink my eyes several times to push away my dirty thoughts. Kennedy quickly and efficiently sets to work on cleaning up the supplies we needed to develop the film. Any second, he’ll walk over, switch off the red light, and welcome the rest of the world in. Just the thought of it causes every muscle in my body to tighten.

Any second, we’ll go back to being strangers.

I’m not ready to go back out there.

“You don’t have anything else you need to develop?” I ask, hoping to prolong my break from the real world. You know it’s pretty bad when you’d rather talk to a dipshit who completely abandoned you when you needed him the most than face your problems. I must have learned my avoidance skills from the boy standing next to me. It’s what he did best.

“Nope. I got everything I needed,” he replies. He grabs his photos and places them into his carrier bag. He stalks over to the door, switches on the lights, and walks out without another word.

With a sigh, I turn around to the counter and start collecting my materials. It’s only then I realize that my picture of the trash cans is missing.

Kennedy must have taken it.

Shit.

Chapter Five

Kennedy

Itzhak Perlman didn’t let a little thing like polio stop him from becoming one of the most badass violinists of all time. Ray Charles, blind as the metaphorical bat, could still kill it on a piano. Hell, even Kenny G didn’t let asthma stop him from blowing on the saxophone, and here I am unable to write a single word for the blog entry that was due, well, yesterday to be precise. Writing impotency is the worst.

I turn off the sound on my phone and put it facedown on the table next to my bed. The last thing I need is Whitman, my editor, texting to ask if I’ve gotten the thing done yet. I fully subscribe to every guy’s belief that if I don’t see the texts, they don’t exist. In fact, the whole bag of impotent dicks just goes away. The writer’s block, the deadline, the editor I can never seem to legit make happy. Poof. Gone. Gone to that great abyss with all of the ex-girlfriends and embarrassing puberty memories.

Except that’s not how shit works. I can feel the texts calling to me. Screaming for an answer.

Nope. Not done, dude. Not even close.

There’s no greater kick to a writer’s balls than a blinking cursor and an editor pestering you. Major blue balls. The ideas are just sitting there in my noggin moshing around in the pit, but I can’t hear the song they’re jamming to.

That about sums up my entire creative experience at the moment.

Not even just today—it keeps happening. I read about it. Writing dry spells. Some writers go on runs. Some drink. Some slowly go insane. None of those possible remedies have worked for me. If only there was a Viagra for writer’s block.

The blogging’s not much. I mean, sure, it means a hell of a lot to me, but in the grand scheme of all things important to most grown-ups, it’s nothing to brag about. So I don’t. I let the people of this town think what they want. Like I said, it’s easier to be the joke or the one making it. If I told them about the writing, when I eventually failed at it, it’d be a chorus of I-told-you-sos so loud Jerry Garcia would come back from the dead for an encore. So I let them think I’m just the construction guy. The guy who’d rather smoke weed in the alley on Ingrid Lane. The guy who can’t commit. Sure, maybe that’s all true, but it isn’t the whole truth.

And even though it drives me fucking nuts, I love writing for the
It Only Leads to Treble
online blog. Yeah, maybe we only have a readership of a few hundred, but they are music-lunatic crazy readers. The kind of readers who dig music as much as I do. And even when we’re blasting each other in the comments section about this song or that band, I know I’m being heard, and I know that music is being heard, too. And that’s pretty fucking rad.

Some small labels have really taken to
It Only Leads to Treble
, and we’ve been getting some pretty dope sneak peeks at some new stuff from artists. All kinds of stuff too. Music from the likes of Kimberly Brown and Joey Caneva. And usually I can bang the posts out like a madman, but lately it’s nothing but one giant Cialis commercial.

With a grunt, I shove my laptop to the side, get up off my bed, and start to pace. Sometimes it helps. My mom did a lot of local theater when I was a kid, and when she was practicing her lines, she would pace. Lady Macbeth wearing a hole through our threadbare carpet. So, yeah, sometimes I Lady Macbeth it myself. But even now it’s not helping. All I can see is that blinking cursor in front of my face.

That fucking blinking cursor is like a taunt. A prophecy.
You’ll never be more than this
. Yeah, I get it. I didn’t take the traditional route. I didn’t toss my cap and gown from graduation in the closet and head off into the sunset. Why spend the rest of my life paying off debt for something I know won’t satisfy me? Not in the way I need. I want to learn about life from living it. Not from sitting in a room full of old folks singing me their songs.

I’ve got to find my own jam. So for now, I work construction, type my fingers raw to the bone, and take classes here and there at the community college to keep the creative juices flowing. And that will never include the likes of calculus. Ever.

For a moment I think about going out to meet the boys. It’s been a while since we chilled, and a nice buzz sounds pretty good right about now. But for some reason, I think about the picture. Yeah, so maybe it was kind of douchey to take Annabel’s picture without asking her, but I knew she damn well wouldn’t have let me if I’d asked. It took me almost an entire semester to even really talk to her. Shit, really, it took me ten years to talk to her, and stealing her picture probably wasn’t the best way to start making amends.

I know I screwed everything up all those years ago, but I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just couldn’t deal with it. Her brother died in that accident, and when I saw her lying in that hospital bed, all hooked up to that beeping shit, bandaged, knocked out, I realized she could die. I wasn’t ready for someone else to leave, so I had to do the leaving myself.

Shit. I was ten. I was scared out of my mind.

Today, we actually, kinda, sorta talked.

Still. It wasn’t exactly a success. I tried using charm and jokes, and while it got her to talk to me, I figure I’m no closer to fixing our friendship than I was before I found that copy of
Double Trouble Double Dog Bubble Dare.

Then I stole her picture.

But the picture was just too cool not to take. There’s this dope group I got to interview last month for the blog, and they’ve been looking for art for their album cover. And something about the picture just spoke to me. Like, yeah, this could work. So, I thought, just take it. Take it, and see what they say, and then approach Annabel with the idea. If they wanted it, she’d be a paid photographer. And probably tell me off a little. But then she’d be cool.

Maybe the whole thievery thing would actually help. I could get her the gig and maybe start to make amends. We
had
talked today. That had to be some sort of hope. Or she could murder me.

I glance at the clock. It’s nearly midnight. Not like I’m going to get any sleep anyway. It would just be more Lady Macbething it. What could it hurt? I grab for my phone, ignore the four unread messages from Whitman, and start texting people from class to try to get Annabel’s number. It takes longer than I expect it to.

Me:
Hey. It’s Kennedy. What’s up?

Her:
…

Bubbles appear to show she’s typing. Then they go away. Bubbles appear to show she’s typing. Then they go away.

Still nothing.

Me:
?

Her:
…

Bubbles appear to show she’s typing. Then they go away. Bubbles appear to show she’s typing. Then they go away.

I close my eyes, let out a sigh, and press the phone against my temple. I can just see her now. Typing then deleting the message. Typing then deleting the message. Needing it to be perfect. Always. This is post-accident Annabel. Not the Annabel I knew. Maybe that was the accident’s fault, or maybe it was mine.

Me:
You still live on Brambleton, right? I’ll be outside your house in 15 mins. See you then.

Fixing this wasn’t going to be easy.

Chapter Six

Annabel

“Who’s that texting you, Annabel Lee? Jason?”

One of the side effects of an ailing grandmother who lives with you: she knows every single detail of your personal life. Or lack thereof, as she likes to constantly point out. I spend many of my nights up with Grandma. Not because she begs me to but because I’m just not sure how many nights she has left. And once we’ve run out of stories about the devil twins, the conversation always turns to how boring and lackluster she thinks my life is. Her comments are never mean-natured, at least not intentionally. I know it’s because she worries. Thinks I need a giant kick in the life-living butt. One long Robin Williams speech from
Dead Poets Society
.

I stare at Kennedy’s text, choosing to ignore Grandma’s question about Jason. I didn’t know how to talk to Grandma about the weirdness with Jason. He called this afternoon, and we made plans to go to dinner at Café Moka, a coffee-themed restaurant, tomorrow night. Maybe that meant things would get better. Maybe that meant I wouldn’t have to keep avoiding Grandma’s questions about him.

It was easier to think about Kennedy. Why was he texting me? No amount of AP lit classes could have prepared me to decipher the meaning behind it. Sure, we actually exchanged words earlier in the day, but that was a real slow-news-day kind of event in the grand scheme of things. Or at least that’s how I saw it. He made some comments about my picture, and I scrolled through his music collection wondering what kind of porn he liked to watch. Hardly mountain-moving stuff, and that’s what seems like needed to happen to cause this occurrence. Of course, it was the first conversation we’ve had in more than a decade, so maybe it meant something?

How the heck did he even get my number?

As I stare down at Kennedy’s name on my screen, my face instantly flushes red. I can’t help but think of that moment in the darkroom: me holding his iPhone in my hand riffling through his music selection like I was discovering whether he was a tits or ass type of man. There was something so oddly intimate about the incident that I have to tear my eyes away from my phone at just the memory. Something about staring at his name keeps bringing forth images that would make for a great article in
Cosmo
.

God, I need to go for a run.

Grandma raises an eyebrow, and I clear my throat. “No, not Jason. Just a kid from my photography class,” I try to reply casually, but it only comes off sounding like a child whose hand got caught in the jar full of smutty-doodles.

If only Grandma had been having one of her good nights, I’d be safely asleep by now. I’d have missed Kennedy’s text and wouldn’t have to figure out what to do in response, and I certainly wouldn’t be getting stared down by a seventy-year-old woman who once literally stole candy from a baby because her sugar was low, citing that the baby would have many more opportunities to get candy in her lifetime, and she would most certainly die if she didn’t get that candy right that moment.

But Grandma wasn’t having one of her good nights. Instead, she had been attacked by another coughing fit. They were getting worse and happening with more frequency, and despite much insisting that I just go to bed and let her be, I never could.

Grandma’s eyebrow goes higher like it’s a flag signaling the fall of Fort Sumter. “So, they allow kids in community classes now? And said kid is texting you at nearly midnight? Man, they weren’t kidding on the news about that whole generational gap thing,” she jokes drily. She knows full well the answers to her own questions. Grandma’s always been particularly skilled at interrogation. She worked for the army during the Vietnam War. When I think of her during that time in her life, I tend to imagine dark rooms with giant lamps and poor POWs shitting their pants while she crocheted a full sweater set.

“And what does said child genius want at such an hour?” she continues.

I sigh. Grandma’s one-eyebrow-flag-raising has now turned into a two-gun salute. Both of them all the way up, nearly crawling into her hairline. There’s no getting out of this one. “It’s just some boy. Kennedy,” I spit out as fast as I can. I return my eyes to my phone. Somehow it’s now easier to look there than at Grandma. I just sense it—she’s staring me down. I can tell by the way my forehead heats up, two eye-size circles burning straight through me. A million questions waiting to rain down on me. Yes, Grandma, the same Kennedy from before. The one who told you about the worms. The one who I expected to help me hold my world together after the accident. The one who finally destroyed it. And no, Grandma, I don’t know what any of this means.

Hey. It’s Kennedy. What’s up?

What the heck does that mean? What does he mean by “hey”? And “what’s up”? You can’t just text someone that. Especially someone you’ve never actually texted before. And how the heck did he even get my number in the first place? Did he ask around for it? Why would he do that?

I shouldn’t respond. I certainly don’t owe him anything. But it’s almost like offering someone who’s been on a gluten-free diet for a decade a loaf of bread. It won’t hurt too bad if you just have one slice. Not one.

Talking to him today, well, that had been something. Something different. I could answer the text. It wouldn’t mean we had to be best buds. In fact, I didn’t think that was possible, all things considered. I wasn’t duty bound to trust him or even forgive him.

Those were things I couldn’t do even if I wanted to.

I start typing a response. It starts out as a “hey” back, but that just feels stupid. Too casual. “Hey” is for people you’ve known forever, and while I’ve known him forever, I don’t
know
know him. Not in a “hey” type of way. Not this version of him. I delete the start of the message. “Hello. How goes it?” That sounds better. Except it doesn’t. It makes me sound like a seventy-year-old woman who crocheted sweater sets during the Vietnam War. And then he’s texting again:

You still live on Brambleton, right? I’ll be outside your house in 15 mins. See you then.

Wait. What?

Let’s add a six-pack of beer to that loaf of bread.

All gluten. All the time.

I feel the heat from my cheeks flare up again, and this time I know I’m full-on glowing like Rudolph the freaking-Red-Nosed Reindeer. Grandma is watching every second of it. She, not so quietly, clears her throat, and another round of interrogations is about to begin, so I decide to beat her to the punch. “He accidently took one of my photos from class, and he’s stopping by to give it back. I’m gonna meet him downstairs, and then I’ll be right back up,” I spit out as quickly as I can.

I spin on my heels and beeline it out of the room before she can make some smart-ass comment about the lateness of the hour or ask questions that I don’t know the answers to, because that’s what Grandma does best: makes me squirm. And while I love her for it, I couldn’t risk turning nuclear red before heading down to meet Kennedy.

The picture. It’s the only explanation, and it still keeps me in the safe zone. I’ll go down, retrieve it, and I won’t have to worry about sorting through any uncomfortable murky feelings.

One slice of bread.

Even though he didn’t say that specifically, it’s the only explanation that makes logical sense. He did swipe my picture. I do want it back. That’s the only thing I can see either one of us wanting from the other. Sure, he could have simply waited until the next time class met, but, hey, Kennedy thinks honking a horn at females before the sun fully rises is an acceptable form of communication, so it’s safe to say he’s a pretty odd cookie.

Smutty-doodles.

Damn it, get it together!

Twelve minutes. Calculating the time it took me to dodge Grandma and climb the stairs to my room, I have twelve minutes before Kennedy will be here. The last thing I’m going to do is give that boy the pleasure of seeing me in my holey, worn-out pajamas. While I’ve never been a girl particularly keen on fashion or looks in general, that boy does not get to see me sans bra. One moment in a darkroom doesn’t erase years of his indifference. He had ten years to say sorry. He never even tried.

I quickly yank on a pair of jeans and throw on a Mountain Goats T-shirt. I pull out the rubber band that holds up my hair in a bun, which looks more Bride of Frankenstein than shabby chic, and run a brush through the tangled mess before placing it back into a tight, controlled ponytail. I can’t help but roll my eyes. This is a lot of work for what won’t take thirty seconds.

Here’s your picture. I’m sorry I’m a giant klepto ass.

Thanks.

That’ll be the extent of it.

Three minutes left.

I pull out my phone and dial Jason’s number. Despite having talked to him a few hours ago, I feel the need to hear his voice. This whole thing with Kennedy doesn’t make sense, like being stuck in a snow globe that a caffeine-fueled kid keeps shaking and shaking and shaking. All those old feelings. All these new fears.

I imagine this is what it’s like to have a split personality. One side of me screaming
Who gives a fuck? He can suck it. Don’t go down there
. The other side begging me to, needing me to. Nudging me with memories of what we used to be before.

After several rings, Jason finally picks up. I think he says hello, but I can hardly hear him. It’s obvious from the noise, he’s at some sort of party or bar. Had he mentioned that to me earlier?

“Jason? Can you hear me?” I ask, raising my voice.

“Annabel?”

“Yeah. It’s me. Hey, can you maybe find somewhere quiet to go for a few minutes? I just…I don’t know…I just need you.” He was my go-to. My rock. I needed him, and he would never run from that.

“Annabel? Hey, I can’t hear you. Can I call—”

“Jason! It’s our turn at beer pong!” calls out a shrill female voice.

Suddenly, the phone and all the noise become muffled. And then Jason hangs up. In a matter of seconds, I get a text apologizing and promising that he’ll call me in the morning. I don’t have long to process what just happened because Kennedy’s headlights cut across the darkness of my room, and my stomach tightens.

I take a deep breath.

There’s no reason to feel like this. This is nothing. I’m just getting the picture back. We don’t have to talk about the accident or what happened or didn’t happen after.

I give myself one final look in the mirror and then head downstairs. As my hand reaches for the doorknob, I have to shake it to stop the trembling.

Get your shit together, Annabel Lee, because he isn’t going away. And his dumb self might get the bright idea to honk if you don’t get out there soon. It is his numero uno form of communication.

As I step into the warm, moist air of the night, a storm whispering to us between the clouds, waiting, wanting to break free, I see Kennedy sitting in the car. Not outside it, picture in hand, as I expected him to be. My feet freeze halfway on the walkway between the door and his car. The shadows dance across his face, and it’s difficult to make out the expression on it. I can see his eyes, though. The same deep blue eyes that bored into my picture, pulling from it everything I saw and felt when I took it. Those eyes are staring me down now,
daring
me to take another step. I always loved those dares, or at least the old me did.

I take a deep breath again. Kennedy leans across the console of his truck and pushes the passenger door open. “Well, what are you waiting for, Annabel Lee? Get in,” he demands, flashing me one of those grins used only by movie stars or bad boys your mother warns you about. With his stupid blond hair that looks messy and perfect all at once. He could always charm the lunch lady into giving him extra Jell-O. Now I’m sure he uses that grin to charm ladies into giving him a lot of things.

“Um. I can’t,” I mumble.

“You can’t or you won’t, Annabel Lee Sumter?” he asks, that grin of his still taunting me. I can see it in his eyes; he’s laughing at me. I’m about to say I won’t and demand he give me my picture back when I hear the window behind me open.

Oh, shit.

Grandma’s window.

My stomach drops.

“Just get in that damn truck, Annabel Lee,” she hisses.

I close my eyes. That did not just happen. I can hear Kennedy chuckling, and if I weren’t embarrassed and all jitters before, I certainly am now.

“Stop being a pussy,” she spits out.

Wait. Was she helping him? Didn’t she remember all those afternoons I cried after school when Kennedy ignored me after I returned?

“Yeah, listen to the beautiful young woman calling out from the window, and get in the car, Le Chat,” Kennedy teases in between laughing. Either he doesn’t think I know that he’s implying in French that I’m a pussy, or he has a death wish.

Either way, there’s only one option.

I’m going to have to get in the car.

I nearly jump into the vehicle, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from calling Kennedy every cursey word I know, including the ones in German my grandma taught me.

“Good evening, Le Chat! Liking the band T-shirt,” he muses as he shifts in his seat, his eyes giving me the quick up-down. He’s so close to going into hysterics that I can’t stand it. The last thing I need in my life is this boy thinking I and everything about my life are a joke. He made me feel ant-size small all those years ago; he isn’t going to get to make me feel that way again.

I pull the passenger door closed a little harder than needed, and there is a bit of joy that flares up inside me as I wonder if it’s about to fall completely off his beat-up truck. That would be perfect. Then I’d be the one laughing…safely in my bed. “Just drive, asshole,” I manage between clenched teeth.

“Damn, and here I was thinking all the cussing was just because you weren’t a morning person. I guess you just got a dirty little mouth,” he jokes, shifting the car into gear.

“Don’t worry about my mouth,” I mumble, realizing all too late the possible tawdry meanings a boy like Kennedy could infer from such a statement.

Kennedy’s full-out laughing now, and it takes everything inside me to not run out of the car before it gets moving. But I’d only hear it from Grandma for months, and I just don’t have the energy. One shitty night would be better than that. I yank on my seat belt, cross my arms over my chest, and turn to face him. “What are you waiting for? Go,” I demand.