The Opposite of Nothing

The Opposite of Nothing

SHARI SLADE

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Afterword

Acknowledgements

I
f Callie sat still for one more second, she’d explode in a confetti blast of frustrated lust. She peeled her feet off the sticky floor and shoved her soda cup into the empty popcorn bag. Tayber sat motionless, his eyes closed and his broad body eclipsing the small seat, like a mountain of worn denim and freshly laundered cotton. She resisted the aberrant urge to cuddle against him and inhale the sharp citrus scent she knew clung to his skin.

Was he asleep? How? The movie had been so steamy her blood had turned into magma beneath her skin, thick and hot, perilously close to eruption. She scanned the empty theater and tugged her hair free of its ponytail, hoping to hide some of the blush creeping up her neck and over her cheeks. She couldn’t possibly act on her attraction and risk losing the tenuous friendship they’d developed. Making friends was nearly impossible for her. And she couldn’t risk being ridiculed. She’d come to Copeland to escape ridicule.

We are friends. We are only friends.

She didn’t trust herself to touch him, not after the ninety minutes of exquisite torture she’d just endured with his forearm pressed against hers on the armrest. She might spontaneously combust. Thank God the weather remained cool, mid-Atlantic spring barely budding, and they had layers of clothing between them. She nudged his boot with the toe of her sneaker.

His hazel eyes flew open, bright with unshed tears. Not asleep, overcome. Her lips curled into a secret smile. The movie had moved him in a different way. It might have been sad, but she’d had a hard time focusing on anything but the skin, both on the screen and beside her.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and groaned. “If you tell anyone that I cry at chick flicks I’ll never speak to you again.“

“Like that was a chick flick.” And like she’d ever share anything about him. She hoarded his secrets, collected bits of information, meted out or stolen, and tucked them into the magpie nest of her desire. “Dude, that was more like soft-core porn.”

Callie knew this heat was one sided, that it was all in her head, but she couldn’t stop stoking it. He turned to face her, his grin crooked. The dim lighting cast shadows over his angular face, making him appear predatory. His voice was a low thrum, practically dragging over her neck. “What do you know about porn?”

She shivered, despite the fresh burst of heat to her cheeks, and scrambled to stand. She couldn’t look at him anymore. Her mouth always seemed to get ahead of her brain whenever she focused on him for too long. “We had cable. And, you know, the internet.”

Her throat was tight, voice more squeak than she could stand. She needed to coil up this web of wanting, stuff it down.
Must. Remain. Cool.
She slipped down the row, putting as much space between them as possible without actually leaving him behind. Gripping the top of a seat back, she raked her fingernails against the rough fabric. Focused on the last of the credits, she ignored the weight of his eyes boring into her as he waited for further elaboration. A silence stretched between them that snapped with the creak of his seat. His brief touch, light against the small of her back, jolted her into the aisle.

“Right. You want to grab a pizza before we head back to campus?” he asked.

Why did he keep wanting to do more things? Wasn’t he bored yet? Didn’t he have plans? She couldn’t survive another hour in his orbit. She shook her head.

“I’m too full of popcorn and Twizzlers.”

They crossed the desolate lobby and headed for the exit. A lone employee eyed them with contempt as he Windexed a candy display case. Wednesdays must not be big business. If they hadn’t come in tonight the theater might have closed early. A pang of guilt pierced her gut. She’d hated last minute customers when she’d worked at the diner back home. She quickened her steps, shuffling over the thin maroon carpet, popcorn hulls and static sparks trailing in her wake.

A rush of frigid air and rain blasted her when Tayber held the door open.

“Something wicked this way comes.” He mused, watching dark clouds race across the night sky.

“We better make a run for it. It doesn’t look like it’ll be letting up anytime soon.”

“No, wait here. I’ll pull the car up.”

She watched him lope across the strip mall parking lot. This was like a movie shot for her private enjoyment. Now she lamented the heavy clothing. Nothing sexier than a rain-soaked t-shirt. Except maybe a rain-soaked Tayber. She hugged herself against the chill and tried to remember why this line of thinking was wrong, wrong, wrong.

He screeched to the curb and popped the locks on his beat-to-shit Taurus.
My chariot awaits.

They didn’t talk for most of the ride back to campus. Instead, they listened to a mix CD Callie had burned last year after he admitted he’d never heard of most of the bands she played on her radio show. She’d scrawled ‘Educating Tayber’ across the front with a green Sharpie. Now she cringed and hid it under the seat whenever she saw it lying around. It always resurfaced, like a bad penny. These days every song felt like an exposure of her soul.

Tayber sang along to the end, his voice hoarse and endearingly off key, as he pulled into the lot adjacent to her apartment building. Long fingers tapped in time against the steering wheel, knee brushing the dash. She watched him and imagined he was singing just for her. How many times had he listened to this song?

He killed the engine and she watched him take a long sip of his soda, watched his lips wrapped around the straw. He waggled the cup in her direction, ice sloshing against the sides. “Want some?”

The radio played on. The wiper blades screeched across the windshield, not fast enough to keep up with the downpour or her racing pulse.

“Are you ever going to kiss me?” She said it fast, without thinking. And instantly regretted it.

“What?” He coughed, choking on soda, slamming his giant cup into the holder. His shirt rode up when he turned to face her, revealing a sliver of taut skin. She resisted the urge to punch him in his distractingly muscular stomach. The question wasn’t completely absurd. He’d kissed dozens of girls, that she knew of, over the last year and a half. More than kissed, if she were honest with herself. Not that she was counting.

“Nothing. I was kidding. The evening was so...so date-like I felt compelled to ask about my goodnight kiss.” She was kidding herself. Tayber Michael King did not kiss girls with more brains than boobs. He talked to them. Which, if she had to choose, was better than nothing. Or not. She was twisted, bent like a flower trying to find a ray of sunshine around a corner. And she hated herself for it.

“Jesus, for a minute I thought you’d meant it.”

He pinched his bottom lip, the same way he’d done last year in Calculus. Pinched his lip and stared a burning hole into the textbook before leaning over to mouth ‘help me later.’ She wanted to pull his hand away and soothe that bottom lip with her thumb. She clenched the door handle so tight her fingernails cut into her palm.

I’m so fucked.

Pulling her hood around her face, she braced for the deluge. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait, it’s pouring.” He held his hand out like he might try to stop her, but if he reached across the console to grab her arm, if he touched her, she’d die. She’d expire on the spot. Never mind that he’d touched her a thousand times before now. Each tap, poke, and hug carefully cataloged. Friendly and meaningless, yet branded on her skin.

If he touches me, nothing will be okay again, ever.

She didn’t wait. And he didn’t follow her into her apartment. It wasn’t like she was his girlfriend—just his friend who happened to be a girl.

* * *

T
ayber caught a flash of orange from the reflector strip on her coat and tried to follow it as she vanished into the rain. All he could see was the look on her face right before she opened the door. Pale, wide-eyed panic. She’d looked at him like he was the monster under the bed.
Maybe I am
.

He yanked the car into reverse and retreated. Picking that movie had been a mistake. Callie was the only person he’d dare see a chick flick with, but all that skin had surprised him. It wasn’t even close to porn, but she’d obviously been mortified. God, what was wrong with him? Talking about porn with Callie.

She’d really be mortified if she knew he’d spent chunks of his toddler years eating Cheerios in the dressing room of a strip club. If anything good happened in his life, it didn’t last. He’d screw it up or his family would. It was like a law of the universe.
If Tayber wants it he cannot have it.
So he was careful to never want anything too much.

The rain sheeted against his windshield. The headlights barely cut a three second path through the storm. He backed off the gas for a second, then gunned it.
My life is one big road hazard sign: slippery when wet, bridges ice before highways, falling rocks.

His cell phone vibrated, but he wasn’t suicidal enough to answer. It could be anyone. He had a constant nagging buzz of texts and calls from guys he fist bumped and girls he fucked. Not friends, though. Not like Callie, who gave him a place to be himself. To just be.

He hydroplaned a few times on his way to the other side of campus, narrowly missing a bicycle freak when he fish-tailed into the parking lot.

The light from his phone’s screen was blinding. One missed call. He recognized the area code. Home. His finger hovered over delete.
Mom hasn’t called in months.
He tapped play.

A cough, gruff and strangely familiar, followed by four seconds of silence. “Tayber? It’s Aaron. I’m back. Call me.”

Motherfucker.
His phone hit the frame behind the passenger side window and ricocheted into pieces. He hadn’t heard his brother’s voice in years. Not since Aaron had tossed a duffle bag into the back of his girlfriend’s car, shouting promises up to Tayber on the stoop. “We’ll come back for you. I’ll call you when we get settled.”

Too fucking late.
His violent response surprised him. He’d been scared right after Aaron left him alone to fend for himself while Mom bounced from one club to the next, using and being used. He’d been angry when he realized his brother had lied to him about returning. Angry and sad, imagining Aaron had tracked down his father and was living a fairytale life that didn’t have room for half-brothers. The last few years, though? He hadn’t felt anything.

He gathered up the broken shards and shoved them into his pockets.
Dumb-ass.
He wouldn’t have cash for a new phone any time soon. His mother’s sporadic deposits into his bank account had stopped a few weeks after her phone calls. If he didn’t see her posting cat pictures online he might think something was wrong. His throat tightened thinking about their last conversation, if you could call it a conversation.

“Tay-bee.”

He’d stiffened. Usually she barked his name, if she used it at all. But sometimes she dipped it in honey, when she wanted his help or his approval. When she wanted him to swallow some patented bullshit.

“I can’t float you anymore. You’re on your own, kiddo. You’ll land on your feet. You always do.”

Happy freaking birthday. He hadn’t bothered to argue. His mother barely had a maternal bone in her body. It was a wonder she’d helped for as long as she had.

The anemic stipend from his campus work-study assignment wasn’t cutting it anymore. Now his brother was back from the ether and wanted something—a little cash to hold him over, maybe a place to stay—and Tayber had been scraping change from under the car seat for weeks trying to get the money together for his summer housing deposit.
Nobody fucks you over like family
. Maybe it was time to join the merchant marines.

He took his foot off the brake and the car rolled onto the curb with a sickening scrape. He’d forgotten to put it in park.
What’s one more scratch?
It’s not like he could sell the piece of shit for anything but scrap metal anyway.

Still soaked from his parking lot sprint earlier, and fuming, he barely felt the rain as he pounded up the walkway. If the merchant marines didn’t work out, maybe he could sell some bodily fluids. Googling fast cash opportunities seemed like a very bad idea, but it was the only idea he had. He nodded to a couple huddled under the overhang sharing a smoke near the entrance and thanked God he’d never picked up that habit. Aaron had, sneaking Kools out of their mother’s pack while she crashed after a long night shift. A little mental math, and he was pissed all over again. She couldn’t keep funding college, but she could spend thousands a year on certain death. Screw it, she could do whatever she wanted. She always had.