One Last Thing ✅

two things

Abbott sets down his drumsticks, wanders over to the mini fridge, grabs a Mountain Dew, and cracks it open. After taking a drink, he adjusts his thick black glasses, which have started to fog up a little in the heat. His dark brown hair is sticking up all over the place from his exertion on the drums.

Jared lays his guitar on a plaid couch in the corner of the garage and runs his fingers through his hair. "I think we should start with that one. Tomorrow night, I mean," he says, seeming to have forgotten how much grief he gave me when I first suggested we cover the song. He steps past Abbott and reaches into the fridge, pulls out a can for himself. He is sweating, too, I notice as he tilts his head back and swallows. Dark circles have grown beneath his arms. I wonder if he will shower after practice.

If we will.

"Definitely," Riley says, retrieving a ponytail holder from around her wrist and swooping her tresses into a messy bun. She's not wearing any makeup, but she looks gorgeous, as always. Coffee brown eyes and lashes for days. Not an ounce of fat beneath her Walking Dead t-shirt. She's wearing cut-offs and flip flops, but her legs are tan and lean from her long daily runs. Back when I got boobs at age eleven, I used to be so jealous of her skinniness.

Before I realized what guys like.

What Jared likes.

"Nah," Abbott cuts in. "We should play something new. Maybe Lil's song."

I feel myself blush, but I doubt anyone can tell in the late summer heat. I'm sure my normally pale skin is bright red anyway, as it always is when I do anything more physical than, say, peeling an orange.

Abbott gestures to a tattered notebook poking out of my backpack, which I dropped on the ground next to Betsy's case. It is my book of poems, and recently the other Sea Monkeys have convinced me that some of them don't completely suck. In fact, Abbott seems dead set on turning a few of them into songs.

We've played around with this one poem I wrote when I was really in a funk called "Ghost Girl," but it's far from anything I'd want to perform onstage.

Can you see me here, flickering, half-real?

Jared shakes his head vehemently. "It's not ready."

Starving for something I can't name, hungry for the world.

"It's close," Abbott says.

"No," Jared says. "Maybe the next show."

A girl who almost wasn't.

Not here.

But not gone.

I lift Betsy's strap off my shoulder and lay her gently in her case, which I've painted a hot pink with black zebra stripes. It's just as well that Jared doesn't want to play my song. The idea of my private thoughts being put on display makes me feel kind of like puking.

Abbott sighs. "Whatever." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances at the display. "I'd better get home. My dad's supposed to be home for dinner."

"Tell him hi for me," Jared says with a smirk. He knows Abbott's father, Principal O'Hara, all too well. "Bet he's starting to miss me."

"I'm sure he is," Abbott says dryly. He looks at Riley. "Ride?"

Riley throws a glance my way.

"Jared will give me a lift later," I say. "Or I'll walk."

She presses her lips together in a straight line, and I wonder if she has something she wants to talk to me about.

"I'll call you later," I promise, reaching out to flick her shoulder playfully. It's something we've done ever since we were kids at camp freaking out about daddy long legs crawling on us. We watch out for each other and keep the spiders away.

Because that's what best friends do.

Her expression loosens into a grin, and she returns the gesture before grabbing her backpack from the floor. "Call me tonight, okay?" She follows Abbott out the door.

This is one of my favorite parts of the day, being left alone with Jared, second only to our Sea Monkey jam sessions.

Jared downs the rest of his Mountain Dew, adds the empty can to the pyramid, and heads toward the door. He pauses and looks back at me. "Coming?"

I click Betsy's case shut. "Yeah."

Inside the house, Jared stops and listens. The faint sound of Trollhunters drifts down from the living room. His younger brother, Jake, is preoccupied. Jared's dad's shift at the shop should end any minute now, but he'll stop at the bar on his way home, at least for an hour or so.

Jared plunges down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

I follow him, trailing the wall with my fingertips, thinking about the parts of Jared's body they will soon be tracing. At the bottom of the stairs we turn right and pass a bathroom and rec room Jared's father decorated with old light-up beer signs and a flat screen TV he won during a poker game.

Jared's tiny room is tucked away in the corner of the basement, a reflection of the bachelor pad his whole house has become. Empty pop cans, unmade bed, a small television set surrounded by every video game system imaginable. Several crates are stacked in the corner, filled with vinyl records from the 70s. He has an old school turntable set up on a shelf in the corner.

Jared pulls off his vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt. I can't help but stare at the rippling muscles beneath.

"It's so hot," I complain, tugging my long sleeve shirt away from my skin.

"You're hot," Jared says, encircling me with his arms. "Here, let me help you with that." He lifts my shirt up and over my head before I can even protest, and his face turns to horror. I can feel his gaze scraping over my forearm, at my handiwork from the night before. "Jesus, Lil."

I try to hold my arm behind my back, but he pulls it out and examines it more closely. "You told me you weren't doing this anymore."

Managing to pull my arm away and hold it protectively against my chest, I offer an explanation that sounds lame, even to me. "I'm trying not to. But Grams just kept harping on me about college, and I tried to explain I don't even want to go, but she just wouldn't listen... I was... frustrated."

Jared shakes his head and turns away from me. He picks up a towel that has been thrown over a chair in the corner and walks toward the door. "I'm going to take a shower. I'll give you a ride when I'm done."

"But I thought..."

He stops. Without looking at me, he says, "Lil, how do you expect me to love you when you don't even love yourself?" He shakes his head. "I'm sorry. This is just... too much." Then he walks out of the room.

Tears fill my eyes. I grab my shirt from the floor and use it to wipe them away. Then I pull it over my head and count to twenty, waiting until I'm sure Jared is in the shower. I grab my backpack and guitar case and rush up the stairs, hearing Blinkey's faint voice coming from the living room up above. I close the door behind me, ever so softly.

Escape.