(Thank you, Jay AKA @madnessqueenxx for the banner!)
|CHAPTER NINETEEN|
Johnny Cash played quietly from the kitchen where Henry washed cake crumbs off of mismatched plates. I was just around the corner curled into the cushions of the pullout sofa admiring the gifts I'd received.
I was happy to have my birthday done and over with. I never liked much fussing over that kind of thing, but I put up with it every year all the same. I usually received the same thing from Meredith every year. She would fill a box with sensible things that she knew I'd use—which I preferred to knickknacks and trinkets. But, this year she surprised me with a very grown-up dress for graduation that looked tailored and sophisticated enough to wear for years to come. She matched it with a necklace fitted with my birthstone: aquamarine.
Henry, on the other hand, was never sensible. He was the giver of trinkets and knickknacks that never had any real use—other than the bike he gave me a couple years ago. And, this year, he lived up to the expectation by giving me a picture book. I shook my head, smiling fondly at it. I'd only looked through it briefly when Henry gave it to me.
Now, I flipped it open to the first page, and my eyes softened on a rare baby picture of him holding me in the hospital. He looked pretty much the same, although his hair was lighter and his skin glowing in a way only youth can provide, and he held me close, looking down with a smile. Alongside the picture was an annotation that read: Eighteen years ago Meredith called me from the hospital saying you'd finally decided to join us in this world. And when I held you for the first time, I fell in love. Meredith wanted to call you Lauren—something simple—but I wanted something fresher, something new, something you could define. And, on that one rare occasion, I got Meredith to change her mind. I asked how she felt when she looked at you for the first time, and her smile was one I can never forget. She said "happy." But, of course, we couldn't call you that. So, we called you Jovie, and you've been surprising me ever since.
My chest tightened as I read it, and I felt my eyes water just enough that it turned his handwriting into a blur. I blinked it away quickly, not wanting Henry to see that I was getting emotional. He'd been a bit keener about that these days. He noticed I was floating on the edge of a daydream as I fell deeper for Bash, and he always wanted to talk about feelings. But, I still felt uncomfortable sharing too much of it with him and Meredith, and I would immediately change the subject. Nevertheless, he'd still prod for something else, search for some other vulnerability that would prompt a similar conversation. It was exhausting.
Nevertheless, warmth settled around me like a hug when I read his message. I had never once heard the story of how I got my name before, and somehow knowing it made me flush with pride and admiration. I felt...special.
I turned the page where he'd turned some cards into a collage, all of them congratulating him and Meredith on my birth. There was even a newspaper clipping that seemed to ignore all the politics of my existence and focused on the miracle of new life with a happy little blurb about my family. I continued to smile as I turned the page, again.
The water stopped running in the kitchen, and the clattering about of dishes faded until finally Henry rounded the corner wiping his hands on his jeans. He noticed the book open in my lap and met my eyes nervously—like he was unsure about his gift.
"What do you think?"
I knew I was smiling, but I wasn't expecting myself to suddenly stand and hug him—but I did.
"It's amazing. Where did you find the time to do this?"
He squeezed me back equally as tight, but I felt him shrug. "I've been working on it for a couple of years."
I released him and took a step back, staring up in awe. I knew Henry was crafty, he had the old art projects to prove it, but I hadn't pegged him as a particularly "scrap-booky" type person.
"How is it that I've known you and Mom all of my life and yet I hardly know you," I wondered in amazement. "Lately it feels like every day I'm going to be greeted with a new surprise."
He laughed and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "I think part of growing up—for both the kid and the parents—is realizing that there's more than what meets the eye. You start to see each other as equals, as people."
I nodded, knowing with every fiber of my being that it was a true statement. The struggle I had with my mother a few months ago made sense for, yet, another reason.
I hardly ever called Henry anything other than his name, but this time it felt appropriate to use a word I hardly ever broke out.
"I love you, Dad."
A flicker of realization flashed across his eyes when he heard me say it. I smiled meekly and continued to do so even as he scooped me back up into his arms.
"Love you too, Jo-Jo," he mumbled into my hair, and I knew his emotional side, the one true defining thing about him, was taking control as he held me as close as he did when I was a newborn.
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Bash and I went on our first bike ride of the year under a deep blue sky with the stars twinkling like jewels and the moon bright and full. He followed behind me lazily, looking up at the unobstructed view with large, clear eyes. The wind pulled strands of gold hair from a loosely constructed bun at the back of his head—his hair was long enough to do that now. I meandered my way across empty streets and over bumps of cracked sidewalk fluidly, listening to the rattle of the bike chain in the quiet of the sleepy neighborhood outside his apartment.
"The world feels very paradisiacal this time of night, don't you agree?" he asked as we neared the edge of the neighborhood and it opened into countryside that was thinly spread with homes. From out here you could really smell the damp earth from the melted snow and not just wet gravel and car exhaust. Somebody's wind chime jingled with a short breeze. Only the lights from people's bedroom windows indicated the world was not quite asleep yet, but still, it was growing lethargic. Perhaps it was merely yawning.
I took my feet off the peddles and slowed to roll alongside him. The air was very damp, as it usually is in the spring when the world can't seem to keep the earth wet enough. It wasn't a cold damp, though. It was a sticky one, and I lifted the hair from my neck with one hand and glanced at Bash.
"You think that about everything."
His eyes stayed focused on the wild grass beside the road. "No, there's a different word for different times of the day."
I laughed lightly. "But they're all adjectives of one another."
He shrugged. "They have their nuances."
I shook my head, but I was grinning at his stubbornness.
He looked to me suddenly, the angles of his face catching the moonlight in a fantastical kind of way that I enjoyed. He always looked like art, somehow.
"Have you decided?"
He tried to look at me directly as he asked, but I turned my eyes toward the uneven pavement before he could finish.
Bash had been almost as obsessive about the question as my mother, and I couldn't figure out why. He had no reason to bother with wanting to know where I'd end up going to school—he wasn't a part of that path, and I hated thinking about it. But, he knew, just like everyone knew, that I'd decided and I was simply keeping it to myself, holding off on the finality of it all.
"Bash..."
"Jovie," he countered, determination balancing on his cheekbones and reflecting in his eyes.
Maybe that was the reason he suggested we do this, so that he could ask without me making an excuse that I had to leave. I sighed heavily, squeezing my eyes shut.
"Why is it so important to you?" I asked, refusing the question with a distraction, but also curious.
He stopped peddling and placed a foot on the ground, stopping his forward motion so that I had to stop, too. He turned his face to the stars and took a deep breath of damp air.
"I love you, that's all," he answered in a defeated voice.
I watched his eye lashes flutter and his aloof posture stutter, and I sunk back onto the seat of my bike with a frown.
"You know it's not possible to continue being together after I graduate," I said carefully in a small voice. Even then I worried I'd shatter something fragile in him. Still, my words made even my heart throb painfully.
To my surprise, he simply nodded, but his hands seem to grip the handles of his bike a bit harder. "I know, I just..."
He didn't finish.
The air between us turned tense, and I knew I had to say something, had to reveal something to him to make him understand that this wasn't easy for me, either.
"I wish it could," I told him softly. "But, no matter what happens here in Ashwood Creek, I need to go out and be with myself. It's a journey I have to do alone—and I don't want to hold you back, or drag you along with me...ever. Things are perfect now, but..."
"That could change?" he guessed, his smile small and crooked.
"You have my heart," I assured him, and his eyes seemed to twinkle like the stars. "But we're both still figuring everything out."
He folded his hands together in his lap and looked at me, nodding. "I understand, Jovial. Really, I do. It's just hard to imagine an expiration date when all I want is forever. Except, we both know it's not possible." He shook his head. "It is truly the quirkiest relationship I've ever been in. And, funnily enough, it's the one I crave most."
"It's like laughing when you're told not to," I provided, understanding completely what he was getting at.
"Exactly."
We laughed a little, nodding and staring off somewhere that wasn't into each other's souls. The sky had grown unbelievably dark in the past couple of minutes and lights had gone out in many homes. I could no longer make out the features of Bash's face. So, I told him.
"New York. In Manhattan. There's a university there that's given me an academic scholarship, and it's the smartest route to take."
"I'm proud of you."
He didn't comment on the distance—how it really wasn't all that far. He didn't comment on the big city—the kind of big city he had run from that I was running toward. He didn't' try to say anything at all. Just that he was proud, and that was everything I needed.
There wasn't much space between us, so I tipped off my bike and leaned toward him, standing on my tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek.
He turned his face toward me, his eyes adjusting to the dark and the shadowy effect it had on my features. His eyes searched mine, looking for something I didn't know if he found or not, but he still kissed me all the same, lowering himself off his bike and pressing me close to him. These days when he kissed me it felt like tossing back liquor. The more of it I had, the easier it became to block the rest of the world out, to feel only him and taste chamomile tea on his lips and smell amber on his skin.
He was paradisiacal, and I hardly think he ever knew it. I wanted him to believe it, though. I still do.