Friend Is a Four Letter Word Read online

  Good, sweet Nolan who’s here and nice and fits my life. Not a dream, not a tease. And I make the decision to focus on him and what’s real.

  No matter how much I want to curl up with my fantasies of Carter.

  It’s still early. What else do I have to do with my time?

  “Sure, yeah, that sounds fine,” I say, swallowing back my sigh.

  Nolan raises his glass to me and nods. “Cheers, then.”

  “What are we toasting to again?” I ask, sipping on the soda and wishing I had something stronger to pour into it to liven this evening up.

  “To what promises to be an amazing evening.”

  “Cheers,” I say, but I don’t quite manage to match Nolan’s eager grin.

  I’ve been to Nolan’s place before, briefly. Usually it’s because he forgot something, or we were meeting up here before we went on one of our dates to watch him fence. This time is different though, because I’m here to hang out.

  To actually spend time with this guy I’ve known for months, but still hardly know.

  I walk over to the display case full of swords. I’ve seen them before, but never bothered to really look at them or comment on them.

  “Are these all of the same?” I ask, knowing that talk of fencing will at least break some of the ice. He loves to talk fencing… even though the immature voice in my head wants to make jokes about sword size.

  “These two are. They’re sabers,” Nolan says pointing to the two swords at the top of the display. He leans in over my shoulder and his breath ruffles the hair on the nape of my neck. “This one is a foil, and this one, with the stiffer blade down here,” he pushes the hair off of the back of my neck and presses his warm lips to the skin, exactly where I imagined Carter kissing me when I read his silly boiled peanuts text. “That’s my favorite. The épée.”

  I swallow hard and pull away, so his lips aren’t in that place that feels, inexplicably, like it belongs to Carter. “What’s so great about that one?”

  I spin toward Nolan, my back up against the wall now. He presses in closer and puts his hands on either side of my head as he leans toward me, his light blue eyes focused on my face. “With the épée, no part of the body is off limits.”

  I clear my throat, duck under his arms, and start to pace. “Do you have anything to drink?” I ask, my voice an octave higher than normal.

  “You feeling okay? Do you want to sit down?” Nolan shoots me a look of real concern.

  “Yeah, sure.” I sit in the small arm chair. Seating for one. I watch as he rushes away, cynically wondering if it’s just that he wants to be sure I’m comfortable enough to pick up the makeout session where he left off.

  Nolan calls from the kitchen. “I’ve got water, juice, I think I have some beer in here somewhere—”

  “You have beer?” I ask with a scoff that borders on impolite.

  Nolan glances up from the fridge, the bluish light making him look washed out. “Yes, I have beer, Shayna. Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “But, I thought… do your parents know?” I can’t keep a straight face as I say it.

  He gazes back into the fridge, moving things back and forth like he’s checking behind them for something. “Know what?” His voice echoes out from the fridge, making it sound far away.

  I know it’s not nice, but I poke at him anyway. He’s another pastor’s kid. He’d understand better than anyone what that’s like. “That you’ve thrown away your values and morals and—”

  Nolan rounds the kitchen counter and comes back into the living room with two beers, which he puts down on the scuffed coffee table. “That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Your missing values?” I rub my now sweaty palms down the length of my skirt.

  “No, not really, but okay here’s the thing.” He saunters closer to me and takes one of my hands in his. Oh dear God, please do not let my mother’s hopes come true. “We’ve been together for almost a year now—”

  “Seven months, it’s only been seven months,” I say, desperate to stop this proposal in its tracks.

  Nolan cracks a proud smile. “Ah, so you’ve been keeping track. Alright, well, seven months it is. I just—” he brushes the hair off of my forehead and I go into an early state of hyperventilation. “Do you think you may want to try staying the night tonight, Shayna?”

  “What? Wow…” Okay. My pulse calms. So, not a proposal after all. Relief buckles my shoulder blades.

  But then my spine stiffens because I realize Nolan is talking about sex. Maybe not right away, maybe not tonight. But eventually.

  Up until now, the physical aspect of our relationship would probably put some handsy middle school kids to shame. I keep waiting. Hoping that I’ll feel something for him that I just don’t, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  “I don’t mean to catch you off guard,” he says.

  He looks me up and down, taking in every curve before his eyes settle on my collarbone. I can feel them burning into my skin. He reaches out and runs his thumb across the skin where his eyes have already seared me.

  I’d be lying if I said his touch didn’t feel good. It does. I want to want him, because, frankly, the release would likely feel amazing after so long.

  But it’s still a slap in the face to the promises that I made to my parents—and myself.

  My phone buzzes through my purse, and my heart leaps wondering if it’s Carter. Which is the last shred of evidence in the case against taking things further with Nolan.

  “Nolan,” I say. I clasp my hand over his own palm, which is now wandering away from my collarbone and, instead, teasing the straps of my dress into slipping off my shoulders.

  “So it’s still too soon? Okay, that’s cool,” he says. He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking defeated.

  I could say yes. It’d make him happy, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’d said yes to having sex with a guy I wasn’t totally interested in. But that was my choice, and I knew I could walk away the next day.

  Saying yes to sleeping with Nolan would only cement this sham of a relationship I have with him.

  Because in my gut, I know it will never amount to anything. No matter how much my parents wish it so. The truth is, they tried to change me by bringing a guy into my life. And I let them, because I wanted a different life.

  But not this. Not with him.

  I care about Nolan too much. And for the first time that I can remember, I care about myself too much, too.

  “Nolan,” I say. His face falls as I take a step back away from him. “You are amazing. A really, really great guy.”

  “Ouch,” he says, cocking a small smile. “I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”

  “There’s no ‘but.’ You’re great. I love spending time with you. As a friend, you know?”

  The color drains from his face. That word—friend? It may as well have been a saber to the gut.

  I drive home in silence. No radio. No phone calls. The only noise in the car is the tick-tick of my blinker as I sit waiting for the world’s longest train to pass. I remember some cheesy metaphor my dad told me once about people being like trains, and though they may make unscheduled stops, they always arrive at the proper destinations.

  I’m the opposite right now. I’m finally at the place that I’ve feared most my entire life: Unmoving. Stagnant.

  I don’t want to go back to the way I was in high school. I don’t want the comments circulating around town again. I don’t want my parents to feel ashamed of me. But I don’t want this either. My parents wanted to help mold me into a proper Southern daughter, but I don’t know who this person is. The real me could just as easily be found in the church lost and found now, stuffed between left behind coats, ties and baby toys. Things that were not really missed and easily replaced—with a newer, better version. And that’s exactly what I became.

  It’s in this moment, where the train traveling on the tracks is matching the tick of my turn signal that I think of Quinn. And one of th
e last things she said to me when we talked last. When I heard her bickering with Ben, who was in the background laughing. I told her she sounded happy.

  She said, “I am. For once I really am. Things can change.”

  I need to be that damn train.

  And suddenly, I know exactly what I need to do.

  I slide my key into the lock and hold my breath as I turn it. Then curse under my breath as the front door creaks open wide enough for me to slip into the dark house.

  I half expect Mom to be sitting in the entryway with balloons and a congratulations banner. What will she say when tomorrow she wakes up and not only am I not engaged to Nolan, but… I’m leaving town?

  I am.

  I think.

  Damn it! I wish there was an easier way to figure this all out. A map, a guidebook, some kind of sign from heaven above to let me know what I should do. Right now, I just need the comfort of the familiar, of my room.

  Thank God the house is dark and silent. I tiptoe up the stairs to my room and lock the door behind me.

  In the bottom drawer of my desk there’s a stash of tiny bottles of liquor. I haven’t dragged them out in months, so I waste no time unscrewing the first cap and draining the bottle of its cheap vodka. It burns going down, but in the most delicious way. In the way that screams, “I’ve missed you, old friend.”

  I uncap another.

  My suitcases are all in the storage closet and I’m not about to go back down the hall and lug them into my room. I have an old duffle bag that I got from some Walkathon fundraiser crammed in the back of my bedroom closet. I guess that’ll work. I have to pretty much scale the shelves to reach it and nearly take them all down with me when I lose my footing. I freeze where I land on the plush carpet, listening for any movement downstairs.

  When I’m sure the sound of my fall didn’t wake my parents, I start filling the bag with clothes in between sips of gin. The gin may not mix well with the vodka I just sucked down, or maybe it’s just that I haven’t had anything to drink in so long that I’m a lightweight now… because I feel much drunker than I think I should.

  I climb up onto my bed and decide to rest for a minute, try to get my head straight. I can’t count the number of times I snuggled in this bed dreaming about what I would do with my life if I were just brave enough, just strong enough. I’d go to sleep sure that I’d be able to follow through on all the promises the night held by morning.

  But the morning would come, and I’d stay put, unhappy and feeling like a phony in my own life.

  I think about my parents, my adoption, my non-relationship with Nolan, my non-relationship with Carter… is there a single thing about my life that’s real, that I can count on?

  I decide to push all the crap away and focus on the liquor coursing through my veins and the small comforts I can always turn to when I’m freaking out.

  For example, my bed. My bed is heavenly. Full of feather stuffed pillows and plush blankets that I sink into. I push the piles of clothes off of my bed with my feet and stretch out. I wonder where I’ll sleep where I’m going. I probably won’t have a nice bed like this for a while.

  Unfortunately, thoughts like that make it really hard to relax.

  My purse is on the edge of my nightstand so I grab at it, dumping the contents onto the floor. I have to do some circus like movements in order to scoop my phone off of the carpet without leaving my bed, but in the end, it’s worth it.

  It’s late. Too late to call any of my friends—not that I have a ton of them to choose from.

  Nolan is about my only local friend, really and I think I may have just killed that.

  I scroll through the list before stopping on CARTER.

  It’s earlier in the West Coast. It wouldn’t be impolite to call at this hour there.

  I’ve called him a few times… mostly when it’s so damn late I’m half out of my mind with sleepiness and he’s home from work. We tell each other stupid stories about our days or talk about funny things that happened at school or work. We talk about what we miss from our childhoods and what we hope for in our futures. Our talks are deep but careful, entangled but guarded.

  But our texts? Our texts are on fire. We turn into sexier, braver people when we communicate with words on a screen.

  We’ve been texting for the last several months and many of our messages are innocent—some of them are just quick ‘hellos’, some have to do with peanut cravings… but just as many have gone into darker, hotter territory, the kind of delicious stuff that we started but never finished on Christmas Eve. And some those texts are us telling each other exactly what we’d do to the other if they were there.

  It’s a game. An innocent flirtation. We’ve never talked like that on the phone, though. My fingers tap on the screen, circling his name, wishing I had a picture of him to use as my contact. But all I have is his sexy-as-hell voice and the strange back and forth of our relationship.

  I should do this.

  I need a minute. Some courage. A sign.

  I glance out the window and then look down at the sill. There’s a smattering of glitter and, when I follow it with my finger, I see that there’s a card wedged between my bed and the wall. I pluck it out and it’s a simple, ridiculous card from my Gramp, a man I love and who has always loved me for being a ‘spitfire.’ I look at the front of the card, which features a polar bear in a Santa hat surfing. My Gramp scrawled a note inside: ‘Merriest Christmas, honey bear! Never stop being your crazy, amazing self, kid! Lots of love, Gramps’.

  Surfing and my Gramps telling me to go for it? It’s a sign enough for me.

  I take the last sip from the clear, glass bottle and press CALL.

  I’m already too lit to care that this may be a bad idea. That he may be sleeping—getting his rest for work tomorrow. That he may have a girlfriend he hasn’t mentioned and she may be balancing on top of him at this very moment. Instead I just tap my foot casually and wait for him to answer.

  “Shayna?” he says. “Are you okay?”

  It isn’t what I expect him to say. “Okay?” I repeat.

  “It’s just… earlier than you usually call,” he says, and some of the magic that weaves around us when I call late at night is sapped, missing.

  I regret calling, and search my brain for a possible excuse that doesn’t make me sound like a total lunatic. “Right. Sorry. Look, are you busy? I understand if you are. It wasn’t importa—”

  “I’m not busy,” he reassures me. “Never too busy if you need me.”

  “Right,” I say, feeling my cheeks light on fire. “But it was so, so stupid.”

  “Really?” he drawls. “Stupider than an urgent message about boiled peanuts?” I hear his keys or loose change hitting a table. I hear a muffled scuffling and imagine him taking off his jacket and tie. When he sounds settled he says, “You never did answer me back, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry.” I curl my legs under myself and drag my finger through the last little sprinkling of glitter left on the sill, like it’s magic. Fairy dust or something from my childhood, now so long gone and far away. “I wanted to, but I was out.”

  His laugh is deep and full. “Don’t apologize. I just wanted you to remember nothing you could be calling for could be more ridiculous than the reason I was bothering you.”

  “You were really missing boiled peanuts?” I ask, smiling a real smile for the first time in I don’t know how long. “My grandmother has the most amazing recipe ever.”

  “Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to taste them myself someday. I think Quinn and I are heading home for a week or two soon.”

  I can’t read the tone in his voice. Is he happy? Homesick? Was his flirty text just a tease, or does he really miss me?

  So I take a deep breath and ask. “Carter, what did your text mean? Are you missing… home?” Not ‘me.’ I don’t ask if he’s missing me.

  “I miss some things about home. But I don’t miss feeling trapped. I don’t miss having my father looking over my shoulder, ju
dging my every move, and deciding I come up short. I don’t miss feeling like I’m in some cage.” His voice has a bitter clip, like he’s venting. “I don’t miss looking after my mom. I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s the truth.”

  And here’s where the weirdness of what we have gets clear. Because venting is pretty personal, right? So that means…

  “I miss being able to talk to you one on one,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “I know we never got much time to just hang out, but it’s pretty rare for me to feel an instant connection to someone like I felt with you.” His voice dips low and seductive, like this is more of our game, just upped a level.

  And I want to play. Damn, I want to play so bad it burns.

  But this is also real. I’m about to walk out on and away from every single person who cares about me. I’m so nervous, I’m shaking.

  It’s crazy and so dumb, but I close my eyes and wish for one more sign.

  “Weird,” Carter says, breaking the awkward silence we slipped into.

  “What’s weird?” I ask, my voice breathy.

  “It’s just… do you remember the night we dropped Quinn off at Ben’s?” he asks.

  Christmas Eve. I touch the glitter on my window.

  “Yeah. I do.” I wait for him to continue.

  “You calling reminded me that my mother said I took the spare keys to my father’s car with me when I left, and they were in the coat I wore that night.” His voice is off, like he’s surprised. I guess car keys could be a big deal to a guy?

  “That’s great,” I say, feigning enthusiasm. “Your father will be relieved.”

  “It’s not the keys,” he says, his voice soft. “I found an earring caught in the sleeve. A diamond? It looks just like the ones you were wearing that night. Did you lose one?”

  “I… did,” I say, remembering that I only took a single one off when I cleaned up before Christmas day. I searched high and low for that earring, and it had been with Carter all along.

  “I’ll send it to you,” he offers. “I’m so sorry I never noticed before.”