Page 2 of Avenged

As soon as I entered the house, I dropped the boxes and felt my eyes zero in on the apparition that was Jersey. She was behind the TV that sat on a black table I’d brought with me from my apartment in Honolulu. The contemporary furniture clashed with the antique feel of the cottage almost as much as the monstrosity of a TV I owned. The TV was so big you could barely see Jersey’s head over the back of it. I moved closer, trying to figure out what on the wall had her so engrossed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She jumped, bumping into the TV and making it wobble precariously. I steadied it and watched as she turned her pale eyes in my direction before they skittered back away toward the wall. If I hadn’t lived with her for almost two months now, I would think her looking away was from a lack of confidence or, maybe, because she was shy or afraid. In reality, it was because she was thinking. Jersey almost always analyzed her words before she let them out of her mouth, as if she was adjusting them in some form. I wondered what it would sound like if she just spoke without the filter.

In response to my question, Jersey held up a metal cable. “I’m attempting to fasten the television.”

“Fasten the television?” I repeated. God, she made me sound like an idiot. I found my tongue coated in nonexistent wool around her, my words stuttering to get out because I was unsure what my non-analyzed words would make me sound like. Would I be some goober from a hick town in Northern California? Or a muscled Coast Guard with a chip on his shoulder?

“Yes.” She made a motion from a hook on the back of the TV to the wall. “For safety.”

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. “For safety?”

She flushed—something I rarely saw—and it made me instantly want to touch the pink skin that was normally all white ceramic. Flawless. Except for a tiny, almost imperceptible dusting of freckles across her high cheeks and tiny, upturned nose. Not for the first time since I’d met her, I was reminded of my mom’s prized Flower Fairies. The cheap prints and cheap figurines had grazed almost every wall and flat surface of our house in Clover Lake.

“You don’t want it to fall and break,” Jersey explained. “It would be expensive to replace, and it might injure someone.”

“I’ve lived a long time… almost thirty years now, and I’ve never lost a person to a TV.” I was trying, with a lot of difficulty, to hold back the amusement, because I was more than thrilled she was talking to me. More than thrilled she was there. And I didn’t want to somehow offend her by laughing at her carefully chosen words. At the same time, I wasn’t sure how to react to this need to attach my TV to the wall with a metal cable so thick it could probably moor one of our Coast Guard cutters to the dock.

She looked away from me, fidgeting with the screwdriver in her hand. “Yes. Well. It only takes one accident.” Her voice went from quiet to almost nonexistent, as if she realized something with her statement. As if she were revealing a clue I hadn’t yet unraveled.

Mac and Georgie came in the house with more boxes at the same time Dawson came from the back bedroom, and the rare moment where Jersey and I actually talked was broken. I may have lived with her for two months at Mandy and Leena’s Victorian, but I could count on probably just my fingers and toes the number of conversations we’d had when it was just the two of us.

“Here.” Dawson thrust something at Mac. I didn’t really give it much thought as I took the screwdriver out of Jersey’s hand and made a motion for her to trade places with me.

As she passed by me, our skin brushed, sending shivers down my spine. Shivers of joy. Shivers of light. Shivers of touch I’d been denying myself. She ran a hand over her arm where we’d touched before moving across the room to where Dawson was standing with Mac and Georgie.

I turned my attention to the wall, the molly bolt, and the cable.

“Liesl?” Mac said with laughter barely contained in his voice like mine had been moments before, and my head jerked up to look at the small group of people gathered, watching me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“This picture. It says, ‘Love, Liesl.’ Is this the girl?” Mac asked.

“Woman,” Georgie corrected him.

I glanced at the picture frame he held and groaned inwardly. I’d never had the desire to go all “Pictures to Burn” on my exes and destroy the evidence of our relationships, but now I was sort of regretting it.

“Yep,” I said, trying to hide my annoyance with the whole situation. “Didn’t realize Dawson had enough time to unpack my shit for me.”

“She’s beautiful, Truck,” Georgie said.

“She certainly was,” I responded and couldn’t help a glance toward Jersey. Liesl had been beautiful. Exotic. Hawaiian. Jersey was gorgeous in a different way.

“Her name was actually Liesl? As in The Sound of Music?” Jersey asked, and I heard the amusement in her voice now, roles reversed as she got in a little jab at me. It didn’t upset me one bit. Instead, it had me wishing I could do more stupid shit to get her to laugh in full.

“Laugh it up, everyone. Go right ahead,” I said with a wry smile no one saw as I remembered that Liesl’s name had been the first thing to intrigue me about her.

Mac burst out laughing. “She doesn’t look German.”

“Obviously, she’s not,” I snorted.

“I don’t think that should be a real person’s name,” Mac continued, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Really, this is what you all want to talk about? Her name? Not a moment of concern about whether I had my heart broken or not?” I tossed back.

“Wait, you have a heart?” Dawson ripped into me, and I didn’t look at him. I just tried to focus on the damn screws in my hand.

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