Page 4 of Lose You to Find Me

I don’t recognize my own voice when I murmur a robotic “Yeah. I know she is.”

Mom says, “Make sure you’re ready, baby boy. You’ll only hurt yourself more if you try to force something. And it’s not fair to Emma or anybody else if you’re not fully healed from Raine yet. The heart needs time to recover.”

This time, I don’t say anything.

Because I don’t want to bullshit them with false promises like they’ve been getting from doctors this whole damn time.

*

I was fifteenwhen I went to my first house party that a classmate was throwing while his parents were out of town. A few of my friends on the high school football team decided to go together, but it didn’t take long before we all disbanded to drink and try picking up girls.

That night was full of other firsts too.

First time I asked a girl to dance with me. First time I played seven minutes in heaven. And the first time Ialmostkissed a girl.

All firsts I shared with Raine Copelin.

I’d seen the girl with dark red hair plenty of times before at school. Her head was almost always buried in a thick book in the library, with a pen in her mouth that she tended to chew the end of as she read. She’d sneak in her favorite snack, Milk Duds, until the librarian caught her and lectured her about how there was no food or drinks allowed in the library.

We’d interacted a few times before the party, but mostly in passing. Like when the pen she’d been chewing on leaked and she had blue ink all over her face. Or when her shoelace was untied in gym, and I was afraid she’d trip doing our mandatory two laps before every gym class began.

That party changed everything.

“We don’t have to do anything,” I promise her, readjusting in the dark closet we were shoved into after the bottle pointed at each of us. I was surprised she was even at the party, much less participating. She never seemed like the type who was interested in being around a lot of people.

Her squirming gets worse as she looks toward the door, then back at me. “Won’t they figure it out?”

I shake my head. “Most of them are drunk. They don’t even know left from right. I think we’re safe.”

A small smile appears on her face. “What do we do for the next”—her eyes go to her phone screen—“five minutes?”

I said the one thing that jump-started the next seven years.“Tell me about you.”

So she told me about how she was an only child, her mother worked as a tailor, her dad was in real estate, she had been trying to get a dog for the past year to no avail, and she was planning on going to college to become a psychologist or counselor.

The rest came after.

I stare at the yellow Milk Duds box on the counter display beside the register at Anders Hardware and grumble to myself before closing my textbook and pushing up from the counter.

“Finding everything all right, Phil?” I call out to the elderly man who’s in here at least once a week for some new project he’s doing. Ever since he retired, he’s been restless. If it’s not his house he’s working on, it’s one of his neighbors’ or kids’ places. It seems to make him happy to keep busy and his wife even happier to have the man with cabin fever out of her hair for a while.

Phil walks out of the plumbing aisle holding a new valve kit. “Found it on my own this time, kid,” he tells me, dropping it onto the counter in front of me. “Don’t suppose I can get one of those loyal customer discounts, do you?”

My lips quirk up at the corners as I ring him up and apply the employee discount for ten percent off. “I got you, Phil. Who’s this for? Last week, you were replacing the leaking garden hose for Mrs. DeMarcus over on Third Street.”

He passes me a fifty-dollar bill, which I make change for as he tells me all about how his son-in-law doesn’t know anything about being handy. “I’m telling you, son, my Maise could have done so much better than that city slicker. But she loves him, so what’s a father to do?”

Love is a pain in the ass like that. It hits you hard and keeps a firm grip on you even when you wish it didn’t.

Phil puts some of the spare change in the glass tip jar that’s got a few pennies and quarters in the bottom. “Tell your dad I said hi. The missus and I have missed seeing him around. We’re wishing him the best.”

Adam’s apple bobbing, I nod. “I will. Good luck on the new project. Let me know if you need anything else.”

After he leaves, I drop back into the seat and stare at the candy display again. Despite all the assignments I’m behind on, I decide to reorganize a few things in the store instead.

After an hour, all the candy is off to the side and out of my line of sight, Milk Duds included. If Dad ever sees it, I’m sure he’ll have a thing or two to say, but I’d rather have my peace of mind since I’m the one out of my family who spends the most time here.

I pull out my phone and send a quick text to a few friends and one to Emma.

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