Page 27 of Reckless Roses
Late at night, when I’m in bed, sometimes even when I know she snuck into my brother’s room across the hall, I fantasize about her wrapped up in my sheets instead, my hands on her hips, my lips on her neck. I dream of her on top of me, of the way her body moves. What sounds she might make when I do something right, how eager I’d be to let her teach me how to please her and only her.
I hit the ground next to her hard enough to rock me from my reveries, and I find my mind drifting toward anything that’ll remove the evidence of my thoughts from my body. The joggers I’m wearing leave nothing to the imagination. Elena’s notlooking at me, but her arm swings out to the side as she places it in my lap, and I have to roll out of the way.
She was heading straight for my hard-on, and that would’ve ruined the night for both of us. I groan as I tumble onto my back, dodging her touch. Elena perks up at my movement, head whipping sideways to look toward me. “What are you doing?”
“There was a bug.” I swipe at my thighs, inconspicuously hiding my dick before sitting up again. She gives me an unconvinced look before tossing her arm onto my lap again. I grab the pen, tapping it against her skin.
Part of me wants to draw butterflies because that’s what I felt in my stomach the day I met her, what I still feel every time I make her laugh. Or possibly a human heart with a hole through its center, blood seeping down the sides, because that’s how it feels every time I see her with my brother. Stars because it feels like I exist among them when I’m with her. Books or poems because those remind me of her, too. I consider roses because that’s her middle name, but I quickly scrap the idea because I know it’s not her favorite flower.
She told my brother that before, too, but it was a bouquet of roses he gave her on her birthday. She pretended she loved them, and I know she didn’t.
I picked her a bouquet of violets from the very field we’re sitting in now. This is our secret place, a haven we don’t share with anyone else, but also, I know violets are her favorite flower. It’s a fact she has shared with my brother countless times, but he doesn’t bother to remember.
The design flows from my fingertips then and, deep in concentration, I don’t know how much time passes in silence, but neither of us seems to mind. I’m focused on creating art on her skin; she’s focused on the movement of the sky. It’s this peaceful silence, this comfortable darkness we always findtogether. The world is quiet when I’m with her. Nothing else exists beyond us and the moment we’re in.
It’s what convinces me we’re meant to be.
That’s a thought I keep locked deep inside, because at the end of the day, no matter how safe she feels with me, how much I make her laugh, or how desperate I am for her, she belongs to someone else.
But the most authentic version of her is mine, even if it’s only friendship, and I’ll never risk that. I’ll never take away her safe place, her comfort and her peace, even if it means I’m forced to live in the reveries that only exist inside my mind.
“Finished,” I say, clicking the pen closed and placing her arm back across her body. Her eyes were closed, but they fly open as she lifts her hand and admires my work.
“Violets?” she asks, turning to smile at me.
“They’re your favorite.”
“I love that about you,” she says. “You remember everything about me.”
“Nothing about you is easy to forget.”
“I love you, Augustus.” She smiles, tracing her fingers over the flowers along her arm.
“I love you too, Elena,” I respond, knowing the words are the same, but we’re saying two completely different things.
9
ELENA
“THAT GIRL” - KENZIE CAIT
AGE SEVENTEEN - MARCH
“Dad,I’m so sorry, but I am not going to dance with you out here in the middle of the pier.” My father laughs, brown eyes crinkling at the corners as he walks backward with a hand extended toward me. I stop, sighing. “I say this with so much love and respect, but you do know you’re incredibly embarrassing, right?”
“Isn’t that my job,Corazón?”
“Trattienilo e basta, ok? Non si arrenderà finché non ballerai con lui,” my mom mutters in Italian from behind me. My brother laughs beside her.
My dad hates that Everett and I decided to take Italian in high school so we could learn to speak it with my mom. Her family comes from Sicily, and she used to take lessons from her grandmother when she was a girl, but after she passed away, my mom lost the knowledge. When Everett and I chose Italian for our foreign language requirement, my mom began taking online classes alongside us.
My dad did not.
So, it’s our preferred way of talking about him in front of his face, knowing he can’t understand most of what we’re saying.
I huff an exaggerated sigh, taking my dad’s hand and letting him spin me in circles, right in the center of the Pacific Shores Pier for any passerby to watch.
“You love this song, baby.” He chuckles.
