Page 34 of Wasted On You

“Am I supposed to be able to feel it so deeply?” Elowyn leans up, whispering into my ear so as not to disturb the other listeners. “I’m tingling. Like the bowls are inside me.”

“Yes.” I sigh, all of my worry that she would find this weird or dumb disappearing. I can’t think of a single girl in my past I would trust enough to bring here. “I knew you’d get it.”

When the demonstration ends, we walk around for a while longer, looking at jewelry and incense, before making our way to the food vendors. I’m hungry for something pretty substantial, so I grab us two gyros and a pair of iced herbal teas while Elowyn finds us a spot in the grass, unfolding the woven blanket she bought from a stall earlier.

“This is a really cool date,” she says, taking a long sip of her tea. There’s a small smear of tzatziki on her chin, and I wipe it away with my thumb. “I’ve never done this before. Thank you for bringing me.”

“I wanted to share this place with you. It’s an annual thing. I came here once—a few years ago.” Banjo had been tapped to sub in for a friend who couldn’t play that day because of a nasty case of strep throat. He threw me a free ticket and a few free beers to come roadie for him. I wonder now if he knew just what he was doing by getting me down here. I think it might have ended up saving my life. “I felt lost, and this place inspired me to learn about alternative ways to cope, ways to alleviate stress. One day, I swore I’d learn how to use a singing bowl. I’ve never quite managed to get there.”

The corners of her mouth tug upward. “Can’t make it sing?”

“I can never quite justify the purchase.” I shake my head, crumpling the empty foil wrapper from my gyro in my palm. “You know, you save up and then a check engine light comes on or—”

She completes the thought for me. “Your apartment burns down?”

“Yeah. That,” I laugh in spite of myself. It’s the sort of thing we’ve had to have a sense of humor about, or we’d both go crazy with blame. “So I brought you here to get my fill. Heal long enough to have the conversation you deserve.”

She pauses. “I’m listening.”

“I know you are.” I take a breath, steadying my thoughts. Closing my eyes, I try to put myself back in the tent in front of the singing bowls, with Elowyn in my arms. The image calms my nerves enough to get going. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to tell you… when I was fifteen, I killed a man. He was a bad man who lived to beat my mom. One night, I stepped in.” I pause only long enough to suck in a breath. “It was an accident. He was drunk, and I shoved him. He… he hit his head on the fireplace. I didn’t get charged or anything, but it changed me in a way that wasn’t good. The police were really hard on me when they hauled me in for questioning. When you’re poor—when you’re nobody—you get labeled before all the facts are on the table. They shook me down and threatened to charge me with first-degree murder as an adult. Then they laughed when they told me in graphic detail what would happen to me in the pen. They did all that before they would even tell me if my mom had made it.”

I swallow hard, blinking away the memories that keep clouding my head. My pain is not the point of this exercise, so I tamp it down before it can bust loose. Elowyn deserves honesty. “I’m not trying to justify this. I’m not making excuses. I killed him. And if I had a do-over, I wouldn’t change anything. It breaks a man to see his mom suffering like that. I just… I wanted you to hear it from me. I know I probably should have told you before… today, but when is a good time to tell a woman you’re a killer?”

She nods, chewing on her lip, and the lack of surprise in her eyes tells me what I already feared. She knew. I don’t know how or why—but she knew. And she stayed with me anyway. She never planned on running away, but instead, wanted to give me an opportunity to explain my side of an impossible situation. I feel so ashamed, my cheeks burn. Her silence guts me more than anything.

“I’ve been thinking.” I tug at a blade of grass, twisting it between my fingers so I can look at something that isn’t her, for even just a second. “And I have an answer to your question. You know, the one from the other day. I don’t know what I’d do if my life were different, but now, with the life I have, I’d like to get serious about web design. Instead of dabbling, I’m going to really turn it into a business. I made a website and everything. Watching how far you’ve come with your business in such a short time has been really inspiring to me.”

Elowyn smiles, for the first time since I started talking, and I suddenly feel like everything might be okay after all. That I have a shot and haven’t ruined the only good thing I’ve ever had.

“You really mean that?” Her voice is barely audible.

“Yeah. Here, let me show you.” Digging in my pocket for my phone, I open up the website I had been working on all last week. It isn’t much, but it’s a start. A commitment to trying something else because whatever I’ve been doing hasn’t been working. Ever since Elowyn grabbed onto her gift-giving business with both hands, I realize I’ve been selling myself short. I’ve been unconsciously punishing myself with misery for Joel losing his life. I’m not sure when I decided that I needed to sacrifice my own for his, but that’s not how the Universe works.

When my girl looks at me, it isn’t with fear or shame, but pride. And when she puts her hand on my forearm and squeezes, her gentle touch says all the things where words would fall short. It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.

I toy with her fingers as a string of hope winds its way around my heart. “It’s still date night. Where do you want to go now?”

Wrapping her arms around me, she nuzzles her head into my shoulder, and I breathe in the smell of her shampoo. “Home.”

Chapter Seventeen

Elowyn

I trail my fingertips through the warm water. “I don’t think my parents ever did this sort of thing.”

Weston chuckles into my neck. “This is a really weird time to bring up your parents.”

I can’t see his face behind me, but I can hear the raised eyebrows in his voice. And he’s right. Maybe crammed up against my too-tall boyfriend in the middle of a romantic bubble bath in the world’s tiniest bathtub was an admittedly odd time to bring up my parents. But I think I have an important point to make.

“I just didn’t realize relationships could be like this, you know? My parents love each other a lot. Definitely, no question. But… not passionately. I can’t remember the last time I saw them kiss on the lips. I’m surprised us three girls even exist. I can’t imagine them getting carried away enough to have sex—not that I want to imagine them having sex. And everything I found out about sex in my childhood I learned from Ensley and only because she’s such a free spirit. It’s a wonder I even know what I’m doing. You get what I’m saying, right?”

Weston takes a moment to think, sliding bubbles up and down my arm and onto my shoulder. “Chemistry, yeah? They love each other madly, they just don’t have any chemistry.”

“Yeah! That. Exactly. But I know that chemistry isn’t the most important thing in a relationship. It makes you do all kinds of stupid things and just rush right past a whole bundle of red flags. Chemistry lies. Being friends first? That’s building a solid foundation for something that can really last. That’s the good stuff.”

As much as I tell myself that it isn’t important, having that attraction on top of an emotional bond certainly feels good. I never realized until Weston that I could have it both ways. That I could view someone as a friend and partner, someone I could give my heart to, and still find them physically irresistible. That when sex intertwines with emotion, it forges a soul connection that’s tough to break.

He shifts his weight, causing a little wave to roll over me. “I take it you’ve had some problems with chemistry in the past?”

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