AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
All of my belongings are on the lawn out in front of the apartment I once shared with my ex-boyfriend. Neighbors snicker and whisper, then look away when I glare at them. I take the boxes and shove them into the cargo space of my small SUV. I don’t know how I’ll make everything fit. Could he have been more of a dick about the whole thing? It’s not like I’m the one who cheated in our relationship, and yet he’s treating me like I’m the bad guy here. He even told me that it was my fault that he cheated because I wasn’t ready to lose my virginity to him (even though I made it abundantly clear from the beginning that I wasn’t going to put out until I was damn ready). He then kicked me out, changed the locks, and left everything I own out on the lawn for anyone to pick through.
It’s not like I was planning on staying a virgin until I was married or anything. It’s just, every time my ex and I went to “do it,” something always kept me from going all the way. He never turned me on to the point of no return. He would always say something strange or perverted, or touch me in a way that made being with him feel like a chore. That’s why I’m not devastated about this breakup. One of us had to do it. I’d just wanted it to be done with mutual respect. After all, we started out as friends, and I’d hoped that if things didn’t work out between us we’d end the same way, as friends again. Wishful thinking.
It takes me a half hour to get everything loaded up. Resting on the top of the last box is a picture of my ex and me during spring break. We’d rented a houseboat with our friends on Shasta Lake. Our boat met up with several others while we were there. It was so much fun, and I thought at the time that we were in the happiest point of our relationship. Turns out I was the only one who thought so. I didn’t find out until after the fact, but the whole time we were out on the lake, he was making out with several other girls. I’d been exploring the island where we’d docked, completely oblivious to what was going on behind my back. Some of my so-called-friends even knew about it but didn’t tell me about it until after the breakup, afraid to stir up drama. Someone even took pictures of him and those girls that ended up on Instagram after we split. It was humiliating to say the least.
I take the framed picture in my hands. The sun glares off the glass, creating dots in front of my vision. Then I throw it at the apartment. I meant to hit the door, but it smashes through the window instead.
Shit.
My neighbors laugh and clap while I just stand frozen for a moment with my mouth gaped open. It’s a good thing he isn’t home.
I hurry back to the SUV, climb inside, and get the hell out of there as fast as I can before someone decides to call the cops.
It’s a long nine-hour drive from Southern Oregon back to the home where I grew up in Seattle. My parents sold the family house to my brother when they took off for Florida for early retirement. I loved that house growing up. It was the place where all my friends gravitated toward. If there was ever a sleepover or party, it always took place at my house. I was lucky to have such cool parents who didn’t mind a house bursting at the seams with teenagers. I don’t know too many other parents who would be that cool with it. Especially when my brother and his jock friends would get home from school and raid the pantry.
When it came to my friends, I think they just wanted to come over because of my neighbor. I couldn’t blame them because he was my childhood crush as well.
His name was Mac Stillwell, and he was perfection. An amazing athlete, all smooth, sleek muscle and bronzed skin. His body was a work of art. He and my brother were on the same soccer team. They were rivals because Mac was always just a hair better at everything, which was why Mac was never over at the house with the rest of them. No one ever found out that I went to every game just to secretly cheer on Mac.
I was infatuated, and seeing him every day was the best sweetest torture I could imagine. He was a total jock like the rest of the guys on his team, always in his garage lifting weights or jogging around the neighborhood in soccer shorts and shirtless. For such a celebrated athlete, he didn’t seem to have many friends—probably because my brother hoarded them all. Mac spent a lot of his time alone in the halls at school or in some corner, always with a black hoody on, draped over his face as if he were trying to shut out the world.
Could be because his mom was sick a lot. I heard my parents talk about it. My mom used to bring them food because Mac’s mom was single and having a hard time. He moved away shortly after high school to become a pro-soccer player. I kept his games saved on my DVR. My boyfriend at the time hated how I would delete his shows to make room for Mac’s games, and how I hated to be bothered while watching them.
I heard that Mac’s mom died recently, so I imagine the house next door has sold by now. I wonder what the new neighbors
are like.
When I get into town I see that nothing has changed since I left except for the new carwash on the corner downtown. Driving through the neighborhood brings back so many good memories and I’m already feeling much better.
I pull up in front of my childhood home. It’s the same, but with a fresh coat of paint. My brother, Nathan, has really kept the place up. Mom’s flower garden is still thriving, the lawn is green and evenly mowed. The tire swing is still hanging from the huge oak tree we loved to climb. Many good times had played out on that old swing. We’d twist each other up until the rope was taut as a bowstring, then let it fly and hold on for dear life. It had been there before my parents bought the house. Once, when the rope was old and frayed, Nathan was pushing me as high as I could go and the damn thing snapped. Almost flung me into the clothes line where mom had been hanging freshly washed sheets.
Luckily, I landed on the tire and bounced before hitting the ground. My mom lost her mind and I had to convince her not to dial 911. The worst I got was a couple scrapes on the knee—still have the scars to prove it. Because my mom was squeamish when it came to blood, Nathan had taken me to the kitchen sink to clean my wounds. He’s the best brother a girl could ask for. Since then, Nathan has switched out the rope with the best he could find. The kind of durable rope rock climbers use—though I doubt we’ll be as harsh on that swing now that we’re adults.
Looking at the old oak tree reminds me of the time when my beloved Persian cat escaped from the house and got stuck on a tall branches I couldn’t reach. Mac heard me crying from next door and came over. He was brave enough to climb out on the limbs. That might’ve been the exact moment I became obsessed with him, but it’s hard to say for sure. There’s not a single moment of my childhood and adolescence that I can remember when he didn’t dominate my thoughts and dreams.
I’m starting to warm up to the idea of being back home with Nathan and my old memories. Hard to believe it’s been five years since I moved away. I rarely came home after I moved. My parents and Nathan always came to Oregon during the holidays to be with me because they were never comfortable with me driving all that way alone.
Getting out of the car, I glance next door at Mac’s old house. It looks the same as well. I guess the new owners liked it the way it was. There’s a muscle car parked out front. A classic Dodge Challenger, black with white racing stripes, wide racing tires, and a scoop on the hood. That is one a sexy car. Probably has to stop at every gas station it comes across. I wonder who it belongs to.
I go to the back of my car and lift the hatch to unload my things. I grab the heaviest box and start to head toward the house. That’s when Mac comes around the front of the Challenger, holding a hose and bucket. I’m so startled to see him again that I drop my box. Everything on the top spills out when it hits the ground, and the sound of breaking glass is unmistakable. I hope it isn’t anything important. I have a ridiculous amount of Seattle Whalers soccer memorabilia I’ve been collecting since Mac joined the team. They are my most prized possessions—now I just have to make sure no one sees them.
Mac turns to face me when he hears the box drop. He looks confused at first, and then surprised.
“Holy shit, is that little Wanda McCall?” Mac says, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
My mouth falls open, surprised that he recognizes me, and even more floored that he knows my name. I walk toward him on stiff legs. Every muscle in my body aches from the long drive, and the nerves I feel seeing him again aren’t helping matters. I put my hands in the pockets of my shorts so he doesn’t see them shaking. I need to play this cool. He has no idea I’ve been obsessed with him my entire life.
“Mac Stillwell, it’s been a while,” I say, cool, calm, and collected. I try to stop smiling, but I can’t. I think my face is frozen this way, just as my parents warned me when I was a child.
As soon as I get close to him, his scent wafts toward me and I swoon. He smells like soap and car leather and fresh cut grass. I breathe him in until I’m light headed. I want a perfume that smells just like him. I would bathe in it.
“A few years,” he says.
He’s been keeping track? I’m puzzled. Growing up, I was certain I was invisible because he never once said hi to me, or even looked at me except for the time he saved my cat.
Gazing into his copper-colored eyes, I notice his gaze darting between my eyes, my lips, my neck—and a lightning quick glance at my cleavage spilling out of my V-neck t-shirt—then back to my eyes again. He has this look on his face that is both curious and taken aback, as if he’s seeing me for the first time.
“You look different,” he says, then he laughs. “Sorry. I just remember you as that little freckle-faced tom-boy who always had skinned knees.”
I laugh too. “Still have the skinned knees. I’m perpetually clumsy.”
“You’ve really grown up.” He glances at my breasts again. My heart starts to hammer in my chest. I study him too. He’s filled out quite nicely. Before, when he first left to play pro soccer, he was lean—bordering skinny—but now he’s bulked up. He looks more like a man than the boy I remember. Though I’ve seen him a million times on TV and in magazines, I’m surprised just how large he really is. And tall too. How do I not remember him being this tall? The top of my head barely reaches his shoulders.
Up close, I see all of his beautiful tattoos. I read in a magazine that he got one after each of his championships. Both of his arms are covered from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers, so clearly he has a lot of wins under his belt. Doesn’t surprise me. He was always the best. There’s one tattoo on his neck that particularly stands out. It’s a fancy cursive W with a four leaf clover next to it. I wonder if it stands for Whalers, though his team has a trident as their logo, not a four leaf clover. I’m fairly certain Mac himself isn’t Irish due to his tan skin and dark hair and eyes. I wonder what it means. Maybe an old girlfriend, or a current one—though I’m sure the tabloids would’ve mentioned a relationship. I try not to think too much about it.
“Didn’t you used to have a huge crush on me?” he asks. The way his smile tilts higher in one corner sends a shiver down my spine. How is he even more beautiful than I remember? I didn’t think it was physically possible. I have a poster of him that I bought at one of his games that I stare at constantly, and yet he looks so different in person. There’s a warmth there that can’t be captured in photos. It’s something you have to see for yourself to really appreciate.
“What? No, not at all,” I say, voice shaky with the lie.
“Really?” he says, not believing a word of it. “Because I remember you following me around at school a lot, and watching me from the treehouse, and sometimes from your room that has a pretty good view into mine.”
My face goes numb. Am I still smiling? It’s hard to tell. I swallow back the embarrassment. I was a kid. It’s not like I was caught stalking him minutes ago, I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
“I didn’t do that. Maybe you were just so used to having admirers that you mistook me for one of them,” I say.
He’s not wrong, of course. I did used to watch him from various vantage points around the house. I just didn’t know that he knew, and now I’m feeling so bad for my younger self. I thought I was so sneaky. Guess not.
I don’t know if I would’ve stopped watching him even if I had known he was paying attention. I couldn’t help myself. It’s not like he was closing his curtains or doing anything to keep me from watching him. Because of his rigorous workout schedule, his movements, right down to the time he brushed his teeth at night, could be calculated down to the minute. Every night, before I would go to bed, I watched as he would change his clothes and climb under the covers—if he knew I was watching, why did he let me? I never did see him naked. He must have done that in the bathroom—I guess I know why now. I always watched closely, though, just in case.
“I’m not wrong,” he says playfully. “And if you don’t admit it, you’ll be s
orry.” He lifts the nozzle of the hose up and points it at me.
My eyes spring open and I let out a burst of nervous laughter. “You wouldn’t.”
He looks up as if considering it. “Are you sure about that?”
“You better not,” I say, pretending like I’m about to run, but in truth, I’m not going anywhere. It’s hot as hell outside—unseasonably so for Seattle—and being doused with a hose sounds nice at the moment.
His hand flexes on the nozzle of the hose, smile growing wider. “All you have to do is admit you were obsessed with me.”
“Never.”
“Is that your final answer?” he says, giving me an out, but I’m not about to cave and admit to anything.
“Yep.”
He sprays me. Right on the front of the shirt.
I yelp, and open my arms. My shirt clings to my chest and is completely see-through. Though I was prepared to get soaked, I was not prepared for just how cold the water would be. My nipples are as hard as diamonds and standing proud for Mac to see.
