Before & After You Read online

  I sat down on the curb, taking deep breaths, squeezing my knees against my chest, rocking back and forth.

  I got it. My mom was fucked up. She loved drugs more than she loved anything or anyone else. She didn’t give a shit about life. She didn’t give a shit about herself. And she sure as hell didn’t give a shit about me.

  That was it. End of story. I didn’t need a therapist to tell me that.

  I pulled my phone from my back pocket and held it in front of me, my finger lingering above the screen, quickly realizing that there was no one I could really call. No one I wanted to call.

  I dialed Sara anyway. It rang and rang and rang. Then went to voicemail, twice.

  I dialed Jaymes, and he picked up on the third ring, but I could barely hear him through the noise on his end of the line. “Jess?!” he yelled into the phone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Hey Jaymes, could you—”

  “Hey, Jess! I can barely hear you! Let me call you later!” and the line went dead.

  And there it was. My whole two friends.

  I nudged the small rocks in the street around with my toes for all of three seconds before thinking, screw it, and dialing Greyson.

  It rang once, twice.

  “Jess?” he answered. His voice sounded almost as soothing over the phone as it did in person. Almost.

  “Hey, Greyson. Can I…do you think I could come over for a little bit?”

  I could hear him shuffling around, hear the rustling of fabric. Was he in bed? Was he changing? Was he naked?

  “Jess?” Greyson asked, snapping me back to reality.

  “What?” I replied. I hadn’t heard anything he’d said.

  “I said, ‘Are you okay?’ You sound off.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m okay, I just… I really need to get the hell out of my house,” I told him honestly.

  There was more shuffling around on his end of the line. “Just give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll come get you. We can go for a drive or something.”

  At his offer, I felt half of the tension slip away from my body. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he said, genuine, like it really wasn’t a big deal at all.

  And it was ridiculous, the way that I fell in love with the words that came out of his mouth.

  Twenty-one Before

  GREYSON JUST DROVE. He drove and drove and drove, drawing out the silence, somehow knowing that I needed it. He didn’t say a word. Just played song after song and kept driving.

  I had no idea where we were headed, but I didn’t care. Because just being in his car with him relaxed me. It was as if the last time we’d been in his car together had never happened. It wasn’t awkward, or tension-filled, or forced. It was simple.

  Quiet. Comfortable.

  It gave me time to process. Time to come to the conclusion that I was angrier than I realized. I was holding anger inside of myself like a poison. Allowing it to fester. The most frustrating part was that I didn’t know why. Not really.

  It just lingered. A steady, churning ball in the pit of my stomach, and I didn’t have the first clue how to get rid of it, or at the very least, how to begin chipping away at it.

  But I thought to myself, at least I know it’s there. That had to be a start, right? I thought so; it was a good enough start for me.

  I was pulled from my thoughts when I noticed the ocean peeking at us from in-between the buildings and houses we were passing by. I looked down at my phone, checking the time, and realized it had been over an hour since we’d left. The sun had almost fully set. Had it actually been that long already?

  We still hadn’t said anything to each other, and I couldn’t help but start to think that while things didn’t feel awkward or strained on my end, that maybe they did on his.

  I looked over at him, for the first time since we’d left. He was in dark swim trunks and a white tee, a slow smile curving his lips as he quickly glanced over at me and then focused his eyes back on the road again.

  So, no. Not awkward. And I guess he’d known where we were headed all along, too.

  He rolled his window down, the wind forcing his hair to dance around his face. I rolled my window down, too. The salt-thickened air blew into the car, coating my skin, whipping my dark hair all over the place. I could already smell the sand and waves from where we were.

  I closed my eyes and soaked it in. The salty air, the smell and feel of it caressing my skin, the sound of waves crashing as we got closer.

  When we were as close to the beach as we could get, he pulled into a spot along the street. He didn’t open my door for me, but that might have been because I hadn’t really given him the chance to. I’d hopped out of his car so quick he barely had his door shut before I’d shut mine too.

  I watched him, purposefully, as he slid some coins into the parking meter. He was so calm, so sure of himself. In a completely non-arrogant way. I found that I admired that about him—a lot.

  We both started walking down the sidewalk and towards the darkened shore without a word, but still, it wasn’t awkward.

  We made our way down the steep stairs that led to the beach, and Greyson hopped down the last three-foot drop into the sand and turned around, holding his hands out for me. I grabbed them and jumped down in front of him, looking up into his eyes with a small smile.

  That smile felt weird on my lips. Out of place. A contrast to the way I’d felt since waking up that morning.

  He turned away and led me towards the water by my hand, stopping right where the sand shifted from dry to wet, and sat down, releasing his hold on me. I sat down next to him, sinking my toes into the soft sand. I don’t know how it escaped my attention until that very moment that I’d never put any shoes on.

  I took a deep breath, pulling my knees to my chest, and rested my head on Greyson’s shoulder as we looked out at the black and white-tipped water colliding with the shore. He leaned his head down on mine, and we just sat there for a long while, in perfect silence.

  How had he known exactly where to take me? Exactly what I needed to help calm my soul?

  “Do you miss home?” were the first words he said to me that night. They took me off guard.

  Did I miss home? That was a loaded question. I swallowed down my conflicting emotions. I barely had a grasp on what they were.

  “Sometimes,” I told him honestly. “It just…it wasn’t all good, you know? So it’s hard to miss sometimes, too.”

  I felt him nodding his head against mine. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I sort of did. More than I’ve ever wanted to. But it still wasn’t enough to get me talking.

  He let the question drift away, picking up some sand between his fingers and sprinkling it down onto the top of my foot. He did it again, and again and again. Granules of sand piled onto my foot until it was buried, and then he started in on my other foot.

  “You missing your mom?” he asked after a while, after both of my feet had disappeared under the sand.

  I swallowed thickly. Let a minute pass, and then another.

  “Yeah, I do,” I finally whispered at the ground, afraid to say it out loud. Afraid that if the Universe heard me say it, it would force me to unlock that space in my heart that so desperately wanted to cry for her. And for me. The child me, and the sixteen-year-old me, and for everything we’d lost. Because despite it all, despite everything, I did miss her. So much.

  Was that sick? Did it make me sick? It felt like it. Because how could I miss someone who was hardly there in the first place? Someone who didn’t care about me. Someone who, at the very least, didn’t even care about my well-being? It made my stomach turn.

  And there it was again, that darkness. Instantaneous. Fogging everything. I didn’t want to think about my mom. I didn’t want to think about how much I missed the ghost of someone who was never even real to begin with. It felt like my heart was making someone up, someone different, someone I should be missing who never actually existed, and
it was confusing as hell.

  “I’m not sure what to say other than that really fucking sucks. And I’m sorry…

  “…I wish you weren’t sad,” he said, and I felt how much he meant it. Or maybe I was just feeling how much I wished I weren’t sad, too.

  I turned to him, feeling his arm slip from my shoulders. How had I not realized his arm was around me? “Then let’s do something else—anything else, but talk about her right now,” I said. “I—I don’t want to think about it anymore today.”

  “Yeah, of course,” he replied right away. “Here.” He dumped a pile of sand into my lap.

  “What the…?” I looked down at the sand on my legs and then over at him with narrowed eyes, genuinely confused.

  He shrugged, biting his lip as he smiled, before shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he laughed, “It was the first thing I thought of.”

  “Seriously?” I couldn’t help but smile. He was really good at that. Making me smile. Even when I didn’t think I wanted to.

  He looked at me then, eyebrows raised, silently challenging me, and began scooping an even bigger pile of sand into his hands.

  I pushed him down before he could dump it on me, throwing my leg over him and trapping his arms against his sides with my knees—and no, it didn’t escape my attention that I was straddling him, but there were more important things to be worried about. Like the way he’d somehow managed to flip me over onto my back in the next second without the use of his hands, for one.

  I reached down at my sides and grabbed two fistfuls of sand, but he was quick. He threw himself on top of me, effectively stilling my arms. Even if he hadn’t wrapped his hands around them, I don’t think I could’ve moved.

  I was breathing heavily, my chest expanding and contracting faster with the adrenaline that was coursing through me.

  He released one of my arms and trailed his finger along the collar of my shirt. What was he doing? I swallowed thickly, watching as his eyes followed the movement of his hand. Watching as he slowly licked his lips. Watching as he brought his other hand up…

  …and shoved a handful of wet sand down the front of my shirt.

  “Oh my god! What is wrong with you?!” I screeched.

  I grabbed my own handful of sand and slapped it onto the top of his head. It didn’t faze him. He shook it off like a dog, splattering it all over me.

  “What are you doing?!” I yelled with my hands out in front of me, blocking the rainstorm of sand falling from his hair.

  He laughed, shrugging. “Keeping your mind elsewhere.” It was a simple enough answer. So why did it make me feel so many things? Why did it make me feel seen?

  I sat up and attempted to wipe off the sand that was all over me, but it was useless. It was everywhere.

  Greyson stood up and held his hand out for me. “Come on.”

  I reached out to him, and he pulled me up. And then he walked straight down to the shore and dove into the water, expecting me to follow, I assumed, but he was crazy. The water was just hitting me at my ankles from where I stood, and it was freezing. No way in hell was I getting in there with him.

  His head popped up above the surface a few yards out. “Get in!” he yelled over the crashing waves.

  “No way! Not happening!” I yelled back.

  It was then that he proceeded to make his way out of the water, head straight towards me, and throw me over his shoulder—Good job, Jess! You really should’ve seen that one coming!—and walked us right back into the ocean, with no small amount of struggling on my end, or expletives thrown his way.

  How the ocean wasn’t frozen, I have absolutely no idea. Because the frigid water that was attacking every inch of my skin was so. Mother. Effing. Cold! I was going to die of hypothermia, I was sure of it. And I think my bones were turning into bone-shaped blocks of ice, too.

  “You are such an asshole!” I screamed through my laughter.

  He smirked in response, amused; we both knew he was the furthest thing from it.

  It was only a few torturously cold seconds later that we ran out of the water, grabbed our things, and raced back to his car. He cranked the heat way up as we sat there, our teeth chattering.

  “Okay, that might’ve been a terrible idea,” he said through the sound of his teeth knocking together.

  “Yeah,” I replied, but that was a total lie. Because it was the best idea—that whole night. One of the best, ever.

  And as I curled into the warmth of my bed later that night, I had the starting realization that I hadn’t once thought about kissing him. I hadn’t worried about the dynamics of our relationship, or what any of it meant. What a look or word from his mouth could be construed as. That night, we were just two friends. Mutually platonic.

  And somewhere in the middle of all that platonic-ness, I guess I had found something in Greyson that I’d never really had before:

  A friend I could count on.

  Twenty-two After

  “SHE’S GOT DEMONS in Her Throat and Dreams in Her Eyes.”

  It’s my favorite piece for this collection. A woman clutching her chest, looking off into the distance. A graveyard of war and wings and ruin at her feet; a vast, beautiful sky of stars and wonder beyond her. That’s what she’s focused on, the beauty beyond the devastation.

  My phone chimes from across the room. I wrap the painting up and slide it into the slim cardboard box for transport tomorrow before walking over and picking up my cell. Seventeen messages. Five missed calls. Two voicemails.

  I listen to the voicemails first—both from my agent—updating me on the details of this weekend’s showing, and then I scroll through my messages. Almost all of them are from a single group-text thread. I shake my head, smiling. My friends are nuts.

  Sita: Bitch! Where are you?!

  Maggie: We’re at the bar when you get here!

  Like they’d be anywhere else, I think to myself and bite back another smile. I’ve been so wrapped up in work that they’ve forced me into a night out now that I’m done, before the showing. Not that I would have fought them on it. And these messages are a huge reminder of how much I miss them.

  Maggie: Prime Sam ogling vantage point, BTW.

  Kat: Rest assured, I’ve managed to get Sita to slow her roll with a few Moscow Mules. But seriously, where are you?

  Maggie: OMG Sam just reached up for top-shelf liquor. Eight pack abs. Yes, I counted them. Yes, it was worth the $27.

  Sita: Bitch! WHERE ARE YOU?!

  Kat: Sita. Calm your tits.

  Sita: Texting from the restroom, really? Do you have any idea how many microbes are lurking in there, ready to attach themselves to your dirty, grubby, potty-texting hands and phone?

  There’s at least a dozen more messages at this point, but I slide my phone into my pocket after sending out a quick, OMW, and do a last check in the mirror before heading out the door. Black, fitted jeans; wedges; and some white, frilly, off the shoulder thing the girls bought me for my birthday. Just a touch of makeup and my hair hanging dark and wavy down my back. I mentally high-five myself. Not bad, Chica.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m sliding into my seat with the girls at Toca Madera, feeling the immediate calm that just being in their presence brings me.

  “And she’s finally here!” Sita shouts, placing a shot of Patrón in front of me. “You’ve finished! It’s time to let loose!”

  I laugh and toss back the shot, sucking on the lime as Maggie turns to me, shielding her face from Sam with one hand as if it’ll keep him from hearing her. “He’s trying to kill me tonight, I swear it, Jess.”

  I laugh again. “Then put the both of you out of your misery and tell him you’re ready to take him up on his date offer already,” I say.

  She simply shakes her head, taking a deep pull of her beer. I nod, because I already know why she refuses to. She’s already said the words before: Bartenders can’t be trusted.

  Never mind the fact that she’s a bartender. But she says there’s too much temptation at work
. Too many thirsty guys and girls, too many liquored up bodies with their inhibitions thrown out the window. It’s too easy to cheat, she’d said.

  But you would never cheat, I’d replied.

  I know, but I could never trust that they wouldn’t, you know?

  I left it alone after that. I got it. She’d been burned bad before; I was the last person to fault her for not moving on.

  “Maybe just one night of fun,” I suggest to her now, nudging her shoulder with mine.

  “Hell no,” she says. “That motherfucker looks like a professional heartbreaker.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Kat chimes in. “But we’re only talking vagina action here. You can leave your heart out of it.”

  We all laugh, downing our random drinks. God, I love my girls.

  We couldn’t be more different, but apparently that’s my thing. The whole opposites attract logic. And I love the three of them more than life itself. They’re my people, my tribe. Just whole-heartedly awesome, non-judgmental, non-asshole, good fucking people.

  And we’ve been there for each other through so much.

  After Greyson left, all those years ago, I graduated a semester early and moved back home with the help of my family, immediately starting at a local community college—where I met Maggie—before transferring to WSU—where I met Sita. Kat, we all met through a Sita ex-boyfriend-new-girlfriend overlap drama, and long story short, Kat dumped Sita’s ex for us girls, because let’s be honest, we’re awesome.

  And we’ve been inseparable since. There for each other through graduations and heartbreaks, and marriages and divorce, and children and promotions, and successes and failures. It doesn’t matter how different we are, or where our lives take us, we always find our way back to each other.

  Maggie is a single mom. A homebody who loves reading a good book and spending time with her babe more than anything else. She’s super healthy, super vegan—much to Kat’s dismay—and just a pure-hearted person and an amazing friend.

  Sita is definitely the wild one of our group, adventurous to her core. A work at day, party at night kind of soul. A science professor at our own WSU who still manages to get out of bed at the crack of dawn and go hiking at six-a.m. when she fell into bed drunk at one—two, three—in the morning.