Chapter Thirty-Three
Joel
MANNY’S WAKE, VISITATION, and funeral went by in a blur of sorrow and some smiles, because remembering Manny made people feel alive. Manuel Dominguez was loved by many, and it seemed like thousands of visitors made a point to stop in the funeral home, or at the wake at a cousin’s house, or wherever, just to tell Manny’s closest relatives and friends how much he would be missed.
A week after the accident, the pain in Joel’s heart was even worse than when he was first delivered the news of his best friend’s death. Now that the void in his heart expanded, Joel wasn’t sure what to do or how to do it. He bitterly skipped rocks at Harrisville Lake. He worked like normal at the aquarium, touring like nothing was amiss when a gap the size of Mars spoiled his brain cells. He went to church and felt the stare of all those eyes, and he felt their hands on his back. The one person who avoided him like he was the plague was Sarah, whom he talked to briefly. She was keeping something from him, and it was ripping her apart, too.
Two weeks after the accident, as the days approached to August like troops marching forth, Joel appeared at her house.
THE SWEAT OF the late, humid summer day dawned on Sarah like she had been in a heated sauna. Her face was red and watery to the touch, but with a few moments indoors, everything would be okay. Her body temperature would return to normal, and she would gather her thoughts into something that made a bit of sense. How could things have become so indubitably insane, like a whirlpool of confusing shrapnel? Some of the debris was positive and some of it not so much.
But Sarah knew one thing, and she knew it well: Somehow, destiny had brought her into the arms of a guy she still had skepticism toward. A guy who had spoken only a slew of words to her in the years of their acquaintance, until now, in which—like some kind of angsty fate—they’d finally connected, clicked, and now…
Sarah was hyperventilating as she rested her back against the wall in the mudroom. Thankfully her family was nowhere around, not to see her like this. To see how she would react in response to one kiss, the thing she desired most in all her life at that precise second. She imagined that, at forty-five, she would look back to this moment and laugh at the stinky girl with sweat pooled in her armpits, although this was a bit of the nervous energy associated with this match.
She didn’t know how long she sat there. The gathering clouds outside were saddening with darkness, their protruding bellies sticking out, pregnant. She picked at a piece of loose skin on her fingernail and wondered if Joel was thinking about her right now.
Rain pelted the door. She stared, terrified, and stood up in fright, grabbing a nearby broom. She picked it up and watched as what seemed to be a torrential storm hit the door. She had seen the forecast, and this was nothing for what it called to be, but then again, predictions had a tendency to be wrong.
She peeked out the glass to see a tall, dripping young man fiddling with a hose. She scratched her nose in confusion and opened the door, before finding herself sprayed through, sopping wet. Joel’s eyes widened in fright and he shouted, “I’m so sorry!”
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked, laughing as a gulp of water entered her mouth. She sipped it and spat it out, before Joel lifted the hose so that globules fell down above their heads.
“Sarah Towson, I’m trying so hard right now to impress you.”
“With a haunted hose? I’m so confused.”
He continued to hold down on the lever so they continued to get wet, though the sun was bright through the gathering clouds. Specks of gold stood out in his brown eyes. She tilted her head and said quite simply, “So, you’re trying to romance me, is that what this is?”
“Quite simply,” Joel whispered, reaching out to her, though letting his hand dangle in the air, “I just want to see you. I’m not a romantic, and I never will be; but I am trying.”
“That’s even better,” Sarah said, waiting for what he had planned next.
There was a moment of awkwardness between them. Then there was the flutter of rain droplets reflecting their faces. A casual onlooker might have supposed this waiting was based out of passion, or their friends might have even assumed something physical was about to happen, and while that was true, there was more to it than met the eye. Sarah was nervous beyond comprehension. Joel was afraid of scaring her. They stared at each other, both waiting for the other to make a move. Sarah shivered in the coolness of the fake rain, and then she felt something twist around her, pulling her against him, so that for the first time in her life, she felt wanted. Wanted by something of major proportions. This feeling, this right now, was more to her than any other moment in her life.
And she knew this was a problem.
Joel, however, did not think. He let his body control, and his mind went to the place where thinking is impossible. He only knew he was making out with Sarah Towson, underneath a fake rainstorm, and that idea belonged to Chloe. Chloe had seen an image like this on Pinterest and showed Joel, so he could surprise the girl he wanted to woo. It was all quite stupid, but somehow it worked.
When they drew apart, moments later, Joel found his hands deep in her long hair. He tried to pull them away, but he found his pinkie stuck in a long tuft, and the two of them shared a nice giggle before withdrawing from each other’s clasp.
“So, I was thinking… This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Joel said.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Whatever you just did, it… It was endearing.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say that. Are we dating yet?”
“No.”
“Will we ever?”
She shrugged.
“C’mon, Sarah! I’m reeling this fish in!”
“Have you even baited it though?”
“Stop taunting me.”
The wetness had seeped across the flowerbeds, staining them with miraculous droplets. The sun crept toward them, hugging them with its rays.
Then, like a shroud appearing over the gold sun, the pair sighed heavily and remembered their problems. For Joel, it was losing his best friend; for Sarah, it was gaining her best friend. Karli had definitely livened up the Towson house with her eccentric, lively aura, but Sarah understood that her parents didn’t want to be around Karli, because Sarah herself would be leaving in a matter of a few weeks.
Karli’s stomach continued to protrude at a steady increase. Her opening up with Sarah grew even more than her belly.
“So,” Sarah said. “There has been something I haven’t told you, and I need you to accept it, okay?”
“Sure.”
Sarah was hesitant. “Well, I’m surprised you haven’t found out already, but my grandpa is still in the hospital. He was the driver of the vehicle that hit Manny.”
Joel stopped. He blinked away a few tears at the utterance of Manny’s name. “If you think, even for a moment, that you are responsible for my best friend’s death, you are so wrong. Sarah, your family’s choices aren’t necessarily your choices. I understand that.”
“I just feel so awful.”
“So do I.”
They sat in silence for a while, and Sarah was appreciative Joel took it the way he did. If he exploded on her, she wouldn’t have been able to handle the pressure. Instead, he was respectful and understanding, at least on the surface. She didn’t want to know what was bubbling up underneath.
A few minutes later, Karli appeared on the back porch, only twenty feet away from them, though they were hidden in some shrubbery with blue buds for flowers. Joel covered in his mouth in shock to see the girl, who anxiously took a sip of water from the bottle as she sat down on a rocking chair overlooking the verdant grass beyond.
“Karli’s living with you?” Joel whispered. He still felt guilty about his past dealings with Sarah’s friend.
“Just for a little while.”
“Well, what happened?”
Sarah bit her tongue but whispered, “You have to promise not to tell.”
?
??I’m not a six-year-old girl.”
“Okay. Well, the baby is not John’s.”
“What? Whose is it then?”
“Alex McFarland.”
At this, Joel’s mouth fell open a good few inches and he stared into Sarah’s eyes like she was crazy. “What? No way. Those two together? Impossible. She’s gotta be lying.”
“Joel, why would she leave John if she wasn’t lying?”
“Because he’s a psychopathic drug dealer! And yes, from whom I used to buy drugs!”
Sarah snickered a bit before cocking an eyebrow. “Please, oh please tell me you don’t do that anymore.”
“Not the point. John’s a bad influence, yes, but Alex can’t be the father. Impossible!”
“How would that be impossible? You of all people would know how it is possible for a man and a woman to procreate.”
“Sarah!”
“I’m sorry. Was that too scientific for you?”
“I’ve never wanted to kiss-slap a woman in all my life like right now.”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
A face appeared above them.
Joel and Sarah clutched each other and screamed for dear life.
“What is going on in these bushes?” Karli asked as she sipped some water from a bottle. “I thought I was going crazy. ‘Are there bees bickering in Sarah’s garden?’ No! Just two teenagers gossiping and making out like little freshmen. What the heck are you two doing?”
“Can’t you see? There’s beautiful nature in these bushes,” said Sarah, lifting a finger like a The Price is Right model showcasing a beautiful plant leaf.
“Joel Sealet! What do we have here? Why the heck didn’t you tell me? You and Joel Sealet! Wow. That’s pretty interesting.” Karli sat down, which took a few moments as she adjusted her body into a comfortable position.
“Hi again, Karli.”
She waved and picked at a shred of grass simultaneously. “So, how long has this relationship been a thing?”
“A few thousand years,” cut in Joel, before he was elbowed in the gut.
“It’s not a relationship,” Sarah professed.
“Not true. We’re definitely in a relationship.” He wrapped an arm around Sarah, who immediately pushed it away.
Karli crossed her arms as her lips opened into a mischievous, proud smile. “Are you serious? What has happened to my girl here?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Nothing. Nothing has happened to me.”
“Okay, well, all I have to say is: Wow. Never thought you two would ever end up together. Joel Sealet? Sarah Towson? I’ll just say okay and move on. But seriously, why are you two hiding out in the bushes? It’s not exactly the best spot for love.”
“Karli!”
“Gosh. Sorry. I forget how crabby you are.”
“I’m not crabby.”
“Sarah!” called a boy’s voice.
Sarah stood up, brushing off her shorts. Little droplets of water fell from her hair and she shook it out, which caused a new rain shower over her friends. She jogged off, leaving Karli shooting Joel a cocky smile.
“Are you serious?” was all Karli could utter. She shook her head, digging her hand through her long hair. “You and Sarah? I was serious when I said I never would have thought… Out of the billions of humans out there, you two.”
“You have got to keep your mouth shut about us,” Joel hissed.
“Joel, that was a lifetime ago. I forgot myself until you brought it up. Sarah deserves to be happy, and if she’s happy with you, I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that.”
“So, what, you two are best buds now?”
“Far from it. Are you kidding? No. I just needed a place to crash. I can’t go to my parents’ right now. Wait, let me guess, Sarah told you about my baby.”
Joel sheepishly nodded.
“Exactly. I can’t go to my mom’s, because John will look there. He’s dangerous, Joel.”
“He’s a drug dealer, but he’s not a killer.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
Joel sighed. “Then he’ll find you, Karli. It’s not a big town. And you’re going to bring him right to Sarah and her family.”
She stared down at her muddy feet void of shoes. She liked the touch of dirt against her soles. It felt earthy and natural. “True.”
“But this was the one place you thought of when you needed to escape?”
“Yeah. Pretty pathetic, right? I’m crashing at a person’s house, the same person I fought with for nearly a year. The same person who shouldn’t care a lick about me.”
“I’m sorry, Karli.”
She stood up. “It’s okay, Joel. I’m sorry about Manny. He was a good guy.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, too.”