“Yeah, and you could get a room. Do you, Dad?”
“Yes, the den, top of the gun cabinet,” he said, his head bowed in shame with his hand covering his eyes.
I heard my mom giggle and my dad whisper something when I walked away, sprinting my way to the binoculars, and back up the steps, back to my roof, my food, and the girl with the baby I’d delivered one day before. Away from the disgust.
With a mouthful of cookies, and a scoop of ice cream, I adjusted the focus, zooming right in to the brightly lit van. I could see her as plain as day, her and Tobias. Her body was leaned against a pile of pillows on the back bed and Tobias was on her chest, nursing in a white diaper. She was so pretty, and motherhood made her even prettier. Simple pretty.
Unlike Avery…
Avery with the gorgeous blonde hair, legs that didn’t stop, firm breasts, the perfect handful, delicious pouty lips, always covered in red.
My type.
I didn’t even know what my fascination was. Maybe it was Tobias, the magical way we shared his arrival. Tristan was nothing like Avery. Nothing at all, yet I was connected to her on a whole other level. A level out of my league. One that made no sense. Guys not even eighteen yet didn’t normally go for girls living in vans, especially ones with a baby nobody knew about. He may not ever be known. Not if Tristan had anything to do with it.
An instant smile slipped in, taking over my lips when Tristan held Tobias out in front of her. His little body curled in her hands while her lips moved to his head. The smile on her face was permanent, her lips moving, saying something to him. Something no doubt sweet and loving.
Tristan wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met. She had this powerful, yet sweet nature about her, and for whatever reason, it intrigued the hell out of me. Why? Now that was the crazy part. A seventeen year old boy crushing on a girl with a baby, but in my defense, I delivered the baby. That had to stand for something. I watched her hold Tobias in her hands, wishing I could hear the words she spoke to him, betting they were soft and full of love. Maybe even a song.
I dropped the binoculars from my eyes, startled when she looked up, right at me. Of course she couldn’t see me with the naked eye, not through the thick darkness, three-hundred feet away, but I swear she sensed it. Looking through the zoomed in lenses again, I watched her lay Tobias on her bed and close her curtains, like she knew I was watching her, but she couldn’t. There was no way.
Once I’d eaten all my junk food, I climbed through the window, back to the attic where I looked around, wishing I had some paint. I really could make the space my own layer, and get away from my parents. At least at night anyway. And then it dawned on me. I didn’t need the attic. I had a barn with a huge loft and an even straighter shot to Tristan’s camp.
That’s what I thought about, laying on my back, staring up to the magical sky. The loft and the van. My van. Maybe I would do a theme, something futuristic, chrome and Star Trekie, I thought, visualizing the interior spaceship. Shiny silver curtains over the windows, me on a bed looking up to the galaxy that I would paint on the ceiling. My excitement dwindled when I remembered the other work, the engine, brakes, and the outside paint. That piqued my excitement again. I’d make it so freaking cool, everyone would stop to look, post pics on Facebook. Passion elevated again with that thought. Maybe I’d do a blog, upload some videos to my YouTube channel. A beach blog. A guy in a van. It would go viral and I wouldn’t have to worry about money. I’d have offers coming in from all over. My very own reality show.
I cleaned up my trash, thinking about my TV, piled behind the rest of my stuff that I’d refused to put away. Boxes and boxes of stuff.
The picture stuck to my mirror once again caught my eye. I pulled it from the crack of the old medicine cabinet mirror and studied it while I brushed my teeth. Even though the fat little baby was bigger, it still reminded me of Tobias. This baby didn’t even have a gender. Without seeing behind the diaper, I couldn’t tell. I would have said a boy just because of the bald head, but then that would mean Tobias could have been a girl. He had a headful of dark hair. A chuckle bounced my shoulders when I thought about him wearing pink, too. Poor kid.
My plan was to hook my television up, catch up on some Game of Thrones, but then I remembered I was stuck in the eighties. No Internet. I groaned about it again when I plopped to the springy bed, trying to open FaceBook on my phone. Going to my playlist, I stripped down to my underwear and crawled under the covers, throwing the heavy quilt to the floor. My eyes closed and I listened to Kayne West tell me how what doesn’t kill me would make me stronger, feeling out of touch, yet okay.
Two days ago I honest to God thought my life was over. Everything that could have gone wrong in the last few months had. First I got suspended from school for smoking weed. That was the first time my mom called my dad. I painted the Antarctica with the stars on the massive rock on Valentine’s Day, but I now knew, they’d been talking all along. That’s when my dad flew to Cali to beg the judge not to send me to juvie for the next year, promising to take me back to West Virginia, taking full responsibility for me.
I shook my head, rolling my eyes behind my closed lids, exchanging the nightmare for a happier thought. One that brought an instant smile. Baby Tobias and Kayne West. That’s what I fell asleep to. A deep, hypnotic slumber fell upon me. No dreaming. Just a comatose state all the way to three-eleven in the morning. I’m not sure what woke me up, but whatever it was, I had a horrible time falling back to sleep. I think the last time I’d looked at the clock was after five in the morning. The stupid rooster was the next thing that woke me. One hour later. Instantly pissed, I jumped up and slammed the window shut, cussing the little fucker as I did.
Normally, I would have gone right back to sleep. It was summer break and back home, I could have slept until noon, at least, but not here. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get my mind to shut down. Tristan, Tobias, the loft, the van. I finally opened my eyes after running through the stages of pulling the radiator out in my mind for the third time. Step by step. My eyes opened to the light in the crack of my Spider Man curtains, the sharp light, starred out with five bright points across the field. I focused on what I knew was the sun hitting her solar panels, happy for no apparent reason. Happy that she was still there.
My plan was to jump up and take a piss, turn on some tunes, and crash for a few more hours. That was until I split the curtains with my fingers. I didn’t need binoculars to see her. Her face was pointed up, the sun over her whole body. Even without the close up, I knew her eyes were closed. The thought about more sleep subsided by the time I’d walked across the hall to the bathroom and back. There wasn’t even a debate. I climbed the eleven steps, right to the window facing Tristan. Sliding into my shorts with binoculars in hand, I stepped out to the roof, sitting on the ledge inside the window.
Just as I expected, Tristan’s eyes were closed, her fingers forming O’s on both knees, and little Tobias was attached to her chest by the pink sling. Although I could see his eyes were opened, he looked calm, staring up to his mom, a soft blink here and there, but no movement. I wondered why she did it, why she was awake sitting in the clearing at the ass crack of dawn, meditating toward the sun. I never did get that, what people got out of nothing. That’s what it was, nothing. You just sit there looking like an idiot, doing nothing. Tristan was an expert at it though, still as a rock.
I watched my dad leave for work, drank a Mountain Dew, pissed twice, and played two games of Racer-Eleven on my phone. Forty-five minutes. Tristan hadn’t moved, and other than a soft blinking, Tobias didn’t move either. Defeat came from me. I was the one who gave up, and walked away, bored from watching her do nothing.
Grabbing another Dew, and two strawberry Pop-Tarts, I started out to the barn, almost getting away.
“What are you doing up? You sick?”
“Jesus. You scared me. No, I’m going to work on the van.”
“Sit down. Talk to me for a minute. We haven’t had a chance to talk sin
ce we got here.”
“That’s because your mouth is always busy with Dad’s mouth. Can I take your Jeep to town after I get the radiator off? I want to try to get a new one in today.”
“What’s wrong with the bike your dad gave you to get around on?”
“It’s a piece of shit for one thing, and I’m too big for it. I’m not twelve. Besides, it’s on empty.”
“You can’t take it to the gas station? Your dad said it was fine as long as you keep a check on the oil.”
I walked away, using the same exasperated breath she used on me. “Yeah, and I’ll just drag the radiator along behind me with a rope. What’s the big deal?”
“Oh, yeah. If I’m here you can take it. I’m going to take your dad lunch at one.”
The air was cool when I stepped out to the porch, ignoring my mom, sneakers and breakfast in hand. I sat on the top step, trying not to think about how disgusted that made me feel. Wagering with myself, I wondered how long that would last. I gave her a week once the Internet was on before she forgot all about that nice gesture. She’d take him lunch a couple times maybe. If that. Whatever. Just leave me out of it. That’s all I cared about.
I couldn’t see the clearing on the other side of the river from the front of the barn, but that didn’t keep me from looking in her direction every time I took a break. The loft on the other hand, was perfect, and not only to see Tristan’s camp. It was sweet as hell, perfect for a little man cave. There was some old, damp, rotting boxes of junk, mostly Christmas decorations and lights, some old dishes in one, and someone’s old collection of butterflies in another. At first, I thought the junk belonged to the previous owners, but then I found a Christmas card from my grandma addressed to the Sheffield family. As much as I wanted to work on the loft, the van took priority, and I left the mess for another time. The radiator wasn’t that bad to take out. It didn’t take near as long as I’d presumed it would, and I was ready to go to town before noon. Thanks to my early arise that is. Normally, I would have just been crawling out of bed.
My mom didn’t mind at all when I took the Jeep. The guy was there to install the Internet and of course she had to wait. That was way more important than my dad’s lunch. I snorted when I backed out the driveway, knowing her conniving ways. The only thing I needed to worry about was getting my van on the road before she got the itch to leave again. I couldn’t wait to tell her I wasn’t following her on her quest for a new man anymore. Those days were over and none of my friends seemed to even miss me, so I said screw them, too. All of them. They all had the house phone number, but not one of them called. Not one. I didn’t want to go back to that school anyway, not anymore.
As tempted as I was to turn left, across the river, and up the other side of the mountain, I didn’t. I sat there at the stop sign, staring, contemplating a reason to give her why I was there again. Needless to say, I came up blank and turned right, my fingers cranking up the volume on my mom’s radio. My head shook back and forth at how juvenile she was sometimes. Not only did she dress like Miley Cyrus, she was in her radio, too; something about everyone trying to get a line in the bathroom or some shit. I changed it, or tried anyway. The only station that came in half decent was twangy country, still I tried. My finger stayed on the seek button the whole way into town, the same four stations coming in over and over.
The white cargo van with the Georgia plates on it parked in front of the only drug store in town took precedence over music that I didn’t really care about. My heart actually sped up at the thought of her being there, a quick thump right behind my chest. Of course I pulled right behind her, forgetting all about the parts store, the excitement for my own wheels long forgotten for a girl with a baby. A girl who wanted nothing whatsoever to do with me.
My head ducked from a bell overhead and she turned, staring right at me. So much for being discreet about it. She couldn’t have been in the second or third row. No. She had to be at the end of the first one, right in front of the door.
Tristan looked away without smiling back, shattering my pride into a million pieces, but that didn’t stop me. I walked right up to her to get what I’d come in there for. Just because she was in the drug store, didn’t mean I couldn’t be there, too.
“She’s adorable. How old?” A random lady asked.
Tristan looked down to Tobias, asleep in his pink sling, her eyes shifting to mine before the lie. “Two weeks.”
“She’s so precious. What’s her name?”
“Serenity.”
“They grow so fast. Enjoy every minute of her.”
“I will. Thank you.”
I stood beside Tristan like an idiot, my lips pursed into a whistle, trying to ignore her scrutiny. “What? I have just as much right to come here as you do.”
Her hand stayed on Tobias’s back in a protecting manner and her lips held back a smile. “Your vagina bleeding, too?”
I scanned the shelves in front of me, seeing with my eyes for the first time. Maxi pads and feminine products, lots and lots of them. Had it been anyone but her, my face would have been five shades of red. At least she wasn’t mad. “Um.”
Tristan looked a little pale and tired around her eyes, but at least she was playful. “Just admit it, Ty. You came in here because you knew I was here.”
No way. I wasn’t admitting shit. I peeked over boobs that I swore grew since the day before, using baby Tobias as my out. “Whatever. Can I see him?”
“Yes, can you hold him while I go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t think they have a bathroom here. Let me buy you lunch. You can go there.”
“They do. It’s in the back, and I need to go now.”
“Why?”
Tristan unstrapped the sling and handed me sleeping Tobias. “You don’t want to know that.”
Once she’d adjusted him in my arms, moving his little head so his neck didn’t look broken, she opened the bag of pads. She was right. I didn’t need to know anymore. “Hey, little buddy,” I softly spoke, my lips close to his head and my eyes rolling at his pajamas. Purple of course…If that wasn’t bad enough they had little kitties with bows around their necks. Pink bows. I walked around with Tobias, moving to the next isle, talking to him like we were old pals. It was the strangest thing in the world. I felt something deep, another something I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand a lot of things anymore. Like the tingling all the way to my toes when I watched Tristan walk toward me with a huge smile, her fingers pointing to an old feeble couple, holding hands.
“How cute is that?” she questioned, our eyes doing that trance, locking thing again.
“I can hold him while you look around,” I protested, my arms tightening around Tobias to keep her from taking him from me.
Tristan sighed, looking up to me with a look I thought I had pegged. She looked defeated, like she was giving up on a fight she couldn’t win. Naturally, I jumped to conclusion, thinking just maybe I was the fight. “Tobias, I can’t do this.”
Yup. I was the fight. “We can’t just hang out while you’re here? What’s that hurting?”
“A lot. It’s hurting a lot.”
“It’s not. Let’s go for a walk. We’ll get ice-cream.”
“Nah, I don’t want to be gone too long. My solar panels are still out and I don’t want someone steeling my spot and I still have two more stops.”
“So let’s take your van back and I’ll drive you in my Jeep.”
Her answer was too quick, she didn’t even give it a chance to sink in. Tristan gently took Tobias from me, his little body fitting perfectly in the stupid pink carrying thing. “I won’t be that long. There’s a salvage yard up the road here. I want to see if I can find a radio for my van before I hit the road again and then the fruit stand. That’s it, shouldn’t take too long, but thanks for the offer.”
I stayed right with her, moving down to the baby wipes, all natural of course. Even though I wasn’t sure what to say, I tried. Every second I had with her
counted and I didn’t even know why. “That’s Smitty. He owns the salvage yard,” I said like we were old friends even though he’d probably not even recognize me. The last time I was there I was barely twelve, my last visit to Odessa Falls. “You’re going to need someone to take it out for you. Smitty doesn’t do it.” That wasn’t a lie. The only reason I knew that to be fact, was because I sat in the hot sun while my dad removed a starter once.
Tristan fought for control that I didn’t get. Like it was a real struggle for her and it made no sense to me, but I wanted it to. More than anything, I wanted to understand her. “Tobias, this isn’t a good idea. I know things. Things you don’t know and can’t understand.”
I scratched an itch that wasn’t there just below my right eye, trying to stall, waiting for the right words. What the hell did that even mean? “Tell me. I’m not an idiot. I can understand.”
Her feet turned with her narrowed eyes and she uncomfortably stared me down. “That’s where you’re wrong and I know it. I feel it, and trust me when I say this, Ty. You’re not ready for the rabbit hole I live in.”
I didn’t need to delay my response that time. Although, maybe I should have. “What does that even mean, Tristan?”
Again, she sighed, fighting something I just couldn’t seem to grasp. Was I the idiot or was it her? She looked away, contemplating on whether or not to say it. “Do you know what a twin flame is?”
Obviously that knocked me off my game. Of course I didn’t know. Never heard of it in my life. She seemed to be good at catching me off guard, but truth be known, I wished the hell I knew what it meant. At least it would have given me some ammunition, some leverage to come back with. “Twin flame?”
“Never mind. I’ve got to get going. It was nice seeing you again.”
I stood there, my mouth wide open, but only in my mind. Stunned. Again… and then I followed her, sounding like weak puppet with her controlling the strings. “Well, can’t you teach me?”
Doing the same one-eighty with her daggered eyes directed right at mine. This time on the tips of her toes. This time close enough to kiss. “You don’t teach twin flames. It just is, and unfortunately, you don’t get to pick them. You’re not even awake, Tobias.”