“Kyle would’ve been—”
“Mom, just stop!” I say before I’m able to stop myself, and then she’s rushing out the door to make her shift at Quick Pick, to get away from me. I close my eyes for a sec, to calm down. I don’t like talking about him, but I can’t keep blowing up like that. When I open my eyes, I realize Mom left her cashier’s apron and coupon envelope on the counter.
“Mom, wait!” I yell, but she’s already gone. She forgot them again. I’ll ask Nick to run them over to the store after he’s finished eating his lunch.
I run my fingers over the apron’s stiff, black fabric. I lift it to my nose, inhaling her scent, the same way I do with Kyle’s flannel shirt. His smell is long gone, but her lavender and the Windex she uses to clean the conveyer belt are loud and clear. The smell makes me want a hug. Mom and I used to hug all the time, but we haven’t in months. Not since Christmas.
Not bothering to peel off my sweaty shorts and tank, I go to my room and flop down on the bright purple comforter stretched across my twin bed. I point my toes at the ceiling, trying to get rid of the lactic acid build-up in my calves. Sweating on my bed makes me cringe, but I’m too sore and tired to do anything besides wallow. Before Kyle, I never made my bed, but his firefighter dad drilled the habit into him and I picked it up somewhere along the way. Other than the stacks of twenty-five- cent paperbacks I buy at the library and at yard sales, the rest of my room is somewhat bare now.
Before Kelsey and I stopped hanging out, we loved collecting cows. A cowbell alarm clock, cow curtains, cow picture frames, cow candles, and even a cow rug decorated my room. I packed the cows away to make room for the teddy bears Kyle won me at the Coffee County Fair and the seashell cedar boxes and wind chimes he bought on our road trip to Myrtle Beach. I packed his stuff away so it couldn’t make me sad, but now my room feels empty.
After I lost him six months ago, Mom started begging me to go shopping with her for new bedroom décor to fill the blank space, to try out her yoga class, to do anything really. I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to do anything.
I snapped at her several times: “If one more person tells me what I need to do…” Being a bitch made me feel better and shittier all at once.
“I don’t know how to help you, Annie. Tell me how to help you,” she cried into her hands.
If she’d invented a special potion to erase memories and mistakes, I would’ve been all ears. But nothing she said could fix what I’d done.
I met Kyle on the first day of ninth grade, when kids from the two middle schools in Williamson County came together at Hundred Oaks for freshman year.
I hated him at first. On day one, we were playing volleyball in gym and he picked me for his team. I served, the ball smashed him in the back of the head, and he fell to the gym floor.
I sprinted to him. “I’m sorry!”
I thought I’d hurt him bad, but I discovered him giggling like a little girl. The rest of the day, he and his friends covered their heads every time I passed them in the hallway.
“It’s the volleyball vixen!” Kyle cried.
Fourteen-year-old me was mortified. So I got revenge. The next day in gym, I served the volleyball and whacked Kyle in the head again.
He invited me to the Back to School dance that Friday.
Before long, we were serious, and my mom wasn’t pleased. “You’re gonna end up pregnant at sixteen just like Willa down the street.” She said that every time she caught us making out. She thought if I stayed with him, I would never get out of Oakdale trailer park. “Never depend on a guy, Annie. You depend on yourself, understand?”
But I loved being with him. We enjoyed curling up together with a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV. Or he’d sit on the couch playing Assassin’s Creed, and I’d lean against his side and dig into the latest mystery I’d picked up at the library. We always felt at home with each other, like we didn’t need anything else.
We dated for over three years, even though we were different people: I did my homework every single night and worked hard as a waitress to make money for college. He lived over in the Royal Trail subdivision, did his homework in the ten minutes between classes, ran the mile in the regional track finals, and wanted to work as a firefighter like his father.
He wanted “forever” to start right after high school. He wanted to marry me.
That’s why we had the big fight.
We were at the place where we shared our first kiss: the drive-in movie theater that showed old movies. It’s still one of the most popular places to go in Franklin. As freshmen, we were too young to drive so we walked there all the time. It became our spot.