Bunches Read online

  Bunches

  by

  Jill Valley

  Copyright © 2013 by Jill Valley

  Cover Design © K.C. Designs

  This novel is a work of fiction in which names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is completely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the written consent of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - Nora

  Chapter Two - JJ

  Chapter Three - Nora

  Chapter Four - JJ

  Chapter Five - Nora

  Chapter Six - JJ

  Chapter Seven - Nora

  Chapter Eight - JJ

  Chapter Nine - Nora

  Chapter Ten - JJ

  Chapter Eleven - Nora

  Chapter Twelve - JJ

  Chapter Thirteen - Nora

  Chapter Fourteen - JJ

  Chapter Fifteen - Nora

  Chapter Sixteen - JJ

  Chapter Seventeen - Nora

  Chapter Eighteen - JJ

  Chapter Nineteen - Nora

  Chapter Twenty - Nora

  Chapter Twenty-One - JJ

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Nora

  Chapter Twenty-Three - JJ

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Nora

  Chapter Twenty-Five - JJ

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Nora

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - JJ

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Nora

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - JJ

  Chapter Thirty - Nora

  Chapter Thirty-One - JJ

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Nora

  Chapter Thirty-Three - JJ

  Chapter Thirty-Four - Nora

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Nora

  Chapter Thirty-Six - JJ

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - Nora

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - JJ

  Chapter One - Nora

  I breathe because Michael can’t.

  Love is what is supposed to swoop in and save you when you can’t save yourself. Love is supposed to make you stronger than you are on your own, to give you wings and make your life the best it can be. But love doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes love is the most exquisite architect of pain. Sometimes love weighs you down instead of letting you fly.

  Love didn’t save me. It sank me. It drowned my heart in dark water.

  Michael was the love of my life. He was my very best friend and I have spent five years reliving his death. It’s easy to do, because I was there that night. It was my fault. Sometimes I let myself imagine that if I keep reliving his death over and over again, then someday it will kill me too. A part of me hopes I’m right.

  Cold air, colder water. Black with a trail of white from the moon. I call after him. I don’t know what I did. I have no idea why he’s angry, and I especially have no idea why he’s run furiously away after what we just did. I can’t breathe. He always swims and I always canoe. It’s a thing we do. He swims alongside. He’s never left in the middle of the night before. I can still feel where he was lying, warm by my side.

  At this moment I still don’t realize that I’ll never feel him warm by my side again. I see him slash into the water. There’s so much water. It’s everywhere I look. Did I mention that I can’t breathe? I yell to him. I cry. I cry and cry. I feel the water coming in on me, but it’s not just water, it’s suffocating. It’s stealing away the air and my love, my life. I cry out again. I hurtle into a sitting position, tearing at the covers that I sleep under, fighting for air.

  I wasn’t the one who died that night, but it felt like I was, because every important part of me, the parts that it’s hard to keep safe, all those parts died.

  As I’m drowning in icy blackness, hands reach out and grab me. They aren’t warm, but they are strong and confident. Nothing can be comforting, but I surprise myself, and probably my savior, by not struggling. The second I can open my mouth I try to order those hands to get Michael, to save Michael, not me.

  Later I will find out that it was already too late for Michael, that he was pulled out first, by other responders, but it just didn’t matter anymore.

  It’s a warm early summer night and I’m out with Lizzy, my best friend.

  I notice our bartender right when we come in. The bar is packed and he’s darting around, talking to the other bartenders, joking with the patrons, and pouring drinks. He lodges in my mind immediately. He’s tall, probably six feet two, so he can see us easily, and I can see him rise up to place drinks in front of people, his arm snaking out in front of him as he leans forward, smiling, his eyes bright.

  I don’t usually notice guys. In fact, I do the opposite. I keep my head down and try to avoid making eye contact, so I’m a little surprised at myself that my eyes instantly dart to our bartender. I mean, am I seriously going to have a panic attack my first time in a bar? With a ridiculously hot bartender there to see? I sure hope not. Lizzy would kill me.

  I feel overwhelmed and claustrophobic in the extreme.

  He has bright blue eyes and dark hair, and I focus on him in the overwhelming sea of confusion.

  Breathe!

  He looks calm, if a little tired. The music blares and I hear laughter and glasses clinking. I breathe a little easier.

  Lizzy nudges me in the ribs and I glare back at her, only to find her grinning. “Spot something you like?” she teases. I shake my head emphatically.

  We have gone from the peaceful silence outside the bar to mayhem inside. The transition makes me think of what happened to me after Michael.

  I’ve never been to a bar before, because I just turned twenty-one about a week ago and I’m not much of a drinker. For the last five years I’ve also been pathologically opposed to taking risks, so things like fake ids were never going to happen.

  In fact, I’ve never even been close to drunk. I fear losing control - of my body, and more importantly, of my emotions. I can’t let them out of the stranglehold I’ve had them in for so long.

  But Lizzy has made me come, to celebrate my birthday. Key word being celebrate. It doesn’t feel like a celebration, but then nothing much has felt good to me in about five years. The bar feels stressful, pulsing with unfamiliar energy, but I’m forcing myself to go along with Lizzy’s plan.

  I clench my fists at my sides and watch the bartender’s dark head turn. He’s talking to a person here, giving another person a drink there. He’s young. A beacon of calm. Just stay calm. I look down at the floor and wonder how often it gets swept. Once a day? Maybe twice? I’m wearing black ballet flats, and I wiggle my toes, feeling them press against the tops of my shoes one by one. I take another deep breath. I can’t keep staring at the bartender. He’ll notice, then I’ll blush and trip over myself.

  But I look up again anyhow and see him talking to one of the other bartenders. I breathe again, a great big gulp of air. My first real breath since I came through the door.

  With the bar packed and loud, and he’s one of the only people here who appears to be concentrating instead of laughing uproariously.

  I glance at my friend, concentrating on the only face I’m familiar with. Lizzy is a friend from high school, and although we attend different colleges now - mine is in upstate New York while hers is in Boston - we’ve both ended up in Portland for the summer. Neither of us can bring ourselves to go home to our parents’ places, and this is our compromise. It’s only a two-hour drive to Boston, but it feels like a world away. There’s a rugged politeness about the place, a down-home, let’s buckle down and get stuff done feeling that I’ve never truly been able to identify with myself, that I like about the place. It’s much different from my mother’s fast-paced insistence on success. What the
hell is so wrong with just existing quietly?

  Unlike me, Lizzy is the type of girl that has no problems. She’s gorgeous, her family is perfect and wealthy, and she has a boyfriend who adores her. Lizzy’s parents were high school sweethearts, her brother is a senior at Dartmouth, and she has a plan to go to law school. Her boyfriend, Steven, dotes on her. She says he knows how good he has it, and she’s not even being cocky. Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends, because she wants lights and action, and my life is SO not like that.

  I always forget what it’s like to go somewhere with Lizzy between times when we’re together. She has blond hair, blue eyes, and a rack I’ve envied since middle school. Part of why Lizzy and I are a striking pair is because I have dark brown hair that falls loosely over my shoulders and pools in the crook of my elbow, and what have been described as “milky” brown eyes.

  Unlike a lot of my college friends, Lizzy knows my secrets. It’s easier to breathe with her, because she understands what I can and can’t do. Why I’m so cold. It’s the only way I can be.

  Lizzy grabs my arm and propels me toward the bar. I avert my eyes from the young, good-looking bartender, but it’s hard.

  We find the last two seats at the bar. I place my hand on the back of the chair to give myself a physical brace against the likely emotional onslaught of the night. I feel the wood under my fingers and press my hand down. The solidness is comforting.

  From underneath my lashes I follow his movements. He’s a bartender and he’s gorgeous. Girls’ eyes follow him wherever he goes. He doesn’t appear to notice, but still, there might as well be a neon sign over his head that screams trouble. Hell, who needs a sign?

  Clearly he knows what he’s doing. And I so do not.

  I slide into my seat, still feeling infinitely uncomfortable.

  I don’t belong here is the mantra that keeps repeating in my head. The trouble is, I don’t know where I belong, and I’m not going to figure it out sitting at home. At least that’s what Lizzy told me when she decided we were going out.

  “Are you okay?” she yells into my ear.

  “What?” I yell back.

  “Okay?” She raises her eyebrows at me.

  I nod.

  I wonder how I’m supposed to behave. I’m used to eating out at restaurants, but this is different. People are standing close. I shrink nearer to Lizzy, who’s a bar expert. She’s six months older than I am and has probably had her fake id since before we were even friends.

  She grins and nudges me. “This is fun,” she gushes.

  Lizzy tried to convince me to get one too, but I ended up crying at her that I had already done enough wrong in my life. She looked at me, helpless. I still remember that look. It’s how I know we have a true friendship. We’ve gone through enough bad times for me to know that even when I’m at my worst, she’s still at my side. You can’t find that stuff out if everything is always rosy and you never fight. She has always told me that I just need to find a guy I feel that way about, and also want to have sex with, but I’ve mostly blocked that conversation out.

  Heat comes into my face as I notice three guys sitting in a row at the bar. I do my usual - I avoid eye contact. I can’t handle eye contact. Guys read stuff into eye contact, but there’s nothing to read into with me.

  I’m a hollow shell. I barely exist at all.

  I notice guys swivel their heads around to catch a glimpse of us. They’re just looking at Lizzy anyway. She always attracts piles of attention, but she’s had the same boyfriend since high school, Steven, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to get married. Steven is head over heals for her and Lizzy is always faithful, but she loves to flirt. Steven was best friends with Michael, but that was a long time ago.

  Lizzy leans forward, her low-cut top revealing an expansive chest. She smiles at me and her eyes brighten. She already took a shot before we came out, so that she’d be “happy.”

  “I have no idea,” I yell back when she asks me what I want.

  “Want me to tell the bartender to bring you a few things to try?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “No way.”

  Under no circumstances do I want the bartender to know that I have no idea what to drink at a bar. Under no circumstances do I want to “try” a few things when I have no tolerance for alcohol. I can’t get drunk in front of the gorgeous bartender; that would make tripping in front of him look like a walk in the park.

  I take a deep breath and look down at my slightly shaking hands.

  “Menus?” a deep voice asks.

  The bartender I was looking at has come over. I snap my head up and stare at him wide-eyed, feeling awkward. All thoughts of breathing have disappeared, but for an entirely different reason.

  Lizzy reaches out and plucks one of the menus he’s offering out of his hands.

  “Thanks, handsome,” she says with a wink. Lizzy is a hopeless flirt.

  I go back to studying my hands like I’m about to take a test on their smooth curves and delicate veins. I peek through my eyelashes to see his reaction.

  He smiles and nods, still holding the menu out to me. I take it, feeling better when my fingers close around the hard plastic that covers it. He walks away quickly and I glue my eyes to the words, but I don’t really understand what I’m looking at.

  “Order beer,” Lizzy encourages me, but I just shake my head. She’s nearly bubbling over with excitement. She knows everyone is looking at her, and she loves it.

  “No way,” I say. It was my new favorite phrase for the night. “I don’t like the taste.”

  “What about a rum and coke? You like coke.”

  “I don’t know if I like rum,” I argue.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she says, smiling.

  When the bartender comes back around the corner, Lizzy just has to look at him and he comes over.

  “They don’t like to be called over,” she explains out of the side of her mouth.

  I sit back in my chair, giving myself a little room between my body and the bar, and order my shoulders to relax and my heart to stop beating wildly. Normally I avoid crowds like it’s my job, because all I see is judgment when I’m with people. It doesn’t matter if none of these people know what I did. I feel like they do, and it makes it hard to breathe.

  When the bartender comes back over he looks at me, right at me, but Lizzy starts talking. I mostly see chest. He rests his hands on the bar. She orders some beer I’ve never heard of for herself and a rum and coke for me.

  You know when you see someone you find attractive and you have all these conflicting emotions? Does he think you're cute, too? Does he know you're blushing? Can he see that you have giant feet and huge pimples all over your face? Can he tell that you are pulled to him like gravity, like the earth pulls the moon? And that there is no one else in the world? I feel flushed just thinking about him, and I’m not even looking at him. I’m awkwardly staring at my feet. Because of course I have to be awkwardly doing something.

  “So, how’s life?” Lizzy yells in my ear.

  It’s the first time we’ve seen each other in a few months, and we have a lot of catching up to do. I know it’s going to be nice to be in the same place as Lizzy for the summer, especially since that place isn’t home.

  “Fine,” I say back. “Looking forward to the internship.”

  “Where is it again?” She’s just bubbling over with enthusiasm. The past doesn’t bother her at all.

  “At an art gallery,” I say. “It should be fun.” It isn’t what I want to do with my life, but my mother doesn’t approve of what I want to do with my life and I haven’t worked out how to deal with that yet. “It’s just me and one other intern named Mark.”

  “Right,” she says dryly, flicking her blond hair over one shoulder with a smile. “The law office I’m working at is going to be SO boring. We have to go out a lot.” She shakes my arm for emphasis.

  “Whatever you say.” I intentionally pitch my voice so she can’t hear me.
<
br />   She shoves my arm playfully just as the bartender brings us our drinks. I thank him, but I know he can barely hear me over the noise. I wait until I’m sure Lizzy isn’t going to touch me again before I reach out and wrap my hand around the cold glass, reminding myself over and over again that this is what people do. They exist, and they usually exist in the presence of other humans.

  “You can’t avoid everyone forever,” says Lizzy, her pretty eyes filled with worry. She knows me too well.

  “I can try,” I say.

  Lizzy shakes her head. Her blond hair spills over her shoulders again and she tosses it back. “No,” she says stoutly. “I won’t let you.”

  My eyes flick to the bartender, who is talking to a couple of girls who just came in. I sigh. Lizzy sees where my eyes have traveled and winks at me.

  “He’s cute, isn’t he?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.

  I shrug. He is, and every girl in the place has noticed it, but I’m not going to admit it to Lizzy. Besides, I don’t even know what a cute guy looks like. I don’t really check guys out, not after what happened. There’s no point.

  “There are a bunch of people here.” I state the obvious.

  “Yeah,” says Lizzy. “They all know how to have fun.”

  I look at her skeptically. She has already taken several sips of beer and she points to my glass.

  “Are you going to drink that?”

  My heart leaps into my mouth. The bartender is pointing at my untouched rum and coke, his eyebrow quirked in a question.

  “Um,” I say.

  “Yes, yes, she is,” says Lizzy triumphantly. “Thanks for noticing.”

  “Is it too strong?” he asks, pressing. “I can make another one.” His hands are on the bar and I’m having a hard time not staring at them and thinking about what they could do if. . . . Never mind!

  “It’s perfect,” I say, making a show of picking up the glass and sipping. I tighten my fingers around the cool glass, reminding myself not to let it slip because of the condensation dripping down the sides. I take a deep breath. I haven’t had a drink in years. Five years, to be exact, not since that night. Lizzy doesn’t know that, of course. I’ve never told anyone. It isn’t something you tell.