“See anything good?” Josh asked as he handed me a drink.
“No.”
“No aliens up there?”
He smirked.
“Funny,” I said. “Just an airplane.”
“It’s kind of cool to look at. Makes you wonder who’s there and where they’re going.”
“You think that too?” I asked.
“Yeah. Everything has a story to it, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, it’s stupid. But I used to love watching airplanes in the sky at night. I would get excited and think it was a shooting star. That I would finally get my wish. But it was always just an airplane. Even still, it was fun to watch. If there was a family going on vacation. Or maybe a sister going to see her sister across the country. I don’t know. It kept my mind busy.”
“I think I like your mind, Amelia,” Josh said. “It makes sense in a twisted way.”
“That scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because if you understand my mind… what does that say about me?”
“Is that an insult to me?” Josh asked.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
I raised an eyebrow and took a drink from the bottle of beer.
The other problem at Josh’s place was that it was so cozy that I had gone well over my limit for being able to leave. Which meant I’d have to sleep on his couch.
I looked at Josh. Into those eyes of his.
You have to sleep on his couch, Amelia. Couch. Not bed. Couch. Say it with me… couch… couch…
My lips trembled a little.
“You okay?” Josh asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. Thinking. As always. Uh, so… what’s the deal with Aaron and Rae?”
Josh laughed. “You keep asking me about them. I gave you the short version.”
“Yeah. They met. Had a kid. Now they have a life. But it just…”
“What? Seems wrong? Like they’re forcing it?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know. He doesn’t want to marry her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“He’s your best friend. You don’t know these things?”
“Maybe I do,” he said. “And maybe it’s not your business.”
He inched toward me. I turned and faced him.
So cozy. Comfortable. But the couch… the couch… couch…
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, love. Seeing as you’re going through drinks like water… this could get interesting.”
“Don’t try anything funny, Josh.”
“The last thing I am is funny,” he said.
That comment made me shiver in all the wrong ways and wrong places.
I backed away. “I’m waiting for you to talk. That’s why I’m here. That was our deal.”
“Right,” Josh said. “Our deal. You’re going to admit something first. About that story you wrote. The one you gave me to read.”
“Okay?”
“That wasn’t just about talking animals. That was you and your mother. And she fought hard for you, love. She was stuck in that horrible world and was ashamed she could never be brave enough to walk out… but she never wanted that for you. So she pushed you to write stories and you did so as a way to honor her. And in a way to try and get her to walk out. You thought if you wrote the perfect story, she’d get up and leave. Take you with her. Start a new life somewhere else.”
I swallowed hard as my eyes filled with tears. “You really think that?”
“It’s all over the story, Amelia.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s the case, then I’m not a good writer at all. Because it didn’t work.”
Josh moved toward me. “I’m sorry it didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer.”
I swallowed hard again. “Josh… please…”
He reached out and touched my face. His thumb stroked close to my eye, waiting for a tear that I wouldn’t let fall. I was stronger than he could imagine. Even if he made me feel comfortable enough to feel weak.
“Do you want to know how I got into drawing and painting and all that shit?”
“More than anything else,” I whispered.
Josh moved away from me and walked away from the windows. I turned my head and watched the way he carried his beer bottle. In his jeans. Barefoot. A t-shirt that wasn’t afraid to hug his body and show off everything I wanted to touch.
“My grandmother raised me, love,” Josh said. “It really wasn’t fair for her to have to do it either. But there was nobody else to take me in. To take care of me. And I think I wanted to do everything possible to make her toss me out. For her sake. Not mine.”
“Where were your parents?”
Josh looked over his shoulder at me. “My father disappeared. He always did. My mother held things together. A car accident took care of that though.”
I gasped. “Josh…”
He walked to the kitchen and put his beer bottle down. He opened a cabinet and brought out something stronger.
“She worked too much and never got any sleep,” he said. “So one night she got some sleep. Behind the wheel of her car.”
My heart was already starting to ache.
But what did I expect? It wasn’t like I had met Josh at a normal place. We were both always broken and walking the streets. Maybe in a way looking for each other. But we were too young then.
Now… everything was different, yet the same.
Chapter 24
Puzzles and Pieces
NOW
(Josh)
“She had already done her life sentence,” I said with a laugh. “You know? Raising two boys basically on her own. My grandfather was an alcoholic who drank himself to death. I mean that literally too. And when he went, it just shook everything up. I wasn’t around for that though. My father and my uncle were drunks from the time they were teenagers. I don’t even know where my uncle is right now.”
“What do you mean?” Amelia asked.
“He took off after…” I cleared my throat. “He just left and was never heard from again. No
