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  She forced a quick smile. “I don’t want you walking around feeling guilty all night.”

  “I’m…”

  “No need. You do too much for her as it is.”

  “Are you mad at her? Are you going to go find her?”

  Aunt Beth and I walked down the stairs. I loved the way they turned. I loved the diamond shaped stained glass window at the first little landing. Aunt Beth had a little table in the corner with school pictures of myself and Anna. From a few years ago. When Anna was still hard to deal with but she didn’t sneak out of the house.

  “I can’t answer that question,” Aunt Beth said. “It’s… a hard situation. If I pull her back, she’ll go out more. So I wonder if she experiences whatever she’s looking for, then maybe it’ll calm her down.”

  “You really believe that will work?”

  “No,” she said.

  She put water in a pan and turned on the burner. She got two mugs and tea bags.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” she said.

  “She’s my sister. I love her.”

  “Well, you start focusing on you,” Aunt Beth said. “You want to open that baking business? I want you to do it. Pursue it. Hard.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “I don’t want to talk about her anymore,” Aunt Beth said. “It’s not your burden. Okay? Unless you want to talk about her.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Hey… I have an idea…”

  Aunt Beth opened a drawer and took out a deck of cards. She then got a notebook and pen.

  “A little rummy?” she asked.

  “I love it,” I said.

  The water soon started to boil. I watched as Aunt Beth tried to pour the water into the mugs. She missed a little, splashed herself, and cursed. I made a mental note to get her a real tea kettle for Christmas. I’d have to buy it and say it’s from me and Anna… because Anna won’t get Aunt Beth anything…

  We sat and sipped tea and played rummy.

  Those were the nights with Aunt Beth that I knew I’d never forget. I understood that people my age were maybe supposed to be out experiencing life. Partying. Drinking. Trying new things. Fooling around with strangers. But that just didn’t work for me. I was content sitting at the table, talking about life with Aunt Beth.

  We got lost in time and realized two hours had gone by.

  She put her cards down and smiled at me. “So, Adena, tell me who your crush is.”

  “What?”

  “I know you have one. Everyone has a crush. I know you’re not all about dating, but there has to be at least one guy in school…”

  I laughed. “Well, there are a lot of cute guys. I mean, sure, yeah. Right now though, I’ll be graduating next spring. So I’m not really interested.”

  “But if you were,” Aunt Beth said. “Give me a name. Give me some gossip.”

  I laughed again.

  The front door then blasted open and slammed shut.

  Anna came charging through the dining room, throwing her little purse to the floor. She took off her jacket and threw it at me.

  It smelled like smoke, stale beer, and sex.

  I threw it to the floor.

  She twirled around and clutched her chest.

  “It happened!” she cried out.

  “And where were you?” Aunt Beth bellowed.

  Anna stopped. “Oh, please. I snuck out. Deal with it. It was totally worth it. I’m getting married!”

  “What?” I cried out.

  “Like hell you are,” Aunt Beth said.

  “I don’t care what both of you think.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Okay, so I went out with Jake, right? Total hunk. Twenty-two…”

  “Twenty-two?” Aunt Beth yelled. She stood up and put her hands to her face. “Did he touch you? I’ll call the damn police right now.”

  “Oh, will you just sit down,” Anna said. “Listen to me. So, I went out with Jake. We went to a college bar. Right?”

  I saw the look on Aunt Beth’s face. Sometimes I thought she really believed that Anna was just going to a friend’s house. Sit in the basement, smoke a cigarette, sip vodka, make out with a boy. But that’s what Anna did a couple years ago. She had long since upgraded her wildness.

  “So we’re at the bar when who comes walking up… but Mazzy.”

  “Mazzy?” I asked.

  “Oh, jeez, you’re so lame, Adena. Mazzy is friends with everyone. He gets let into the bar without getting his ID checked.”

  “How did you get into this bar?” Aunt Beth asked.

  Anna waved her off. “My point is this… Mazzy throws a comment at Jake. About me being so young. So Jake flips his lid. Gets so mad at me for lying. So I start to cry, right? I do it on purpose to get Mazzy to help. So Mazzy winds up and clocks Jake in the jaw! Knocked him right off the barstool. Jake gets up and punches Mazzy! They start fighting, but only for a few seconds. Then Jake looks at me and wants to leave. Mazzy points and says, ‘She’s already fucking taken, asshole.”

  “Language,” Aunt Beth said and slapped the table.

  There was no controlling Anna’s mouth though.

  “So I wanted to know what that meant. Jake then got pissed and left. Whatever. Fuck that guy. It wasn’t even his car, anyway. It was his dad’s. How lame. So Mazzy then tells me… he saw Evan buying a diamond ring today at the mall.”

  “Evan?” Aunt Beth asked.

  I stood up. “Evan…”

  “Yeah,” Anna said with her eyes wide. “I mean, he and I had a fight and stuff… but this is his way of making it up to me. He’s going to give me that ring. Ask me to marry him!”

  “Mazzy said that?” I asked.

  “You are not getting engaged at sixteen,” Aunt Beth snapped. She hit the table again. “Who do you think…”

  And just like that the two of them started to argue. Yelling. Screaming. Hitting the table over and over. Anna would eventually throw some things. Aunt Beth would cry. I was usually the one who would get in the middle and break it up. I would pull Anna away. Then I would check on Aunt Beth later.

  But not this time…

  “Evan,” I whispered.

  I knew he and Anna had a thing last summer or something. But it wasn’t serious. At least I didn’t think it was serious.

  Why did it matter so much?

  Because… I was sort of in love with Evan…

  Chapter Two

  (That Old Spark)

  NOW

  (Evan)

  Some men wore fancy ass watches, probably for no reason because everyone had a phone either in their pocket or attached to their hand like a growth they couldn’t get rid of. Me, I didn’t like wearing a watch because my body told me all the important things I needed to know for the day. If I was hungry, my belly would rumble. And if I needed a smoke, I would get easily frustrated with something stupid at the shop.

  I took my welder’s mask off and threw it to a table behind me. I dropped all my supplies and equipment and stared at the chassis of what would become a motorcycle. What would that motorcycle look like? How the hell would I know? I worked at my uncle’s welding shop to make ends meet. He handed me the work and I completed it. A couple years ago he was close to closing up the place until I hooked up with a guy named Jimmy who ran his own custom motorcycle place. He gave us some business and liked our work. So he reached out to some of his friends and next thing I knew, we were getting work from across the state and even out of state.

  Uncle Davey even pulled himself out of his whiskey coma, slash retirement and got to work. He called up his old friend Winston to work more hours with me, and then it was just the three of us. They listened to old music, talked about old baseball games when it was apparently a real game, which left me without much in common. Other than drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, and forever on the conquest for the next woman. The only thing was that Uncle Davey and Winston weren’t exactly up for the challenge. They were more
about talking. Me, I was about punching out, taking a shower, and hitting the watering hole to find some fun. The town may have been boring, but there were enough women and what I called regulars to keep things moving along.

  I licked my lips and my brain started to get pissed. As though I had quit the cigs cold turkey and it had been a couple days. I studied the chassis for a second, spotting a few minor spots I needed to fix.

  But before that…

  I walked to a bench that had my name scratched into it. That was my way of knowing Uncle Davey promised me a job. He never once in my life said he loved me but damaging the peg hole part of a bench was good enough.

  I grabbed my smokes and stopped at the fridge that had a calendar for a parts company with women who were mostly naked. This month’s beauty had red hair, green eyes, and wrenches covering her nipples. The angle of the shot showed the beautiful curve of her bare ass but never showed anything that would deem the calendar too far.

  I leaned down a little and read the name in the corner.

  “Well, hello to you, Angie,” I whispered. “Wish you lived in this town.”

  I could distract myself with her for days. And all I would need to do was send Uncle Davey a picture and he’d completely understand and not break my balls about the time off.

  I opened the fridge and swatted aside some cans of cheap light beer. I grabbed a bottle of water and slammed the door shut, pissed off.

  Outside, I sat on top of an old picnic table. I listened to the sounds of the old music coming from the massive garage. The look of the place and the music gave it the appeal of something from a horror movie. The old chain link fence that surrounded the property was shaky and tilted in certain parts. The ground needed a good coat of blacktop but instead it was left bubbled, cracked, random grass and plants growing from those cracks. The building used to be nice and clean, about fifty years ago when Uncle Davey opened the shop. His name had been painted on the side of the building but it was now faded, chipped, showing the brick that lie underneath.

  I lit up my smoke and said the two words that always got me through life.

  “Fuck it,” I whispered.

  I leaned back on the table, to my elbows, and put my head back. I looked up at the sun, felt a sting in my eyes, almost like a good hangover headache.

  “Evan.”

  I sat up and saw Uncle Davey hobbling toward the table. He always wore these cheap brand jeans that were super wide in the legs that came over thick black shoes. He wore a buttoned down work shirt that was always tucked in. You could find a picture of Uncle Davey from fifty years ago and he wore the same clothes as today. The only difference was that in his younger days, he had a full head of dark hair, a jawline that was cut from stone, and a pissed off scowl that gave the earliest of warnings to stay away. But the ladies loved Uncle Davey then. And some loved him still.

  Shit, and if it was anything that mattered, a lot of people said I looked just like him. Which wasn’t a bad thing, as long as I looked like him when he was younger. I wasn’t ready to age and lose my edge.

  “Evan, we gotta talk,” Uncle Davey said.

  Truthfully, I really didn’t understand completely how I was related to Uncle Davey. He wasn’t my actual uncle, but we were blood related, and he was the only one left in my family, and he was the one who bailed my ass out when I needed it the most.

  “Tell me you got someone pregnant,” I said.

  Uncle Davey laughed. “That’s your worry, not mine. I’m shooting blanks over here. I can do whatever I want.”

  “I bet you shoot dust,” I said. “You old man.”

  Uncle Davey curled his lip and made a tight fist. His hands were fucking huge and his fist the size of a boulder.

  “How about I knock you out?” he asked.

  I showed my hands in defeat. “You win.”

  Uncle Davey grabbed the table and leaned over it for a second, catching his breath. “We have to talk.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Give me one of them smokes,” he said. “Need to open my lungs a little.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure these will help you breathe better,” I said.

  “Just saw the doc two weeks ago,” Uncle Davey said. “He said I’m healthier than most of the young guys he sees.”

  “Well that doctor must be fucking blind.”

  Uncle Davey laughed as he took the smoke from me. He stuck it between his lips and looked twenty years younger. He lit his smoke and always stared off into space as he took that first drag. He looked like some cowboy in a movie, contemplating how dangerous his life was and that he was one lucky shot away from eating dirt.

  “You said you needed to talk,” I said. “I have to get back to work soon. My boss is a real asshole about long breaks.”

  “The hell with your boss,” Uncle Davey said. He turned and leaned against the table. He took another drag and let out a long, growling sigh. “Hey, you remember back in Mintfield, right?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Of course. What about it?”

  “You left there after…”

  “What’s the point of this?”

  I hated talking about that place. I hated everything about it.

  “I got a phone call,” Uncle Davey said. “I guess that one girl you used to run with… Anna?”

  Anna.

  Shit. I hadn’t heard that name in years.

  I felt my jaw clench tight. Memory lane was not the kind of road I enjoyed walking down. Fuck, I wouldn’t even like driving down that road in the fastest car in the world.

  “What about?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, Evan, but she, uh, she’s passed away.”

  Now Uncle Davey had my attention.

  I jumped off the picnic table and stood there. “What?”

  “Yeah. Some kind of accident.”

  “Accident? Was she alone?”

  “What do you mean?” Uncle Davey asked.

  “I didn’t know the question was confusing,” I said. “Was she alone? Anyone with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Uncle Davey snapped. “What the hell you getting mad at me for? I came to tell you because I knew you and her had a thing together. Figured you’d want to know. You stopped talking to everyone when you left there.”

  I swallowed the anger.

  There was no use in getting pissed at Uncle Davey. He could always out anger someone, and if it got heated enough, he would throw a punch.

  Uncle Davey then stared at me. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  “You heard what the fuck I said.” He pushed from the table and stuck the cig between his aged lips. “I’m sorry that she’s gone, Evan. Take whatever time you need off for the service.”

  “Service?”

  Uncle Davey took the smoke from his mouth. “Jesus, Evan. She’s dead, okay? I’m sure there’s going to be some kind of service. At the very least you should be there. Pay your respects.”

  “Right,” I said. “Pay my respects.”

  “You know, my two cents in life since I’m already knee deep in a grave… whatever you hold against that town and those people, figure out how to let it go. The older you get the less you want things weighing on you. Too much weight and you’ll end up in a grave way too soon.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Head out now, Evan,” Uncle Davey said. “I’ll have Winston finish up your work. We’re going to be a little slow this week anyway.”

  I nodded.

  I rubbed my jaw.

  Anna was dead.

  I shook my head. The strange part was that it really didn’t surprise me all that much. If anything, it surprised me that she lived as long as she did. There was some romantic fantasy somewhere inside me that she’d find the right guy to tame her and she’d have a good life.

  But now she was gone.

  And now I had to go back to that town.

  To pay my respects.

  But here was the kicker… it wasn’t Anna burning on my mind right then
.

  I was thinking about her older sister - Adena.

  Chapter Three

  (That Honest Smile)

  YEARS AGO

  (Evan)

  I leaned against the side of the house and lit up a cig. I put my head back and took a deep breath, smelling the tangy smoke and the smell of wet leaves, dirt, and a hint of garbage. To my left were two old metal trashcans. One of the lids was slightly off. I walked down to it and pulled the lid over. It was so beat up and bent there was no securing it down.

  The smell of the garbage was beyond rotten. It was like it had been sitting there for a month.

  “Hey! What are you looking for? A meal?”

  I turned and saw someone leaning over the porch, looking down the side of the house right at me. My first natural instinct was to run. That’s what I was good at. Being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, and then getting caught and running. If it was the cops, I’d run until they gave up. If it was someone else, I’d get to a spot where I was comfortable and then stop and fight.

  I saw her dark hair slide over the side of her face. She quickly fought to throw it out of the way. She wanted to look tough and mean but that wasn’t her style. It never was and never would be.

  So I smiled and gave a wave. “Hey, Dena.”

  “Oh, Evan,” Adena said.

  I saw the red rose color spread across her cheeks even at my distance. A small smile flickered but she fought it away.

  “What the heck are you doing?” Adena asked.

  “Fixing your trash can,” I said. “Smells horrible.”

  “Oh. Right. I thought you were picking through…”

  I walked toward her. I dropped my cig to the ground and stepped on it. Adena never smoked once in her life. She was so innocent and sort of geeky, the complete opposite of her sister, Anna.

  I stood on the ground as she stood on the porch. It was the only time Adena was taller than me.

  “Would you have called the cops if I was picking through your trash?” I asked with a grin.

  “No. I would have asked what you needed. There’s some leftover meatloaf in the fridge.”