June 15th

LeeAnne sat on the wide steps of her front porch. Much time had passed since she returned from the meeting at Sasha’s. The darkness outside was almost perfect, save the streetlamp half a block up the road. A breeze waved through lazily, stirring the warm stillness of the starry evening.

Bryan stepped onto the porch and leaned against a post, gazing down at his younger sister. “Coming in tonight?”

“Eventually,” she replied. Her blue eyes lifted up to meet his face and she offered him a smile. “I’m just thinking.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Eh.” LeeAnne brought her knees up and hugged them to her chest. “It’s just guy stuff.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bryan squatted closer to her. “Do I need to kick somebody’s butt?”

She giggled. “No. Thanks though.” LeeAnne peered skyward again, marveling at the sparkling June space. “I’m just trying to figure some stuff out. The man of the moment, junk like that.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything,” Bryan told her, patting her shoulder briefly. “I’m going to eat some food and watch tv.”

“Okay.” LeeAnne smiled as he left. Bryan could be a cool brother every once in awhile, if no one was looking.

She couldn’t quite figure out what it was that she was confused over. When Sasha had asked her to hang back, the familiar heart flutters had come back in an instant. As much as she wanted to order her head to look at reality, it still seemed to want to walk around in the clouds sometimes. When Paige had reminded her in the car earlier about Cashus’s nearing arrival, that had caused a good adrenaline rush as well. Too many boys, too many issues. LeeAnne longed for simplicity. Clear-cut lines between friends and crushes and emotions. She was beginning to wonder if there was a certain age a person got to that ended all times of simplicity. Maybe the norm of gaining adulthood was a little bit of chaos and a little bit of heartache.

Lee was jerked from the mental ponderings by a strange, rattling sound in the distance. She lowered her knees and peered off in the direction of the street lamp. Whatever the noise was, it was coming from that direction, and quickly. When the figure caught the illumination of light, LeeAnne grinned and rose to her feet. It was Garland. On his skateboard.

He slowed his pace came to a stop in front of Lee’s walkway. Garland bent and took the board in his hand and walked forward to meet LeeAnne at the porch. He slipped the headphones he’d been wearing off his ears, letting them rest around his neck.

“Long time, no see,” Lee told him. “Missed you at the meeting tonight.”

“I know, I missed you guys too. I just felt like I could stand some space.” Garland grinned and then hugged her unexpectedly. “I’m glad you’re home, I wanted to talk to you for a little while.”

“Sit down then,” she responded. “I’ve been out here for awhile anyway.” LeeAnne returned to the step she’d been sitting on. Garland parked down next to her. “So what’s up?”

Garland snickered. “You say it like you don’t know already. I may not have talked to you this week but I know how word spreads.”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “The thing with Genesis? Yeah, I know about that.”

“I just never saw it coming,” he lamented. “I understand why she feels the way she does. I just hate that I can’t do anything about it.” Garland sighed and leaned back against the porch post on his side of the steps. “I talked to her last night. Guess she decided to skip the meeting to. I was going to leave a message for her to give me a call, but she answered the phone. Threw me off a little bit.” He let out a rueful laugh. “Anyway, she explained to me some of the reasons why she’s not ready yet. I’m glad we can stay friends but her reasons almost made me feel worse.” Garland glanced at her. “Did she tell you about the call from her old friend?”

LeeAnne nodded. She had heard about the news in Colorado with Gen’s ex boyfriend. “Worse how?” she asked.

“Just that she had to go through that shit, and now she’s getting reminded about it all over again. There’s some things in life that are there, but no one wants to be reminded it’s there.” Garland didn’t sound depressed, just frustrated. “I’m feeling better . . . I just wish I could help her feel better. I’d pretty much told myself that I needed to deal with the circumstance and let Gen make the decisions she needed to make. Then I started feeling sorry for myself again last night . . . felt better today . . . felt really bad after I talked to Genesis . . . now I’m starting to feel better again.”

LeeAnne laughed. “Sounds like you’re on the same emotional roller coaster I’m on,” she told him. “Welcome to my world. Confused, party of two?”

Garland nodded emphatically, a grin on his face. “I’m feeling better for myself,” he repeated. “I just wish I had one of those blinky things from Men In Black so I could erase Gen’s memory of that bastard ever existing.”

After letting out a deep breath, LeeAnne replied, “If you do get that blinky thing, use it on me. Help me forget that I used to have a huge thing for Sasha. Old habits die hard.”

“So you don’t like him anymore?” Garland asked.

She shook her head no. “I don’t think that I like him anymore, I just don’t know another definition for myself around Sasha. For way too long, he was the good friend that I was secretly crazy about. Then he was the good friend that knew I liked him. And not I’m just trying to get to the point where he can just be the good friend. Without any history.”

Garland shrugged. “It’s hard. Life comes with history.” Then he started laughing. “Morgan’s been reading a bunch of history books lately. Big nerd.”

“He’s always been a nerd,” LeeAnne replied. “But then again, so have you.”

He shook his head indignantly. “Not me, baby. I’m where it’s at.”

LeeAnne and Garland both began laughing. “You sure used to think so,” Lee reminded him. “I remember when we first met, you kept trying to convince me you were God’s gift to women.”

Garland smiled, reflecting on the memories. “Yeah. I was pretty sure you were the greatest thing that ever walked the planet.”

“And what am I now?” asked LeeAnne, pretending to be mad. “You’ve demoted me?”

“No . . . no.” Garland said that with a simple shake of the head. His voice sounded very serious. “No, I used to think you were that great. Now I know you are.” He chuckled and looked towards his shoes. “I think that's why I lost interest. I realized you were impossibly out of my league and deserved far, far greater.”

LeeAnne’s brows lifted. She wascompletely touched by his remark. “You’re not so bad, Garland.” She leaned over onto his shoulder. “Personally, I think Gen’s nuts not to claim you up fast before someone else steals you.”

Garland put an arm over her shoulder. “Thanks, babe. I think Sasha’s pretty out of it too.”

She shut her eyes, trying not to think of Sasha. “I liked you back, you know.”

“What’s that?”

LeeAnne sat up and smiled at him, grinning mischievously. “There at the end, I was really starting to like you back. Do you remember when we went and visited your dad in jail?”

“Yeah.” Garland lifted an eyebrow. “Are you going to say something about when you kissed me in McDonald’s?”

She giggled. It sounded completely, playfully sweet. “How cute. You remember.”

“Sure I remember.” Gar’s face looked beautiful and innocent and awestruck. “I can’t believe you remember.”

“Of course.” LeeAnne cocked her head to the side and gave him the dazzling smile of a girl who didn’t realize her own beauty. “You told me we weren’t going to have a date, and then I kissed you. And I knew that you and me were going to be really great friends for the rest of our lives.” She laughed a little and added, “I knew anything between you and me would never happen. But I still meant the kiss.”

“I never knew,” he said honestly. “But thank you. Really, thank you.” Garland had a sincere look in his eyes that humbled LeeAnne immediately. “I want to give you something,” Garland told her. “I think you deserve it.”

LeeAnne sat sidewards while Garland dug in his pocket. He pulled out a ring box. “Here. This is yours.”

She accepted the box and opened it. Her jaw and she immediately began shaking her head no. “I can’t, Garland. It’s beautiful, but I just can’t take it.”

“Yeah you can. You need to. I can’t get my money back on it.”

LeeAnne looked him in the eye. “You bought this for Gen.” It wasn’t a question.

“I did, but I never got the chance to give it to her. And maybe that’s for the best.” Garland shrugged. “She’s not ready yet, and I want you to have it now. Matches your eyes pretty damn good anyway.”

Biting her lower lip, LeeAnne slid the ring onto her finger. A pair of miniscule diamond chips glittered among the tiny sapphires. “I’ll take it,” she told him. “But I’m not keeping it.” Lee looked back to Garland and told him, “It’s not mine. I’m just holding onto it until you need it back. Deal?”

The redheaded boy grinned at her. “It’s a deal.” Garland fiddled with the headphones around his ears and added, “Morgan may be a nerd but he knows music. He put some songs on this MP3 player for me so that I can jam out while I skateboard. There’s a Pink Floyd song on here that completely gets me going. It’s got a line that reminds me of us.”

LeeAnne smiled. “Oh, yeah? What’s it say?”

“Condition: grounded, but determined to try.” Garland wiggled his eyebrows and stood up. “I’m gonna get going. See you soon, Lee.”

“You, too, Gar.” LeeAnne stood up with him and gave Garland a fierce hug. “Take care of yourself. I love you, you know.”

“You too, LeeAnne.”

She remained standing and watched as her old friend got on his skateboard, headphones back on ears. It took what seemed to be a mere fraction of a second before he was speeding like a maniac back down the sidewalk. Right as he passed under the streetlight, she saw Garland lift his arms on each side, as though he were flying. In a way, she knew that he was.

Bryan stepped back outside, distracting LeeAnne’s attention for just a moment. When she looked back down the sidewalk, Garland had completely disappeared from sight. “Everything cool out here?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I dunno.” Bryan shrugged. “I was passing by the window and saw you standing out there near the sidewalk. Waiting for somebody?”

She shook her head no. “Not waiting. Saying goodbye.” Her right hand seemed to be playing with a ring on the left.

Bryan walked out near her and peered down the darkened street. Whoever his sister had been saying goodbye to was long gone. “Who was it?” he asked. “That man of the moment you were talking about?”

A private smile curved over LeeAnne’s face. “No,” she answered. “Someone I’m just getting over.”

The End