Pieces Of You by Jay McLean

9

Holden

Jamie stares at me,and I stare right back.

I’ve concluded that this is how things will work between us until one of us eventually dies. For now, she’s better at The Staring Game than I am, so I break first. “What do you mean you don’t have suitable attire?”

“I mean…” she says in that annoying You Idiot tone she seems to save just for me. “My closet consists of the type of clothes I’m currently wearing.” And then she repeats, because she thinks I’m thick, “I don’t have suitable attire.”

“You don’t have jeans?” I almost scoff. “Everyone has fucking jeans, Janice.”

We’re sitting in my truck after school, headed to Esme’s house, and she’s dressed in her grandma clothes. She did, however, bring gloves. Rubber gloves. What the fuck is she thinking?

Sighing dramatically, hands on her lap, she shifts her stare from me to the windshield. And for some dumb reason, I feel like I can actually breathe. “I have one pair of jeans, and I wear them to work, and since I work five to six nights a week, I don’t want to ruin them. Plus, they smell like food mixed with fryer oil and soap.” My nose scrunches at the thought, and I don’t hide it in time before her eyes move to me. When she notices, she looks away again, and then her voice lowers, wobbles when she adds, “I’ll buy jeans for next week, okay? Let’s just go.”

It dawns on me—a little slower than it should have—that it isn’t about the clothes or the gloves. The girl lives on her own, pays everything for herself, and works five to six nights a fucking week. She can’t afford clothes. And I just brought attention to that. She has every right to use that tone with me because hell, I am an idiot.

Without another word, I put my truck in drive and tell her, “We’re going to make a quick detour.”

She doesn’t respond.

I don’t look at her, too afraid of what I’ll see.

We make it halfway home when she finally speaks. “Where are we going?”

“My house.”

Seconds of silence pass before she asks, “Why?”

I still can’t look at her. “I’m going to get you some clothes.”

“Your clothes won’t fit—”

“My mom will find something.”

“Your mom?” she practically shouts.

I nod, then peek over at her. She’s already reaching into her bag and pulling out that same marker from last week. Then she lifts her skirt just enough to reveal the skin above her knee, where there are already swirls of ink—flowers, mainly, from what I can tell.

Probably too late, I ask, “Is that okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she replies, and then she’s off, creating more art she plans to get rid of.

My mom losther job over the summer, which means she’s home all the time. I miss the days when I could bring girls home after school, do my thing, then have them leave before Mom entered the front door. I’m not naïve enough to believe she didn’t know what was happening. The twice-a-week opening of my bedroom door, spraying air freshener throughout the room while simultaneously glaring at me, proves that. Along with her random “I hope you’re being careful, Holden” comments.

If we’re comparing apples to apples, I’m almost at the age when she got pregnant, so as far as her fears go? Justified. Just so we’re clear. I’m very careful.

By the time we get to the house, Jamie’s lifted her skirt halfway up her thigh, and almost every inch of exposed flesh is covered in lines so intricate I want to snap a picture of it so that I can study it later. I don’t, obviously, because there’s a special place in society for that level of creep, and it’s called prison. She looks up when my truck stops, her breaths shallow, eyeing the house and the immaculate yard. Her eyes are wide, panicked, and I ask, “You good?”

A quick puff of air leaves her lips before her eyes meet mine. “Is it weird that I’m nervous?”

I shrug.

“It’s just—I know you and I… we’re not anything. But with Dean, I never met his parents… clearly.”

I offer a half-hearted smile that I hope comes out reassuring. “You’re rambling, Regina. It’s fine. Besides, you’ve kind of met my mom already—outside the principal’s office. She’s not like other moms. You’ll be fine.” I start to get out, but she tugs on my arm, bringing me closer.

“Holden, look at me.”

I sigh, doing as she asks.

“Do I have dirt on my face?”

“What? No. You look fine.”

She scrubs the non-existent dirt off her face. “You didn’t even look!”

I want to laugh, but I contain it. “I did.”

“Holden, I know you think this is funny.”

“You’re being a little ridiculous, yeah.”

Her eyes drift shut. Stay that way. Angling her chin to the side, she says, almost in a whisper, “Just… look. Please.”

So I do. And for the first time, I notice the slight freckles across her cheeks. And then her nose. I notice her fucking nose. Because it’s little and it’s cute, and the tip has a little faded summer-sun peel, and then I notice the other parts of her, like her lips, plump and more red than pink. She has little curls just around her hairline, and she’s tanned—naturally—not from hours and hours in the sun, but likely from her bloodline.

“Anything?” she asks, her eyes fluttering open, unfocused, on mine.

Hazel eyes on green, I shake my head, clearing the fog she’s created. “You’re fine, Taylor.”

I start to get out, and again, she stops me. “Do I smell?”

Turning my entire body toward her, I ask, “You want me to smell you now?”

She nods but doesn’t speak, and I try to read her, try to see if she’s just messing with me, but there isn’t a single piece of her that’s even close to kidding. “Just here,” she says, tapping at her collarbone.

I roll my eyes and lean forward, settling my nose in the crook of her neck. And then I breathe her in, and it’s the same scent from the first time she was in my truck. Citrus and flowers, only now it’s heightened, and I don’t know if it’s because we’re this close—so close, I can feel the heat radiating off her, or because my eyes are shut, and the only thing I can seem to focus on is the rapid beating of my heart.

“So?” she asks, and I don’t do what I know I should.

I don’t pull back, don’t move away. I inhale. Again. “You smell…” Like my childhood. Like memories of better days out on an endless green field, when my parents were still together, and my best friend was still my best friend, and we’d laugh and play and didn’t have a single care in the world.

“I smell?”

I push down the knot in my throat before snapping my eyes open and rearing back. “You smell fine, Florence. Let’s go.”

“Is that you,you little shit? Shouldn’t you be doing that club thing?” Mom calls from somewhere not visible from one step inside the house.

“I’m not alone!” I shout, holding the door open for Jamie.

“Hi, Dean!”

“It’s not Dean!” I respond, closing the door after Jamie. “It’s a girl!”

“Well, shit,” Mom mumbles, and a chair scrapes, doors open and close, and by the time I go through the living room and toward the kitchen table, Mom’s nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d you go?”

“Getting dressed! I’ll be out in a second.”

“Nudist family?” Jamie quips, and I openly gag at the thought.

“Shut up.” I don’t tell her that what she could’ve walked into is the new normal: Mom sitting at the table, working on a puzzle in the same robe she’s in almost twenty-four seven. She barely leaves the house, not even to look for a job. And I don’t push her. I can’t. Because I understand that it isn’t forever. Right now, she’s just… stuck on being broken.

“Who does puzzles?” Jamie asks, motioning to the table.

“Mom,” I answer, walking over to it. “And me, sometimes. It’s like, our thing.”

“That’s… cute.”

I don’t respond, too focused on the single piece missing from a completed area. I flick my finger through the piled-up pieces and find the right one, putting it in its place.

“I hate when you do that,” Mom says, and I look up at her standing in the kitchen doorway, now dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, hair brushed to one side.

I can’t help but smile at the sight of her. “Mom, this is Jamie. Jamie, my mom, Tammy,” I say, pointing between them.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Jamie says, sounding almost shy.

“Tammy is fine,” Mom responds, stepping toward us. “What are you guys doing here?”

Grasping Jamie’s shoulders, I push her toward Mom. “She needs clothes.”

“What’s wrong with the ones she has on?”

“Besides the obvious?” I state. “Grandma’s clothes are covered in mothballs.”

Mom sighs before scolding, “Don’t be a dick, Holden.”

Jamie snorts. “I just assumed it was his default setting.”