I know she was never this at ease when she was around Marcello—her head was always down, a look of almost pain etched in her features. I thought it was just who she was until all hell broke loose the first day that the “Westside Crew,” aka the remainder of our very close circle of friends, moved from our old school to Seashore Academy in Mantoloking. Those next to two years of what I imagine to be much like hell had me drinking the shit out of shakes. But now, it is finally over. Well, for us.
Max is going into his senior year and will have to deal with all that shit himself, because Tris, who was in the same grade, dropped out to become a pop sensation and is now about to get married.
I’ve never been able to find that ballet of butterflies kind of connection with any male my age. I half-blame my parents, namely Dad, for having grown up believing that every man looks at his wife like he looks at Mom. Like the fountain cherubs, even though they are stone, seem to be looking at one another. The look that truly epitomizes the phrase: the sun rises and sets beneath her feet.
Age is a nonissue with me because of the fact that the only man who has made me feel anything close to dancing butterflies in my belly is older than me.
Wyatt Dalton, aka Ranger, was my first real kiss and also the first man to break my heart. That may seem to be a slight exaggeration, but slight or not, it’s true. Since that day, four years ago, when a man eleven years older than me kissed me and I felt “the swoon,” nothing has compared.
Marley told me it was because, for empaths to feel their best in an intimate situation, they have to share the physical intimacy with the right person.
“This when you know you know shit needs to stop,” Amias grumbles.
“It’s worked out for Momma Joe, our parents, Bell, Kiki, Truth, and Justice,” I say only halfheartedly, because the rest of us … not so much.
I look to Truth, who’s sitting snuggled up to Tobias. She crosses her eyes to make me laugh, and I cross mine back. She’s the only one I’ve told about the whole empath thing, and she’s also the one who, just last night, talked me into reevaluating going into psychology, and the reason I’m going to take a year off to “reevaluate” with a gap year, which I will be telling my parents about at the end of this two week “vacation.”
Reality is that one of us is actually okay with this, the person who is the easiest to be around right now—Momma Joe. Mom is doing “okay,” and Dad’s just happy that Mom’s not crying all the time, yet he still hasn’t genuinely smiled in about two years.
“Didn’t work out for Patrick,” Amias whispers, and we all shift our gazes to the back of the property where Patrick stands.
I may not be able to see him clearly, but I know by the way he’s standing that it’s him. A man, possibly the owner of this vineyard, is walking toward him.
None of us really knew he was in love. Suspicious, sure, but we are, or were, “Forever Steel,” and that’s supposed to mean all sorts of things. Apparently, though, it doesn’t include us sharing matters of the heart that don’t pertain to family. Like love, in the way they felt it, the way I was so trying to feel it with Miles up until he graduated.
Miles suggested we try to have a long-distance relationship, but I talked him into breaking up with me. It’s so much easier to allow someone to think they’re breaking your heart than it is to break theirs. It wasn’t to be shared unless it was shouted to the rooftop, or left your heart battered and bleeding, giving you the inability to keep it all inside. That was the case with Patrick, who still won’t talk about it, and Tris, who apparently had lost her V-card to Marcello Efisto way before Kiki, who is a year older than me, did, or Truth and me.
What hurts my heart isn’t this marriage; it’s the fact that I’m not sure I ever really knew my own sister. It’s not just that she hid losing her virginity. I didn’t even know Tris loves to sing, let alone the fact