Cruiser (4 page)

Cruiser

Her bedroom light in the distance catches my eyes. Stands out like a lone star in the night sky. I ease my bike to a stop in front my house. Pull off my helmet and look up at her room.

I wish I was with her tonight. When Erica’s silky hair pooled over my chest a little while ago, I didn’t see her almond-shaped eyes, but the familiar blue ones of the girl next door. I
’ve always loved those eyes. Too big for her face, but all the same. She’s Lex.

I push out the kickstand and half-sit on my bike.
As my index finger twisted around a strand of Erica’s luscious hair, I imagined Lex lying near me, her hand nestled on my chest, her soft chin resting on my right shoulder.
“I love you, Cruiser,”
she murmured before drifting off to sleep. I tucked some hair behind her ear and stared at her while she slept.

The fantasy is too good to ever come true. I wonder what it would feel like to actually be with a girl I care about. A girl who cares about me. Tonight with Erica was fun, unforgettable
, and it beat my old time favorite, Christie. But I always get this feeling after I ride away from the girl’s house. Used. Empty. A tool.

I stopped sleeping around after living in New York for a while. Spent time with Gramps and Gran. Built things, baked
things. They’re obsessed with baking contests, although they suck. Didn’t matter, though. They understood me. Accepted me. Never compared me to Rey like my parents do. Made me feel good about myself. I realized I should head home and patch things up with the parents and keep my close bond with Rey.

But the real reason was for Lex. I never stopped thinking about her. For some idiotic reason, it never occurred to me that she’d be with someone. Guess I thought she couldn’t stand being with anyone other than me, just like I couldn’t stand being with anyone other than her. Then I came home and saw her with Rey.
He didn’t know Lex and I were together last year. I felt the stab of betrayal. Don’t know why I thought she’d miss me. Want me. Wait for me. She doesn’t give a crap about me. Tossed me aside and went after Rey.

It fucking hurt.
I called Christie that night.

A head peeks out from the window. Stares down at me. For a second it feels like everything around us disappears, and it’s only Lex and me. But she reaches for her curtain
and pulls it across the window.

“Hey, Cruise!” Rey’s head sticks out of our guestroom window. “What’re you doing down there? Shut the engine before you wake the neighbors.”

I force out a chuckle. “Be right up.”

My gaze goes to her window again. The curtain is still drawn. I wonder if she climbed into bed,
if she’s on the train to Dreamland. If there’s room for me.

Get over yourself
.

She’s Rey’s. They
should be together. They’ve got more in common than I ever had with her. Like their love for the arts. The way they can carry a conversation about nothing. Their drive to succeed. Their taste in food—baby ribs and Hawaiian pizza.

They’re both the perfect child in the family.

Lex doesn’t think about me. Dream about me. She loves Rey. He makes her happy. When she looks at him, she forgets all the shit. When she looks at me, the shit buries her.

It’s up to me to ensure that Rey continues to make her happy. There’s nothing more I can do to make it up to her.

“Yo, Cruise!” Rey calls again.

I park my Harley in the garage and head inside. Mom and Dad are in bed. Rey’s on the living room couch
, watching CNN.

I plop down near him
, crossing my feet on the coffee table. “Sup, Rey. Why aren’t you in bed?”

His gaze doesn’t move from the dude on TV talking about an earthquake in
some country. “I got into the news,” he says. “Been so busy with the violin I’m not in tune with what’s going on in the world.”

Yeah, it’s a tragedy when one is not informed about the stuff that goes on beyond our borders
.
Lex would call me a
n
arrogant ignoramus. Wonder if she’d say the same to Rey if he was as ignorant as me.

I need to smash something against my skull.
Lex doesn’t give a damn. Get that into your big head, you arrogant ignoramus.

“You need rest,” I tell Rey. “Big day tomorrow.”

“I’ll sleep in.”

“It’s Friday.”

“Mom’ll let me skip.”

“Yeah.” I grab a pillow, fold it under my head, and lean back. Close my eyes. Damn, I’m tired. A night with Erica will do that.

I must have said that aloud because Rey says, “Speaking of Erica. How was it?”

I open my eyes. Rey looks intrigued
. He’s never asked me about my nights before. Maybe because he’s never had a girl until Lex. I give him a not-so-graphic play by play of what my night was like. His eyes flash with jealousy.

“You’ll get there,” I tell him. “Will be
great with Lex.”
What I’d give
… I block out the image of Lex lying near me, body tucked close to mine.

“Yeah, I guess.” He leans back on the couch. “Sometimes she’s so…difficult, you know? I mean, I don’t want to pressure her or anything, but she
was acting a little weird tonight. Maybe we both were. I don’t know.”

Did she
act like that because of the way I looked at her? Nah, who am I kidding? “Sometimes it’s better to fly solo, Rey. No commitments. Not that you should,” I quickly add. “Lex is a catch, Rey. A big one. Some guys would give anything to be with a girl like that.” My guts start a boxing match in my body.

“Yeah?” Rey lowers the volume of the TV
and scoots closer to me. “Sometimes I feel that the only reason we’re together is because we’ve been friends since we were kids.”

I bite the words forming on my lips. The accusations. Why didn’t he tell me he got together with
her? He doesn’t know what we shared last year. Had I known they were a couple—in love—I would have kept my ass in New York.

“You love her, Rey
,” I say. “You’d do anything for her and she’d do anything for you. That’s what’s important. Remember that. She’s not ready to take the next step. You don’t want to hurt her.”

He picks at the loose thread on a cushion.
“Yeah, I guess.”

“She’ll tell you when she’s ready. It’ll come, bro. Probably faster than you think.”

He focuses on the news. After a few minutes, I doze off. Wake up every few minutes because of the TV. Too lazy to go to my own room.

Damn, there I go thinking about sleeping with her again. It’d be different
from when I sleep with Erica and the others. Pure. Electric.

I’m smiling in my fantasy. Rey punches me. Says I look
stupid. I punch him back.

Don’t mess with me while I dream about the girl I can never have.

Lex

I stash my
poms in my gym locker and head outside. Dani’s sitting on the steps leading to the school building. “Thanks for waiting,” I say. “My ride’s sick with the stomach flu.”

She snatches her bag off the bottom step and throws it over her shoulder. “I’m gonna start a campaign to get you to drive.”

I laugh lightly, but my insides turn to jelly. She meant it as a joke, but every time someone urges me to drive, I want to find a human-size turtle shell and hide in there until my life gets fixed.

We climb into
her silver convertible and she pulls out of the parking lot. “How was practice?” she asks.

Shrugging, I say, “
It was okay.” I got the choreography right and gave some good suggestions to Coach. But I stared at the gym’s clock, counting down the minutes until freedom. A girl passionate about dance shouldn’t feel that way.

“So how’s it
on the spinal cord specialist front?” she asks as she brakes by a red light.

Looking
out the window, I watch some kids playing soccer in their front yard. I went to the computer lab during lunch today to do some more research, but didn’t find anything different from what I already found last night.

“You know,
becoming a doctor isn’t going to help you get over your guilt for Rosie’s accident.”

I bite my lip as the memories bounce against my skull, making me dizzy and
nauseous. My palm closes over my cheerleader keychain and I squeeze it tight, ignoring the sharp edge of the “c” cutting into my skin.

“I’m not trying to be heartless here, Lex.
Don’t throw your dreams away because of Rosie.”

I shake my head, still staring out the window so she won’t see the tears gathering in my eyes. “It’s every girl’s dream to be a dancer, Dani. Just a dream.
But in reality, there are more important things out there, like helping kids like Rosie.”

“It’s not a dream for you
—it’s a reality. I heard about the scholarship.”

A tear seeps out of my eye and runs down my cheek. I brush it away. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

We sit in silence for a little while. Dani’s eyes are on the road while I battle tears. Finally, when she stops at another red light, she says, “How’re things with Rey?”

I
really
don’t want to talk about that, either, but if Dani knows that she’ll be up in my face about me and Cruiser. So I say, “Things are great.”

There’s no hiding anything from her, though. “
How’s his brother?”

I don’t answer.

“So things are still rainbows and fluffy bunnies with Rey, then?”

“I wish you’d get off my back.”

“I wish you’d stop running from your problems.”

I grab a tissue from the box on the dashboard and swipe at my eyes. “I can’t deal with any of this, Dani. I just…” I take a deep breath and let it out. “I’m so sick of
trying to be strong all the time.”

Dani parks the car on the side of the road and kills the engine. She’s not affectionate, so resting her hand on my arm is equivalent to giving me a hug.
“No one’s asking you to be strong. I just wish you’d confront your feelings out in the open instead of having to hold everything in.”

I
pull away. “Says the girl who won’t let anyone in after her whole Jimmy fiasco.” Yanking the door open, I say, “I’ll walk from here. Thanks for the ride.”

“Lex, please don’t run.
You’re right about Jimmy, but you’re much braver than I am.”

I close the door and head home.
It’s a beautiful day today, warm with just a soft breeze. Trying hard not to think about
anything
, I hum the last tune I heard on the radio in Dani’s car until I reach my house and go inside.

Mom’s on the phone when I enter the kitchen, talking to Dr. Griffin, probably. Her finger twirls around the chord and her face goes from hope to defeat. “Are you sure there’s nothing more we can do? Don’t give up on her.
Please
.”

So much for Dr. Griffin being the miracle doctor.

I wish I could talk to her about my decision to give up dance for medical school. But I know I won’t get through to her. Mom has only one goal on her mind, and that’s to get Rosie walking again. Dad’s at work and will be dead tired when he gets home. This is just another thing I’ll have to figure out on my own.

I turn into the living room, where Rosie sits with her laptop and the TV turned to
Disney. She greets me and I return it, taking a seat near her and throwing an arm over her shoulder. “How’s everything?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Same.”

Books and homework are on the couch, plus many computer game discs. “Hey, should I ask the kids across the street to come play with you?” I say.

Her grip on the mouse tightens and she throws me an annoyed look. “I told you a million times that I don’t want to play with the neighbors.” She brightens up. “But do you want to play a game I found online? It’s cool, and we both can play. But it’s only a trial, so we have an hour.”

I can’t just sit back and watch my little sister waste away at home and only play games with me. I wish she would let her old friends come over, and that she wouldn’t be so scared to let them accept the new Rosie.

Glancing back at Mom, I find her still on the phone, discussing some new possible programs with Dr
. Griffin. Rosie’s looking at me with big, green eyes. “Okay,” I say, defeated. “Let’s play.”

Cruiser

Rey’s on the living room couch when I walk into the house after school. Body’s hunched over his laptop on the coffee table. Left foot’s twitching. Snacks and soda cans are scattered around. He’s always been like this before a big performance.

“Sup,” I say. “Left school early to get ready for the ‘cital?”

He nods, eyes glued to the computer screen. I head over to him and take a peek. Twin boys and a woman. Rey and me. Eight years old, at one of our first recitals. Dressed in white shirts and black slacks. We look almost identical. Mom’s kissing us over and over like we’re the air she breathes.

“Old home videos?” I ask.

Rey finally looks up and stretches his arms. “Thought they’d give me some, you know, encouragement.”

“You don’t need encouragement, bro. You’ll do fine.”

He doesn’t say anything. I look back at the video. Mom’s fawning over us like we’re new cars being showcased. Praising us on how well we performed. We’ve got identical wide smiles on our faces. Funny, there was actually a moment in my life when I was happy.

Screw
that. I’m about to head to the stairs, but voices and laughter stop me. My eyes shoot to the laptop. Rey, Lex, and me. Waving at the camera and smiling. Lex is between us, in a green dress. Black, wavy hair in pigtails.

“Hiiiii!” all three of us
yell.

“Lexi,” Mom says from behind the camera. “Did you
enjoy the recital?”

Lex giggles. “No. It was boring.” She punches my arm. Then Rey’s.
“Except when my best friends played.”

My eight year old self beams at her. I don’t remember any of this. Never watch
ed these videos. Don’t need to be reminded of what a failure I’ve become.

“I didn’t know we had this, bro,”
I say, plopping down near him.

“You don’t remember how we used to take videos of ourselves after our recitals?” He laughs. “Lex loved to be in the center. Always stealing the show.”

Yeah. That’s true. She made me feel better after each time I fucked up my piece. She made me want to try harder.

I focus on the eight year olds. We’re in my house now. Rey’s behind the camera and I’m chasing Lex around. She’s giggling and screeching because she knows I’m going to tackle h
er to the floor and tickle her.

“Elvis!” Rey complains. “Take the camera.”

“No.”

“Lexi!”

She doesn’t answer him. Just continues running around the dining room table. “No fair,” Rey whines. I’ve caught up to Lex. My hands dig into her stomach and she wiggles from underneath me.

“Elvis! Take it!”

We’re not listening to him. We’re having our own fun. Mom yells from the next room to not get our clothes dirty. We ignore her, too.

“Okay, okay. You win.” Lex pushes me away and starts dancing. I join her. My shirt’s spilling over the top of my pants. I don’t seem to give a damn. The camera bob
s up and down as Rey copies us.

Makes me dizzy watching.

“I don’t wanna dance,” eight-year-old Rey complains as he stops jumping. “Why do we never do what I wanna do?”

My bro can’t dance as well as Lex and me. Too uncoordinated. We could go on for hours and hours. And we did. It was always a competition with Lex. Who would be the last dancer standing? Who had the coolest moves? She won that time. Only because I let her. Loved seeing those big eyes get small and that smile widen.

“Stupid!” The camera’s thrown to the floor. Rey stomps away. All I see is the steps leading upstairs. Lex and my laughter are loud and strong.

My head’s almost banging into the computer screen. Rey clears his throat and
fast forwards to the next recital. Yeah, good idea. I sit back. “Any scouts gonna be there tonight?”

“
Yeah.”

He sounds nervous. I thump his back again. “You’re gonna do great. You practiced and practiced until your fingers bled.” I pause. “You’re gonna have the parents with you. You got Lex. She coming?”

“Yeah. She’s never missed any of my recitals.”

Or mine. She used to cheer me on, more so than Rey. Shit. What does it matter now?

I get to my feet and make my way to the door. Need to surf to get rid of this feeling. “See ya tonight, Rey.”