The Time Until (8 page)

I barely register the door closing in the pitch
black behind my lids.

5 Years Ago (Age 15):
 
February

My brother, James, decided to celebrate his
leave — he joined the Marines shortly after graduating and just got finished
with basic and MCT — by dragging me and my friends to The Sidetrack, a local,
all-ages nightclub.
 
Anyone 16 and older
can enter.
 
I was able to get in because
my brother has been friends with the front bouncer for years.
 
The music is overwhelmingly loud and the
people are completely lost in their own little worlds.
 
The DJ is actually pretty good and I even
find myself moving to the music despite the crappy mood I’m in.
 
Girls already surround Ethan and Arianna is
moving on the dance floor — she has her own little group of guys already.
 
Quentin is trying hard not to look at
them.
 
Arianna is almost like the female
version of Ethan; this is their element, not mine.

The only one not here is Sam.
 
Unfortunately, she has another obligation
that she’d rather be at than being here with me — us.

“Jesus, you’re depressing tonight,” my brother
chides, “just get over her and try to enjoy yourself.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Whatever.
 
Call me when you need a ride from the pity party, I’m going to the
back.” My brother disappears into the back of the club yelling something like
“ladies.”
 
He thinks he’s a ladies’ man,
only some of the time is it true.
 
The
last third of the building is the 21 and over side.
 
They have a bar, a few couches, and some
tables.
 
The dance floor is in the middle
between The Virgin side and The Back side.

He’s left me all on my own.

I’ve never been here before, but I know that
Sam and I have been talking about coming here.
 
She came here last weekend without me and I know it shouldn’t bug me but
it does.
 
Since entering high school,
we’ve been pulling further apart — correction, she’s been pulling away since
the soccer tournament two months ago.
 
I
refuse to apologize for what happened there, but I might have been a little too
forceful.
 
Knowing she would run as soon
as it happened didn’t stop it from hurting when she did.

And run she did, straight to Caleb McKenzie,
captain of the baseball team.

So here I sit, all alone and head deep in
wallowing pain.
 
Yeah, needless to say,
I’m in no mood to party right now.

“So, why do you look like someone just drowned
your cat?” The words come from the mouth of a very attractive girl who took it
upon herself to sit in the chair across from me.
 
She has dirty blonde hair that falls to just
above her shoulders, slightly curled at the tips to circle her head.
 
Her barely there make-up and bluish green
eyes make her face hard to resist.
 
A
tight fitting t-shirt with a v-shaped slit down the front gives her a feel of
modesty, but also a hint of something more — though her breasts seem to beg not
to be hidden.
 
The jean skirt on her hips
is tight enough to show-off the shape of her butt — ample, tight, and
firm.
 
It’s long enough to cover
everything, but short enough to be a tease.
 
Her knee high, black boots finish off the outfit.

She definitely has my blood pumping.

“What makes you think I have a cat?” I ask
before taking another drink from my glass.
 
She has a small smile on her face and never looks away from me.
 
I can’t help but look at her either. She’s
captivating.

Her eyes.
 
It’s her eyes that mesmerize me the most.
 
They seem to glow when she turns her head
just right and the color makes me feel like I’m swimming in the ocean.
 
The entire room starts to fall away as we
gaze at each other.
 
My cheeks start to
burn slightly with how blatantly I’m staring at her.
 
I don’t normally stare at girls, I’m a guy so
I look, but I never stare.
 
I feel
perverted for ogling.

But ogling this girl, all I feel is heat.

“So, must be a girl then,” she says. “You get
your heart broken?”
 
I drop my gaze and
look at my glass.
 
The heat doesn’t go
away and I can still feel her hypnotizing eyes boring into me.
 
The blush is as much embarrassment as
attraction.

“You could say that,” I answer her.
 
I wait for her to ask more, but she
doesn’t.
 
She continues to look at
me.
 
I look up and meet her eyes
again.
 
Reaching across the table, she
grabs my hand.

“Dance with me.” I don’t even have time to say
“no” before she drags me onto the dance floor and immediately starts bouncing
in time to the music.
 
I stand there like
a log; I’m not in the mood to really dance.

All of a sudden, I’m in the middle of pole
dance and I’m the pole.
 
This chick is rubbing and sliding across me as I stand there rigid
not sure what to do — though my little head has some ideas.
 
I look around the floor and catch the
wide-eyed, but approving, look from Ethan.
 
He tilts his head slightly and starts moving to the music as if he’s
trying to get me to join him.

And why shouldn’t I?

The no name in front of me bends over and makes
a show of rubbing against me suggestively.
 
I lose a bit of my control and grab her hips.
 
She flips around and presses her body against
me, sending hot blood to my less than vital organ.
 
I can’t help myself; I crush her body to mine
and push my leg between hers.
 
We twist
and grind to the music.
 
As I caress her
body, she gently guides my hands away from the areas she wants to remain
untouched.

“Someday,” she playfully taps the tip of my
nose with her finger, “if you’re a good boy.” She smiles seductively, turns
around — placing her back to my chest — and reaches over her head to caress my
hair.
 
I wrap my arms around her hips as
we move in time to the music.
 
I have a
great view of the entire length of her body.

I drink it in deeply.

Sweat beads on my face and back, but I ignore
it as we continue our seductive dance.
 
I’ve never been this uninhibited before and I’m indulging in my newfound
freedom.
 
This girl — whose name I don’t
even know — makes me feel different, something primal and instinctual.
 
My heart is racing and I know it’s not just
the dancing causing it.
 
I know I have a
big smile on my face because my cheeks hurt.

I’m having fun.

The current song ends and a slower song
begins
. The girl stops, but doesn’t walk away.
 
She just looks at me as I watch her chest
expand and contract from her heavy breathing.

Is it wrong that I find her hard to resist
whenever she takes a deep breath?

“This one is a special request from my new main
man Ethan to his boy Alan,” the DJ announces, “live it up.
 
You only get to once.” I smile to myself as I
listen to the announcement.
 
I grab the
girl’s hand and pull her close to me, crushing her breasts into my chest and
sending even more heat to strange places.
 
She responds in kind with a smile and her fingers weaving through my
hair.

We sway slowly to the music as I soak up her
eyes and smile — her smile is inviting and almost as heart wrenching as
Sam’s.
 
A twinge of regret passes through
me as I think of Sam.
 

You’re mine.

The girl notices when my demeanor changes and
she stops twirling my hair.
 
Her smile
falters somewhat, but never loses its inviting feel.
 
She rises up on her toes so her mouth is a
scarce inch from mine and I can actually imagine myself exploring her mouth
with my tongue.

“You can think about her while you’re with me,
you know,” she tells me softly. “I’m not jealous.” Her smile grows a bit
bigger.
 
I smile a bit as well.

“It’s not that,” I explain to her. “Just felt
bad for comparing you two.” Her smile grows larger and more playful.

“Don’t do that,” she says as she softly hits my
chest with the back of her hand, “it’s not fair to the other girl.” I laugh at
that.

All of a sudden, she stops and bites her bottom
lip, a dick move on her part since I don’t think I have enough blood left in my
body to send to my hard-on.
 
She slowly
pushes closer to me and I’m almost certain she’s going to kiss me.
 
I’m suddenly aware of the fact that my lips
are dry and cracked, my mouth has the consistency of a toxic dump, and I have
only kissed one other girl in my entire life — Sam.
 
There have never been nerves this frazzled in
all the time the world has been turning.

As it turns out, she isn’t going in for a kiss,
but she does need to be closer in order to whisper in my ear.
 
Her soft breath sends a slight shudder
through my body and her breathy voice clouds my thoughts.

“My name’s Katelyn Price,” she whispers, “and
I’m going to help you forget all about that other girl.”
 
The night is nowhere near long enough.

Present Day

“You’re kidding!”
 
Ethan shakes his head and laughs loudly.
 
Waking me up from my nap, we immediately started catching up.
 
He didn’t go to college and remained here in
town, but he’s managed to get himself a decent job working for an insurance
company in their HR department.
 
He has
no degree, but he still makes a decent wage.
 
He’s been my closest friend — next to Sam — since we were 10.
 
I don’t have a single memory from high school
getting into trouble and him not right there in the center of it all.

“Hell no!”
I laugh so
hard my head starts to hurt.
 
Ethan Crowe
and concussions don’t mix.
 
“I go to a
party with this girl from a bar and her four friends.
 
I’m so wasted I could have gone to Brazil and
been like ‘wow, that was a long walk’.” He’s trying not to laugh while recapping
his adventure.

“I had just gone for a small walk around the
neighborhood when I met the cops.
 
I was
trying to get into the wrong house.
 
I
swear to God I thought they locked me out.
 
Luckily, I knew how to act sober.
 
They brought me back to the party and that crazy bar girl comes running
out yelling at me.
 
She thought I called
the cops on them.
 
She was so crazy they
arrested her for drunk and disorderly conduct.
 
I couldn’t help but laugh, I thought it was funny.” He shrugs his
shoulders.

“Apparently, she’s the most liked person in this
place and they all blamed me for what happened.
 
I could see the murder in their eyes.
 
I was freaking out and went all horror flick teenage girl; hiding under
a desk with the phone.
 
I called my
brother and he told me I had to run for my life.
 
So…
 
I did.” I’m hysterical at this point; I can
barely catch my breath.

“Tell me this is over,” I ask him in-between
breathes.

“Not by a long shot,” He continues, “I managed to
get out of the house with little problem and I took off for the end of the
street.
 
It was a cul-de-sac and one of
the lots was still empty.
 
Lucky me.
 
Making a
beeline for the wall, I swear I could feel them chasing me the whole time.
 
Everyone at the party had to be chasing
me.
 
I jumped the brick wall easily
enough, but I didn’t realize, until after I was airborne, that the ground on
the other side of the wall was farther away than the side I just came
from.
 
Much farther.”
 
Picturing him in the air, after jumping over
a wall, and flaying his arms Wile E. Coyote style trying to keep
himself
from falling, had me rolling on my bed.
 
There are tears falling from my eyes as he
continues his story.

“It was not a graceful landing, let me tell
you.
 
And that shit was not flat!
 
I rolled down a hill.
 
You ever hit tumbleweed while rolling?
 
Not fun, not fun.” I’m seeing spots I’m
laughing so hard.
 
Ethan is trying to
keep from laughing, but even he’s having difficulty.

“I make it all the way home and start unlocking
the door to my apartment when it dawns on me…
 
I drove to the party in my car.
 
I
could have driven home!
 
So, I tell
myself screw it, I’m too drunk anyway, and I should go to bed.
 
I went got my car the next day.”

“Was it ‘The Grape’?” I ask him wiping the tears
from my eyes.
 

Ethan bought a used two-door Geo Metro a few
months after we graduated.
 
The damn
thing was purple and oval, Sam immediately called it a grape since that’s what
it looked like.
 
Ethan insists that the
color is blue.
 
No one believes him since
he’s obviously colorblind.
 
In order to
make it over The Grapevine you had to pick up speed and hope the engine didn’t
explode on the way up.
 
That little car
strained the entire way up that mountain pass, instantly going from 75 mph to
40 within seconds.

Despite it all, everyone loves The Grape.

“Actually, yes it was The Grape.” He scoffs.

Ten years and this guy can still manage to keep a
smile on my face.

10 Years Ago (Age 10):
 
October

“You know, in a past life I was a ninja.”

I have no idea who this kid is or why he’s
talking to me, but this is the third past life he’s told me about and I
seriously think something is wrong with him.
 
I don’t even know where he came from.
 
One minute I was alone sitting on a picnic table watching Sam climb a
tree and the next this kid is here talking to me as if I’m his best friend or
something.

It’s really weird.

“Is that right?
 
And how did you find this information out?”

“My dad took me to a hypnotist when I was
younger.” I can only look at him.
 
Is
this kid for real?
 
Does he honestly think
anyone believes him when says stuff like this?

Sam finally gets finished climbing the tree —
not sure why she does it, she’s climbed that tree hundreds of times before —
and she makes her way over to us.
 
The
new kid looks awestruck at her, but thankfully keeps his mouth closed.

“Who’s the new guy, Al?” She asks, as she gets
closer.

“Not sure,” I answer, “he just sort of appeared
here while you were climbing.”

The kid jumps up from the table and shoots his
hand out to her.
 
Sam doesn’t even
flinch, though I do.
 
This kid is way too
forward for his own good.

“Ethan Crowe, ma’am.”
Sam looks at his hand for a second and then shakes it.

“Samantha Cohn and this,” motioning toward me,
“is Alan Green.”

Ethan smiles a big smile and shakes Sam’s hand
vigorously.

“Damn glad to meet you!” He practically shouts
at us.
 
Sam laughs loudly and returns his
handshake with an equally vigorous shake of her own.

“I don’t know what it is, but I like you.” Sam
announces.

“So, Ethan, where you from?”
I add.
 
Ethan smirks.

“I was born in Oaky-homa, but I lived in the
jungles of the Congo my entire life.” Ethan tells us.
 
Sam is intrigued by the story, but I can tell
it’s
complete bull.
 
Not sure why he feels the need to lie like this, but I’m not sure I like
it.

“Let me ask you something, Ethan,” I chide.
“Were you a liar in your past life as well, or is it just this one?”

Ethan’s eyes grow wide.
 
Sam stops laughing, but looks at me like I
just accused her best friend of murder.
 
I simply fold my arms in front of my chest as I wait for an answer from
him.
 
None seems forthcoming.

I sigh loudly.

“I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but you have this
talent for tall tales and I’d much rather meet and get to know the real you,” I
start to explain. “Not this made up version.”

Sam reaches over and grabs my hand as I
finish.
 
It’s her way of saying she
agrees with me.

“I didn’t know you guys were a thing,” Ethan
comments, pointing at our hands.
 
Sam and
I never let go.
 
He’s trying to change
the subject and must be feeling uncomfortable being called on his crap.

“We’re talking about you at the moment,” I
counter, “show us the real you.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs in
defeat.

Ethan spends the next 45 minutes reintroducing
himself
to us.
 
How he
came from Oklahoma to live with his dad and he didn’t really have many friends
there.
 
As he talks, I get the impression
that he’s a bit insecure about his life.

I can understand the reason he tells tall
tales; they’re an icebreaker for him, testing of the waters.

And this is the start of a beautiful, yet
perilous, friendship.

Present Day

We spend the next hour reminiscing about old times
and before long, my stomach hurts from laughing so much.
 
I start to catch my breath as a lull falls
over our conversation.
 
Ethan has
something he wants to talk about, I can tell by his eyes as he tries very hard
to avoid looking at me.

“Okay, out with it.” I put him out of his
misery.
 
He releases a breath and looks
up at me.

“I’ve seen Sam,” he tells me bluntly, “It’s not
pretty.”

Oh, my blunt and honest friend.
 
I can always count on Ethan to lay it all on
the table without remorse.
 
Of course,
this means that he breaks a lot of hearts and the hurt is definitely not
lessened by truth.
 
My mind starts to
think about all sorts of nasty and gruesome images for Sam.
 
My heartbeat stops briefly and I catch my
breath.

“Tell me about it,” I demand and he gives in with
a huff of air.

“You’ll see her tomorrow, right?” I nod my head.
“Then just wait until then.”

“Knowing now won’t lessen the shock,” Ethan finishes.
I decide that I won’t push the issue.
 
He’s already given me more information about Sam than I’ve gotten from
even my own parents.
 
Ethan decides to
change the subject at this point.

“So,” he hesitates, “I met a girl.” Great change
of subject.
 
Ethan having a girl he likes
is nothing new, but the way he told me — like he’s ashamed about it — is
different and he now has my attention.

Ethan has always had a girl on his arm at one time
or another, though he hates people who have one-night stands.
 
Every girl he has ever been with has been in
a relationship with him.
 
He’s a very
passionate person, someone who loves freely, but rarely finds love.
 
He’s usually the one to get dumped. The most
common complaint lodged against him?
 
Too clingy.
 
I always
feel terrible for him, Sam usually goes and has words with the offender while I
sit around and comfort Ethan.
 
Halo is a
good distractor from break-up pain.

“Sounds serious,” I prod.
 
He shyly nods his head.

“Lauren is awesome.
 
I can’t wait until you meet her.” He says
this a little apprehensively.
 
If I
didn’t know better, I would say he’s not dating her yet.
 
I raise my eyebrow.

“Why isn’t she here right now?” Ethan balks when I
ask this.

“Well,” he starts and pauses, “we haven’t
officially started dating yet.
 
But!
 
I’m working on it.” I give a short
laugh.
 
Ethan having trouble getting a
girl to date him is like the sun having trouble trying to burn.

“No really.
 
She’s has this issue about relationships.
 
I’m still trying to figure it out.” It
definitely sounds like a story.

“Besides, she’s kind of my boss.” My eyes grow
wide at that.

“You definitely have to tell me that story when it
finishes.” Ethan smiles slightly.

“Definitely, bro.”
We
bump fists, our traditional greeting and acknowledgement.

Suddenly we’re back in silence.
 
I can see Ethan trying to figure out what to
talk about.
 
I throw him a small bone.

“You want to stay here tonight?” He looks up
quickly, not sure how to answer the question.

“You can tell me all about the new girl,” I
add.
 
“Then you can come with me tomorrow
to see Sam.
 
I have a feeling I’m going
to need a friend.” He smiles a sad smile and nods.

The nurses bring in a cot and a deck of cards for
us.
 
We stay up talking about Lauren and
other things that come to mind, eventually falling asleep in the early morning.