Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart (5 page)

“Your wish, my command, Le Chat,” he mocks, pulling the car away from the curb.

“Don’t call me that,” I warn.

“Call you what?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“A pussy!”

“I would never do such a thing,” Kennedy replies with an air of mock outrage, turning his head slightly toward me and throwing me a wink.

“I took French, dipshit. I know you’re calling me a pussy in French,” I counter.

“I called you a cat in French,” says Kennedy, turning his attention back to the road. “There’s a difference.”

“Hardly,” I mutter, sinking into my seat.

“Do I need to give you a lesson on semantics and connotations? You see, words are tricky little things. They have all these nuanced meanings…”

“Ugh! Just drive!”

“As you wish,” Kennedy replies, turning his attention back to the road.

For the next five minutes, we sit in complete and utter silence. No radio. No snide remarks. Just silence. And for a brief moment, I wonder if he’s taking me off to a cornfield to murder me. I mean, what exactly is the point of all this? Because at this juncture, murdering me sounds a more likely purpose than a simple leisurely night drive.

I squirm in my seat at the prospect. I pull out my phone to make sure I have plenty of reception bars. “Checking for messages from the boyfriend? What would he say if he knew you were out driving with a man late at night?” Kennedy asks. Having grown used to the silence, I nearly yelp at the sound of his voice. When I look up, I find him staring straight at me. That same twinkle in his eye—like he and Grandma are in together on some unknown joke that I’m never going to find out the punch line to. Or maybe I am the punch line.

“Can you get your eyes back on the road?” I snap, feeling that if he stares at me any longer, I’ll start flashing red again.

“No problem.” He chuckles.

Unable to let my silence confirm his assertion, I can’t help but reply. “I wasn’t checking for messages from my boyfriend. I was making sure I had cell service in case you’re trying to murder me,” I sass back. “You know, considering I have no idea why I’m even in this car.”

“You’re in this car because your grandma called you a pussy, and she has always intimidated the hell out of you,” Kennedy counters. My mouth drops open, but before I can attack, he continues. “You’re in this car because I need some inspiration, and for some reason, I think you’re it.”

This time, I think my jaw literally hits the floor of his car.

“What, your boy toy never called you his muse? No wonder he’s not texting you late at night. He’s definitely not getting any,” Kennedy says, shaking his head.

I don’t know what to say. At all. The entirety of the English language is failing me. I don’t know what comment to reply to first. The jab at my sex life or lack thereof? The fact that he implied Jason is a mere boy, and he’s some man I desperately need? Or that one thing…the fact that he called me his inspiration?

And then Kennedy’s back to laughing. “I’d ask if the cat got your tongue, but I know how sensitive you are about the C-word.”

“You think you’re so amusing, don’t you? There’s a difference between being funny and being a joke.”

“Uh-oh, the claws are coming out!” he teases, reaching a hand forward and playfully scratching up and down my arm.

I slap his hand away, turning quickly to face the window. Mostly because I know I’m about as red as the light in the darkroom. That simple touch, the movement of the tips of his fingers, has set off the facial alarm. It’s not my fault, and it certainly has nothing to do with Kennedy. “And as a matter of fact, I got some this afternoon,” I yelp, not entirely sure why I felt the need to share that particular morsel of information.

Kennedy’s grin falters slightly.

“Where are we going?” I manage to mumble, hoping to steer the conversation away from all things petting and pussies.

“There’s this dope rundown, abandoned record store over in Karnesville. I brought my camera, and I was hoping you could take some pictures,” he replies, suddenly serious.

“Dope? What are you, a nineties teen with a closet full of acid-washed jeans?” I grumble. Of course, he was raised by a teen mom in the nineties. Some of the lingo must have become a permanent part of his vocabulary. Given what I knew about his home life, it seemed more likely that he grew up listening to his mom reading issues of
Seventeen
before bed rather than
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
. “Karnesville is in West Virginia,” I continue. “You are not taking me over state lines,” I insist.

“Oh, stop. You’ll be returned safely to your bed by morning. Fully membered. Wait, that didn’t sound right. What’s the opposite of dismembered?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” I ask, feeling that my face has calmed down enough to turn toward him.

Kennedy shrugs. “Not all the time. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to laugh than to cry, so I’ll always choose to find the joke.”

“I don’t think most people would find life to be funny at all,” I reply, thinking of my grandma. There is nothing funny about what she’s going through.

“You used to think everything was amusing,” Kennedy says.

I roll my eyes and shake my head. It wouldn’t be safe for either of us if I started talking about what I used to think. “So you’re whisking me off to Karnesville to take some pictures, and this will inspire you how?”

The smile melts away from Kennedy’s face, and I hardly recognize him without it. Smiles were meant for boys like Kennedy. “I have writer’s block.”

“You’re a writer? Like fan fiction or something?” I ask, finding it hard to imagine Kennedy committing to something long enough to complete it. I know who he hangs with, and most of their time is spent smoking behind the supermarket. I always figured the reason he never went to college was because he didn’t actually like the whole having-to-work part in school.

For the first time in our entire dealings with each other, I find Kennedy glaring at me. It only lasts a second, but who knew he had any emotion besides indifference and mocking? “No, not fan fiction. I write for a music blog. Interviews. Reviews. Trends. That sort of thing. I have some stuff due, but I can’t write a damn word. And I saw something in your picture, so I thought, hey, let’s see if maybe she can spark something.”

“It was just a picture of trash,” I reply quietly. “I think you’re overestimating my talent. I certainly don’t have the ability to inspire anyone with my photography abilities.” I’ve always been a good student. Excellent, even. But that came with memorizing facts and understanding others’ ideas. I wasn’t the creative sort.

“I’ve never known you to downplay your gifts, Annabel. Don’t start now. There’re plenty of men out there who like a meek girl, but I’m certainly not one of them. I remember you arguing at the science fair in middle school with Ms. Gubbins because you knew you were cheated out of first place because Bobby Wilkins’s dad had contributed all that money for the new marquee.”

“You remember that?” I ask, unable to keep the shock out of my voice. How could Kennedy remember something like that? I didn’t even think we existed in the same solar system back then, and yet he remembered my project on gravitational pull.

“Hell yeah, I do! You were freakin’ awesome. I believe you even made Ms. Gubbins cry. It was totally epic.” He beams, reaching over and playfully punching me in the arm. “Always been a ballbuster!”

“Ballbuster.” I laugh. “I’ve been called a lot of names by a lot of people. Especially names that start with the letter
B
, but never have I been called one in such a tone of admiration.”

The laughing, the teasing, the winking—it all came so naturally to Kennedy. Before, I always found myself annoyed by such behavior. Like it was all an act. But sitting in his car, driving miles and miles from our town, I realized it wasn’t a performance at all. This was him. Without walls. Without artifice. He had always been him. Without hiding.

While always charming, he was so quiet as a child. Sure, he had been fun and playful when it was just us, but the rest of the world didn’t see that side. And then the accident happened, and the world got my Kennedy, and I got nothing.

I hid all the time, but Kennedy was done hiding.

“You really think my picture was good?” I ask quietly, picking at the seat.

He would tell me the truth. He had no reason to lie. He had never seen me as a victim, even when I actually was one. I knew he would be honest with me.

His eyes dart from the road and find my face. They stare into my eyes like he somehow knows I need to see his. “I stole the picture, didn’t I?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

I bite on my bottom lip to keep from full-out laughing. “Yeah, about that.”

“Ssssh, Le Chat…we can fight that one out later,” he whispers. “For now, let us enjoy our temporary truce in the name of art.”

Temporary truce. I can do that. Besides, it’s only for one night.

Chapter Seven

Kennedy

“You’re not going to catch Ebola if you touch them,” I tease. Annabel turns her head slightly, and despite the darkness of the store, I can see her scowling at me. She’s not used to someone poking fun at her. Who would dare joke with the biggest ballbuster around?

Only an idiot.

Charm was certainly not the way to fix things with Annabel. She always liked a good challenge, so as I drove over to her house to pick her up, I decided that was what I would give her. A battle of wits. She didn’t need someone to baby her or give in to her every whim; she needed someone to challenge her. That’s what she’d needed back then, too. Someone to instruct her to tell people like me to fuck off.

Of course, it was still more than likely that instead of making amends, I’d end up with my balls in a sack.

“I can’t believe the owner just left all of these here,” she says, turning her attention back to the abandoned records. She hesitates riffling through them. No doubt, inwardly debating if she brought enough antibacterial lotion to keep her safe. It’s hard not to laugh at her. Not in an asshole kind of way. She’s just funny without trying to be, and it’s kind of cute.

Annabel was so wild as a kid. Always saying whatever bonkers thing came to her mind. All guts. I thought about going to her so many times after the accident to apologize for being a real asshole, but she had grown so different, and it gutted me. It was easier to ignore her, keep her safe in my memory. But I’ve seen glimpses of that Annabel tonight.

She’s still in there.

“Well, if you would actually touch one of them long enough to read the title, you’ll see most people would have left them just because of their obscurity. Not exactly the music that would make
Rolling Stone
,” I reply, leaning against the checkout counter in an attempt to respect her bubble.

There’s nothing I hate more in the entire universe, both the one we know about and the ones J.J. Abrams creates for his endless time travel tales, than someone standing over my shoulder while I’m looking at records. It’s a major code-red invasion of privacy.

“I guess,” she says, gingerly reaching a hand forward toward the dust-covered albums. “But it’s still merchandise. There’s still a profit here. Maybe some of these are so obscure you could fetch some money for them,” she suggests, probably thinking I’m some pot-smoking bum who’s in desperate need of a few dollars.

I know what others say about me. I wonder if she ever said any of those things herself. I would have deserved them from her.

“The last thing the owner was hurting for was money,” I explain. “He was a retired businessman from Cali. Moved out here trying to reclaim his hippie days or something. Opened the store, filled it with records when everyone was buying iPhones, and when it crashed and burned, he just up and left. Recession hit, and the property owner couldn’t get anyone else to take the space. So, here it sat. A rich man’s pipe dream. Looters came back and took anything of worth, and, well, you see what’s left.”

“The rejects,” she says quietly, pulling out a record and holding it up, trying to catch a bit of light to see it better.

“I like to think of them as the survivors,” I reply.

Annabel turns around to face me, cradling the record against her chest, biting down on that bottom lip of hers, and for a second I forget the reason we’re here. It’s a strange thing being alone with Annabel Lee. She’s changed in ways that the man in me can’t help but notice. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel a bit like a dick for checking her out. That’s not why I sought her company.

“You have a very poetic view of the world,” she says, and I’m not sure if she means it as an insult or a compliment.

I take a few steps toward her, mostly ’cause I’m an idiot and all, and tug the record from her hands. “Bean’s Little Catherine,” I say, reading the band’s name. “This one sounds like a real treat. Shall we take a listen?”

“OMG
.
If you suddenly make a record player appear out of thin air, I will be fully and utterly convinced you’re a wizard. If the fact that you convinced me to come on this joyride wasn’t proof enough…”

“Your grandma convinced you to come out tonight,” I reply, unable to resist a bit of good old-fashioned ribbing.

“You just love reminding me of that, don’t you?” She laughs.

“She called you a pussy. It was epic.”

“I prefer Le Chat,” she quips with a quick wink, and I full-out laugh. It’s nice that she’s actually having a little bit of fun instead of worrying if I’m going to straight-up dismember her. Not that I haven’t given her every reason to mistrust me.

“I’ll make sure to remember that,” I reply. “As for the record player, I bought one a few years back. I hid it under the containers of rat poison in the storage closet.”

Annabel’s eyes go wide as they dart around the room. “Rat poison? As in there needs to be poison because this place has rats?”

“Most places have rats, or at least mice. Some even have cockroaches,” I singsong as I turn on my heels and head toward the closet. It takes everything in me to stop from teasing her again. Even without seeing her, I know she’s back to counting the number of steps it would take to make it to the exit.

When I return holding the record player in my arms, Annabel is curled up so inside herself she’s practically disappeared. Hands folded under her arms. Arms wrapped around her chest. Feet turned in. Shoulders up to her ears. I’m about to tease her, but then I realize just how hard all of this must be for her. It’s so out of her comfort zone. And staring at her, looking at me wide-eyed, trying to force a smile, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for her. How sad that she’s so scared of life.

“I promise to protect you from all four-legged creatures,” I say, bumping my shoulder into hers as I set the record player on the counter she’s leaning against. My toes briefly touch hers in the process, and her eyes dart quickly away from mine as her cheeks turn the craziest shade of pink. Almost like the cover of David Bowie’s
Aladdin Sane
.

I clear my throat, which has suddenly gone a bit dry. I make a mental note to protect her from all two-legged creatures as well. This is just the sort of scene I could totally get into. Dark room, surrounded by music, and a pretty chick to boot? But Annabel Lee isn’t that type of girl. Or at least I don’t think she is. Besides, that’s not what I brought her out here for. I have to keep reminding myself.

Staring at her, her laugh still ringing in my ears, I realize I want us back. It’s not just about penance for the way I treated her. God, I missed this. The ease of talking with her. How much fun we had. I missed
her
. The moment I figure it out, I realize it will suck if she won’t let me back into her life. She’s not my Annabel anymore, and yet she is. It’s a puzzle. She’s not a girl, and she’s not a woman. It’s like living in Superman’s Bizarro World.

“How about we listen to this bad boy?” I say, carefully reaching behind her to grab Bean’s Little Catherine without accidentally grabbing anything else in the process. Though to be honest, I do take a peek, and the girl’s got a nice backside. Even if it is covered in a T-shirt that’s nearly drowning her.

Damn. I was wrong. She’s def a woman now.

While Annabel doesn’t verbally answer, I think she nods. At least I sense some sort of movement next to me. I pull the record from its sleeve and place it on the player, hoping to Kanye it isn’t some song about the hippity-dippity. If it is, I’m pretty sure Annabel will head straight for the hills. Rats
and
sexual innuendos are just asking too much.

Hippity-dippity song it is not. Instead the song feels like home. Every fall, Belltown holds the Highlander Festival. A three-day excuse to drink in the name of honoring our Scottish relatives. The town invites in musicians from the motherland to amuse the drunken bastards with songs lamenting the evils of whiskey and the English. Bean’s Little Catherine reminds me a bit of this, except less commercial. Not the standardized “Scottish sounds” that play everywhere that is “Scottish” except Scotland. We live off amusement park renderings, and Bean’s Little Catherine sounds like the real thing.

“It’s so simple, but so complex at the same time,” Annabel pipes in, breaking my inner monologue. I’m sort of a dick about listening to music. The whole world falls away when I first dive into a song, and I tend to forget if there are other people in the room, but Annabel’s words seem to come straight from my own head, pulling me from my Kenneth Branaghing.

“The instruments are what’s simple. Simple chords. Simple rhythms. But her voice is so powerful…where she chooses to take her pauses says as much as where she chooses to push through the notes,” Annabel continues.

In that second, I think about shoving my deadlines up my editor’s ass and kissing Annabel Lee. I can say with 100 percent certainty it’s the first time the thought has ever crossed my mind. I can’t be blamed. Not entirely. ’Cause if ever a girl gave me a hard-on by simply talking about a song, it was in this moment. I’ve been around a lot of girls who said they dig music, but they never talked about it like that. Annabel saw what others didn’t.

I shift my body so I’m leaning against the record stand, staring down at her profile. She looks straight ahead, slowly bouncing her head up and down to the tune. The moon shines through the window of the shop, blasting off her red hair like a copper penny lying on the road on a blazing summer day. Suddenly, her head turns slightly and her eyes find mine.

In all the years I’ve known Annabel Lee—granted, most of them at a distance because I was afraid she’d rip off my balls for what I did—I’ve never looked at her like this. Nor have I ever seen this particular expression on her face. It’s hard to describe. It’s like a record I’ve listened to my whole life played backward.

And with one damn rat, the moment is gone.

I’m not sure if I want to catch the damn thing and drown it in poison or give it a kiss. “Please tell me that was not what I think it was,” Annabel demands, pointing to where we both know a rat scurried by.

“How about those photos?” I suggest, quickly stepping away from her to grab my camera from its bag.

Hero. The rat is a hero. I was going to kiss this girl, and it would have been a nuclear mistake.

“What do you want me to take pictures of?” Annabel asks, pulling tight on her ponytail.

“Anything. Everything. Whatever you want,” I say, holding the camera toward her.

Annabel reaches forward but quickly pulls back. She bites on that dangerous bottom lip of hers and looks up at me. “I don’t know. It feels kind of weird using someone else’s camera.”

“Come on, a camera is a camera,” I reply.

“Would Jimmy Page say a guitar is just a guitar?” she counters, raising an eyebrow.

Really? A Jimmy Page reference? That’s like a metaphorical nip slip. I grab her hand, place the camera in it, and take a step away from her. “I would have told you to bring your own camera, but I thought it might have tipped you off that I was planning on kidnapping you and murdering you, or that I wasn’t just there to give you back your picture. One of the two.”

If Annabel noticed my need to put distance between us, she certainly doesn’t show it. She goes to work examining the camera. Her hands move around it, adjusting and playing, and it’s not long before I have to turn and begin to examine the decaying posters on the wall. How gentle she is with the camera, and yet there isn’t an ounce of shyness about her. She is confident with it. Despite her pleas otherwise, Annabel is the master of it.

This is the Annabel I remember. Zero fucks given about things like fear.

The click of the shutter makes me jump, and I pray to Kanye that she didn’t notice. I’ve escaped full schmuck status too many times tonight, and soon I know she’s going to figure me out. Fate gives a guy only so many chances.

Annabel is in her element now, and if I thought the picture was mesmerizing, watching her work is a full-blown acid trip. No longer does Annabel seem afraid of the record store as she moves about it like she owns the damn place. She crouches down between aisles and kneels in dusty corners as if the rats were unicorns. And she takes pictures of everything. The moon shining through the broken glass of a now-empty memorabilia display case. The spiderweb that drapes itself across a broken broom handle propped against the wall. And then she turns the camera on me, and before I know it, I hear the click of the shutter.

“What are you doing?” I ask, feeling my own face heat up. “I brought you here to get pictures of the store. Not me.”

“Shut up,” she demands tersely, and I’m back to remembering the time she told off the judges at the science fair. I can’t help but gulp. Annabel takes a step closer to me and the camera goes off again. I open my mouth to tell her to stop, but before I can get the words out, she drops the camera slightly from her eyes and gives me a look so deadly I’m pretty sure Gene Simmons would piss his pants at the sight of it.

Back to gulping.

“How did you find this place?” she asks, bringing the camera back up to her eyes.

Now, that’s something I’m not going to talk about. Not even if she let me suck on that cute little bottom lip of hers.

“Hello…I asked you a question,” she says in between clicks.

“Actually, you told me to shut up and then asked me a question. It’s all very confusing,” I joke, hoping to change the subject, but this is Annabel Lee, and I know she’s not going to let me off so easy.

“I bet some broad brought you here. That’s how you know about this place,” she says, pausing long enough to waggle her eyebrows at me.

“Who the hell says the word ‘broad’?” I ask, pretending to pick some lint off my shirt. It’s hard to look at her with that camera going off at me. This girl sees everything, and there are parts of me I don’t want seen. Like with one more click of the shutter, she’ll time-travel us both back to that moment I was too chickenshit to be by her side. That time I put all of my fears of loss before her. Then she’ll remember all of those things both of us haven’t been able to bring up, and she’ll remember she hates me. And then probably kick me right in the balls.