Promise Me (The Me Novellas) Read online

  PROMISE ME

  Liz Appel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  PROMISE ME

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright @2013

  Cover design Painted Motion Productions

  Editing by Proofed Prose, Inc.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

  First Edition 2013

  ONE

  The smell hit me first. I walked through the sliding doors that led me out of the San Diego airport, my backpack hitched over my shoulder, and breathed in.

  It smelled liked home.

  Ocean. The subtle scent of flowers. A little car exhaust, too, but I didn’t focus on that. There was no stench of rotting garbage, of unclean bodies, of disease or poverty. Mexico might be a mere thirty miles to the south but it was worlds away by the smell of things.

  A horn honked twice in quick succession and I searched the curb. Grant’s spotless, white BMW idled a few yards away. I maneuvered my way to his car, sidestepping out-of-towners as they loaded cartfuls of luggage into waiting SUVs and hotel busses.

  Grant pushed open the driver’s side door just as I got to the curb, a smile plastered on his face. He crossed the pavement in three quick steps and reached for me.

  His arms enveloped me but he didn’t kiss me. “Hey, babe.”

  I snuggled into his chest, my lips almost touching the place where the collar of his t-shirt ended and the smooth expanse of tanned skin began. I didn’t want to kiss his neck. I wanted to bury my lips against his, sink my teeth gently into his lower lip, thrust my tongue into his mouth.

  But Grant didn’t kiss like that.

  I pulled away and planted a kiss on his cheek and then, before he could stop me, brushed my lips across his. I opened my eyes as I did this and smiled inwardly when he didn’t frown. Maybe three months apart had made him less of a germaphobe.

  He disentangled from my arms. “Come on, Emma. Not here,” he said quickly.

  Or maybe not. I sighed. It wasn’t like I expected anything different. Years of off and on with him since junior year had taught me a lot. Sex was more than fine with him. Deep throat kissing was not.

  He lifted my backpack off my shoulders. “How are you?”

  “Tired,” I said. “Hungry.”

  He opened the back passenger seat and set it on the car’s pristine carpet. I stole a glance at him, at his sun-kissed hair and sea-green eyes and I felt desire bubble up inside of me. Tired and hungry and horny, I thought. But I kept that to myself.

  He nodded. “You look like you’ve lost about twenty pounds.”

  I was pretty sure I had. And I hadn’t needed to lose any.

  I slipped into the front seat. The air conditioner was on full-blast and I shivered. I’d spent the last three months living in an adobe-walled, tin-roofed shanty just outside of Puerto Vallarta. No one had air conditioning there. No one had cars.

  Grant eased the BMW into gear and pulled away from the curb. His hand found my thigh. “You want to grab something to eat first? Or head home?” He hesitated. “Or my place?”

  I thought for a minute. I was starving. I’d spent weeks living on beans and rice and tortillas. Most days, just tortillas. I’d be happy to never eat Mexican food again. I wanted a hamburger and french fries and a massive diet Coke from In-n-Out.

  But I also hadn’t had sex in ninety-one days. Not like I was counting.

  More than anything, though, I was filthy. I ran my hand across my ponytail, my fingers sliding easily across the greasy strands. A shower with hot water and scented soap and clean, fluffy towels sounded better than an entire tray full of burgers and fries. Or a romp in bed.

  I decided. “Home.”

  Within minutes, we were northbound on 5, cruising past Bay Park. Grant chatted about people we knew and what he’d been up to, bringing me up to speed on the summer I’d missed out on. We’d only talked a few times during my impromptu trip and I’d wondered what it would be like, coming home. I’d asked him when I’d called the night before, finally able to recharge my cell phone as I waited for my flight out of the airport in Puerto Vallarta. He’d assured me that he still loved me, that there was still an “us,” that nothing had changed.

  I watched the sailboats bob in the bay, focused on the jet skis whizzing through the water off Fiesta Island. Bikers and joggers clogged the sidewalks that meandered through the park, passing the Hilton resort where I’d gone to my senior Prom. Palm trees lined the cobalt blue bay and seagulls soared overhead, squawking and searching for food. Children played and flew kites and teetered on bikes and scooters.

  It was another picture-perfect day in paradise. It all looked exactly the same, exactly the way I’d left it three months ago.

  Nothing had changed.

  Except me.

  TWO

  I turned the knob on the front door, not surprised to find it unlocked. Mom would be home, probably in our tiny backyard, pruning her precious rose bushes. Dad would be at the restaurant already, prepping for the lunch rush. And Joel would be long gone, already at the beach, surfing or hanging out with his friends. It’s exactly where I would have been the summer I was fifteen.

  I set my backpack on the tiled entryway and let my gaze drift across the room. It was like I’d been at a sleepover and had been gone merely hours, not months. The beige, microfiber couch had a stack of gardening magazines on one of the cushions. A half-full mug of coffee sat on the coffee table, a crumpled muffin wrapper next to it. A pair of Joel’s flips, coated with sand, tossed in a corner. A vase filled with white and pink roses, their petals beginning to brown, graced the mantle above our gas fireplace. It was a rarity in our beach community but Mom was from the East Coast and it was the one thing she missed most about living in Virginia. It wouldn’t replace the wood-burning fireplace she’d grown up with, but it would do, she’d said.

  Toenails clicked on the tile and I looked down. Swami, our ancient Maine Coon, sidled up next to me. He meowed and the sound echoed off the cream-stuccoed walls.

  I crouched down and scooped him up.

  “Hey, you,” I whispered into his fur. He smelled like cat litter and kibble. And I’d missed that.

  “Emmy?” My mother called from the kitchen. “Is that you??”

  Before I could respond, she appeared in the hall. She streaked toward me and reached for me, squashing the cat between us as she pulled me tightly to her.

  “Oh my goodness!” She rained kisses on my head. “Look at you! Just look at you!”

  I had. In a mirror at the airport in Mexico. I knew what I looked like. My brown hair greasy and limp, my skin dark, a mix of too much sun and too much dirt, my blue eyes burning with hunger and sadness and determination. Bones I didn’t know I had jutted from my collarbone and hips, my cheekbones as sharp as razor blades.

  My mother’s eyes, blue like mine, searched my face. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

  Before I could say anything, she dragged me into the living room and parked me on the couch. She untied her gardening apron, streaked with dirt and vermiculite, and tossed it to the floor before sitting down next to me.

  Her eyes roved over me, concern etched into her features. “How are you?”

  Swami squirmed in my lap and I reluctantly set him on the floor. He glared at me for a minute before slipping out of the room. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You don’t look fi
ne.” She frowned. “And why didn’t you let us pick you up from the airport? I didn’t even know what time to expect you today.”

  I shrugged. “I dunno.”

  But I did know. I didn’t want a fuss, didn’t want people screaming and crying and fawning all over me as I exited security. I knew what I’d get with Grant. A ride home and maybe, if I was lucky, a hug. He’d delivered both.

  Her eyes drifted toward the front door. “Grant picked you up?”

  I nodded.

  “And he just…dropped you off?” She had no illusions that we were some chaste couple waiting for marriage.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “I’m going over to see him later. I just wanted to come home and clean up and stuff. See you.”

  She nodded and covered my hand with hers. “Emma. Talk to me.”

  I didn’t say anything, just focused instead on the dirt embedded under her nails. It was one of the things I loved best about my mom. She wasn’t the typical SoCa beach mom, filling her days with nail and hair appointments and shopping dates at Fashion Valley. She had hobbies. She didn’t care about luxuries. She liked to get dirty, liked to grow things, liked to take care of her family.

  Just like Rosa, the mother of the family I’d lived with in rural Puerto Vallarta for three months. I fixated on my mother’s hand. It was the wrong skin tone but the dirt was the same. But it wasn’t, I reminded myself. My mother got hers from tending her roses. Rosa got hers from attacking the dry, crumbling earth surrounding their house, trying to eke out as much food as she could for her family of seven.

  Finally, I spoke. “What do you want to know?”

  She stared at me. “Oh, I don’t know. How you are, how your trip was. You know, since I haven’t seen or heard from you in three months.”

  “I called,” I reminded her.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Twice. You called twice.”

  It was like she’d forgotten where I’d been. “I couldn’t charge my phone.”

  “I know.” She paused. “Doesn’t make it any easier, knowing you’re in the middle of a Mexican village, living in poverty, exposed to disease and God only knows what else.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I was there with a group, Mom.”

  It wasn’t like I’d gone all Into the Wild and just checked out without telling anyone. I’d at least exercised a little more effort in the responsibility department.

  “I know, I know.” She regained her composure. “But I’m your mom. I’m allowed to worry. Incessantly.”

  I didn’t want to smile, but one forced its way to my lips, anyway.

  “So, tell me.” Her thumb stroked my hand. “Not everything. Just one thing.”

  The memories of the last three months flooded my mind. I didn’t know how to isolate just one, but I didn’t know if I could share all of them, either. Choosing one was like picking a random sentence out of a book. There was no context, no way to relate it to the bigger picture. But telling her everything? I felt like I would need a day for each hour I’d spent living in Mexico if I wanted to fully describe Rosa and her brood of always-smiling, always-hungry kids.

  “I ate the best banana I’ve ever had in my life while I was there.”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Probably because they don’t use pesticides,” she said, nodding. “Everything there is fresh, not mass-produced.”

  I just nodded my own head in response. It would be easier to have her think that and not know the real reason. That I’d been on the verge of starvation, that hunger had gnawed at me constantly, that the pleasure of a simple piece of fruit was better than any decadent dessert I’d ever eaten living at home.

  “So you ate the best banana ever.” She waited for more.

  “And the family I stayed with was wonderful.”

  I smiled at the memory of my pseudo-mother for the last three months, a woman who’d welcomed me and treated me like a sister. We were close enough in age to be siblings, despite the fact that she’d already given birth to five children. Rosa, at twenty-six, had already lived an entire lifetime. At twenty, it felt like my life was just beginning. And that felt wrong.

  “I remember that from your phone call,” Mom said. When I glared at her, she corrected herself. “Phone calls. Can you stay in touch with them?”

  “I hope so.”

  But Rosa’s home didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity, much less a working phone or a connection to the Internet. She’d promised to stay in touch, to stop by the PHP office and send an email when she could, but I knew not to get my hopes up. An unwanted lump formed in my throat. I swallowed it down.

  My mom leaned close and patted my knee. “Good. Look, I know you’re tired. You probably don’t want to talk right now. We can catch up later. We have all the time in the world for that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I just really want to get cleaned up. Get settled in again.”

  She stood and reached for the dropped gardening apron. Dirt fell to the floor but she didn’t seem to notice. She tied it back around her waist.

  “Go shower. Unpack. Take a nap. Do what you need to do.” She smiled. “I’m here. Dad will be home for a bit tonight. So will Joel. We’ll have a nice dinner. Together.”

  I stood, too, and watched as she retreated down the hall, Swami following after her, hoping to sneak outside when the back door opened. Joel had rescued him years ago, a Saturday surf-session with Dad in Encinitas, a little grommet in the water on his brand new board. After, they’d headed up the stairs at Swamis and he’d noticed a puffball of a kitten huddled by a trash can. They’d brought him home, named him Swami after the surf spot they’d found him at, and he’d been a permanent fixture ever since. A little cantankerous, a little aloof, but ours.

  I nudged him away from the door and he meowed at me, his back arching a bit before he marched toward the kitchen. Some things never changed.

  I picked up my backpack and slowly made my way to my bedroom. The hallway was lined with school portraits, mine and Joel’s, and I studied these, mine especially, as I inched along. Wide-eyed and smiling. That was me. If a stranger had looked at those photos, had studied them with as much scrutiny as I was giving them right then, I wondered what they would see. Would they be able to see the kind of person I was? The questions and thoughts running through my head? Would they recognize my lack of direction, my uncertainty about where I was heading, or would they look at them like some sort of crystal ball, instantly able to see what the future had in store for me? I didn’t know.

  I stopped at the last photo of me, my senior portrait, and the one closest to my bedroom door. The photograph of me smiled confidently, as if she had all the answers, as if she knew exactly what was waiting for her after graduation. She was a liar.

  Reluctantly, I looked away and faced the partially closed door to my room. I hesitated for a minute before pushing it open.

  It looked the same. My twin bed pushed up against the wall, the same bed I’d slept in since I was two, the satin, silver comforter uncreased and piled high with pillows. My posters were still tacked to the wall, an eclectic mix of images: Channing Tatum and the beach and a map of the universe and Gandhi. I shook my head. They were a testament to just how scattered I was, unfocused, my hands in everything, like some giant candy jar where I searched for the one thing that resonated with me, the one thing I was somehow meant to do. I still hadn’t found it. And I was beginning to wonder if I ever would.

  I settled my gaze on my white dresser, the top littered with pictures. Me and Grant. Me and Sage.

  Sage. I crossed my room and picked up one of the frames and smiled. Me and Sage on graduation day, black caps and gowns, our arms thrown around each other, our mouths open in mock surprise as we held up the black folders that held our diplomas. Her short blond hair was barely visible underneath her graduation cap and her braces glinted in the late afternoon sun as we mugged for the camera on the football field where the ceremony had been held.
r />   I picked up another. Prom. Sage dressed in a strapless yellow gown that almost matched the color of her hair, Mitch Anderson’s arm wrapped possessively around her waist. And me and Grant, both dressed in black, his hand placed stiffly on my shoulder. Sage and I had joked about his formal pose, especially considering how informal he’d been with me in the hotel room after the dance.

  I smiled at the memory, at all of the memories represented by the photos lining my dresser. As hard as it had been to leave my new family in Mexico, I was happy about returning to my old one—not just my mom and dad and Joel and Grant. But Sage.

  I reached for my backpack and grabbed my phone.

  I needed to call her. I needed to tell my best friend I was back.

  THREE

  The phone rang once before Sage answered with a squeal.

  “Oh my God, is it really you?”

  I flopped on to my bed. “In the flesh.” I wrinkled my nose. Smelly, gritty, disgusting flesh. I tried to shift my body weight to make less of an impact—or mark—on my pretty comforter.

  “Holy shit.” Her voice got louder. “I can’t believe you’re finally home.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Where are you? Home? Grant’s?”

  “No, I’m home.” I shifted on my bed, reveling in the softness of the comforter and the mattress I lay sprawled over. I could always wash it, I told myself as I sank deeper into the fabric. “He picked me up at the airport. Just got home an hour or so ago.”

  “And it took you this long to call me? I thought I was your best friend!”

  “Settle down, DQ.” I smiled. Sage had earned the nickname Drama Queen several times over. “I need a shower. Trust me, you don’t want to be within a mile of me right now.”

  She giggled. “I’m sure that went over well with Grant. Did he stick a clothespin on his nose for the ride home? Put on a hazmat suit before he hugged you? Oh, wait. Maybe he hasn’t touched you yet.”

  “Shut up.” But she was right. Even I’d been surprised when he’d offered the hug.