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"Our very life depends on everything recurring til' we answer from within." - Robert Frost

Memory Lane: Chapter Twelve

Later in the night, while the Stallard's are downstairs enjoying a family dinner, I cuddle onto the windowsill with my own poetry book sprawled out in my lap rather than my moms. They asked me to join them, but from the already defeated look in Aunt June's eye, she knew what my answer would be.

I haven't been able to pay much attention to my journal. I'm too fixated on the world outside. The temperature in Vermont has slowly been cooling down, dancing somewhere between the last remnants of summer and fall, and tonight is absolutely gorgeous. The chilly autumn breeze has blown over the mountains and brought with it the crisp, musky-sweet smell of all the fallen leaves. As soon as I came upstairs, I opened my window a few inches to let some of the fall breeze float into my room, acting as a natural candle.

The clock ticks past 7pm and I hear the Stallard's cleaning up from dinner. I debate going downstairs and indulging in dessert with them, but then the sun begins to set over the trees and casts an orange shadow across the sky, matching the colors of the leaves. I smile. It's a sunset I don't want to miss. Maybe it will help me finally write something down on the blank page staring back at me.

I watch as the sun disappears almost entirely over the horizon and casts dusk across the quiet neighborhood street. The glow of the Stallard's porchlight is seeping into my view of their driveway. Meanwhile, Jesse's driveway is fading away in the darkness. He doesn't have a bright porchlight or a floodlight on the corner of his garage. His house, despite the white exterior, turns dark when the sun goes down. His little red pickup truck, parked off to the side of his driveway, is the only thing still vibrant enough to keep its color in the sudden dusk.

However, moments later his dark driveway is illuminated by bright headlights as a car screeches onto it. The three-pointed star sitting in the middle of the car's grill shines brighter than the Stallard's porchlight, staying illuminated even as the slick black Mercedes shuts off. I sit up when the driver gets out; her long, curvy legs stepping onto the cracking pavement of Jesse's driveway. Frizzy, brown hair blows with the sudden breeze and reveals ruby red lipstick with narrowed, piercing green eyes.

Ah, Sucks-At-Pool-Shay.

She stands there, sandwiched between the opened car door and the interior of the car, with her arms resting impatiently on the top as she stares at Jesse's house. Her Mercedes looks out of place on his faded, crackling driveway. His old pickup truck fits the scene much better.

A minute later, the front of her Mercedes is lit up by the light pooling out of Jesse's garage as it slowly opens. Jesse steps out in the same dark gray jogger sweatpants from the other night and a white t-shirt that hugs his shoulders in all the right ways. My eyes linger on his arms as he leans against the wall at the entrance of the garage and places his hands in his pockets. I can only see a portion of him, so my view shields his face. But, since my window is partially open, I hear the frustration in his voice when he greets her.

"What are you doing here, Shay?"

"You didn't answer a single one of my texts," she pouts.

I furrow my brow. He never texted her back and she still drove over? Bold.

Shay steps around the car door, revealing her new outfit as compared to earlier today. Tight jeans that hug her legs nicely and a low-cut top that compliments her curves.

"I wanted to come see you. Maybe talk?"

"The silence from my texts should have answered that." Jesse says, voice laced with dismissal.

Shay just reaches back into her car, standing back up with a glass bottle in hand. She closes the door and shows it off, stepping closer to him.

Even from here I can see how his muscles tense, so my eyes shift to the bottle in her hand. The intricate designs over the glass bottle, the tall, skinny lettering, and the dark liquid inside all clue me in to what it is: the Wallingford Whiskey bottle she grabbed at the bar.

I cringe. I know that bottle stirred something uncomfortable in Jesse earlier today. I was really hoping Shay had taken it for herself and lied to Ferncliff about giving it to Jesse. Still, her words toward me replay in my mind. She's right. She dated Jesse during the time of his dad's passing, so in theory she should know him better than anyone when it comes to his dad. That thought doesn't ease the (slightly irritating) worry starting to form in the pit of my stomach.

"Look, really I came over to drop off the whiskey you got at The Oven Bird," she says.

"I don't want it," he says, tone sharp.

Shay ignores him entirely. "I know the bartender said not to drink any, but I was thinking we could go inside and open it."

"I said: I don't want it." Jesse repeats. He takes his hands from his pockets and crosses his arms over his broad chest in a gesture that signals his words are final.

She doesn't take the hint. "Oh, Jesse! Loosen up. He gave this to you!"

"You're forgetting the part where I gave it back."

"Not forgetting; amending! Come on, let's have a drink in honor of Eric."

It only takes me a moment to link together that Eric is Jesse's dad.

Shay is either used to Jesse's cold exterior from the time that she dated him, or she is really horrible at picking up on body language and tone changes, because she presses on.

"It would be nice to think about him. To talk about him. Plus, he would turn over in his grave if you passed up this whiskey!"

Jesse goes eerily quiet. From my position I can't see his face, but I can easily imagine the tight clench of his jaw.

"Please leave." From the angry strain in his voice, I know that I was right.

"I just drove all the way over here to deliver this to you, and now you're just going to ask me to leave?" Shay pouts.

"Yes."

"Jesse-"

Whatever patience he had has now slipped fully away. Suddenly, he loses his composure and begins yelling with a tone so angered that I slip further into myself, cringing away from the window. Haven't I ever heard the saying curiosity killed the cat?

"I said leave, Shay!"

Shay has more confidence than I do, because she doesn't even flinch. "Come on. I know that you don't really want to pass this up."

His anger persists, even doubles, but he doesn't yell this time. "I don't want the whiskey. I don't want to 'talk.' And I certainly don't want to hear you talk about my dad as if you knew him."

Now, Shay has lost all resolve. She slams the whiskey down on the hood of the Mercedes, which causes me to cringe for a whole different reason, and throws her hands on her hips.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Jesse?" She shouts. "You've been acting like a complete jerk ever since your dad died! You've always been a little standoffish, but this is a whole new level of asshole!"

Shock weighs down my jaw and it drops open. I want to look away and mind my own business, but I also can't seem to tear my attention away from the escalating scene in front of me. Shay clearly regrets her words because she instantly grimaces, but her anger remains and she never takes it back.

I've referred to him in that same way more than once, so hearing Shay say it shouldn't bother me. Still, guilt prickles at my skin.

Jesse stays silent for a beat and then spins on his heel and storms back into his garage. I can only see his shadow now, barely lighting up the ground outside of the garage.

"Seriously? Now you're just going to walk away?" Shay scoffs, shaking her head at him. "This is what you do. I try to help you. Talk to you! And then you just shut down."

I barely make out Jesse's fading shadow spinning to face her, but his voice is clear as day as it raises in volume again. "That's all you did! Talk!"

"If I didn't then no one would! I am so sorry that I liked to ask about your dad," Shay spits sarcastically. "I was just trying to keep his memory alive!"

I hear a door slam, echoing into the night air and Jesse's shadow disappears. Shay lets out an aggravated scream as she throws her hands in the air as she stares at his house. Then, she grabs the whiskey and marches back up to the garage, setting it down at the entrance. Getting into her car, she sends one last hopeful look at Jesse's house. A minute later, she finally speeds off down the quiet neighborhood road.

I stare at Jesse's driveway with wide, shocked eyes. My heart pounds hard against my chest, like a battering ram against a thick, metal door. Did that really just happen?

Just when I think the scene is over, Jesse comes storming back out and stares down at the bottle that Shay left. His entire chest is heaving and I can picture the fire burning on anger with every exhale. Then, without any warning, he grabs the bottle and chucks it across his driveway.

The glass instantly shatters. It goes in a thousand different directions, scattering across his driveway.

I jump as the sound fills my ears and grip tighter onto my journal. Memories of that night suddenly appear behind my eyes. Glass shattering. Fire burning. Voices screaming. Shutting my eyes tight, I work on controlling my breathing while Jesse does the same down below.

He stares at the bottle, now broken into thousands of tiny pieces, and runs one hand through his hair, tugging harshly at it. With one final look, he disappears back into his garage and I hear the interior door shut once again.

Whether it be that his adrenaline drifted up to me or the small ball of guilt sitting heavy in my stomach for not stopping Shay at The Oven Bird, next thing I know I'm putting on sneakers and am rushing outside to his driveway to pick up the broken pieces. I swiftly cross through the Stallard's leaf-covered yard, hesitating the closer I get to Jesse's driveway. I gnaw on my lip and look down at the mess in front of me.

Glass is shattered everywhere. The bright light from his garage glints off of each broken piece, like a kaleidoscope. There's a thin trickle of whiskey flowing down the driveway and curling around the curb, hiding beneath the various piles of dead, crispy leaves.

I take a step closer, out of the grass and onto the driveway, instantly freezing. My sneakers crunch on some of the glass and next thing I know, my mind is transported away yet again. Rather than the occasional hoot of an owl or wind whistling through the trees filling my ears, I instead hear the sound of the paramedics' heavy boots crushing the bits of broken glass beneath their feet as they run towards me and my parents.

I take a deep breath, quickly shoving the thoughts away and focusing back on the present. I gently kneel down, careful not to actually put any other body parts on the pavement aside from my protected feet, and begin to reach for some of the larger pieces of glass.

"What are you doing?"

I instantly pause with my hand hovering above the mess and twist around. Jesse is standing at the entrance of his garage, the light illuminating his troubled features as he stands there with a small trash can and bucket of water in each hand. I'm suddenly acutely aware of my less than presentable appearance: tattered and loose black sweatpants and my dad's oversized, maroon Virginia Tech crewneck that engulfs my entire body.

I glance back down at the mess and then my knelt position, furrowing my brow at him. "Cleaning..."

Jesse stares at me silently and makes no move to come closer. I nod to myself and awkwardly look away, reaching back out to clean up the glass. Before I can carefully pick it up, Jesse sets down the bins in his hands and rushes over to kneel across from me, grabbing my wrist to stop me.

"Don't touch broken glass with your bare hands."

I freeze and my eyes jump to his, mouth parted slightly in shock.

"You could seriously hurt yourself," he mutters.

He stares back at me with those intense gray eyes, his brows furrowed together. His large hand is still around my wrist, engulfing half of my forearm with his firm grip, but it's clear that he's being gentle. When he doesn't instantly let go, I feel a dusting of heat begin to crawl up my neck.

"I was just trying to help," I say softly.

He finally realizes that he's still holding me and tears his eyes from mine as he lets me go, clenching his jaw down at the mess while standing up. "Well, you aren't going to help by bleeding everywhere. Let me get you some gloves."

I slowly stand up too when he retreats into his garage and easily finds some small, purple gardening gloves for me and a larger black pair for himself. He walks back out and tosses them to me so that he can grab the discarded bucket and trash can, squatting down next to me. Silently, we both begin picking up the visible pieces of glass and tossing them into the trash. I steal a few glances at him as we work. His jaw is set, brows furrowed, but there's no anger left in his expression. He seems almost...tired. And not the type that comes from simply lack of sleep.

Hesitantly, I clear my throat. "Are you okay?"

Even though I asked quietly, the silence between us was so deafening that my question feels like it was yelled from the rooftops.

He pauses, clenching his jaw and taking in a breath before he continues to clean up. "I'm fine."

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth at his curt response and let out a quiet, slightly frustrated sigh. Silence it is.

My mind drifts back to the moments that led up to this. I knew I should have stopped Shay at The Oven Bird. If I had, I wouldn't be out here with someone who clearly wants to be alone. Still, I didn't have much of an argument against her. She was right. I don't know her, I barely know Jesse, and I clearly know nothing about their relationship.

Despite that, his reaction to her bold- and, in my opinion, downright dumb- move of bringing the whiskey proves that I had some footing in my argument.

It's odd to think: that some girl he just met had a better read on the situation than a girl he dated.

"You're doing it again."

Jesse's voice snaps me out of my thoughts and I release my bottom lip from where I had been gnawing on it. I lift my eyes to his, confused.

He meets my gaze, expression slightly softer as he clarifies. "Mumbling your thoughts."

My cheeks flush with embarrassment and I stay quiet, suddenly wishing I had joined the Stallard's for dinner rather than witness this entire scene. I just pray that my mumbles are incoherent.

"How did you hear the glass break, anyway?" Jesse asks, resting his elbows on his thighs.

I quietly clear my throat, glancing over my shoulder at the window to my room, still open a few inches. "It was a nice night, so I cracked my window. Plus, the sound of shattered glass isn't all that quiet."

Jesse frowns, following my gaze. "That's your window?"

I nod, moving my eyes to the pavement as I begin to pick now at the small, almost invisible pieces of glass.

"So you heard the whole thing, I take it?"

Again, I nod with my lips pulled together in a tight, embarrassed line.

Jesse sighs, taking off his gloves and sitting back. He rests his forearms on his bent knees and fiddles with his gloves, eyeing them with a troubled frown. A breeze blows by, ruffling through his hair and showing his scar momentarily.

I glance between him and the mostly cleaned up mess, debating whether to follow his lead or continue my scavenger hunt for tiny bits of glass. Eventually, the ache in my legs wins and I settle down next to him.

"I didn't pin you as an eavesdropper," he says.

I take my gloves off, observing him from the corner of my eye. "Well, I don't have a TV in my room here. I needed entertainment somehow."

"Glad to hear that my torture entertains you."

"Will the show come on again any time soon?"

"God I hope not," Jesse mutters before we fall back into a silence.

The wind whips through the trees around us, lifting the piles of leaves scattered on the ground with it. In the distance, a few dogs bark and cars drive by on the roads beyond the woods. The silence is nice, but I can feel how tense Jesse is next to me. I debate getting up and leaving. His moment with Shay was none of my business and his anger shouldn't be something that stirs my curiosity.

I sigh quietly. Am I out here because I feel guilty or because I'm curious? Both options have me mentally slapping some sense into myself. I shouldn't care either way.

Yet, against my better judgement, I do.

Right when I make my decision to head back to the Stallard's, Jesse speaks up.

"I didn't break up with Shay because she tried to get me to talk about my dad," he finally says, his voice tight.

Confused, I look at him but his gaze is trained on the gloves.

"I don't understand..."

He sighs as he debates his answer. He's conflicted, maybe even confused and shakes his head. "During the argument she said that I ended things because she would always ask about him or because she tried to get me to talk about him. It wasn't that. It couldn't have been."

"Why?" I ask.

His tone is tight, almost emotionless. But he's lowered some sort of wall, however small. Otherwise, he would have told me to leave the second he saw me in his driveway.

"She didn't ask me about him. Not once."

The silence continues, but from the way Jesse fiddles restlessly with the gloves in his hands I know there's more to be said. Eventually, he continues.

"She talked about him all the time, though. If anyone came up to apologize to me for my loss, she would say something about my dad before I even got the chance." He narrows his eyes, ripping a loose thread from the gloves.

I recall the times earlier today that she mentioned his dad. He's right. The questions Shay asked weren't necessarily about him. Instead, they were merely her getting confirmation from Jesse that the stuff she said about his dad was right.

"At first I thought she was being nice," he admits. "Helping me out in the times I didn't know what to say, and I thought she could help me learn. Instead, I never got to talk about him."

"But you want to?" I ask, "Talk about him, I mean."

He shrugs. "I guess I don't know how. When I broke up with her, people stopped mentioning him around me."

"Maybe she thought she was protecting you," I suggest gently.

He scoffs and tosses his gloves to the side, finally looking at me. "I dated her for barely three months. 'Protecting me' was none of her business. My dad was none of her business. I can count on one hand the amount of times she met him, yet she paraded around the school as if he was like a second father to her."

Finally, I understand. I didn't stay at school after the accident with my parents, so I never had to fully experience what he's talking about. But, at the funeral, lots of students from my school showed up to grieve with me and my family. Some of them came up to me, tears in their eyes that were almost melodramatic. Some said that my parents were like a second family to them. The majority of them probably didn't even know their names before the accident. I appreciated the support, but all I really needed at the funeral were my close friends and family.