Home > Swear on This Life(4)

Swear on This Life(4)
Author: Renee Carlino

“This, coming from you? Emi, after seven years, I still barely know you. I only know what you share with me, which doesn’t include anything from your past.”

I could feel myself getting defensive. “Since we’re playing the blame game, you haven’t made much of an effort to get to know me, or to commit to me in any real way.”

Trevor’s face fell, and I could tell I’d struck a nerve.

“Are you serious? You keep saying you don’t know where you’ll end up a year from now. What does that even mean? How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Then why are you here?” I asked, simply. I didn’t want to sound callous, but I could tell that I’d gone too far. That I was cutting him too deep.

“I moved down here for you, Emi. I built my life around our relationship.” He got up from his stool. “We’re not kids anymore. I can’t deal with your fickle shit and listen to you say I won’t make a commitment to you. You’re the one who won’t commit to me.”

I felt all kinds of retorts bubbling inside of me. The only job offer you got was at San Diego State. You didn’t move here for me. I’m just the girl you’re passing time with. We both know it. Why else would you have a hard time saying I love you? Why else can’t I see our future?

I got up and headed toward my room, and Trevor followed right behind me. I turned around to face him and rested my hand on the door for a moment as he waited silently in the doorway. And then I pulled him toward me and kissed him, pressing my body against his. I didn’t want to talk anymore.

THE NEXT MORNING, as I drank coffee at the breakfast bar, Cara came skipping by. “What’s eating you?” she asked. I didn’t know how she could tell these things just by looking at the back of my head, but she could intuit moods like no one else. She poured herself a mug of coffee and leaned against the counter, facing me, waiting for my response.

“Trevor.”

“Trevor eating you?” She smirked.

“Not in a good way, pervert.” I rolled my eyes.

“Are you guys fighting again? Sounds like you made up last night.”

“We’re always fighting. Even when we’re making up.”

She straightened, as if something had just occurred to her, and then rushed off. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

When she came back into the kitchen, she set a book down in front of me. I glanced at the jacket. All the Roads Between. “You’re finished already?” I asked.

“Stayed up all night. I loved it. You said I owed you one for bailing on you last night, and this is my repayment. I think you could use the escape.”

“Oh yeah?” I ran my hand over the cover. It was a faint image of two kids holding hands on a road. There was something familiar about the scene, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Maybe you can escape your own slightly flawed love story for a bit and get lost in something more satisfying—even if it is fiction.”

I sighed and picked it up. Maybe she was right. I grabbed my mug of coffee with my other hand and headed toward my bedroom. “Thanks, Care Bear,” I called back.

“Anytime.”

Once inside, I plopped down on my bed and cracked open the book to the first page. From the moment I read the second line in the first paragraph, my heart rate tripled. Instantly, I was sweating. By the end of the first page, I was almost hysterical.

From All the Roads Between

By the time our school bus would get to El Monte Road, Jax and I would be the only kids left. We’d bounce along past the open fields, past Carter’s egg ranch, past a whole lot of run-down houses, dust clouds, and weeds. We lived right off El Monte, at the five–point-five-mile marker, at the end of a long, rutted, dirt road, our houses preceded by two battered mailboxes askew on their dilapidated wood posts. It was a bone-shaking journey by car and almost impossible by bus, so Ms. Beels would pick us up and drop us off at the mailboxes every school day, rain or shine. Those mailboxes were where Jax and I would start and end our long journey.

Ms. Beels, a short, plump woman who wore mismatched socks and silly sweaters, was our bus driver from the time we were in first grade all the way until high school. She was the only constant and reliable person in my life. That is, besides Jax.

Every morning she would greet me with a smile and every afternoon, just before closing the doors and pulling away, she’d say, “Get on home, kids, and eat your veggies,” as if our parents could afford such luxuries. Her life was exactly the same, day in and day out, but she still put a smile on and did her job well.

When your family is reduced to nothing, you look at people like Ms. Beels with envy. Even though driving a bus in a rural, crackpot town isn’t exactly reaching for the stars, at the age of ten I still looked up to her. She had more than most people I knew back then. She had a job.

We lived in Neeble, Ohio, population eight thousand on a good day, home to ex-employees of the American Paper Mill factory, based in New Clayton. Most of the workers moved out of New Clayton just after the factory closed and brought their families to the rural, less populated towns where rent was cheap and the odd job less scarce.

My family had always lived in Neeble. My dad had grown up there, and his dad too. They would commute to New Clayton together when the factory was still running, starting and ending their days together the same as Jax and me. They were good friends and good men—at least that’s how I remember them. And we had a nice life for a while. My father called what we had at the end of that road a little slice of heaven. And it was . . . for a long time. But if there’s a real heaven here on earth, then there has to be a hell too. Jax and I learned that the hard way.

   
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