What I Can't Recall

I stare at Jake a moment, unable to say anything. He meant me; that much was apparent. It was the last thing I has expected him to say; I was the last person I’d expect him to like. He doesn’t even know me.

He just stares evenly back at me. I try and figure out the perfect thing to say, but after only a moment I give up that dream. A few seconds pass, and I finally open my mouth to talk, but instead of my voice, I hear Bryler's.

“Where have you been?” Bryler demands to know frantically, looking exasperated. “You had me worried sick! Mom is beyond stressed out! I've been out looking for you for the last two hours!”

“How did you even know I was gone?” I ask him simply, not bothering to answer his question since it was pretty much rhetorical. I’m slightly irritated that Bryler interrupted what I had been about to say to Jake; it was important. I’d figured out just what I was supposed to say to him. And now I probably won't even get to tell Jake, because I'm going to have to go back to the house and reassure Sarah that I’m fine. And I doubt they’ll let me out of their sights for a while. Plus, what are the chances I’ll have another run-in with Jake?

“Well,” Bryler starts, pushing away his brown hair that’s hanging in his panic-stricken eyes. “Ellie called me and told me that you had left, right before I was fixing to go to bed. She said to be watching for you, that you'd be home pretty soon, because you had left a while back. I waited almost thirty minutes, but you never came. So, I got dressed again real quick came out looking for you.”

“Why? We're mad at each other,” I demand, suddenly furious. Without warning, I remember that I'm not supposed to be talking to him. I let out a short sigh and promise myself that I'll start over again tomorrow. I've always been bad at ignoring people; I always forget and talk to them, and then it's too late to start over, because since I've talked to them they think they're forgiven.

“Well, one, you're the one mad at me,” Bryler points out, looking a little bit annoyed. “Two, mad at you or not, I wasn't going to let you do anything drastic that'd end with you getting hurt or lost or something. I don't want to lose you all over again. I wouldn't be able to take that. I don't know what I'd do. ”

I hear Jake snort and I feel my face soften a bit. I look at Bryler for the first time since he’s arrived and try to register what I see. I can tell he quickly threw on all his clothes; his shirt is on backwards, he has on two different pairs socks- different colors, too. Not to mention his coat is inside out. His brown hair is sticking out all over the place and his cheeks look flushed from- possibly- running around trying to find me. His eyes are wide and he still has a look of slight panic on his face. I can't stay mad at him. I curse myself for being so forgiving and lower my gaze to the ground, as a draw a circle in the dirt with my foot absentmindedly. Then, something occurs to me about what Bryler said.
“Again?” I question him, “You've lost me before?”

“I might as well have,” Bryler answers, his tone sounding somewhat harsh. “I mean, what was today? This afternoon? You totally flipped out on me and ran away. Then you wouldn't talk to me. Then you went to Ellie's. And what about when the, uh, thing happened with your mom? I lost you then. I could tell I did. In fact, maybe you're still lost.”

“Well, one, that was me being mad,” I explain to him. “Not you losing me. If you were losing me I would have done something drastic to teach you a lesson so you'd never do whatever you did again. I probably would have -”

“Left,” Bryler finishes for me with a knowing expression on his face. It kills me that he‘s right. He knows me too well. “Which you did.”

“Yeah, but I just left because I was mad at Ellie,” I try to convince him, using my ’duh’ voice, as if this should have been apparent. “Not because I was mad at you.”

“How was I supposed to know that? All I knew was you were mad at me, and you were no where to be found. I assumed it was one of your 'lessons',” he says, making finger quotations around 'lessons'. “And I knew I had to find you before you did anything stupid.”

“Well, thanks,” I say with sarcasm, feeling a little annoyed by what he’s implying. “Good to know everyone trusts me with own my life. What'd you think I was going to do? Jump off a bridge?”

“No, I would never think you'd do that,” Bryler says, though I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth or not. “I just thought you'd... well, I don't know. Get drunk? Have a one-night stand with a stranger? One of those things people do to get attention.”

“If there's anything I don't want,” I start to assure him, eyes narrowing, “it's attention. In fact, I'd like quite a bit less of that. All I've had since mom died was attention. Everywhere I go people are always asking me about the 'incident', saying things like 'I'm so sorry such a horrible thing happened to you' or just staring at me with their eyes full of pity. I'm sick and tired of it. Everyone acts like it's against the law to talk about it or something, too. They don't even refer to it correctly. It was not an 'incident', it was the night my mother died. Nobody even asks me if I'm okay; if I want to talk about it. I mean, I don't wanna talk about it, but it'd still be nice if someone asked! They just have a moment of pity for me then think 'Thank God that didn't happen to me'. Well, I'm tired of it.”

After I say this, it becomes really quiet. I can only hear the quiet creek of the swing, as Jake pushes it lightly back and forth. By now I have gotten up and I am standing right in front of Bryler, who is just staring at me, wordlessly. The breeze picks up and I get a slight chill. I find myself wishing I had never said anything at all, because I don't like awkward silences, or having all the eyes on me. I feel sort of bad, because I think back to that one night Bryler sort of did ask me if I wanted to talk about it. But that was only once, and he was really the only one to do it. After a moment or two, Jake saves me from the never-ending quiet by just clearing his throat.

“What are you doing here?” Bryler asks, puzzled. He apparently just noticed Jake is even here at all. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“I've been sitting here before you even got here,” Jake informs him, sounding kind of ticked. My guess is because Bryler hadn't even noticed he was there. “And I come here all the time. September just happened to be here when I showed up, and we talked. No big deal.”

“You guys talked?” Bryler asks, turning towards me. His face is baffled, as if it‘s so extremely out of the ordinary for me to even consider talking to Jake. “About what?”

“About h-,” I start to say- formulating a good lie in my head as to avoid some kind of awkward dramatic confrontation about the fight- but Jake cuts in.

“About your two's little fight,” he says with a smug smile. Bryler looks extremely uncomfortable, but Jake just seems to eat it up. “You know.”

I shoot him a look, only to have him smirk and wink back at me. It occurs to me he must only be filling Bryler in on this little fact because he’s jealous or something along those lines. I mean, he likes me, right? So I just let it go. I mean, what could it bother anyways? Bryler can't be mad at me for telling Jake; I've just now forgiven him for what he's done. It would be pointless for him to be mad at me, because I could just start being mad at him again, and his being mad wouldn't bother me a bit.

“What about our fight?” Bryler asks Jake uneasily, raising an eyebrow. He gives me a look that seems to be asking me what’s going on which I respond to by shrugging.

“Oh, all of it,” Jake assures Bryler, quite pleased he's gotten under Bryler's skin with it. “I know all about the pity-kiss.”

“It was not a pity-kiss!” Bryler fumes, furious at the exact same time as I yell “Jake!”
trying to tell him with my eyes that he's crossing the line.

“You told him?” Bryler says, turning towards me. He doesn't look mad, just betrayed, which makes me feel a thousand times worse than him being mad would have. “How could you just tell him that? You don't even know him! And neither do I! I don’t want him knowing all this… private stuff about me.”

“Well, who else was I suppose to talk to about it?” I ask him, trying to justify and defend myself. He was honestly starting to get on my nerves; in a way that made me mad at him and at myself

“Ellie,” Bryler answers straight-off. “Or Liz. Or Sarah.”

“Well, I did tell Ellie, and as you can see, that went over well. We got in a huge fight over it. And I'm not going to tell Liz, she's Seth's little sister. She’s, like, a whole year younger and a half younger. I’m not telling some kid about my love life. And do you really want me to tell your mom that you kissed me?” I ask him, feeling a mixture of super defensive and confused. I mean, if I was going to tell someone about it, you'd think he'd want me to tell someone who wouldn't make fun of him over it or tell the whole world, which Jake wouldn't do either of. Well, with the exception of the making fun of part, but he's just doing that because he’s jealous.

“Well, no,” he admits, blushing whenever I say words like 'kiss' and 'love'. It makes him look cute; and I want to slap myself upside the head for thinking so for two reasons. One; as I‘ve already told myself fifty million times, I will not like him and be a stupid teenage girl. Two; I‘m supposed to be mad at him. “But what about Seth or Derrick? Or even Jason? They're your friends, too.”

“I'm not going to tell the guys,” I inform him, honestly not understanding how he could be so stupid. “They'd be worse than anybody! Plus, guys don't really understand things like that. And-”

Jake clears his throat again, rather loudly. I stop talking. Bryler and I turn towards the swing where Jake is still sitting.
“Before you go on, I'd just like to point out I am a guy, and I understood,” he points out, smirking a little bit.

“Yeah, well, you're different,” I say instantly, kind of regretting saying it the minute after it escaped my mouth. I knew it was a touchy subject for him; being different, that is.

“How?” He asks me, his eyes telling me I should answer carefully. He just ranted on about how he hates it when people just made assumptions about him because he looked different, and I don’t want to go and accidentally offend him. That's not what I need right now.

“I don't know,” I reply, trying to figure the best way to put it without hurting anybody’s feelings. “I guess because you're a, uh, good listener and you are more.... mature than most guys. You're not gonna go around making jokes about it and all being insensitive about the situation.”

“Good answer,” Jake says approvingly, the right corner of his mouth turned up to somewhat imitate a smile. “Now you can proceed.”

“Thanks for your permission,” Bryler says with a sneer, then turns towards me. “Okay, okay I get your point. There isn’t anybody else you can tell. But still…”

“But still what?” I demand to know, still feeling kind of irked about all of this. The whole entire thing.

“Just... Nothing. We need to go home, though. Mom’s probably panicking that neither of us not back yet. I told her I'd be back in a minute, and, like I said, it's been hours.”

“And you can’t call her…?” I question, knowing that Bryler never lets his cell phone out of sight.

“No,” he says. “I left my phone at home in the rush. We need to get going. Seriously.”

“Fine,” I mumble, then turn towards Jake, I give him a look, trying to tell him with my eyes that what I’m about to say is a response to what he said earlier. I drop my voice low so that Bryler can’t hear what I’m saying properly; though he probably can still tell I’m saying something. He just doesn’t know what. “Just so you know, I'm not exactly taken yet.”

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It's a pretty nice night out, though I'm kind of cold for some reason. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, but I’m kind of in my pajamas- I left Ellie‘s house in such a hurry I didn‘t even change. So I’m wearing a tank top and flannel pants.

We walk in silence, with the exception of the sound of my shoes hitting the pavement. Once we've been walking about five or ten minutes, Bryler just stops, allowing me to get little ways ahead of him before I realize. I stop and look back, my eyebrows furrowing together.

“What are you doing?” I ask him, walking back kind of slowly to stand where he is. I don’t understand why he’s stopped- he’s the one who’s in such a hurry to get home.

“We need to talk,” he says anxiously, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet. I wonder if it’s because he’s cold or because he’s nervous. I’m going with the latter.

“In the middle of the road?” I question, frowning. It’s one thing to walk down the road, but entirely another to just stand in the middle of it while engaged in deep conversation. It’s a tad bit more dangerous.

“We can sit in the ground over there, if you’d like,” he says with a shrug, motioning towards the random field that was to our right. I sigh before making my way over to the side of the road, taking a seat in the grass beside it. Bryler comes over here as well, taking a seat in front of me.

I don’t know why, but it reminds me of this one time when we were little. I don’t remember where we were, how old we were, or even what we were doing. I just know we were pretty young, and sitting in the grass somewhere. And we were talking about something that seemed important at the time, and Bryler was sitting in front of me like he is now. We were both sitting “criss-cross-apple-sauce” and we had are hands held out in front of us; as if we were comparing hand sizes.

“So what’s it you wanna talk about?” I ask him, reaching over and plucking up a piece of grass out of the ground.

He takes a deep breath, “Today.” He says it vaguely, but it’s obvious what he’s talking about. The pity-kiss or whatever he wants to call it.

“What about today?” I ask, pushing him to say it. He hasn't even said the word kiss, which kind of makes me think he's too ashamed to admit he kissed me. I just want to hear him admit it, as selfish as it is. I don’t want to have happened, but I want him to acknowledge it did.

“You know what about today,” Bryler says, sounding exasperated. “Do I really have to say it? The kiss. We need to talk about today when I kissed you on the lips while we were in Boston on that random sidewalk, with you leaning against that random brick building and me trying to comfort you because of what happened with your dad. There? Is that good?”

It was much more of a specific acknowledgement than I‘d being hoping for, but an acknowledgement nonetheless. “That‘s good,” I say, satisfied. “So, what about the kiss is it you‘re so desperate to discuss?”

“Well, first off, it was not a pity-kiss,” Bryler says seriously, over-emphasizing the word not. “Not in the least.”

“I think I would know if it was,” I tell him, probably coming off kind of bitchy. But I didn‘t care. “I was there wasn't I? I was crying and freaking out, and you probably just wanted me to stop. So, to make me feel better, you kissed me.”

“I didn't kiss you because your dad is jerk,” Bryler says quietly, sounding very solemn. “I kissed you because I wanted to. I swear, September. Believe me.”

“Bryler-,” I start to say, to list all the reasons I know it was a pity-kiss. Because there are plenty; I’ve been thinking about them all afternoon.

“September, I like you. That's why I kissed you,” he tells me, and of course my stomach gets that feeling. As if I’m walking down the stairs and I’ve missed a step.

“You do not,” I say, mostly trying to convince myself this. There are so many signs he doesn‘t. And like I’ve tried to convince myself so many times; I’m not going to be a stupid teenage girl. “Otherwise you would have done something earlier.”

“I was just scared,” he admits. It bugs me to no end that Jake was right about that. Or at least right about what excuse Bryler was going to use.

“Of what?” I ask indignantly, as I used my hand to sweep back part of my side-bangs out of my eyes. They just fall right back into them again.

“This happening,” he tells me with a earnest face, absentmindedly fiddling with the grass as he speaks. “And it looks like I was right to be.”

“What exactly is this?” I ask, genuinely wanting to know exactly how he‘s going to define it. Because I have no clue what this is.

“You're mad at me. You like some other random emo guy who you don't even know. You don't like me back,” he lists off, counting the number of items on his fingers as he does so.

“Well, one, you don't know I like Jake- who is not emo, just a loner. Two, you don't know I don't like you. Three, I'm sorry, Bryler, but I still can't believe that it wasn't a pity kiss. Why would you like me? Why would you kiss me?”

“I could name a million reasons,” he claims, obviously bluffing. Or over exaggerating. But is there really a difference? “For both of those.”

“Really?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, not buying it for a second. Everybody always says things like that. Like, ’I could name ten million reasons for you not to do such and such’ and then when you ask they can’t even name three. It’s typical. “I'd like to hear you name at least five.”

“I can! I can name a lot more,” he insists, his face dead serious. “Let me prove it to you. Give me a week and let me prove I really do like you. Let me prove I kissed you on my own accord.”

I wasn’t expecting something like this. “Bryler, I don’t know if that’s the bes-”

“Oh, c’mon. Give me a chance,” he says. Instead of avoiding eye contact as he does a lot, he’s going to extra effort to make it. I feel like he’s staring into my soul. “It’s a good idea. It’ll only take a week. C’mon.”

“Fine,” I say after a few excruciating moments of silence, giving in. “You’ve got a week.”

“Okay, then,” Bryler says, holding his hand out to shake mine. I reach out and do so awkwardly. This would definitely win in the ’most awkward moment of my life’ contest. I don‘t know how; it just is. “Deal. I‘ll start tomorrow.”

We both stand up carefully, not saying anything to one another after those last words are spoken. But it’s not awkward anymore. It’s a comfortable kind of silence. We finish the entire walk home like this.