Alive Again

Kennedy Brock showed up fifteen minutes before he was said he would, to pick up Reese for paint balling. Lately when they had been hanging out, they’d been playing a lot of video games and Kennedy had even dabbled in teaching Reese some basic guitar chords. These were things that at one point, he thought he might be doing with Clary.

Reese almost couldn’t recognize herself. Physically she was still the same person—dark hair, slight figure and freckles—but there were subtle differences in how she carried herself. She smiled a lot more now, whether it was tight lipped and toothless, it was still a smile. She laughed a lot too, and she didn’t try and hide herself as much in a crowd.

She was normal, slightly less tortured. At least she was before today—today she was reverting back into that mousy girl everyone knew. It wasn’t intentional, just how she felt when she woke up this morning to Clary talking on the phone. She felt sad, and she really didn’t want to go out with Kennedy, and yet, here he was, standing at her front door wearing a boyish grin and a white t-shirt.

“Are you sure white is a good idea?” Reese herself had put on an old blue t-shirt that she had worn when she painted her room. It was already dirty, so paintballing couldn’t do much more damage.

“I figure you could help me personalize it—that is if you can hit me at all,” Kennedy teased. Reese knew how he was expecting her to act—arrogant and competitive like she would when they would play video games. She was tired but put forth the effort to fake it for Kennedy’s sake. He had done so much for her that she could give him this one last performance and then that was it, she would be real after paint balling.

Clary watched from Reese’s bedroom window as Kennedy took her sister’s hand and pulled her behind him. He opened the passenger door for her, and shut it after she was safely in—like he had done for her during the summer. She waited until Kennedy was in the driver’s seat and the engine was purring loudly.

“Okay, she’s gone, come over.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in, like, half an hour; I have to pick up Reese’s present.”

“Whatever, I’ll start without you, just hurry up, John.” Clary disconnected the call and counted to five before trying to call someone else.

“Brian? It’s Clary, Danielle’s friend? Yeah, I have a little favour to ask—yeah, I need alcohol.” Clary arranged the drop—sometime during the party Brian would slip upstairs for payment. He was expected to arrive around four and people were going to show up between five and seven. Clary hoped that Kennedy wouldn’t return Reese with an empty stomach and would take her sister out—keep her gone for as long as possible for two reasons. The main one being so that the party could come off as a surprise and the second one being to make John feel more paranoid about their relationship.

Clary thought about the possible gifts John could be getting her sister. She ruled out jewelry; there was no way a guy could get away with that and have it seem platonic. She thought that maybe he’d surprise her with concert tickets—but then doubted it because that was too expensive. Then she settled on the idea of John getting Reese a CD or making her a mix. She shook her head at the second thought—he wouldn’t need to go out and get her sister a present if he was mixing her a CD... unless he didn’t have any blank discs.

This pondering kept her mind busy as she moved around the house. The toughest decoration decision that Clary had to make was whether or not to convert the Happy 8th Birthday or the Happy 10th Birthday to say Happy 18th Birthday. Then she decided just to edit both with felt marker and put one sign over the entry to the kitchen and one sign over the entry to the living room. Of course, Clary didn’t actually bother to hang up the signs—that was what John was for, he was tall enough to do it without using a chair or anything.

Clary also managed to scrounge up some balloons and streamers that were a bit old—but would work well enough for the occasion. Her main goal, while waiting for John, was to clear out the kitchen and set it up for the bar. She had already cleared off the counter space for drinks and found all the plastic cups for Fourth of July barbeques that they never had. She also took all the breakable and meaningful accessories to the house from their original places and locked them in the cabinet under the stairs. These things included picture frames, vases, and some figurines of birds that Clary didn’t like.

She got a lot accomplished on her own and had taken up the habit of checking her watch to see how long it had been since she called John. Clary wasn’t one to work hard—especially not for the benefit of other people. She had intended to force most of the work on John and pretend like she had done a lot.

He finally showed up around the time that Clary was setting out appropriate party CDs (this included removing all of her mother’s country and classical music).

“Come in!” Clary called, barely glancing up from the box she was hiding the CDs in.

“Hey,” John greeted, “I—uh... which room is Reese’s? I want to put her present up there...”

Clary looked up and saw John toying with a gift bag, avoiding her gaze. She didn’t bother to paste on a fake smile for him and gave him vague directions to her sister’s room.

“You’ll know it’s hers when you see all the paint splattering the walls.” Clary wasn’t sure why she listened so carefully to John’s footfalls. Maybe she liked the idea of having someone around—sometimes she would just sit and listen to Reese moving around in her room. Clary could tell when John paused but she couldn’t tell why he did, whether or not he was admiring a picture of Reese or if he had found dirty clothes on the floor was a mystery to her. And maybe that’s what Clary wanted out of life—a guy with a little mystery about him. John was certainly mysterious—it was impossible to know what was going on inside of his head.

“Hey, Clary, are you okay?” John asked, waving his hand in front of her unfocused eyes. She looked up at him with what most would describe as a dazzling smile. It might have made other guys excited, happy, or even a little turned on, but it did nothing for John.

Together they hung streamers, rearranged furniture and made some last minute phone calls. Clary was in charge of finding parking for early arrivals and John was taking off to go get something—he wasn’t being specific when he was leaving. However, he was twirling his car keys on his finger in an almost mesmerizing way.

John returned to the Wallace household with four people in tow and carrying an unmarked white box. Clary was too distracted by the new company to pay much attention to the box. Of the four people, Clary only recognized one of them to be the younger brother of Tim, a friend of John’s. She wasn’t really paying much attention to him—it was the guy he was shoving that caught Clary’s interest. He had this copper kind of hair and it was styled in a messy sort of way that had always appealed to her.

Unfortunately it appeared that neither guests were single—two girls trailed behind them. Tim’s younger brother slowed down to catch the hand of one of them, which didn’t bother Clary in the slightest. However, the red headed girl sped up to walk next to the guy Clary had been eyeing and threw an arm around his middle. He easily let his arm fall across her shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

And then they were at the door and Clary had her hostess smile pasted on.

“Hey, I’m Clary, Reese’s sister.” She held out her hand, waiting for anyone to take it. The red headed girl stared down at it like Clary’s hand had some incurable disease. Tim’s younger brother was the one to grip her hand, rather enthusiastically to boot.

“Hey, I’m Pat and this is my date Alex, my best friend Garrett and his best friend Sam.”

The conversation ended quite abruptly when Brian showed up carrying bags full of clinking bottles and a case of beer.

“There’s more in my car,” he mentioned in passing.

“Shit, what did he do? Buy the whole fucking liquor store?” Sam asked Garrett as they entered the house, leaving Clary to go to Brian’s brand new Porsche and bring in more alcohol to the party. It took Clary and Brian two more trips each to bring all the stuff into the house.

“Remember, you owe me,” Brian told Clary, wagging a finger in her face and gripping her arm. Clary sent him a devious smile, glancing around the sidewalk before she captured his finger in her mouth. She sucked on the tip lightly and brought more of his finger into her mouth. She pulled his finger from her mouth and kissed the back of his hand.

“I won’t forget,” she promised, widening her eyes and giggling. It was Brian who leaned down to kiss her—the first boy to kiss her since Kennedy. Clary tried not to compare the rough and possessive meeting of lips and teeth to the gentle caring way that Kennedy would kiss her. The fact that he even entered her mind at that moment was a scary first for her. She refused to be stuck on one boy—especially one that had obviously moved on with her sister.

Clary blew Brian a kiss and sauntered back to the party—it had doubled in size since she had left. She recognized a lot of the people as friends of John’s and some of the baseball team. Most of the party had been brought as dates—people Reese didn’t even know.

John spotted Kennedy’s car first—he looked sullen for a brief moment and then announced it to the house. Everyone began to silence down, people giggling and stumbling causing quite a racket. Clary could see her sister and Kennedy from her spot, walking up to the house. Reese was splattered with paint—almost resembling her bedroom wall. It was on her face, her arms, and even her hair—Kennedy wasn’t much better.

Reese was mid-laugh when she opened the door. The laughter left her face in a nanosecond, leaving nothing but surprise when everyone shouted at her—she couldn’t even understand the one word. Things were happening too fast for Reese to process them—Clary was hugging her and wishing her a happy birthday, and then John and other people were hugging her and wishing her a happy birthday. It took until the last guest wished her a happy birthday for Reese to understand what was happening. This was a birthday party.

She was at a loss. Reese didn’t do birthday parties. She didn’t like them, not anymore. They always felt so hollow. She looked at Clary with a distrustful eye, knowing that this idea could only have come from her. But then she looked at John and the sincerity in his face—he had honestly been convinced that this is what she wanted.

“Um, we’re going to go get cleaned up,” Reese told John, taking hold of Kennedy’s hand.

“Yeah, that might be a good idea—but you know, you match your walls now.” Reese did a double take, not sure that John had actually said that to her. As far as she knew, John had never been inside of her bedroom before. She didn’t let that get to her as she tugged Kennedy upstairs with her, not even considering how her party guests might view the action.

“Did you know about this?” Reese rounded on Kennedy the moment they were in the secluded hallway. Kennedy held his hands up, telling her not to shoot him because he wasn’t dangerous.

“I had no fucking idea, I swear.”

“Okay,” Reese conceded his truth and relaxed her tense stature.

“Do you not like it?” Kennedy asked, braving a step toward Reese.

“It’s a nice gesture... I just... I haven’t had a real birthday party in a really long time. My birthday usually isn’t much to celebrate...” Reese let the end of her sentence fade. Kennedy and Reese were both aware of the unspoken sentence: “Because of my dad.”

“Can I borrow some clothes?” Kennedy asked to distract Reese from her potentially sad thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah, of course you can. I’ll go grab you something and uh, you can shower in the bathroom down the hall and I’ll use my bathroom...” Reese led the way to her room (not noticing the gift bag on her bed) and into her closet with Kennedy trailing behind her, not certain if he was supposed to follow or not. She ran her fingers along all the boys’ clothes she had accumulated because of Clary. Her hand paused on the worn red fabric of a shirt that had long since lost its original scent.

Memories dragged Reese under, like a vengeful wave. Things like her father carrying her half-asleep to the car after the fair, her baby soft cheek pressed against the fabric. Sometimes there was a faint scent of cigarette smoke on the neck and sleeves. Reese remembered the one time he took her camping and he let her wear his flannel shirt because her clothes got wet. All of the comfort she had from this specific shirt—all of them were fading into a montage rather than specific memories. Reese was starting to forget.

“I really only need a shirt,” Kennedy prompted. Reese was startled out of her epiphany. Reese tugged out a random green v-neck and tossed it to Kennedy. She didn’t even look at him—her eyes were wide and her mouth agape. She was still lost in space—stuck in orbit and unable to make a crash landing.

“Reese?” Kennedy prodded.

“Huh?” Reese asked, finally turning to face Kennedy.

“Aren’t you going to shower too?” Reese nodded and began to rifle through her closet for some party appropriate attire. She listened for Kennedy’s retreating footsteps and ceased her fake search for clothes. Reese carefully pulled out the folded red flannel shirt that Kennedy had returned to her and clutched it tightly to her stomach.

Like every year before this, the tears came from her fast and hard—bringing Reese to her knees almost immediately. She was easily overwhelmed by a pain that she worked hard to bury. Reese had long since mastered the art of silent sobs—the price of muting her pain was violent shaking. Her sobs were wet and something she choked on her own saliva and lost her breath to the point that she thought she might pass out.

Once a year, on her birthday, Reese Wallace would allow herself to miss her father. The tradition started after her first birthday without her dad. Her mom had tried really hard to pull a good party together, but it had all fallen through. Reese hadn’t had any fun—she was more quiet and reserved than ever. She constantly looked to her mother as if asking for the torture to end. Reese was adamant that her mother not overspend because of her birthday—even at that age, Reese was aware of their growing financial trouble.

Reese hadn’t cried until after everyone had gone to bed. She had tried very hard to hate her father for leaving—because it made mommy sad and Clary was being hard to deal with—but Reese just couldn’t force herself to hate someone that she loved so much. Confusion over how to feel, mixed with the emotions that she was feeling, had Reese crawling into the back of her closet to cry and cuddle into the red flannel shirt that, at the time, still smelled like her absent father.

Without fail, every year on her birthday, Reese would put on her father’s shirt and cry. No one knew about it, it wasn’t a part of herself that Reese wanted to share with anyone. She couldn’t share it with anyone—they’d judge her and use it against her. Using her shaking hands, Reese draped the ratty shirt over herself and settled into the furthest corner of her closet to cry. She said it would only be for a little while—no one would notice her missing, except that they did.

Kennedy came down to the party alone, hair wet and wearing a new shirt. He began to comb the crowd for Reese, finding other friends but not the friend he wanted to see. When Kennedy saw John for the third time (standing next to Clary with a red cup in his hand) he decided that he had nothing to lose by asking for some help.

“Hey, John Oh, have you seen Reese?” John tilted his head to the side, the easy smile he had previously been wearing becoming a small frown.

“She was with you, the last I checked.”

“We split up to get ready.”

“Relax, girls take longer to get ready than guys do,” Clary shouted. Kennedy and John exchanged a look—it was plausible, but they didn’t feel any more at ease.

“Give it another twenty minutes before we go looking?” John asked Kennedy who nodded in agreement. When the twenty minutes were up, the two boys wasted no time in heading upstairs, leaving Clary to roll her eyes in their wake.

John paused when he entered Reese’s room—there was no sign of her in the room. The adjoined bathroom’s door was wide open and the light was off. Kennedy didn’t pause like John did, he moved past his lost friend and strode over to the closet.

“K-Kennedy,” John cringed at how wet Kennedy’s name sounded coming from Reese. He moved toward the closet with caution. Kennedy had disappeared within the closet, and John felt like his friends were strangers when he stood in the doorway. Reese’s hair was matted to her wet cheeks, they were flushed with color and her eyes were glistening with a constant flow of tears. Wrapped around her like a shawl was a red flannel shirt that John thought might have belonged to her father. It was obvious by how Reese was slanted that Kennedy was the only thing holding her up as she cried harder than anyone John had ever seen.

He was going to walk away and let Kennedy handle it—she had said his name after all—but then Reese spoke again.

“J-J-John,” and that sound almost broke his heart. It wasn’t a tone he was used to hearing from Reese—desperate and needy—vulnerability never did suit her. Yet there she was, leaning against Kennedy and falling apart at the seams and holding out her hand to him. Reese had never asked for him before—and she never would have to ask for him twice.

He sat on her other side and let her cling to his hand. She didn’t make a lot of noise when she cried, and she didn’t try to talk to them. Her head rested on Kennedy’s shoulder, but both of her hands were gripping John’s. He leaned over and kissed her temple, murmuring soothing words that might have been lies. Kennedy just rubbed her arm and let her cry.

This was how Clary found them. At the sight of her younger sister, Reese released John’s hands and curled toward Kennedy—hiding her face and trying to find her composure. The damage was done, but regardless Reese fought for control.

“Why don’t you two go clear out the party?” Kennedy suggested to John and Clary. John wouldn’t protest—although he wanted to—so he forcibly dragged Clary with him to get rid of all the party guests. It was a good five minutes before Reese was able to speak without sounding like she had just bawled her eyes out.

“Can we pretend that this never happened?” she asked of Kennedy.

“What never happened?” he responded, eliciting a weak laugh followed by a hiccup.

“I’m going to go clean up for real this time.” Reese pushed away from Kennedy and let the red flannel shirt fall to the floor. She stood on wobbly legs and began to stumble out of the closet.

“And I’m going to find a dry shirt, some idiot spilled beer all over this one,” Kennedy attempted to joke. Reese didn’t laugh this time—just went on her way. The shower was exactly what she needed—the warm water seemed to clean away most of the embarrassment from being caught, as well as relax her tense muscles. Reese eventually made her way downstairs, slightly afraid that not all of the party guests would have been gone. She needn’t have worried because John, Clary and Kennedy were the only people there. They all stopped cleaning to look at her and then looked away immediately. Reese didn’t feel awkward at all, not. She sighed and began to help cleaning.

“I’m going to head out,” Kennedy announced to the room after a while. Reese glanced at her sister and John who were each holding a plastic garbage bag—for a party that had only been in session for two hours, the house had managed to be trashed. Her gaze returned to Kennedy, and he stared back at her meaningfully.

“Let me walk you to your car,” she offered, feeling paralyzed by the intensity of his eyes. He offered her his hand, and she accepted the gesture with her heart pumping at twice its normal speed. She wanted these feelings to go away—she had been denying them for days. How could she feel like this about Kennedy? The friend she had always had a crush on—the friend that had slept with her sister, and the friend that she had seen naked.

And she hadn’t really disliked the view, either. She was about as close to admitting that truth as John was to telling Reese about the candy machines at school.

The Arizona night had a considerable drop in temperature. Reese slightly trailed after Kennedy, wandering blindly in the dark. The streetlights had dimmed and the neighbours’ houses were devoid of life. Reese trusted Kennedy to guide her safely. She stumbled a few times, but his hand would tighten around hers and he’d steady her. The two friends were silent, and Reese was wrapped in her feelings of unease. There was something in the air—it was change. Some invisible wall between them had fallen tonight.

When Kennedy reached his car, he turned and leaned against the driver’s side door. He kept Reese’s hand in his, forcing his fingers into the space between hers and tugged her to his body. His free hand rested on the side of her neck, in some form of an embrace—too intimate to be completely platonic. Reese kept her focus on the v-neck dip of Kennedy’s shirt and let her hand rest on the car behind him. Kennedy’s fingers began to brush her hair from her face, but Reese refused to look up at him—despite his attempts to establish eye contact.

“Happy birthday, pretty girl—emphasis on the happy,” Kennedy murmured softly, his eyes rapidly moving to try and connect with Reese’s. Her throat ran dry; his tone was so tender and caring—a prelude on what was to come. She sensed it. Somehow the last few days with Kennedy had instilled in her a natural translation of his actions. She was speaking his secret language and fucking terrified about it.

Her fingers curled around the loose fabric of his shirt—blue and paint-free now. His own fingers were curling in the locks of her hair, gently tugging downward so that her neck would crane. And that did it, the eye contact was established. Reese could see every calculating move in his eyes—the uncertainty, the excitement, and the fear that could possibly mirror her own crazed expression. His face lowered, his movements deliberately slow for her benefit. She could stop this at any moment—but the breath caught in her throat made it too difficult to speak. His nose gently nudged hers and it was the prompt she needed. She turned her head to the side, allowed his lips to graze the skin from the corner of her mouth, to her cheek.

“Dude,” she exclaimed quite loudly, too shocked and panicked. Her voice seemed to echo in the night, and her face felt entirely too warm. She felt Kennedy exhale on her skin and pull back—just far enough to look at her.

“What’s wrong?” Kennedy asked. He didn’t pull her closer to his body, or wrap his arms around her waist. He squeezed her hand and then traced the shape of a heart on her palm. He repeated this motion again and again, waiting for Reese to be ready to speak. He would be patient for her, because she was worth it. He had seen it in her eyes; Reese had wanted him to kiss her.

“I-I... I’ve never... kissed. Like, at all. I-I don’t want you to—uh, yeah. I, eh, will be... I don’t know... bad or something.” Reese refused to look at Kennedy—feeling like her face had been left under the high afternoon sun for too long. Kennedy chuckled, bringing his hand from Reese’s neck to cup her cheek. He brought his face down to hers, not unaware of how she shrank back into the palm of his hand.

“Just go with your instincts,” he advised in a breath. Reese gasped upon the initial contact of Kennedy’s lips on hers. She trembled at the alien feeling—like someone had just shot her full of adrenaline. Her heart thudded in her ears and she had this heightened sense of Kennedy. She could taste him through her partially parted lips—but no words could describe it. His own shaky groan vibrated from his throat to Reese’s lips. Kennedy pulled away after a few short seconds—gasping. Reese was stunned and embarrassed.

“I-I... did I do something wrong?” Reese asked breathlessly. He wanted to laugh at her—she hadn’t done anything wrong in the least—it was all him. He wanted nothing more than to flip them around—to crush Reese’s body against his car and press into her—and to push harder and with all his pent up urgency with his mouth on hers. He had to get a grip and control himself—because already he was losing it. His gentle and tentative touch of his mouth on hers wasn’t enough for him.

“No, on the contrary—you’re amazing.” And then Kennedy followed his own advice and went with his instincts. The first kiss had been the stuff of fairytales, but this kiss was already progressing into something hard and passionate. Reese gasped again and Kennedy moaned at the sensation. His hand tangled in her hair and he fought for all the will power he had not to take advantage of her partially opened mouth.

Reese pulled back gasping for air—Kennedy had the far superior lung capacity. He could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against his and almost hear the humming of her heart locked away in her rib cage.

“To think of all those months I’ve wasted being stupid—when I could have spent that time kissing you.” He mumbled against her skin, trailing kisses over her face and neck. His lips could detect the rise in body heat—he smirked at the idea that he made her flush from her neck to her face... Reese Wallace was sweet, innocent, and the most intoxicating thing Kennedy Brock had ever given in to.

Reese wandered back into her house in a daze. She barely even realized that Clary had ditched John—leaving him to clean up after her. Reese just began to help John pick up empty cups and stuff them into a trash bag in the middle of the room. By this point in time all that was left to do was mostly just putting things back in their rightful places.

When the house was almost back to normal (Reese had found Clary’s hiding place under the stairs) John made the first attempt at a conversation. It was almost one in the morning, and both their limbs were heavy with fatigue, and speaking was almost a struggle at that point. John was in the kitchen when he called out for Reese.

“Yeah,” she yelled back, not as a question but as a confirmation that she was listening.

“Can you come in here for a minute?” Immediately Reese’s fluff-filled mind jumped to the worst conclusions imaginable. She dropped what she was doing and made a quick dash to the kitchen. John was standing with his back toward her, but whipped around in shock when he heard her approach. He didn’t think that Reese would get there so fast. It didn’t matter; he gave her his perfect crooked smile and stepped to the side, revealing a birthday cake with eighteen candles already lit.

Happy Day After was written on the top in Reese’s Pieces—only the orange and yellow ones. Reese lifted a hand to her mouth, touching her chapped lips and trying to breathe while simultaneously trying not to cry at the gesture. It wasn’t the cake itself—it was how well John seemed to know her.

“Happy day-after-your-birthday, Reese. How was your first full day of being eighteen?” John asked with as much cheer as he could muster, which at this time wasn’t a lot. Reese was used to this tired way of speech—her mother would speak the same way. Reese edged her way closer to the cake and John wrapped his arms around her from behind, feeling like he earned this affectionate moment.

Reese dropped her hands to rest on top of his and gave a squeeze. She was still too overcome with emotion to really express how much the cake meant to her—but John knew. He swayed them from side to side and leaned down to rest his chin on her shoulder.

“Make a wish,” he murmured.