Anywhere But Here

Alyssa glanced at the collection of picture frames that were set up on the fireplace mantel of the Jonas’ house, smiling gently at an old picture of Joe when he was younger.

“I wish Joe would have warned me that we were having company,” Mrs. Jonas said quietly, walking up to where Alyssa was standing. She also smiled at the pictures, dusting off a family picture that seemed fairly recent. “I would have cleaned up.”

Alyssa looked at the spotless living room that she was standing in and smirked. “Your house is beautiful,” she sighed, pressing her fingertips into a notch of the stone fireplace.

“Well, thank you.” Mrs. Jonas said quietly, “but there’s always room for improvement, right?”

Alyssa glanced up from the pictures and met Mrs. Jonas’s eyes, nodding her head in agreement.

Joe was right. If it were possible, his mother probably didn’t have an organ in her body that wasn’t happy. Since the second Alyssa had walked into the room, she had had a wide smile on her face. When Joe introduced Alyssa, that smile had instantly grown.

She wasn’t used to that- she had grown so accustomed to people instantly lowering their eyes and shaking their head in disbelief at Alyssa. But for a change, it was nice to have someone not sympathizing over her.

Mrs. Jonas smiled and glanced back down at the photos, her eyes freezing on a school picture of a girl that Alyssa assumed to be at least two years younger than her. At first, Alyssa presumed the girl to be Joe’s younger sister, but she looked nothing like the rest of the family. Her bright blue eyes shined through the photo while her long, luminescent blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her bubbly smile made the corner of Mrs. Jonas’ mouth twitch before she cleared her throat.

“Joe should be down in a few minutes,” She informed Alyssa, straightening a stack of magazines that were piled on the coffee table behind Alyssa. “I told him to make sure he cleaned a little bit upstairs. The game room is where the boys usually hang out, so it’s obviously a mess.”

Although Alyssa doubted this, she laughed quietly and nodded her head, finding her way over to the sofa that was set perpendicular to the fireplace. Mrs. Jonas went to go check on something in the kitchen, and almost as soon as she left, a younger looking boy, who Alyssa hadn’t seen before, entered the room. His eyes were glued to his Nintendo DS as his fingers feverously tapped one of the round buttons over and over again. At first, the boy didn’t notice Alyssa, but when she cleared her throat, his eyes instantly shot up to hers.

He gave her a questioning glance and looked back down at the device quickly, pressing a button and pausing his game.

“Are you Nick’s friend?” The boy asked, snapping the top of the Nintendo shut and throwing it on the couch next to him. Alyssa watched as the player bounced off of the cushion and fell to the wood floor with a thud.

“Joe’s.” She said casually, watching as they boy’s eyes widened slightly. He gave her a look, as if he was trying to figure out if she was joking or not.

“Joe hasn’t brought a girl home since…” The boy trailed off, his eyes widening as his facial expression suddenly turned guilty, as if he had said too much. “Nick is usually the one that brings home girlfriends.”

He restated, glancing at the Nintendo that was on the ground. He lazily picked it up and dropped it in his lap.

Alyssa’s cheeks flushed. Not only because of the confusion in the first thing that he said, but the misconception in the second. Even if this boy was very young, she still felt intimidated by him.

“I’m not Joe’s girlfriend.” Alyssa answered, smiling politely. The boy shrugged his shoulders in disbelief and apathy. He dropped the subject completely and stood up from the couch, making his way over to the stairs that led up to the second floor.

“My name’s Frankie, by the way.” He said, waving the hand that was holding his game player toward Alyssa. She wasn’t given time to reply back, for Frankie had already climbed halfway up the stairs.

Alyssa listened to the silence and suddenly began to hear things as if all sounds were magnified. Mrs. Jonas hummed quietly in the kitchen, the acoustic walls making the sound bounce back to Alyssa’s ears. She swore she heard Frankie’s game’s theme music whining in this distance, along with the sound of an acoustic guitar being tuned. The crashing around from upstairs was probably Joe attempting to clean up the perfectly clean house. She heard the waves crashing against the shore in the Jonas’ backyard, since the windows were open. Wind buzzed through the screen door behind Alyssa. Sirens, loud and screeching sirens, suddenly blared through Alyssa’s ears.

“Alyssa?” She jumped at the sound of her name and instantly stood up from the couch, glancing up at Joe, who was standing at the foot of the stairs, with a startled expression. He smiled encouragingly and nodded behind him. “Do you want to see something?”

“Sure,” Alyssa’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat again as they slowly made their way up to the second story. Like Alyssa had assumed, that part of the house was nearly spotless as well. The white carpet had no stain, the walls looked freshly painted, and the smell of ocean salt and laundry detergent wafted through the hallways.

“Those sirens seemed pretty close, don’t you think?” Alyssa asked quietly, listening to the sound of her voice bouncing off the high ceilings. “Like they were right outside or something.”

Joe paused in the doorway of what Alyssa assumed to be the game room and gave her a questioning look.

“I guess I didn’t hear them,” He brushed the question off easily and continued to make his way into the room. Alyssa, who was following slowly behind him, scrunched her face together in confusion as she glanced out a window. Nothing close to resembling an ambulance was visible. But she swore she had heard something….

Joe didn’t seem worried at all as he maneuvered his way in front of the window, waiting until Alyssa had joined the empty space next to him before speaking.

“I love the view from this window,” He murmured, studying Alyssa from his peripheral vision. He watched as she tucked a loose strand of her short, brown hair behind her ears. A painful expression seemed to be playing openly across her face.

Joe wanted to know what Alyssa made her the way she was now. Although Alyssa didn’t know it, Joe knew about the painful topic of losing a loved one tragically. She probably just wanted someone to talk to; after all, that’s all Joe had ever wanted at first. He wanted to be that person for Alyssa. But he didn’t know how he could ever muster up the courage to ask her if she needed such a favor.

“It’s beautiful,” He heard Alyssa mumbled faintly before crossing her arms uncomfortably across her chest.

He nodded his head in agreement and said no more. The two teens continued to stare out the window while Joe repeated one word, over and over again, in his head. Beautiful.



Alyssa stared down at her dinner silently, listening contently to the small talk that went on around her.

Joe, who had suddenly acted softly toward Alyssa, sensed her discomfort. She felt his eyes linger across her figure, which was hunched over the table avoiding eye contact.

Alyssa wasn’t sure what had changed Joe’s attitude about things suddenly. To Alyssa, he was the attractive, wise-cracking, neighbor that she had only known for a couple of days. Now, he seemed almost shy toward her, like he wasn’t telling her something.

Dinner went by painfully slow. It wasn’t the Jonas’ that made the night prolonged, though. It was Alyssa’s own discomfort.

She wasn’t sure why she agonizingly longed for what the Jonas’ had- a functional family. Something that now, Alyssa only remembered in a distant memory. She wasn’t sure why Joe had suddenly started acting like everything other person in her life- quiet and unsure of what to say to her. Her mother was dead, and Alyssa knew that. Treating her like a different person wouldn’t change that.

Through all of this, one thing stuck out distinctly in her mind from that night as Joe walked with her across the desolate and dark street that separated their two properties. And that was what Frankie had said- or more specifically, what Frankie had not said.

The words rang through Alyssa‘s head. “Joe hasn’t brought a girl home since…”

“Joe.” Alyssa said suddenly, pausing at the end of Greg and Lisa’s driveway. Joe, who was in the middle of passing one of his hands through his long hair, paused slightly and glanced at Alyssa.

A fake, playful, smile was forced across his lips. “Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?” She asked weakly, glancing behind her in slight paranoia. With the busy afternoon, Richard hadn’t even passed through Alyssa’s mind. But now, standing out in the open, she was suddenly reminded of his unknown presence.
“Depends on what the question is.” Joe said simply, crossing his arms over his loose v-neck that was swaying around his body in the slight breeze.

Alyssa would be crazy to say that Joe wasn’t attractive. He had that clean cut look about him-a trait in a boy that Alyssa usually fell for back home. His body was fit, he cared about his health, his relationship with his family was strong.

Alyssa shook her head, attempting to get her focus back onto what she was going to ask, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t rally the courage to ask Joe such a personal question yet.

Her stomach rolled around nervously as she swallowed. Her throat was so dry.
“Never mind,” She said quietly, glancing back at her new home. The light of Greg’s office streamed through the half-shut blinds. Greg was probably up working on his book again-he had been up almost all night last night.

“You sure?” Joe asked, pulling Alyssa’s attention back onto him. “I was only kidding. I’ll answer any questions that you have.”

Alyssa shook her head. “It’s not really relevant. I’ll see you around, okay? Thanks for walking me home. I should probably get inside though, my dad might be worried, or something.”

Joe glanced up at the dark house and smirked slightly. “I’ll bet he is.” He mumbled sarcastically.

Alyssa ignored his comment and began to turn around, watching as she walked
with one foot in front of the other. Joe continued to stand where he was.

“You stopping by tomorrow?” He shouted from the end of the driveway. Alyssa turned around from the bottom step of the porch and gave Joe a confused glance. “The party we‘re having, it’s tomorrow.”

Without saying a word, Alyssa nodded her head yes and turned around before slamming the front door of her dad’s house.

Joe bit down on his lower lip, studying the area where Alyssa had just been standing.

As he slowly turned around from the place where he was standing and began making his way toward his own house, he thought he felt something ever-so-slightly brush past him. It was as if the object were only centimeters away from where he was standing.

A feeling of horror fell into the pit of his stomach as he thought back to the man who had followed Alyssa back to her house. Was he back? What did he want anyways? Joe would never know.

Alyssa stumbled clumsily past her father’s office, and sure enough, he was sitting at his desk. His cup of coffee was gripped in his right hand while his eyes scanned quickly across the laptop’s screen that was in front of him. His eyes only left the screen when he heard the floorboards of the wooden floor squeak.

“There you are,” Greg said coolly, giving his daughter an encouraging smile. Alyssa was shocked that her father wasn’t upset that she had left all day without even leaving a note. Instead, he seemed pleased to see her. “Did you have fun today? If you want, you could hang out with me in here for a while. I wasn’t planning on going to bed any time soon.”

Greg’s eagerness made Alyssa’s stomach churn uneasily. Even though she should have at least given half the attempt that her father was giving, she didn’t have the energy. She had too much on her mind. So much that reading her own father’s inspirational novel couldn’t help her.

“I should actually probably get to bed. I’ve had a long night.” Alyssa murmured, leaving the doorway of her father’s office without saying another word.

She slowly made her way up the stairs, walking past Greg and Lisa’s bedroom, the study, and finally, the bathroom. She pushed in her bedroom door and almost instantly fell onto her bed, staring up at the bare ceiling.

If Alyssa would have known about that summer, the summer that she spent at her father’s lake house in the middle of nowhere, maybe she would have handled things differently. Maybe she would have built a relationship with her father right from the beginning, or she would have asked Joe about the girl’s photo that was on his family’s mantle-piece, or taken her paranoid signs more seriously.

Because maybe her father knew something that the rest of this town didn’t. Maybe Joe would have some sort of advice to give Alyssa. Maybe, what she thought was paranoia, was evidence. Evidence that had been laying in front of her, the entire time.