Me, You

All the colors of his face drained.

His knuckles were a pale white, matching his face, as his grip on the door handle tightened. Mouth slightly agape, he tried hiding the fear that pounded against his chest. But, his green eyes filled with terror gave it away. He was probably saying his prayers again. ‘Merely at the age of eighteen, fresh out of high school, he had so many goals for himself. Goals that would never be reached if everything ended right now-’

"Lou, hit the damn break!" John screeched.

I stomped onto the brake pedal, our bodies lunging forward in his white Ford pickup truck and hitting the dusty dashboard.

Frantically, I shut the engine off. With all the hate I could muster up, I shot him a look and said, "You scared the hell out of me."

"I could say the same thing about you." He squeaked, still pale from the scare, "We could've just died-"

"Shut up, you know that's not true." I sneered, "You wouldn't have let me driven your 'precious baby' if you knew I was going to crash into things."

"Well, obviously I overestimated you when you said that you've had some driving experience." He grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching into the passenger seat, "I mean, who only has a permit at eighteen, Lou?!"

"Me obviously." I said as I unbuckled the seatbelt, "Come on, out of the passenger seat. You're driving us back."

John slid out of the truck and to the driver's side as I scrambled to the passenger. Turning the engine back on, he said, "Driving lessons will resume whenever the fuck I can trust you with this thing."

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, John backed up into the O'Callaghan driveway, "Oh please, you freaked yourself out. We were barely even out of your neighborhood before you pissed your pants. I was doing perfectly fine before."

"Right, right. Hitting the trash can is perfectly fine."

"I didn't hit it that hard."

"Yeah, say that again when it's Ross or Shane behind the car."

Staring at him long and hard, "I would never let that happen to them. Why the f-"

"Louise Mae Collins, I hope the next word you were about to say was 'fantastic.'" Two older women walked out of the house. Lou’s mom, Miss Collins, raised an eyebrow at us as she brought her wine glass up to her lips.

John snorted and ruffled my hair, "That's right, Louise Mae. It's not ladylike to curse." To the two mothers, he said, "Kids these days, I don't know where they get it from."

"Maybe from you?" Mrs. O'Callaghan shook her head and laughed.

"Jenny, your son is a terrible influence on my daughter, I must say." Miss Collins gave her a wicked smile, "This girl was singing on the top of her lungs to Sia in the middle of the night. I didn't even know kids these days knew what Sia was. I remember listening to them in our high school days."

Mrs. O'Callaghan bumped hips with her, "It's your daughter that's the bad influence. John's never let anyone touch that car of his. Lou snaked into his mind."

"I guess we did a service to society by keeping these two together since diapers. Or else they may have destroyed someone else's children."

"We did a damn good job, Caroline." Mrs. O'Callaghan beamed.

This time, I rolled my eyes at John while he sighed exasperatedly, "We get it; we are poisonous human beings and dangers to society. Now, will you excuse us, Lou and I will be-"

"Haha funny, young man. Before you tell me you two are going down Zia Records to spend the nonexistent money that's burning a hole in your pockets, we need you two to clean up the kitchen," Mrs. O'Callaghan pours the rest of the contents of the wine glass into the lawn. To my mom, she said, "Damn, that wine tasted like watered down grape juice. Wanna raid Jay's wine cooler?"

My mom let a rare smile curled up on her face, "Let's do it-"

"Mom," I pleaded.

"Do it or else you guys can't go to Zia."

John nudged my arm, "You know, we're sitting in the truck right now. We're the ones with the car keys and-"

"But, you two are also the ones without the gas money." Mrs. O'Callaghan called out, already walking back towards the house.

Moping into the O’Callaghan home, John groaned at the sight. Dishes from the Collins-O’Callaghan barbeque piled high in the sink. He grumbled about how long it’d take them to finish it.

"This is so unfair.” He mumbled as he lathered the plates in soap.

I took the plate and dried it, “We have to get money somehow. They know we’re both broke as fuck.”

He chuckled, “Our mothers are sly monsters.”

I smiled at him.

This was John. The boy I scraped knees with as preschoolers, the one that threw worms at me in grade school, got our first kiss over with under the middle school monkey bars and the one that destroyed my graduation dress, caking it with icing.

‘Dad’ didn’t stick around to give me any siblings or life advice from the male perspective. To my knowledge, he didn't even stick around to meet me at all. He wasn’t here to teach me how to ride a bike, play board games, interrogate my boyfriends or teach me how to drive. But John was. He did all of this for me because he was always more knowledgeable, being raised by two parents. Early on in life, he took upon himself the role of the male figure in the Collins household, an older brother. John O’Callaghan may have always been the troublemaker. But, he had always been the best friend.

Having mothers that grew up together, it was not surprising that we were glued to the hip for the past eighteen years. From being bathed in the same tub as toddlers to sneaking out past curfew to go to parties together. It had always been Lou and John. John and Lou. And no one else.

So maybe, being bribed with gas money by our moms wasn’t too bad, because we were bribed together.

An eleven year old Shane walked into the kitchen with a baseball and a mitt, “At least Ross and I actually picked up the plates.”

A mischievous smile spread across John’s face and immediately, I knew what he was up to.

Before Shane left, John called out his name, “Wanna do the dishes for us and get ten bucks?”

“Neither of you guys have ten bucks,” He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah but Caroline’s probably going to give us money for Zia and we could get you a Semisonic vinyl.” John negotiated.

Shane’s eyes narrowed at him, “Make it two.”

“No way-”

“John,” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, fine.” With an exasperated sigh and more than uncomfortable handshake, Shane went to work on the dishes. After cautiously watching the eleven year old for a few minutes, we ran out onto the patio where John’s parents and my mom sat, drinking wine and chatting.

“We finished washing all of the dishes,” said John.

“All of them?” Mrs. O’Callaghan raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, can we-”

“Here,” Miss Collins hands him a fifty dollar bill, “I expect you to buy my girl ice cream or whatever that monster wants to eat after you guys waste the money at Zia.”

“Yes, ma’am.” John nodded and saluted his godmother.

“Be back by eleven.” Mrs. O’Callaghan added.

“Thanks, Jenny!” I shouted as John pulled me to the truck.


The bustle of Waffle House was comforting as we slid into a booth, arms full of the treasures from the record store.

John scanned the dessert section of the menu, “Do you want to head to Mia’s party after this? I heard there’s going to be a keg.”

I made a face. Mia was John’s on and off girlfriend since the tenth grade. There was nothing wrong with her, being my decent friend and longtime science partner. But, it was John and Mia that could never get along, yet, could never be apart either. Right now, they were currently off and she was dating a college guy from ASU.

“I’m not feeling it tonight.”

“Oh please, Lou. We’ve skipped out on like three parties this week. What do you expect us to do the entire summer?”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“Have an adventure.” He grinned, “I want to do a lot of dumb shit.”

“You already do a lot of dumb shit.”

“Lou, hear me out.” John set the menu down and his green eyes flickered up to me, “It’s our last summer as ‘kids’ and I don’t want to let it go to waste. I mean. We won’t be together anymore. You’ll be like 3,000 miles away in Boston and I’m just going to be here.”

“John, you can’t expect us to stay together forever,” I said, looking at the dessert portion of the menu. Chocolate pie sounded really good right now, “Plus, we’ve done everything together since summer started and we still have a good two months. Don’t worry about it.”

“Lou,” He said quietly, staring at me intensely, “I don’t want to look back on this summer and regret not making this great for you.”

“We’ve had a lot of great summers together.”

“Oh, yeah? Name one memorable summer.”

“Summer of 2000.”

John wrinkled his nose, “The summer we were stuck at home with poison ivy? Really? That wasn’t fun at all.”

“You didn’t ask about the most fun summer, you asked about the most memorable summer.”

He slouched in the booth and rolled his eyes, “Do you remember that one summer our parents took us on the road trip to Portland? When we were like fifteen?”

“Yeah, we got poison ivy that summer too.”

“Lou,” John groaned into his hands.

“Okay, okay, I’m listening now.”

“That was the year our parents couldn’t dictate over what we did because we were finally teenagers, well into high school. We did so many things. Cliff diving, swimming in the ocean at midnight, smoking our first cigarette.” John licked his lips, collecting his thoughts, “I want this summer to be like that. We’re eighteen, we definitely don’t live under our parents’ rules now- Excuse me,” He waved down a waitress, “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

The lady handed John a pen and he grabbed a napkin.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a list.” In his loopy handwriting, on the top of the napkin, he wrote,

‘Lou and John’s Summer 2006 Bucket List.’

John raised an eyebrow and I sighed, “Fine. What should we put?”

He looked down at the napkin and wrote,

1. Go skinny dipping.

My face felt hot as I hissed, “Pervert.”

“What?! It’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked.”

I wrinkled my nose, “That was when we were like five, fuck off.”

With a smirk, John fixed it,

1. Go skinny dipping... at night.

Rolling my eyes, I snatched the pen and napkin from him, writing underneath,

2. Sneak into a concert.

Handing the pen back to John, he added,

3. Light a blunt together.

“No way, not happening.” I choked out, “I’ll smoke a cigarette, but I won’t get high with you.”

“You’ll have to try eventually,” He shrugged.

Taking the pen back, I added onto the list,

4. Go hiking, drunk.

And just like that, we spent the entire night in the bustling Waffle House, compiling the perfect list of crazy goals we needed to accomplish before the summer ended. Some were simple like number 13, Go to a drive-in movie theatre or number 20, Ride in a hot air balloon. But, others took a lot of convincing, mostly on John’s end, such as number 32, Get a tattoo or number 27, Crash a wedding.

But, the one that the most hesitant for John to write and me to read was maybe the most impossible one on the list. Number 89:

Meet Lou’s real dad.