Sometimes, I wake up at night gasping for air, cold sweating, settling slowly into reality. Thanking God it was nothing but a dream. At least I hope it was a dream.
If you are here to find a love story ―girl meets girl, they fall in love, live happily ever after― you must stop reading. I will disappoint you. This is not the story of how I met the love of my life. This is the story of how I lost it.
First things first; my name is Riley Brenan. Yes, my parents thought it was cute to give their first born daughter a boy’s name. It could’ve been worse; they could’ve named me Tyler, like my mother wanted, or Bryan like my dad wanted. Eventually, my uncle, my dad’s brother, told him to name me Riley as a nice unisex commitment so it could’ve been worse. Little did he know that Riley means ‘wood cleaner’. Although… someone told me once it also means valiant.
I was born in Lenberg, Oregon. Population, fifty thousand. I always liked the weather, especially when it rains and it rains a lot. I love the gray sky, the humidity in the air, the smell of wet grass. Running through the streets hoping to find a place where you can take refuge from the downpour. And that is how this story begins.
It was Tuesday. I remember because my mom had to pick up the laundry that day. She needed the dark green Dolce & Gabbana coat that had to be dry-cleaned so it wouldn’t get ruined for a business meeting, and she couldn’t find a babysitter for me, so I had to go with her. This was back when she still worked, so I was about was ten. We got out of the car and I held my mom’s hand as I always did as we walked into the dry-cleaner. While my mom picked up her coat, it started raining. I pulled my mom’s dress to call her attention, but she wouldn’t look at me. She was making sure her coat looked perfect and I, like any other kid, I didn’t like to be ignored.
“Mommy!” I yelled, pulling harder “Mommy, it’s raining!”
Without lying eyes on me, she replied: “Yes, baby, I know.” And paid for her coat. As we turned around she looked out the store’s glass door to say “Oh, God. It’s pouring rain and I forgot the umbrella.”
I frowned. I opened my mouth to point out I had just said that but then I closed it. I pursed my lips and looked away. That was as close as I got to a tantrum. I was never a difficult kid. If I didn’t like something, I wouldn’t yell and cry, I’d become quiet and still instead.
Now, this is when destiny came in, I guess. If my mother hadn’t forgotten the umbrella we would’ve left, she would’ve taken me home and by that time, dad would’ve been there, so she could go to her meeting leaving me with him. We would’ve played video games and made dinner, and nothing would’ve happened.
But she forgot the umbrella; that’s what matters.
I saw them, running towards the dry-cleaner. Her mother was covering her head with her purse and the girl beside her covered her own head with a coloring book. They ran inside holding hands, closed the door behind them and took a few minutes to breathe and shake the water off of them. They weren’t soaked, but a little water in that cold could send you to bed for a week. Her mother, a tall, blond woman on her mid-thirties apologized to the rep. The girl waved her off and offered them a towel. I know she did it because of the little girl, who had to be around my age.
They dried themselves up and waited with us for the rain to stop.
“It’s horrible out there.” The blond woman commented.
“And only minutes ago the sun was shining,” My mom said.
“Yeah. I can’t get used to this weather.”
“You’re not from around here?” The woman shook her head “Where are you guys from?”
“Denver,” the woman replied.
And like that, they started a conversation. While they talked up a storm, literally, I stared at the girl who sat by one of the chairs in the corner and looked at the rain. I still remember. She was beautiful.
Her eyes were green, like fresh grass. Her hair was so long and so dark I was convinced it would disappear in the night. I remember her so well because I thought it was weird that after running from the rain, the first thing she would do would be to sit down, open her coloring book and start coloring. I didn’t speak to her that day, I just watched her swirl the colors around filling up the white spaces.
I turned to look at my mom in time to hear the blond woman say “Barbara Burton, nice to meet you.”
“Erika Brenan, it’s a pleasure.”
Turns out Mrs. Burton had just moved to Lenberg with her family about three weeks before the dry-cleaner incident. They had to move because Mr. Burton had a job offer he couldn’t say no to. Mr. Burton was an architect, Mrs. Burton was a school teacher. They also moved because they wanted to raise their kid in a quiet little place, close to the beach. Although Lenberg was two hours away from the beach, it was a beautiful place to live in, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and if they don’t know you, they know someone who does.
That day, my mom got a date for me. Of course, it wasn’t for me. Mr. and Mrs. Burton lived only a mile away from us, so they decided we should be friends and play, without even realizing that Mrs. Burton’s daughter and I hadn’t even spoken.
It stopped raining fifteen minutes later and my mother said goodbye and asked me to say goodbye, too.
She made it to her meeting.
I saw the Burton girl at school on Wednesday. Yes, she went to my school, I just hadn’t noticed before. We didn’t speak either. I was quiet, and she was loud and friendly. We didn’t really match. If that playdate would’ve never been arranged, chances are the Burton girl and I would’ve never become friends.
I talked to her for the first time on Friday, on the playdate. I really didn’t want to go, I was afraid she would be some silly, pink obsessed girl that would force me to play with Barbies. She wasn’t. As soon as her mother took me to her bedroom I saw no Barbies. She had a pile of coloring books on top of her desk, a basket behind her door and a basketball on the floor, close to her bed, five different action figures of Batman, a Batmobile, and most important of all… a PlayStation. I was one of those kids who never got a gaming console themselves, but who had a bunch of friends who did have one. She asked if I wanted to play Crash Bandicoot with her. How could I refuse?
She was stuck on one of the bosses at the end of one of the levels and didn’t know how to beat him. Luckily for her, I had already kicked the guy’s ass on Scott’s PS. I showed her what she was supposed to do to get him.
Our mothers drank tea, ate cookies and talked for hours while the girl and I played Crash Bandicoot 2. I said I could finish the third world of the second level faster than she could. She said the same.
Funny, I don’t remember who was right. I don’t think it matters.
At around eight, my mother and Mrs. Burton walked into the girl’s room saying it was getting late and we had to go home. I stood up and when I was about to say goodbye, the girl hugged me, like she had always known me, like we were old friends. She said we should play together again because I had to teach her how to beat the final boss. I promised I would.
And that was it. That’s how I met Faye Burton.
Over the next few years, Faye and I became the best of friends. If I wasn’t at my place, I was at hers, and if I wasn’t at her place, we were out with a bunch of our friends getting ourselves in trouble, because oh, yes, we had our trouble-making years. My dad called us The Wonder Twins. Her dad called us Batman and Robin. He never specified who was Batman and we would fight about it because I said I was Batman, while she said she was.
Our teenage years were the best years of my life. Faye got into the punk style. She listened to Buzzcocks, Ramones, Sex Pistols and The Offspring. Me, on the other hand, I got into the alternative rock thing; Evanescence, Seether, Nine Inch Nails, Three Days Grace, even some Avenged Sevenfold.
She wore skinny jeans, jean jackets and band t-shirts with the sleeves folded up to her shoulders. She dyed her hair purple and shaved the left side of her head, two inches up the ear. I never understood that. She shaved it only to cover it with the rest of her hair but hey, who was I to judge? I’m a brunette who dyed her hair black, used way too much eyeliner and painted her nails black because I thought I looked cool and mysterious.
The thing with subcultures and trying too hard to fit in while you’re a teen is that you either grow out of it, or you become a rock star, and we didn’t become rockstars. So over time we left the excessive makeup, the excessive amount of piercings, and even though our taste in music and some other things didn’t change, eventually we stopped trying too hard.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let’s not go there yet. Let’s take a walk through the years of our ‘trying too hard’.
I was sixteen, so was Faye, and she had gotten inside her stubborn little head that she wanted a piercing. A lip piercing. Why? Same reason we did everything back then; it looked cool. I still think it looks good, but at this point in my life, I don’t feel like sitting on a chair to get a needle through the corner of my lower lip to look cool. Sorry, not brave enough.
But Faye, she was brave enough. She had even thought about the color of the jewelry she’d use. Purple, to match her hair. I thought it was a great idea.
We walked into the tattoo store being sixteen pretending to be eighteen while everyone knew we were really sixteen.
The green haired girl, who looked around twenty six, sitting behind the desk stood up and asked “Hey, guys. What are you up to?”
I looked at Faye and let her do the talking. She looked at the green haired girl and said “Hey, I wanna get a piercing.”
“You do?” she said raising one brow. She knew, and everything we kept doing was pretending.
“Yeah, on my lip, right here.” She pointed at the right corner of her lower lip.
The girl smiled and replied, “Look, kid, we don’t do minors.”
“I’m not a minor.” Faye rushed to say.
“Yeah, you are. You’re what? Thirteen?”
“Sixteen!” Faye exclaimed realizing she had just fallen for the oldest trick in the book. She pressed her hand against her mouth feeling stupid. Then, feeling angry. “Oh, come on! Pretty please. I got the money and everything.”
The green haired girl twisted her lips sideways considering it. We’re a small town, and even though most people here are tolerant and open-minded, small towns tend to have this gossipy atmosphere. She was afraid they would get caught. We got it, but we weren’t going to talk.
“Fine. Flip the sign over for me, will ya?”
I grabbed the sign on the front door and flipped it to Close. After the girl placed everything she needed on the glass table, she told Faye to take a sit on the large chair next to it. As soon as she sat down, I saw the panic in Faye’s eyes and I laughed.
“You’re such a coward!” I said.
“Shut up! I have the balls to do this. You don’t.”
“Please. I’m not doing it because I don’t want to, not because I’m scared.” Of course I was scared. I was even scared for her. I mean, it could get infected, right? Or swollen, or… who knows. I wasn’t a doctor, and no, I didn’t grow up to be one.
“You ready?” The green haired girl asked. Faye took a deep breath and nodded. The girl handed Faye a hand mirror and held her lower right lip with a pair of tweezers. “Here?”
Faye brought up the mirror and said, “Yeah, that’s it,” as well as she could with the tweezers on her lip.
The girl sprayed Faye’s lip with something, probably some kind of anesthetic. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
“Relax or it’ll hurt more, okay?”
Faye nodded and reached out to grab my hand for support “Don’t worry, baby.” I said, “It’ll all be over soon and you’ll―”
I didn’t get to finish what I was saying. I felt Faye’s grip tighten. She closed her eyes shut and breathed in deeply, but she didn’t yell. She remained calm and quiet as the needle went through her skin and flesh. Then her eyes opened to see the green haired girl put the jewelry on her lips, then removed the needle and that was it.
“You’re done.”
Faye lifted the mirror and when she saw it, she was about to cry; part pain, part happiness. “Oh, God! It’s great! Look at that!”
When Faye got home, she was grounded for two weeks, but her parents didn’t force her to take off the lip ring.
Why am I telling you this story? Because it triggered the events that followed.
Since Faye was grounded for two weeks, I couldn’t go to her place without Mrs. Burton saying “Sorry, Riley. She’s grounded.” So I was forced to go to a friend’s party I didn’t want to go to. If Faye wouldn’t have gotten grounded, we would’ve spent that Saturday home, watching movies, listening to music and criticizing each other’s favorite movie.
Instead, I went to that party and met Rosie Carroll.
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