As soon as I could travel, I packed my things and headed back to Alabama. My father still refused to allow me in his house, but I wasn’t planning on staying with them. Nash Lee’s parents had said I could move in with him in his apartment over their garage. Keeping in contact with Nash and Ryker had been my only interaction with life outside my abuela’s and had kept me sane.
Ryker wasn’t doing great. He was seeing a psychologist, and according to Nash, he had decided against taking any football scholarships offered to him. He said that his main priority was Aurora and being near her. Plans hadn’t been made for either of them, and their parents weren’t forcing it.
I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. I was hungry and didn’t want to arrive at Nash’s starved. His parents were letting me stay there, but I didn’t expect them to feed me. My abuela had given me some money for travel. I’d been stingy with it, and I had plenty left until I could get a job. Opening my truck door, I started to step out when I noticed a lady leaving the store with a mask on her face. I was still adjusting to mask life during the pandemic. I forgot it often and would have to go back to my truck to get it before going inside anywhere. I reached for one of the black cotton masks my abuela had made me and put it on covering my mouth and nose, then headed for the store. I could live off ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches. My list of needs was low.
As I headed inside, the familiarity was odd. I knew this place. I’d been in here a million times, but seeing it like this with everyone’s face coverings, stickers on the floor that directed the flow of traffic, and large plastic dividers keeping the workers safely away from the customers was all very apocalyptic-feeling. Even my hometown was living this weird alternate life that Covid-19 had forced upon the world. No one was safe.
Laughter seemed so out of place at the moment, it caught my attention. I turned to look toward the sound that I will admit was so pleasant, it made my shoulders ease and life not seem so gloomy.
Even with her pink cheetah-print mask on, I would have recognized her. I was positive for the rest of my life I would recognize Ezmita Ramos. I had thought of her a few times during the insanity that life had become and wondered how she was doing. Had she gotten to go off to college? Did her parents lock her up for the rest of her life? Other than the fact she, along with the rest of the world, was quarantined.
Her long hair seemed even longer, and the way the cutoff shorts she was wearing managed to showcase her legs, butt, and waist all at the same time was distracting as hell. I took in her outfit and the easy way her body seemed to… lean in toward a guy that I hadn’t noticed was standing there. She was hard to look away from, to notice much else. The guy I recognized. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him. And so did Ezmita, it would appear.
The last time I saw her, she’d been locked away from the world and in trouble for running off without permission and arriving home in a guy’s truck. I hadn’t had a chance to see her after that. Hunter’s murder and funeral, combined with my father’s desire to make me pay for my beating his ass, had been a bit much. Thoughts of pretty girls had been on the back burner. Even the pretty girl who had been witness to my weakest moment.
Why was Brett Fucking Darby still in Lawton? Why hadn’t he left for UCLA on that stupid tennis scholarship he had anyway? Probably the same reason I hadn’t left for Ole Miss. Covid-19, the pandemic that had changed our lives. Hell, we hadn’t even gotten a real high school graduation. We had all finished the year virtually. Everyone else had done so from their homes in Lawton. I had finished in New Mexico because I no longer had a home in Lawton.
So how had Ezmita met Brett and when? It seemed hard to hook up during a pandemic. Why the fuck did I care? I realized I’d stood here entirely too long worrying over Ezmita’s personal life. I walked down the first aisle that had a green arrow and followed it. Glancing around, I didn’t see any of the very limited items I needed. I did, however, find coffee and cereal. I decided the off-brand Cocoa Puffs would be a good food source too and grabbed a box.