Dreams of 18

But more than that, he’d be hurt and I can’t do that to him. I can’t hurt the only friend I’ve got.

So I’ve decided to leave.

We’ve graduated from school now and I’ll leave at the end of summer and go to a small college on the west coast. Brian is going to Columbia – his dream school. In fact, he’s leaving early to start his new campus job there and even though we’ll be apart, and I’ll once again be friendless, I couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves it for being such a hard worker.

But that’s like, a month away.

Right now, it’s a little before midnight. In only a few minutes, I’ll be eighteen and I’m sneaking out the window of my bedroom on the second floor. But instead of climbing up to the roof, I’m making my way down using the branches of the tree that’s been there for as long as I can remember.

My family went to sleep ages ago and like always, they’re not going to remember my special day. Hence, I’m making my own arrangements.

It started with a little piña colada, the stuff for which I stole from my parents’ liquor cabinet. I made myself one while listening to “The Piña Colada Song.” Just seemed appropriate for the occasion.

Now on tipsy legs, I make my way across the driveway and step into Mr. Edwards’s backyard. It’s all dark and silvery and is visible in outlines, except for one thing.

This little garden toward the back – a rose garden.

It’s laid out in a semi-circle at the far corner, adjacent to the wooden fence, and somehow the fat, buttery moon is directly up above it. I can see the roses, a mix of red and pink, their stems swaying slightly with the midnight-summer breeze.

As soon as I reach it, I kneel down on the ground. I’m in my shorts so the blades of dry grass tickle my bare knees and calves. Bending down carefully because, well, I am a little buzzed, I smell the nearest rose.

A rush goes through me as the scent hits my nostrils.

It slams the back of my mouth and fills up my lungs like smoke. Like a big drag of marijuana that makes you a little dizzy and lightheaded. A little euphoric. Brian insisted that I try it last year for the first time and we couldn’t get the grins off our faces for hours.

Smelling these roses is sort of like that.

It makes me smile stupidly. I rub the tip of my nose against the velvet petals, feeling mellow and happy.

It’s his garden, see.

Mr. Edwards’s.

He’s the one who grows these beautiful, fragile, colorful things. This is his passion project.

I’ve seen him kneel right where I’m kneeling. He bends the same way as me, curling his big, muscular body over these plants. He turns the soil, waters it, weeds out the dried leaves, the dying petals.

He takes care of them with his dusky and what I assume to be work-roughened hands. All in the darkness of the night, like he’s doing something bad and criminal and can’t bear for anyone to find out this little spot of softness in him.

It’s hard to believe that someone so rugged and so harsh like him likes to grow these pretty, soft flowers. So hard to reconcile this with his silent, athletic, beastly personality, but there you go.

The beast likes the beauty of the roses.

Once I’m done smelling them, I focus on the ones that appear to be on the verge of dying.

There are a few of them and reaching over, I pluck them all off. I have four dying roses, all red once upon a time but now yellowed and curled over the edges.

I can’t see them crumbling so I pick them off just when they are about to fall apart and put them in the pages of The Diary of a Shrinking Violet.

I bundle my roses together, careful of the thorns, and stand up. My legs are a little unsteady from the booze but I manage.

As soon as I turn around though, I almost come back down on my knees.

Because right in front of me, not even five feet away, is Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Edwards.

The man that I’ve just been thinking about. Although I’m always thinking about him, but still. He is here.

Here.

Like, right in front of me.

I blink.

Yup, still there.

How is that possible?

Am I dreaming?

I have to be.

He’s not supposed to be here. He’s not supposed to be home tonight.

“Should I be calling 911?”

His voice in the quiet of the night makes me flinch. It’s a reaction suitable for voices that you haven’t heard before.

It’s not true in this case, though.

I’ve heard Mr. Edwards talk before. Either with Brian or with a student at school, with neighbors. He doesn’t talk much. But he does offer occasional dry, sarcastic, sometimes cutting comebacks.