I mulled those thoughts over for a while.
“You don’t sound like you’re from around here.” I picked up another crate and moving around her while she watched me work under scrutinizing stares.
“I told you I just moved.” That smart mouth of hers would be the death of me and I barely even knew her. Her hips swayed back and forth while her brow creased and her stance registered a bit more belligerent than before. I wondered if she might want to join my friends and I in some lake swimming this weekend.
“Nah, like not American I meant.”
David poked his head around the corner to give me a puzzled frown and I shrugged reaching for another crate.
“I’m Greek,” she said and I heard the stubborn streak within her a mile wide. I was a bit in love with her. I knew it was ridiculous and David would ream me out, but her caramel candy-colored eyes and wild hair sucked me down a sticky sweet path and I suddenly wanted to know everything about her.
“Like the restaurant down the street?” I’d never seen her before today, but I swore she blanched when I mentioned it and takes a huge step back.
She shook her head.
“No, I live with my grandparents. I have to go.” She panicked stepping from side to side. She looked like a caged animal and I didn’t understand what I had said to make her so wary. She left me there jogging out the door in her stupid shorts that made me want to tackle her to the ground to cover her up in some protective fashion. She confused me and sparked a curiosity.
Dad joined me in the hallway squeezing my shoulder. “That one right there is trouble, mark my words.” He walked outside to talk to a man who I presumed was her grandfather at an old truck in the back lot.
“Hey, moon eyes, you gonna bring me another box?” David yelled and I turned around to glance at my brother smirking.
“I’m coming.”
“Yeah, you uh might want to finish that elsewhere.” He nodded his head in my direction and I looked down awkwardly, hard in my pants. I didn’t even know it happened looking at Sierra in her short shorts and snarky attitude. I was embarrassed shifting my stance around to cover it up.
“Shut up!” Stalking off, I head for the bathroom ducking out of the way so my dad doesn’t see me slacking off. I hid in the bathroom, but there’s only one stall and it’s currently occupied by the suit that had been sitting at the bar. Damn.
I accidentally walked in on David rubbing one out last summer so I figured we’re even on the bleaching eyes.
The man from the bar groaned and I could tell he’d be awhile so I run the cold water from the tap and stick my hands under it hoping the temperature change calmed my dick down. I hoped that’s not why Sierra ran away, but I guess I’ll never know.
5
Sierra
Bad Dreams and Beautiful Boys
He’s so beautiful it hurts. From the bones under my skin to the charging beat of my heart, that boy was something else. My grandmother would probably wax poetic about him, but as beautiful as he was, there’s always a dark side. Boys. Men. All of them predators of some sort and I wanted nothing to do with them. I had enough on my plate if I was ever going to get to school someday. My parents sent me to live with my aunt and uncle who ran Mykonos the Greek restaurant in town. When Andy mentioned it, my stomach did a somersault and I had to get out of there or vomit on the spot. I’d curl up and die if he ever learned what went on behind those walls. Dirty things girls like me shouldn’t know about.
None of that mattered now because I’m out of there. I only came into town with Gramps because we were picking up the Guardianship papers they filed and dropping off a shipment of wine to a local pub. I was supposed to stay in the truck, but I couldn’t help myself and then I saw him hauling crates of wine from the back of the truck. It was a hot day and I couldn’t bear to stay inside the truck waiting, squinting my eyes from the sun glare. In some ways, he was like the sun and I leaned closer his way with every burning ray. I was Icarus flying dangerously close. Curiosity got the better of me and like melting wax wings, I followed behind him until he turned and noticed me. I couldn’t run off without making a scene so I let it play out and with it my fears about the male gender under his direct gaze.
If I had another nightmare tonight, my Nona might think about sending me back to Greece or worse and I didn’t want that.
Something had been stolen from me under the cover of night, I believed in nothing, saw no goodness in kindness and let cynicism wrap her talons around my heart. Her nails were deep anchors that held me steadfast and bitter clinging to the pain. As long as I felt pain, I wasn’t numb and I knew I was still alive.
I didn’t have to tell anyone something was wrong. My grandmother just knew and in her wise wisdom she took me right out from the back of the restaurant where I had been washing dishes from sun up to sun down before the night terrors found me at the end of each day. She had words for her son shaming him and his wife for neglecting me. It seemed to be the end of the discussion. I would come to live with them and nobody needed to get involved. Those papers would make it official and I need never tell anyone what happened there.
We would never speak of it again and all would be forgotten.
It was in a way, a breath of fresh air, but unsettling at the same time. I wasn’t confined to the restaurant’s kitchen slaving away, but I wasn’t free to go to school just yet either. Nona worried about my cousins bullying me and I tended to agree. My English was good, passable even, but her anxiety set the rules. Greek had been forbidden in her efforts to acclimate me though I often heard my grandparents speaking it under the cover of dark and my mouth would silently form the words pretending.
I was okay with this. I needed to find my own way and maybe time would help. I only wish someone had told my brain that message because whenever I closed my eyes I simply could not forget.
The nights in my small bedroom decorated in pale pink were restless. The clammy sweat I woke in was just as bad as the humidity of back home. The only difference being the lemon groves I used to stare at under moonlight. Now I had fields of black dirt and indigo grapes. Location didn’t change the feelings, didn’t alter the reality of my dreams. Every night like clockwork I woke in a panic unsure if it was safe to come out from the covers despite sweating under the thick and heavy blankets.
The saving grace was not screaming the house down and having to explain that to my grandparents. I wouldn’t do anything to get me sent back. I would stay at home, attend school in my grandmother’s office and pretend everything was okay until it really was okay. That American saying, fake it until you make it, yes, that’s exactly what I would do.
So, I stayed under those hot stuffy blankets until exhaustion took me. Sometimes I’d sneak a small flashlight into bed with me and a stolen book to read until my eyes grew heavy and the words blurred together. I preferred fantasy, stories like Alice in Wonderland, or The Wizard of Oz. Anything that wou