Towering by Alex Flinn

I’d never seen before.
    “I couldn’t come before. I’m sorry.”
    “I know. I came anyway, in case you made it today.”
    He walked around to open the car door. So polite, so different from the rude boys at school, who joked about how their “women” had better be ready at the door when they honked. I almost wished I could tell Mom about him. She was old-fashioned and liked stuff like that.
    “I brought a picnic,” he said.
    “Every day?”
    “So I’ve eaten a few picnic lunches. It was worth it. I thought we could go to the lake.”
    That was old-fashioned too, charming like the picnic basket—not a cooler—he’d brought, with its red-checkered lining. He held out his hand to help me into the car. Again, that shock. I shivered.
    “Are you okay? Need a sweater?”
    I shook my head. “It’s a nice day.”
    It was a lovely day, and as we drove to the lake, a drive I’d made a hundred times before, I began to notice things I never had, the beauty of the black-eyed Susans, how the brown inside was like a dog’s nose, and each petal formed a ruffle around. How it and the Queen Anne’s lace grew against the craggy, gray rocks, sometimes clinging, sometimes avoiding, like a flirtatious girl. Even the rocks themselves glowed and sparkled. I mentioned that to Zach.
    “Do you know why?” he asked.
    “Of course. Everyone knows. There are bits of garnets in there, just little flecks It’s my birthstone.”
    He nodded. “A red stone, fiery like you. There’s a garnet mine about an hour from here. But they don’t use the garnets for rings and necklaces. They make scouring pads out of them, or use them for stone washing jeans.”
    “That’s not very romantic,” I said.
    “You’re right.” He touched my arm, maybe unintentionally. “In the right light, they glow just like diamonds. Just like you.”
    We went silent again after that. I realized I should speak. He wouldn’t like me if I didn’t talk. He’d think I was a weirdo.
    But he spoke first. “I wasn’t telling the whole truth the other day.”
    My heart clenched, wondering what he was going to tell me—that he’d been in jail or was thirty years old? But he said, “I have lived a lot of places, but I’ve been here before. My grandmother lived here, and my uncles still do. I used to visit them when I was younger, and now, I live with them. Actually, they own the bar where I perform.”
    I stared at him, mesmerized by his eyes.
    “I thought you’d think it was geeky, living with my uncles, or that I was a loser. You were so beautiful, I wanted to impress you.”
    “I’m impressed,” I said.
    “It’s kind of loserish. I left home, thinking I’d make it as a big rock star in New York, only to come back here with my tail between my legs.”
    “Are you still going to try to be a rock star?”
    “Absolutely. I just ran out of money, so I’m working here for a while. They let me live for free. As soon as I’ve saved enough, I’m going back.”
    “That sounds like a good plan.” He was so hot I thought he could make it even if he couldn’t sing. “It was brave to leave home in the first place. I complain about my mother, but going to the big city all by myself sounds kind of daunting.”
    He pulled off the road then to a beautiful spot by the river. We waded in the water for a while. He took out the sandwiches. Over lunch, he asked me about my life.
    “It’s boring. I’d rather hear about you.”
    “It’s not boring. You’re not boring.”
    “There were only thirty kids in my graduating class, and I’ve known all of them since kindergarten. They’ll all stay here and marry each other and have kids who’ll stay here and marry each other and have kids who’ll stay here and marry each other. A hundred years from now, the people in this town will look exactly the same.”
    “But that’s great. That’s what’s cool about this place. It’s like everything here, the rocks and the trees and the people too. They never change.