Hanging Fire

Chapter Six: Wait For Me At Home

Noa 17,

My mother, Madelyn, has made an appearance. A special one in the kitchen on a Tuesday night at nine. She's got on a red dress, her blonde hair taken out its usual bun and curled in small waves around her back. It's messily sprawled over her arms as she slumps, sitting at our island with a glass in her limping hand. It's filled with a white wine but as it clinks on the table it wakes my mother who's on the verge of passing out. She stirs as if she feels me standing behind her, then twists herself behind to get a look at me.

She'll curl her teeth at me. Maybe point and spit that she only had me as a milestone. Mom will tell me how it bothers her that I look like my dad. That I shouldn't have chosen to live with her because she can't bear it, and can't wait until I'm out of her house.

Except she doesn't.

She won't.

She won't do any of that.

Instead, what she does is just stare.

Right through me.

Nothing.

I am nothing to this woman. She doesn't ask me how my day is. Doesn't ask me if I've ate, or showered. The only time she does is in front of Dad.

As soon as she'd realized he wasn't coming back and even if he would, that their relationship was irreparable, she'd let go. She did not want me to go live with dad because she loved and wanted me besides her; she did it because she thought it would hurt him. Which it did, but in the same way it hurt her. Not out of love for their daughter, but out of vengeance, and hatred for each other.

I was a game piece.

I've always been.

It's why my name is hyphenated Day-Collins.

My mother didn't want my father to have satisfaction because she wasn't married when I was born. Mikey is her first child and son, from a previous relationship, but my dad had gotten with her while she was pregnant and as far as I'm concerned those first five years together were their best.

Until me.

Until mom birthed the pawn.

I was born Noa Day. Then a year later, after they married, she'd hyphenated it during another argument about cutting Day completely out.

My mother is a Day. Mikey is a Day. That was never going to happen.

In school, they don't often put Collins, they shorten it to Day, and it's what I go by until I have federal documents and I'm forced to use both. So, my mom won that round. She'd always won until she couldn't. I think of my dad's last girlfriend, Tiffany, and frown. Shaking the drama from my mind.

"Mom. Did you have a good night tone night?" I motion to her dress, and she looks down. Her eyes, insipid and bleak, help signal she's drank well passed her limit, then came home to drink more.

She doesn't even groan at me. Just turns back around as if I weren't there. Just a chime in the wind.

I'd chosen to live with her, instead of my father. I chose the one who's more of a loose screw, not because I wanted to stay at school with my friends. I honestly chose my mother because I love her. My mother has always been my favorite. Despite having fonder memories with my dad, peaceful ones. My mother and I used to be fun too. Maybe she just likes smaller children. But it was as if an act had dropped when they divorced. Yet I can't pry myself away from her. She is my mother and my need to care for her only grows the older I get.

I sigh. "Well, don't pass out here. Go to your room."

I watch the back of her head dip forward a few times in an attempted nod. She struggles to lift herself off the stool. Slipping to one knee when she lets go of the counter.

I take a step forward, my first instinct to help her.

I stop. Then watch her. A solemn look.

As she thrashes and staggers herself back to her feet. This continues for a few moments, and she doesn't even groan or wine in pain each time she slips either.

She finally makes it to the stairs and holds onto the rail to pull herself up. I'm still stuck in the same place, looking at the floor, when I hear her bedroom door shut.

My mother isn't a drunk, but she does lack self-control. She takes medication that is prescribed to her.

That doesn't mean it's helping her live.

All she does is stay in her room, a shell. She sits or lays, in bed and watches tv stoned out of her mind. Depressed and usually crippled with anxiety.

I'm still as the house. Silent as it is too.

Until the doorbell rings.

I snap out of my mind and go answer it.

When I do, I'm presented by two smiling men, only their faces covered in the light from my porch. The rest of them blend into the night.

Danny and Yellow.

They're both about the same height, with Yellow being probably an inch or two taller. I never noticed how tall either was until I have them both towering over me.

"Noa!" Yellow says with a grin so big you'd think he was meeting his idol.

"Hey, Peter." I say, but look at Danny with a warning look.

He's now bringing Yellow with him like a damn puppy.

Danny, however, stitches his brows together and looks at me. As if angry. He steps in, getting close in my face, "What's wrong?"

I back up, my face getting hot when he does this. "You got here after I just sent mom to bed."

I don't want to tell him she's drunk. He already knows what that's like tenfold. It's nothing like his father, so I don't want to worry him.

"She taking the pills?"

I shrug. "She's doing something and a-whole-lot of nothing." I say as my eyes flicker to Yellow, who's frowning.

"Is your mom sick?" He asks sympathetically.

I shake my head with an eye roll. "She's just a dick."

It's his surprised face that makes me giggle. In fact, his genuine face causes a deep belly laugh from me, and suddenly I can't stop laughing.

The two boys in front of me stay quiet and stare as I laugh. I reach and slam my hand around Peter's wrist.

"Thanks, I needed that."

"No problem?" He says slowly with confusion, but then his eyes lower to my hand. My thumb is subconsciously making small circles. I let go instantly upon realizing. Sucking in a gust of air as I peek at Danny.

He's peeking too.

In fact, he's practically frozen in a thought that I want to know so bad. Because a part of me knows what that thought might be.

Peters' wrist was soft.

It didn't feel like my skin or even Danny's whose slightly tougher since he's always working or doing something outside.

"Anyway." I nervously laugh, realizing I was comparing. "What are you here for?"

"Peter had the night off. I planned on coming here anyway...so I asked him to come with me if I picked him up." Danny explains. I blink at him because he knows I can't say anything. I'd be rude.

"It's cool. Pete and I are friends now." I say and give Yellow a thwack on his upper arm. Danny turns and gives a funky look our way.

"Don't let her call you Pete." He begs, but then Yellow looks down at me.

"You can keep calling me Yellow."

I'm looking at a new guy.

He doesn't just make me think of a color.

In fact, yellow is my favorite.

My bottom lip falls, releasing my bottom jaw just enough to let out every bit of breath out of my body.

Why did I think to call this boy my favorite color!?

I can't help but look at Danny. His lips are in a straight line. He only does that when he's annoyed.

"Fuck." He says, but it's low and like a gag. He can't believe Yellow is flirting so blatantly.

"I'm getting something to drink." Danny announces before he walks past us to my kitchen, leaving Yellow and me alone.

"Welp, Yellow, you scared him off."

"That was my plan." He says, stepping closer, once more, and he'd be squished up the front of me.

"Oh." is all I say, lifting my hands. They lightly touch his chest, hovering. He's wearing a black windbreaker. My eyes dance over the little rectangular zipper and have an instinct to unzip it.

I don't. I back away flustered and go towards the kitchen.

But my wrist is taken.

I'm being pulled and when I turn back, it's Yellow who uses his other hand to slide across my arm. He's got my entire hand cupped in his two. He's warm and his eyes are swirling with something I don't recognize. It's new and enticing.

"You didn't let me properly ask you out at your party."

"That was over a week ago."

"And you've avoided me." He has laughter in his tone, so he's not mad at me for that.

I'd be mad at me for that.

"I've been embarrassed." I say, choosing to be, but still reluctantly, honest.

"You don't have to be embarrassed over this."

My stomach drops and swirls as he reaches for my other hand. I can't help but tense as I make a face. "Are you serious?"

"Oh, I am, Noa." He ensures, dropping my hands so he can slide the tips of his fingers up the sides of my arms. "You're beautiful. I want to take you out. I want to help you with that embarrassment issue you got with affection."

My jaw drops to the floor.

My entire face has exploded, and I don't think my brain is doing anything other than buzzing.

"Okay."

"This weekend I wanted to see if you want to go with me to just a movie."

"Only a movie?"

"And food? But I feel with you that's a given."

"I wouldn't go anywhere with you without there being food."

He laughs. "I got that already. I'd never think of it."

"I'll go. But it's just a single date. It doesn't mean we'll be dating."

He shakes his head in agreement. "Of course. Right! I mean, I don't know if I even like you—" he says sarcastically, teasing. "I think I just hope you're exactly how I've been imagining you all this time."

"Imagining me?"

"Yeah—I can't seem to get you off my mind, Noa Day."

All three of us watch the classic horror film, Nightmare on Elm Street in my living room. I don't expect the two guys to sit beside me, in a complete male sandwich; but they do. It's well past two in the morning when Danny and Yellow leave.

After they're gone, I can't sleep. I take a shower and paint my toenails. I paint them red because it makes me think of Danny.

Red is Danny's color.

It used to be brown. Neutral. Danny loves the outside, he loves adventure and so he gradually changed to orange, and eventually that orange deepened to a red.

I'm not sure when it did.

Maybe when he started coming into my room to sleep most nights.

It wasn't like he lived far. The house behind mine, was in front of his.

All he had to do was walk across the street, sneak unseen through his neighbor's yard and in my fence, and he's in my backyard. Faced with my back door on the right to our kitchen, and my bedroom window to the left. My mother's right above mine. It never mattered if her light was on or not; Danny would knock to come in through my window whenever he needed to get away from his dad.

Lately, he doesn't knock.

So, tonight when he's done taking Yellow home. I know he will slip into my room and into my bed.

I feel his arms around me before they actually are.

I look forward to the nights when Danny stays.

"Is your mom, okay?" He asks because he knows I wasn't telling the whole truth earlier. He can read me too well.

"Sad. like always."

"Negative?"

"Yeah—I think she tried going out tonight or something."

His arms around my waist get tighter.

"Was your dad like this when your mom left?" I wonder. He's silent for a moment and I can feel him moving his jaw as if he's practicing what he's about to say. "Sorry," I whisper, realizing this isn't the same. He lost his mother and sister completely. He lost comfort and affection. That gentleness a mother and sister have.

I still have both my parents.

And my brother.

They just won't talk to each other.

What Jinnie had said to me on my birthday was right; I was just the sister he lost.

"Noa..." I swear his thumb brushes across my breast. My breath hitches as my body tenses like a board.

There's no way he doesn't feel this.

Then it's as if he's pressed against me. Hard behind, curling his entire body along mine. I can feel him, and I might be crazy, but I think—I almost feel like I know he's telling me he wants me.

I make raspberries with my lips, not realizing I've even done it.

Danny is my best friend and I know that it's just my codependency.

I look behind, at him. My arm touching his chest and feeling how hot he is.

How his heart is beating out of his chest.

I curl forward into him. I feel his body tense. I watch as his neck stiffens, the veins straight and protruding with fear.

Why is he so nervous when I do this?

He won't even look at me. He looks forward those green eyes... piercing...

I put my hand flat against his chest to feel it.

His heart beat.

"It's so fast."

"What is?" He asks swallowing, I watch the Bob in his throat as he talks but still stares straight over my head.

Should I kiss his throat?

Lick the golden skin of his neck...

"Your heart. Why is it beating so fast?"

"Because you're so close."

I press my forehead to his chest and smile.

"I hope to stay that way with you, too."

"I'm sorry your mom never told you happy birthday."

"It's fine. Neither did Mikey nor dad."

"That's f****d up. My dad told me happy birthday, and he barely remembers to use the toilet when he's got to piss."

"Thanks." I say dryly, pulling out of his arms. I'm looking at his face now.

Face to face on one pillow together.

It isn't the first time, but it's the first time I realized it felt intimate.

It didn't feel like I was with my best friend.

It felt like more.

Danny and I don't say anything.

For a long time.

I want to ask so many things, but it's him who breaks the silence first.

"Are you really going on a date with Peter?"

I tighten my hands together underneath my head and bite my lip.

"Yeah." It comes out raspy.

"And you like him?"

"I think." It's honest when I say it. I'm not really sure, I never had a crush. Not in the normal sense, and even what I think might be a crush, I also think could just be a version of Stockholm syndrome.

"I thought he'd be good for you."

"And you still think that?"

He blinks a few times. "Yep."

"So, what makes you think you like him?" He teases, but he must really want to know or else he wouldn't have asked.

"How he talks."

"How he talks." Danny repeats, surprised.

"Yeah. He looks so innocent, but his words are forward."

He smiles at me. "You're into that?"

"What?"

"Forwardness?"

"I guess so. He's got these veiny arms too, and his fingers are long—"

"Ew God Noa. Okay." He says chuckling though as he throws his arm over my waist.

Something stirs inside of me, and I want to lean closer into Danny. Press my lower half closer to chase that tingle I'd just felt.

What was that?

Danny slides in closer. I watch his lower half in sagging jeans close the space between us as he reaches to cover the two of us in my big black quilt.

His face to my face.

"Do you know about the birds and the bees?"

I smile mischievously. As if I'm five. "Ew. Stop. I don't have those feelings." I say, but I feel like a liar. He smiles, but it's his eyes that tell me he expected me to react that way.

"Come here." He turns on his back and curves his arm for me to cuddle him. When my ear presses against his chest, I can hear his heart pounding still. It's never slowed down; in fact, it's quickened.

"I think you need to fall in love, Noa. It would do you some good."

"How?"

"For one, it will take your mind off your parents and brother. You're way too involved with them. Distractions are the best."

"That's what you're for."

He laughs and I can feel my long hair falling against my back. Realizing he's playing with the strands.

"Yeah—that's how I feel too."

Three days later, my date with Yellow arrives. I'm wearing a tight, black, crop top tee shirt. Over top of it, I got on an orange and black plaid oversized shirt. I matched it myself with my tight in the hips but buggy in the leg, khaki cargo pants. As me per usual, black, and white sneakers. I felt proud of my outfit. It felt sexy, but still like me.

Of course, I actually did my hair and makeup instead of leaving it bare and flat.

I dyed my hair back to a powder pink. Part of my neck is pink still, but I've covered it by leaving my hair down and straightened.

Right at seven p.m. Yellow comes and knocks on my door. He's dressed nice tonight, in black dress pants, and some nice black shiny shoes. I'm not sure of the brand but they look expensive. He tones it down by wearing a thick brown crew neck sweatshirt.

"Wow!" His eyes are wide, his attention on my entire face.

"Yeah, I actually tried okay!?" I blurt, and he gives me a small, gentle smile.

"You look amazing. Better than my imagination." He holds out my hand and I take it.

My first date with some blonde, pretty boy.

What a thing.

Mikey wouldn't ever believe it.

He hasn't called in forever. Not even an apology about missing my birthday. I can see mom and dad forgetting they did my last birthday, but him? He knew how much it hurt last year.

So, I've been pissed and more than willing to avoid my family at this point.

I take Yellow's hand, and he's pulling me out my house.

Danny's right. I need a distraction from my family. I let them take up way too much of my thoughts and concerns.

"You ready? Noa? It's just dinner and a movie." Yellow guarantees and I roll my eyes.

"I know! Because if you had any other intention, Id hope you know I'm capable of murder by now."

Yellow, still tugging me by the hand, looks back at me before yielding at his car's passenger. He opens the door and helps me inside. It's not when he sits down. I look at him curiously.

"You drive too?"

"I've been driving two years. I promise I won't kill us."

"Two?"

Yellow-I think, turns red, but it's already dark out and only our faces are lit up by the streetlights.

"I—actually am eighteen." He admits and my eyes are wide with shock.

Danny is a sophomore and I'm a junior. It's common in our high school to be mixed with different grades in certain subjects. It never occurred to me to ask Yellow what grade he was in, or his age.

Still, seventeen wasn't a big difference to eighteen.

"And you like Danny?" I tease because I love my best friend, but he can be a little wild and full of himself sometimes.

"Danny? He's great."

"He's also sixteen and a little wild."

"I think he's trying to calm down."

This makes me curious. It's as if he knows something I don't. And about Danny. What the hell would he know!?

I shove it aside. It's just my jealousy talking. I just can't help but wonder if Yellow is something more to Danny, since they're both guys. Danny's always been around us girls. He has some guy friends but none he's went out and hung with like he has with Yellow.

Is it because he also thinks Yellow is cool?

Does Danny look up to Yellow?

I can't help but watch my date drive.

My date.

Peter Haim.

The movie Peter picks is neither a movie I hate nor like. It's a new movie that everyone's been planning to go see, but I wasn't in the loop.

Of course, Peter is cognizant of his popularity, like Court and Jinnie are. Like them, Peter is fun to be around. Especially when it's just the two of us.

During the movie, my phone buzzes nonstop and I have to turn it all the way off. I'm embarrassed when Peter looks over with a playful shocked expression and I want to run away.

It's the only time and the last time that I do because Peter senses my urgency to leave and reaches for my hand.

He first tickles the top, tracing the back of my fingers and circling the middle before he slides slowly between my fingers with his.

It's this moment, that I think Peter is going to try to kiss me. Probably after our date. It won't be in his car... he'll walk me to my door first and there he'll kiss me.

My heart is beating so fast with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

James was my only other kiss.

From three years ago.

Did I want Peter Haim to kiss me?

I'm so wrapped up in my own thoughts I don't even notice the time and the movie flying by and Peter is standing and reaching to help me up.

"Did your legs get numb from sitting too long?" He laughs.

I feel shy now. Weak and a little unsure what's next between Peter and I.

"You feel like steal burgers? There's a Steak n' Shake down the street."

"As long as I can get a shake and a soda, too."

"Whatever you want."

I grin at him. "I want it all."

"That's going to be fine with me. I can provide for you."

"Because you're a wealthy kid from a rich family line?" I joke, but he blinks.

We're standing by his car now and he opens my door for me. I don't get in because he's looking at me strange.

"Did I say something wrong? I was joking."

"Oh. Right. I thought maybe Danny—never mind. I like banana shakes. What do you usually get?"

"Banana?" I laugh out loud. A real cackle. "Of course you do, Yellow."

It's then he gets why I'm laughing and shakes his head, hiding an uncontrollable smirk as he moves around to the driver's side.

They seat us as a small booth when we come in. Our server takes our drink order first. I'm in the middle of my shake when Peter excuses himself

"I'm going to use the restroom...will you be alright?"

"Sure. I'll contain myself from any intrusive thoughts I may get while you're gone."

"Okay good. But please, don't hold out for my benefit."

He leaves, and as I sit there, I remember my phone.

Checking my messages, I see most are from Danny.

-Are you with Yellow?

-On your date?

-When will you be home?

-I won't be able to sleep tonight again

-ugh. My house is hell. Hurry home, I'm bored.

-but please actually enjoy yourself and play nice! Peter's cool

-Would it be weird to just go to your house without you there ...lol?

-Wait. You don't plan on taking Peter home...do you?

It's not like that with Peter!

I text him back, my face burning in embarrassment at what he insinuating.

-Wait for me at home