C H A P T E R  12: The Perfect Storm / Complications of the Heart

☀ ☀ ☀

It had been three days since Scout's hyperventilating fit on the floor behind Santan Valley Auto Repair's reception desk, and she had not spent those days staring at Skylar through the garage door. Instead, she spent them sucking down vanilla milkshakes like they were oxygen at Santan Valley Diner or holed up at Bo's house eating everything in their pantry and mulling over the conversation she had with Skylar in the garage. Whenever someone asked her what was wrong, she responded with, "Ya' know, just normal teenage angst," which was not entirely true.

She missed him, strangely, and she couldn't stop thinking about how the sunlight could manifest his eyes from a car crash and the violent tides of a hurricane into buoyant, brilliant sunflowers. And she hated it. She hated how she was connecting him to all of these nouns and adjectives, how she was practically writing poetry about him whenever she thought of him. Slowly, her entire vocabulary was laced with prose of him, and she thought that maybe everyone who had ever met Skylar became poets under his influence.

Scout groaned loudly all of a sudden, sinking further down onto the floor of Bo's parents' pantry. She clutched a bag of Cheetos between her orange-tinted fingers, tossing one into her mouth every once in a while.

Bo was sitting next to Scout, chewing thoughtfully on the top of a donut that she doused in chocolate syrup and coconut flakes.

"So," Bo began, "can you explain to me why we've been giving ourselves diabetes for the past three days? Not that I'm complaining or anything. I love any excuse to eat donuts all day."

Then, as an afterthought, she added, "And don't give me that teen angst bullshit again."

Scout squinted at Bo, then she sighed. "I almost asked Skylar on a date."

Bo coughed so hard that she blew the coconut flakes off of the donut. They fluttered around in the air like miniature doves before landing on the package of double-stuffed Oreos sitting beside her legs. "YOU DID NOT," she shouted.

"I did," Scout muttered, "almost."

"I thought you were gonna stay away from him," Bo spoke loudly and incredulously.

Scout sighed again as she sucked the orange powder off of her fingers. "It's harder than it looks."

"So, like, what does this mean?" Bo asked with wild eyes. "Do we like Skylar? Are we gonna date him?"

"We?"

"C'mon, Scout," Bo drawled, rolling her dark eyes, "you and I are a two-for-one special. If you like him, then that means I have to like him to. If you hate him, then I'll help you sharpen your proverbial pitchfork. You know this."

Scout did, in fact, know that. She knew it better than Bo did. When Scout was with Antonio, Bo accompanied them almost everywhere they went. She said it made her feel included, because there was nothing Bodhi Benson hated more than being left out of the loop. Likewise, when Bo was with her ex-girlfriend, Sandrine, she dragged Scout along on every date. Literally dragged; Scout was OK with being left out, but Bo wouldn't stand for it.

"So, are we dating him?" Bo asked. She was giddy.

"No," Scout snapped. "No, I'm not dating anyone! Just because I had one slip doesn't mean that everything's changed. I'm still trying to avoid him. I'm not gonna let myself get close to him. I don't need another heartbreak in my life, thank you very fucking much."

"Who said he's gonna break your heart?"

"It's inevitable," Scout grumbled. "He's not here permanently. He said so himself. He's just in Santan until he gets enough money to leave, and if I let myself develop feelings for him, then he's gonna end up taking my heart with him and leaving the rest of me here in this stupid town. Do you not realize that he has the potential to destroy my whole life? He's like... He's like a natural disaster."

Bo snorted loudly. "Dramatic, much?"

"Says the soap opera queen." 

"HEY, you leave my stories out of this!" she said, softly kicking Scout's recumbent body, and she would have continued to kick her if the chorus of Smells Like Teen Spirit hadn't began blasting from Scout's pocket for the fourth time that afternoon.

"If you don't answer that goddamn thing, then I will," Bo said.

Scout sighed, rummaging through her pocket and eventually pulling out Georgia's smiling face flashing across the screen of her cell phone. Scout answered with a curt, "Yes?"

"Who is it?" Bo whispered.

Georgia's voice sang through the speaker in a high-pitched, airy tone, "Family dinner time!"

"What?" Scout asked. "That's not for another two weeks."

Once a month, Georgia Morgan threw a "family" dinner party at her house. It was a way for everyone to catch up with each other, she said. It was never just Scout, Scott, Georgia and Mandy, however. Lily Pope, Violet Fern, Bo and her parents were always invited as well.

Scout hated it. Not because of the miniature forks and the vienna sausages and the oven mittens tucked beneath each pan on the dining table, or the fact that she was forced to sit in the same room at the same table with Mandy for at least two hours with the expectation of not stabbing her in the eye with said miniature forks. She hated it because everyone always had some kind of "exciting" news to share at dinner. Like, how Georgia received another letter from her son, Brody, who was deployed in Afghanistan, and how Mandy had a new flavor of the week, and Bo's latest endeavors of connecting with the universe, and Lily and Violet's most recent strange or interesting guests, et cetera. The last news Scout had to share was her announcing that she and Antonio broke up. She refused to tell them why. She was too embarassed and she knew that if she did tell them he was a cheater she would cry, and that would have soured the mood of the entire dinner. Instead, she told them he was moving away, and that was that.

Everyone's news always made her feel stagnant. Like her life was stuck at a standstill while everyone else was moving a hundred miles an hour around her. She felt like an island in the middle of the non-stop motion of the sea, and she hated that, among all of the other things that she hated in life.

"What's not for another two weeks?" Bo asked, and when Scout did not answer her, she leaned her head against Scout's to hear Georgia's voice.

"Well, we're having this family dinner early," Georgia chirped.

Bo snatched the phone from Scout's clutch and put it on speaker. "This is about Skylar, isn't it?"

"Yes," Georgia said. "We don't know how long he's going to be staying here with us, so I decided that we should have this family dinner early so he can enjoy it too. He's been helping Scott so much lately, so we decided that we'd like to show Skylar our gratitude for his hard work."

Scout rolled her eyes so hard that she almost caught a glimpse of the inside of her skull. "Isn't that what a paycheck is for?" 

"Am I invited?"

"Of course, Bo," Georgia exclaimed. "Bring your parents, too!"

"I would, but it's their anniversary week. They left for Phoenix this morning and they won't be back for a couple of days."

"Shame," Georgia said, "but make sure you and Scout are here in an hour. Tardiness is next to sinfulness."

With that, Georgia hung up.

Bo jumped to her feet. Her smile was practically glowing in the dim light of the pantry.

"All right, you miserable little cretin," she announced, her stance hero-esque. "C'mon, we're going to get you cleaned up."

"No," Scout groaned, clinging to floor like it was her life support.

"YES! Don't force me to summon an—"

"Fine," Scout said, letting her limbs go limp. As soon as she did, Bo grabbed her ankles and dragged her out of the pantry. Scout allowed herself to be towed willingly, because she knew Bo would command the "other side" to haunt her for the rest of her life if she didn't. And considering all of the other shit Scout was forced to endure in her short eighteen years of existence, she really did not want to add The Haunting in Santan Valley to her repertoire.

When Scout ambled into Georgia's dining room an hour later in one of Bo's flowy, Bohemian dresses—her own outfit from earlier was covered in orange Cheetos stains—with a beaming and equally Bohemian Bo behind her, the first thing she noticed was Skylar.

She was doing it again. That thing where her thoughts transcended into poetry in the likeness of Skylar. He was a hurricane sitting at the head of the table, a storm brewing in the west, but when Georgia drew back the curtains, and the sunlight flooded into the room and washed over Skylar like it had been waiting its whole life just to touch him, he was a garden of flowers growing in the darker part of Scout's subconscious. She couldn't help but stare at him like he was golden.

"Focus," Bo whispered, nudging Scout to a chair at the opposite end of the table as Skylar.

They sat down just as Lily and Violet wandered into the room arm-in-arm. The chattering old women sat on either side of Bo and Scout. Bo made small talk with them while Georgia piled the table with casserole and baked chicken and too many sides to count, including one with vienna sausages, while Scout stared at Skylar. Normally, she would have made some offensive comment about the miniature wieners that she despised so much, but all she could think was, God, he sure is something.

Skylar sat there, his chin propped up on his hand, staring at the sunlight dancing across his skin. He wasn't smiling or conversing or engaging in anything around him. Not even Mandy in her cleavage-baring blouse who spewed a steady stream of pick-up lines from the chair directly beside him. He was there with them, sitting in Georgia Morgan's dining room, but his mind was elsewhere, and Scout wanted to know where it was.

Since three days ago when she poured herself into his immaculately sad eyes through the garage door, something in her changed. She was not burning with sarcastic comments and offensive remarks to throw his way. She wanted to know him, despite her spiel to Bo. She wanted to talk to him, to figure out how his mind worked and why he carried around such an immense burden. She wanted to know why he was a hurricane and a car crash and a choking hazard. She wanted to know what ruined him in hopes that maybe she could fix him, but she had this sinking feeling that he was a lot like broken glass, and that maybe attempting to put him back together would only hurt herself. But even then, she thought that that could possibly be a risk worth taking. Thoughts like that were dangerous, she decided, but she did not think there was anything she could do to stop them.

Scout heard her father ask, "I have another guest; do we have an extra seat at the table?" She would have inquired about this guest, but she was too far gone in the field of sunflowers.

"Yes, we do," Georgia giggled. "We have enough food, too. I swear, I made enough for the whole month!"

It was only when Bo gasped that Scout was stolen from her thoughts.

"Look who I found lurking around the garage today," Scott jovially announced.

Scout turned toward the doorway and was met by a pair of eyes like black coffee that were far too familiar in their depth. The air was stolen from her lungs.

The eyes belonged to Antonio Ruiz, the tall, lean Mexican twenty-year-old that ruined the better part of her teen years. He stood there in a jersey and jean shorts with a calm expression, a bronze hand running through his dark hair, and the other scratching the scruff along his chin.

Mandy's eyes met Scout's and for the first time in her life she actually looked like she was concerned. No one but Bo and Mandy knew of Antonio's transgressions, and Mandy only knew because Antonio had the audacity to proposition her for sex while he and Scout were together. Scout always said that the only good things Mandy ever did for her were rejecting Antonio and kicking him in the groin.

As Scout sat there at the end of Georgia's dinner table, she felt like a storm. A tornado. Her head and the floor beneath her were spinning faster than she could comprehend. She felt like her presence had the potential to destroy everything around her, ruining all of the life that the world had to offer. And she wanted to. Boy, did she want to. She wanted to annihilate everything and everyone that Antonio had ever touched, including herself. She wanted to ruin him like he ruined her.

Scott and Antonio sat at the other end of the table, near Skylar and Mandy. Georgia joined them not too long after, and began a speech that Scout did not hear. She was too distraught. The only thing she could focus on was keeping it together.

Bo grabbed Scout's hand under the table and lightly squeezed it for moral support.

Scout's wounds had not even begun to close yet. She was still held together by stitches and paper-thin threads with the immense burden of keeping her from bursting all at once. But there he was, Antonio Ruiz, the one who tore her to shreds, sitting there talking and laughing with her family like he had a goddamn right to be there. He even had the audacity to glance at her way every now and then with a smile. It made her feel like he just spit poison down her throat and left her to die.

Scout did not speak for the duration of the dinner. She stared at her plate filled with food that she barely pecked at, waiting for the opportune moment when it was acceptable to leave the table. She looked at Skylar once, and she recognized that he looked how she felt. He was no longer sunflowers in July. He was the hurricane again, and she could not understand why. He was sitting at a table filled with people who found him so interesting and wanted to be in his company, and yet he just sat there picking at his plate every now and again. She had another dangerous thought just then. The thought that maybe the two of them had a lot more in common then she would have ever imagined.

Later that night, after Scout managed to get away from the dinner table before Antonio could catch up to her, she found her father's old bottle of whiskey beneath the kitchen sink. She wanted to chase her feelings away, so she drank until she could feel it burning her lungs, and she hoped that the after taste would burn more than when she discovered Antonio's transgressions. But, goddammit, the only thing she could taste was his lips. Lips that had the power to burn holes in her skin, even when he was three seats, a table, and a myriad of conversations away.