Chapter Text
It’s the kind of shit night only Sebastian likes. Chilly, his breath billowing out in front of him even though it’s already late April. Damp, the clouds heavy with rain, threatening but not following through. The moisture hangs in the air, not moving, not even the hint of a breeze
Nights like these always seem especially dark to him, like the stars have been swallowed whole by the sky. Like the stillness in the air has stopped time completely. He feels like he could become part of them, nights like these, sometimes imagines his hair like dark strings pulling him up toward the sky. It might be so easy, to disappear into the darkness. He could go anywhere then, any place the sky touches he could go.
Sebastian can hear Sam and Abigail's voices through the crack under Sam's bedroom window and wonders how long he can drag this cigarette break out before they come looking for him. It makes him feel old, to think like that. These are his friends for fuck's sake. But he is old, older than them at least. And lately, it's been feeling like that's more of an issue than it ever used to be. Like the few years between them have suddenly grown, swelling with the experiences they don't have yet, the feelings they don't seem interested in processing yet. Big, adult feelings. Feelings a lot like despair. Ennui. He can't seem to manage to crawl out from under them these days.
He saw Shane on the way over, coming off his shift at Joja and looking like the kind of beer-bellied, alcoholic nightmare they'd all feared in high school. Looking very much like the Valley had gotten the best of him. His jacket frayed at the edges, a couple days of unkempt stubble on his cheeks. It made Sebastian want to run home and check his own face in the mirror. To look for signs that this godforsaken town had gotten its hooks in him too.
They're the same age, him and Shane. Birthdays so close they used to share them. Big parties in the town square. Evelyn's cakes and colorful balloons from Pierre's when Joja was just a company that sold soda. Shane would always dive in first, dragging his fingers through the soft, white shelled border of frosting on the cake, eager and laughing. Sebastian would watch him quietly, separate out each sprinkle by color, eat them in groups. In the background, his mother would be watching, arms crossed, looking so worn and tired. He would later come to recognize that look on his mother’s face. See it mirrored back every time he receded from conversation at the dinner table, every time he went off to the city for a few days. Concern. Possibly despair.
So, yeah, he hadn’t wanted to see Shane tonight. He'd backed up on the path when he saw him, dreading the idea of forcing a conversation. What would they even talk about? Definitely not their jobs, hell. Their love lives? Not fucking likely. The whole thing is making him feel depressed just thinking about it.
He ashes his cigarette in the grass beside Sam’s back fence and is debating whether or not to light another when he hears a pair of voices coming from the Saloon. It’s no surprise when Emily comes barreling out of the bar, all swirling color and loud laughter, but he’s never seen the girl who comes down the steps behind her and that, in a town this shit and this small, is news. With a quick backward glance toward Sam’s window, Sebastian lights another cigarette and slips past the fence toward the public garden, careful not to make too much noise. Not that he could compete with Emily. The girl with her seems slightly overwhelmed, strung along behind her. Shell-shocked. That’s the word he’s looking for. She looks shell-shocked. Not that he can blame her. Sebastian can hang with most things but listening to Emily go on and on about her esoteric flavor of the month is sometimes too much for even him.
Emily says something Sebastian can’t make out then throws her arms out like she’s hugging empty air. The girl beside her now nods a little loosely and the sight makes him chuckle. He knows all too well the strong tide she’s caught in with Emily. A new friend then. Probably someone from those music festivals Emily’s always going to in the desert, though the girl doesn’t exactly look that type. And as he watches them head west out toward the bus stop it occurs to him that this might be the new girl everyone’s been talking about.
She certainly isn’t what he expected. He’d been imagining a younger Marnie type. Stout and substantial. Maybe a little corny. Who else would be hardy and naïve enough to take over a dead farm in a dying town? But she’s a slip of a thing, this girl, at least in silhouette. A few inches shorter than Emily. Willowy, he amends, when he gets a better look at her. Not quite scrawny, but like a strong breeze might blow her away. Definitely not like a girl working on a farm.
He catches her profile when the two of them duck under a street lamp. The shadows fall into the hollows of her cheeks, her delicate cheekbones catch the light. Pretty, he thinks, even though he can’t see the finer details of her face. And sad. The thought surprises him. He takes a few long drags of his cigarette and turns back to face Sam’s house. What kind of creep is he? Skulking in the shadows. He doesn’t fucking know her. Sad? Yoba, where does he get off? He flicks his cigarette into the darkness, its glowing tip carving a trail of light before it hisses in the wet grass. When he turns back to look at them, the street light is catching on the curve of her back. She’s in a thin dress that hangs low off her shoulders, it skims the tops of her long, pretty legs. It’s a summery dress on an almost wintery night. She looks freezing.
“Yo!” Sebastian nearly jumps out of his skin. Sam’s hanging out of his window, hair a wild mess, grinning like an idiot. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”
“Hell, you’re gonna give me a fucking heart attack.” Sebastian brushes his hair from his face, his fingers trembling.
“Sorry old man, just wanted to know if you’d bolted.”
Sebastian stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What? A man’s not allowed to take a smoke break?”
Sam taps his watch. A bright, plasticky thing he won in an arcade the last time they all went to Zuzu together. “Been 45 minutes.”
Sebastian runs his palm heavily down his cheek, massaging his jaw. “Alright, alright. I’m coming.” He glances back over the fence. The town square is empty, like they were never there. Just the crickets out now.
* * *
It’s exactly the kind of weather Sebastian loathes. So hot even the birds can’t be bothered. He’s sweated through his button down, heat just rolling off his body in waves. The shade he’s found at the edge of the meadow is meager protection against the blazing sun.
Sebastian shifts on his feet. His socks are wet, the soft soil underneath giving under his shoes, wet and muddy from the rain all last week. He wishes, at least a little, that it would swallow him whole. It’s been a hell of a day already. He’s finally, at the age of 27, managed to dodge the actual flower dance. Hiding on the periphery while Lewis searched furiously for him. Now he’s three glasses of sticky punch in and trying to figure out why the hell he wasn’t brave enough to just ditch the whole event entirely.
Abigail’s been shooting him mournful looks from the snack table since the dance broke up, her dad hovering too close for her to break away and make her escape. Sam’s disappeared completely. Penny with him. Sebastian cannot imagine fucking in this heat, much less fucking anywhere near this shit show of a festival. Sebastian scans the meadow again, fumbling in his jeans for his cigarettes. Lewis is gonna give him a hell of a lecture, he can practically feel it in the energy in the air, and he sure as fuck isn’t in the mood. If he can just hold out for another hour, he can slip away, dodge Lewis for a few days until the old man forgets all about it. No harm, no foul.
He’s so laser-focused on keeping Lewis in his peripheries that he doesn’t clock her approach, doesn’t notice her until she’s right in front of him. The new girl. Shit. He’d pretty much forgotten about her, but now, weeks later, the night he first saw her comes rushing back. Sebastian’s first impulse is to flee, like a skittish preteen boy. He scratches at his neck and nods when she says hello, trying to keep it the fuck together. She looks different here than she did that first night. Like the sun has warmed her up from the inside. He figures that chilly night out by the Saloon was a one-off, that he’d projected his own malaise onto her. Maybe she is the bubbly, corny girl he’d imagined she would be, just in a smaller package.
Even if she is, though, there’s something at least a little appealing about it. She has a big smile, the kind that brightens her whole face. It’s practically contagious, his own lips betraying him as she speaks. Yoba, he could look at her smiling at him for fucking hours. He’s so busy looking that, at first, he doesn’t hear what she’s saying. It takes him a beat to piece together what she’s asked him. “Not much of a dancer?”
She’s got a fleck of goat cheese stuck to her bottom lip. They’re pretty lips. The top one thicker than the bottom, prominent cupid’s bow, like she’s pouting even when she smiles up at him. She’s a mess of faint freckles and long lashes. Cute, actually. Very cute and Sebastian feels suddenly out of place. He doesn’t do this, not here. Not in Pelican Town. Here he’s watered down, a thornier, sadder version of himself and it feels, terribly, like his two worlds are colliding as she stands here in front of him. He can tell immediately that she’s from the city. Her slang, the upturned lilt in her voice. The way she holds herself, the easy way she teases him. Even her name. Joni. Like some seventies rock star. She must think he’s some kind of hillbilly, a real fucking local. He never could wash that backwoods twang out of his mouth completely, no matter how many hours he spent practicing in the mirror. Some of his exes thought that was charming. And he can usually play it off that way, but he needs a different backdrop. If he’d met her in the city, this would be different. Easy. But the same hokey music is playing on Lewis’ old record player, the same faces he’s seen his whole life milling around the same goddamn table cloth they’ve had since the seventies, since he was a kid. All his charm goes right out the window.
He lights a cigarette. “I don’t see you out there.” He winces. That was harsh. Why does he always have to be so harsh? But it doesn’t seem to faze her and that sits oddly in his chest, just a pinprick of something off. He takes a better look at her as she settles in beside him. He didn’t notice the circles under her eyes before, so deep they look almost like bruises. The rest of her face is so bright, so pretty, it’s a shiny lure, drawing attention away to the obvious fatigue hanging over her. The corners of her mouth twitch down when she looks off into the distance. She’s looking, but not really seeing. Her shoulders slump, almost imperceptibly.
He wonders what this all looks like to her, all these things he’s chaffed under for so long. Does it feel like freedom? Or a trap? It sure as hell must feel new. She notices him watching and pulls herself back into a smile, back upright. He should say something. He wants to say something. Where is she from? Why is she here? He’s about to open his mouth, when Lewis’ familiar silhouette appears by the table, his features blotted out by the sun. “I, uh,” he ashes his cigarette. She’s watching him carefully. She’s got quick, clear eyes; their color hard to pin down in the bright afternoon light. “I’ll see you around.”
He’s gone before she can even respond, heading quickly down the narrow, rocky path to the beach, stopping only when his shoes hit sand. When he looks back up at the meadow, she’s watching him. He can’t imagine what she’s thinking. Fuck, she probably thinks he’s such a dick. He is such a dick. When she waves, just a sad limp little gesture, his chest hurts. Hell, she probably just wanted someone to talk to. He raises his hand. A peace offering.