Hope everyone had a great weekend! Missed you guys! This story is set in present time. But the Deep South seems like another era, doesn't it?
Love your thoughts and thanks for reading! :)
Chapter Six: Currents & Crushes
My sisters never listen. They lost their ability to hear when they reached about two, and they've been ignoring me ever since.
"Get out of the water!" I scream at Jessie. She dips her foot in, teasing Emmett about who can put their foot in the deepest without flowing away with the current. He bets her two lollipops he can dip his faster, but I'm guessing all of his fat will just carry him away like a blowfish.
"I'm watching them," Rose Charlotte says, twirling around in circles and not paying a bit of attention.
"Calm down! We're just having fun!" Jessie turns back around and tests the water again, completely disregarding me. She knows what Ma says about playing in the water, so when she falls in, I'll be the first one to say I told her so.
"Lighten up, Cotton." Rowdy covers his mouth, and at first I'm confused on what he's doing—until I see the cigarette. He coughs twice and sticks a set of matches in the pocket of his brown trousers.
"You not supposed to smoke, you know that? Ma says when you smoke you're just asking the Devil for trouble. He'll come through your mouth, then into your lungs, and right into your heart."
Papa smokes cigars but that's different. They're imported and he only smokes them once in a while. Not like cancer sticks, he told us once. Those will kill you.
Rowdy cocks an eyebrow at me and smirks as he blows a cloud of smoke into the air. "You don't believe that."
"I do too," I say, waving the smoke out of my face. "Ma says-"
"Your ma don't know everything," he replies, sitting down on the nearest log. I cross my arms defensively. "What do you say, Cotton?"
Rowdy makes me question everything Ma ever told me.
He makes me question myself.
"I say the good Lord is gonna get you if you keep smoking." I try to remember scriptures I learned in Sunday school, but nothing comes to mind when I peer into Rowdy's green eyes.
"I reckon I'll be all right. You wanna try one?" He holds out his cigarette and I'm curious to put my lips on something he has.
"This world will tempt you, Cotton," Ma used to tell me. "It'll pull you so far down, you won't find your way out. You can't see the light if you living in the darkness."
Rowdy doesn't look a thing like what Ma was talking about. He is light, bursts of colors and brightness I want to touch.
I'm ashamed, because instead of saying 'no' the first thing I do is look around to see if anybody's paying attention. Everyone else has abandoned us, walking upstream where a wooden bridge crosses right after the mud hole on the east side.
"I shouldn't." All I can think about is Jessie catching me sinning. Then she'll have to pray to baby Jesus and all hell will break loose. 'Sides, if Ma smells smoke on me, I'm a goner.
Rowdy shrugs and pulls out a flask that's scratched all along its silver sides.
"You drink too?" I've never met anyone my age that does everything Rowdy does. Maybe Jake, but I think he's a habitual liar. I bet he fibbed left and right when he said his old man Billy gave him an entire bottle of whiskey.
Rowdy unscrews the top and takes a sip, licking his lips and savoring the aftertaste. His bottom lip glistens in the sun and I wonder why I never noticed his full pout before now.
"Pop sells burlap bags of birdseed and bootleg whiskey. That's how we make a little money on the side. It ain't much, but it puts food on the table. So I drink some once in a while, but it's strong. It'll put hair on your chin, that's for sure!" Rowdy laughs and it's everything I want my life to be —carefree and happy.
"Ain't you scared you'll get caught?" I finally take the empty spot next to him, making sure I leave a few inches of space between us. Because of the smoke, I think.
"Get caught by who?"
"Carlisle and Esme." Obviously.
"They don't care." He looks at me as if I'm not making any sense. "Hell, you should've seen Mama knock back a bottle of rum before she got knocked up. She'll bring a grown man to his knees!"
A woman who drinks? I don't understand. I don't get how a mother and father allow their teenage son to drink. Or why they show up to church 30 minutes late. Or why they aren't like my family.
Rowdy notices my confusion. "Cotton, ere'body ain't like you. We ain't all Baptists that live in a nice house and eat Sunday supper around a pretty table. There's an entire world outside of Forks County."
"I know that." But I don't think I do. If there are more Rowdys out there, I sure am missing a lot.
I snatch the cigarette out of his hand. "How do I do this?"
I want to show him I'm not too young and that I can be grown up just like him; and that I'm not a prissy Baptist who goes around waving my Bible condemning everybody for sinning.
Rowdy chuckles. "Look at my little Cottonseed blooming."
My cheeks turn a rosy color. I like that he said my. It makes my skin tingle and chills run up and down my spine.
"Just put it between your lips, like this." He puts his hand over mine and it's warm, like the sun that shines down on us between the trees. "Pull on the filter, but don't suck it down. You gotta breathe it out slowly."
I do as he says, and as soon as I inhale I start choking. Rowdy laughs and pats my back. Puffs of smoke come out of my mouth unevenly. That's not how Rowdy looked when he smoked, and I feel like a child.
"Try again. You gotta hold it between two fingers, not with your whole hand. It's not a joint." I don't know what that is, but I let the cigarette dangle like he shows me. I put it between my lips and breathe in gradually, not as much this time, and exhale out. It's much smoother and not as harsh.
I don't even choke.
"See? How's that?" My head feels a little dizzy, but I don't know if it's from the tobacco.
"Feels weird."
"That means you're doing it right."
I try to hand back the cigarette, but he lets me keep it as he pulls out another one. We sit in comfortable silence, smoking and watching the current flow through the river. Rowdy leans his head back, gazing at the billowing clouds above us. I wonder what he sees or if the sky looks different to me than it does to him.
"Whatcha thinking about?" I ask, stomping my cigarette out when he does.
"You."
"Me?" I stare at him in awe.
"I ain't never met nobody like you. In Rosedale, all the girls were the same. Just gettin' by in life, never knowing what they want. You ain't like that. You do those pageants 'cause they make you happy, and you offered to help me read and you take care of your little sisters. You got somethin' most folks wish they had: a heart."
"Ere'body has a heart, Rowdy."
He shakes his head, disagreeing. "They do, but not ere'one knows how to use it. Folks spend their entire lives letting it beat when they can't even feel. Then when it's too late and their lives are over, it explodes, as loud as a firecracker."
Rowdy takes my hand in his and puts it over his chest. It thumps-thumps-thumps and mine is racing too.
"You feel that?" I nod and Rowdy peers into my eyes. I sense our browns and greens mixing together, until I don't recognize my own. "Mine is exploding too, but it ain't a firecracker at all. My heart is beating for you like it's fucking."
"Fuck-ing?" My eyes go wide as I whisper the dirty word, scared of saying it out loud. I hear the playful screams from our siblings and Rose Charlotte headed our way, but I don't dare turn my head, not even for a second.
"It pounds real fast," he murmurs back, holding my hand in its place. "And I could stop, Cottonseed. I could stop it if I wanted to."
"But this heart of mine is already in too deep."