Chapter Thirty Five

The bus parked at the edge of a large gravel lot that was in a field across from the township where the festival was held. It was relatively empty then, but would undoubtedly be filled with cars by afternoon. The township consisted of mostly wooden structures with gabled roofs, but there were a few brick buildings there as well. Those were reserved for larger businesses like breweries, furniture stores and antique shops.

The township was surrounded by a simple gate that couldn't have kept much out. It was nothing more than wooden posts connected by two rows of wooden planks. The Amana Colonies wasn't the same as the Amish, but they both lived simple lives and shared German roots. And the same, unchanged Men's and Women's Fashion Collection since year of inception.

Our first destination was an apple orchard. It was a bit of a walk from where we parked, but I didn't mind. The walk would give me a chance to build on the momentum I'd gained with Jerome before we had to bunch up in groups for the tour. I took my time pretending to look through my bag and button up my jacket, so we'd be the last ones off the bus. He couldn't have left without me. I was blocking him in.

He didn't mind and I'd like to think it was because he wanted me as much as I did him, but I'd have been kidding myself. It was a cold morning and Juice didn't want to be out in it any longer than he had to.

"Will you stick me today?"

I tried to sound casual, but casual would've been not asking. Requesting a formal declaration for him to be mine for the day was only ever going to sound desperate.

Jerome shrugged. His grin, sly. "What do I get out of it?"

That was what I meant. Juice knew he was better than me. That wasn't a question anyone ever asked to an equal. I looked toward the front of the bus for no reason. I already knew we were the only ones left on it.

"Anything." I grabbed his hand with both of mine. "You don't even have to ask, just take it."

I was shameless. I was pathetic. We'd kissed twice and I was delirious from withdrawal. I desperately needed Juice to want something from me, anything. I couldn't go back to three years of nothing.

Jerome looked down at my pathetic, trembling hands. I released him. His grin had lost its angle, but the tension was still there. That expression, it could've been pitying, discerning or just how he looked when he was thinking. I couldn't place it.

"When I call you, if I call you." He paused and it seemed like forever. "You pick up. Not like last time."

I nodded like the humble servant I was. He stepped past me, effortlessly. He could've asked for anything, but he asked for respect. During our soccer days, I'd learned something about Jerome that I'd forgotten until then. He didn't double call or text. Ever. "It's a matter of pride," he'd said, "if you on they mind, they'll get around to you. If not, don't sweat 'em."

My heart had been suffering needlessly and it had all been self-inflicted. I'd spent weeks waiting for Jerome to make a move when he already had. I was the reason Juice wasn't sweating me. I was at fault, entirely. I couldn't blame him for not reaching out in other ways any more than a chess player could blame their opponent for not reminding them to press their time clock. My mouth fell agape as I followed behind him off the bus.

Jerome and I walked together, side-by-side, but we didn't talk. My heart was too busy writing strongly worded letters to my brain, that it would then, waste-bin. Besides, the walk to the apple orchard wasn't some magical journey as I would've liked it to be, nor was the orchard itself. They came nowhere near to meeting the unrealistic expectations I'd formed in my mind ahead of time.

I imagined a great Elven tree the size of the Eiffel Tower, lush with vegetation, situated on a (I'd say Lake, but to be safe, we'd better go with) body of water and it would have endless body of waterfalls flowing from its branches.

The entrance to the orchard forest would be a magical door etched into the trunk's weathered bark that would have to be dispelled for access. Massive apple trees with low hanging limbs would be endless and everywhere, and sparking mist that served no other purpose than to be aesthetically pleasing would saturate the air. And it would be killing it in that regard.

In reality, we walked along a dirt road sandwiched between would be sweet corn and bean fields—that were merely mounds of dirt at the time—for nearly thirty minutes. The apple orchard was similar to those fields, only it had narrow, roughly ten feet tall, 'trees' growing out of their evenly spaced mounds.

They weren't climbable, not as in climbing was prohibited, but they literally could not be climbed. It was a miracle they could bear the weight of the fruit they bore. There was no opportunity for Jerome to boost me up a tree trunk, so I could climb up and toss apples down to him. These pathetic trees looked like sickly conifers that had been stripped of their green bushiness in exchange for a tight bundling of nearly vertical limbs that sometimes had apples hanging from them.

Jerome and I paid for an apple picking to take pictures, but the orchard wasn't worthy of them, not unless I needed damning evidence that apples grew on bushes. I had as much interest in that as I did snapping pictures of the Hogwarts dollhouse. It wasn't my place to kill a child's dream.

The bright side was that no one else bought apple pickings because they didn't want to carry around a bag of apples all day. I could relate, but mine was a sinister purchase. It meant Jerome and I got to walk back on our own when we finished.

I met up with Jerome to head to the township after a family from the commune let me snap photos of their children picking. I took them from angles that made it look like they were picking from the limb of a much larger tree, possibly of Elven origins. Who was to say?

"Where your apples at?" Jerome asked. He had his bag cradled in an arm against his chest.

"I gave them away," I pointed to the family I'd taken pictures of. They were loading up their black, horse-drawn carriage with their apples, jugs of cider and some bags of vegetables that were probably grown nearby. "I can probably catch up to them." I reached for his bag.

Jerome spun away, laughing. "Nah, I ain't trying to give nobody my apples."

He took his black gym bag off his shoulder—the camera bag for his phone—and started shoving apples in it. All but seven fit. He fit one in each of his coat pockets. Watching him try to figure out what to do with the rest had me on the verge of tears, laughing. He tried his pants, tying them into his shirt and his bag a second time. Somehow, he got another one in there. He really didn't want to leave any behind.

"You could always juggle them," I said.

I didn't care if we stayed there all day, but I was a bit jealous. He had tunnel vision for Jonamac apples. They didn't deserve him. They were mutt apples and not of the best kinds. Jonathan and McIntosh were vastly inferior to Honey Crisps, Fujis and Smiths.

Jerome flashed a goofy grin, then went back to brainstorming. He wasn't in the mood for jokes. "Yo, turn around."

I did as I was told, no questions asked. He unzipped my Nikon bag and handed me, my camera. I didn't know what I was expecting, but that was underwhelming.

"It's got a strap. Put it around your neck."

Again, I did as master commanded, but I took exception to him protecting a dollar's worth of franken-apples over my $500 camera.

"What? It's the same thing!" he shouted. I'd pursed my lips, without thinking. He must've read my face. "Less even, I got the bag."

Ah, he meant how much I'd be carrying.

Jerome made the apples fit and I held up my hands to take the bag. He reached for them. I blushed because I was stupid enough to actually think he was trying to hold them. He tossed them aside. "Nah, I got it. If I let you carry it, you gonna think you can have one." He found that hilarious.

"No, I won't," I said. I knew he wasn't serious, but it wasn't like I could stop being shameless around him. "I'll just do it. I'll carry yours too."

I left out that I'd do it simply because he told me to. I thought that was progress because I really did want him to know that was the reason. His smile vanished. He stared deeply into my eyes, placing his hand on my face. Thumb to chin, fingers to cheek. Just like I liked it and exactly how he had when he apologized for tormenting me. And. Meant it. He hadn't done it since.

"Look, I don't need anything from you," he said, "I'll never need anything from you."

My face went cold. He was wrong. He had to need something. That was the whole point. Juice kept talking, but I couldn't hear a word he said. I held myself together for exactly zero seconds. My face didn't twitch, it broke.

The same as my heart. That bleeding, pulsing thing I had given to the man crouched over me, along with the remote to control it forever, he broke them. Because he didn't need them, neither one. Juice would never ever need a goddamn thing from me.

And so, he'd never need me.

Funny, I'd always thought being floored by words was a figure of speech. And for the life of me, that day Faith had to delete messages off my phone, I couldn't think of a single thing she could've sent that would've ruined me.

I knew the truth to both now.

I was on the ground, ruined. Faith never needed me. Nor Saylor, Juice nor my father. I'd learned so much in the moment it took my heart to break.