My heart raced whenever he called me that. He told me I was beautiful and strong like the blossom. I loved that he thought that. I wanted to be beautiful and strong. I could be for him.
“So, learn to play,” he said sternly. “You can do it. You only fail if you stop trying.”
Storm said wise things like that a lot, only he didn’t seem to realize how wise he was.
I think the way he saw himself was damaged because of his dad. His father only yelled at him and criticized him, and his mother devoted most of her attention to his brothers as if she wanted to downplay Storm’s existence. Neither seemed to notice how uniquely creative he was, or how deeply he felt things, but I noticed.
Storm’s wisdom sprang from his sensitive heart. He wasn’t the destructive part of a storm. He was the calm at the center—except when he clashed with his father.
“Okay, I’ll try harder.” I dropped my chin, focusing on the guitar and the proper positioning of my hands on the strings.
Storm’s fingers skated down my arm, sliding across my skin on their way toward my hand, his gentle touch awakening a flurry of sensations. He awakened so many sensations.
He was blindingly bright like a cloudless blue sky. A gale-force wind rattling the canvas of a sail. Sunlight dazzling like diamonds as it danced on the surface of the ocean.
We were just friends. I knew that was all we were.
But it wasn’t all I wanted us to be.
Storm
Nine years ago
I SHOVED MY hands into the pockets of my shorts as I stood under a tree—a champagne cork palm. I knew the name of it and most plants because of my best friend, Lotus Irving. Ironically, her brother, Cork, was named for the sturdy spindle-trunked palm. Lotus’s father adored her and her brother, and had named both his children for the plants that he most loved. He was so very different from my old man.
My eyes narrowed on Lotus as she exited the school and crossed the front lawn. She walked toward me, but she wasn’t alone. Dwayne Ray, once her tormentor, was now a wannabe boyfriend, and he was making his move. Each Friday when I picked her up from school to take her surfing, Dwayne wormed his way a little closer. He’d had a thing for her since elementary school, seeing like I did that she was becoming more unforgettably beautiful each day.
My fingers curled into fists inside my pockets as he tucked a strand of her gleaming mahogany-brown hair behind her ear. He was going to kiss her, and I needed to let him. Dwayne was Lotus’s age, thirteen, and she was only my friend. Unlike the girls I fooled around with, I shared my inner truths with her.
She meant something to me. In fact, she meant everything. No one else counted.
But it didn’t seem right, Dwayne and Lotus. He didn’t know her like I did. He saw only her outward beauty. There was so much more to her than what could be seen.
“Yo, Lilly!” I called.
Her head snapped up, and her uniquely shaped eyes scanned the lawn, following the direction of my voice.
I knew the moment she found me. I felt it, the connection of her gaze to mine. It rocked me like a lightning bolt, right in the center of my chest.
Her expression brightening, she touched Dwayne’s arm. She said something to him that made him frown, then skirted around him on her way to me.
In the past, Lotus might have run to me. She loved our Friday afternoons after school, surfing at the bottom of Sunset Cliffs, almost as much as I did. But lately, she seemed troubled, less carefree.
I knew part of it was her sensing and reflecting the tension I had going on inside my home, but some of the tension was her own. Her dad was finally dating, and I knew it hurt her. It was confirmation that he no longer expected her mother to ever return from Thailand. Though her parents had never officially divorced, Lotus hadn’t forgotten her mother, and had never fully gotten over the pain of that abandonment.
“Hey, you,” I said when she reached me. “How’d school go?”
Unable to resist, I reached out and brushed a long strand of her dark brown hair over her slender shoulder, probably the same strand Dwayne had touched. I wanted my touch to replace his. It was a douche move, but I didn’t care. I