DAYSLEEPER |

06| you and me

"Just you and me. Falling backwards. Just you and me."

SHALLOU | YOU AND ME

• • •

Her shift at Mouille Coffee was possibly the worst one yet.

The artisan café was situated between grainy apartment buildings and a repair shop just around the curb of her school's parking lot. Usually, they only had around ten or so customers but the football game today brought in around twenty or more high school students looking for a quick fix of coffee and snacks.

Great for business, horrible for Eden's back. She spent the entire late afternoon shuffling up and down, carrying plates and cups, filling the cash register and swiping cards when it was the cashier's break.

She dragged her feet into her quiet house and lay her copy of her keys down in the foyer. Dad wasn't home yet, or maybe he was in the shed working on something, but Eden couldn't tell if Birdie was home either.

Eden jumped in and out of the shower, scrubbing off the smell of grease and sugar when she realized something. Birdie...Birdie. Her sister was supposed to be mending the Everett's garden right now, but was she? God no.

Throwing on the first casual outfit she could think of, Eden grabbed her phone and dialed Birdie's number relentlessly, each time there was no answer.

"Ugh," she groaned and bit her nails.

The sound of her front door bell rippled through the air and Eden rushed to the foyer, completely prepared to scold Birdie like a twelve-year-old kid. But she wasn't greeted by Birdie's apathetic blue eyes when she opened the door, instead she was graced with Smith Everett's small pearly smile.

He leaned against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," she replied, with a half smile. "I hope you're not here to report another misdemeanor my sister committed?"

Smith's light brown hair was dark and wet, his white burnout tee had wet patches and underneath he was wearing a black and blue wetsuit. He placed his hand over his long, battered surfboard to steady it, its surface littered with stickers of bands, vacation hotspots, and sport logos.

He shook his head with a laugh. "No, no. My mom sent me here to remind you that—"

"Birdie didn't come today?" Eden guessed, nodding, her eyes flat with disappointment. "I thought so." She pulled the door open wider and gestured for Smith to enter. "This might take a while."

Leaving his surfboard on the fence of her patio, he walked inside tentatively. Eyes roaming her living room and the paper plates of left-over pizza on the wooden coffee table, the mug of hot chocolate balancing on the arm of a chair, and the TV muted on a cooking channel.

Maybe she shouldn't have invited him in with her house in this state.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience of my sister. She's a bit of an asshole," Eden said. Conscience-stricken, she picked up the paper plates and the mug.

"I don't think anyone would want to be a gardener for a day, so yeah, I get it." Smith shrugged. "But isn't her boyfriend gonna help her at least?"

Wren Dyer was hardly Birdie's boyfriend. Well, maybe he was, see, no one really knew with Birdie. He was a half-assed high school dropout whose rich parents refused to hold him accountable for a single thing he did.

"You know that phrase 'it takes two to tango'?" Eden asked, paused, and then shook her head dramatically. "That doesn't apply to Wren. He's not her boyfriend he's one of her mood swings, and his logic is that he didn't do anything with her anyway, so," she continued. "That's that."