by Jay McLean
She holds her stomach and groans. “Don’t remind me.”
“You puked so much that night.”
“In my defense, it was my first time drinking and we were thirteen!”
“You kept asking for God to take you away for all your sins.”
“Shut up!” Then her eyes widen and her face pales, and I follow her gaze across the room to Cooper walking toward us. He smiles at her, glares at me. As soon as he gets to us, he leans down, and before she has time to decline, he practically sucks her entire face into his sloppy, gaping mouth, putting on a show for the entire cafeteria.
I look away, bile high in my throat, an indent of his foot now in my gut. He sits next to her, his arm around her shoulder while she wipes his drool from her mouth. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
It’s Friday, which means he’s here for practice, but he’s not normally this early. At least not that I know of. Or does she mean here in the cafeteria where the high schoolers hang out and not in the teachers’ lounge or wherever the fuck it is coaches go on their lunch breaks. It doesn’t seem to matter what she means because he faces her, eyes narrowed, “Why? Did I interrupt your little rendezvous?” He raises an eyebrow, his attempt at intimidation. “Are you not happy to see me?”
Laney glances at me, then at Cooper, and I don’t think she’s taken a breath since she saw him. “I am, it’s just—”
“What did I interrupt?” He cuts in, points to me. “Were you guys planning on what time Dawson here was going to climb through your window tonight?”
I lean back, unfazed at his attempt to intimidate me, and if he cared enough about his girlfriend, he’d realize I’m not the one affected by his bullshit. She is. I smirk, right in his face, and fuck I wish I could punch him. “I use her door and I don’t need to be invited.”
“Luke!” Laney gasps, covers her entire face.
“I cut out early,” he says to her, “wanted to see you. I miss you.”
She lowers her hand, smiles at him. Swear, it’s like he puts all his bullshit in a blender and feeds it to her with a Fuck You money, platinum, handcrafted spoon.
And it’s hard, so hard, to keep my irritation in check. But I do. I say, “I was just telling Laney—”
“Her name’s Lois. Who the fuck gave her that name, anyway? It’s dumb.”
Her hand lowers under the table, probably to his leg, and she whispers his name. She doesn’t gasp like she did when I threw shit his direction, but hey… she loves him. And love is fucking blind. She doesn’t go on to tell him the details of her nickname, that my mom gave it to her and how much she (apparently) loved my mom because it obviously doesn’t compare to how much she loves him. Now I’m being mean. And stupid. And I know she loved my mom and that was a really shitty thing to think. I force a smile, let Laney know it’s okay that she doesn’t want to tell him, and say, “I was just telling Lois that I was having a few people over for New Year’s.” My fake kindness even goes as far as to say, “You’re both welcome to come.” And the bile’s in my throat again.
“We can’t,” Cooper says, picking at the food on Laney’s plate. “My buddies and I rented out a houseboat for the night.”
“You know Lois gets sea sick, right?”
He hates me. I can tell by the tick in his jaw. He hates that I know more about his girlfriend, and I’m smirking at him because I don’t hate him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he stood up right now, in the middle of a packed cafeteria, and asked Laney to get a ruler while we both whip out our dicks for her to measure. She doesn’t need a ruler. I’ve seen Cooper in the shower. I’d win. And when that didn’t satisfy him, he’d challenge me to a pissing contest and I’d win again. But Cooper’s dumb because it’s not about either of those things. It’s about who loves Laney more. And I’d win that, too. Every single time. Because I know she gets sea sick and I know that when she gets sick (even with lady cramps) she likes to have her back rubbed. And I know exactly where to rub it. I’m still smirking, and it takes him eleven seconds to start shrinking. Fuck you, Cooper Kennedy.
I win.
Lane grasps his arm, forces him to break our staring competition.
I win.
She asks him, “You want to get out of here? I have nothing important for the rest of the day.”
She leaves with him, but not before he gives me another one of those pathetic attempts at intimidation. They walk out of the cafeteria with his hand on her ass and he thinks he’s won, but I had that ass first. So…
I win.
Cooper gives me hell during practice and I expected nothing less, so I came prepared and got Garray in on the joke, too. “Yes Sir, Drill Sergeant, Sir!” is our new response to everything. God, I love that look in Cooper’s eyes—the one that says he’d give absolutely anything to be able to sucker punch me in front of everyone but—and this is the best part—this is his “community service” and he’s a “figure of authority” and Garray and I are nothing but cocky high school kids under his watch. It’s glorious, really, to see his anger rise and rise and rise some more. It earns Garray and me an afternoon detention each from Coach Anderman, our real coach, and we pretend like we care until we turn our backs on him and snicker to ourselves like we’re fucking eight, not eighteen. “Totally worth it,” Garray says, bumping my fist because he’s my best friend and he’s on my side, the side Laney should be on. We walk toward the locker rooms and he keeps walking while I stop in front of Laney. She’s always here, always waiting for her beloved. Her glare instantly wipes the smirk off my face. She sneers, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I wipe the sweat off my face with the bottom of my tee and shrug. “It was just a joke, Lane. Christ.”
She steps closer, her tone somewhere between a whisper and a growl. “You think this is a game, Lucas, and it’s not.” Wait, is she about to cry? “He was already on edge after that shit you pulled at lunch, and you keep pushing his buttons!” She pokes a finger into my chest, over and over, harder and harder. Buttons. “You’ve gone out of your way to piss him off, to make him angry, and it’s all well and good for you because you’re not the one who has to deal with him. I am!” Then she storms off, her feet heavy, stomp, stomp, stomping on my heart.
I throw my arms out and shout, late to retort, “If your boyfriend has a problem with me, I’m right fucking here!”
She turns swiftly, wipes at her eyes. “That’s not how it works, Luke! Grow the fuck up!” And she runs away this time. More distance, more space and even though I could close the gap, catch up to her, I’d still know that my actions caused my fate, and somewhere along the way, I lost you, Laney.
Chapter Twenty
LUCAS
It’s 11:49 again.
Different month.
Different day.
A few of my friends are here, Dumb Name included, but there are more of Leo’s friends than mine. We’re drunk. Well, they are. I’m beyond it. I’ve spent the past few days thinking about her and wondering how she is. Where she is. She hasn’t replied to a single text and every time I call, her phone is switched off. But, Cooper is home and Cooper despises me and she loves Cooper and maybe she even loves Cooper enough to despise me the same way.
I don’t normally sit around at my own parties grasping my phone like a baby with their blanky, but it’s called a “security blanket” for a reason, right? I should give up on her like I should give up on my phone, but my phone is what connects me to her, and it’s my security blanket.
It’s not as if I expect her to call, but I want her to. And maybe that’s why Garray’s grabbing my shoulder and telling me to, “Let it go, dude,” while he points across the room to a girl who came with his girl—a girl I’ve never seen before, a girl who’s looking at me with fuck me eyes, most likely because she was promised by Garray and his girl that I would, in fact, fuck her.
11:50 and New Girl has ten minutes to convince me that fucking her won’t fuck over my chances with a girl who’s in love with a guy who despises me.
“She’s probably fucking Cooper right now, and you’re sitting here like a junkie waiting for his next hit. Let. It. Go.”
Dumb Name’s right.
But still, I do nothing. Just sit. Watch the seconds tick by.
11:55 and New Girl sits down next to me. “Rad party,” she coos.
In which decade was “rad” still a word people used? Pretty sure it was pre-Laney and I was walking around in a red eye mask, red knee pads and a red cape Mom made me so I could pretend to be Raphael. Ninja Turtles didn’t even wear capes, but my mom was that awesome.
I smile, look at her properly for the first time. She’s not as hot as Garray’s girl and nowhere near as hot as Laney, but she’ll do because I need to let it go. I casually rest my arm on the back of the couch and lean in close. “Who’s your favorite ninja turtle?” I ask her.
When Laney had asked me the same question, I told her it was Raphael. Then she had asked why, and I’d said that I think, deep down, I wanted to be him. He was the bad boy, the black sheep of the brotherhood. Laney had laughed, said that Logan was more suitable to be Raph. I’d agreed, but I hadn’t said that I was most like him. I’d said I wanted to be him. Some days I wanted to not care about anything, to not have the responsibility of being the oldest brother weighing on my shoulders. “You’re more like Leonardo. The leader. The one they all look to for help,” she’d said.
“Umm…” New Girl purses her lips, looks up at the ceiling, contemplates like I’ve just asked her the most complicated question in the world. “Michelangelo,” she finally says.
It’s 11:57.
“Michelangelo?” I ask. “Why?”
She giggles. “Because pizza?”
Laney’s favorite turtle was Donatello. “Because he’s so smart without being obnoxious about it, you know? He doesn’t make the others feel dumb for not getting it. And he’s stealth but not just in combat. In life. It’s like he’s invisible until the world needs to see him.” Fuck, she was amazing. I could’ve had amazing. Instead, I’m stuck with pizza.
11:58 and some asshole turns on the TV so we can all sit around and watch the clock tick down together.
“You want to go to your room or something?” New Girl asks. Her hand’s on my leg and I didn’t ask for it or want it there, but when my eyes meet hers, I see the desperation. She came to a party at a stranger’s house with her friend who’s with a guy that has a friend who (they all thought) would be willing to fuck her brains out and she came because she wants me to fuck her, to erase the memory of some guy that’s been haunting her dreams, her thoughts, day and night and I get it, New Girl. I really do.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Sandy.” Sandy/Sanders. Close enough. Because that’s who I’ll be thinking of when I’m deep inside her. Oh, the irony of it all. “So?” She blinks.
I sigh. “You not even going to ask what my name is?”
“I know your name. I just don’t really care.” Sandy is rad.
11:59, someone taps my shoulder and I look up to see Leo standing above us, phone in one hand, girl in the other. “It’s Laney.”
My apartment is too loud, too many people, too many drinks, and so I take the phone from him and I go out the front door, down the steps, and into the living room of the main house where it’s dark and it’s quiet and it’s still 11:59 when I bring the phone to my ear and whisper, “Donatello?”
It’s not as quiet where she is, but she still hears what I say and she laughs.
You get it, Lane. You’re not pizza.
“That was random,” she says.
“How’s the houseboat going?”
“I’m in bed in a room on the lowest level, in the dark, and I’ve puked four times and haven’t had a single thing to drink.”
I lean back on the couch and stare up at the ceiling, waiting for my heart to settle while I hear the countdown begin. From my apartment and through the phone, people shout ten, nine, eight… we ignore the counting, my favorite pastime, and when the fireworks begin to explode somewhere in the distance, she says, “How’s your night going?”
I ask, “Is Cooper there? Is he taking care of you?”
She sighs, and I wait, not giving her a response to her question because it matters as much as my name does for New Girl. “He’s up on the deck,” she says. “Is that what it’s called? A deck? I don’t know. He’s with his friends… I don’t know them. But they’re there, and he’s there, and…”
“And so you thought you’d call me because you’re lonely and you want to at least be with someone when the clock strikes midnight?” I’m too drunk to even contemplate how that comes out, but I hear her shift as if she’s rolling around in bed, and she’s sick, sea sick, and I told Cooper that, but it didn’t matter to him because she doesn’t matter to him like she matters to me.
“It’s not like that, Luke.”
It finally occurs to me that I’m holding on to two phones and she didn’t call mine, so I ask, “Why did you call Leo’s phone?”
She shifts again. “Cooper made me block your number.”
“Made you?”
“It’s not like that,” she says again.
I should’ve been Raphael, the bad boy, the black sheep. Maybe then she would’ve forgiven me like she hands out forgiveness to that asshole. “So what’s it like then? Explain it to me.”
“He just… he sees you as a threat. That’s all. Have you been trying to get hold of me? Did you need me for something?”
“No.” I sit up, look down at my phone. 12:02 and the bastard hasn’t even checked in on her. “I just needed you, Laney, and you’re drifting, far and deep into this guy’s web.”
“I feel sick,” she murmurs, and my anger fades.
“Did you take any pills for it?”
“Yeah. They help some. But I’m here all night and—” It’s suddenly silent on her end.
“Who are you talking to?” Cooper asks, his tone as dark as the room I’m sitting in.
I sit up, alert. But the call cuts off and I stare into the darkness, promise myself I won’t call back because I don’t want to make things worse—whatever that means—and so I sit and I stew over my feelings, my hurt, until I force myself to my feet. I don’t go back to my apartment, to my party, to New Girl. Instead, I climb the stairs to Lachlan’s room and I get into his bed. “Just one minute…” I whisper.
12:48 and a text comes through on Leo’s phone: Raphael was a rebel. Some even called him a lost cause. But you’re not lost, Lucas. In fact, most days I fear you’re still the center of my universe.
Chapter Twenty-One
LUCAS
School starts again, new year, new semester, new hope.
Cooper’s back at UNC, his penalty for fornicating with underage girls now over. Small price to pay for such huge fuck-ups but that’s what money means to the Kennedys. A tool, a simple way to navigate through life in the hopes of sheltering members of their family from the harsh, bright lights of reality.
I watch from a distance as Laney steps out of her car in baggy sweatpants and an even baggier sweatshirt, and I wonder if she hasn’t managed to go home and find clothes that actually fit her or if her boyfriend has “made” her start dressing in his clothes to warn off any threats, aka me.
We hadn’t spoken since her phone call New Year’s Eve, and I didn’t even think to try. I’m blocked, from her phone and from her life, and maybe it’s like the night she came to visit me on her eighteenth birthday and we talked about our first Non-Date. I question whether we see things differently. If we always have. Last year, I dated a girl—Bethany—who made an off-handed joke about Laney being a loner because she spent her free period on her own just outside the library, knitting. I ended the relationship the next day, and when Laney asked about the breakup, I told her Bethany had bad breath and kissing her was like licking the inside of a trash can. I knew I could lie and be as crass as I wanted because I knew Laney would never repeat what I said to anyone. She’s always b
een a key holder to all my secrets. But now she’s dating a guy who treats me and our friendship like shit, and she makes excuses for him. “It’s not like that, Luke.” And when I asked her to convince me otherwise, she couldn’t even come up with a decent lie. And then she texted me, almost an entire hour later, with the most cryptic fucking lie of all. Bullshit, I’m the center of her fucking universe. And bullshit she put me on a pedestal, because if that’s fucking true then to her, Cooper is up in the clouds.
She doesn’t even look up at me when she walks past, her head lowered, books held close to her chest. She looks different. Her glasses, I realize. Hers are black, and these are bright purple and three years old. Her script’s changed twice since she wore those and they look odd on her now, because just like her eyesight, she’s changed, too.
And to think I was actually nervous about seeing her today. I stood in front of my mirror and planned out what I would say to her. It started off with the standard stuff. “Hi, how are you?”…“Did you have a good break?” Even though I knew how she spent her Christmas (at her house with Cooper while her dad was in Savannah with Misty’s family), I’d ask her about that, too. “How did you hold up after New Year’s Eve?” was another one. And then I’d be done with the bullshit banter and ask, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Then I’d go on a tirade about Cooper fucking Kennedy and how I don’t think he’s good enough for her and “Why the hell are you even with him, Laney?”
But no.
She didn’t see me standing here, waiting for her, wanting to expose her bullshit relationship.
She didn’t see me at all.
And when she enters the school, the door closing behind her, blocking me from her presence, it all becomes clear—maybe she never truly saw me at all.
It’s been three days and eight hours since she didn’t see me, but she’s seeing me now, stepping out of my truck and looking up at my apartment stairs where she sits, waiting for me to come home from school. How she managed to get here before me, I have no idea. Maybe she wasn’t at school. I didn’t see her, but then again, I stopped looking for her. Didn’t you hear? I’m blocked.