From what I understand, guys break promises to girls all the time. Especially promises made in the heat the moment at a party. The possibility that Birdie thinks I spoke false is driving me crazier than anything. Crazier than the fact that I have a permanent smudge on my academic record for taking responsibility for the kegs at the party.
I sigh and pull up a new internet search screen on my phone, typing in diabetic breakfast. Perhaps the silence is good for one thing. For the past couple hours, I’ve been reading everything I can find on diabetes trying to understand what Birdie’s day looks like. Caring for herself is so much more complicated than I would have guessed. Blood sugar checks, highs, lows, pump malfunctions, strict carbohydrate counting, insulin doses. It’s impossible to get an understanding for it in one sitting, but I know I definitely can’t bring her chocolate to apologize.
This morning, I was on my way to the mural when I was called in to meet with my football coach and the dean, my father’s abrupt reactions coming through over speakerphone. As usual, I said nothing, letting them decide what actions were appropriate. They gave me every opportunity to lay blame elsewhere, but I wouldn’t do it—and hell, my mind wasn’t even in the dean’s office during the meeting. It was across campus with the girl.
The girl who feels like mine.
Because I’ve never had so much as a mild transgression, they let me go with a written warning. If I wasn’t important to the football team, I’m sure the punishment would have been more severe, and I can’t help but feel guilty about the special treatment.
I should be consoled by the fact that none of my teammates got in trouble. Normally I would be, having this proof that I can serve a purpose. That I’m dependable, if nothing else. Today, though…I’m not consoled. If I’m honest with myself, I feel kind of used. And I want nothing more than to have Birdie’s eyes on me. I want to hear her voice. Because last night on the basement landing, she made me feel the opposite of used. She made me feel like one half of a whole. Someone who’s needed for more than his size, strength and willingness to play the scapegoat. I want to see her, but there was no one at the mural to ask. I’m shit at finding people on social media and my attempts came up empty.
There’s only one thing going for me. The mural didn’t seem completed, so the Kappa Kappa Gamma pledges have to return to finish it sometime. While I stood there staring at the painting this afternoon, I noticed that each of the girls were given different sections of the mural to complete. All the styles were different and had their respective initials at the bottom. Birdie’s part consists of two branches growing alongside each other, and I couldn’t help stepping closer, looking for the tiniest details, as if the paint strokes might help me locate her.
If she’s not there when I go back tomorrow morning, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Roam the campus shouting her name? I might find her that way, but she’ll have to come visit me in a padded room.
I drag my hands down my face, but drop them when the front door of the house bursts open. Two of my teammates are carrying paint cans and talking in hushed tones.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, bro,” one of them says.
“I can’t believe she called campus security. What? I’m supposed to never have a good time for the rest of my life, just because we broke up?” He sets down the paint can in his hand. “She has to learn not to fuck with people. I could’ve gotten benched.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll send the message.”
They see me at the same time and exchange a look. “Hey, Big J.”
I nod and reach for the remote control, casually flipping on the television as they head up the stairs. But I continue to replay their conversation in my head through the remainder of the day and into the night, pretty positive they’re going to do something stupid. My suspicion is confirmed when they knock on my bedroom door around midnight and ask me to come along and be their lookout.
They are so confident that I’ll get on board with whatever they’re planning that they don’t even tell me the plan. All I see are paint cans and black clothing. More than likely, they’re bringing me along knowing I’ll take the blame if they get caught. And on the way out of the house, something shifts inside me. Like a boulder rolling in front of a hole in the dam, plugging the flow of constant doubt in myself. I might be intimidatingly large and lacking in social graces, but I’d never sneak out in the middle of the night to inflict harm. Or cause destruction. I’m the one that stops those kinds of things from happening. My teammates are half my size, but they are the ones people should avoid, aren’t they?
Not me.
A weight falls from my shoulders as I follow my teammates across campus. I’m done making excuses for my presence. I’m done having to prove my worth. I’m sure as hell going to put a stop at whatever they have planned tonight.
I don’t expect them to open their cans of paint in front of the mural, preparing to throw a wave of white over the pledges’ hard work. Birdie’s work. As I snatch up one of the cans with a growl, intending to keep it away from the guys, I definitely don’t expect Birdie to step out of the shadows with a horrified expression…
*
Birdie
I mean, I took the hint. Jerimiah just wasn’t that into me.
But as I watch him pick up a paint can and get ready to splash the contents over the mural I’ve been working on for a week, I wonder how I could be this wrong about someone’s character. Maybe the pot smoke at the party went to my head in the most severe case of contact high in history, because the Jerimiah of my memory was a gentle giant, albeit with a dirty streak a mile wide. He wasn’t an asshole vandal.
And yet. Here we are.
We lock eyes in the darkness and he pauses with the paint can in mid-air, his mouth moving in a soundless denial…over what?
I wish I hadn’t snuck out of my dorm to put the finishing touches on my section, thanks to my inability to sleep. I wish I’d just stayed in bed and never found out he was capable of something so mean-spirited.
This is for the best, though, isn’t it? Yes. When Jerimiah didn’t show up at the mural this morning as promised, I had some time to think. This isn’t only my college experience. For the last year, I’ve been living for two. My choices have to take my twin Natalie into consideration. What would she have wanted? What path would she take?
Who would she have chosen to be with if she were still alive?
Not Jerimiah. He wouldn’t have been her type. She would have been dancing in the kitchen around her love interest while he tapped the keg. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to live for both of us. To honor her memory with everything I do—and maybe…maybe I take it too far sometimes, but you don’t just lose a twin and move on. It’s not possible. We were created at the same time, grew into humans side by side, shared thoughts and secrets. For all of our differences, sometimes I think we even shared a brain.
Last night, when I left the party, I was easing into the idea of being selfish with one thing. Him. Jerimiah. He was going to be all for me. And yeah, even considering doing something so opposite of Natalie filled me with guilt, but I was weak. I still am weak for him, even as he prepares to do this awful thing. This awful thing that makes it much easier to walk away. Stay the course. Continue living the only way I know how to do now. Half for me and half for her. It’s the only way I know how to keep her with me.
Jerimiah takes a step in my direction. “Birdie—”
Behind him, paint splatters on the wall. Wow. Direct hit. Almost half the surface is taken up by a wave of white, rivulets running down over the mural, eating up the careful choices of color and hours of work. Grief thickens in my stomach like an overbaked cake when I think of the unlikely friends I’ve made while standing at the wall with a paintbrush in my hand. The endless sketches in my backpack of my portion—a tree trunk that splits into two branches. One for me and one for Natalie. It’s completely gone.
My throat closes. Tears prick behind my eyelids and I start backing away. No way am I
going to let Jerimiah see me crying. Not a fucking chance.
I turn and run full speed down the path, the wind roaring in my ears. But not loud enough to drown out the sound of him calling me. His voice is so loud and deep, it’s a wonder the ground isn’t shaking under my pounding boots. I’m not answering him and I’m not going back. I just want to make it to the sanctuary of my dorm and lick my wounds. Did he like me? Or was what happened between me and Jerimiah nothing more than a keg party hookup?
How come I can’t believe that even after I saw him wrecking the mural?
As I crawl into bed, still dressed, the grief and questions in my head are vying so loudly to be heard, they seem to cancel each other out and I fall asleep face down on my pillow, the softness soaked in my tears.
*
When the knock sounds on my dorm room door, it feels like only a minute has passed since I fell asleep. My eyes are gritty from salt and moisture. There’s also a distinct ache in the center of my chest. Just like the night before, I dreamed of Jerimiah. Dreamed of being held against his chest, hearing the reassuring thunder of his heart. It seems my subconscious needs a little more time to catch up with reality.
Another knock jolts me from my thoughts and I climb out of bed, sending my snoring roommate a dirty look. Or maybe I should be grateful she’s a heavy sleeper, since I was free to sob without being discovered last night.
I put a hand over my mouth to trap the morning breath and open the door. On the other side is a pledge I recognize, and before she says a word, I know she’s here to tell me the mural was destroyed. My shock and anguish last night prevented me from coming up with a plan to break the news to my new friends, but it appears I’ve been saved the trouble.
She’s visibly upset.
“Someone destroyed all of our work.” She backs into the hallway and I follow her, both of us whispering so we don’t wake the entire floor. “It’s totally gone, except for like, some of the bottom left corner.”
Am I going to rat out Jerimiah and his buddies? I haven’t gotten that far. It’s approximately the worst idea in the world to become enemies with the football team at the outset of my college career. But. I can’t let them get away with being horrible people. I don’t have it in me to look the other way. “I, um…I have to tell you something—”
“Now this linebacker dude is like, fixing it? I don’t know. People say he’s been there since this morning, cleaning up a-and trying to re-create what was there before—”
“Hold up. Linebacker dude?”
“Yeah, you probably saw him at the party the other night.” She shivers. “That six-foot-a thousand Frankenstein-looking guy.”
I take exception to the monster comparison, but no one else is that tall. “Jerimiah?”
“Is he the scary one?”
“He’s not—” I break off. Why am I defending him? He wrecked the mural.
And now he’s fixing it?
What the hell is going on?
I sidestep back into my room and snag my shower caddy off my dresser. “Um. Weird. I’m going to go make myself look human and go check it out.”
After I say goodbye to my friend, I dash down to the common bathroom, brush my teeth, wash my face and yank a brush through my hair. While my roommate continues to sleep like the dead, I throw on the only thing I have clean—a turquoise shift dress my sister-in-law bought me on a futile quest to imbue my wardrobe with color. Although, I guess it’s not so futile, since I’m wearing it now as I jog down the path that leads from my dorm to the quad. I skid to a stop at the edge of the grass, continuing in slow motion on my way toward the mural.
Son of a gun. Jerimiah is indeed standing in front of it. Surrounded by a crowd of at least two hundred students. I wouldn’t even be able to see him if he wasn’t a skyscraper. Obviously uncomfortable with the attention he’s receiving, his shoulders are bunched, his jaw clenched. But that intense focus I remember about him is narrowed down to what he’s doing. The slow, intricate strokes of the paint brush that’s dwarfed in his huge hand.
I have to shoulder through the onlookers to reach him, and it’s like he senses me, the ham hock-sized muscles in his back stiffening before he even looks over his shoulder. But then he does and awareness rushes over my skin, head to toe. How anyone can find this man less than beautiful is totally beyond me. In the darkness of the basement, he was handsome. Unique. In the light, he’s a diamond, shining in the rough. Can’t everyone see that?
His eyes are light blue, lit up by the morning sun and…there is so much honesty and integrity in them, I know on the spot that I’ve made a mistake.
“Birdie,” he rasps.
“You were trying to stop them,” I whisper, wanting to kick myself. “Weren’t you?”
His eyelids drop, his big chest lifting in a heavy breath. He nods once.
“I’m sorry for running away.”
“I understand.” I’ve never had anyone look at me the way Jerimiah does. Like I’m a new species of flower he’s desperate to pluck out of the ground and examine, but he’s clearly holding himself back from following through. With one final, long look in my direction, he turns his back to the crowd, determination in the lines of his strong body. “I’m going to fix it for you.”
“No, you’re not.”
God help me. When he turns his head and gives me a look that says, oh yeah, sweetheart? I fall flat out in love with Jerimiah. I skid straight into a home plate made of daisies right there in front of an audience of hundreds. Wearing a stupid turquoise dress. I was already in love with the gentle giant, but that show of stubbornness seals the deal. It speaks to mine and they marry together as perfectly as peanut butter and jelly.
Which, of course, is scary. Really scary. Because I’ve already decided things won’t work between us. I can’t be selfish and have him all for myself without taking Natalie into consideration. What would she want? Deep down, I know there’s something unhealthy about needing approval from my sister, but I don’t know how to stop without saying goodbye to her.
Jerimiah goes back to painting and I stoop down, snatching up the closest brush. “You’re doing it again. Trying to get acceptance from your friends by doing their dirty work.” I jab the brush into a can full of sky-blue paint. “I’m not letting you.”
“I’m not budging.”
“Me either.” My chin goes up. “You don’t even know what the mural is supposed to look like. You only saw it in the dark last night and you didn’t show up yesterday—”
“I did show up. Late.” He catches my gaze and holds it. “I was in the dean’s office, but I came. You were gone. I remember everything about it, though. Mostly your section.”
It takes gallons of willpower not to drop the brush and climb into his arms. Jerimiah came. He didn’t blow me off or regard me as an insignificant kegger hookup. With him standing in front of me, looking so sturdy and intense and honest, I wonder where I got the nerve to doubt him. “Why were you in the dean’s office?”
He stares off over my shoulder. “You look very pretty in that dress, Birdie.”
“A-are you stalling?” I say, totally breathless over his gruff compliment.
“Yes. You’re not going to like why I was with the dean.” He sighs and continues painting. “I took the blame for having beer at the party. I wish I hadn’t done it. I’d already decided to stop covering for everyone before they ruined your mural. And now I just want to kill them with my bare hands.”
A corner of my mouth ticks up. “So now they do have a reason to think you’re scary?”
“Yeah.” A muscle rises and falls in his throat. “You were crying.”
“I’ll deny it in court. No jury will believe you.” He grunts—and oh my God, the deep, resonant sound makes my vagina clench. Who knew? “If you’re dead set on re-painting this mural, I have a picture on my phone.” I fish it out of my dress pocket with my free hand and pull up the most recent picture. As he looks it over, I take the opportunity to study him. “What made you decide t
o stop letting your friends take advantage?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I met someone who thought I deserved better. Made it easier for me to believe that could be true.”
“Oh.” I bite my lips to hide my smile. “That’s cool.”
For the next hour, we paint in companionable silence. And I mean companionable. Most of the time, I hate extended silences and rush to fill them with nonsense or random observations, but I don’t feel the need to do that around Jerimiah. Silence is his natural state and it gives me the freedom to live in my own thoughts. Which are almost entirely about him. How he’s a terrible artist but doesn’t hesitate to attempt pink roses and the cerulean pond. His birds actually look like road kill. I notice the fit of his jeans, too. The tree trunk thickness of his thighs, the muscular cords that aren’t hidden whatsoever by the denim. He catches me staring at them and tilts his head as if surprised someone finds inhuman strength attractive.
Apparently this girl does.
I wish I’d worn leggings or something. This dress makes me feel sexually vulnerable and I’m too emotionally vulnerable for that. As we paint, I intentionally avoid my section of the mural that once depicted two branches growing from the same trunk, representing me and Natalie. It was hard enough painting it the first time, but doing it twice?
With a deep breath, I turn around to find the crowd has dispersed, except for a few lingering lookie-loos. It’s early afternoon and the sky has turned to charcoal, some ominous clouds beginning to move in overhead.
“Looks like rain,” Jerimiah says without taking his attention off the horrible lily pad he’s painting. “I wonder if my game tonight will be canceled.”
“The dean didn’t sideline you?”
Jerimiah shakes his head, brow furrowing.
“You wish he’d made you sit out, don’t you?” I scrutinize his profile. “Even if you didn’t do the crime, you want to serve the time.”
“I just think someone should. No one is paying for this crime, either.”
Halfway Girl Page 3