Alec managed a small smile, nodding his head to show that he did understand what she was telling him. He didn't necessarily believe it, because he just couldn't quite get there, but the knowledge that someone cared and believed in him was important to him. Sometimes it felt like the only people who truly cared were Bryson and Doctor Linn, but that mattered. It was something to hold on to, something he might need in the not so far flung future.
"I'm still struggling with my friends," he told her then, reaching up to brush his dark hair back off his forehead. "I mean I care about them, and I think they care about me too. Or at least Cameron does, he's been my best friend since I came back into town and started school. I feel like it's all just so pointless though, like we're going through the motions for absolutely nothing. High school ends, you move on, and most of the time you don't even keep up with the people that you shared a lunch table with. Why do we pretend that we all like one another? Or that it's ever going anywhere? I mean what's the point, doc? Is there a point?"
For a long moment Doctor Linn was quiet, her lips pursed together. She finally nodded her head toward him, just a faint inclination to indicate that, yes, there was indeed a point. "We need friends in our lives, Alec, so that we have a place to be. Especially when we're young, it's important to fit somewhere. So maybe not all of them will stay with you through your adult life, they won't even be there the day after you walk across the stage at graduation. They're important for your growth as a person though. Look at it this way. Everything about them, lends itself to the person you will become. So you don't like that they're gossipers? You don't become a gossip yourself. Maybe they're loud and rowdy, so you become a quieter and more reserved person. They're all helping you to find out who you want to be. Do you know yet? Do you have any inclination about whom, not what but who, you want to be?"
The silence stretched on for quite a bit after that, the two of them listening to the contented hissing of the noise machine that meant to keep those who were waiting outside from hearing snippets of their very private and intimate conversation. When Alec finally spoke there were mere minutes left in his session, and he perched himself on the edge of the sofa cushion, leaning forward with his voice slightly lowered.
"I don't know yet who I want to be, but I know who I don't want to be. I don't want to be my father, because I can't think of anything that could possibly be worse."
Chapter Seven: Friday I'm In Love
The final bell rang on Friday at exactly five minutes past three, signaling the end of another busy school week and the beginning of two glorious nights of freedom. It wasn't much, but when you were in high school Friday and Saturday night were everything. People were chattering loudly and excitedly in the halls as Ramona left her last class of the day, French - merci beaucoup - and headed for her locker. She hastily shoved all of her homework into her backpack, including her copy of Wuthering Heights and her English notebook, before slamming the locker door shut with a satisfying metal-on-metal bang.
With her heavy pack slung over one shoulder she made her way out to the bike rack, picking the lock with a bobby pin since she had lost the key years before and hadn't bothered to try and get a new one Her ten speed was ancient and not in any particular danger of being stolen, but it was a rigid habit that kept her performing the same old routines over and over again. So every day she picked the lock, pulled her backpack on properly, and set off for home. Only now as she headed for rural Route Four she knew that she would pass right by her own familial home and keep going for another mile, to the very last house on the road. She would be heading for the Davis house on her bike so she could spend a couple of hours working with Alec on her project, a fact she still could not wrap her mind around. It was so strange, but she was also starting to feel more than a little intrigued. Maybe, just maybe, she would learn something new about Alec, and she was hopeful that he would perhaps surprise her. The best way to know someone was to spend time with him, and a person’s home life was especially telling.
Not that he was exclusively mysterious in her world, because he wasn't. He was just the sort of guy that seemed to hold people at arm’s length, even those who desired to be part of his circle. It was interesting and strange, but possibly just all part of his allure. He was popular for a reason, though for the life of her she couldn't figure out what those reasons might be besides his face, anyway. If you had the right face, the right hair, and the right shoes then you were seemingly set for life. Or at least you were set in your place on the high school hierarchy pyramid.
Ramona peddled away from the bustling schoolyard, where kids were filtering onto buses or finding their cars in the schools small lot. She was glad to leave the noise of it all behind, humming to herself as she rode through town and made a sharp left onto their road, the houses and businesses of Rust falling behind her until they had well and disappeared behind the last standing rows of wheat. Pretty soon, when the threshing machines took the last of it, there wouldn't be anything to look at but rolling mounds of dirt. If they were lucky the dry season would be cut off abruptly by a really good snow coming down from the mountains and there wouldn't be any dust storms.
Though, as Ramona well knew, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. That was one of her father’s favorite sayings, and she hadn't ever fully understood it until she got older. You could wish for something all you wanted, but the truth of it was you weren't likely to get it. You had to do what you could with what you were given, and not worry about the things you couldn't control. Like dust storms, or being partnered in English class with boys who were friends with your childhood tormentors.
Ramona hadn't gotten far down Route Four when a truck went flying past her, sending dirt and gravel slinging everywhere. She ducked her head to avoid the worst of the spray, the dirt settling onto her shoulders and in her unruly hair. She dusted herself off with a grunt of annoyance and kept going, knowing full well that it was Cameron Eccoles who had just gone speeding by, delivering Alec Davis home from school. They had a routine too it seemed, though theirs did not usually cross over with hers. By now she was either at the farm house or had stopped in town to pick up things for her parents, which was the way she preferred it. Only now, well, they had become an unavoidable part of her day whether she liked it or not.
"Lord, give me strength," she muttered under her breath, peddling with renewed fervor. She was just passing her own house when Cameron came roaring back up the road, this time spotting her. He laid on the horn and shouted something out the window, though the sound of his bad music and loud engine intercepted whatever it was he meant to say to her. Ramona got the feeling that it was something she'd rather not hear anyway, ignoring him as she started in on that final mile.
She reached the house at the end of the road rather abruptly, staring at it as she approached. The fields that flanked it on either side were woefully bare now, their wheat long gone until the upcoming season arrived in the spring. There was a car in the driveway, a small white SUV, and a large German shepherd lay on the front porch with its head on its paws. It perked its ears at her arrival, but it didn't rise to greet her. It only watched out of the corner of its eye, silently judging her and trying to peg her as a friend or a foe. In her own personal opinion Ramona considered herself to be neither. She was more of a momentary acquaintance; passing through Alec's life for the twelve weeks it would take them to finish their project. It was more satisfactory that way, because trying to make friends was a mess that neither she, nor her heart, was prepared for.
Hopping off her bike she wheeled it down the wide gravel driveway, the dog finally rising to its feet. It began to sound the alarm with a loud, deep bark that sent a shiver down her spine. So maybe to him she was a foe, and that was a much more disquieting thought. She was about to hop back on her bike and call the whole thing off when the front door opened and Alec himself appeared, soothing the dog with a scratch between the ears and murmur of reassurance.
"Don't mind Ronan," he told her with a smile, b
eckoning her inside with his hand. "He's all bark, very little bite. Come on in, I was just setting us up in the dining room. We can spread out more in there, and my mom brought home a pie from the bakery in Fort Benton if you want a snack. I was going to have some, and I do highly recommend it. I mean, I hear it's pretty un-American to not like apple pie. You're not some sort of secret Soviet spy, right?"
Snorting out a choked bit of laughter, Ramona headed up the walkway and onto the front porch, giving the dog a wide berth as she followed Alec inside. "Yes, you caught me," she told him, putting on a fake accent that sounded a little like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle but not really. "I'm Russian spy. I tell you all my secrets for piece of pie."
"Let's agree on something right now!" Alec whirled around so fast that Ramona nearly collided with him, reaching out to rest her hand on the wall in order to keep her balance. "I'll give you the pie on one condition. That you never, ever, use that accent ever again. That was terrible!"
Suddenly they were both laughing as Alec led the charge into the kitchen, putting two pieces of pie onto a couple of expensive looking plates, placing them and some utensils on a serving tray. He got himself a Gatorade and poured Ramona a Coke into a pretty glass with a floral pattern on it, carrying the tray into the dining room. He had spread his own books and notes out across the large table, and Ramona took up a seat across from him and did the same. They earnestly began to talk about their segments and their ideas for how to break down the book on camera, and then it struck her.
She was having a truly good time. It wasn't at all what she had imagined it to be like, which was actually very pleasant. She had thought the house would be like a museum, a place where rich people dwelt without really living. Besides the fancy dishes, which terrified her because they were very obviously worth money, it was just another house. True, she hadn't seen much of it, but she liked the bits that she had seen. The place was broken in and livable, not chilly and untouchable like a castle from a movie. It was reassuring, and it allowed her to humanize Alec that little bit more.
"You know, I realize I don't know much about you," she finally said, putting her pencil down and stretching a little. She flexed her left hand a bit, fingers cramping from all that writing. Using a computer would have been a lot easier, but she didn't have her own laptop to carry around, so she had to just do things the old fashioned way. "Your family moved here from Atlanta, right? But you didn't come when they came. You went away to school?"
Alec welcomed the break, taking a long drink from his sports drink bottle as he nodded his head. His life was not the most favorable topic for conversation, but she was showing interest so he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Yeah, we lived in Atlanta. That was where I was born, and where I grew up. My father was born here though, on a farm a few miles away from here. He left Rust to go to college, and then he eventually went to law school in Georgia. He met my mom there, she's from Augusta, and we lived in Buckhead for most of my life," Alec explained, finding his own story rather dull, but willing to at least share some of the better parts. "He was in a car accident, and he decided he needed to make some life changes. Unfortunately he was feeling dramatic and drastic at the time, so he packed us up and brought us all back to his home town."
He was getting to the dicey part, the part he didn't like, and he felt his mouth going a bit dry at the mere thought of it. "I went to a private school in Atlanta, a college prep sort of place. I played ball there, and I had just never been exposed to the public school scene. My dad enrolled me in a school in Colorado, and I went there until freshman year. I decided I was tired of being away from home, and away from my family, so I begged to come back. So, now I’m here.”
It wasn't true, but Alec wasn't prepared to share the truth about himself with Ramona. He hadn't even shared it with Cameron, because it was just entirely too personal in a way that very few other things were. It was better to keep some things to himself, close to the vest, where they couldn't be used as ammunition. Sometimes words were just as deadly as a bullet, and they could hurt twice as much.
"What about you though?" He asked, downing another drink of Gatorade. "You grew up here, right?"
Ramona nodded, picking at the edge of the lace tablecloth as though it were suddenly fascinating. "Yep, Rust born and bred. I grew up right here, never lived anywhere else. I can never decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing though, but at this point I guess it doesn't really matter. I mean graduation comes in May, and after that it's over. We can go wherever we want, do whatever we want, be whatever we want. Rust doesn't have to be the center of the universe anymore unless we let it be."
Alec nodded in agreement, resting his elbow on the edge of the table with his chin in his hand. He stared at her from across the table, their notes and ideas momentarily forgotten. "Exactly! It feels so far away though, like May is at the end of forever and we can see it but not quite grasp it. I can't wait to get out of here, to find something that isn't so desolate and desperate. Do you ever feel like this place is absolutely suffocating you?"
"Sometimes," Ramona said softly, having never honestly thought about it in that context before. In fact, she'd never really been able to put into words how she felt about home, but Alec had nailed it. It was suffocating, like lying under a wool blanket in the dead of summer, and getting all tangled up without being able to escape. "When I was a kid I never realized how big the world was, that there was so much outside of the golden triangle and Rust and wheat. I just thought that this would always be it for forever, and that felt okay. It wasn't until I started to figure out that there was more, and that maybe I could have a little bit of it, that it started to close in on me. I mean I don't hate it, its home, but I understand. It can feel isolating sometimes, even for me."
"Yes! You get it," Alec practically shouted, his excitement tangible. "Nobody else seems to understand this, and it's so frustrating! Even my friends, you know, they don't really get what I'm trying to say when I feel this way. It's like because they grew up here, because this is all they know, that they aren't capable of seeing how good something else could be. It isn't because I grew up somewhere else or anything like that, it's just because this place makes the bad feelings so much worse. I guess it's situational, but still. I'm glad that somebody else understands how it feels to be stuck."
Ramona had never really thought of herself as being stuck, though she did consider herself to be a victim of her situation. She was responsible for her own future, because her parents had nothing to give her in terms of a legacy. The farm was failing and not something to be relied upon anymore, and there were six other kids in line behind her for whatever came next. She had to do for herself, had to be the master of her own fate, and sometimes that was terrifying. That was why she felt suffocated here, why she felt like she was drowning while she was just trying her best to tread water. The way Alec spoke though, it was something deeper, something more urgent than merely needing to get into a good college to make sure there was food on the table later in life.
"Why did you come back here then? I mean if it makes you feel like you're stuck inside a bubble with no way out, then why not just stay in Colorado? Or go back once you figured out it wasn't for you?" Ramona knew that the question was somewhat invasive, but it had to be asked. You didn't have the means to get up and go when the world closed in around you, and instead chose to stay in the place that was causing you grief. It made no sense to her, and there had to be an underlying cause at hand.
That seemed to quiet Alec substantially, and for a moment Ramona thought that she might have upset him. She wasn't sure why exactly she cared if she did or not, it wasn't like he'd ever done her any favors, but she still didn't want to be the one rocking the boat. Alec had at least been nice to her so far, and she really did want to stop being so bitter. When he finally did answer her it was after a long few minutes of torturous silence spent watching him from across the table. He had slumped a bit in his chair, picking absently at the cu
ff of his red sweater. Finally he leaned forward, forearms pressing into the table so with so much weight that the table scooted an inch or two closer to her.
"Some secrets aren't meant to be told," he declared, giving her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. It was the lack of warmth, that lack of life that told Ramona she was better off not prying further. Alec was happy being shrouded in an air of mystery, and she was not the type of girl who went around trying to unravel boys who were so tightly wound. In fact, she didn't want to unravel anyone period, so it was best to drop it where it was and leave it there.
"If you say so," she agreed, turning back to her stacks of notes and bits of ideas scribbled on papers strewn across the table. She threw herself back into the project, preferring to lose herself on the moors surrounding Wuthering Heights than in the enigma of Alec Davis.
They were still busy when his mother appeared in the dining room, holding a stack of plates. She was smiling warmly and looked rather pleased, sitting the plates down on the edge of the table. "You two have been busy," she announced, trying to make idle chitchat as she started to set the table around them. "It's almost dinner time though! Ramona, would you like to stay and join us? We don't have people over all that often, it would be a nice treat!"
Ramona almost said yes, the idea of a dinner away from her crowded house appealing, but she caught a look from Alec and quickly shook her head. She could see by the expression on his face that staying for dinner was not the best idea, and she didn't push her luck with him. Instead she began to gather up her papers, trying to get out of the chipper woman's way.
"I should actually get going, my parents will be wondering where I am. I think it's my turn to help cook anyway," Ramona told Mrs. Davis, not wanting to seem rude. "Maybe another time!"
A Crooked Mile (Rust Book 1) Page 5