Rules We're Meant to Break

by Natalie Williamson

  “Tell me about it. I get it back Monday though, so at least I don’t have to wait too much longer.”

  “That’s good,” he says, nodding and grabbing the basket with both hands again. “Any updates on when you and Han are coming to visit? We’re getting closer to finals so it might be better to wait until next semester, but if you’ve already gotten your mom to agree to a date, we can make it work.”

  I shake my head and force a smile. “No date yet, so waiting until next semester will be fine.”

  “Awesome,” he says. “We’ll make sure you guys have a good time, promise. Hey, have you thought much about where you want to live next year? Hannah’s been talking about the dorms a lot, but I didn’t know if you’d want to do that since you have the Buffster here.”

  A wave of panic washes through me. Hannah wants to live in the dorms? We’ve talked about being roommates at KU since before we really knew what it meant to go to college, and as far as I know that’s still the plan. But there’s no way I can do the dorms, because there’s no way I’m leaving Buffy behind. And Hannah has to know that. Right?

  “Not much, yet,” I say, shaking my head and taking a step back so that Matt can move past me toward the laundry room.

  “Well let me know if you need help researching any pet friendly places, all right?”

  “Definitely.”

  * * *

  On Monday I’m distracted, because all I can think about is how close I am to getting my car back. First period doesn’t matter since it’s Family and Consumer Sciences; we’re baking pies today, something I could do in my sleep thanks to my mom, so I don’t exactly need to pay close attention. But second period I have English with Ms. Ulbrich, who is a notorious hardass. So when she calls for me to come to her desk when the bell rings, I’m convinced I’m in deep shit.

  Figuring it’s better to head off her lecture with an apology, I blurt, “I’m so sorry for being sidetracked today.”

  Her fuzzy white eyebrows practically become one with her hair they go up so high. “I did notice you seemed a bit preoccupied,” she says, cutting me off, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve got an opportunity for you, if you’re interested. Something to put on your scholarship applications.”

  “Oh,” I say, totally thrown off by the fact that she’s apparently not upset with me. “Um—”

  “Come back at lunch, okay?” she says, already turning around and heading for her desk at the front of the room.

  “Sure.”

  I text Hannah to fill her in on Ms. Ulbrich’s strange request, and she promises to save me a seat and get me nachos from the à la carte line. So when the bell rings to signal the start of the lunch period, I head straight back to Ms. Ulbrich’s classroom.

  When I get there, I stop short in the doorway. Ms. Ulbrich is sitting in my usual seat and Jordan Baugh is at the seat next to her. They’re both leaning into the center aisle to look at the paper in Ms. Ulbrich’s hand. Jordan notices me first, and when he does his eyes crinkle at the corners like he’s happy I’m here. Oh no.

  “Hey,” he says. “How’s your car?”

  “Hey. It’s, uh, good. I get it back today.” And since I agreed to take it to Kevin’s friend to get fixed, Mom even said she’d pay for it, so. Bonus there.

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ms. Ulbrich clears her throat, and I look over at her, startled. For a second I forgot she was in here.

  “Miss Richter. Have a seat and we’ll get started.” She waves a hand in the air and motions me toward them, then points to the seat in front of Jordan.

  I go over to them slowly and lower myself into the chair. Jordan’s sitting sideways and leaning forward, with his forearm all the way at the front of his desk. I brush it with my butt as I sit down and almost die, especially when he quickly moves it away, the backs of his ears turning red. Jesus Christ. Ms. Ulbrich doesn’t notice this, or else she doesn’t care, because she just flaps the paper in her hands and peers over the top of her glasses at both of us.

  “Mr. Baugh. Do you want to start?”

  I look at Jordan, whose cheeks turn as red as his ears at being put on the spot. But he’s a Mr. Congeniality if I’ve ever seen one, because the discomfort only lasts about a second before his face slips back into its normal easy expression and he turns to look at me. “I was wondering if you’d help me edit my papers.”

  Edit his papers? That is so not what I was expecting. “What, like tutor you?”

  “No,” he says quickly. “Not exactly. I—” And then it’s like he’s at a loss for words and he looks at Ms. Ulbrich for help.

  She jumps right in, flapping the paper in her hands all over the place again. “Mr. Baugh is having difficulty with the writing assignments. His ideas are solid but some of the grammar and spelling isn’t up to snuff. He asked if perhaps someone from my other class could help go over his paper drafts with him to make sure they’re cleaned up before he turns them in. I thought you would be a good fit since your work has been solid all semester.”

  “Oh. Um, thanks.”

  She furrows her bushy eyebrows at me. “So you’ll do it?”

  “Well…” I say. I really shouldn’t. Like, should not even. Because rule number seven exists for a reason, and I’ve already had to remind myself of it way too many times in Jordan’s presence.

  So that’s it. It’s settled. I’ll tell them, no, sorry, I can’t right now. I take a deep breath and open my mouth. And then I look at Jordan. He’s staring at his hands, which are laced together in front of him, and his shoulders—which are broad and just as impressive as his biceps, not that I notice—are tense. Like getting help with this is really important to him.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Jordan’s head bobs up and he shoots me a smile that makes my stomach flip. Shit. Shit shit shit.

  “Wonderful,” Ms. Ulbrich says, smacking the paper she’s holding onto the desk so hard that the sound makes me jump. “Let’s go over the rules.”

  The rules are pretty self-explanatory, and no matter what she calls it this whole arrangement sounds a lot like tutoring. I can make suggestions but he has to make the changes himself. She’ll be checking each assignment for plagiarism. I shouldn’t mess with the ideas, because, as we’ve established, his are already good. I’m only supposed to help with the mechanics. And once we hit midterms we will reevaluate to see if Jordan still needs my help or if he can handle spring semester on his own.

  I do a quick calculation in my head—not counting the week of Thanksgiving, there are only six weeks between now and Christmas break. Okay. I can handle that. That’s plenty of time to whip him into shape so that when we come back in January, he won’t need me anymore. I just have to keep things professional. No boundaries crossed, no rules broken. Easy.

  Once she’s done explaining everything, Ms. Ulbrich peers at us over the top of her glasses. “Sound good?”

  “Sounds good,” I echo. Jordan nods.

  “All right,” Ms. Ulbrich says, getting up and starting toward the door. “I’ll leave you kids to it. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Miss Richter, and you later today, Mr. Baugh.”

  “Later, Ms. Ulbrich,” Jordan says.

  She waves and disappears out the door, leaving us alone.

  “So,” I say, turning to Jordan. “How do you want to do this?”

  He shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, making it stick out all over the place like he’s suffered an electric shock. “Whatever’s easy. I can just email you stuff, if you want. That might be better since basketball practice starts next week. I’ll be busy every day after school until late.”

  I shake my head, even though the idea of having a strictly email tutoring setup is tempting. “Email is okay for some things, but I think it would be helpful to meet in person at least once a week. It’s easier to talk about the bigger issues that way.”

  Jordan nods. “All right. When and where?”

  “Not my house,�
�� I say immediately. That would be too weird. Tutoring Cammie’s friend in Cammie’s house, under the watchful eyes of Mom and Kevin? No thank you.

  He shakes his head and smiles a little. “My house, then? We could go somewhere else, but then we’d have to worry about when places close.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Your house. That’s fine.”

  “Cool,” he says. “Is eight good?”

  “That works. Thursday?”

  He hesitates for a second, and then he nods.

  “Okay then,” I say, getting to my feet and ignoring the fact that my heart is racing. “I guess I’ll see you Thursday at eight.”

  eight

  By the time I get to the commons and spot Hannah at a table near the edge of the room, it still hasn’t completely sunk in that I just agreed to spend one-on-one time with Jordan Baugh. I’m kind of shell-shocked from the whole thing, to be honest, and it must show because when I reach my friends’ table Hannah frowns and says, “What’s with the face? Did Ulbrich end up chewing you out after all?”

  I shake my head and sink into the chair next to Ryan, who has his nose buried in one of the Song of Ice and Fire books today. His lunch is already gone, but he’s got a bag of Reese’s Pieces that he holds out to me wordlessly. I take a handful, because I need some sugar to deal with what just happened. “No, she didn’t chew me out. She wanted me to tutor someone, actually.”

  “That’s it?” Hannah asks, passing my nachos across the table. “Then why do you look like someone died?”

  “Because.” I pause to eat a chip loaded with cheese and taco meat to fortify myself.

  “Because…” Ryan says, nudging me with his elbow when I take too long to continue.

  I sigh. “Because the tutoring is for Jordan Baugh.” And then, because it’s better to get it all out there, I add, “And I said yes. Because I know you guys were gonna ask.”

  Ryan laughs and goes back to reading in response to this, but for a second, Hannah’s expression doesn’t change. Then a slow, gleeful smile spreads out over her face. It’s like watching a light on a dimmer switch get turned all the way up, and the brighter her expression gets, the more wary I am of how much shit she’s going to give me for agreeing to do this. Most likely an exponential amount.

  “Well that’s—” she starts, but I hold up a hand to stop her. Her tone is already too much, and I need to process everything before I let the ribbing start.

  “Give me like five minutes, okay? It’s been a weird day so far. I need to at least eat before you start giving me a hard time.”

  I expect some kind of pushback, but she nods, leans back in her seat, and says, “I’ll make you a deal.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her in question and she grins.

  “Ask your mom about the Lawrence trip by the end of the day today and I won’t tease you about this at all.”

  Oh, she is good. And really, there’s only one option. “Deal.”

  * * *

  Mom picks me up from school early so that we have enough time to pick up my car before my shift at work tonight. It’s the first time I’ve been really alone with her in weeks, and even though I’ve been waiting for this exact scenario to ask her about Lawrence, I’m still way nervous about bringing it up.

  “How was your day, honey?” Mom asks as we pull out of the parking lot. She’s got the radio tuned to NPR like Kevin did last week, which is new for her. She used to only listen to audiobooks in the car.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Just fine?” Mom asks, glancing over at me. “Nothing exciting or unusual happened at all?”

  Normally I would lie and say no, because Mom and I haven’t exactly been at a sharing place lately. But telling her about my new tutoring gig is a decent way to circle around to the Lawrence trip, so I say, “Not crazy exciting, but Ms. Ulbrich asked me to tutor someone today. Well, help him edit, actually. She said it would look good on scholarship applications.”

  “Oh.” Mom grips the steering wheel a little tighter at even this slight mention of college. “That’s a good idea. I’m sure she’s right.”

  “Yeah, she really knows her stuff. She looked over my application essays when I applied everywhere and she gave me really good notes.”

  “I would hope so, since she teaches senior English,” Mom says lightly.

  “Ha-ha,” I say. My smile fades quickly though, because this is the best opening I’m going to get. So I take a deep breath and add, “You know, actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about some college stuff.”

  “What about?”

  “You know how Matt Spencer got an apartment this year?” I ask. And then without waiting for her to respond, I blurt everything out. “He wants Hannah and me to come visit sometime next semester. He’d have his roommate go stay with his girlfriend so it’s not like we’d be alone with strangers, and I think it’d be fun to go up there and explore a little, you know? Hannah loved going up last year with her parents.”

  I manage to stop the word vomit and sneak a glance in Mom’s direction. Her mouth is set in a thin line and her shoulders are tense. Fantastic.

  Finally, after a long pause, she says, “Would Hannah’s parents be with you this time?”

  I’m so shocked that she didn’t refuse outright that I tell her the truth. “No, it’d just be me and Hannah. But it’d be totally legit, Mom. Matt’s a peer leader or something, I can’t remember the official title. But he gives campus tours to potential students and incoming freshmen at orientation in the summer, so he’d be able to give us a real tour and everything. And maybe even show us pet friendly apartments.”

  We pull up to a red light and Mom looks over at me, brow furrowed. “Pet friendly apartments?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. “I can’t live in the dorms with Buffy, Mom.”

  “Apartments are expensive, Amber,” she says, turning her focus back to the road. “If you do go to KU next year—and you know that doesn’t make the most financial sense for our family—an apartment that allows large dogs probably wouldn’t be in the cards. And if that’s the case, Buffy would have to stay behind.”

  She cannot be serious. Like I would ever leave Buffy. “When I go to KU next year,” I say, voice shaking, “Buffy is coming with me. I’ll work as many hours as I need to and take out whatever loans I have to to make that happen.”

  Mom is quiet for a long, long moment. And then she says, “Let’s talk about this another day, Amber. After you’ve gotten your college acceptances and found out for sure about grants and scholarships, when we can look at real numbers.”

  “Numbers aren’t going to change my—”

  “Enough,” Mom snaps, and I shut up. I wish I’d just let Hannah crow at me about Jordan so that I could’ve put off asking Mom about going to Lawrence longer. Or maybe forever.

  “You know what, until we have concrete numbers to look at,” Mom says as the light turns green and we start moving forward again, “I don’t think a trip to Lawrence is the best idea.”

  Of course she doesn’t. She never did. “Fine.”

  We don’t speak to each other for the rest of the drive.

  * * *

  Thanks to that frosty exchange with Mom, I spend the next couple of days avoiding the house. I was already scheduled to work Wednesday, but I pick up a closing shift working the cash register on Tuesday too, so that I can skip “family” dinner. Mom is pissed, but I don’t care because it’s so nice to be away from that awkwardness. And Buffy comes with me to work both nights, which always helps lighten my mood.

  On Thursday night I call Hannah in a panic as I’m getting ready to leave for Jordan’s house.

  “Dude,” she says when she answers. No hello or anything. “You have got to stop freaking out about this.”

  I dig through one of my boxes in search of my favorite Harper High hoodie, which was conspicuously absent when I unpacked my clothes. I think I used it to wrap this little ceramic treasure box my grandma gave me, but I can’t find it. “I should never hav
e said yes. What was I thinking?”

  “That he’s hot?”

  “Hannah,” I say, even though she’s not totally wrong. Still, we had a deal. “You promised.”

  “Sorry,” she says. She’s done pretty well at holding up her end of the bargain so far, though to be fair it’s only been three days. I think it helps that she’s spent most of them scheming about how to get Mom to change her mind about our road trip. That’s definitely taken up a lot of her time. I haven’t said much during those conversations though, because I’m still too freaked out about what Matt said and I don’t know how to ask her about it. “It was too easy.”

  “Well, try harder to resist next time. You know the rules, Han.”

  “I do,” she says. “But the rules aren’t what matter now, Amb. It matters that you did say yes. Which means you have to go.”

  “Actually, no. I could still cancel,” I say, abandoning the boxes by my bed to go search for my hoodie in the closet.

  “No,” Hannah says, with an air of patience that makes me feel like she is my parent and I am her two-year-old child who is scared of the monsters under the bed, “you can’t. That would be rude. It’s just tutoring.”

  “Not technically. More like editing.”

  “Even better. Editing is less personal. Strictly business.” I give another frustrated sigh, and she sighs back. “Look, I have an idea that might make you feel better about the whole thing.”

  “Oh really?” I ask, as I finally find my hoodie wedged back behind one of the boxes in my closet and pull it out, victorious. Buffy’s tail thumps on the carpet as I crouch down next to her, now in search of shoes. “What’s that?”

  nine

  Fifteen minutes later I’m ringing the doorbell at Jordan’s house. It takes him a while to come to the door, and when he does, he doesn’t open the screen right away. He just looks at me and then down and to my left, where Buffy is sitting patiently. Then he smiles and shakes his head, not even seeming surprised to see her with me. I guess Hannah was right about bringing her.