Rules We're Meant to Break

by Natalie Williamson

  And then I see Jordan following right behind Cammie and I get it now, and my heart starts beating so hard that I can feel it in my fingertips.

  “Hey,” Cammie shouts at me. She shoves Jordan in my direction and then melts back into the crowd. After a moment of hesitation, he comes close and leans down until his mouth is right next to my ear.

  “I think you said something about saving me a dance.” I feel his breath on the side of my neck as he speaks to me, and it sends a shiver skittering down my spine.

  I did, I think, pulling back and staring up at him. But I shouldn’t have.

  “Amber?” he asks, after a moment. I took too long to answer. He’s smiling but he looks unsure now, like he thinks my silence means no, that I don’t remember my promise or don’t want to keep it anymore. Why don’t I want to say no to him? When did that get so hard?

  “Yes,” I tell him. One dance. That’s all I promised. What can that hurt?

  “What?”

  I go up on my toes a little so that now I’m talking into his ear. He smells like … something I haven’t quite figured out yet. Something sporty, either his deodorant or his cologne. It’s how he smells after we’ve been shooting around for a while. Right now it’s doing crazy things to my head. “Yes. I owe you a dance. You cashing in?”

  He swallows and nods.

  “Okay,” I say.

  He reaches out to me, but before his skin makes contact with mine the song changes to something slow. I freeze and he falters and we stare at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, cautiously, he steps closer and loops his arms around my waist, settles his hands on the small of my back. The heat from his palms seeps through my dress and it’s almost like he’s touching my skin. I take a deep, shuddering breath and hook my arms around his neck, and then we’re dancing and I think, Okay. This is going to be okay.

  Then he whispers, so low I can’t believe I hear him over the music, “I like your dress. It’s pretty.” And then he adds in a quieter tone, “You look beautiful.”

  My breath catches. It’s not going to be okay. Because I did something really, really stupid. I broke the rules. I got involved. No, worse.

  I got attached.

  By the time the song ends, I’m shaking so bad I know he has to notice. So I make myself take a step away from him, a big enough one that he’s forced to let me go, and put on the best smile I can do right now. “Promise paid,” I say in that quiet moment before the next song comes on. “Thanks for the dance.”

  A flicker of confusion passes over his face, like he’s not sure he heard me right. He studies me for a second, and then, as a rap song starts blaring out of the speakers, reaches out to catch my arm. Sparks race up from his fingers as he gently tugs me closer and leans in again. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I breathe, nodding. And then I make another mistake.

  I look up at him.

  His face is so close to mine, and I feel fluttery all over, and maybe he can tell because something in his expression changes. He starts to lean down. I close my eyes. I can feel his breath on my lips.

  For one second, I think I’m going to let him kiss me. But then I hear Cammie’s laughter nearby and everything from the past twenty-four hours comes rushing back and my eyes fly open and I stumble away from him. He loses his hold on me and my skin is cold where his hand used to be.

  “I’m fine,” I repeat, louder this time, and now he looks hurt and the hurt doesn’t go away. Like it’s too big for him to hide it.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice high and strange. “I’m just hot. I need a drink. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  I don’t wait to hear if he says anything back. I’m already moving, shoving through people until I’m out of the crowd, and I don’t stop until I’m in the deserted bathroom, locked in the accessible stall. I press my back against the door and try to slow my breathing, but I’m having a hard time.

  After a few minutes, someone says, “Amber?”

  I take a deep breath and then turn around and open the stall door. Hannah’s there in front of the first sink. “Here.”

  She gives me a look that’s half exasperation, half worry. Worry wins, and she comes to join me. “What happened?”

  I shake my head. I can’t talk about it. If I do, I’ll start crying.

  “Amber. Come on.”

  I shake my head again and press my lips together. But staying quiet isn’t working either, because my eyes fill with tears that spill over and rush down my face. Furiously I reach up to swipe them away.

  “Hey, whoa,” Hannah says, reaching out to grab my arm, peering at me. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I choke. “It’s not you.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  I nod.

  “All right, let’s go.” She unlocks the stall door and starts marching me toward the exit.

  “What about everyone else? What about Elliot?”

  But Hannah’s already pulling out her phone. “I’ll text him. He can ride home with Ryan and Megan. He’ll understand.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper, and I let her pull me out of the stall.

  We get Hannah’s stuff from the coat check. Her phone buzzes as we’re walking out the door and she checks it, then smiles reassuringly at me. “We’re all good.”

  “Good,” I say, relieved. I can’t believe I’m ruining her night with Elliot. I’ll have to make it up to her.

  We walk to the car in silence and I’m reaching for the door handle automatically before I realize that Hannah hasn’t unlocked it yet. I look over the top of the car to find her watching me.

  “What?” I ask.

  She studies me for a second longer. “You like him.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t need to.

  “I thought so,” she says, and then the horn beeps as she finally unlocks the doors.

  twenty-two

  Hannah and I go back to Kevin’s house and set up camp in the basement. We put on Star Wars, our go-to comfort movie series, and she doesn’t even get mad when I pick the prequel trilogy instead of the original or sequel ones. Halfway through Attack of the Clones I get a text from Jordan.

  I’m sorry if I freaked you out tonight.

  I stare at it for a long time. Long enough that Hannah notices.

  “Who’s that from?” she asks, scooting closer to me. We’re both on the couch tonight, Buffy on the floor between our feet.

  I show her and she looks at me, her expression unreadable. “What?” I ask, flipping my phone over so she can’t see Jordan’s text anymore.

  “Can I say something without you getting mad at me?”

  I flinch and look away. I hate that she feels like she has to ask that. “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” There’s a pause and I hear her fishing in the bag of chocolate-covered pretzels we brought down here with us. Mom’s s’mores cookies are long gone. “Screw the rules.”

  I snap my gaze over to her.

  She bites into the pretzel, crunching loudly. “You said you wouldn’t get mad.”

  I take a deep breath in through my nose to keep myself in check, then let it out slow. “I’m not mad. Just … you helped me write the rules.” I swallow hard, thinking of Mom and Kevin’s fight, of Jordan’s face when I ran away tonight, of how much it hurts me whenever Mom dumps someone even though I tell myself it doesn’t. “You know why they exist.”

  “I do,” Hannah says, nodding. “We made them because you felt safer having them, and that was good for a while. But, Amber … are they making you feel safe right now, or are they making you unhappy?”

  I open my mouth to answer her, then snap it closed again.

  “Think about it.” She holds out the bag of pretzels to me and turns back to face the TV.

  “Okay,” I say in a small voice, settling deeper into the cushions.

  We’re quiet for a few minutes, back to watching the movie. But then Hannah pauses the movie and say
s, in a voice even smaller than mine, “Can I say something else without you getting mad?”

  “Is it about you wanting to live on campus next year?” I ask, looking over at her.

  “Not for sure,” she says in a rush. “But yeah. I’ve kind of been thinking about it. How’d you figure it out?”

  “Matt said something to me a while ago, on one of his laundry trips. Ryan said you’d been asking about Bri and Parker. And that loft bed comment you made the day we unpacked my room wasn’t exactly subtle.”

  Hannah winces and lets out a little laugh. “Yeah, that was pretty bad. I just … didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I didn’t know how to ask you about it either.”

  “Part of me loves the idea of an apartment,” Hannah says, “but part of me really wants to live in the dorms freshman year. Matt loved it so much, you know? I think I’d love it too.”

  “I’m sure you would,” I say. “Which means we should add a dorm tour to our plans when we finally go up to visit your brother. I’ll talk to my mom about it tomorrow, okay?”

  “Really?” Hannah asks, her voice a mixture of hopefulness and disbelief.

  “Really,” I promise. “I’ve been doing my research on jobs and apartments for next year, and I made a budget and everything. I’ll have to tweak some of the numbers so that I have a plan for if Buffy and I need to live alone, but—”

  “I’ll help you,” Hannah says with a firm nod. “We can look at it in the morning, okay? But I don’t want you to think you living alone is a done deal, Amber. I just want to see what my options are, you know?”

  “Of course.” But I have a feeling I know how this is going to go. Hannah is so much more social than I am. She’ll love the community aspect of the dorms.

  “Okay.” She lets out a huge sigh. “God, I feel so much better now. You have no idea how much that’s been weighing on me.”

  “Mm, I think I have a little bit of an idea.”

  She throws a pretzel at me and hits play on the movie.

  “You know,” she says, “on top of thinking about the rules, you should really think about at least talking to Jordan. Speaking from experience—”

  I snort. “Experience of like five seconds ago?”

  This time she throws a pillow. I catch it easily and toss it to the side. “Speaking from experience,” she starts again, giving me a look, “worrying about the conversation you’re afraid of is a lot worse than actually having it.”

  “Thanks, Yoda.”

  “I’m just saying.” She holds up her hands in surrender. “It’s something else to think about.”

  * * *

  A little after one in the morning, somewhere in the middle of Revenge of the Sith, I look over and see that Hannah is passed out next to me. I’m tired too, but I can’t sleep. I’ve got too much on my mind—I’m still thinking about everything we talked about earlier. The dorms and the rules and me having a real conversation with Jordan instead of running away all the time like I’ve been doing. That last one in particular is terrifying, but I can’t get the thought out of my head.

  Buffy has picked up on my nervous energy. She keeps lifting her head to sniff me, tags jingling every time. Finally, after about five rounds of this, I get up, slip carefully past Hannah, and head up the stairs. Buffy follows, quiet except for her tags, and the two of us go quickly through the living room and into the kitchen, where her leash is hanging on the hook by the garage door.

  Two minutes later we’re out in the neighborhood and I’m trying to tell myself that I’m not going where I’m actually going. But I know exactly what I’m doing. I can’t stop picturing Jordan’s face when I pulled away, and I can’t leave it like that. I have to explain why I can’t be like that with him. Why that part of me is broken and I don’t want to fix it, at least for now. He probably won’t even be outside, but I have to try. I have to see.

  It’s snowing and I’m shivering in my coat, so I stuff my hands in my pockets and let Buffy lead, because she knows the way. We loop around the golf course, where the grass is brown and crunchy-looking, and go on past the clubhouse and the empty pool. Then Will Hoefling’s street. Then another, and then another, and then Buffy bumps into my legs because she’s trying to turn right. I take a deep breath, holding it until it hurts.

  Then we go right. Down Jordan’s street.

  I hear it as we come around the curve in the road that hides the end of the cul-de-sac from the main street. Someone dribbling a basketball. At first I think No way, because really, what are the odds? But then I hear it again, three in a row this time, and I get this rush that starts in my heart and spreads out to my fingers and toes. I’m here to apologize. To explain. That’s it and that’s all.

  But it doesn’t feel like that anymore.

  We make it past the bend and there’s Jordan, shooting free throws in his driveway, lit up only by the motion light above the garage door. Buffy pulls at the leash when she sees him. I drop it and let her go.

  She runs right up to him and he drops the ball in surprise. I watch as he crouches down to grab at her collar. I think he’s saying something but I’m still too far away to hear. He scratches her behind the ears and then looks up and around, but it’s inky dark tonight and I’m sure he can’t see me yet. I keep walking, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth to keep myself from freaking out. Which works fine until I almost trip over something in the gutter at my feet and realize it’s the basketball. At that, my heart kicks into overdrive and I have to shake myself a little. I pick up the ball and tuck it under my arm and then I jog the rest of the way to Jordan’s house.

  I stop at the end of the driveway, and there’s this moment where we just stare at each other. I wonder if he’s thinking about that first night I walked by his house; I know I am.

  Finally the silence is too much and I have to do something. Talking would probably be good, but I can’t seem to make words. So I toss him the ball. He catches it easily, and I think maybe he’ll shoot it or go put it away or challenge me to a game of horse or something. He throws it into the yard. I pull my head back and give it a little shake, like, what are you doing? But he doesn’t answer me.

  Instead he looks down at my dog, who’s been standing next to him this whole time. He holds a hand out to her and says, “Chill.” And then he starts walking over to me.

  He stops about a foot away from me and then he waits. The proverbial ball is in my court. I close my eyes to steady myself. Then I open them and say, “Did you … did you just tell my dog to chill?”

  He takes a step closer. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Nice,” I whisper.

  “Thanks.” He studies my face and I study his, and then he sighs. “What are you doing here, Amber?”

  I’m so caught up in looking at him that it takes me a second to remember. “I wanted to say sorry. About earlier.”

  “It’s fine.” He looks away. “No big deal.”

  “It is, though.”

  “It’s really not,” he says, shaking his head. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? For a while I thought that maybe … but then after that first game you didn’t seem … but then yesterday you said—” He cuts himself off and blows out a frustrated breath, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. The motion sends snow fluttering to the ground, and I realize we’ve been standing here staring at each other for longer than I thought.

  When he starts again, his voice is low and quiet, and he can’t quite meet my gaze. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or pushed for anything you didn’t want. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  I take a step forward, and it’s like something snaps into place and I get what Hannah meant about the rules making me unhappy. At least in this case. I’ve spent all this time moving myself away from Jordan when what I really wanted to do is move closer. All staying away from him does is hurt.

  Slowly, I shake my head. “You didn’t.”

  Jordan swallows, hard. “Didn’
t what?”

  “Didn’t push for anything I didn’t want. Anything I don’t want.” I take another step closer. We’re almost touching.

  His head comes up and his eyes search my face. “There were a lot of negatives in that sentence, so I’m gonna need you to clarify what you mean.”

  “I mean I like you,” I blurt.

  Oh my God. I can’t believe I just said that.

  He goes very still and gets this look on his face like he wants to believe me but doesn’t quite dare. “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why’d you run away from me, then?”

  Here’s my chance to get back on track. To tell him all the reasons that we can’t, we shouldn’t, I won’t. But I can’t make myself say it, because that’s not what I want. So I tell him the truth, or at least the part of it that I can share. “I got scared.”

  He nods like this makes sense. “Are you going to run away now?”

  Somehow I manage to shake my head.

  “Okay.” He moves so there’s no more space between us and brushes the snow off my shoulders before gently cupping my face in his hands. “For the record,” he says, his voice shaky, “I like you too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he says, and then he kisses me. And I kiss him back.

  God, I kiss him back.

  twenty-three

  The next morning I wake up to the sound of the shower running in my bathroom and light pouring in through my open bedroom curtains. This is confusing because when I went to sleep last night—actually really early this morning—I was alone in here. Hannah was still downstairs on the couch. I sit up slowly and discover Buffy lying in the doorway with her butt out in the hall. She lifts her head and stares at me, and oh my God, I blush. Because she’s looking at me like I know what you did last night. And she does, too.