by Kelley York
“Well, get up anyway. I’m coming over,” Callie says.
At this, I sense Autumn pausing. But only for a half second. “Sure. Vic’s here.” Like fair warning.
“Oh.” It’s Callie’s turn to pause. “Oh, he’s…oh. Um, okay. Should I come by later or something?”
Autumn’s reply is a dry one. “No. I’m sure we can have one last quickie before you get here.”
Heat floods to my cheeks and I abruptly sit up, running my hands over my face before Autumn can see how badly I’m blushing. She says to Callie, “Bring breakfast,” before hanging up. “Are you going to stick around? She’ll probably get bagels.”
I notice her smiling a little as her gaze flickers up to my hair and I immediately smooth my fingers through it to try to flatten it down. I know what my hair looks like in the morning. I’m just grateful I didn’t drool on her in the night. “Um… I d-don’t know if I should.”
Autumn pushes the blanket aside and flops down across my lap, stretching like some big, lazy cat. “The restraining order was dropped or whatever, right? I don’t see why you couldn’t stay.”
On one hand, I think this could go poorly. On the other hand, I’d really like to be around Autumn a little longer and avoid going home, or back to Brett’s. Because the moment I see him, he’s going to have questions about my dad; he’ll pry because he cares, but I’m not feeling up for it. Just the thought of it makes me want to crawl back under the blankets and return to last night.
So I reluctantly say okay to her offer, watching her fully remove her hair tie and resisting the urge to reach out and catch one of the soft-looking strands between my fingers.
“Good boy. Let me go get cleaned up a little.” She hops off the couch then, trotting upstairs and out of sight. I’m almost grateful for the break, just because so much of Autumn leaves me feeling stupidly flustered and unsure of myself. Her signals are almost like…maybe…? But no. That wouldn’t be possible, and I’m not dumb enough to get my hopes up. I’ve gotten the wrong impression from girls before. Wishful thinking or something, maybe. Last night was just her being a good person, trying to make someone—a friend?—feel better. That’s all.
While Autumn is upstairs, I occupy myself by picking up the living room. Throwing the cans in the recycling, folding her blanket, putting dishes in the sink. Nervous habit, I guess. Brett’s family is big on cleanliness and Mom is always quick to nag if something is out of place.
There’s a knock on the door and Autumn hasn’t come down yet. I’m pretty sure I heard the shower turning on, and I’ve tried not to think too much about it. I hesitate in the middle of the living room, not sure whether I should answer it or not just in case it isn’t Callie, but—Callie opens the door to let herself in a moment later, trying to balance two big bags of food and a cardboard drink carrier.
My eyes widen. I hurry to her side to help her balance the drinks while opening the door more. “S-sorry, I didn’t know if it was you.”
“No worries.” She hands over the drinks to me, nudging the door shut with her hip and taking the food into the kitchen. I follow. Noting, too, that she looks…better. Her hair is done; she’s wearing a bit of makeup. Not that she needs it, but it’s a sign to me that she might be feeling a little more like herself.
“You l-look nice,” I offer lamely.
Callie actually gives me a smile, depositing the bags from Noah’s Bagels onto the dining table. “Yeah? Thanks. You look…ruffled.”
I take a seat while desperately fighting back my body’s instant reaction of blushing. “Uh, y-yeah. Just woke up.”
“Clearly. Long night?” Her eyebrows lift.
“It’s not like that,” I mutter.
“Are you giving my guest a hard time?” Autumn asks, wandering into the kitchen in denim shorts and a tank top. Her wet hair hangs loose around her shoulders, already crimping as it air-dries.
Callie rolls her eyes and sits. “Bagels.”
“I figured.” Autumn grabs one of the bagels from a bag before sitting in the chair between Callie’s and mine. I’m sneaking glances at her that, if Callie catches them, aren’t going to help my case any about how nothing happened last night. “What’s up? I thought you had things to do today.”
“In a few hours.” Callie takes her coffee from the cup holder and leans back in her seat, studying the steam rising from the plastic lid’s opening. “I sort of wanted to tell you in person…”
That gets both of our attention. We glance at each other and then to Callie.
She says, “I’m going back to school on Monday.”
“S-seriously?”
“What? Why?”
“Well, I am a senior and I’ve kept my grades pretty good. I don’t want to screw it up because I was too afraid.”
“I’m sure your teachers will cut you a break,” Autumn insists. “I mean, they haven’t caught the guy yet…”
Callie doesn’t look up and her voice doesn’t quite match her expression. “I know that, and they might never catch him. You know? Besides, most of the people at the party were from the college Aaron’s brother goes to.”
“S-so?”
“So…it’s like a twenty percent chance I’m going to run into him in the hall. Those odds aren’t that bad.”
“You’re bullshitting yourself with that.” Autumn tears a bite out of her bagel with more force than is necessary. She’s not angry, not annoyed…anxious, I think. Her leg is bouncing. She chews and swallows before adding, “Some people at school will be assholes about the whole thing.”
“Maybe. But I can’t hide forever.” Callie looks up finally with a meager smile. “Look, I’m not saying that I won’t have crappy days or that someone won’t say something that’ll upset me, but I have to try. Honestly, Vic has kind of been an inspiration.”
I straighten up slightly. “I h-haven’t done anything.”
Callie drags one of the bags over to retrieve a sesame seed bagel from within its depths. “Autumn was telling me the kind of crap you’ve been dealing with because of my accusations.”
“I-It isn’t your fault,” I quickly say. She gives me a pointed look.
“Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. The point being, you’ve had to deal with a lot, too. If you can do it, I should be able to.”
“I wasn’t raped,” I point out. The words are harsh and make the girls fall silent for a moment, and I cringe inwardly. “I’m s-s—”
“Don’t be.” Callie opens her bagel and reaches for the cream cheese. She takes a deep breath like it somehow gives her strength. “If I can’t even hear someone say the word, then I’m in for a lot of trouble.”
This Callie is so different from the Callie I saw at the party, and especially the one I met here at Autumn’s a few weeks ago. It’s easier to see now how these two are good friends. Autumn is smiling a little despite her anxiousness, and I think I know how she must be feeling: proud of Callie’s strength but worried for her. I am, too.
“I’ll d-do whatever I can to help,” I offer.
“You’re sweet, Vic, but you’ve been dragged through the mud enough.” Callie shakes her head.
“It has to do with me now.” I glance at Autumn, who is cramming another piece of bagel into her mouth. “People aren’t going to let me off the hook completely until the r-real guy is caught.”
Autumn adds, “He has a point. But are you positive about this whole coming back to school thing? I mean, you’ve been keeping up with classwork at home.”
“I’m positive.” Callie takes a deep breath and sips her coffee. “And I already had to talk my parents into it, so please don’t make me do the same with you.”
“Hey, I support whatever you want to do.” Autumn lifts her coffee cup as though in a toast. “So long as you’re doing it for all the right reasons.”
Her friend smiles. It’s a nervous sort of smile, but sincere. “Oh, God, I hope I am.”
Callie stays long enough for all of us to fill up on coffee and bagels. While Aut
umn walks her outside, I clean up our mess in the kitchen, idly hoping her parents don’t come back and question the presence of multiple peoples’ cups in the trash. Maybe they won’t care. Other than what little she told me last night, I don’t know much about her family, which makes me feel a little guilty, seeing as I spewed so many of my own problems at her. Maybe I need to try to remedy that.
Autumn returns just as I’ve wiped off the kitchen table, and she rolls her eyes. “You’re a guest. You aren’t supposed to clean.”
“Habit.” I toss the sponge back into the sink where I found it and give her a tiny smile. “Plans t-today?”
She presses her fists against her hips, head cocked. “Yeah, hanging out with you. Detective work, maybe. Unless you have somewhere to be?”
Well, that takes the pressure off of having to ask if she wants to do something. “No. I’d like that.”
“Cool.” Autumn grabs her shoes, keys, and phone, and we pile into her car. She remembers the way back to my house. Given that it’s Saturday and Mom doesn’t work, it’s a relief to see her car not in the driveway. It’s one thing if she thinks I’m hanging out with Brett. It’d be another if she found out I spent the night at a girl’s house.
We park on the street. I get out, not saying a word when Autumn follows. I let us in, gesturing absently. “M-make yourself at home. Do we have time for me to get a shower?”
“Yeah, sure.” She waves me off, distracted by photos of little-me hanging in the hall that she hadn’t paid any attention to the last time we were here. They go up to seventh grade or so, every one of my school photos, and then stop abruptly. I try not to think about it and hope if she notices, she won’t point it out.
I tell Autumn there are drinks in the fridge if she wants one and then make my way to the bathroom. As awkward as it was sitting in her living room knowing she was upstairs in the shower, it’s twice as awkward knowing she’s wandering around my house while I’m standing naked in a shower stall with little more than a bathroom door between us. After our closeness last night, I’m self-conscious about wanting to scrub down really well and wash my hair. Extra clean. Girls like that, right?
I keep it quick, heading into my room afterward and dropping the towel as I slide open the closet door.
Autumn clears her throat.
At the same time I’m yanking the towel back up around my waist, I’m pivoting around to see her lying on my bed with my dictionary, peering at me.
My cheeks are on fire. “I’m s-sorry, I d-didn’t know you were…”
She raises her eyebrows. “It’s cool. You have a cute butt.”
I open my mouth, unable to find the words. If there were ever a girl in all the world who could humiliate you and charm you in a single sentence, it would be Autumn Dixon. Never have I thought about whether or not my butt was cute. “Uh…”
“I won’t peek.” She rolls onto her side, putting her back to me.
Good enough, I guess. Not that I really care if she does look, just that…well, I’m skinny and tall and not really anything special to look at, so she’d probably be reminded of one of the many reasons why I’m so not a dateable kind of guy…
On second thought, maybe I don’t want her to look.
I make quick work of getting on clean boxers and jeans, and then take a seat beside her on the bed while I towel my messy brown hair dry before I bother to find a shirt so the collar of it doesn’t end up soaked. “What are you doing?”
She rolls onto her back again, holding up my pocket dictionary. “What’s all this highlighted stuff?”
The attempt I make at trying to reach for the book to take it from her is a halfhearted one. She pulls it out of my reach. I sigh. “Um…j-just, you know. Words that I’ve memorized.”
“So all the highlighted words are ones you know by heart?”
“Yeah.”
She flips a few pages to find one, lips pursed. “Holocaust.”
Easy. I just did that one last month. “Any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life, especially by fire.”
“Cool.” Another page. “Perigee.”
That one is trickier. I close my eyes, trying to recall the page to the forefront of my brain. “The point of s-something closest to the Earth when it’s in orbit. Like a satellite. Or the moon. I think.”
“You are correct, sir. Man, they have words for everything.” She doesn’t look up. “Salacious.”
I pause, feeling mildly like she had to have picked that on purpose. Just to see me squirm. “Lustful. Lecherous. Indecent.”
She grins. “Very good. Can you use it in a sentence?”
The expression I give her in return is flat. “Waiting in my room knowing I would be coming in naked was very salacious of you.”
Autumn laughs, closing the book. “Subpar, but I’ll let you slide.”
“Gosh, thanks.”
She crawls past me to get off the bed and goes to the closet, picking out one of my T-shirts and holding it at arm’s length. It’s a band shirt from some local show Brett sneaked us into last year and their logo is of a Viking riding a unicorn. She nods appraisingly and tosses it in my direction. “What makes you do that? The whole word thing.”
I catch the shirt and pull it over my head. “Just something I do.”
“Yeah, but why?”
All the reasons sound so silly when I think about how to word them. I try to compress them into their simplest form, which is basically, “So I’m smart at one thing in my life.”
The curiosity on Autumn’s face softens. “I’m sure you’re smart at plenty of stuff.”
“Uh…no. Not really.” History? English? Aside from word meanings… Science? Math? I’m pretty much a failure at everything that will get me a career in any line of work that doesn’t involve flipping burgers and asking, “Would you like fries with that?”
“Maybe not bookish stuff, but there are other things to be smart about in life.” She turns to my dresser, pulling open the top drawer. Thankfully she got my socks on the first try because I don’t think I really want her digging around in my underwear. She chucks a clean pair at my face. “Like, being a nice guy. Being forgiving and kind and loyal and all that.”
I put on the socks. “Not so sure that r-requires smarts.”
“I don’t know about that. It requires a certain knowledge of people and how to relate to them. Empathy, you know? It’s like…emotional intelligence.”
“So I’m emotionally intelligent?”
“Sure.”
I would laugh, but this is obviously very serious to Autumn, so I smile instead and rise to my feet. She’s paying me a compliment, so instead I say, “Thank you.”
Her shoulders relax and she smiles back at me. “Come on. We’ve got things to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Autumn and I spend the day driving around town. We go to a bookstore she frequents across from the mall, where we can order coffee from the adjoining café and sit and read on couches for as long as we want. We stop by a pet store so she can get food for her cat, and where she corners me into holding some of their baby rabbits—despite the fact that I’m terrified I’m going to either crush them to death or drop them or both. She seems to take great joy in watching me do this. Something about it being funny and cute to see a creature so tiny in my large hands.
Lunch is fast food at the park. Or rather, the parking lot of the park. With the windows down and the seats leaned back some, the radio on, eating burgers and fries, I mention, “I’ll be making these burgers someday.”
“Oh, shut up. You will not.”
“Will, too. With all of my emotional intellect, I m-may be flipping burgers, but those burgers will understand people.”
She laughs so hard she nearly chokes on her food, smacking my leg. When she can talk again she says, “You’ll never be a comedian.”
I couldn’t care less so long as my dumb jokes make her laugh.
Then my phone going off ruins the moment. The fourth time in the last h
our. And for the fourth time, it’s Brett, trying to find out where I am and what I’m doing. I hadn’t responded because I wasn’t sure if I should. Would he tell Mr. Mason that I’m out with Autumn? Would Mr. Mason flip out?
Autumn is peering at me curiously. I type a quick message to Brett: out with Autumn will call later and pocket my phone. “S-sorry. It’s Brett.”
“Ahh.” She finishes off her fries. “If I’m keeping you from something…”
“No,” I say quickly. “No. You’re not.”
“Good.” She opens her door and gets out. I blink once, puzzled, and get out to follow Autumn into the park, where she immediately scales the empty jungle gym and stops at the top to look down at me.
She’s so cute. Cute enough that I can’t resist the urge to hold up my phone to take a picture, for which she poses with her hands on the railings and smiles wide.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Having fun. Forgetting about life for a while. Don’t you ever do that?”
I tilt my head but say nothing. I certainly don’t point out that we were supposed to be “playing detective” today.
Autumn shrugs. “You’ve been through a lot. It might be nice for you to pretend you’re a kid again, back when the most important thing that mattered was when those two snot-nosed toddlers who’ve been monopolizing the swings are going to leave.”
Makes sense, I guess, though I suppose Brett’s idea of making me “forget” about things is going to another party or hanging out with his family. Don’t get me wrong, we have fun when we’re together, but…it’s different. This is different. “W-why does it matter so much to you?” With Callie, I get it. It’s her best friend, like Brett is to me, and she was alone before Callie came along. But me…I’m just the guy she threatened to run over with her car a few weeks ago.
“Really?” She sounds offended by the question, leaning over the railing and squinting down at me. “I thought we were friends. Why wouldn’t it matter to me?”
Friends. Yeah, of course. That’s all we are. I look down at the photo of her on my phone, embarrassed. “Sorry.”