by Katie Klein
“Yeah, well, we had pretty pathetic reputations, too,” Phillip reminds him.
“Boys are different. They’re supposed to be wild and uncontrollable,” says Mom.
Phillip laughs. “She’s a senior in high school. You’re what, graduating in a month and a half?” he asks me.
I bite my lower lip, nodding.
“If skipping school one day in her entire high school career is the only thing you can find to punish her for—and I’m sure it is—then I’d say she’s done an okay job,” he goes on. “God. Let her live a little. It would be nice for her not to be such a control freak all the time. For once, she actually seems like a normal human being. So she had a serious lapse in judgment. Jesus. It’s about time.”
The room grows quiet, except for the ticking clock as the pendulum swings back and forth. I check the hands. Five excruciating minutes have passed.
Still, no one speaks. I wipe the last of the tears from my eyes, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
Mom finally breaks the silence. “Despite all of that,” she states calmly. “You’ve crossed some serious lines today—our trust was broken. Because of this, you are grounded. The terms still stand. You may drive yourself to and from school, but that’s it. No activities of any kind . . . no friends, no dates. And when does your project end?”
“Project?”
“Your project . . . with Parker.”
I have to think for a moment. “Two weeks,” I answer.
“You are to finish this project, and then I don’t want you seeing him again. He’s proven himself a problem.”
He’s not a problem, I want to tell her, but knowing better, I keep my mouth shut.
“No phone calls. No television. You’re staying close to home for the remainder of the year. We will revisit this issue after graduation.”
Sarah clears her throat. “What about prom?” she asks.
“No prom,” Mom replies.
Phillip rolls his eyes. “You can’t not let her go to her senior prom.”
“Yes, I can,” she snaps.
“It’s okay,” I assure them. “I understand.”
She pushes her chair back, scraping it across the wood floor. “This is disappointing, Jaden, and it better not happen again.”
I nod.
“You have thirty minutes in your room. Get washed up and get back down here. You’re cooking dinner.”
I wipe my palms across my jeans, drying them, and stand. It’s not until I reach my bathroom that I finally breathe a massive sigh—of relief, disappointment, frustration—I don’t know. What I do know, I realize as I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, is despite what I just endured, which was not only a first for me, but could have been much, much worse, in my opinion, I don’t regret what I did. Yes, I skipped school with Parker; yes, it was wrong; but I can’t completely say that, if given the chance, I wouldn’t do it again. The truth is . . . I would.
Knowing this, I reach for the wrench perched on my sink, turn on the water, and wash away the rest of my tears.
Chapter Twenty-One
I roll over and glance at the bright digits on my alarm clock. It’s just after midnight; I’ve tossed and turned for more than an hour. I move to my other side, stare at my dresser for a moment, then flip back over. I adjust my pillow beneath my head, fluffing and squeezing, and shut my eyes tightly, willing myself to fall asleep. I’m not even remotely tired. My mind wrestles with one anxious thought after another: what to do about Parker, about Blake, what I’m going to tell my parents about Harvard.
Moments later I hear tapping. My eyes fly open, and I remain absolutely still as I wait, focusing on the noise. It’s soft. But it’s there. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The window. I fling my covers aside and plant my feet firmly on the cool floor, then tiptoe toward my window. I reach forward and draw back my curtain, then carefully lift one of the blinds. I smile when I see Parker, crouched low on the roof. He points up, then stealthily creeps away.
My pulse quickens. I grab my comforter from the bed and lock the door, then hurry to my closet, entering as quietly as possible. I feel my way along the wall, shrouded in darkness.
Parker is waiting for me as I cross the third floor.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss as he climbs inside. I try to feign disapproval, but the smile behind my voice is obvious. The truth? I’m happy to see him.
“I would’ve called, except I don’t have your number,” he whispers. I shut the window behind him. “That complicates things.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, because I’m not allowed to answer the phone ever again.”
“I figured. How bad was it?” he asks, lowering himself onto my beanbag chair. It rustles beneath him. I sit down on the floor, and, even though it’s not nearly as cold as it was a few weeks before, wrap my comforter around me.
“Honestly? I’ve never really been in trouble, so it was bad . . . but it could’ve been worse, I guess. I have nothing to base it on.”
“What are the terms?”
“I’m grounded for the rest of the school year. I can’t go anywhere with anyone, or do anything. No fundraisers or walks . . . no phone calls. Oh, and I’m never supposed to see you ever again,” I add.
He smirks. “That bites. Good thing our project is almost due.”
“Are you finished?”
“No,” he replies. “You?”
“No.” Silence. I clear my throat. “So, um, are you grounded or anything?” I ask.
“Nah. I got home expecting hell, but the old man wasn’t there. He didn’t say anything about it tonight, so I figure he doesn’t know, or doesn’t care. Tomorrow I’ll just forge a note saying I was sick or something. My absence won’t even be unexcused.” He smiles, but it’s not a smile that brightens his eyes, or lights up his features. It seems contrived, more forced than anything.
I groan. “You are so lucky.”
“That my dad doesn’t know enough to realize I skipped school? Or the fact that he might know but doesn’t care?”
I bite my lower lip.
“You’re lucky, Jade,” he goes on. “Lucky to have people around you who give a shit. Don’t ever underestimate that.” He pauses for a moment. “So . . . what did they say about Harvard?”
“Nothing,” I say, sighing in frustration as I look away. “I couldn’t do it.”
“You have to tell them.”
“I know.” I groan again, feeling my forehead. “I just . . . I don’t know how, or what to say. It’s not the right time.”
“If you’re waiting for perfect timing, you’re gonna be waiting a long time,” he points out. “There is no such thing, even. You just do what you have to do and hope for the best.”
I exhale, the air escaping my lungs. He’s right. Always.
“They love you, Jade. They aren’t going to be mad at you, or disappointed, despite what you may think,” he adds.
“I know.” I shift position, moving closer to the beanbag chair—something to lean on. This puts me right next to Parker, almost touching him, though I’m not sure if he’s as aware of it as me. I prop my chin up with my hand. “It’s a good thing our project is almost over, I guess,” I continue after a few, quiet moments. “No more hanging out in the library. Or ditching school.” I hate thinking that in a few short weeks it’ll all be over. Parker will move on, I’ll move on, and there will be nothing left to connect us, nothing to bring us together.
“We can always have a third floor rendezvous,” he teases. “They can’t take that away from us.”
I sit quietly, pushing my cuticles back with my fingernail, wondering what’s going to happen to us when we’re done. When school is out. We’ve only had a month and a few weeks together, but part of me can’t imagine not seeing Parker anymore. I can’t really remember ever not knowing him, not being with him like this. I swallow back the heavy lump in my throat. It’s not even something I want to think about. “How did you know I’d be up?” I finally ask, curious.
<
br /> He shrugs. “I had a hunch you’d have trouble sleeping. I figured I could at least keep you company.”
My skin tingles, sending warm shivers through the length of my body. “Admit it,” I say, grinning widely. “You like me.”
He laughs softly, cheeks reddening in the darkness. “I’m not admitting anything.”
I lean into him, eyes narrowing. “You wanted so badly to hate my guts, and you can’t do it. I think it’s awesome.”
“I didn’t want to hate you. I just didn’t want to like you,” he clarifies. He glances at my lips, then studies me quietly. And his eyes, they’re full of something. Something I haven’t seen before. A wanting. A longing. A craving. And he’s right there. So close I can feel the heat of his body.
My stomach tumbles to my knees, heart fluttering. And it’s happening. That moment. That pull between us, drawing me in. Only this time I can’t find anything to hold me back; there’s nothing stopping me. “There’s a difference?” I ask, inching closer.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he whispers, his breath warm on my lips.
I close the space between us, touching his skin, kissing him softly on the cheek, just to the corner of his mouth. He slides his fingers through my hair, turning into me, and our lips connect, sending jolts of electricity coursing through my veins. I let out a quick gasp of air, knowing we’ve crossed that invisible line, jumped off a cliff we can never re-climb. This changes everything.
His lips move hungrily across my cheek, grazing my jaw line, kissing the curve of my ear.
My fingers curl around his leather jacket, and in a moment of impulsive want I push him back, straddling his lap as the beanbag chair rustles beneath us. Parker’s hand slips beneath my tank top, pressing into the small of my back, pulling me into him. His body is warm, and I run my fingers over his muscular chest, around his neck, through his hair, as our mouths crush together.
His hand slides the strap to my tank top aside, and he moves his lips, kissing my shoulder. My heart does a nervous flip, accelerating, rendering me breathless. The entire world goes weightless, his arms wrapping protectively around me as I face this irrational and crazed longing to keep him close to me forever. Because there is no one else. There is nothing. There is no Harvard. No Blake. No Ethan or Mattie or parents. There’s only Parker . . . and me. A wave of satisfaction washes over me. And suddenly my world is dizzy with promise, with the only dream that matters: us.
I snap away from him. Tugging against his leather jacket. Fumbling. He works to shrug it away, pulling his arms through the sleeves. He lifts us upright, and I wrap my legs around his waist, pressed tight against his body as he moves me backward, lowering us both to my comforter crumpled on the attic floor. A surge of heat rushes through me, and I’m swallowed in darkness.
He pauses, lips inches away, and I’m aching for them, because I’ve never wanted something—someone—so badly. And there’s only one thing I can hear above the heavy rush of my breaths and pounding heart: the little voice in my head, telling me something I’ve known for quite a while but couldn’t admit to myself: I am unequivocally, madly, desperately in love—I’ve completely fallen for Parker Whalen, the strong, silent, rebel who seems to know me inside and out.
His liquid black eyes reach me, assessing mine, and I suck in a quick burst of air, breathing in the smell of leather and traces of sweet cologne mixed with night air: an intoxicating mix that is, somehow, Parker.
“I think . . . I might . . . ,” I try to speak, my thoughts tangled in a thorny web of emotions.
A flush crawls across my neck, my heart unsteady as he moves in slowly, face bending to mine. My eyes close, and his lips brush my lips with warm kisses, moving slowly, fingers sliding my hair away from my face, caressing my skin, leaving it tingling in his wake.
My hand slides beneath his white t-shirt, feeling the smooth skin of his muscular back. I pull it, tugging. He grabs the collar and slips it over his head, the thin cotton stretching.
And there, in the moonlight, its pale incandescence falling across his toned abs, bruises in one stage of healing or another. Clear, even in the darkness. Some nearly faded, others fresh. New. They spread across his stomach and his chest and arms as secrets hidden, silent, each with its own nauseating history.
“Oh my God,” I choke, working to pull myself up, heart pumping faster. “Parker,” I whisper. “What happened to you?”
His eyes fix on mine, and he swallows hard. “Jade . . . I’m not . . . ,” he trails off, running his hands over his face. When I see him again his expression is stone, eyes conflicted, haunted. “I can’t.” He backs away from me, reaching for his t-shirt, standing as he pulls it on. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.” I feel a spike of panic at his chilly tone, words like ice curving along my skin.
“You have to tell me what happened,” I beg, choking as I struggle to find my feet, legs shaking beneath me, my head light.
He’s already zipping his jacket, but he can’t take it back; he can’t hide. Not from me.
“Parker,” I hiss.
He lifts the window sash.
“We can’t do this,” he says.
“Did your dad do it?” I ask, moving in front of him, blocking his path to the exit. “Did this happen today? Because of me?”
Parker scoffs, eyes narrowing. “Damn it, Jaden. Don’t give yourself that much credit. Not everything is about you. The school, this town, the entire fucking world. This might come as a shock, but the universe doesn’t revolve around you.”
“That’s why you want to get away, isn’t it?” I confirm, ignoring him. “He hurts you.”
He laughs curtly, shaking his head. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not funny! You have to tell someone!”
“Are you even listening to me?” he asks, glaring at me, his obsidian eyes cold. Dark and hollow. Like before.
He can deny it all he wants, but I know what I saw, and there’s no way—all those bruises? There’s no way those are all accidents. “Parker . . . this is a big deal! He can’t do that to you!” I struggle to keep my voice low, knees trembling.
“I have to go. I shouldn’t be here. None of this should’ve happened.” I listen to his heavy breaths. Watch the ragged rise and fall of his chest and shoulders.
My eyes narrow. What is he saying? He regrets coming here? It—all of it—was a mistake? “What?”
“Get out of my way,” he demands.
I step aside, biting into my lower lip as Parker lifts his leg and climbs out the window. I have to do something. To say something. To stop him.
“Look, I know you think that I’m like, this huge goody two shoes or whatever, and I realize I’m not the best person to give advice about something like this, but I know when . . .”
“You don’t know anything,” he interrupts. “Just keep that in mind.”
In the next moment he’s fully outside my third floor window, standing tall on the roof. “No one hears about this. No one. Got it?”
I rub my arms, hugging myself, eyes wet.
“Jaden?”
I wipe my running nose against the inside of my wrist, and trace an invisible X across my chest, crossing my heart. He eyes me carefully for a moment, his expression softening—hurt registering in his features—but this seems to satisfy him.
And so I wait, silent, as he climbs down that huge, black oak tree, then watch as he hurries away, disappearing into the smoky fog.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I spend a restless night tossing and turning. Imagining awful things. Like Parker. His bruises. Flinching to avoid a blow. When I’m yanked from the nightmares the following morning, I still have eleven minutes before my alarm is supposed to sound. I shut it off and lie quietly, feeling the dull ache behind my eyes; collecting my thoughts; wondering when, exactly, my life became so complicated.
I’m not sure what I did to deserve all of this, but I know if it continues, I’ll never dig my way out of the hulking abyss
I’ve managed to sink into. And so I slowly crawl out of bed and walk to my desk. Unsure exactly which book I crammed my letter from Harvard in, I pull out each one and flip through the pages until the white envelope flutters to the floor. There’s truth in what Parker said. This isn’t about my not doing something right; it’s about not getting everything I want all the time.
I didn’t not get into Harvard because I hadn’t worked for it. Maybe there were people out there who worked a little harder, who deserved it a little more. Maybe I don’t belong at an Ivy League school. Maybe something, or someone out there, knows me better than I know myself, and Harvard isn’t the answer.
More than anything else, though: this can be fixed.
In twenty-four hours my problems have taken on a life all their own: rooting and spreading; they’ve mushroomed in such a way that it seems silly not to cross this one, minor thing off the proverbial list. In the grand scheme of things—life and the universe—my not getting into the school of my choice is inconsequential; it’s trivial, even.
My door creaks as I ease it open. The house is still, quiet, save the ticking of the grandfather clock echoing through the foyer. I tiptoe to the middle of the hallway and stop. Two doors. Two options.
In the end, I choose Phillip. I pick him because he stood up for me. He deserves to know, first, why I needed to get away. It doesn’t explain everything, but it’s a start.
I listen at his bedroom door, at the sound of his light snoring. I drop the letter to the floor, and slide it beneath the crack with my toes. With any luck, it’ll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. He’ll set things in motion for me.
I sigh as I return to my room. Part of me wants another day—a day to be sick, a day to get out of town. I need time. I need to figure this out. Because I don’t know what to do about . . . well, anything.
As I shower, I wonder what waits downstairs. I wonder what I’ll face when I drive onto the school parking lot. I wonder what I’ll say when I see Parker. When I see Blake. I wonder what people will say to me. About me. About what I did. Sympathetic smiles. Encouraging nods. Staring. Whispering.