Mom must have seen the not-so-excitedness brewing in me, because she poured Mr. Make-Himself-At-Home his milk and turned to go.
“Rachel, don’t forget to let Molly out once more.”
And with that she was gone, letting me know she wouldn’t bother us for the rest of the evening. Since my sisters were currently at sleepovers eating pizza and talking about boys, I was pretty much on my own.
Chris chugged down the milk and set the glass aside with a heavy thunk. “Thanks a lot for just leaving me there today.”
My head started pounding. But this time it was aggravation causing it to throb like a heavy-bass speaker, not my own issues. Except, Chris Kent was my issue now.
Senior year was not supposed to be this stressful.
“You looked too comfortable to interrupt. I didn’t want to upset your fan club.” I heard the annoyance in my own voice. Noticing him today had not been part of the plan. Actually, if there was an anti-plan, that was a list-topper. “Plus, I figured your sense of humor seemed to be running on low with me by the end of the party.”
He stopped setting out notebooks and glanced up at me, this weird look on his face. It dawned on me I’d known him almost all my life but didn’t know him. I didn’t know what it meant when he pursed his lips like that. Or when one brow creased down lower than the other.
“They aren’t my fan club.” He ignored the second half of the statement and pushed the plate of cookies away. “You think I don’t know that some girls just like to be with the guy that’s going to get them the most attention. I may need History tutoring, but I’m up to speed on school politics.”
That was a boatload of bitterness.
As if he got nothing out of his adoring masses. So, yeah: Ironic bitterness.
Chris toyed with the pencil in his hand, doodling along the edges of the paper and not meeting my eye. It obviously bothered him. I pushed away any pity I may have been nursing. It wasn’t like he didn’t thrive on the attention. Everything he did said, Check. Me. Out.
Not just the way he looked, but the way he dressed and carried himself. The way he moved. The way he looked at girls as if he expected them to look back. The way he didn’t look at girls as if he expected them to be looking period. The way he demanded attention as if it were his due.
If he was trying to not be the banner boy for popularity, he had some work to do.
If only all that added up to those moments I was seeing—those lost moments, the thoughtful moments.
“Anyway,” he continued. “It wasn’t that I was ticked at you. I just…”
I really had no idea where this was going so I just kind of watched him like one of those Discovery Channel shows. Boys in Their Natural Habitats.
“Well, you’d been upset and it was my fault, and then Ben was pushing you in his room and I felt responsible and…”
Wait. Chris was trying to protect me earlier because he thought he’d upset me?
Okay. Alternate universe. Where was the portal I went through?
He looked somewhere past my right ear. “I’m sorry I put you on the spot and if I embarrassed you in front of Amy and Luke.”
That made more sense. It was about what Amy thought. He didn’t want Amy ticked off because of Ben.
“Can we just get this over with? We’ll get something that resembles History in that brain of yours and you can head off to whatever party your fan club is expecting you to be at.” I put my hand up as he opened his mouth. “And when you get there, you can ignore them as if they don’t exist.”
I smirked. I could feel it. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty, but he was about to have me throwing things at him and we were in a kitchen with a set of butcher knives within reach. He showed his first sign of common sense and kept his mouth shut.
I joined him at the counter, dragged out my notebook and started paging through it, reviewing dates and people from class as we went. Anything with a star next to it, I made sure he had in his notebook too. I got almost to the end when Chris slammed his shut and reached for cookie eight-hundred-and-seventy-four.
Which just ticked me off. It was bad enough having to share my mom’s homemade cookies, but knowing I could have two and gain seven pounds and he could eat until he felt sick and not gain an ounce did not endear him to me.
“I just don’t get how to study History.” He at least had waited until his mouth wasn’t full. “There is absolutely no logic to this crap.”
Maybe he was even less bright than I’d give him credit for. I must have given him a look because he pushed the book away with a frustrated huff.
“All these people and places and dates. Things happen in the book at the same time or out of order. Sometimes we go back to the same year after skipping forward. Then when we jump to a different country and they expect us to remember what was going on somewhere else. And Mr. Reed keeps telling us events are all linked. By what? The guy who decided to put them all in the same book?”
He stood so quickly he knocked the stool over. Bending down, he straightened it and paced to the fridge. Pulling out a two liter of Coke, he turned to me.
“Want some?”
Well, he’d certainly made himself at home. “No. I’m good.” And besides, when did Mom buy non-diet anything? I eyed the cookies. Hmmm.
“It should be more like the movies.” He dropped a couple ice cubes in a glass before filling it. “Everything is laid out in order, they jump to scenes at the right time. I mean, they even put those little signs at the beginning.” His voice shifted to the standard Movie Announcer Guy Voice. “In 1840, Rachel Wells, scourge of the west, arrived in town from her homestead in Ridge View carrying only her overnight bag. It was at this time President So-and-So declared her new home the outpost for his bad-guy-killers.”
He took a long swig from the glass and continued in his normal voice. “Then, you know, the adventure starts and it all makes sense.”
And suddenly everything did make sense. Chris had date dyslexia or something. That I could work with. Maybe I’d discovered a new disorder! I needed to look up if that was a real thing.
Google’s my friend.
I needed to get going on this. With something solid to work with, maybe I could catch him up and send him on his way in the week we’d “agreed” to. Maybe I could get a night where we actually opened our math books too.
I glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. How long had he been here?
I swallowed down my frustration. Night one, no Calc. But, my idea for how to get him caught up would free up more study time. I could give up one night to gain the rest of the week.
“You know, I have some ideas about this tutoring thing.” Why was I trying to make this work? Why? He looked at me, not with a lot of trust, but still. “I think I know how to help, but I need to try something first.”
He nodded and picked up his pen again.
“Um, no. I need to look at some stuff.” Long pause. “On my own.”
The light finally dawned, and he laid the pen down. “So, we’re, like, done tonight?”
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, hoping his accusatory tone of voice was caused by panic. I could forgive panic.
“Yup. We’re done.” I closed my book with a thump to prove my point. “All done.”
Why did the look he gave me make me feel like I’d backed over his puppy?
“Dude,” I started, trying to speak his language. “It’s, like, ten o’clock at night. I’ve been dealing with you for over twelve hours off and on. If you want me to be able to do this, I need a little prep time.”
I also needed a little me time. There was one thing I wasn’t losing because of this “agreement.” My Top Ten Percent standing was not suffering because of this tutoring set up.
“I’m not exactly a struggle to deal with. There are plenty of girls who wouldn’t mind having to deal with me on a Saturday night.”
“Fine. I’m more than willing to give my time slot to them.” Dream. Come. True.
I stood an
d headed toward the front hall, not sure what I was going to do once I got there. I mean, his stuff was spread out all over the counter and I wasn’t sure how long I could comfortably stand at the door holding it open.
“Rachel.” He trailed behind me not looking the least bit sorry. Not looking like he was going to apologize. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Just more proof this isn’t going to work.”
“You said you knew what to do.” I could hear the panic rising in his voice again. “You said you knew how to teach me History. There’s no way you’re backing out. Listen. I’m sorry, alright?”
We stared at each other across the small entryway. Him looking desperate, me feeling annoyed.
“Seriously, one more day.” He ran his hands over his curls and hit me where he knew it would hurt. “We’ll focus more on the Calc tomorrow too.”
I loved the “more” in that sentence. As if we’d focused on it at all so far.
“Fine.” I pushed past him, careful to not actually touch him as I made my way back to the kitchen. “But tomorrow we make time for math no matter what.”
He nodded, looking like he’d agree to just about anything, and started packing up, tossing things in his backpack like dirty laundry in a basket. The lack of organization just about killed me. So did all his charm. Or lack there of. I mean, everything he got from girls, he got with charm. Me, he bullied.
“So, what time do you want to get together tomorrow?”
He’d told me he was serious, but this was out of control. When was I supposed to have a life?
The last two days flashed through my head. They consisted of pining over my ex-boyfriend, being a third-wheel with Amy and Luke, and trying to hold things together…something I hadn’t struggled with since watching Chris awkwardly page through a textbook like he’d never seen one before.
He was better than an accessory. He was a distraction.
“How about after lunch?”
“Sure. Sounds good.” He glanced at the clock on the microwave and pulled his backpack on. “See you tomorrow.”
I walked him back to the front door and threw it shut behind him. Climbing the stairs, I noticed the crack of light from my mom’s room as she shouted out to me.
“Honey, what time is Chris leaving?”
“He just left, Mom.”
Her door opened and she peeked out at me. “He just left? I didn’t hear a car. Did you let Molly in?”
How parents string all those thoughts together and call us the unfocused ones is beyond me.
“I let Molly in. And yes, he just left. His mom had his car earlier.”
Now she was all the way in the hallway, the faded George Michael T-shirt she slept in crinkled as if she’d been to bed already.
“Rachel, you can’t let that boy walk home at this hour on a Saturday night. He may get hit by some crazy drunk driver.”
I rolled my eyes. I understand it’s part of the teen code to do that to your mom at least once every forty-eight hours—even a quasi-cool mom, like mine. Please ignore the above-described T-shirt.
“I highly doubt he’s going home. We’d be lucky if he wasn’t throwing a party with half-naked cheerleaders and warm beer at the end of the driveway.”
“Rachel Ann Wells, you get your butt out there and drive that boy home. If he wants to go drink himself to death, he can do it after checking in with his own mother.”
This was one of those arguments you knew you weren’t going to win, but you had to put up a good fight so they didn’t think you caved too easily.
“But Mom—”
“Don’t make me drive him home myself.”
Wow. That was a hugely wrong idea. I glanced down at the short shorts I’d given her for Christmas as a joke. They said “DIVA” on the ass and were too short even if they looked good on her…you know, for a mom.
“Fine.”
Chapter 9
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the reflective strip across the back of Chris’s backpack going the opposite direction of his house. Pulling up beside him, I reached across the passenger’s seat and rolled the window down.
“Hey.”
He glanced my way, a look of relief crossing his face when he saw me. I found it hard to believe he’d think some random person was trying to pick him up on the side of the road. Glancing away from the street and at him again, I rethought that idea and wondered if being that good-looking might be a little bit of a pain in the rear.
“Where ya going?” I asked when I didn’t get a “hey” back.
He just kept walking, without another glance my way. It seemed like he might want me to go away, but I couldn’t be sure. The more time I spent around Chris, the more I realized he was a little odd.
“Chris?”
He stopped and I drove by him, surprised by the move. Throwing the car into park, I pulled myself through my window and sat on the ledge, watching him across the roof.
“Where are you going?” I asked again.
He stood there, his head tipped toward the moon, weight shifted back on one leg as he ran his fingers through his hair. His head lowered and he met my gaze straight on. It felt heavy. Important.
He crossed the white stripe edging the side of the road and leaned his elbows on the roof of the car. His gaze drifted away before he spoke, as if he couldn’t connect in more than one small way at a time.
“I just wasn’t ready to go home yet.”
There was something he wasn’t telling me. His voice had dropped, and he seemed caught between worry and anger. Whatever that something was bubbled up from a place he didn’t want to talk about. It was almost as if Chris had layers.
Or, maybe he was just thinking about which girl he was going to lure out of her parent’s house tonight.
“Are you going somewhere else? I could drop you off.”
He shook his head, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t used to non-talkers. Everywhere I go it’s talk, talk, talk. Oh, yeah, and talk. Camp Oscheen, therapy, my mom and sisters, the girls at school.
“Get in.” I didn’t leave him a choice when I slid back in my window, reached across the passenger’s seat and gave his door a little shove open.
His hand wrapped around the door’s frame through the open window. He stood there a moment, above my view, before he pulled his backpack off and dropped into the seat beside me.
Both of us had made a decision. I doubt either of us knew we had—or what it was—but something shifted in that moment.
I sped off, still heading away from both our houses. Still heading nowhere. Pushing us further from the normal neither of us seemed to want. Escaping the places and people where panic happened.
I glanced over, surprised to see Chris rest his head back against the headrest—his panic slipping away too. In that moment, I wanted to rescue him as much as I wanted to rescue myself.
I was pretty sure that impulse would pass when I thought about it, but for now, I just kept pushing us toward the darkened edge of town.
The streetlights flew by, thinning out as we got further from the main streets. On the far side of town, the river paced along beside us, shaping the road, forcing it into curves I should have slowed down for. I raced the Man in the Moon and every demon either of us carried toward the darkness.
He crooked his head, catching the glow of the moon. “Where are we going?”
“Who cares?” I didn’t. I was out of the house and still feeling fairly free. I pushed the gas harder, hitting the fifty mile per hour point. This would be one hell of a ticket if we got pulled over.
Beside me, I heard the snick of Chris’s seatbelt, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t expect him to.
The road turned, but the river went on. I hit the brakes hard, rushing us to a stop at the edge of a dirt road that was so overgrown it couldn’t have been used in ages.
“Rachel.” There was a question in his voice riding under the warning.
I turned to him, and felt that grin s
pread across my face. The one I loved. The one I could feel every time I just didn’t care. Even with him sitting there bracing a hand against the dash, I couldn’t care.
Reckless. Reckless, but still vaguely in control. Sometimes, it felt good to let other emotions override the fear and anxiety. Anger, joy, amusement, worry. Recklessness.
Throwing the Honda back into gear, I aimed us down the road, watching for glass and animals, but mostly just wondering where this dead road ended.
The headlights splashed across a line of trees, the grass thinning into a dirt circle. A tall, wooden arched bridge silhouetted against the pale crescent moon, a tower of the past in the dark, silent night.
I threw the emergency brake and pulled the keys out, dropping them on my seat as I crawled out and let the door fall shut behind me. I strode toward the bridge, wondering what it would be like to see the moon reflected in the water from the tall view over the river. If only the whole world could be seen from a secret place like that.
A twelve-foot fence stood between me and that place with the quiet moonlit answers. I waded through the overgrowth of brush to the gate. A chain and padlock held it almost shut, but not enough to keep me out.
Sliding between the gap in the fence—not to mention ignoring the No Trespassing sign—I glanced toward the car. Chris leaned against its side, his arms folded across his chest, one ankle kicked across the other. Turning back, I pushed the shrubbery out of the way as I searched for the place water met land several feet down. A nice straight drop.
“Rachel.”
Behind me, Chris stood with the gate held open enough to squeeze through. I wondered if he’d stopped or if he didn’t fit. For a moment I considered going back, but then a clean breeze rushed up from the water. Cool. Clear. It pushed my hair away from my face. It was like flying and being grounded at the same time.
I gave him a smile I hoped said, “Stay there if you want, but join me if you can,” and chased the wind toward the wooden arch of the bridge at the water’s edge. Ducking under another sign, I placed a foot on the slat and gave a hard shove. When the only thing that dropped away was the anxiety I’d been carrying all day, I rushed out onto it knowing quick would be better if falling was involved.
Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) Page 8