I glanced at his desk, looking for something personal to give me an edge, to read him. Nothing except four red pens, a ruler, and one of those planners. Which made me ask: What does a History teacher need a ruler for, and could he possibly have a life outside of the RV?
“I like to chart out my year ahead of time. Give the important projects their due.” He tried not to nod, but he loved the idea of having another person who might need one of those over-priced, over-dated books sitting on his desk. “I was wondering if there are any big projects coming down the road.”
He looked at me standing there with my books held to my chest and shook his head as if the answer didn't really matter. Part of me wanted to say, Dude, if you hate kids so much, what are you doing here? But, that wasn’t part of the brown nose plan. Internal editing is exhausting.
“There’s a presentation each semester on a key point or person in history and a year-end project that overviews a major era.” He pushed those half-sized glasses up his nose and asked, “Is that enough information for your planning?”
Bingo. Exactly what I wanted to hear. Chris and I were golden.
Well, I mean, I was golden. Chris was on his own. Yup, I was an independent woman. No boy was going to shape my year. Not a baseball player. Not a soccer player. Not a one.
“Yes.” I flashed him my most girly-flirty smile. Can’t hurt, right? “Thanks, Mr. Reed.”
He actually smiled back as I rushed out. My study hall teacher wasn't so crazy about the bell, but no one liked us coming in late—as if we could do everything in three minutes. I'm surprised riots hadn't broken out at the thirty second bell.
The halls were already thinning, but my next class was on the far side of the building. The fastest way there was to cut through the old wing that was used as administrative offices for the part time somebodies who were never there anyway.
It was a weird place. The paint was different and the older lighting gave off a slightly yellowed glow. Doorways indented between unused lockers but didn't go anywhere. Every year someone proposed ripping it down. Every year it was cheaper to just quasi-heat it.
If it was nighttime and I was a chicken little girly-girl, I'd hate cutting down there alone. As it was, I nearly screamed when a hand reached out and pulled me into one of the empty alcoves.
I slammed into a hard chest, my nose coming into solid impact with a shoulder.
“Can you believe that?” The excitement rolling off Chris felt more typical to the soccer field than the hallway. Any second he’d start stretching for laps. “I was ready. He gave us the test and I aced it.”
I pushed back, trying to step away from him in the tight space between the false doorway and the wall.
“You aced it, right?” His grin was kind of …floppy like an overly happy bunny or a puppy with a new home. His green eyes darkened so the color blended into the edge of his pupils. And he was totally pumped like he just sieged and captured some castle—or, you know, won a game. Joy of victory. Blah Blah Blah. Very aggressive. And it was hot.
I wretched my arm out of his grasp and stepped back, out into the hallway. Out to safety.
There was no way—not one damn way—I was going down that path. This guy put every personal red flag on the field or the play or whatever. I could never stand next to him without wanting to check myself. Adjust my skirt. Watch my too-long arms try to curl around me—into me. Wonder if my head looked like it was growing. Wonder if literally every person was seeing Beauty and the Beast in us.
Every fear, every phobia, every “irrational” thought would stand in sharp contrast next to the gorgeousness on display before me.
And I had no interest in being the next notch on this particular belt. I glanced down at his belt as I thought that…and jerked my eyes away.
Now he was going to wonder if I was looking at his crotch. I was not looking at his crotch. My eyes started to shift on their own.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I was so not a crotch checker-outer.
The problem was he was so beautiful. I’d always drifted toward beautiful things. They made me feel better. Clothes, hair, makeup, purses, notebooks…oh, and boyfriends. Beautiful accessories to hide my not-so-beautiful disfigurements.
“Are you okay?”
No. Hell no, I wasn’t okay. I backed away from him quicker than an overpriced knockoff.
“I’ve gotta go.” I stepped back again, stumbling over my own feet. “Class.”
I rushed down the hall to the staircase before he had a chance to ask me if I was insane.
Which was a good thing because I really didn’t want to have to lie about that too.
~*~
I never bothered to turn my phone on between classes. I would, but the only person who might text me just dumped me. Also, Amy and phones? Not so much. Plus, the school confiscates them for a week if you forget and leave it on in class. You get it back at the end of the day—due to angry parent rants—but every morning in homeroom you have to turn it over.
So, the piece of paper half stuck through the grid of my locker made my heart stop like a car running into a pile of cement blocks. It quit moving, but the engine revved.
Jared used to leave me notes. Maybe this was the Let’s Talk…Again note. Maybe he realized cute little blondes were overrated. Maybe he just realized I still had his Red Sox hat.
I pulled the triple folded scrap of paper out, trying not to tear the edges as it came free. Bracing myself for the worst, I totally hoped for the best. More than the best. Hoping that I’d get my boyfriend—my security blanket—back. Opening it, slowly, kind of savoring the moment that would repair part of my life, I shook my head at an unfamiliar scrawl.
“Did you get my text? Away game. Be over after.”
It was better to crumple the paper into a tiny ball than to crumple onto the floor in front of the entire Senior Hall.
Chapter 12
The Rule of Three Outfits. This was in the Top Ten Rules forever and ever, amen.
That was the max. As soon as I put the third outfit on my body, it had to stay. No more obsessively changing clothes. No more wading through my closet—or floor—hoping I owned an outfit even I didn’t know about. No more searching for the combination that would make my brain say, Hey, she doesn’t look like a badly dressed extra in a b-horror movie.
Man, rules suck.
But rules were the only thing that got me through some days and, after that brain-stall-number-two moment in the alcove, I couldn’t seem to get my balance back.
What did I care what he saw?
No, really. Did I care?
Mental shake. No. I didn’t—wouldn’t—care. Chris Kent was the…
Well, he wasn’t the enemy. I couldn’t seem to scrape up enough heated feelings about him any more. He seemed more like an idiot. A very hot idiot. Which, let’s be honest, describes about 90% of all jocks I knew.
But that wasn’t fair either. My Calc homework had gone faster last night with him than it could possibly have gone solo. So, idiot, no. Social idiot, maybe.
I glanced at the clock again. Amy usually called me after the game ended. Figuring Chris would shower and then come over, I had plenty of time from her call till he got here.
The History graph rested against the wall in the corner of my room, the missing chapters added to it. I’d also started a second one with just the really big stuff and made a list on a note card of the questions from today’s quiz and the ones I had in my folder. Hopefully I hadn’t lost any.
I’d done all that and even fit in my extra credit essay for English. It was a great topic: Best Friends and Confidents: Women Writers and Their Secondary Characters.
I think I needed to reread all of Jane Austen. Yes. For fun.
Against the pounding of the music, my cell phone vibrated itself off the edge of my nightstand.
Holding two shirts, a pair of shorts, three skirts and extra-long jeans over one arm, I got down on my knees and dug the phone out from under the bed.
“Hello?”
“Just got back. Great game. Luke made two assists.” All the pertinent Amy information in less than ten words. “I was thinking of going for a run and stopping by. It’s gorgeous out.”
Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.
“Right now?”
“I just have to change. I’ll be there in, like, twenty minutes and we can go for a walk.”
Any other time that would rock. We used to go for walks just the two of us all the time. Okay, Amy went for a really long run and then a walk. My workout was her cool down. But it was always worth it just to hang with her.
“Yeah. Okay. Great.” I tossed all the clothes on the bed. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
I grabbed shorts and a long sleeve generic tee from the pile. Dressing for Amy was easy. All I had to do was be comfortable and not look in any mirrors.
Girl time was exactly what I needed. Comfortable, mirror-free girl time.
With her running and Chris walking, I should be all set. After he showered he’d head this way and we’d already be gone, out on our oh-so-fun walk. He’d have to walk home.
And it would serve him right, Mr. Leaves-Bossy-Notes-In-My-Locker.
~*~
Or not.
The knock at my door came about fifteen minutes after I got off the phone and five minutes too early.
“Rachel,” my mom's voice carried up the stairway. “Chris is here.”
I glared down at the shorts I’d thrown on. Too short to sit in, too baggy to be anything but muumuu shorts. Just right for walking with Amy and hell if someone else came over.
I could change. No one would know. It wasn't like there was a freakin’ nanny cam in my room. I'd have to fess up with Dr. Meadows. That was her one rule, no matter how strongly I felt something was a failure, I had to “speak it aloud” during our visits.
Was that a cold I felt coming on? I could only be so lucky.
“Rachel?” My mom knocked gently on the door.
“Come in.”
I could see the panic reflected in her eyes when she spotted me holding the clothes up in front of the mirror.
“I already changed three times.” My voice shook. Probably from the breath I couldn't seem to suck in. “I’m supposed to go walking with Amy.”
“Aw, honey. I know you don't believe me, but you look fine.”
I glanced toward the mirror. I did not look fine. I looked awkward and in pain like someone was sticking a needle in the back of my earlobe. Couldn't she see that these shorts made it obvious my legs were completely out of proportion with my body? I looked like someone stuck a huge-headed mini-troll doll on Barbie’s legs and then Barbie gained 178 pounds. I looked like a freak.
“Honey, honest.” Mom’s hands landed on my shoulders, softly, like they almost weren’t really there. “Look at me.”
I couldn't take my gaze off my legs, the way my feet looked ginormous at the end of them, the way my ankles were too small for my knees.
Mom stepped between me and the mirror and took my chin between her hands, lifting my face so I could only see her.
“Tonight, with that boy surprising you, I would give you my very own permission to change if I thought you needed to. I'd write you a note or something. But I can tell you, it isn't a matter of not looking good. You look fine. And that isn't just a mother speaking. I'd protect you even from your own worries if I thought anyone might ever look at you and see anything off.”
I shuddered in a deep breath, and dropped the mish-mash of clothes, watching them fall in a storm of cloth.
“Now, go down there and get your tutor on.” Only my mom would try to make that work.
“Mom, please don't say stuff like that.”
She smiled and pushed me out the door, closing it with a final click behind her.
I yanked on the hem of the shorts, pulling them as low on my hips as I dared and headed for the stairs.
“Rachel, I don't mind having Chris here every night, but I need to know...”
Oh, God, she was going to ask about him and me. And I'd say “nothing.” I’d try to mean it, but I wouldn't be sure after the bridge and falling into his chest and almost breaking my nose on his shoulder...as if that were hot or something...but that was so not going to happen, and I was so not going to open myself up to everything that went along with it.
I may have promised Dr. Meadows not to date randomly, to distract myself with pretty boys, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Or that Chris was my normal distraction. Or that he’d ever even be interested in me—crap.
“...should I do more grocery shopping? I'm beginning to wonder if anyone feeds him.”
How is it possible I have the most observant mom and the most dense mom at the same time?
“Hopefully he'll just stop showing up. I'm sure he'll get bored with the studying thing soon.” I gave my shorts one last tug. “Sooner or later he'll refocus on his bimbos again.”
I reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to head toward the kitchen, only to find my way blocked. And the barricade did not look happy.
“Bimbos?”
My mom looked from me to him and then, wisely-or-not, said, “I'll be in the living room.”
Was she really going to leave me unchaperoned with a dangerous young man?
“You know what I mean.” I waved his words away as I moved to sashay by him.
Before I got by, Chris’s hand grasped me around my arm. There we were again, stuck in a small place with his hand on me.
“I know you think you know me. I know I screwed Amy over. I know what my reputation is. But sometimes a person isn't the person they were.”
I stepped back again. Well, I tried to.
That sounded too close to “I've changed” for me.
That would mean this new Chris was more dangerous. Because a boy who is that good-looking and sincere is a bigger danger to the heart than an asshole with a pretty face.
“Okay,” I said, mostly so he’d let me go.
“Okay?”
“More like, we'll see.” Which was the truth and I was running out of people I didn’t have to lie to.
He leaned in to meet me eye-to-eye. After a moment he nodded, but he held me there, studying me as if waiting for me to tell him something more. The scariest part? I didn’t suffer his gaze the way I did everyone else’s. I didn’t sense judgment or measuring. And I could feel the heat coming off him as if he glowed invisibly. It was heaven. It was soft, comforting.
It was horrible.
Him studying me was the last thing I needed—even if he never looked at my outsides.
He was the one girls flocked to. Make that the whole school flocked to. He was the center, the core of our state-champions-seven-years-running-soccer-team boy. And nothing he'd ever done said anything beyond I wish I was with your best friend.
And, I was suddenly bothered by that.
Crap. Again.
“Amy should be here any minute.”
That got his attention. He dropped my arm and strode into the kitchen, mumbling under his breath. I trailed along in his wake feeling guilty for no reason I could explain.
I’m not the one who invited myself to someone’s house and just showed up without making sure it was okay.
“I told her we were working on a History project together.”
He spun around, his cheeks pink under the tiny, almost invisible freckles splattered across them.
“You told her?” Panic and betrayal forced his voice up a notch.
And then the guilt gave way to anger. “No. Partners. What was I supposed to do? You’ve decided I’m your tutor. You just show up when you want. You’re throwing everything out of whack.” I yanked at the bottom of my shorts. “Everything.”
He glared at me over his backpack as he shoved his books in it.
“I mean, what was I supposed to do?” I asked again. Demanded. I could feel the rush of it all forcing my words up my throat and threw them at him. “You said hello t
o me in the hall!”
He stilled, the notebook falling into the bag and tipping it over.
“I said hello to you in the hall?”
My skin burned like I’d laid out all day without sun block. I was probably splotchy, for God’s sake. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he didn’t even remember seeing me let alone speaking to me. And worse, I’d thought about it all day.
I tugged at my shorts again and his gaze dropped to where my hands laced around the bottom hem. And stayed there. My heart skittered.
He was looking at my legs. Maybe my mom lied. She would, wouldn’t she, about them not looking too long with these shorts. After a moment, his head lifted, his gaze coming with it to meet mine.
My tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. He’d said something, hadn’t he? That meant I had to answer him. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what he’d said.
“Rachel.” I could hear the sigh like he knew he had to repeat himself. “What does my saying hello to you in the hall have to do with anything?”
Oh.
“Amy was there. She wanted to know what the hello was all about.”
He pushed his hand through his hair creating a wave of curls he probably fought a losing battle against. I’d kill for those curls. On my head. Yeah. Not that I wanted to run my hand through his curls. No. Curls bad. Hands bad. Shorts bad.
Getting Chris out of my house, good.
“Only girls could make a ‘Hey’ into something more.”
That was probably true.
But then I remembered the whole conversations Luke and Chris had hovering over Amy and only saying “Hey.” I cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering if he remembered the same thing when a blush crept across his cheeks.
“We aren't exactly known around school as the best of buddies.” I don't know why, but I couldn't meet his gaze. I was suddenly afraid this guy who wasn't supposed to see anything might see too much. A heavy thud echoed off the counter as he dropped the book he’d been holding and came around the counter. He stopped right in front of me, so close I could smell the Tide detergent on his clothes.
“We said we'd be friends.” His voice was close, almost in my ear. Almost in my mind. “I think right now I could use a friend. And I think I’ve never met someone else who might need one even more than me.”
Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) Page 11