I looked up. How could I not? This time, nothing was holding me there. Nothing but my own inability to step back.
“If you didn't mean it when you said we were friends,” he kept going, unfazed by my fazedness. “I get that. I probably screwed that up before we even met...or re-met...or whatever it is when you start talking to someone you've known your whole life.”
“I—”
“Don't.” He raised his hand, interrupting me, not that I'd known what I was going to say. “I get it. You're a good friend to Amy and you can't seem to take that chance that I’m not chasing her. That this really is about tutoring. If I can't say hi to you at school, that’s fine. But I need you to finish this. You said you'd give me a week to prove I could pull the grades off with your help. And, you have to admit, my math skills aren’t what you thought they’d be.”
He shifted back, not a step, just a shift of his weight so he wasn't looming over me quite so much.
I have no idea how I would have answered him, because right then, the front screen door fell shut and Amy's voice called my name.
I turned my head so I wasn't yelling in Chris's face. “I’ll be right out.”
Now his hand was on my arm again. Not wrapped around it this time, but just settled there grabbing my attention, not my person.
“Are we on? For the week?”
Footsteps started toward the kitchen and I don't know which one of us wanted them to head the other way more.
“Are we?” he asked.
He was so close. For a flash of a second I was ticked at Amy. Ticked at her for getting his attention first, and now ticked at her for showing up while he was there with me.
And then reality crashed in. He was still Chris Kent. And I was still not dating. Anyone. Ever again. Or at least until the winter formal.
But especially not him. I would not live my life in the judgment-shadow of the one person I loved outside my family and Amy.
“Yes.” I sounded breathy, like Mrs. Peters had just forced my gym class to run the 100-yard-dash one hundred times.
He stepped back allowing me to rush past him down the hall.
Amy stood there, her face lightly glistened with sweat and yet perfect all the same—one of my all-time favorite faces.
“Ready?”
I nodded, worried what we'd find in the driveway. Stepping out the front door, the drive and the street were clear of Acuras, so that was one more bullet dodged. Now I just needed to get through a fun night with my best friend.
~*~
The cool night air made me thankful for the long sleeves. Beside me, Amy slowed, her long open runner’s stride hard to keep up with even at a walk.
“I wanted to talk about some stuff,” she said.
That was never good. It sounded suspiciously like how I started most of my breakups. Not the one with Jared obviously.
She kept going, either oblivious to my worry or ignoring it. She was speed-talking, which wasn’t like her. “There’s something going on. I’m not sure what. I think it has something to do with Chris. But, I think you just jumped into the Jared thing. So maybe this is Jared stuff. But whatever it is, you can tell me anything.”
The tears were coming down my cheeks, but I managed to hold my breath so I didn’t break out sobbing. Hopefully, underneath the lemony-glow of the streetlights, she wouldn’t notice them slicking my face.
I wanted to tell her everything, but didn’t know how to start. How to go back four years, explaining that everything she knew about me was a lie. That the person I’d been pretending to be—even with her, my best friend—wasn’t even close to the reality of who I was. That, back at my house, we’d left the boy she’d wanted for six years…and no, he wasn’t as horrible as I’d been trying to convince her.
All I could do was nod and wish she knew how much that took out of me.
I guess she couldn’t read that either, because she just stood there waiting. Waiting for me to tell her something—anything. She could never guess how big everything I was hiding really was.
“Well?” Her tone was almost patient, but it had that hint of annoyance.
“There’s nothing,” I said, then felt the hugeness of the lie. “Nothing new, really. Just school and Jared and I’m not sleeping well.”
That was all true. A little part of me was amazingly sad at becoming the Queen of the Half-Truth.
“Fine.” She said it with a smile, but everyone knows fine is code for not-fine-at-all. “As long as you know you can tell me anything.”
I nodded again, wishing with all my heart that it was true.
When she saw I wasn’t going to cave, Amy turned us back toward the house, we’d gone less than a block, but I guess we were done. At the bottom of my drive, she stopped and looked at me in that the way she does—that deep way some quiet people have of studying everything around them.
She took my hand for a quick squeeze, some of her patience struggling to the top again. “When you’re ready.”
I nodded again, and she smiled her soft-Amy-smile before she took off at a light jog toward her house. And I loved her so much right then, her last name might as well have been Wells.
I pushed through the front door, shut it, and leaned back, resting my head on the thick oak. I let the tears I’d tried to hide slip down my face, brushing them away with the back of my hand…annoyed and so very sick of crying when no one could see.
“Rachel.” Chris sat across the foyer on the bottom step looking up at me. “I was waiting for you guys to get around the corner.”
I nodded. God, I must be an idiot to have nothing to say and constantly be nodding.
Then he was there beside me. With a quick jerk, he pulled my keys off the little hook next to the door and thread his other hand through mine, pulling me outside behind him.
He crossed us behind the Honda and placed me in the passenger’s seat, shutting the door softly. Before I knew it, we were racing down the river road, curving along its turns toward the place where the trees ended at the dead road.
Chapter 13
It was my turn to watch the river race beside us. Chris only took his hands off the wheel to shift after taking a curve more slowly than I had the other night.
“Where are we going?” I asked, needing to fill the quiet.
He kept his eyes on the road, didn’t even flick them my way. “To the bridge.”
I hadn’t realized I wanted to escape there again so much. That the place held a peace I longed for in all the life-commotion. That I’d been waiting for another chance to go.
Or, I hadn’t considered going without him.
He edged the car sideways at the end of the dirt road, letting the lights shine toward the bridge through the tall, rusty fence. The overhead light came on as he took the keys from the ignition.
I pulled back when Chris’s hand rose toward my face, but then he reached past me and popped the glove compartment. Who in their right mind just rifles through someone else’s glove compartment?
He drew out a napkin and handed it to me, pointing to his eye. It took me a second to realize the tears were still leaking.
I wiped them away and crawled out of the car, heading toward the pale reflection of the no trespassing sign.
At the gate, Chris’s arm reached past me and held the fence apart as I squeezed through. I kept going but heard the clatter as he let if fall shut behind us.
The cooler air drifted up the bank, wafting clouds of mist. I wrapped my arms around myself and stepped more carefully onto the wooden deck than last time. At the center, I dropped to the edge and let my legs dangle over the side as my arms hugged the rail in front of me. I felt Chris settle near me, his long legs falling beside mine as he lay back on the uneven planks.
I kept thinking I should say something, thank him for bringing me here—even if it was in my car—and explain the tears.
But, an ex-boyfriend once told me, the only thing guys hate worse than tears, was talking about tears.
I'm not sure how
long we sat there, the moon drifted almost to the next bank by the time he sat up.
“I know…” He did another one of his famous fadeouts.
It made me really wonder what he knew—or thought he knew. I was glad one of us was in the knowing of something.
“I know I put you in a tight spot with Amy.”
Part of me, the part who thought she’d known this guy a week ago, wanted to let slip a snide, Yeah. Yeah you have. But I heard the panic again…and the unsaid stuff too. The sorry and the thanks.
Also, I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t just keeping the secret for him any more. I was keeping the secret because this—this quiet understanding—was something I didn’t want to share. And Amy, she could break this peace by a word or a flash of a moment in the hall without even thinking about it. Anything that might call him back to her if she changed her mind one day.
I didn’t want to share him…as if he were mine to keep. And he wasn’t. He so wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” was what I finally said. And I meant it. “I get it. I get not wanting to show certain parts of yourself to the world.”
I wasn’t looking at him as I said it. He could have nodded or ignored me or even looked at me like I was nuts. But, after a long minute—after I’d already tried to convince myself I hadn’t let even that much slip—he answered.
“Yeah. Not everything is for everyone.”
And now I was scared to death, because what we’d both almost admitted was that this—this secret place, not just the bridge itself—was just for us.
“Ready?”
That was it. He didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t fall into babbling. There and back. When we got to his house, we switched places—no idea why it didn't dawn on me I should have been driving. At the driver’s door, I tried to slide by him, tried to keep my head down and just leave, but his hand wrapped around my arm and skimmed down to my wrist. It wrapped there, not quite holding my hand.
He angled his head to look me in the eyes. “No more tears.”
I tried to smile, but it probably looked like a stiff Muppet-mouth grin. “Nope.”
Pulling my hand away, I dropped into the driver’s seat. The heat of him still clung to it, oddly embarrassing me. He pushed the driver’s door shut behind me, double-tapped the roof of the car, and headed inside.
When I got home, my mom was sitting in the living room with a book I’m not sure she was actually reading resting in her lap. I had no idea how late it was, how long I'd been gone, but she waved me in and waited till I’d curled up on the overstuffed chair.
“Rachel, you can't keep disappearing with that boy this late at night.”
I glanced at the mantel where her grandmother's clock sat, surprised to find it was quarter of one.
“You made it clear you don't trust him. If you don't trust him, I can't trust him. I need to know when you aren't coming right home.” She gave me a VPL—otherwise known as a Very Pointed Look. “Especially on a school night.”
She was right. I couldn't trust him. If the guy who got more play than the five CDs the school radio station had on rotation hadn't made one move on me, there could only be three possible reasons:
1. He was being nice to get to Amy.
2. He was being nice till I let my guard down.
3. He was being nice because he could see how screwed up I was and wanted to stay clear of that mess.
None of those sounded so great. None sounded so trustworthy. None sounded like a good reason to let my guard down any further...or at all.
“And,” she continued. “You know the rule about your cell phone. If you’re out, it’s on.”
After the last few years, that was more than fair. “Got it.”
I trudged upstairs to my room, pushed all the clothes off my bed and set my alarm clock an extra thirty minutes early to reorganize them before my shower.
Tomorrow was soon enough to deal with the confessions I knew were coming.
Chapter 14
Amy was leaning against her locker gazing up at Luke with little stars in her eyes. It was the perfect reason to keep walking. I stopped next to my locker, trying not to be too intrusive.
“I'll see you in class.” He kissed her on the forehead and strode off.
“He kisses more than just your forehead, right?”
Amy blushed so quick you'd think I'd asked if they were sleeping together. Oh, my God, were they sleeping together? It just seemed weird that one of us would have done it for the first time without telling the other one.
I leaned in and whispered. “You guys aren't....”
The confusion that crossed her face while she puzzled out what they weren't doing was enough to tell me they weren’t.
A big reason I love Amy is she's one of the few people who could pull off a gasp of outrage because it's sincere.
“No! I mean, we've only been dating a few weeks. That hasn’t even come up for discussion.”
My world righted just a bit.
“So?” She closed her locker and faced me head on. That was Amy’s version of really pushy. She’d just politely keep putting the issue back out there until there was no option but to tell her exactly what she wanted to know.
“Amy...” I wasn't sure what I was going to say. I'd thought about it all morning. I'd even written key points on index cards, but it seemed stupid to whip out little color-coded cards to discuss something with the person you're closest to in the world.
That's when it smacked me in the face. I was no longer that person to Amy. She had Luke now.
I'd been usurped.
I'm not sure what happened right then, the look that crossed my face and what she read in it, but she took my arm and steered me down the hall toward the admin wing.
“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
So many things. So very many things.
“Um, yeah.” I cleared my throat. It was all tangley suddenly. “I know things are changing with us because of you and Luke, but—”
“No.”
I guess I'd glanced away because I had to swing back to look at her.
“No,” she said again. “Things will never change between us. He's not you. There's only one best friend in my life, and I wouldn't cheat on her with anyone.”
God, I was crying. Again. And once it started it became those racking sobs that make you shake and you couldn’t hold in. The more I tried to stop, the more I kept crying. Did I cry this much before the meds? I couldn’t even remember.
Amy's arms came around me and pulled me to her. This should make it okay. This should have made me strong enough to tell her everything. But, it just made me more afraid of letting her down.
“I do have stuff I need to tell you.”
“Okay.”
The warning bell rang. Five minutes until homeroom. There wasn't time, this wasn’t the place and I wasn't ready. I think she could see that, but I still needed to say it. I still needed to do my part.
“It’s a more than an in-the-hallway thing.”
This time, her patience was real. Maybe she could see just how big what I wasn’t telling her was.
“Okay.” She gave me another squeeze. “Don't forget, we don't cheat on each other.”
I pulled the fold of my sweater down and wiped my eyes with it. If she could say that with Luke in the picture, then I could believe we’d always be okay.
“Rach, there is something I want to ask though.”
And I knew what that was before she even said anything.
“I want you to be careful around Chris…and with him.” She leaned in as if someone could clear the corner and hear her at any second. “He's just as fragile as he is unsafe.”
I hated realizing she was right. I hated her for knowing that. And, I hated myself more for caring—even if it was just a tiny-little bit.
~*~
A couple deep breaths and a note to self to carry tissues in the future had us back at my locker. We chatted about the coming weekend and the big soccer gam
e. There were very few things that could unify all the kids in RVHS, but the whole school would be at the soccer field come Friday night. That was just the way things were. Soccer equaled…something that makes everyone equal.
And then, when there was nothing left to say about Soccer Unification, I stalled. I must have put six layers of Golddigger on my lips trying to draw out our locker time.
I was finally pushing my locker shut when I felt the social tidal wave rush over me and knew we were about to be overtaken by Chris again.
His typical loose gait tightened when he saw Amy and me at my locker. I doubt anyone else noticed the slight falter in his step. This time it was him that looked away, busying himself by laughing at his friend’s joke and looking completely uncomfortable. I turned, leaned on my locker door, and let him get just to us. I didn't know if he'd look up, if he'd take the chance on me.
But, as he was about to pass by, his gaze veered and met mine for an ultra-quick moment.
I didn't even smile, I just looked back and said, “Hey.”
I said it because we were friends.
~*~
Mr. Reed loved me.
There was nothing like practically begging for homework to make a teacher like him warm up to you. Other teachers—smarter, more aware teachers—would be questioning your sanity. Not Mr. Reed. He grinned at me like we were buddies as he handed my pop quiz from the day before to me.
And why shouldn't he? I only got one wrong—from that stupid chapter Chris and I hadn't gotten to yet. Figures.
I glanced Chris's way as Mr. Reed made his way down the middle aisle. He flipped Chris's test upside down on his desk—never a good sign—and said, “See me after class, Mr. Kent.”
Chris nodded and then flipped the test over. I couldn’t help but notice—hell, the whole class probably noticed—how Chris spun in his chair to look at me, his eyes big, but his brows creased over them. And then he turned back, folded the test up and stuck it in his book.
Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) Page 12