What the hell did that mean? He sat there, staring at nothing, and I was tempted to ask him those very words. Instead I said, “Forgot what?”
His head came up, so slowly it was as if he were afraid to finish the thought. Afraid it would get worse.
“Everything. I forgot everything.” His gaze drifted away but his voice kept coming. “And every time I wanted to forget, there was a new girl right there.”
Chapter 20
I’d hardly slept that night. That’s what happened when you got real with a guy. When you let things be more than a surface three-week relationship—even when you weren’t dating and it hadn’t been three weeks.
Oh, the irony.
I had crazy dreams that woke me up every hour or so. I dreamt ropes snared each of my wrists, biting into them, pulling me in two directions. But every time I looked, Chris held both the ropes.
I woke knowing one thing. When I’d needed a friend, Chris Kent had listened. If anyone needed a friend right now, it was him. No matter how it made me ache to think of all those girls, the ones he couldn’t even name now, I’d be there.
The drive home had been silent as darkness. He’d sat in the bucket of my passenger’s seat, each hand fisted on a knee, eyes straight ahead. When we’d gotten to his house, he got out, said “thanks” as he closed the door, and didn’t look back as he walked away.
That’s it. Well, except for my bad dreams all night.
The warning bell for homeroom had already rung, and still no Chris.
“You coming?” Amy leaned against the locker next to me.
As soon as she’d seen me that morning she’d asked if I was okay. What was I going to say? That the guy who I’d always claimed was evil—the one I’d worked so hard to keep her away from—broke my heart last night with his horrible parents and his even worse decisions?
When I didn’t answer, she bumped my shoulder to get my attention and said, “I’ll see you in class.”
The hall was nearly empty when he strolled in, coming around the end of the corridor and freezing in place when he saw me waiting for him. But what was he going to do?
I met him at his locker. He hadn’t looked at me the entire time. I hovered there next to him, just trying to let him see that I was there as he spun the dial and yanked the door nearly off its hinges.
He stuffed everything in, and then dropped his head against the strip of metal between his locker and the wall. It all rolled off him—the anger and frustration and humiliation.
Everything I’d felt after making him tell me what he saw when he looked at me.
I laid a hand on his arm, feeling the muscle tighten under my fingers, and said, “We’re good?”
“How can we be?” He stood there, his face hidden behind his locker door. “Rachel, I don’t even like myself. How could you?”
I thought about everything he didn’t know about me. I thought about each of us bringing out the worst—the most stressed—in each other. Dragging stuff to the surface.
But I remembered the best too. How, when I’d put him on the spot he’d been honest and held a different kind of mirror up to me. One I wanted desperately to believe.
“We can be.” I let my hand grip his arm, a half-pat, half-rub thing. “Honest.”
He pulled away from the locker and looked down on me with that beautiful angel’s face. No wonder girls had been ripping his clothes off since he was fourteen.
I wasn’t letting him off the hook. I didn’t have a claim on him, but I doubt any of those girls had cared as much about the things he wanted to forget as I did at that moment. I doubt most of them would even get it.
“You’re the one who said we were friends.”
“Rachel—”
“Hey, our trial run isn’t over, right?”
For a moment he held a glimmer of a smile on those lips, the ones that had begun to draw my attention for more than just the way he formed words. He gave a tight nod.
“Fine. I’ll see you in History.”
I hurried away before I could say anything that would make us both more uncomfortable and even later for homeroom.
~*~
The day slid by. I had no idea how studying was going to go that night, but I needed to see him. I needed to know that we—that he—was okay.
Dinner was laid out and everyone stalled waiting for the doorbell until my phone twirledtweetertwirled.
I glanced at my mom, very aware of the no-cell-phones-or-games-at-the-dinner-table rule.
“Fine.” She may have been saying fine, but her tone definitely said, “check and see where he is.”
Something came up. Sorry.
So. Yeah. That was that.
Chapter 21
I hadn’t seen Chris in the hall since he ditched me last night. He also managed to be last-man-in-first-man-out of both of our classes.
I was oddly relieved to not have to deal with him—us?—at school. I was also oddly annoyed to not see him.
By lunchtime, I was ready to just get on with life. I met Amy after class and we wandered down to the caf where Luke and Ben waited for us. Luke and Amy caught up on the periods they’d been separated.
You’d think it was years the way they stared at each other.
“So, I thought now that you’ve gotten flirting with me out of your system, it would be safe to have lunch with you guys.” Ben Harrison was nothing if not cocky…or flirty…or not-to-be-taken-seriously-ly.
“Sure. You don’t smell as good as your room anyway.” I swayed past him, letting him laugh off not getting the last word.
By the time we’d gotten our meals, our table was still empty. I settled in, watching Amy slide into her chair as Luke put the tray with both their lunches down. Talk about too cute for words.
Even Justin, Luke’s other brother—there’s four Parker boys for the world to survive—rolled his eyes as he joined us.
“Amy,” Justin grabbed a fry off her tray, more to get her attention than to eat it since he had twice as many. The standard Jock Diet. “Aren’t you beginning to feel smothered by my brother yet? The offer still stands to be your next Parker Guy.”
The voice was teasing and the smile endearing, but I’d wondered since the beginning if Justin wished he’d seen her first.
Luke snorted. He actually snorted. I’m guessing he was feeling fairly confident about which Parker was keeping this girl. That didn’t stop him from dropping his arm across the back of her chair.
“Hello?”
I glanced up to find Emma—Ben’s best friend since birth—hovering behind him with her tray. “Four years and you just switch tables and don’t text me? Seriously?”
Ben looked at her like she was a little nuts which, if she was Ben’s best friend, was very likely.
“I’ve sat with the girls’ team all that time. I need a little mixed gender socializing.”
It sounded like a fight waiting to happen, but he shifted around to make room for her as she pretended to dump her tray on him.
I glanced around. I’d never felt like I didn’t have friends. Amy and I were definitely the dynamic duo. But this, this was different. This was bigger.
I looked at each person and thought, Yeah. I’ll keep’em.
It was great to feel safe outside my room. It gave me some internal downtime. I zoned—trying to shake off the day, the last couple days, when the table stilled. I knew who was standing behind me even before I turned around, but my breath still caught when I did.
“Can I join you guys?”
Everyone looked at me. Everyone. Not one person at the table looked at Amy. I pushed the chair next to me out with my foot and watched as Chris lowered himself down. He pulled it in, edging it just barely closer to me.
The silence kind of stretched in that we all know each other but have no idea what to say kind of way until Ben remembered they were all on the same soccer team.
Yeah. Brilliant.
Luke and Ben led the conversation, Chris just jumping in occasionally with statis
tics and game data he’d gotten watching tapes—I’m blaming his father for that waste of time too.
Everyone took off after lunch, rushing to the next place the system gave us three minutes to get to. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Luke at my locker. I mean, it was right next to Amy’s.
“What did you do to him?”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t waiting for Amy. Although, I have to say, Luke Parker’s angry voice was still pretty polite. That didn’t mean it wasn’t ticking me off.
“What do you mean?” As if I didn’t know.
“Chris Kent, formerly the cocky, arrogant, overbearing, capable co-captain of my soccer team looks like he’s about to lay down and give up. I don’t mean to be heartless, but tonight is the biggest game of the season for him.”
“What’s so special about tonight?” I asked even though I suspected the answer.
“Not only is tonight the night we play the Monarchs who just so happen to have the other left forward competing for States. But, Monroe and two other scouts are coming tonight.”
Crap.
Seriously, crap.
“I didn’t do anything.” I mostly didn’t.
I’d thought a lot about last night. It wasn’t as if I was the girl who dumped him for someone else when he wanted to get serious. I also wasn’t his dad. I was only the person who was there when he needed someone to be there.
I was convenient. And that was my biggest fear.
Chris was so not convenient. He was as big a mess as I was. Even so, he was like that dead end road—I knew it didn’t go anywhere, but I couldn’t help myself from racing down it.
Luke studied me. I’d never seen anyone study people like him. It was one of the most unsettling things I’d been through in a while.
Ok, that’s not true. It was one of the most unsettling normal things I’d been through in a while.
After a moment he kind of nodded to himself and said, “How about you? Everything all right?”
For some reason, I wanted to spill my guts. He seemed to have that effect on people. But between the secrets I needed to tell Amy first and the secrets that weren’t mine to tell, I pretty much had nothing to say.
“No worries.” As if.
He kept looking at me, a long uncomfortable moment. “All right. See you after the game.”
Chapter 22
I did not want to be at this game. Things already felt crazy enough and I just wasn’t up for sitting on the sidelines with Amy, the whole school behind us able to stare at the back of my over-sized head.
Plus, I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk the skitter-step my lungs did hitching for breath sometimes when Chris looked at me. I was just too exhausted to keep my defenses up tonight and so Mr. Lost-and-Confused was on his own.
Walking across the parking lot, I focused on the bright lights, pulling me forward, bringing me into the sanctity of the home field. With everything going on, I’d had a hard night leaving the house as it was. I wanted to pull my hair out when what would Chris think of this skirt? actually pounced into my mind before I could kick it back out. Now, I didn’t need to focus on anything but getting on that field. Just get there. Get to the lights.
I’d promised Amy, so here I was.
“Rachel!”
And that voice was the last thing I needed to deal with right now. I stopped and let Jared catch up with me, my heart tickling my chest with a different kind of anxiety.
“Hey. How’s it going?” He was so nonchalant, so not I-just-dumped-you-and-moved-on-without-a-second-thought.
“Not bad.” Horrible.
“I’ve been meaning to call you. We should get together and catch up.” He grinned that Parker grin. The one that was charming on Luke. On Jared, it made me want to punch him in the face.
“Things are kind of crazy right now.” I was kind of crazy right now.
“Yeah. I’ll bet. Senior year.” He shook his head as if senior year was the answer to what was worrying me.
Not the fact that he’d treated me like gold, and then tossed me aside like trash. Not that I was caught in this weird tutor thing that was more and yet nothing. Not that my best friend didn’t even know who I was.
Leave it to a clueless junior to think life changed that much just because of the date on the calendar.
“Yeah. Senior year.”
He glanced toward the gate where a petite figure waited under in the street light glow.
“I have to go, but seriously. We should get together. How about another barbeque at our house?”
What was I supposed to say to that? Especially when the last barbeque was in celebration of a Parker man getting rid of an unwanted girlfriend?
“I’ll talk to Amy.” About never, ever, ever bringing me to the Parker house for a barbeque again.
“Great.” He was already moving away, waving over his shoulder as he headed toward the girl on the far side of the lot. The girl who was not me.
And yet, as he sprinted toward New Girlfriend, I wondered why I’d spent half of my last therapy session talking about him and the breakup. It felt less than unreal. It felt unimportant.
~*~
Amy loved this. I could tell. She loved the numbers and the game. She loved being involved and being involved with one of the players. She loved working for Coach. The weather was even perfect. The crowd was excited.
And I was miserable.
I jotted down the notes she told me to, not understanding anything I wrote.
At half time, Jared and the blonde passed by. He gave me a little wave as they wandered toward the Snak Shak, her neatly tucked under his arm as usual. Unbelievable.
“She’s only got about a week left. Maybe a little longer.” Amy settled into the chair beside me.
“Who?”
She didn’t even bother to look at me, just kept flipping through the binder in front of her as she updated the stats from the first half.
“Oh, please. As if it isn’t clear you’re watching Jared and the bi-monthly flavor.”
O.M.G.
“Is that what I was?” Of course that’s what I was. What was wrong with me?
Amy’s eyes filled with a pity-focused sorrow that only your best friend could get away with.
“Never mind,” I said. “Don’t answer that.”
The teams were jogging down from the locker rooms, snatching Amy’s attention back to the game. Probably as much to her relief as mine.
So, I was that girl. I was that girl who dated around until some guy who dated around dated and dumped her.
I was a flavor.
I had damn well better have been a premium flavor, like French Vanilla La’Cream with Hazelnut.
The ref blew a whistle and the teams took the field. I’d been paying enough attention to realize Chris and Luke were on the far side now. Not that it mattered, but I figured the further away he was from me, the less Luke could wonder if I was messing with Chris’s soccer mojo.
Not to mention it was easier to ignore those soccer shorts.
The second half of the game seemed a little more heated. I couldn’t pin down anything specific—since I wasn’t even positive what was going on out there—but something seemed…off.
Every time Chris had the ball, he didn’t manage to do whatever magic everyone expected of him. I even heard some groans from the crowd when a couple times he sent the ball toward the goalie and it didn’t go in.
Amy had commented that his game was a little off. I waited for her to ask me what I’d done to him too. Part of me felt guilty, but another part, a part getting bigger sitting there watching him outplay every guy on that field, was annoyed.
Annoyed that all these people expected greatness from him but couldn’t seem to notice he was in over his head and going under.
A bunch of whistles shrilled at once and kept blowing. Why were sports so loud? While the refs converged on the far side of the field, Luke ran up behind Chris who was pushing himself off the ground.
Beside me, Amy l
eapt to her feet, fingers clenching and unclenching. I checked out the scene again. Luke looked pissed. He didn’t really do pissed. Oh, dear Lord, the two of them were going to go at it again.
It had only been about three weeks since Chris and Luke had started the biggest riot the RV had ever seen—and they hadn’t even bothered to involve another school. The last time was over Amy. I glanced her way, a feeling I’d never felt jabbing at my gut. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be jealousy.
But then Luke stepped around Chris and jabbed his finger into the chest of some guy on the other team.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not taking my eyes from the scene as a ref sprinted across the field.
Amy reclaimed her seat and picked up her ever-present stats-taking-pen. “Illegal slide tackle.” The pen was going a mile a minute now. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. “Chris looks like he might be hurt.”
He looked fine to me, but what did I know?
More players crowded on the far side of the field, each team gathering behind their guys. Luke was still shouting at the red team’s guy. At first, he just shrugged off Luke’s words. But after a moment—and some arm waving on Luke’s part—the guy started shouting back, their voices almost carrying back to us over the crowd and the whistling.
“Who is that guy?”
The tapping stopped.
“You mean, as in ‘what does he do on the field?’ or ‘hey, he’s cute, what’s his name?’” Amy asked.
I looked again. Huh, he was cute.
“What does he do?”
Amy turned in her seat, letting her full attention drift from the potential battle to me.
“He’s their forward. Right wing.”
I nodded since I had zero idea what that meant. Honestly, was a girl supposed to just know these things?
“He’s the guy who gets the ball passed up to him and attacks from the sides hoping to get a shot on goal or pass it in to the players in the center to score.”
Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) Page 16