Just Friends

by Tiffany Pitcock

  He went to Jenny’s after school, but even that had a time limit. It would get around eleven o’clock and Chance would read all the little social cues for him to go home, and his heart would sink. Jenny’s mother would impatiently walk by her open bedroom door, Jack and Jessa already in bed. Jenny would stretch on her bed, letting out the cutest of yawns.

  He never wanted to go. All that was waiting for him at home was nothing. His parents hadn’t even tried to contact him about where he’d been. He’d pop in right after his father left for work, sneak to his room for some clothes, and be out again before his mother heard him.

  I’m only going to stay at the barn one night, he’d told himself. He’d thought it was true, too. The glow-in-the-dark stars were so faint now; he could barely make out where they were. The pallet wasn’t exactly comfortable, covered in hay and beer, but he could deal. It wasn’t a luxurious king-sized bed, but he could pretend it was. Then one night faded into two and two into three, and the next thing he knew it was mid-November.

  He knew Jenny wouldn’t like it, so he kept it from her. It wasn’t her business anyway, right? He could handle this all on his own. He had a duffel bag packed with clothes, and he still managed to take showers by slipping in and out of the house when his parents weren’t home. Besides, he was at Jenny’s until nearly midnight every night, so in reality he was only spending, what, five or six hours tops at the barn? That was totally manageable.

  Chance didn’t need any help. It was nothing to worry about. At least that’s what he told himself.

  That next Monday when he woke up, back stiff from sleeping on the hardwood floor, he decided to pack up the blankets to be washed. He figured he could stop by a twenty-four-hour laundromat before heading to the barn that night. He thought nothing of throwing the blankets into the trunk of his car. In fact, it was so far from his mind that he didn’t even remember they were there that afternoon, when he took Jenny grocery shopping.

  They were loading everything into the backseat of his car, chatting idly. It was like playing Tetris, getting everything to fit without falling over or squishing something else. Chance didn’t notice when Jenny grabbed his lanyard and slipped the keys from his front pocket. It wasn’t until he heard her unlocking the trunk that he remembered the blankets and started to panic.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, almost dropping his bag of chips.

  “I’m putting the bottled water in the trunk,” she said, opening it. She stopped for a second before looking at him, her face confused. “Why are the blankets from Our Spot in here?”

  He tossed his stuff into the backseat, rushing to stop her. “I brought them home to clean the other day. They were covered in beer and dirt. It’s nothing.” He tried to push her aside, to throw the water in and be done with it.

  “When the other day?” she asked, confused. “You were with me every day.”

  “Last night, after I left your place,” he told her, shoving the blankets aside and tossing the bottles in. He was just about to slam the trunk when she reached out and stopped him.

  “At midnight? You’re telling me you drove out there at midnight to pick up some blankets?”

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze shot back to him, boring holes right through him. “Chance! Are you sleeping there?”

  “No,” he lied.

  She leveled him with a look.

  “Fine,” he said at last, letting go of the trunk lid. “I’ve been sleeping there for the past week or so. It nothing, Jens. Things have gotten … tense at home. My parents said some things to each other, and then they both said some things to me.… It’s not a big deal, really.”

  That was the wrong thing to say, though, because her green eyes got wide, filled to the brim with worry and something he couldn’t quite identify. She shook her head and sputtered, searching for words. Finally, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He felt as if he was being pulled to the ground, weighed down with all these expectations he never had before. “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

  Her fist snaked out, making contact with his arm. He flinched, instinctively reaching up to rub the spot where she’d punched him. For a tiny girl, she packed quite the punch.

  “Ow! What the hell?”

  As she glared up at him, he realized what that other emotion had been: anger. Jenny was mad at him. “If you don’t tell me when something’s bothering you, then I’m always going to worry, you nimrod.” She turned away from him, pacing in a small circle, her hands at her temples. It was what she did when she was trying to concentrate, and even now Chance found it adorable. At last her arms dropped to her side and she turned to face him, expression serious. “Come stay at my house.”

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “Stay with me,” she repeated. “I told you that you didn’t have to go through this alone, and I meant it. Stay with me, Chance. Stay at my house. You can’t sleep in that barn.”

  “You slept there,” he pointed out. They had both stayed there, buzzed on Shit Beer. “How is that any different?”

  “Because I wasn’t alone. We stayed there together,” she explained, exasperated. Her nose scrunched up the way it always did when she was angry or frustrated, and he couldn’t help but find it cute. “You know what? If you’re sleeping there, then so am I.”

  “Oh come on, that’s ridiculous.”

  “No, what’s ridiculous is that you tried to hide this from me.” She put her hands on her hips, like a mother in an old cartoon. Chance half expected her to start tapping her foot impatiently.

  “Because it’s not a big deal,” he tried to tell her, frustrated.

  “Do you not trust me with this?” she asked, looking up at him. He didn’t understand why she looked so distraught. “I have to ask before you spill anything. I have to hear things in hallways. I have to find blankets buried in your trunk to get you to admit anything. Do you not trust me?”

  Hear things in hallways? “Of course I trust you, Jenny. I don’t even know where this is coming from.”

  Was this about the dare? She was the one who blew that off, not him. She was the one who made it clear that they were just friends. She was the one who said that kiss was nothing, who walked away like nothing had happened. He was only following her cue to leave it alone. Besides, she was with Drake now.

  She was still looking up at him expectantly.

  “It’s difficult, okay? I guess I’m not used to having someone care about me, so I keep things to myself. I’ll stay at your place tonight.”

  She had won, but neither of them treated it like a victory. She was texting the entire ride home, her phone letting out angry dings every few minutes. He hadn’t wanted to be a burden, and now here he was, transforming into a charity case.

  Jack was waiting in the living room when they got there, a wicked grin on his face. “I’ll keep quiet,” he said when the door opened. “But it’s going to cost you so much, Jenny. I’m talking free rein of the house and your allowance for months.”

  “Fine,” Jenny said, unconcerned. “You can have whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. Just don’t tell. Promise me, Jack, that you will not tell.” Jenny held out her pinkie.

  “It’s not like she’ll notice, anyway,” Jack said, linking his pinkie with his sister’s. “She’s too preoccupied with Phillip to notice anything anymore.”

  Chance had a bad feeling about this. “Jenny,” he said as her brother walked away, “I was fine staying at the barn.”

  “No.” Jenny shook her head. “Let me take care of you, all right? If we get caught, then I’ll deal with it, but I am not letting you go back to that barn, Chance. It’s not right.”

  “I can’t stay here without your mom knowing.”

  Jenny laughed at that. “I’m sure this won’t be your first time sneaking into a girl’s house for a sleepover.”

  She had him there.

  They decided that he would stay for dinner and then leave afterward only to park up the s
treet and sneak back in. As far as plans went, it was shoddy at best, but it was all they had. There were about a thousand ways it could fail, and he was dreading every one of them. If he was caught, there’d be no way her mother would let him come over anymore. He could lose one of his only safe havens.

  Before dinner, Jenny suggested something to keep his mind off the plan. “Trampoline time,” she told him, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him outside.

  “I thought it was dangerous?” But he was amused by her determination.

  “I live for danger. It’s my middle name.” She pulled him through the long grass, the setting sun casting half the backyard into shadow. She all but tossed him onto the trampoline. “Besides, it should be fine.”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “Desperate times and desperate measures and all that.” She hopped onto the trampoline, reaching down to pull him to his feet as well.

  They both stood up, cautiously, taking a few steps toward the middle. The mat beneath their feet gave each step a bounce, and then suddenly Chance was rocking back on the heels of his feet—testing it. First just rocking back and forth, and then bouncing lightly, until finally they were both jumping—full-out, arms-flailing, in-the-air jumping. Up, down, up, down. Chance fell and he rose, his heart in his throat.

  They were laughing, jumping together, trying not to elbow each other in the face. It was wonderful. It was exhilarating. They reached out, grasping hands to keep from falling over. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally trample her. Her hair flew all around her, getting tangled as they jumped. Her hands were small in his, but they felt right. Everything at home—everything with Levi and his parents and shit—it all felt wrong and weird. But this, this right here—holding Jenny Wessler’s hands and watching her smile—felt right. This was where he belonged. This was—

  The mat stretched taut as they landed, a spring to their right shooting off and hitting the wooden fence that surrounded the yard. The noise echoed like cannon fire around them, silencing everything. Chance’s foot slipped from underneath him, sending him careening to the mat, dragging Jenny along with him. She crashed on top of him, their foreheads knocking together painfully.

  He could feel her weight on him, pressing him down into the trampoline. They both stared at each other, centimeters apart. Chance couldn’t help but remember what had happened the last time they were on the trampoline. From the blush on Jenny’s face, he figured she was thinking about it, too.

  Jenny burst out laughing, the sound unbelievably loud in the silence. She rose up to her knees, rolling off Chance. She looked from him to the missing spring, laughing hysterically. He couldn’t help but laugh, too, the sound spilling out of him unexpectedly. They both collapsed into a giggle fit, rolling into each other, their sides brushing.

  “That was ridiculous,” Jenny wheezed.

  “It was terrifying,” Chance corrected.

  Jenny’s mother emerged from the house then, looking concerned. “Get off that trampoline!” she ordered. “It’s dangerous!”

  Jenny and Chance only laughed harder.

  * * *

  IT WAS AROUND ten when he snuck back in. Jenny’s mother had gone to bed already, claiming she had to leave for work early the next morning. Chance stood outside Jenny’s house, hoping that none of the neighbors had watched him drive down the street and walk back up. He texted her, letting her know he was back.

  Jenny was at the door quick as a flash, pulling him back in. She held a finger to her lips, signaling him to be silent as they snuck up the stairs. He could hear the sound of a running box fan from within her mother’s room as they tiptoed past it. He saw that Jenny had removed the Quiz Bowl medal from her own door, so as not to make any noise.

  “We did it!” Jenny whispered as she shut the door behind them. “We actually did it. I actually snuck a boy into my room. And he’s going to spend the night. Oh my God, it’s like an episode of Pretty Little Liars or something.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle at her enthusiasm, though he was still worried about being caught. “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he told her, taking off his jacket and setting it on her desk chair.

  “My mom sometimes wakes me up in the morning,” she told him, shaking her head. “If you’re on the floor, then you won’t have time to hide when she knocks.”

  “Then where am I sleeping?”

  Both pairs of eyes fell on the bed at the exact same time, and suddenly Chance felt very uncomfortable. Oh no, he couldn’t do this. He was trying to be platonic, for God’s sake. He couldn’t curl up with her on a twin-size bed. “Jenny, I don’t know about this.”

  “It’s the only way,” she told him, although she was blushing furiously. “You’ll have to sleep against the wall so that I can throw my blankets over you if Mom knocks.”

  This really isn’t a good idea. How am I supposed to move on when she’s sleeping beside me?

  “Seriously—”

  “I’m not letting you go back home, Chance. And if you sleep in the barn, then so do I.” She sounded braver than she looked.

  “Fine.” He gave in, sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll do it.”

  Jenny sat down next to him. “Good.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Jenny

  Drake slid into the chair next to Jenny, slipping his arm around her shoulders. She started at the contact, pulled from her daydream. She hadn’t even noticed that the band had stopped playing. They’d been practicing for hours in Nick’s garage, and she had tuned out long ago.

  Not that it wasn’t fun watching Drake sing—it totally was. It was a clichéd teen experience for a reason, after all. Jenny was more than excited to play the role of the dutiful girlfriend looking up at her boyfriend from the crowd. She was less excited to sit for hours on an old stain-covered sofa in Nick’s garage and watch The Bleeding Axe Wounds argue over which songs to practice.

  “What did you think?” Drake asked. “That song is pretty new; we’ve only played it a handful of times. “He picked up the worn spiral notebook he kept all of his notes in. He showed Jenny the page on which he’d scribbled the lyrics to his newest song, “The Push and the Pull.” She took the notebook, glancing over the lyrics. He had marked them out so many times that he’d ripped through the page in spots.

  “Well, you really like to rhyme skin with sin,” she observed. “Also, lips and hips.”

  “That’s what I always tell him!” Nick chimed in, causing the other band members to laugh.

  Drake glared at his best friend before turning back to Jenny. “It’s a stylistic choice,” he told her. “It’s kind of my thing.”

  She looked it over again. “It’s just that you’ve done it ten times that I’ve read, and it isn’t even part of the chorus.”

  The drummer let out a bark of laughter, causing Drake to glare even harder. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said through clenched teeth. He took the notebook back, flipping to another page. “What about this one?”

  His fingers brushed hers as he handed the lyric book back, and she instinctively moved away from the contact. She still wasn’t used to the casual way he touched her. This is how couples are, she reminded herself. She looked down to a doodle-heavy page. Drake was a margin person. He loved doodling and scribbling in the margins. She skimmed over the lyrics to a song called “Good Mourning”—dear God—when her eyes slid to the bottom corner of the page. There, in the margin, Drake had doodled her name with tiny hearts.

  Her head jerked up, looking at him in confusion. What was this? Were they in third grade? She felt weird looking at the doodle, as if it was an invasion of privacy. She had never considered Drake thinking of her often, especially if she wasn’t there. It just never occurred to her that his head would be so filled with her that he’d doodle her name in his songbook.

  “Well?” he asked, gesturing to the song. “What do you think?”

  “The title is a bit�
��” She trailed off as his face fell the tiniest bit. Oh. He doesn’t want me to tell him the truth. He just wants me to tell him I like it. “… perfect,” she finished. “I like it a lot. I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “Perfect!” Drake exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You hear that, guys? Start up ‘Good Mourning’!” He grabbed his guitar from its perch by the drums.

  The band launched into a slow song, and Jenny soon found her eyes sliding from Drake back to the notebook in her lap. She traced her fingers over the well-worn pages, feeling the indents of the pen marks. Her gaze fell back onto her name and the little hearts. She imagined Drake absentmindedly writing it while trying to think of the next thrilling line in “Good Mourning” (originally titled “Mourning Death” according to one margin note).

  Then her mind kept going. I wonder if Chance doodles like this. Did he write the names of the girls he liked with little hearts? Did he have a notebook somewhere filled with conquests? Did he ever write her name? What is he doing now, anyway? She never knew how he spent his time when he wasn’t with her. He’s probably out with a girl, she realized. She knew that Chance went on dates, but she never heard about them. At least not from him, but she’d heard the gossip plenty of times. She remembered Chance brushing off that girl in the hall. And to think, in another reality that could’ve been me.

  The band finished then, the sudden silence jarring. Jenny recovered quickly, clapping enthusiastically. She chastised herself: I need to focus on what’s in front of me.

  “So—” Drake beamed down at her. “What did you think?”

  A lot of things. “I loved it.” She grinned. “It’s great.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Chance

  The new happy couple was inseparable. It was a subtle switch, but Jenny began sitting with Drake, complete with hand-holding and his arm around her shoulder, rather than sitting with Chance. The difference was in the way she leaned into Drake, creating a minute amount of space between her and Chance, where their arms used to brush. Chance was sure he was the only one who noticed the slight shift, and he hated it.