by Dean, Ali
“Want me to send him away?” my friend asks, a smirk denting one cheek. She’s always wanted to tell Jace off. She’s a good friend that way; she doesn’t like me being used. I should let her handle him now, but then...there’s his face looking through the small kitchen-door window, his hat pulled low, and his hair poking out the sides, his eyes slanted with stress. He’s afraid I’m going to tell.
“No,” I say, sliding from the counter, my feet flopping on the floor. “I got him.”
“You always do,” my friend says. Her truth hurts some, like getting a tetanus shot.
I walk with Brit to the door, and open it, to wait out the icy stare they both give one another as they trade spots, my friend leaving and Jace stepping inside. Brit leans into him quickly, making him jump, and then she snickers before she leaves.
I roll my eyes and close the door before turning to face the boy at the root of all of my troubles.
“She’s never really liked me,” he says, glancing over my shoulder at the shut door before sliding his gaze to meet mine. God, his green eyes are something special. As pissed as I am, I still forget, for a hiccup, looking at those eyes.
“I don’t like you very much right now either,” I say.
Lie. Truth. Both.
It’s quiet between us, and he’s still worried. I can tell by the way he’s holding his breath, and chewing at the inside of his cheek. He’s done this since we were kids. The first time I saw it was when he threw a ball through his front window. I took the fall for him then, too, because I could tell he was about to cry.
“We talked about this, I thought. I told you I was sorry. I said we could write another poem, and explain that they were just mixed up. I wanted to make it right, Dakota. You can’t refuse my offer, then dig up the past and beat me up over it again,” he says, the words coming out in a mess, like a thousand confessions that don’t mean jack.
“Ha!” I laugh once. I turn and move back to the counter, pulling myself up to sit. “Ha, ha!” I laugh again.
My eyes level on him, and I breathe in through my nose. I study him, and, the longer I look, the more I realize he actually believes he’s being noble. It makes me laugh again, but this time, it’s the shocked kind, and it forces my lips to frown.
“Do you even hear yourself?” I ask.
He shrugs, pushing his hands into his front pockets, his letterman jacket framing his broad shoulders like the cape of some superhero, the kind of hero packed to the brim with flaws—mountains of flaws!
“First off…we could write another poem? You mean, I could write another poem. And explain the mix up? Do you think that makes any sense? Do you think our teachers are stupid, Jace? If we start talking about you mixing up an assignment with mine, putting your name on it…they’re going to figure things out,” I say, looking down at my lap.
I pick at the sides of my fingers, and the air in the room grows thicker.
“Maybe I want them to,” I whisper, closing my lips tight as soon as that admission escapes. I flit my eyes to his, and they’re waiting for me—desperate. I lock gazes for several long seconds while I search for what I really want, and then I take those words back. “I would never tell, though.”
I see his chest fall with the exhale of anxiety. He looks down at his feet, and I watch his movements. I know he feels guilty. He’s always felt that way; I can see it in his expressions. I see it now. He’s just never felt remorseful enough to stop asking.
“I’m really sorry, Dakota,” he says.
I feel his stare on me, but I keep mine on the floor, where his shoes touch my kitchen tiles. His feet are big. He isn’t that sixth grade boy who smiled when I gave him Hubba Bubba and bet him he couldn’t blow a double bubble once. He isn’t really a boy at all anymore. He’s a guy. Not a man, because I feel like you have to earn that badge. He’s a guy, though. And he makes my heart race. Just standing here—my heart is racing.
“I know,” I whisper.
We’re quiet for a few beats, and then he chuckles.
“You really got me with that last one,” he says, an awkward change of subject. I look up to see him pulling his jacket off. He bends his arm, and tilts his elbow toward me, a purple bruise already forming where the ball ricocheted and hit him in the tank. I don’t apologize. He doesn’t expect me to.
His phone beeps with a message, and he pulls it from his pocket, looking down with a pinched brow.
“One of your fans?” I say.
It comes out snarkier than I mean it to, but I leave it be. I’m entitled to a little vinegar. Jace doesn’t react at all, though. His hand moves to the back of his neck while he reads. “It’s my little brother. He needs help with something, so I have to get home. But…” he pauses, shutting his phone off, and clasping it in his hands, while his eyes remain on the blank space where he was reading a text a second before. “Shit, Dakota. I don’t know how to ask this or say this, but…”
“I already know,” I say, sliding down from my perch and walking to the other side of the kitchen, dragging my bag from a chair back and holding it down to my side. I saw this coming a million miles away. Being chosen for district means he has to write another poem, which means I have to write another poem for him.
“You can say no,” he says, his face flushed and his eyes pleading.
I could say no.
I should say no.
But I also know I won’t.
“I’ll do it. I’ll get it to you by Monday,” I say. I push my lips tight, mostly to keep the vomit in. Brit is going to kill me.
A look that’s so much more than relief washes over Jace’s face, and he moves to my door without saying a word. He stops when his hand is on the knob, turning to me, his eyes finding mine fast. It’s arresting when he looks at me like this—and it doesn’t happen often, so the effect when it does is even stronger.
“You going to the dance tonight?” he asks, and, in my mind, I briefly imagine that question a little differently—do you want to go to the dance tonight? I begin to smile, but then remember that my version was just pretend, so I shake my head no. His lips twist with a slight nod. I’m sure he’s going. Meanwhile, I’ll just be here…doing his homework.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says, in lieu of goodbye. His dimple is back, and the façade he wears most of the time is in its place. There’s a wink when he walks through the door, and I hate myself a little more the moment it closes.
I fall for his charm every time. I fall for his lines. I fall for his puppy-dog eyes. I fall for him.
This is going to be some poem.
Take
Jace was the big hero over the weekend. I didn’t go to the game, just like I didn’t go to the dance. It’s the first game I’ve missed in four years. Brit went with a few of our friends, and texted me the highlights, including all of the times she wished a broken leg on our star quarterback.
I faked sick. And, when my parents came home from work, they ordered me my favorite take-out from the Chinese restaurant on the corner and set me up with Netflix and the giant quilt we pull out only for sick days on the couch. I fell asleep there, but I woke up around game time—almost as if my subconscious knew he was playing right then.
I wrote his poem.
Just like I promised.
And I handed it to him outside the cafeteria before the morning bell today.
Just like I promised.
He glanced around, like we were pulling off a drug deal, and stuffed it in his backpack, winking—always with the wink—before tugging his bag closed and slipping into the crowded hallway.
“I can’t believe you’re still doing his work for him,” Brit says from the desk next to me. We both have French. Jace doesn’t have a language, and I’m not sure how he got out of having to take one. More favoritism for the Miller High football stud, I suppose.
“It was just a poem. I wrote it in, like, thirty minutes. On the couch late last night,” I say.
“Oh, yeah? While you were…cough, cou
gh…sick?” She tilts her head, and twists her hair, while she grills me.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” I sigh.
“Yeah, right,” she says, calling me on my bullshit. She drops it, though, and I’m glad, because I don’t want to dissect the number of lies I just told her.
I spent hours on the poem. I wanted to write one that wasn’t very good, but my heart—it just couldn’t. It wasn’t as good as the one I’d written for the original assignment, but it was still good enough to win. He’ll probably make it to regionals, which means I’ll probably have to write another poem. Somehow, I have become Jace’s Cyrano de Bergerac, only through iambic pentameter, to woo a group of New Mexico high school administrators rather than the beautiful girl of his dreams.
Probably because he’s the boy of mine. Even though I hate him. And I swore when I dotted the last sentence last night that this would be it—the end.
I somehow survive the rest of French without any more inquisition from Brit, only to find myself feeling under the spotlight in the class that started it all. Mrs. Mendoza is talking with Jace. I can tell by the way her arms are moving and her mouth is expressing that jubilant pride that comes from a teacher praising someone that she’s commending him for his poem.
My poem.
The second one I wrote.
She hands him an envelope and a paper that looks like the poem, and as he slides to his desk, his eyes scan to find me.
“We need to talk,” he mouths.
I nod and take my own desk, my stomach now churning like my mom’s old washing machine. We discuss modern classics and the beatnik generation for an hour, and I remain in my shell, slumped in my seat and trapped in my own head over the fact that “we need to talk.”
I spend the next hour sorting out what the issue could possibly be. I settle on the fact that I wrote a good poem. He must have gotten accepted for the next level. That’s what this is. It’s nothing more than another poem, which…of course I will do because I cannot say no to Jace. And I love writing the poems. In a way, having him be the face gives me more freedom. The one I wrote last night was more daring than my others. I titled it Fever, and it was about those feelings you get when you’re our age—the desire to run, to be bold, to hide and to want things that are taboo—like Jace Padgett’s kiss. I wrote it from a male’s perspective, which was also kind of invigorating. I pretended I was him, and that he wanted me. All of this I kept to myself, of course. Brit would look at me like I was crazy, and I love how proud my parents are of me too much to let them know I let a cute boy manipulate me into doing his homework, and have for years.
I’m ready for this “talk” by the time the bell rings for the next class, already primed with ideas for one more poem, when Kayden Hornbeck steps between us, reaching her hand into Jace’s front pocket under the pretense that she’s trying to get his keys. She giggles, and his eyes widen to me and back to her, a subtle sign that we’ll talk later.
Right. Because you’re too busy flirting right now, I think.
I leave the room, and that poem I was all primed to write just got a little darker—and a whole lot meaner.
With the sound of Kayden’s giggling behind me, I pick up my step and rush to my next class—which thankfully I have alone. It’s Advanced Biology, and Jace isn’t taking a science credit this semester. He only needed three to pass—and thanks to me, he did that his first three years of high school. He leaves school early most days because his afternoon classes are all study hall. I, on the other hand, booked up every open slot with something that padded my resume. I’m grateful for my academic ambition now, though, because it means I can hide from Jace and Kayden’s giggling and our need to “talk” for two more hours, plus lunch.
I manage to mask my frustration from Brit, too, and when I peel off to head to the gym after school while she heads to her car for her after-school job, I’m relieved that I’ve avoided another round of lectures and questions. I’m almost to the solace of the girl’s locker room, when a hand grabs my sleeve and pulls me toward the storage space where they keep the extra football pads and tackling dummies.
“Hey, it’ll just take a second,” Jace says, his voice urgent and his eyes scanning the landscape behind me. He’s making sure we aren’t seen, which makes me feel gross.
“Oh, now I’m your dirty little secret?” I say, shirking his hold, digging my heels in and crossing my arms, refusing to move any more into the dark of the storage room.
He leans his head to one side and pulls in his brow, almost exasperated by my assumption, but he never says I’m wrong. I laugh him off and shake my head, but I step into the storage room with him anyway. Because…it’s Jace.
“I’m pretty sure this is the most we’ve talked in three years,” I say. I don’t add onto it, but the rest of my sentiment is there. His eyes make it to mine, and they’re dripping with guilt. I twist my lips, but hold the rest in. My hint that he’s grown into a sort of prick just lingers in the air.
After a few seconds, he leans against the opposite wall, his thumbs caught in the top of his jeans, his football jersey flashing in my face just how invincible he is—how invincible I make him. His expression feels stuck, and I can’t quite get a read on him, but the longer he stands eight feet away from me, his eyes on nothing but my face, the more uncomfortable I become. I’m about to make up a reason to leave, or to just walk out without one because screw you, Jace Padgett, when he absolutely levels me.
“I can’t read.”
I don’t flinch, even though inside, my brain is kicking in all directions with questions and thoughts. My heart pounds with his revelation. How did I not know this? How, in the millions of ideas that have raced through my head over nearly six years of me…enabling him, did I never realize this? I figured he was lazy. When I wanted to justify things, I just assumed his football kept him too busy. I even assumed he probably wasn’t an A student, but I never thought there were things he couldn’t do at all.
I open my mouth to speak, but promptly shut it. My words aren’t ready. I don’t even know quite what to ask.
“I want to read. I’ve tried. I’m getting better, and I have these programs on my computer, and my parents, and oldest brother, they know. But…”
“Nobody else does,” I fill in his secret.
His head falls forward. He doesn’t speak.
“How have you made it this far?” I ask. Such a stupid question. He brings his eyes to meet mine and his mouth lifts on one side, tugging at the corner, like a child caught peeking at Christmas presents. He shrugs, but doesn’t look away again. As much as I want to look somewhere else, I don’t. I can’t.
I won’t.
It’s been years since I’ve seen this vulnerability in his eyes. The last time I saw it, Jace and I were in the seventh grade, and we had talked my mom into letting us sleep out in the front yard so we could wait for the meteor shower. We talked for hours, and I told him about how I loved writing, wanted to go to college one day, and become an English professor or publish short stories. He called me a nerd, but took it back after several quiet seconds. That’s when I asked him what he wanted to become. All he said was he didn’t know, but that it had better involve throwing a football. I laughed at his answer, because that’s all he ever did—throw the ball in the street. But then I noticed he wasn’t laughing at all. I filed it away, and never really forgot the face he made that night. More than the dozens of falling stars we both saw drift across the sky, I remember Jace’s eyes, and how absolutely pained they were for that brief moment in time.
“Why are you telling me?”
His chest expands with his slow inhale, but his eyes never leave mine.
“Because I know you’ll keep it a secret,” he says.
My heart caves. He’s right. I will.
I can’t look at him now. It feels too personal. Like he knows too much. How could he not? The things I do for him. The work I put in and the personal attention—just because he asks. You don’t do that for someone unless
they have a piece of your heart. Only, I was just trying to take my heart back. These last few days have been a tug of war: my foot coming down, my resolve breaking, Jace pulling the rope harder and winning.
“I have to read the poem, Dakota,” he says, and, in an instant, I get it. The look. The panic. The desperation and fear. Why we “need to talk.”
“That’s what they do at district. I have to stand on a stage, in a room full of people, and read…” he stops before finishing. It doesn’t matter the what, because he can’t do any of it.
And he can’t tell them no. There’s no admitting to what we’ve done. Unless…I take the blame.
“What if we tell them you were turning in my poems because I have stage fright?” Hearing it out loud, I realize what a lame idea it is, but Jace doesn’t react. He grimaces and shakes his head, and I agree.
He’s asking for help. He’s asking for a solution without asking. I’m not sure I have a quick fix for this. I have ideas, but they’re racing in my head, and my thoughts are a little tangled and unclear right now. No matter what direction I go, though, it really boils down to two options.
“You’re either going to have to find a way to do this, or…”
“I can’t tell them I cheated,” he interrupts, and fast. “I…I just can’t. It would…” His mouth closes into a tight smile as his eyes come up to meet mine. “I just can’t.”
Our eyes lock. I feel the twisting sensation I get more and more when I’m around him. He makes me unsure of everything. Nothing is like it was when we were kids. Our relationship has melded into this complex thing, and I hate it.
“Then you’re going to have to memorize it,” I say. His gaze falls to his feet, and he shifts his weight, crossing his ankles in the other direction while his head nods in acceptance. His mouth in a crooked smirk, he looks up at me, and I sense it all coming—the tiny little things he does to get his way.
“Will you help me?” he asks.
This is where I say no. Say no, Dakota. Let him figure it out. Let him. Leave him. Break this chain.