by Dean, Ali
“Please?”
That last part…it comes out softer. Or maybe that’s my excuse, and I only imagine it kinder and softer. Maybe my mind is so used to justifying and making excuses for Jace that it does it on autopilot now. My senses, my betraying girl-heart, my 12-year-old self who fell in love with the boy with strong arms, freckles and green eyes—it all colludes against me. I squeeze my eyes shut, and force my lungs full.
“Okay, Jace,” I say, my eyes still closed because I know if he winks, if he just walks away and accepts my help without the rest of my stipulations, I will let him. I talk fast, before he can close the deal. “But…”
My lids open and I see him, his posture straighter, the weight of worry a little less, but he isn’t winking. He’s waiting for the rest.
“After this…I’m done. I can’t be your shadow any more. I just…this is it,” I say, unable to hear anything above the rapid pounding in my ears from my heartbeat racing. I said it. The end—this is it. This is the end. I can feel the sting in my eyes from the want to cry. I don’t know if it’s pride or the strange sense that, when I no longer have Jace’s work to do, I’ll no longer have Jace either.
“Okay,” he says after several long seconds. His swallow is harsh, and I can already see the apprehension behind his eyes. I can’t let it take me down, though, so I turn my back to him and put my hand on the door handle.
“I’ll come over tonight. After dinner, when you’re home from practice. We’ll get started,” I say. I make the schedule, and he’ll have to follow. I leave before he can offer up an alternative, and I march right into the women’s locker room, into a bathroom stall, and then I bawl my eyes out for a solid minute before tucking it all away again.
Brit is going to be mildly proud.
I, however, am devastated.
Want
It’s been years since I’ve knocked on the Padgett front door, but I somehow fall right back into step with how I’m supposed to do this. Jace’s mom works nights in the ER, so I need to be quiet. The small slice of tape that covers the doorbell with a note requesting it not be rung is still there. It’s weathered and yellow, the same sign Jace’s mom taped up the week they moved in.
I pull open the security screen, and rap my knuckles lightly on the wood for nearly thirty seconds before I hear the lock twist. Jace opens the door enough to slip outside, and I pull my notebook tight against my chest, falling back a step. I had expected we’d go inside.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes unsettled. His mouth is in a hard line, and I prepare myself for him to tell me he has plans, to cancel and expect me to come back later when it’s convenient.
I tuck my tongue in my cheek, and drop my notebook to my side, looking at him with my question—what?
He looks back over his shoulder, stepping into the door halfway, his breath held while he listens. He looks back to me a few times, his eyes darting from where I stand to where we were supposed to go, until he finally shrugs over his shoulder, signaling for me to follow him into his house.
“Mom’s sleeping,” he whispers.
I nod. I knew that. But no need to pick a fight over this, I guess. It has been a long time since I’ve walked these halls. I close the door quietly behind us, and quickly catch up to him where he’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He’s two steps up, and I’m just beginning to climb, when his father startles me.
“Jace,” he says, not whispering at all. Jace freezes, and turns to shoot his father a look, probably to remind him that his wife is upstairs asleep.
“Hi, Mr. Padgett,” I say quietly, smiling and nodding to his father. He offers me a short smile in return, but it’s the kind laced with questions, and I get the sense that I’m not supposed to be here—probably not supposed to be sneaking up to Jace’s room. “Studying,” I say, holding up a notebook, suddenly feeling like I have to justify my very existence in this house.
His father sniggers once silently, then turns his attention back to his son.
“Really? Studying?” he says, a smug expression on his face. It makes me sad.
Jace swallows. I don’t think he wanted me to notice it, but the sound was too much to mask.
“Dakota, I need to ask Jace about a few things. If you don’t mind? He’ll be right up,” his father says, his voice a little kinder, but his eyes lingering on his son. I must have walked in on the middle of something between them, and, if I could find a way to gracefully bow out of this moment, I would. But I’ve let too many seconds pass, so I nod quickly and say “sure,” taking the steps two at a time until I get to his room at the end of the hall.
I slip inside, but leave the door open. Closing it would suffocate me, and I’m also hoping I hear some of the conversation downstairs. I hang out by the door for a few seconds, my breath held to see if I can make out the words being spoken, but any hints are cut off quickly with the sound of the back door sliding closed. They’ve taken whatever this is outside.
My arms, once again, are tightly wrapped around my notebook and chest; I take a few timid steps deeper into his room. It’s kind of the same, only the Star Wars posters and targets from our Nerf gun wars have all been stripped from the walls. Those familiar decorations have been replaced by a couple of swimsuit models, and a shelf for trophies from football and wrestling.
I step closer to his display, and pull the gold medal he won at state last year into my palm. I was at this meet—watched him lift his opponent up and slam him to the mat, pinning him in twenty seconds. He kissed Kayden right after they looped the medal around his neck, and the two of them have been off and on ever since. I’m pretty sure he never even knew I was there.
I move closer to his bed, bending forward and pushing down on the messy pile of blankets. It’s stupid, but I just had to touch them. The comforter is new, but I recognize his pillowcase. It’s green and blue plaid, worn at the corners enough for the feathers to poke through. I remember the first time I hugged that pillow when he wasn’t looking. It smelled like him. I’m sure it still does, but my heart is already racing at the thought of him walking in at any moment and catching me, so I resist.
“You just don’t get it!”
The shouting draws me to the window, and I don’t think anything of it, pulling the blind open and looking down on the scene in the backyard, Jace pushed against the wood of their fence, his shirt choking at his neck, his father’s hand fisting the fabric.
I step back quickly, torn between wanting to witness and wanting to pretend I never saw anything at all. The shouting echoes a few more times, swear words followed by the thump of a body against the wood. I close my eyes, and a few seconds pass with no sound at all—until I hear the door slide open and shut. I shake my head quickly and sit at the corner of his bed, away from the ruffled covers and shirt he probably threw there after waking up this morning. My eyes focus on that shirt—on the tag, the words on the tag, the threads used to make those words.
“Sorry,” Jace says, stepping into his room a minute later, maybe more. I don’t know because I’ve been lost in that shirt and wishing Jace wasn’t being yelled at and pushed against a fence. He smiles briefly now, but turns his body away from me.
I watch as he moves to his desk, pulling a pen from one drawer and a notebook from another. His mask is in place by the time he turns again, but his muscles are tense, his jaw tight and his fingers flexing, almost rigid in how they clutch his school supplies. He falls on his bed, one leg bent and the other long against the floor while he rests his back against the wall on the opposite end from me. The fact that we’re both here—in his room, alone, on his bed—flushes me momentarily. But then I see the slip of emotion in his eyes. It passes fast. I should ignore it.
“Everything…alright?” I ask. I can’t help myself.
He’s looking at the notebook in his lap, his teeth gnawing at the end of the pen as he pulls the cap free and grabs it with his hand. His mouth is sawing back and forth at my question, stalling.
“Uh…” he says, turning to a
blank page in the notebook before changing positions, lying on his stomach with his notebook flat in front of him. He tilts his head up so his eyes meet mine, and the smile follows a fraction behind. “Yeah. It’s all good. Just something I messed up on. I knew the butt-chewing was coming.”
His eyebrow lifts a hint, signaling that the sharing is done. His eyes fall back to his notebook, and I watch him slowly write out his name, zigzagging the pen a few times between the first two letters to get the ink flowing. I decide to let what happened go because what’s happening in here is heavy enough.
Clearing my throat, I lie my notebook on my legs, the pages turned to my draft of the poem he turned in.
“I thought maybe we could work on this a line at a time,” I say.
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “I…I kind of need to write things, so I can understand them. And I’m…I write really slow.”
“It’s okay,” I say. He doesn’t look at me when I answer, but he nods. I can tell he’s embarrassed.
“Uhm, so…” I look from my notebook to his—his lines blank and mine full. I kind of feel like I need to see his face; to get a read on him and make sure I’m not going too fast. Or maybe I just want to see his face, to make sure he isn’t sad or upset. I slide down to the floor and twist to use his bed as a desk, putting our eyes at the same level. He watches me while his teeth work on the end of his pen. “Sorry. I felt…weird up there…I guess,” I admit.
The right side of his lip pulls up, and he breathes out a small laugh before looking back at his paper.
“Can we start with the first line?” he asks.
“Yeah…uhm…sure,” I say, my fingers bending the corners of my notebook, my palms sweaty—all of my favorite nervous ticks firing off at the same time. If I knew I would be in a situation like this, I never would have written this poem. With a deep inhale, I read the first line.
“Band-Aids, braces, popcorn turns to skirts and curves and kisses…”
I stare at the swirl of ink on the last S in that line, and I feel his eyes watching me. I can practically hear his inner thoughts teasing, and asking for the meaning. It’s a sexy poem. I wanted to try something edgy. Maybe I was angry at the time, or figured writing behind his face and name made it safe. I should have written about ponies.
I glance up with a tight-lipped smile, and raise my brows.
“Should I read it one more time?” I ask, pretending the words are just meaningless, that I’m not phased at all.
“Oh…uhm…yeah. Probably,” he says, sucking in his top lip and looking back to his hand and pen, poised and ready to write. “Can you start with the first four?”
“Sure,” I say, pulling in a deep, but quiet, breath for courage through my nose. “Band-Aids, braces, popcorn.”
He nods, and his pen touches the paper. The movement is painfully slow, and I watch as he struggles to spell, then realize he isn’t really spelling at all—he’s writing things in his own way, semi-phonetic, a sort of secret language. It takes him nearly a minute to get through the first two words.
“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his hand along his forehead before his eyes blink slowly and land on mine.
“Don’t be,” I say. We look at each other in silence, and it’s like time travel—suddenly we’re all skinned knees and soccer cleats with snow cone juice dripping down our arms.
“Is this…is this how you always have to do things? I mean…I know that I don’t do everything,” I stammer. My heart feels heavy, and I can see how hard it is for him to show me his weakness. To show anyone his weakness.
“The other classes…they’re verbal. My mom has some form on file at the school that means they have to accommodate me. But my dad didn’t want me labeled, so it’s only really in place for a few classes,” he says.
“The ones without me?”
His eyes come back to me, and everything is quiet and still. He doesn’t have to answer. I know I’m his crutch. I just wish I knew more before. Maybe I could have helped.
“I can learn. It’s just that I’m so behind, and I have trouble…with the writing.” He lets out a heavy sigh, his head tilting to the side with a sharp chuckle. “And who’s going to teach me now?”
“I would,” I answer before thinking. I want to eat the words before they reach his ears, but it isn’t possible. When the soft smile reaches his lips, though, I’m alright with him hearing it.
“I know you would, Dakota,” he says.
Our eyes tangle for a few heavy seconds, then his gaze falls back to his work. The air feels strange, and sad, and different—or maybe I don’t have the word for how it feels at all. Maybe it just feels honest.
“Right…so…popcorn is next, yeah?” he says, going back to work, his hand flexing around the pen.
“Yeah,” I breathe.
I watch him curve the letters, and repeat words slowly, over the next hour. I’m so invested in his concentration that I don’t bother to realize what he’s writing—what I’m saying to him. When he’s done, he has about half of the poem written in a language all of his own, and I wait while his lips silently mouth and struggle over certain phrases.
“How do you know what to say from what you write?” I question. I’m curious.
He chews at the inside of his mouth, his eyes tracing over the lines he’s scribed, then he twists his lips and nods with a small laugh.
“Before we moved here? I…I missed a lot of school. What was hard to learn in class before I missed became sort of impossible. But I’ve always been good at puzzles,” he says, tapping the end of the pen against his temple, his eyes slitting and his mouth curling. “So, when I started to get in trouble for failing, I found a work around. I could figure out some things by reading with my teacher, and writing down my own version on the playground on my way home. It used to be a lot of pictures. And I always lost points for spelling on tests. But…I’d get Cs. That’s what they do when you’re not one of the smart kids but they don’t really want to fail you—they give you a C.”
“You’re very smart, Jace,” I say.
His eyes come up to find mine, and that quiet pause settles in over us again. It lasts for a breath, then fades.
“You’re being nice,” he says through sad laughter, his concentration moving back to his scribbles on the paper in front of him. After a few more seconds, he swallows and adds, “Cs were never good enough. So, that’s why I leaned on you.”
I don’t know how to respond. I also feel my heart squeeze because I’m taking that support away. But that’s not something he seems to want to fight me on, so maybe he’s ready to try it again on his own. Maybe all of this—maybe it’s good.
“Do you want to read it through once? Just to see if you have that first half right?” I ask.
He nods, and sits up, leaning his back against the headboard, and pulling one knee up to rest the notebook on.
“Band-Aids, braces, popcorn turns to skirts and curves and kisses,” he says, his voice raspy and his mouth taking care of every word. He doesn’t sound like he’s struggling, so when his eyes flit to mine, I nod and smile with closed lips, encouraging him to go on.
“Watch you in the morning:
talking, laughing, moving, breathing.
We lay close, the grass cool, the sky dark.
It’s the same moon, but years apart.
Were I your king,
I’d court you with secret notes and glances.
You, my queen, we’d dance and sing,
our secrets what romance is.
If I kissed you now, would it taste like honey?
Would your lips fit mine, or would they feel funny?
I would try when you were sleeping,
but instead I kiss another and make her my queen
because it’s easy.
When I’m ready, will your challenge still be there?
Or will you find another, to count the stars up in the air?”
Oh…damn.
Hearing him speak those words, wat
ching his lip tug on the corner, his eyes flash in the pauses and avoid me completely now, I realize I didn’t mask anything at all. I wrote my fantasy. And I just got to hear it out loud, and Jace knows.
Jace knows!
“That was…” my throat catches, and I’m hot. I’m really, really hot. I swing my feet in front of me and stand, grabbing my notebook and looking around his room. I didn’t bring anything else with me, but now I wish I had—I need one more thing to hold, something to look for, a distraction. My eyes dart around, but eventually they land on his. The odds were against me.
“Uhm…hmmm.” My lips purse, and I’m sure the words guilt and sucker and loser and pitiful and so on are flashing in bright blush across my skin.
“Wow,” Jace says, biting his lips through a smile. More than a smile. Not quite a laugh. But he’s amused by me, by what I wrote—my feelings to him are…amusing.
Oh god!
“Yeah, uhm…you did good. I think you got it,” I say, giving his room one more cursory scan for the nothing there to find. I need to get a purse. Or carry a back pack at all times. Or…never come here again. Yes—that last one. I’ll do that one.
I take an awkward step back and hear a crunch under my shoe, wincing as I look down, hopeful that I didn’t step on something irreplaceable or expensive. The tuft of fur and purple velvet doesn’t strike me until I bend down and pick it up, popping out the dent I made with my foot.
Jace’s homecoming crown.
“I see you won,” I say, looking at it and thinking about the irony of my poem—Jace’s poem. Of course, he won. I’m sure he danced with Kayden while I sat at home in pajamas, eating fish sticks and writing sappy girl poetry.
Oh my freaking LAME!
I’m about to set it down, when Jace is suddenly in front of me, taking the plastic crown from my hand. His smirk is still there, but he hasn’t teased me. I’m sure it’s because his life depends on me right now.
“I did, but those things…they vote for the same people every year,” he says, looking at the crown in his hand, his thumb rubbing along the fake fur. In a blink, he’s looking at me.