Tell Me Something Real

by Kristen Kehoe

  “Wow, you’re really good when you finally start talking.”

  We laugh, but I find myself making sure she knows I’m serious. She nods. “I believe you. And… I feel the same way, just in case you were wondering. I see you—all the time—and I think you’re beautiful.”

  To ease the tension, I look down and give her a wicked grin. “Because of my gladiator body?”

  Relief blows over her face when she laughs and nods, reminding me that however intense my feelings, this is only our first step—our first time together. And we can’t rush. I can’t rush. Lincoln deserves patience.

  “Come on, Rich Boy. It’s late, and I bet your grandparents are wondering where you are. I’ll drop you off.”

  We slide down and get into the car, both silent as we head out of the field and toward town. When she comes to my grandparents’ driveway a few miles later, I reach into the back and grab my bag.

  “You could come in, you know. Stay here.”

  She smiles, leaning over to kiss me. “I’m good.”

  “I’m serious,” I say. “You’re already here. You know Beau and Maggie won’t care, and I…” I trail off and blow out a breath. “I hate sending you back to that place alone.”

  Her smile is small, and maybe just a little understanding. “I know. But it’s where I live. You can’t save me, Ford.” She says it in a way that makes me want to prove her wrong, but then I look at her face and realize she’s not telling me, so much as begging me to understand. “You—being with you—is more than I ever thought it would be. And it makes me feel like more than I ever have before, but I’m still me, and there are things about me that can’t be changed yet. When they can be, I’ll be the one to do it, okay?”

  Not okay. Not even a little.

  But I don’t say that. Instead, I nod, cupping her cheek and giving her one last kiss. “Okay. Call if you need anything.” It takes all the internal strength I possess not to ask her if she has minutes on her phone.

  She waits until I get out and shut the door. Then she backs out, headlights swinging around when she pulls onto the highway and disappears. I watch her the entire time, missing her already.

  “You can’t possibly think I wouldn’t know it was you.”

  Ford looks up from his table in the library—my table—and I’m startled to a stop. Because Holy Hot Boy Alert, Ford Joseph William Slaughter is not just a gladiator with a brain, he also wears glasses. Like, the real-deal reading glasses, with thin black frames around square lenses that anyone can see are real.

  “Holy crap, you really are Clark Kent.” The words must spur him into action, because one minute the glasses are there, and in the next, they’re gone and Ford’s beautiful brown eyes are unobstructed in their view of me. “No, no, you should definitely leave them on.”

  He shakes his head in amusement, that half smile curving at his lips. “Were you accusing me of something when you barged in here?”

  I glance down at the glasses that are tucked into a case in the front pocket of his backpack, giving them a wistful sigh before looking back at Ford. There is almost a full smile on his face now, and I wish we were alone so I could lean over and kiss him.

  It’s crazy that I can do that now. And I do—a lot. Whenever we’re even semi-alone, in fact. Like the other day, when we met in the pantry during our culinary class by accident, and within two seconds my back was against a rack of baking products, and his lips were on mine. Best fifteen seconds of class ever.

  Almost as good as the other night when I happened to be by the boy’s locker room when he got done with football practice. Colt walked out with him, and one look at me had my best friend making some lame excuse about needing to see someone before he pivoted and left us alone. I gave Ford a ride home, spending nearly an hour in the car at the end of the farm driveway, straddling Ford’s lap and assaulting his lips.

  When we finally broke apart, he offered me a juice box and promise for a real-date soon.

  “I don’t mind these dates,” I told him. His grin was full blown then.

  “Neither do I, but…I want to take you out.” Heat tinted his cheeks, and he looked down, fingers playing with mine. “It’s crazy how much I want that.”

  “Me, too.”

  Another forty-five minutes, and a fun-size bag of skittles later (Boy Scout with his preparedness), Ford finally got out of the car.

  Now, though, we’re at school and however much we aren’t fooling anyone, we don’t do more than make smoldery eye-contact and walk together in between classes and at lunch. And, now, share a library table during our free period.

  “The glucose tablets in my locker? And the strips? The care package with socks and vitamins, prepaid minutes for my phone… you know I know it’s you, right?”

  Poker face…wow. He just cocks his head, no change in his expression. If possible, his face becomes expressionless. Is that a thing?

  “How exactly do you know it’s me?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  Ford raises a brow. “The obvious choice is Colt.”

  I snort. “Please, if Colt buys me something, he hands it to me and we engage in a ‘you shouldn’t have—you better use this’ kind of dialogue before I say thank you and he pretends it’s no big deal. But it is a big deal—especially since there’s a couple hundred dollars’ worth of medical crap in my locker. No way Colt can drop that kind of cash right now. He just paid rent.”

  “Whose rent?”

  I drop my stuff on the table and take my books out. “His rent—for he and his mom.”

  Ford’s brows raise. “His mom doesn’t pay?”

  I snort, fishing out a pencil from the bottom of my bag before flipping open my Finance booklet. Boo—I hate all things math. “That would require money, which comes from a job, neither of which she has. Colt takes care of her when she’s not in County or on work crew,” I tell him. “They live in a small rent-by-the-week off Pacific on the other side of the overpass.”

  Ford is quiet for a second, and I can see him processing this information. “Do Beau and Maggie know?”

  I shrug. “I think so. Like I said, they never want him to leave the farm, but they understand they can’t stop him.”

  “But if he’s not getting everything he needs, why would he want to stay?”

  I stop what I’m doing now and look at him. It’s not that simple—and I know he knows it. “She’s his mom,” I remind Ford. “From the outside, it might seem easy to let her go, to live with Maggie and Beau, but he’s not on the outside. He’s there, loving her even though she doesn’t deserve it, hoping like every kid with bum parents that if he works hard enough, loves her long enough, proves himself to be worthy enough, that she’ll become who she was when he was younger, and he’ll no longer be the sometimes-homeless son of a man who killed himself, and a woman who keeps trying to do the same.”

  Ford’s quiet, looking at me in the way that makes me squirm. “You guys are a lot alike,” he says after a second. “The night you were in the hospital, Colt told me a similar story about you.”

  I don’t look away, or wince, or die of embarrassment. None of those things would do any good—and they wouldn’t stop Ford from knowing my truth, something I find myself wanting him to know. “Yeah, we are. Except, like I told you before that, I’ve never known anything different. Lisa has always been an asshole—paying rent or scrounging for food, when she spent whatever money we had on drugs or men or booze is something I’ve always done. Colt, he remembers something different.”

  Hope—somehow, those memories give him a hopeless kind of desire that one day, his life will revert to the way it was. This, more than anything, is the reason for the darkness inside of my best friend. Wishing for what was has never given him anything but disappointment.

  Me, I don’t wish for anything. I just work toward something different.

  “Do you have rent to pay, too, Lincoln?”

  I’m about to offer a smart-ass resp
onse about my credit card being maxed out for the month, and then I remember the package in my locker—and the constant stream of things that have made their way into my backpack over the past several weeks.

  Ford’s eyes right now tell me that if I say yes, or even make a joke, a new credit card will appear somewhere with my name on it. As amazing as the idea of someone caring enough to take care of me is, it’s also terrifying. People like me, with a mother like mine, we know what strings are. If someone is taking care of us, they can cut those strings and leave us crushed—or they can manipulate them, jerk us around until we’re doing things we never thought we would, just to get what they once gave us for free.

  “I would say a larger part of the population at this high school has to pay some sort of rent.”

  “I’m not asking about the population of people here. I’m asking about you.”

  He’s angry; his face shows nothing, his body still, like he’s not even breathing, but I can see it in his eyes, in the intensity of his stare. Ford is angry. I just don’t know at what—or who.

  “Yes, I pay rent. But, my mom’s new boyfriend, Phil, he has offered to pay my portion, several times,” I continue, even when Ford closes his eyes on a deep breath. “I’m just not ready to see what old Phil wants in return, so you can understand why I go ahead and leave my cash on the counter each week.”

  “Jesus,” he breathes out. “Lincoln…”

  “Don’t try and fix this for me, Ford.” I reach out to touch his arm and soften the words.

  “Would you let Colt?”

  My head snaps back like he slapped me, and I yank my hand off his arm. “Not fair,” I say, my voice low and harsh. When I go to grab my books, Ford says my name, and then he puts his hands over mine when I don’t acknowledge him.

  “Don’t,” I say. He just holds tighter.

  “Let me explain, Lincoln.”

  “Nothing to explain,” I say through clenched teeth. “You’re competing with Colt like a child. Is that what all the stuff is for? To prove you can be just as important? That you can give me something he can’t?” I hate that even a second of sympathy streaks through me when I see I’m partially right. This boy—he doesn’t know his worth. But he also doesn’t know me, not like I thought he did.

  I grab my bag and slam out of the library, aware that this little tantrum will turn heads. I head toward F hall, and the back doors, Ford on my heels. “Lincoln, let me explain,” he says from behind me.

  “You already did,” I shoot back. When his fingers circle my arm, I turn and glare. “Let me go, Ford.”

  “Not until we have a conversation—a real one,” he finishes before I can tell him we’ve already said what we need. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded—and I don’t regret wanting to help you. But I am sorry that what I said hurt you.”

  This gives me pause—because while Ford has done and said a lot of things, I don’t think he’s ever apologized. Not even when he was being a snarky asshole those first weeks he was here. “Five minutes.”

  He nods. “Let’s go to your car. I don’t want an audience,” he says, motioning to the freshmen walking out of study hall who have stopped to stare at us.

  We walk down the lengthy hallway to the back doors, and I ignore that swooning feeling when he reaches around me to open the heavy metal door to the outside. When we’re in my car, windows cracked, I sit and wait, staring straight ahead while he stares at me. I won’t be the first to speak.

  “When I first moved here—got shipped here,” he corrects, and I look over at him. “I assumed you and Colt were a couple.”

  “I remember. You thought I was some weak girl who let him sleep around and come back to me whenever he wanted.”

  Ford doesn’t look away, just nods. “That’s what I was used to: girls who wanted someone for status or looks or money, or just because they wanted Instagram pictures on the beach at sunset.”

  This makes me smile a little, and he returns it. “Even when both of you told me you weren’t together, I didn’t really believe you.”

  “We’ve never even kissed, Ford. Colt and I.” I sigh and shrug. “We’re family. Not the weird, we’re in love with each other but pretending not to be, but really just family. We’re all we had for a really long time.”

  He nods, and I see discomfort settle over him for the first time. “That’s the thing I couldn’t—sometimes still can’t—understand. You love him, and he loves you,” Ford says. “He’s taken care of you for so long, been there for you for so long, I didn’t know how to be a part of that, too.”

  Colt’s words from the morning after the hospital run through my head, and I look down, running my fingernail over the frayed knee of my jeans. “Is that why you walked away—stayed with Jacqueline and avoided me unless you were checking on my levels?”

  I hear him swallow. “I didn’t know what to offer you that Colt wasn’t already giving you. Even now, when we’re together, I don’t know how to take care of you, not the way he does.”

  “So, you buy me things I can’t afford, and offer to pay my rent.” He goes still, and I see him brace for the argument. “I appreciate the things,” I say, hating that we’ve fought, that I can’t just accept his generosity, that he can’t see just having him is enough. “But, did you ever think that it’s different because I’m not kissing Colt? That taking things from you feels like payment for whatever it is we’re doing?”

  I wait, finally looking up at him. His jaw is still tense, his body still motionless, but his eyes? They’re devastated. “I don’t work that way,” he finally says, and I hear the regret in his voice. “That’s another thing I don’t understand—where I come from, there’s a lot of payment for things to be kept quiet. There’s a greedy side and a cover-up side. There’s parents who offer officials money and pay for new wings to schools in order to forgive bad grades, but never in my life has someone exploited me for rent money.”

  He exhales now, reaching over for me, but he pauses at the last minute. Knowing he won’t move until I do—that his code of honor really is that strong, whatever he thinks of himself, I move first, reaching for him, laughing and twisting when he hauls me out of my seat and across the small console to sit in his lap.

  “I want to take care of you,” Ford says. “Not because I don’t think you can—but because it feels like it’s all I can do to help. I can’t get rid of your diabetes, and I can’t make your mom nicer or whatever else you need from her, but buying strips and insulin pens and gas cards so you don’t have to worry about that?” He pulls back to look right at me. “I can do that—I want to do that. And not because I’m competing with Colt. But because you’re important to me, and I need you to know that.”

  “I’m not with you because I need money,” I say. “But because being with you makes everything else seem really small and insignificant. Being with you,” I repeat, voice going low the tighter her holds me. “Showed me that there is another side to life. One I never believed in. Until now.”

  It’s so much—what we’ve said, what I’ve just admitted. Our lives are anything but simple, and feelings like the ones Ford and I just shared always seem to make life more complicated. But right now, while his lips swoop in on mine, and our hearts beat together, they don’t make it complicated. Those words… they made everything right.

  Our football game on Friday night is the homecoming game—the prelude to the dance tomorrow night that no one will stop talking about.

  Except Lincoln. She hasn’t mentioned it once, except to say she’s working all day.

  In theory, the homecoming game is supposed to be an easy one, but reality never really has a problem disproving theory. Case in point: we’re tied with the worst team in the league going into halftime. Grier has been sacked twice, intercepted once, and our offense couldn’t catch a pass or run the ball if their lives depended on it.

  We’ve scored two field goals—that’s it.

  When we get into the locker room, boys sit
on the benches, heads hung, shoulders slumped, and still others stand in the corner gabbing because they can’t wait to go to the dance tomorrow.

  “Hey, assholes, talk about the dance again, and I’ll make sure to hit you hard enough you don’t wake up in time to go.”

  I glance up from where I’m leaning against my locker, and see Colt, helmet in hand, glaring at everyone. “Newsflash, boys, this game is not over. No matter how distracted we’ve been. You want to go out onto the field with the princesses right now, Grier? Put on your dress and wear a tiara?”

  “Screw you, Slaughter.”

  “If that’s what you want, I’ll have to get in line since you appear to be screwing the rest of the team as well,” Colt fires back. He looks around, his eye black streaked over his sweaty face, his arms and legs covered in turf paint and marks from the other teams’ helmets. “We need to win in order to have a chance at playoffs, so stop thinking about your girl and whether or not she’s going to let you take her out of her dress tomorrow night, and start doing your damn jobs.”

  “Angry because you’re with Evie Wright, and we all know there’s not much under her dress?”

  Colt’s on the sophomore wide receiver before the words are out of his mouth, and then we’re all moving, separating them. It takes me and Kaz, another lineman, to drag Colt off, and for the first time all night, Grier stands and gets in the junior’s face, making himself a presence.

  “You want to talk shit, Wacko? Then, let’s talk about your hands. Sticking them out and hoping to catch the ball is not an actual play we practice.”

  Wacko goes to snipe back, but Coach comes through the door and takes one look at us before saying, “Enough.”

  Colt shrugs us off to take his spot and listen to Coach, but not before he points a finger at the sophomore. “Another word, and I don’t care if your feet are the fastest in the league. I’ll fucking break them.”

  Coach calls our attention again, and we take another reaming. By the time we head back to the field, everyone is ten times more fired up than we were at the beginning of the game. “You think we’re going to be able to pull this off?”