by Cat Patrick
I can’t help it; my heart races. I shove the paper in my jeans pocket and walk into the hall, looking in the direction that he went, but he’s gone. I head to my locker, figuring that I’ll find out what’s going on soon enough.
The next few periods aren’t exactly prime learning hours for me. With distractions of Joel, I go through the motions, just hoping no one calls on me. Thankfully, we watch a movie in history and it’s a work period in art, and Mrs. Marks is out sick and our science sub blabs on without interacting with any of us. When the bell rings, instead of hitting my locker, I text Simone.
MEETING JOEL. TEXT YOU LATER.
She texts back, WWGS?
??
WHAT WOULD GRAM SAY?
I pause, thinking it over. Then I write, SHE’D TELL ME TO BE CAREFUL.
ONCE AGAIN, SHE’S A SMART LADY.
I smile and put away my phone. Simone’s right. Gram’s right. I need to be strong and, most of all, careful. I make my way to the place that’s apparently become mine and Joel’s: the auditorium. When I arrive, I don’t see him. I walk down the center aisle toward the stage; when I’m visible from the balcony above, I hear his voice.
“Hi, Caroline,” he says, startling me. I turn and find him peering over the edge of the balcony. “Come up?” he asks.
“Okay.” I walk over to the stairs near the right side of the room and climb slowly so I won’t be out of breath when I get there. He’s waiting at the top, and the second my foot hits the landing, he grabs my hand and pulls me close.
“I’m happy to see you,” he says, which strikes me as odd since we spent first period together this morning. But still, I hug back. He burrows his face into my hair and takes a deep breath.
“You smell good,” he says in a low tone that stirs something inside me. I consider kissing him—his kisses are like salted caramel hot chocolate—before remembering the drama from last week. I put my hands on his shoulders and push back a foot.
“Hey, Joel?” I say. “What are we doing here?”
He looks at me for a few seconds, then steps back and takes my hand. “Come here.” We walk to seats in the front row, overlooking the section where we sat the first time we came here. When we’re settled, he wastes no time. “I broke it off with Lauren this weekend.”
Relief floods through me; Natalie was right that cheating makes you feel awful about yourself. I’m so glad that it’s over.
“Does that make you happy?” he asks, looking into my eyes.
“I think so,” I say honestly. Just because they broke up doesn’t mean we’re—
“I did it for you,” he says. “I like you, Caroline. I can’t stop thinking about you … your hair, your lips. The way you taste. I want to draw you.”
I consider that all of Joel’s compliments are surface—they’re about the way I look. But, trusting that there has to be more in his heart, I allow myself to feel flattered. To crush hard on him.
“Anytime.”
“You mean it?”
“Hey, it looked cool when Kate and Leo did it.”
“Huh?” he asks, not getting my Titanic reference.
“Never mind,” I say, wondering if any two people are ever really perfectly connected with each other. Maybe understanding someone to the point that you can practically hear his or her soul is just stuff of books and super-expensive movies.
“Friday night?” he asks, moving on. “My parents will be out. My stepdad has some charity thing and they’re sleeping over. I’m sure they’re planning to get hammered—at least they’re smart enough not to drive.”
“Sure, sounds amazing,” I say, wondering if going to Joel’s house so he can draw me qualifies as a first date. Or maybe we already had our first date? At the fairgrounds? And does this mean we’re dating now? I spin on mechanics and milestones until Joel takes my face in his hands and kisses me. There’s so much I want to ask about—his weekend, his family, his life—but my words are corked by kisses.
When the warning bell rings and the lunch period is over, we pull apart and move downstairs to the nearby bathrooms to make ourselves presentable. In the mirror, I examine my red chin and lips, my flushed cheeks and mussed hair.
Is this all we are? No, there has to be more.
I find Joel leaning against lockers in the deserted hallway between the auditorium and the Family Sciences wing. I walk up and stop in front of him; he hooks his fingers through my belt loops.
“That was better than the lunch special,” he says, a sparkle in his eyes. And then he actually smiles. The sight of his straight white teeth makes my heart rate quicken; I smile so hard my face might crack.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was fun.”
Joel leans in and kisses me gently on the forehead, then brushes it away with his thumb. “You can go first,” he says. “I’ll wait here a minute.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, looking toward the mouth of the hallway and back into Joel’s eyes. He tilts his head to the side just a hair, confused.
“Just being chivalrous,” he says with a shrug.
“But … I … ,” I say, piecing it together like a particularly complicated puzzle that my brain just can’t quite grasp. Finally it hits me. “You mean you don’t want to walk out together?”
“Uh … ,” he says. “We probably shouldn’t, right?” He steps a little closer, gripping even tighter on my jeans. “The body’s not even cold on my relationship with Lauren. She’s still got a lot of friends here. I don’t want her to think I’ve been messing around on her.”
But you have! I want to scream. I bite my tongue.
“I mean I don’t think we should tell anyone about us just yet, do you?” he asks in as sweet a voice as I’ve ever heard from him. “You mean a lot to me, and I don’t want people thinking you’re just my rebound girl. I want us to be able to be a thing … a real thing.”
“Just not yet,” I say. I mean it sarcastically, but there’s no weight to my words. He thinks I’m agreeing.
“Soon,” he says, kissing me lightly on the lips and then releasing his hold on my pants. He raises a chin toward the main hallway, where a few students pass by. “You’d better get going. Don’t want to be late.”
I take a step back, baffled by what’s happening and even more by the fact that I’m letting it happen. “Guess I’ll see you around.”
“Don’t forget about Friday,” he says. “I can’t wait to spend a whole night alone with you.”
I wave and fake a smile before turning my back on him. I walk up the dark corridor and into the well-lit main hallway, feeling like I just returned from planet Who The Hell Am I?, wondering when I signed up to be someone’s secret plaything and hating myself for loving the smell of Joel’s body still lingering on my clothes.
TEN
GO
Clinton High School is smaller than my old school, a one-story brick building with a thick set of woods behind it. As I park, I survey the people walking in—checking out their clothes, seeing how they interact. I figure out that thirty miles doesn’t make a big fashion difference, but it does make me a complete outsider. Slowly I climb out of the car, ready to face the isolation of new girl syndrome.
After getting my schedule from the front office, I make my way to homeroom. The class is mostly empty, and the teacher isn’t in the room yet. I stand around, and when no one offers a spot next to them, I take a seat near the front and wait. My phone vibrates.
DON’T MAKE ANY NEW BEST FRIENDS, Simone writes, and I smile. When we met up yesterday for fro-yo, things were a bit awkward at first. We didn’t talk about the party, or Gram, or even the fight we had on the phone. Instead she told me that Joel Ryder continues to ask about me like I’ve somehow transformed into his version of “the one who got away.”
So I told her about my date with Chris. How I like it at my dad’s house, but how being there is a little like visiting a distant planet with aliens shaped as parents. And then the normalness of our friendship started to soak in.
“You’re in my seat,�
�� a girl says as she hovers over the desk. I apologize and stand, not sure where to go. I think about asking the girl, but her severe ponytail and heavily lined eyes sort of scare me, so I go stand in the back of the room near the bookshelf. Every person who walks in takes a good long look at me like I’m this month’s class pet. I fidget with the zipper of my backpack to keep from gawking like an idiot.
My teacher, Mr. Powell, finally comes in just as the bell rings. His plaid sports coat is wrinkled at the bottom, and I guess that he’s one of those eccentric-type teachers who will make us do trust exercises and share our feelings. As if reading my mind, he comes to a dramatic halt in front of the room.
“A new student?” he asks, holding out his hand. “How lucky are we?”
There are a couple of snickers around the room, and I shrink back as if I can fade into the wall of literary posters. My new friend Miss Severity turns back to look at me, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised. From her sour expression, she doesn’t like what she sees.
“Why don’t you take the seat right here,” Mr. Powell says, pointing to the desk nearest to him. I close my eyes for a moment, trying to gather some bravery before slowly making my way down the aisle. Just when I think my humiliation is about to end, my foot catches the edge of a backpack and I stumble, smacking into the desk of a dude in a red varsity jacket. I fall on top of him, my leg caught on his bag, as I land with my face close enough to kiss him. He smiles a big jock smile as if I did it on purpose and then takes me by the hips to guide me up.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” he says, earning laughter and catcalls from around the room.
Gross. “Sorry,” I mutter, backing out of his arms. When I turn, I see Miss Severity’s jaw harden, her eyes narrowed to slits. I’m going to go ahead and guess that I just groped her boyfriend. Not good.
With the weight of her glare intimidating me, I sink down in the front seat, wondering if the day can get any worse. And then, when a paper ball pegs the back of my head, I decide that it most certainly can.
I sit alone in the lunchroom and scroll through my phone for a number. No one looked even remotely interested in sharing a meal with me when I walked in, so I took my brown bag and found the only solo table at the very rear of the room. Fitting, since I feel like an ass already.
“Does this mean you’ve been thinking about me all day?” Chris says as a way of answering the phone. Instantly I’m better.
“Maybe. Or maybe I already tried Simone and she’s in class. And maybe I have no one else to talk to because I’m the weird new girl.”
“You’re weird in the best ways.” He pauses. “That bad, huh?”
“Awful. Today sucks.”
“I’m sorry. Would it make you feel better if I told you that I have a three-hour lecture in twenty minutes but am more than willing to skip it? For you.”
“Ha! No way,” I tell him. “If I have to suffer through an education, so do you.”
“Mean.”
I smile, finally relaxing now that Chris reminded me that I’m not the complete loser I felt like this morning. “Thanks,” I say softly. “Don’t read too much into this, but you’re a really great life distraction.”
“You’re so in love with me.”
I smile. “Shut up.”
The phone shifts and I picture him stretching out on his bed, grinning like a total doofus, sort of like I am now.
“Hey, you know what would be awesome?” he says, his voice a little lower. “If you’d come over tonight. I’m fully stocked with ramen noodles and Mountain Dew.”
“Ew. So I’ll bring pizza?”
“Sounds good. Call you when I get out of class.”
When we hang up, I look around the cafeteria one more time. I find Miss Severity sitting with her letterman, saying something dramatic, judging by her hand gestures. Just then she notices me, her eyes locking me in place as she leans her head to whisper to one of her equally severe friends. They laugh, watching me the entire time.
I lower my eyes, pretending that my peanut butter sandwich is the most interesting food on the planet. And for the first time I realize that running away hasn’t gotten rid of my problems. It’s only given me new ones.
Chris’s room is neater than I imagined: a single with an organized desk, a television, and, of course, a bed. His door is partly open as he sits back against his pillows with an acoustic guitar in his lap. What he’s strumming sounds suspiciously like “Sweet Caroline,” but he changes the melody the minute he notices me.
“Hey,” he says, smiling broadly. “And you really did bring pizza.” I hold up the box and move inside, feeling a prickle of nervousness as I close the door behind me. He looks adorable in his Clinton T-shirt and jeans, so carefree and easy.
“I brought sustenance,” I say, holding out the food to him. “But you only get a slice on one condition.”
He grins. “Do I have to get undressed?”
“Not exactly where I was going there, Chris. The condition is that you can’t ask me about school, varsity jackets, or mean girls who decide on sight that they despise me.”
Chris widens his eyes like he can understand just how bad the day has been, and then he reaches for the pizza box to set it aside on his desk. When he straightens, sitting on the edge of his bed, he takes my hands and tugs me toward him.
What starts as a move of seduction quickly changes when he balls my right hand into a fist. “I should teach you how to fight,” he says. He pantomimes my fist hitting his cheek in slow motion, along with sound effects and a drawn-out “Nooo …” I laugh, thinking he’s possibly the silliest person I know, and yet I find it completely endearing.
“Like you know how to fight,” I say when he finally finishes knocking himself out.
“I’ve been in fights,” he responds. “Actually, I’ve been in quite a few.” Chris pushes my hip until I sit down next to him, and then he grabs his guitar and starts strumming again. “Believe it or not,” he says between chords, “I used to be a troublemaker.”
“Lies.”
He glances sideways. “I swear it’s true. This face you’re so fond of has been punched a multitude of times.”
“And you’re going to teach me the fine art of physical altercations? Doesn’t sound like you’ve gotten the hang of it yet.” I’m still not totally buying his sordid Outsiders past.
“I may not start the fights.” Chris sets the guitar behind him on the bed. “But I always win. I play dirty, Caroline.”
I’m pretty sure his admission wasn’t meant to make me hot, but I find myself completely ready to wrestle him to the ground. The sinful gleam in his baby blue eyes does little to suppress my urge.
“Wanna fight?” he asks with a grin.
“Oh, yeah.”
What I think will turn into a roll-around-on-the-floor-until-we-start-kissing match ends up more like an actual self-defense class. Chris even lets me take a swing at him, which I’ll admit is kind of exhilarating, but he dodges it easily before tackling me back onto the bed.
“Let’s try that again,” he says, climbing up from the mattress. “I can do this all night.”
Though it’s not exactly the way I’d choose to relieve tension, our play fighting is fun, and the day vastly improves. At least until I get home. There’s a note next to the phone in my stepmother’s cursive.
Caroline,
Natalie called here looking for you. She said to call her and that it’s important.
Seeing my sister’s name sends me into a panic attack. My mind spins with questions: Is everyone okay? What does she want? What will she say to me this time?
My stomach is sick as I pick up the house phone and dial her number. She answers on the first ring, and I’m rooted in place when her voice hits me. “You selfish brat,” she says immediately. “Mom calls your phone three times a day and you have yet to answer her. She’s frantic. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Then I remember why I’m here: I ruined my family, starting all the way back to when
I was twelve years old. And my sister has never let me forget it. My eyes tear up, and I softly drop the phone on its charger, hanging up on her. I back away slowly, as if it’s a snake, and my new life begins to crumble.
I’m such a traitor—playing happy while Gram is dead. I nearly fall apart thinking that it’s possible that she would hate me now, too. I dash upstairs to my bed and then curl up in my fake room. My fake life. I’m drowning in guilt and despair, and when I close my eyes, all I can hear is my sister’s whisper.
Runner.
ELEVEN
STAY
Climbing the steps to Joel’s front porch, I’m approaching basket case status. At only seven, it’s already midnight black—thanks, winter—which adds to my jumpiness. But mostly, it’s my thoughts that are poking and provoking me. Joel wants to draw me. He likes to make out. And his mom will be gone all night long.
I twist the bracelet on my wrist, hearing Gram tell me to take a belly breath to calm down. I put my right hand on my stomach and inhale, then quickly rip my hand away when the front door opens. Joel’s half smiling in a black T-shirt and jeans, sock footed and scruffy. He pretty much looks exactly how I picture him in daydreams.
“Ready to be immortalized?” he asks.
“As long as you’re not planning to bite my neck.”
He looks at me funny as he shifts in the doorway. Then, “I can’t promise anything.”
As it turns out, posing for a sketch is incredibly boring.
“Stop moving,” Joel says seriously without looking at my face—he’s focused on my hands. I’m sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around my knees, regretting picking this particular position. My butt hurts and my face itches and I’m getting thirsty.
“How about that break?” I ask, trying to shift without him noticing. I imagine myself scratching my cheek—it makes the itch fade a little.
“In a minute,” he says, “promise. I just need to get your fingers right.” That’s what he said a half hour ago about my wrists.
When a break finally comes at nine o’clock, I stand up, creaky, and follow Joel to the kitchen. He offers me a beer, but I reach around him into the fridge and grab a soda instead. Then I wander, looking at the hanging décor and knickknacks. The design is rustic country, and the whole house smells like Joel.