Young Annabelle Series: Young Annabelle, The Truth About James, What My Heart Wants

by Sarah Tork

  So that’s why they were late for lunch yesterday.

  “You said you would always love me and take care of me. Why are you breaking your promise? Didn’t I back out when you got married, I didn’t give you any trouble. I gave you most of my high school life, I gave you all of me and this is how you’re going to repay me by turning your back when I need you the most, so you can live your happy life with that ugly, disgusting wife!”

  My eyes widened. OH MY GOD!

  “I bet she’d like to know what you were up to while you guys were dating. Maybe I’ll give her a call tonight.” Donna threatened.

  Oh My God, Donna was having an affair with a married man or an almost married man.

  “I want him Dougie, I want him to be mine. Don’t you think I deserve James?” Donna cried. “Fine, I’ll talk to you later.”

  She walked out of the washroom, and I let out the gasp that wanted to come out.

  Holy shit!

  I can’t believe that just happened.

  Who was Dougie, and how was he going to help Donna get James?

  I exited the washroom, shaking from the discovery of the most scandalous secret I’d ever heard in my life.

  Was this what James was talking about? All the coded messages about Donna not running things anymore, did he know about this ‘Dougie’ too?

  I was confused out of my mind.

  *~*~*

  I needed to know…..what Donna was talking about back at school. And since James’ name popped up multiple times during her crazed cry to ‘Dougie’, I headed straight to his house.

  Well no, I headed to the park first, seeing as I had time to kill while he was at practice. I would have waited for him outside the change room at school, but I just had to get out of there in case Donna was lurking around, awaiting a rematch.

  So I sat in the park for over an hour, watching people live their lives, happy and carefree that it was Friday. I had been happy too that it was Friday.

  Now…not so much.

  But hopefully there was an explanation, because I really needed one. My mind was going in circles, rivaling the pace of the road runner. Glad that I remembered his address, I crossed the street towards James’s house, stopping at a row of bushes that outlined the property, the size of them keeping me hidden from the commotion coming from the driveway. James’ SUV was parked on the driveway beside another car. A large red Ford F250 truck was running idly right in front of their double garage. The windows were tinted, but they were down halfway revealing a blonde woman, who I immediately identified as James’s stepmother. Loud squeals echoed out and the stepmother turned, yelling back to what were probably James’ little siblings. Their front door opened and an older version of James stormed out, slamming the door behind him and not bothering to lock it.

  “That boy!” Mr. Lawson growled, shaking his head with a look of disgust on his way towards the driver’s side. “Jesus Christ! His mother raised him to be a pussy. I can’t believe my kid….fucking acting like a pussy!”

  “Calm down Jimmy, he’s only seventeen.” The stepmother said as Mr. Lawson slid into the driver’s seat. “Just let him be, this is his senior year.”

  Mr. Lawson snorted loudly as the truck rolled down the driveway. “He’s never going to learn anything by acting like a pussy, Janet. I’ve got to teach him. If I don’t, then who will?” That was the last bit of the conversation I heard as the truck pulled into traffic, driving away.

  So this was what James had to deal with at home….a mean, asshole Dad. A Dad who he couldn’t talk to, get advice from…nothing. I had my problems with my Mom, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t talk to her in fear of her screaming at me for acting in a way she strongly disapproved of. There was a line and yes my Mom has bordered it many times, but she’s never called me names…like that.

  Especially in public.

  I felt it in my bones, James was inside, feeling destroyed. He’d probably also heard his Dad shout ‘Pussy’ from wherever he was inside the house. I could only imagine how he was actually feeling.

  I needed to find him…comfort him.

  Since Mr. Lawson didn’t lock the door after leaving, I headed inside quietly, trekking up the stairs straight for James’ room since he was probably there. His door was halfway open, I tip toed to it and peeked through from the hallway. James sat crouched on his bed. His head was nestled in both of his hands. He had on a fresh blue t-shirt and black jeans. His dark brown hair was smoothed back and damp. He’d probably just come out of a shower.

  My baby wanted to be clean for me….and his freaking Dad yelled at him afterwards.

  I HATED JAMES’ DAD!

  I HATED HIM WITH THE PASSION, THE FIRE OF A MILLION SUNS!

  The anger surged within every molecule, every inch of my body. I gulped back my distain for ‘Mr. Lawson’ and focused on the most important thing in front of me. “James?” I whispered and almost immediately his head snapped up, looking shocked that I was here, standing in his room, looking distraught for him.

  “What are you doing here?” He blurted out, closing his dropped jaw. Without answering, in fear of totally losing it because I hated seeing him so sad, I rushed to him, hugging his upper body while I stood and he still sat.

  “I heard.” I whispered, my voice hoarse and pained. “Just…just hold me.”

  “You heard that…what my Dad called me outside?” James asked, timidly.

  “James….the whole neighborhood heard what your Dad called you.” I murmured, resting my face into his damp hair. It smelled wonderful. “I’m so sorry…I’m so, so, sorry.”

  “I wish you didn’t hear that.” James whispered, sounding ashamed. He hugged me, still seated on the edge of his bed. His head tucked into my chest, breathing in and out as if my scent provided exactly what he needed at the moment.

  Stress relief.

  All the crap….all the crap of the last couple of hours meant absolutely nothing now. The only thing that mattered to me was making him feel better as quickly as possible.

  Even though the fights I’d had with my parents weren’t as bad, I still knew what it felt like to feel low from the aftermath.

  And my baby needed soft kisses and caresses right now.

  “What would I do without you?” James murmured, tightening his hug, cuddling into me even more. “I’d die without you, baby.”

  I chuckled, raking my fingers though his wet hair. “You probably won’t, but thanks anyways?”

  “I’m serious.” He murmured, pouting as he returned to cuddle his face into my chest. “Five minutes ago…was the worst.”

  I sighed, feeling his stress. “Well, what can I do to make you feel better?”

  “Just don’t leave me.” He breathed, his sad eyes wounding my heart, transmitting the pain he was feeling right to me.

  “I think I can do a little better than that.” I whispered, pushing him down, his back on the bed. I crawled over him and pressed my lips against his, kissing him with the ferocity of lightening and the passion of everything I felt deep inside of my heart for him. I was crazy about the kid.

  I never thought…I’d be one of those people…you know…the kind that loved hard.

  “Oh, okay.” James murmured into my mouth. I leaned back and straddled him. His hands caressed the skin right underneath the edge of my tank top. “I want to feel you.” He whispered, helping me pull my tank top off, leaving me with only my black bra and jeans on. I decided that the bra on wasn’t what I wanted, so I snapped it off and tossed it on to the floor. His green eyes quickly masked with desire as he stared at my naked upper body. I helped him pull off his shirt and pressed my chest down onto his. The heat of his skin made my tummy flutter.

  It was…amazing…his touch alone gave me butterflies.

  He stared deep into my eyes, pushing my body deeper into his. “Keep me in your arms, baby. You warm me, Annabelle. You know that?”

  Wow….he said my full name.

  “You said my name.” I smiled, feeling my heart beat
wildly, on the verge of rocketing out of my chest.

  “It’s a beautiful name.” He murmured, pulling me into a deep kiss, tension leaving his body with each bite of the lip, each stroke of the tongue, each caress.

  After a beautiful few minutes of feeling his skin on me, this afternoon’s scandal invaded my mind again. I felt as though he’d calmed down enough that I could ask him about it. “James?” I stopped kissing him and pulled away a few inches. “Do you know a person named, Dougie?”

  James cringed, blinking back his shock. “What?” He moved up, into a sitting position. He kept me straddled to him by placing his arms around my waist. “Why do you ask?” He asked, timidly.

  “I was in the bathroom after school. I used a different one, just in case there was another scene with Donna. Well, surprisingly, right after I entered another one, like two hallways away, Donna came inside, crying and on the phone to a married man named Dougie. She was crying about you.”

  “Wonderful.” James groaned, closing his eyes. He leaned his forehead against my bare, yet slightly scratched shoulder.

  “So you do know something. Tell me.” I urged him.

  “You don’t want to know this, trust me baby, it’s disturbing.” James groaned again.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him. “Is this the complicated bit you couldn’t tell me before?”

  “Yeah,” James murmured. “I wasn’t sure of a few things when I first started on the team last summer. I heard some stuff from the guys, but nobody really confirmed anything. It was Peter who actually spilled some really disturbing information and it changed the way I had to do a few things.”

  I sighed. “Who is Dougie, James?”

  “His name isn’t Dougie to us.” James explained, sounding exhausted.

  “What is it then?” I asked, getting nervous.

  “It’s Coach Doug, from the Baseball team.” James explained and my eyes widened.

  My eyes bulged. “What!”

  CHAPTER 50

  So yeah….I found out some stuff…some crazy stuff.

  Miss ‘use to be’ Queen B, apparently was having an affair with the Baseball team’s coach.

  Since the last half of the tenth grade….I know shocking!

  When she said that the Baseball team came with her, she had really meant it. ‘Dougie’ or Coach Doug had done whatever his little lady requested and that included keeping her on top of the popular food chain by nonchalantly threatening the players on the team with their spots. Basically, he had told them that if they wanted to stay as top dogs in the school, with permanent spots on the team, they had to have a certain company around them. Popular boys had to be around popular girls. That also meant there was no room for anybody else, especially if Donna found out, and then it was cry – cry – cry to her ‘boyfriend’ who’d quickly nip those idea’s in the butt. That meant last summer, James started having weird conversations with Coach Doug, feeling a certain implication was being expressed without being actually stated.

  That meant me.

  That meant an open relationship with me was out of the question, not if he wanted to keep his spot on the team without trouble from Coach Doug.

  That also meant keeping Donna happy, even if it meant making me unhappy.

  Now that I think about it, having a relationship with James in that situation would have been next to impossible. If I had known what I knew now back then, I’d have told him to choose the team. Baseball was and is his life. How could he have continued to play his favorite sport when there were evil people, like his Dad, like Coach Doug and like Donna on his back constantly about doing what they wanted him to do?

  There didn’t seem like a way out, one that would make both sides happy. So ‘our’ thing had to be a secret.

  That was a sucky time for us…one that I couldn’t understand at the time, no matter how hard I tried.

  There was a light at the end of tunnel. Coach Doug was getting married and going on a long six month vacation with his new, unsuspecting wife.

  He got married that Friday, you know the half day.

  The entire team thought they were finally free, especially James. But when he and I got together that Thursday (You know, when I lost my virginity!), somehow Donna found out and called her ‘Dougie’ to complain about my involvement in ruining her life again. Coach Doug decided to give Mr. Lawson a call, complaining about James’ performance in the practice game, even though James had won that game for our school. Mr. Lawson came back home to pick up a forgotten item and to give James crap about his performance, based off of what Coach Doug had said. It was the only way ‘Dougie’ could stick it to James for upsetting Donna, one last time before leaving for his vacation, which was, you guessed it, the Saturday after James spilled the beans about the scandal.

  Oh and that bogus meeting during the first half of lunch on that Friday, yeah, that was all Donna. She conspired with ‘Dougie’ to keep James and the rest of Baseball team busy while she could find a way to corner me somewhere and make me go away herself. What she didn’t count on was Latisha texting Jenna about the situation in the washroom and having Jenna come to my aid and kicking the crap out of them.

  By the way…..my best friend is awesome!

  So…..yeah.

  Now Coach Doug was officially gone, and that meant Donna’s ‘power’ was all gone.

  That’s what James meant when he said that Donna didn’t run things anymore. James and the entire Baseball team were free of Donna’s forced reign. Surprisingly, most of the guys on the team didn’t even like her, claiming she was a catty, evil ‘bitch’.

  James made me promise him to keep the scandal a secret forever. If it got out, who knew what would happen, good or bad.

  Probably bad….

  Now it was two weeks later… at our school’s Halloween Dance

  “Becky, I can’t believe you’re wearing that.” Jenna snorted, fixing her hair in front of the mirror in the school’s washroom. It was crammed with overly excited costumed girls, trying to get a spot in front of the mirror.

  Not on Jenna’s watch.

  Becky smirked, shimmying in her extremely tight French maid costume. “What, this old thing?”

  I laughed loudly. “Pulease, you just want to make Johnny jealous.”

  “Correction, I want to make Johnny jealous, but its Peter’s eyes I want popping.” Becky grinned.

  Jenna eyed the two of us through the mirror. “Ladies, please keep it down. These secrets of the art of manipulation should be for our ears only. We can’t have all the girls in school know the ‘secret’ to mastering the art of life.”

  She could be on to something.

  Jenna straightened her Xena costume and smirked ‘evilly’. “I dare a ‘hot’ girl to mess with me in this.”

  Becky clapped her hands enthusiastically. “The guys would totally love it if that happened. In fact, they’d probably pay to watch!”

  Jenna turned from the mirror, snapping her fingers. “Oh – oh – oh, new business opportunity! We should totally do it!” We all laughed at her enthusiasm and exited the washroom, heading back to the Halloween dance in the gymnasium. Becky and Jenna skipped ahead while I adjusted my witch costume. It was basically a long cape that covered a tight black, long sleeved dress. It went to my knees and I paired the outfit with six inch black heels, that I guilt tripped Mom into buying for me last weekend. I’d say after the way she and Dad had treated me, I totally deserved them.

  And they made my legs look….UH-mazing!

  “Hey Anna,” Dana called, beside me all of a sudden. She came as a vampire…going to a beach party? She had on fangs, a tight red halter top and peach colored cut off shorts. She looked hot. Perhaps she knew of the ‘secret’ as well.

  “That for Roy?” I smirked, eyeing her outfit once more as we walked side by side through the people going and coming from the washrooms.

  She sighed. “Would it make me a hypocrite if I said yes?”

  I shook my head, giving her a small smile.
“No, it only makes you human.”

  “I’ve got to pull all the stops, especially now that Latisha’s been following him everywhere.” Dana mentioned, going pale from the memory.

  We stopped at the opened gym doors. “Yeah, she’s around a lot. She’s crazy about him.” I told her, gazing inside and finding Latisha in her little…..sexy devil costume? It was basically a tight red satin dress that looked to be more appropriate for sleepwear than a Halloween dance filled with horny lower class-men and seniors. She had on a pair of red heels, and a devil horned head band. It was kind of hard not to look at her. She had the attention of the entire gym and was clearly loving it.

  Since she was, kind of, the new Queen of the ‘hot’ girls since Donna’s dethroning a couple of weeks ago.

  “Look,” Dana faced me. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for last time. It wasn’t me. I was so messed up after seeing you sitting with the guys. I was jealous and I was angry. I hope you don’t hate me or something.”

  “I don’t hate you.” I smiled at her. “I’m over it.”

  “Good, I’m glad.” Dana smiled back.

  “Anyways, I gotta find James, you know just in case he gets into it with Matthew again.” I told her.

  “Especially in that costume, right!” Dana giggled. “How’d you get him to wear it?”

  I smirked, giving her knowing eyes. “Easy, it was part of his punishment for when he acted like a crazy buffoon earlier in the month.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember now. Well, he certainly looks like he’s in pain.” Dana laughed, walking in with me.

  “Duh!” I laughed. “Good luck with Roy.” Dana smiled at me and went towards her fellow Swim team members, minus Jenna. Jenna was hanging out with me tonight.

  Well most of tonight.

  So this was life for now. My problems at home since that horrible fight two weeks ago have dimmed down. My parents, especially my Mom have cooled down on the parental duties concerning my bad habit.

  What else could I say besides I’m working on it.

  I still have to remind myself to eat more and to not count calories on a daily basis. But it might take some time before I’ve flushed the bad part of that habit away completely. James’ problems with his dad continues to this day and it’ll probably continue till he moves out, which he plans on doing once he gets that Baseball scholarship to Florida State University. It was great that he wanted to go there, because that’s where I wanted to go too.