A Son of Carver (Carver High #2)

by Haven Francis

  What the hell? I’m glaring at Nash as he shares information that’s none of his business, much less the entire classes. He glares back at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  “Great. Can we contrast the two sets of photos?” Mr. Conroy says, opening my life up for class discussion.

  “I prefer Nash’s,” Harley, one of Angel’s friends, pipes in. Excellent.

  “Elaborate,” Mr. Conroy suggests.

  “I don’t know, they just feel more real. Presley’s seem a little contrived and stereotypical. And I think it’s cool how he managed to take photos of her real life even though she’s not living there anymore.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Nash grinning and I want to punch him.

  “Presley, do you care to comment?”

  “Sure,” I eagerly agree. “I believe you feel that way because Nash’s photos are gritty – unfocused, poorly lit and monochromatic. To the amateur eye that can come across as artsy when really it’s just sloppy.”

  “Do you agree with that, Nash?”

  “Are you seriously asking me that?” Nash says with a laugh.

  “Sure.”

  “No. Of course I don’t agree with that. Harley’s right – Presley’s photos are contrived. She doesn’t get the purpose of taking these photos - To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces. That was the quote you put on the syllabus, right?”

  “Exactly,” Mr. Conroy says with pride in his voice. Ugh, puke, I’m going to puke.

  “Her technique may be better but she’s too scared to really look at her life. She played it safe and because of it, gave us photos that don’t really tell us anything about her home landscape.”

  “Like you know anything about me or my home,” I mutter, too loudly.

  “That’s what you’d like to believe but I think we both know you’re wrong. In fact, I think I know too much. I think what I know and what I see makes you uncomfortable because you don’t want to even admit you have crap, much less see it and have to think about it.”

  “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Mr. Conroy says, unclipping our photos and practically shoving us back to our table.

  The bell rings before we can sit down and I’m out the door before I can even process what the hell just happened.

  As I approach my locker and see Angel waiting there for me, hot tears spring from my eyes and start running down my cheeks. I watch as alarm takes over his features. He starts walking to me and when I’m within arm’s length he grabs a hold of me and hugs me to his chest. “What’s wrong?”

  I cower into him, wanting to disappear. I hate Nash. I hate that I’ve given him ammo to use against me. I hate that he was right – that I’m scared to really look at what my life has become. I hate that he can see it.

  “Hey,” Angel says, lifting my chin up so I’m forced to look at him. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head, I have so much shit to say but I can’t say it to Angel. I don’t want him to know how screwed up I am. It’s bad enough that Nash does. “I’m fine,” I say, “I don’t really want to talk about it, but I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Obviously I’m not sure but what else can I say. “Yeah.”

  “Okay… do you want to head to lunch?”

  I back out of his hold and run my palms under my eyes mopping up the tears before looking back at him. “Actually, I think I might head off campus for lunch?” Which I say like a question because I don’t have a vehicle. But Angel does.

  But all he says is, “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell him, annoyed even though I have no right to be. At least not with him. “I’ll see you later.” I give him a tight smile, then turn to go.

  He grabs my arm, stopping me, and relief floods my body. “Hey, we never really talked about last weekend.”

  No, Angel, we didn’t because you didn’t call or text and on Monday morning you were acting like nothing between us had changed. I raise my eyebrows at him.

  “I maybe shouldn’t have been making out with you in the first place. I mean, I don’t know if you’re down with the situation?”

  I’m pretty sure by the situation he means fuck buddies and if that’s the case, I’m pretty sure I’m not down. I shrug my shoulders at him. “It’s something we can talk about if you want.”

  He takes a step closer and runs his hands over my shoulders. “Yeah, I want. I’ll call you later, okay?” He ducks down, kisses me on the corner of my mouth and then walks away.

  Usually when he kisses me or touches me it immediately improves my mood, but for some reason I’m angrier than ever.

  I head out the door completely unconcerned that I don’t have a car. I don’t care where I am, as long as it’s not in the same building as Nash.

  When I get to the back of the lot I hear an angry voice that I’m becoming all too familiar with. Two more steps and Nash is in view, one hand grasping onto the hood of his truck, the other looking like it’s about to crush the phone he’s holding.

  His back’s to me, not that his awareness of my proximity would stop him from saying, “She’s only gonna see what she wants to see no matter what I do. And I was starting to believe your crap, you know that? But you’re wrong; Presley’s nothing but a miserable bitch.”

  “What the hell, Nash?”

  He turns and looks at me, shaking his head. “Yeah it is… I’ll talk to you later,” he tells the person that he’s talking shit about me to, before hanging up.

  “You mind telling me who you’re talking about me with?”

  “Summer.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. God, he is unbelievable. “Please, don’t.”

  “I can do whatever the hell I want, but thanks for asking so nicely – that was a refreshing change.”

  “I don’t know what kind of spell you put on her, but she’s my friend too. And I don’t have a whole lot of them in this town so maybe you can find someone in the other ninety nine percent of Carver High to talk crap about me with.” Jesus, why do I always end up giving him fuel for his Presley is pathetic fire? Before he can respond, I walk away.

  “Presley, get back here.”

  “Ha,” I mutter to myself. He’s lost his damn mind if he thinks he can order me around.

  “Seriously, Presley, get back here and talk to me.”

  I cut through a row of cars and when I’m pretty sure he can no longer see me, I start running. I can hear his loud engine start up in the distance so I head to the trail adjacent to the road leading out of school where I can hide in the trees. Even when I’m safely sheltered I just keep running.

  I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I always thought I was strong, that I could survive anything. But until a few months ago I guess there was never anything real I had to get through. And this thing with my dad happened so quickly – one day we were a happy family, the next day my mom’s telling me my dad’s having an affair and four days later we’re in a car heading for Georgia.

  For the first two months I told myself it was temporary. That I could forgive him. That my mom could forgive him. That we would be going home. The thought that he didn’t want us there never occurred to me.

  And then that horrid Instagram account invaded my life. Even then, when I had proof that my dad was openly in love with another woman and that he looked happy with her… without us… I told myself it was a midlife crisis; that he would snap out of it and beg us to come back.

  But I think both my mom and I are starting to realize he doesn’t give a shit. And that our life, not only with him, but with anything in Santa Cruz, is over.

  And when you realize that, it’s easy to also realize that the new life you’re living was okay as a transitory pit stop at the U-turn that would lead back to reality, but that it has no legs beyond a temporary life.

  There is no real home, real friends, real anyone who loves or cares about you. I don’t even have my mom anymore. She’s not the happy confident friend that I had in
Santa Cruz.

  And seeing this hell captured in three photos that somehow said it all, forced me to see everything I was trying so hard to ignore.

  I’m stopped now, backpack thrown on the ground, hands on my knees, screaming at the top of my lungs with all the anger I’ve been keeping inside of me since the day I found out that my dad had cheated on my mom. “Fuuuuck,” I let out one last angry cry before sitting my ass on the ground and running my hands through my hair, wanting desperately to yank it out of my head.

  When someone plops down on the ground in front of me it startles the crap out of me and I gasp. And then I see Nash’s serious face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m chasing after your crazy ass. What the hell is going on?”

  He’s got his long, bent legs straddling mine and I feel trapped. Which I’m not. I could easily stand and walk away, but I don’t want to. He already knows every god damn thing anyway. Who cares if he just watched me screaming like a lunatic? He’s seen me acting like a lunatic before and he’s probably the one person in the world whose opinion of me matters not one bit.

  “I just realized I’m never going home. Which means I don’t have a life. All the relationships I spent my entire life cultivating, all the nooks and crannies that I felt comfortable in, everything I knew about a family, everything I cared about, everything that was once mine… it’s all gone. Which means I have absolutely nothing.”

  “Jesus, Presley. That’s some heavy shit. It’s because my photos were so good, right? They just made everything so transparent. Shit… I’m sorry about that.”

  I want to take advantage of the positon I’m in and kick him in the balls, but I don’t because of the smile he’s giving me. No, I’m not falling for his smile – that stupid lopsided one that everyone thinks is so damn sexy. The smile he’s giving me is tentative – nervous and sad. And his eyes aren’t all sparkly, they’re dark and tumultuous.

  “Maybe,” I admit. “But god, what kind of bullcrap was that – Mr. Conroy and Harley giving you props when I know you didn’t know what the hell you were doing.”

  He laughs. “You might be right, I mean I don’t know how to work that damn camera and I spent an entire period in the computer lab just trying to figure out where the gray scale button was. I didn’t know what I was doing when I took those pictures. But I know when I see something that I want. And when I saw that look on your mom’s face I knew it was something I wanted to remember. And when I found that one little spot in that room that was yours I knew it was the only thing in the house I wanted to know more about. And you… that look on your face, the contentment that covered it… I knew that was the version of yourself I wanted you to remember… that I wanted you to see.”

  I look away from him and smile at the dirt. “If I’m, once again, becoming a victim of your sweet talk I will seriously lose all of my self-respect.”

  “I wish you’d stop saying shit like that, Presley. I know I have a reputation but trust me when I say that I’m not trying to smooth talk you. I tried it once and got a knee to the balls.”

  I look at him now, my mouth agape, sounds of disbelief coming out of it. “No,” I shake my head. “Nuh-uh. That was not your version of sweet talking a woman.”

  He shrugs his shoulders, and impish grin on his face. “You’d be surprised what most girls respond to. I mean, I pinned you against the wall which is usually a guaranteed panty dropper. And I told you how good you looked in your work uniform, right? I told you how hot your body is… which is usually all it takes.”

  “You also told me I was a frigid bitch.”

  “Most girls would have overlooked that part.”

  “Apparently, most girls are desperate and have no self-esteem and you probably shouldn’t be taking advantage of those facts.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I mean, I’m starting to realize that.”

  “Are you?” I ask doubtfully, recent memories of my naked cousin coming to mind.

  “Yes,” he says slowly with his eyebrows pinched together.

  “You realize Jolee is desperate and lacking self-esteem?”

  He cocks his head. “Well aware.”

  I purse my lips and nod at him. “So this revelation… it’s a recent thing. I mean, it came to you since Sunday when you had sex with her last.”

  His head retracts as he stares at me. And then he looks up at the sky like the light bulb has just turned on. “Did you come after me?”

  “What?”

  “After I left your room… did you come after me?”

  “Well yeah, but…”

  “To apologize,” he cuts me off, “for being judgmental and not trying to get to know me like you said you were gonna do.”

  “Right, but then I saw you with Jolee two days after you told me you weren’t actually a slut.”

  “And what, exactly, did you see?”

  “You, with your hands on her naked body.”

  “She wasn’t naked and if my hands were on her it was because I had to literally tear her off of me and then physically pick her up and move her out of my personal space. You didn’t stick around the entire two minutes I was there before I literally ran the hell away from her crazy ass.”

  No. I didn’t. I tore down the stairs and out the backdoor.

  “If I were to believe your little story I would have to believe that you had the power to resist her mostly naked body begging you to have sex with her.”

  “And that’s impossible to fathom?”

  “Everyone seems to think she’s the one girl you can’t stay away from. I mean, she is the girl you threw away your relationship with Tatum for. So, yeah, it’s a little hard to fathom.”

  “Presley, seriously don’t. I know you don’t really believe that.” He stares at me until I nod at him. Truly, there’s no way in hell I could believe anyone, even Nash, would be stupid enough to give up Tatum for Jolee.

  He aims his hard stare at me for a few more moments before continuing. “This is gonna make me sound like an even bigger asshole than you already think I am, but the reason she was my go-to when I wanted to get laid was because I didn’t care about her at all. In fact, I didn’t even like her. You, and everyone else, think I’m heartless but I can’t do that shit to just anyone. And I don’t know where the hell Angel finds these girls who are able to have sex with him and not get attached, but I haven’t come across one yet. I know this is going to be shocking to you, but I don’t really like hurting people. Hurting Jolee is slightly easier to take. And most of the time I’m not sure I’m hurting her at all. She gets over it pretty damn quickly.”

  “True. I’m mean, I think you are her number one customer, but she’s got plenty of others.”

  “So maybe she’s the one taking advantage of my desperation and low self-esteem?” he asks with one eyebrow raised.

  “I don’t know. I guess you’re both pretty pathetic.”

  He shakes his head at me. “I know you’re going through some issues in that head of yours and my feelings shouldn’t really matter at this point, but can we take a minute to assess our relationship and how one sided it is?”

  All I can do is laugh at him. This should be good. His persuasion skills are becoming highly fascinating.

  “If I was a guy with no fingers, I could count the number of times you’ve said something nice to me on one hand. Your insults, on the other hand… I stopped keeping track of those a long time ago because I just can’t count that high.

  “I know that, in a highly intoxicated state and in the middle of a personal breakdown, I called you some names. It was months ago and I’ve apologized for that. And, yeah, I just called you a bitch to Summer, but let’s face it Presley, when it comes to me, you are a bitch. But other than that I’ve done nothing but tell you how beautiful and entertaining I think you are.”

  I know he’s right but how can I be nice to Nash? He deserves every mean thing I’ve said to him. “I think you’re leaving out some instances
from our past, but I’ll let it slide. And the only reason I’m so hard on you is because everyone else seems to forget the asshole you’ve been and I think it’s important that you have someone in your life who is willing to remind you.”

  “Because I don’t remind myself on a daily basis?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, Presley, I do. Everyone thinks Brandon and Tatum are so amazing because they tolerate me. And everyone looks at Summer like she’s Mother Theresa because she can tolerate them. But no one thinks that it might be hard for me to do the same thing. Which I get – she’s a sweetheart who never hurt them and I’m the asshole who kept them apart.

  “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt me. Every time I see them together I’m reminded of the things I’ve done. Every time I look at Tatum I regret taking five years from her. Five years she could have spent in a healthy relationship being treated right. I hate that I didn’t treat her like she deserves to be treated. And I hate knowing that Brandon was a good friend to me; that he was always there for me and had my back. I always tried to deny it, but I knew… I knew that I was a shitty friend to him and that fucking hurts. I could have had something real, something good, with both of them but I didn’t because I was a selfish asshole. And I think about that every time I look at them. It hurts every damn time.”

  I look at him; at the pain on his face and it’s almost impossible to convince myself that he’s being anything but sincere. “So you don’t need me to remind you?”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  I take a deep breath and settle back on my arms, thinking about the words running through my head and wondering if I should say them. “Do you want to start over? For real this time.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, is it worth it?” His tone is serious and the idea that he’s done with my bullshit is suddenly a possibility. A possibility that, for whatever reason, I don’t want to accept. “Can you really forget about the things I’ve done? I mean, realistically, can you look at me and not see whatever kind of monster you think I am? Because honestly, all the crap you give me is kind of killing me and I don’t know how much more of it I can handle.”