by Jamie Shaw
She clears her throat. “Joel Gibbon?”
Joel nods his head in my direction. “Take her first.”
I cough around a throatful of pancakes. The nurse eyes me until her gaze lands on my wrists, and an embarrassed flame ignites beneath my skin.
“I’m fine,” I growl at Joel under my breath.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, standing up and waiting for me with agitated impatience. “Waiting on you, Deandra.”
I narrow my eyes and stand up, and Rowan and Leti are quick to follow my lead, with Joel taking up the rear. The four of us enter a curtained ER cubicle, where I’m prescribed pain medication for my bruised wrists and given a handful of domestic abuse pamphlets, and Joel is lectured about busting through doors with his shoulders and breaking faces with his fists. He’s taken for X-rays that determine his shoulder is just badly bruised, and then he’s prescribed his own pain medication, which we pick up on our way back to my apartment.
I ignore him as we climb the stairs of my apartment building and navigate the hallways to my front door. Once inside, I attempt to head straight to my room, but he’s right on my heels.
“Go away, Joel,” I order as I turn a glare on him.
“Not until you talk to me.”
Rowan clears her throat and begins backing toward the front door. “I’m going to go pick up some groceries.” She grabs Leti’s sleeve and drags him out with her, and I scowl at them even after the door closes between us.
With my arms crossed over my chest, I shoot Joel a look of impatience and wait for him to say whatever the hell he needs to say. But he just stares right back at me, engaging me in a silent standoff that I don’t stand a chance of winning.
“What do you want from me?” I snap.
His trained expression reveals nothing. “Why do you think I want something from you?”
Because that’s what boys do. They pretend to give a shit about you, but only because they want something. And then when they don’t get it, they try to take it anyway.
My fingertips are absent-mindedly nursing my wrists when Joel gently draws my hands toward him. His thumbs caress my pulse points while he studies my bruises, and he wears a look of such sincere sympathy that I almost choke up. “He shouldn’t have done this to you.”
I pull my hands away and try to slam the lid back on my emotions, resenting Joel for bringing them to the surface. I spent all yesterday nearing tears and choking them back down, and if he makes me break down now, all of that effort will have been for nothing. “I shouldn’t have led him on.”
It’s the truth, but Joel’s brows pull down in a picture of contempt that makes me look away from him. “Are you seriously standing there excusing what he did to you?”
I shrug my shoulders. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing, but fighting and lying seems easier than telling the truth and crying.
“Dee,” Joel pleads, his slender fingers coming to rest on my shoulder, “you know nothing that happened was your fault, right? Cody is a piece of shit. The entire band voted him out. It was unanimous. It wasn’t even a fucking question.”
“You voted him out of the band?” I ask, dread churning in my stomach.
Joel nods, pushing my thick chocolate hair behind my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” I hate that the band is now going to suffer because I was too stupid to know better than to play games I couldn’t win.
“Why? You’ll never have to see him again . . .”
God, he just doesn’t get it. “Maybe I wanted to see him again!” I shout, needing him to know how upset I am but not wanting to explain why. If I was pouring my heart out, I’d tell him how stupid I am, how crazy he made me, how many regrets I have. But instead, I add more regrets to the list by shouting things I don’t mean.
Joel drops his hand from my shoulder like I just slapped him in the face. “Are you serious right now?”
“Who knows!” I snap, throwing my hands in the air. “Maybe I would’ve fucked around with him the next time you were busy fucking one of those girls from the grocery store!” His face falls, and I point an angry finger at him. “You know what, I don’t need to explain myself to you. You never cared about me before, why the fuck are you pretending to now?”
“No one’s pretending!” he shouts back at me, making me flinch. “I do fucking care about you, Dee, or I wouldn’t be here! The only one pretending right now is you.”
My humorless chuckle cuts the space between us. “Okay, Joel. Since you apparently think you know me all of a sudden, what am I pretending?”
“You’re pretending to be okay.”
The truth of his words pierce my heart, and I throw my defenses up, praying they don’t let me down. “I’m always okay. I don’t need you to be my knight in shining fucking armor.”
“Good, because I’m not your Prince fucking Charming. I’m just a guy who fucking cares about you, and I’m going to keep caring about you whether you want me to or not.” He turns away from me and tosses a dismissive hand in the air before swinging open the door to my apartment and slamming it behind him.
I’m left standing stunned in my living room, trying to make sense of his words through the haze of frustration in my head. He cares about me? Since fucking when?
Furious, I sprint to the door and swing it open, emerging into the hall and yelling at the back of his spiky head. “Where the hell are you going?”
“What do you care?” he shouts back without bothering to slow down.
“JOEL!”
His shoulders tense before he whirls around and shouts back, “To get shit to fix your stupid door! Is that a problem?”
When he walks away from me again, I chase after him. A million questions are warring for priority on my tongue, but the one I shout at him is, “Why?! Why do you care all of a sudden, Joel? You never cared about me before!”
In a second, his body spins and pushes me against the wall. His eyes blaze the color of butane flame, and my chin tilts high to hold their heated gaze. His bandaged hands lift from my shoulders to cradle my cheeks, and then he says in a voice so serious it gives me chills, “Because I saw what he did to you and I almost fucking killed him, Dee.”
The fire in his eyes steals the oxygen from my lungs as he searches my face for a fleeting moment. I want to kiss him. I want to rise on my toes and kiss him for doing everything I just yelled at him for, but before I can, his lips smash against mine.
My fingers claw over the thin fabric covering Joel’s hard shoulders, which flex under my touch when he wraps his uninjured arm behind my back and lifts me off my feet. Using that single arm, he carries me back to my apartment, and I cling to him the entire way. We tumble onto the couch, our need for each other desperate and consuming, a blur of kissing and touching that overwhelms me until I’m launching myself off his lap.
Out of breath, I toss a hand up when he begins rising to his feet to reclaim me. I want to tell him I’m not ready. I’m not ready to give him or anyone else what Cody wanted from me. And I’m especially not ready to give it to Joel when something has obviously changed between us, and whatever that is feels terrifying.
He sits back down, waiting for me to explain. When I don’t, he simply reaches out to take my fingers in his, gently coaxing me forward until I crawl sideways onto his lap. I tuck my cheek against his chest, and he holds me tight against his heartbeat.
“I’ve always cared about you, Dee.”
“Stop saying that,” I demand, but my heart isn’t in it.
“Why?”
Because you don’t mean it. Because I need someone to mean it. Because I hate that I need that. “Just stop.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
Frustrated, I pull away from him and slide to the opposite end of the couch. “You can’t really care about someone you don’t even know, Joel.”
He glares at me and says, “I’m willing to bet you know my favorite color, food, and band.”
&n
bsp; Green, mozzarella sticks, and the Dropkick Murphys. I bristle and say, “So what? That would only prove I know you, not the other way around.”
“Purple, ice cream, and Paramore,” he says, and my anger bubbles to the surface when he gives all the right answers.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I nod my chin at him defiantly and say, “Big deal. You act like any of that shit means anything.”
Joel shifts to face off with me. “What it means is that we’ve spent enough time with each other to know those things, Dee. How are you going to sit there and seriously act like we don’t know each other? We spent Valentine’s Day together, for God’s sake.”
“All we did was have sex!” I protest.
“What about after that?”
I throw my hands in the air because he’s clearly insane. “Had more sex!”
Undeterred, Joel growls and says, “BETWEEN ALL THE SEX, DEANDRA!”
I glare at him while I think back, and then I remember, “We ordered pizza.”
“And?”
“And watched Lifetime movies.” That night, between all the sex, we’d sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch, with a box of pizza half on Joel’s lap and half on mine, criticizing the movie characters. We gave them horrible relationship advice that made us both laugh until Joel had a stitch in his side and I had tears in my eyes.
When the corners of my mouth slowly tip up at the memory, Joel returns my smile, his eyes brightening like he’s remembering too. “How many girls do you think I’ve sat around watching Lifetime movies with?”
When I don’t answer, he tugs my legs over his lap and says, “Look. It’s not like you ever really wanted me to be your boyfriend, so stop acting like you’re pissed off I didn’t want a girlfriend.” I open my mouth to say something I haven’t quite figured out yet, but he cuts me off. “You just wanted me to chase after you like every other guy who ever lays eyes on you, and then you would have dropped me just like the rest of them.” I would argue if I could, but I can’t, so I don’t. When I try to pull my legs away, he tightens his hold on them. “I’m not going to do that. I’m never going to do that.”
“Great.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, he says, “But I am going to care about you. Because you’re more than this bitchy person you pretend to be. You’re also the girl who watched shitty movies with me on Valentine’s Day and force-fed me crackers when I got shit-faced on New Year’s.”
I’m stunned into utter silence, a heat creeping into my cheeks as he becomes more real to me than he’s ever been.
“You can say I’m pretending all you want,” he continues, “but I’m not and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.”
“So you’re asking me to be your girlfriend?” I ask, attempting to sound flippant while a million nervous butterflies flutter in my belly. I don’t know what I want his answer to be. If it’s no, it’s going to hurt me. If it’s yes, it’s going to hurt him.
“What, just so you can turn me down?” he says with a half smile. “No, I’m not asking.”
Chapter Nine
“SO HOW DID things go with Joel?” Rowan asks from the couch as soon as we’re alone. We spent the evening watching three rocker boys who had no clue what they were doing try to fix my door. Adam and Shawn noticed my bruised wrists but pretended not to, and I drowned my discomfort in a blender full of frozen margarita mix and tequila. I probably should have studied for the big test I have tomorrow, but there was no way I was going to miss the spectacle in my apartment. By the time the guys left, all they succeeded at doing was taking the old door off its hinges and suggesting that I buy one of those beaded privacy curtains to take its place.
I shrug and stand in the open doorway of my room, shaking my head at the open space. “He thinks he cares about me.” Since our talk, I’ve stopped doubting that Joel thinks he cares about me. The only question now is how long it’s going to last.
“So do I,” Rowan says, and when my surprised eyes fix on her, she explains, “He busted his knuckles open and broke your door down.”
I flop onto the cushion next to her. “Yeah, because he’s an idiot.”
She chuckles. “Yeah, he is, but he’s an idiot who likes you.”
“Lucky me.”
She frowns and says, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Rubbing my eyes, I confess, “Yeah, but not just because he feels like he has to.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh and let my hand fall to my lap. “He wouldn’t have done this before.” I don’t have to specify before what, because my entire life will now be measured by the before and the after of that single event.
“Maybe that was just his wake-up call . . .”
“Yeah maybe,” I say, too tired to burst her bubble. Rowan wants me to be happy, and I want that too, but the kind of happiness I find with guys is fleeting, and the kind I’d find with Joel would be crushing.
After washing my face and telling Rowan goodnight, I curl up under warm covers, careful to place my wrists on top of my pillow instead of under it. My eyes close to the present, and a dream drags me into the past.
“Dee, come down here,” my mother says, just like she had the last time I ever saw her.
I was eleven years old, standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at her bags packed by the front door. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“Come down here so I can give you a kiss.”
I reluctantly went to the bottom of the stairs and into her arms without hugging her back. She kissed the top of my head. “Be good for your dad, okay?”
I stared up at her when she released me, and she gave me a saccharine smile I didn’t try to mirror. I knew she was leaving us. I just had no idea I’d never see her again. She cast one last look at my father, who was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, before she turned around and stepped onto the porch, closing the door between us.
When the door clicks shut, I wake with my face covered in tears. I angrily wipe them away and knock my tear-soaked pillow into a thin ray of morning sunlight cutting a line across my hardwood floor, cursing my subconscious for making me dream of her. I haven’t cried over her since that year, after I cried every last tear out with Rowan’s arms around me. My dad cried too, when he thought I wasn’t listening, and I’ll never forgive her for that.
Seconds later, I have the phone to my ear and him on the line.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
I almost break down as soon I hear his soft voice.
“Dee?”
“Hey, Dad. How are you?”
“Is something wrong?” he asks, his concern for me making me stronger.
“No, I just woke up. I had a dream about you.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“I dreamt I was at home and still had to eat your pork chops and green beans,” I lie.
My dad breaks into big belly laughter that dries my tears and makes me smile. Even though he was the one who raised me, he never mastered the art of cooking, and he never met a pork chop he couldn’t burn. “Keep it up and that’s what we’ll have every holiday you come home,” he teases.
I wipe the last of my tears away with the heel of my palm. “I miss you, Dad.”
“I miss you too. Now are you going to tell me what’s wrong or am I going to have to call Rowan?”
God, so many things are wrong, I wouldn’t even know where to start. But I can’t tell my dad about any of them or he’d want me to quit school and go somewhere closer to home. It was hard enough leaving him on his own as it was. And he’d also want me to press charges against Cody, but Rowan and I already had that argument, and I’m not going to change my mind. I want to put what happened with Cody in the past and leave it there, and I know that’s selfish, but it is what it is. I’m also guessing the only reason Cody didn’t press charges against Joel was because of the leverage I have.
“I think I want to quit my job,” I tell my dad. It’s at least part of the truth, and it’s as much as I
can share. I blew off a shift last night that I may or may not get fired for, and I have no desire to deal with annoying customers this week or to potentially run into Aiden after what I did with him a few nights ago. Now, the memory just makes me sick.
“Did something happen?”
“No. I just hate people.”
My dad laughs again, eliciting another smile. “You know you never needed to get that job in the first place. I just want you to concentrate on school. How are your classes going?”
I sit up and crisscross my legs, propping my elbows on my knees and tugging on my tangled hair. “Midterm grades are going to be posted soon . . . and mine aren’t going to be pretty BUT,” I say before he can interrupt me, “I’m going to do better, I swear.”
A pause, and then, “How ‘not pretty’ are they going to be?”
Another pause, and I admit, “I probably shouldn’t even tell you.”
My dad sighs. “But you’re going to make them prettier?”
“Starting today.”
“You swear?”
“Pinky swear.”
“And you’re going to come home some weekend soon to see your dear old dad?”
I chuckle into the phone. “Of course. Easter’s right around the corner. I’ll even cook the whole time I’m home.”
“I think I’d rather take you out to celebrate the good grades you’re going to get.”
Oh, daddy guilt—he sure knows how to lay it on thick. “It’s a deal.”
As soon as I get off the phone, I launch my plan into action. Step one: skip my history class because I didn’t study for the big midterm we have today. Step two: go to the doctor’s with a fake cough so I have an excuse for missing the big midterm we have today.
I go to my first two classes but skip the last. I’m sitting in the waiting room of the student health center when my phone dings and I read a text from Joel.