“Excuse me?” Paul said. He, Marilyn, and even Jackson looked over at me as though I’d just sprouted three heads. I wish I had, though, because maybe one of those brains would have functioned better than the one I had.
“Grace,” Jackson said, but I ignored him. I was sure none of us could believe that in the ten minutes we’d been there it was already getting so out of hand, but I shouldn’t have been so surprised.
“Refugees or not, these people need someone to advocate for them,” I said. I set my fork down so I wouldn’t throw it at someone and looked directly at Paul. “These are families, too, Mr. Tate. Women and children just like you and me. They need help escaping a country in turmoil. They need help to protect their families, and your son is aspiring to do it for free. No payment, no reward. How is that not noble?”
“It was about as noble as that women’s march yesterday,” Paul muttered. “Damn freeloaders all getting together to clog up the roads holding vulgar signs.”
“The Women’s Rights parade was a march advocating equal rights for women,” I said incredulously. “They weren’t freeloaders, Mr. Tate, they were women, children, and men who believe that women deserve the same rights and respect as men do.” I stopped to take a deep breath and looked at Jackson, who was staring silently at me. He didn’t have to give me any look because I already knew what he was thinking; I’d caught on quick meeting his father.
“Freeloading feminist welfare hoarders,” Paul said.
“My best friend Alex and I marched in that parade,” I said. “Do you honestly believe we’re ‘welfare hoarding freeloaders’?”
“Your friend Alex a liberal snowflake, too?” Paul asked.
“Worse,” I said. “She’s a liberal lesbian.”
Jackson, who had just trusted himself to take a bite of mashed potatoes, choked, spewing food all over the table in front of him. Marilyn, who had been listening to Paul and I bicker with a look of pure terror on her face, covered her mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was trying to hide a smile, or she was trying not to cry.
“Aren’t you a charming thing,” Paul said. I looked away from Paul and met Jackson’s gaze.
“You didn’t know this, but Alex’s real name is Aleksandra Janković. Her parents fled the Bosnian war in 1992 and came here, to America, illegally to protect their unborn child. Two months later Alex was born, and shortly after that her parents were arrested and deported. She was tossed into foster care where she was bumped from family to family never knowing who her real parents were until she turned eighteen.” I took a deep breath and looked back at Paul. “My best friend has a past that humiliates her to the point of hiding it from everyone she meets, and that’s wrong. She should never feel like she’s not accepted because of her descent. No one should. So, if being a liberal snowflake means having compassion for people who aren’t white, straight, and male, then yes. I’ll wear that badge proudly.”
The silence that settled over the table was deafening. Jackson was staring at me, Marilyn was picking silently at her mashed potatoes, and Paul’s mouth was hanging open in an unpleasant display of half-eaten dinner. I closed my own mouth and looked around, wondering if I should just run now or wait to see if I could hang onto the battle a bit longer.
“I think you’d better go, Miss Harrison,” Paul said to me. Both fists were resting on the tabletop now as Jackson’s dad stared at me, not looking pleased in the least bit. I glanced at Jackson, who had averted his gaze from me to his dad.
“No,” Jackson said. He stood up from the table, looked at me, and held his hand out. “I think both of us will go.”
The drive home seemed to take five times longer than our arrival. A silence had settled between Jackson and me. Honestly, I think we were both still trying to process what had just happened back there.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a good ten minutes or so. The silence had been killing me, but I couldn’t look over and face him, so I kept my gaze on the road in front of us. “I think I successfully managed to do everything tonight that you had been actively avoiding when it came to seeing your parents.”
“Not just in a night, but in less than ten minutes,” Jackson said, but he wasn’t angry. In fact, he was smiling a little bit as he glanced over at me. “It’s a shame. My mother makes a mean apple pie.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Jackson shook his head and turned his attention back to the road.
“I should be apologizing to you, Grace. My father was extremely rude to you tonight.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly stop when I could have,” I admitted, and Jackson chuckled.
“That’s exactly why,” he said. “Most people are afraid of my father. As soon as he expresses his opinion, the majority will shut down so that they don’t have to get into it.” He paused, meeting my eyes briefly. “Is that true what you said back there? About Alex?”
“Yes,” I said. “But she’d kill me if she found out I blabbed. Her story isn’t something she’s proud of.”
“It should be,” Jackson said. “It’s stories like hers that make me do what I want to do.”
“It’s harder when it’s personal,” I said. “Alex is my best friend. I hate to think of the same thing that happened to her happening to someone else. An innocent child, a frightened family. It breaks my heart.” I sighed and then shrugged. “It’s an effortless way to set me off, so I’m sorry again.”
“Never be sorry for speaking the truth,” Jackson said. “So few people do it.”
Chapter 26
Jackson
“Tate, after your shower come and talk to me,” Coach said Monday morning as he passed me in the locker room. He vanished into his office, shutting the door behind him, and my team all turned to heckle at me.
“Somebody’s in trouble,” Tyler said. “What did you do?”
“I haven’t done anything,” I muttered, stripping down so I could wash the sweat and dirt off from practice. “He probably just wants to give me a trophy for kicking so much ass this season.”
“Dream on,” Jake, another player said, hitting me in the arm. I laughed along with them, but inside I was wondering what in the hell I could have done wrong. As far as I knew, nothing much had happened between the homecoming game and now. We’d done decently in practice, and our next game was only a few days away. Just like always, we were planning to kick ass and take names.
When I finished with my shower and had dressed, I knocked on Coach’s door. He called me in, and I shut it behind me.
“What’s up, Coach?” I asked, taking a seat across from him. “Is everything okay?”
“You tell me,” Coach said. He leaned back in his swivel chair, hands crossed over what seemed to be the start of a beer-belly. He was staring at me as if waiting for some confession I didn’t know I had to tell.
“Um,” I said.
“Is everything okay, Jackson?” Coach asked when I couldn’t come up with anything else to say. I shrugged and nodded.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve seemed a bit . . . distracted recently,” Coach said. “Don’t get me wrong, you’ve still got it, but it doesn’t seem like your head is in the game anymore.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you mean,” I said. His comment was harmless, but I felt a twinge of despair clutch at my chest. Never in my entire football career had I ever been called out for being mediocre instead of great.
“Is it a girl?” Coach asked. “Sometimes with my players I notice a lack of interest when they acquire other focuses. Women, you know, they can take up a lot of our time.” He scoffed. “I would know; I was married four times.”
“I’m not dating anyone,” I said, but for some bizarre reason, Grace’s face popped into my head. I pushed it away. “There’s no girl.”
“It is a . . . guy?” The words rolled off his tongue hesitantly like they were toxic, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“No, sir. I said there wasn’t a girl; I didn’t say there weren’t girls.”
&n
bsp; He looked relieved at this, and he stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. “Are you ready for the game on Saturday?” he asked.
“I was born ready,” I said, and Coach nodded in approval.
“Get out of here, kid, I’ll see you in the morning for practice.”
I was mulling his words over when Tyler greeted me outside his door, eyebrows raised in an expression of puzzlement.
“So, what was that all about?” he asked as we walked. We were heading to the library for study time, despite Tyler’s insistent pleas to skip out only hours before. Since both of us were starting to fall behind in our classes, I’d convinced him earlier it would do us both good to at least try. The library, a terrifyingly unfamiliar territory for Tyler, was still a great spot to talk without being interrupted every fifteen seconds by silly girls. After all, you didn’t see many of our type of ladies hanging out in the library after class, so it was a win/win.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Coach seems to think I’ve been distracted recently.”
“Yeah, well, he’s right,” Tyler said. We took a seat at an empty table, and I stared at him, waiting for him to go on. “You have been distracted,” he said. “And we all know why.”
“Enlighten me.”
“For starters, the photo of you with the pussy on the front page of the paper is hot,” Tyler said. He reached into his bag and yanked out a rumpled copy of the Seattle Times, tossing it onto the table in front of me. Sure enough, hamming it up right there on the front page of the paper with the inflatable vagina in one hand and the feminist sign hanging on my neck, there I was giving the camera a thumb up. Grace was next to me, hanging over my left shoulder as she flashed the peace sign, and Alex was on the other side making an outrageous duck face. I picked up the paper and laughed.
“That’s a great angle.”
“Let me guess . . . did Grace talk you into doing that?” Tyler asked.
“It was for a Women’s Right parade.” I dropped the paper onto the table and shrugged. “What’s the problem?”
“I know what it was for,” Tyler said. There was no hint of amusement on his face, which was odd because women’s private parts always seemed to make Tyler giddy. “That was a risky thing to do, man.”
“What are you talking about, dude?” I glanced down at the paper, then back up at him. “It was just a stupid parade advocating women’s rights. It wasn’t a rape rally.”
“You’re turning into one of them,” Tyler said. “Don’t let a bitch like that ruin your reputation.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“What do you want me to call her?”
“I want you to call her by her name, Ty, because she’s a person like you and me.”
“What are you doing, man?” Tyler leaned across the table, folding his hands in front of him. “You’re going to lose everything you’ve worked to become in this school if you’re not careful.”
Chapter 27
Grace
“You and Jackson went to a movie the other night?” Shawn asked. I looked up from my textbook, startled by the tone of his voice.
“Should I find it creepy that you know that?” I asked.
“I just find it a bit . . . weird,” he said, and took a seat across from me.
“I find you a bit weird, too, but that’s old news,” I said. Shawn didn’t seem to find the humor in my joke.
“Even more bizarre was to find his face on the front page of the paper holding an inappropriate inflatable of a woman’s genital in the air.”
“It was for the Women’s Rights ma—”
“I know what it was for,” Shawn said, cutting me off. “What I don’t know is why a guy like Jackson Tate is advocating women’s rights when he just so happens to be the biggest sleazebag in our school.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “You don’t know him like I do, Shawn. He’s different.”
“Different from what? Different from every other football jerk who has a penis for a brain and finds enjoyment in belittling other people?”
“He’s been nothing but decent to you,” I said. “You should show him the same respect.”
“He’s playing you,” Shawn snapped. He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. “And you’re falling for him, so you can’t even see what’s right in front of you.”
“I’m not falling for him. I know this is a strange concept to you, but it turns out that I can have friends who aren’t you and Alex.”
“He’s not your friend, Grace,” Shawn said. He was irritated now, his tone merely a hiss. “You’ll find soon enough that a guy like Jackson Tate doesn’t change for the better. By then, you’ll be in too deep.”
“Enough.” I slammed my textbook shut and shoved the newspaper back at him. “You need to back off, Shawn, because recently it’s been you lacking in the friend department.”
“Fine.” He raised his hands in the air and shrugged. Instead of sticking around to complain about it some more, he stood up and shrugged. “Just know people are starting to talk about you two . . . and it’s nothing good.”
Before I could respond to that, Shawn walked away, shoulders hunched like they always were. I watched him go, wondering why on earth I cared so much what he and everyone else thought of my friendship with Jackson Tate.
The library was quiet on this slow afternoon, the perfect place to get away and just take some time for me. I’d always loved the library; it was a haven for me, a place of serenity and peace. Lately, I felt like I needed these moments alone more than I ever had before.
As I scanned the shelves for sources for one of my classes, I heard a familiar voice on the other side of the many shelves of books. Jackson, whose voice was undeniably loud and demanding, was in the middle of saying something to someone else. Much to my dismay, I perked up at once, and I was about to say hello when I heard my name roll off the tongue of someone else. I stopped where I was and caught my breath, then tip-toed down the aisle until I found a gap between the books. Sure enough, Jackson and his idiot friend Tyler were deep in conversation, oblivious to anyone or anything around them.
“Grace is a weirdo,” Tyler was saying. “She barely ever talks, and I’m pretty sure she’s a virgin.”
“Maybe you should try it sometime,” Jackson said jokingly.
“I’m serious, bro,” Tyler pressed. “Enough is enough. People are starting to think that something is going on between the two of you.”
“Nothing is going on,” Jackson said. His tone was defensive, and I found my palms go clammy. “I wouldn’t date Grace Harrison if someone put a gun to my head.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Tyler said, and the sound of them high-fiving made my stomach twist with the nauseating feeling that came with a crazy amusement park ride. I pressed myself against the wall of books, closing my eyes, trying to get my shit together before someone spotted me. Jackson and Tyler were still deep in conversation, but I wasn’t listening anymore. My heart was racing, blood roaring in my ears as I walked numbly back to my table and gathered up my things. As I sneaked out of the library and headed home, Jackson’s comment was still ringing in my ears.
I didn’t know why I was so surprised by the conversation that had just taken place. I should have expected he felt that way. I wasn’t his type, and he wasn’t mine. That had been clear from the beginning. So why did I care so much? Why was my skin flushed and my hands tingling? Why was my heart still beating loudly against my chest, and why, above all, did it seem to physically hurt?
Once I arrived home, I went straight to the freezer for the bottle of vodka Alex kept tucked away for emergencies. I wasn’t in the mood to go to the bar. Tonight, was a drinking alone kind of night, and despite how much I hated myself—and Jackson—at that moment, I wanted to drink it all away, no matter how petty that was. Alex wasn’t even at work. She was off on a date with that Kate girl from the party, so I was by myself. Fortunately, that was how I liked it. That’s how I’d always enjoyed it, and it was because I was best
by myself. Always.
After grabbing a single shot glass from the cupboard, I took a seat on the couch with the bottle of liquor tucked under one arm, trying not to notice how similar this was to a sad country western song. Our cozy little home was quiet, but for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel peace in it. All I could do as I sat and filled my little shot glass was wonder what in the hell was happening, and why it was affecting my self-worth so much. Old Grace wouldn’t care what a guy like Jackson Tate thought of her. She would have marched right up to the table and slapped him over the head, but this new Grace had slinked off like a coward as some guy’s hurtful words rang in her head. I’d only ever felt this feeling once before—the sensation of betrayal, distrust, and vehement hatred. Only one other man in my life had ever made me feel that way, and that had been my father.
I was six shots in when my phone rang. I looked at it, expecting Alex, but it wasn’t Alex. It was Jackson. I didn’t know if it was the buzzing in my head from the alcohol, or just the fact that I needed to scream at him, but I answered when I should have let it go.
“What do you want?”
“A yacht in the Bahamas and a hot fudge sundae,” Jackson answered. “Why, what do you want?” I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t even crack a smile. Fury was burning in my chest, threatening to spill out at any moment, and just hearing his voice made me take another shot.
“How’s Tyler?” I asked. “I don’t hear about him much anymore.”
“Tyler is okay, I guess,” Jackson said. He sounded puzzled, trying to figure out why I gave a flying fuck how his douchebag best friend was. “Are you okay? You sound different.”
“Do I?” I took another shot. By now, I couldn’t even feel the sting as the liquor coated my throat. Even as drunk as I was, I could still hear how slurred my words were as I spoke them.
“Are you at the bar?” Jackson asked. “Drinking?”
“I’m not at the bar,” I said. “But I am drinking.”
“Where are you? I could use a drink, too.”
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