“I’m serious, Tully. I don’t usually give that to students. It’s my private phone.” She fiddles with one of the bracelets on her arm. “But I trust you with it . . . and you can trust me, too.”
Uneasy, I glance at the door, desperate to get out of here.
Ms. Pine sighs. “Okay, off you go then.”
“Thanks,” I mumble as I get to my feet.
“I want to help anytime I can.” Her voice is too gentle. For a moment I see my mom—the sky is a clear, light blue behind her, clouds skittering across over our heads. She smiles at me, her hair blowing into her eyes and sticking to her lip gloss. She laughs, makes a face, then pretends to spit the hair out of her mouth, until I’m laughing, too.
I have no idea when that happened, or how old I was.
But she looked so pretty. And I felt so safe.
Ms. Pine smiles kindly and the image flashes again.
“Bye,” I manage, almost running for the door.
Chapter 17
That evening I’m crouched in the back of Nigel, remeasuring the hole in the wall to figure out the dimensions of the door, when the sound of an engine grows from a distant hum to an insistent growl. A few seconds later, Chris’s bright blue Jeep rolls into the clearing, and a thrill of nerves shoots up my spine.
I should be annoyed. I didn’t know he was coming. He’s in my space, and he didn’t even ask. But instead I find myself hurrying to write the numbers in my notebook. I crawl out of Nigel and dust my jeans as I wait for Chris to join me in the clearing.
“Chamomile?” he asks, lifting a thermos high as he gets out of the Jeep.
“You didn’t!” I laugh.
He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. It’s apple juice. Thirsty?”
“Maybe later.”
He puts it in the lean-to with my toolbox, then walks back to me. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi.” I fold my arms because when he’s close I feel as if I’m coming apart. “I’m sorry about Rudy. He’s such an ass.”
Something flashes behind his eyes before he looks away. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not.” He kicks at a clump of grass.
“Yeah, you definitely don’t look like anything’s bothering you,” I say sarcastically.
His head’s still tipped down, but he peers up at me, from under his brows, hands in his pockets. Heat suddenly zings between us, like wires under too much tension.
“Tully . . .” There’s a warning in his voice that scares me more than it should. I stand straighter. “I don’t care about Rudy. But today was hard . . .” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to be your friend,” he says.
My entire body slackens, the delicious tension leaching out of me.
“You understand?” he says.
“You’re in trouble because of me,” I say flatly. “It’s fine. I get it.”
“No, that’s not—” He breaks off, runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, when someone like Rudy is around I don’t want to have to stand back and . . . only be your friend,” he finishes awkwardly.
Oh. Oh. I bite my lip. “Are you asking me out, Chris?”
He colors a little, which is adorable. “Yes. But before you answer . . . you need to know . . .”
He’s turned away again. My stomach plummets to my toes. Of course. Of course there’s something wrong with him. Of course he’s got some dark and dirty secret. It all makes sense now—
“I’m a virgin,” he says huskily.
I freeze. It’s the very last thing I expected to come out of his mouth.
“I’ve had girlfriends before. I’m not a saint,” he continues. “But I haven’t . . . I mean . . . I’m a virgin.”
I’m both amused and horrified by this admission. I mean, a guy that looks like him doesn’t get to eighteen without having sex unless he’s chosen not to. Which means he’s either some kind of Jesus-lover, or he’s got a serious stick up his ass.
“Well, I’m . . . not.” I half laugh, desperately aware of the chasm of difference between us. But he obviously takes my grimace as disapproval, because he steps back, scratching the back of his neck.
“I figured. But it doesn’t bother me.”
I let my expression call him on the lie.
He grimaces. “Okay, it bothers me, but not for the reasons you probably think.”
I haven’t thought about his reasons yet. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with this. I mean, seriously? I could eat this guy for breakfast. If I needed another sign that we won’t work, this has to be it. But when I open my mouth to tell him that, he cuts me off.
“I know it’s weird, and probably different from what you’re used to. But . . .” He looks at me, showing me his truth, then looks back down.
“But?” I prod.
His brow crinkles. “But? There is no other but. Not for me. I like you. I want to take you out. And kiss you again. I’m just . . .”
Frigid? Religiously corseted? Certifiably insane? I’m ignoring the little confession in there, that he likes me, because the warmth rushing through me is dangerous.
“I just . . .” He trails off. “I don’t think we should . . . do that. And I was afraid you wouldn’t want to go out with me if we weren’t.”
The blow lands. I flinch, then lash out. “You just assume I fuck every guy I hang out with?” I hate this. I know how I look to everyone, what my life appears to be. Can’t they see I’m drowning? I turn on my heel, stalk back toward Nigel. “Rudy and I have been . . . friends for a while. I don’t go around—”
Chris catches my arm—I’m grateful it’s my arm—his brow pinching into lines. “No. I meant . . . I meant, you know, just us hanging out. Together. No other people,” he clarifies, sounding embarrassed.
I bristle. “So now I’m the kind of slut who’ll sleep with two guys at the same time?”
“Geez, Tully. No.” He makes an irritated noise in his throat and turns a deep shade of red. “I’m not doing this right.” He exhales loudly. The corners of his mouth slowly pull up and, despite my anger, I’m fighting a grin of my own. But it’s only because he’s so damn cute with his innocence and the way he already knows he can make me smile if he does.
Then he steps up until our bodies are a hairsbreadth apart. He’s got his hands shoved in his back pockets and his chin tipped down. He leans down the tiniest bit, his chin so close to my cheek that there’s an electric crackle on my skin. Heat radiates off him. Waves pulse in the tiny gap between our bodies. The tension in my gut coils tighter, pulling me toward him.
“Do you feel that?” he whispers, his breath brushing my ear.
“Yeah,” I whisper back.
“I’ve never felt that before, have you?” he says, hushed like we’re in a church.
I shake my head because I don’t trust my voice.
“Go out with me, Tully.”
“You want to take me out on a date?”
He nods. “And for the record, I want to sleep with you, too.”
The words are a jolt.
“I’m just not going to,” he adds.
And even though I’m strangely sure he means it, I’m also sure I can make him change his mind.
“Okay.”
I feel, rather than see, his cheeks stretch into a smirk. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I feel like such a cheeseball. But I force myself to crane my head back and meet his eyes. “And for the record, I totally want to sleep with you, too.”
Hunger flares in his gaze. His hands slide up my arms until his fingers are playing on the back of my neck, his thumbs pushing lightly on my jaw to lift my chin. I give in and am rewarded by his lips on mine, soft, but insistent, by the curl of his heat surrounding me, by the sound of his breath already whooshing too fast past my ear.
The clearing disappears, Nigel dissolves, the grass under my feet is gone.
Chapter 18
I refuse Chris’s offer of a ride home from the clearing. He’s concerned, but I wave him off. I want to walk home. I can’t tell him it’s because there’s a weight that will fall over me when I step into that house, and I want to hold on to this buoyancy for a little while. But it doesn’t even last past our driveway because our old Ford is parked there. I stop dead in my tracks.
Dad’s home.
The warm and fizzy feelings disappear like a popped balloon. I walk toward the house more slowly, hitch my school bag higher on my shoulder. The tingle of dread crawls up the back of my neck. I examine the truck as I pass—is it parked haphazardly? Is the door open, or the wheels cranked like it took him three turns to get up there? Anything?
But there’s nothing. No way to know what kind of state he’s in.
I walk slowly to the front door and let myself in. The smell of alcohol hits me as soon as I get inside. There’s thumping coming from Dad’s room. My stomach twists. I tiptoe into my bedroom and slide my bag to the floor, trying to settle on a plan. He’s been drinking, so it depends on what kind of mood he’s in whether he’ll be happy to see me, kick me into the street, or yell at me for being here. Impossible to know until I see him.
I am braced. Cautious. Ready to fight or flee, wondering which it will have to be this time. Can I grab some clothing and get back out the door before he notices I’m here? Go sleep in Nigel and deal with this tomorrow?
The answer to that is a resounding no, as uneven footsteps sound in the hall, then my door creaks wider.
“Tooolip!” Dad beams. He’s lost a tooth on the side.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, watching him warily.
He lurches across the floor toward me, arms wide. “My baby’s home!”
I stagger as he throws his arms—and most of his weight—on my shoulders.
“Dad, I—”
“I missed you, baby,” he slurs into my ear, the tang of half-digested beer, and something sharper, wafting over me.
I do my best not to grimace. But inside, the fire is climbing. I have to get out of here. Away from him. Out of range.
He stands back, weaving, still smiling. “Yer sucha biggirl now. Yer mom’d be so proud.”
He throws this out there, like we talk about her. As if she isn’t the ghost in every room we enter. As if he hasn’t left bruises on me before, just for mentioning her name.
Dad pulls me into the hallway and down to the TV room. He’s babbling and tearing up. But if I say the wrong thing it will flip the switch and his fangs will come out.
This is the thing about living with a drunk. It’s like living with six different people—three of them are insane, one’s downright homicidal. But the other two are puzzles, and you never know which one will bubble to the surface.
I’ve seen my dad cackle with laughter over a broken plate, and put his fist through the wall because I didn’t get to the phone on time. I’ve seen him a sobbing mess at the mere mention of my mother’s name, and worn purple bruises for the same. He’s forced money into my hand for no reason, and stolen cash I spent months saving.
He has ruined me. And he’s apologized and begged me to forgive him.
He’s made promises he’ll never keep and he’s given me the means to hold him to his promises. But none of that matters.
You want to talk about trust, Ms. Pine?
Try living with an alcoholic.
My greatest fear is that I’ll turn into my father. I have days when oblivion calls. More than an urge, it’s a blinding, shaking need. But every time I get that heated call, I make myself see him. Force myself to remember what he’s done. Only on Fridays with Rudy do I let myself go. And if I’m with Chris, I won’t even do that.
An hour after I get home I’m still not out of Dad’s clutches. He’s pulled a photo album out from underneath some pile in his room, and he’s flipping through the pages, tears running down his cheeks, talking about what a saint my mother was.
I tune out his drunken babble, awash with my own memories of her: her joy when I saw the bike she’d bought me for Christmas when I was six; the expression on her face when I told her I had a boyfriend in second grade; her dancing with Dad in the TV room, knocking into the coffee table, laughing, as he dipped her.
Her gray and sagging skin in the weeks before she died.
“. . . you ’member that, Tul?” He chokes. “’Member how she allays wore a dress fer Gramma? I use to love those days. She allays looked so preddy.”
Dad’s eyes are red from tears and booze.
I can’t listen to him. I can’t answer him. If I open my mouth I will tell him the truth—that I despise him, that I can’t wait to leave—and his melancholy skin will peel back to reveal the brute underneath. So instead, I keep my hands at my sides. I examine the white spaces around each photo, instead of the pictures themselves, and agree with everything he says, while inside I am a roiling wave of fear and rage.
Finally, I force myself up and out of the couch. “I have to go to the bathroom, Dad. I’ll be right back.”
“’kay, honey,” he croaks.
I’m in the bathroom in seconds, hands shaking, chest pumping. Inside I’m a metronome: Fear. Rage. Fear. Rage. Tick. Tock. I’ve seen this version of Dad before. He’s clingy. Nostalgic. Convincing himself we had a golden life until Mom died, and he’s determined to relive it all in one night. He’ll sob himself to sleep tonight if I’m lucky.
But luck is rarely on my side.
When I open the bathroom door, he’s leaning on the wall outside and my fear ratchets up to a scream in my ears.
“You feelin’ okay, Tul?” he says, his face haggard and cloudy.
“No, Dad, I’m not. I think I’m sick.”
“Poor baby.” He puffs beer all over me again, wrapping me in a hug that threatens to have me bursting out of my skin.
I push his arms away as gently as I can. “I don’t want to get you sick, Dad.”
“Sucha goodgirl. So goodto yer dad.” He pats my shoulder and turns me around, walking me down the hallway. I look longingly at the front door, but he ushers me into my room and marches me up to the bed, his own footsteps uneven. He hits my heel twice.
“Sleep,” Dad says authoritatively. “I’ll watch and keep you safe. You sleep, babe.”
Shivering, I grit my teeth and do as he asks. I kick off my boots and crawl into bed fully clothed; I’ll flee as soon as he’s distracted.
He pulls the blanket up to my chin, bringing a flash of the night Chris did the same, and I ache for his arms instead. Dad takes a couple of wavering steps back from my bed. He’s slack-mouthed and his eyes are cloudy.
“Sleep,” he says, pointing at me. “If yer sick you need sleep.”
I close my eyes. How long will he stand there and watch me? I hear his feet move a little here and there, but he’s not leaving the room. I try to make my face slack, keep my breathing even. Convince his irrational mind that I’m sleeping so he’ll leave and I can run.
But he doesn’t leave. He does that drunk, standing-around thing. When I steal glimpses through my eyelashes, he’s poking through my laundry pile, then the fake jewelry on my nightstand. That makes me nervous because a lot of that was Mom’s. Will it trigger something in him?
But he whimpers and pulls out a gold-plated chain with a cross on the end. I don’t wear it much because the gold is rubbing off and the silver beneath is tarnished. Still I love that piece. She used to wear it all the time.
He holds it up and whispers to her.
Inside I ache, hating that w
e’ve come to this. Knowing that she’d hate to see this house now, to see what we’ve become. And hating her for leaving me here with him. But hating him the most. Because he had a choice. Mom died. She wouldn’t have gone if she had any alternative. He’s the one who could have made this different.
I bury my face in the pillow. I can’t say anything. I can’t do anything. I just have to wait.
He settles down on the floor with his back against my wall. Unbidden, a single tear rolls down my cheek but I don’t dare move to brush it away.
Chapter 19
By Wednesday Chris has become a full-blown addiction for me. With Dad home, my anxiety levels are higher than usual. I’m aching to touch Chris, to be touched. To escape. I wake that morning with an itch in my bloodstream. I need to find him without letting him know I’m actively looking.
I don’t usually see much of him before woodwork unless he gives me a ride to school. But this morning it’s as if he’s fallen off the planet. Before school he isn’t at his locker, or mine, the basketball court, or even the office. And we don’t cross paths between the first two class hours.
By break I’ve tossed aside any hint of discretion and am outright searching for him.
Finally, I round the corner by the gym for the third time and find Chris standing next to the outdoor basketball court. My chest gives a little hitch. The morning sun glances off his shoulders, throwing his shadow long across the cement. One hand is in the pocket of his jeans, the other is holding the strap of his bag. His shirt hugs his torso, which makes me think about his skin, which makes me warmer.
I’m daydreaming about squirreling him out to Nigel after school to debate the merits of this whole no sex thing when he throws his head back and laughs and I realize he isn’t standing there alone. He’s talking to a girl and not just any girl—Nicole. She’s pulled her wavy hair over one shoulder and is smiling up at Chris.
In that second, all the warmth in my chest and my cheeks flares to angry heat. I stalk right to his side. He bumps me with his shoulder without interrupting Nicole’s story. I beam at him, then turn my still-too-bright smile on her.
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