Whatever happened to her was the thing haunting Jake. Maybe figuring out that piece of the puzzle would help me figure out the puzzle that was Jake.
After the movie, I vowed to not watch any Disney for at least a few weeks. I felt like I had all the emotions sucked out of me and then thrown back in my face as projectile vomit.
But soon that Disney-free week had passed. And then another.
For three weeks, Jake was only available for our Monday night lessons, and we hadn’t gotten any further with the done-it list. I’d brought it up a few times and he kept explaining that he had homework and photography and work occupying his time, but also kept promising we’d do one soon.
But I enjoyed our minimal time together in the rec center. Sometimes he’d make me laugh. Sometimes I’d make him laugh. And we’d talk about things that didn’t matter, and a few that did, like classes and exams. But there were some days when it seemed the thought of cracking a smile was too much for him to bear, and those were the days we said nothing at all—unless it was about the piano.
And I didn’t know what to think, so I tried not thinking at all.
That had to be the one thing humans continually attempted to do—not think at all. It never worked.
I flopped backward on my bed, sighing, glaring at the ceiling.
“We could go get a box of hair dye,” Kat said, sticking her hand into the bag of popcorn, which made the whole room smell like burned corn. I never understood how she could eat that stuff every single day.
“Jake isn’t here to take the picture.”
“So what? You can color your hair, then tell him to bring that camera to your next lesson. He can get the shot then.”
I rolled my head to the side, aiming my glare at her. “Does it have to be blue?”
Apparently blue was Emily’s favorite color, seeing how she dyed the tips of her hair a bright electric blue. The hashtags she used included #BlueHairDontCare and #MomHatesIt. No quote accompanied that picture.
“As long as it’s not red, blond, or brown, I think anything works. How about purple?” Kat offered. “Pink? Orange?”
I rolled over and looked at her. “Am I really supposed to walk around campus with purple hair?”
She chomped on the popcorn, considering. “It doesn’t have to be purple purple. Just…a kind of purple.”
I wasn’t buying it. “What kind of purple is that?” Kat might’ve been dyeing her hair since high school, but I’d never risked it.
“Oh come on.” She reached for the bottom of my jeans and pulled. “I’ll show you.”
Even though it terrified the crap out of me, I let her drag me to the store. I shouldn’t have let her convince me no plan was a good plan.
It wasn’t. Ever.
Because an hour and a half later, my hair was purple. Not a kind of purple, like Kat promised. It was purple, like holy shit, did you eat too many plums purple.
“You lied to me!” I pulled at the ends of my hair—once a stunning natural red, now a color reminiscent of Barney. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
I whipped around, and her lips twitched—though she did take a step back.
“Purple, Kat. Purple.”
She threw up her hands in defense. “Look at it this way…your mom would absolutely hate your hair. It’s kind of perfect.”
“Kind of—no. It’s not kind of anything except for kind of awful.” I twisted back toward the mirror.
“Chill out, girl. It’s just hair.”
Just hair, she said. Ha. Maybe Kat could pull off bottled purple—in fact, it’d probably make even more guys fall all over her—but me and my ghostly white skin could not. I wanted to break down—cascade into a fountain of snot and salt. It wouldn’t have been pretty, but it might have made me feel better.
“We can fix it,” Kat said, stepping closer, reaching her hand out to touch my ruined locks.
“But how?” It sounded like a whine.
“We can make it darker.”
“Darker? Are you insane?”
Knock-knock.
My heart stuttered. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Someone is here. I can’t let anyone see me like this.” I could’ve colored the walls with the shades of my embarrassment. “Shh, shhh. Pretend we’re not here.”
Kat rolled her big eyes with a snort. “Too late for that. These walls aren’t that thick. And the light’s on. Pretty much a dead giveaway.”
My skin tingled, and I had to resist the urge to rip my hands through my hair to let some of my anxious pressure out. I did a quick scan of our dorm room, trying to think of a solution.
Knock-knock.
Dammit.
“I know!” Kat rushed away from me and slipped inside my bathroom. When she emerged, she tossed a bath towel at me. “Wrap it around your head.”
Genius. She was a genius.
Wait. No—Kat was the reason for this mess.
“I’m coming,” I said, twisting the towel on the top of my head like I’d just gotten out of the shower. Better than nothing.
I swung the door open too quickly, and like so many times in life, wished I had a superpower, like being able to disappear or melt into the floor. I’d have even accepted one of those Men in Black memory-eraser sticks.
I could’ve been all, oh hey, Jake, nope, you never saw me like this.
Because let’s face it, a pink towel on the top of my head like a wannabe hat was no sexier than purple hair.
“Hey,” I choked out, trying to breathe like a normal person.
He blinked, surprised by my face or hair (or lack thereof) or maybe my extra paleness. “Hey. Sorry if I…” He cleared his throat, looked down the empty hallway. “If I’m interrupting. I thought you were expecting me.”
Expecting him? “Huh?”
“You said you’d be here in an hour, and to stop by then.”
“I didn’t—wait…what?”
Jake’s lips twisted, half amused, half uncertain. “Your message? When I asked if you were home?”
I hadn’t sent any message…
Turning, I spotted Kat on the edge of her bed, her hand attempting to hide a grin. Kat. She’d done it again.
“I wanted to give you this.”
I returned my attention to Jake and looked at what he held in his hands. “What is it?”
“One of the first piano books I used. It’s for beginners. Thought it might help you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I simply stood there.
Why did he come all the way over here to give me this? Why not just give it to me when I saw him at our next lesson? Was this his personal book? If so, why did he want me to have it? “Thank you.” I hesitated, another question coming to mind. “How come I don’t have your number?”
His brows narrowed and then went wide again, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “I don’t have yours.”
“You never asked.”
“Neither did you.”
I stared at him.
“Here’s a pen,” Kat said, sliding next to me in the doorway. “Write it down in the book?” She sent me a beaming smile and shoved the pen in Jake’s direction.
Oh my fucking God, Kat.
But it worked. Maybe that’s how she got so many guys to swoon over her—or whatever the guy equivalent of swooning was.
Jake wrote his number on the first page of the book and handed the pen back to her.
“This is Kat, by the way.”
She gave a short wave and another smile. “I already know who you are.”
My eyes went wide. “Uh, thanks for the book,” I said way faster than I meant to. “You didn’t have to drop it off, though.” I probably wouldn’t be able to look at it much for a few days with midterms coming up.
“Sure I did. You need it more than I do.”
“I’m not sure insulting my piano skills is a good way to make me play better.”
“Who said it was an insult?”
I leaned against the doorframe and gave hi
m a look. “I basically assume that if something you say could be taken as an insult, it should be.”
He chuckled. “Thought we agreed I wasn’t that mean.”
“We agreed on nothing.”
He bottled his laughter and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Everyone has a right to dream, I guess.”
“See? Mean. So, anyway. Thanks again. For the book, not the insult.”
“Right. Sure thing.” He nodded at Kat. “Nice meeting you.” And then looked at me. “I’ll see you later.”
Jake disappeared from the doorway, and I turned to face Kat, who had her arms crossed, grinning wickedly.
“I think I might hate you right now.” I shut the door behind me.
“He messaged you while you were in the shower and I figured I’d reply for you. In case you got all worried about your hair.”
“You didn’t even give me the chance.” I would’ve been worried, but I would’ve still said yes. “And you couldn’t at least give me a heads-up?”
She dropped her arms and shrugged, plopping onto the bed again. “I meant to. And I thought an hour would be enough time! I’m sorry. Your minor freak-out distracted me.”
Uh-huh.
“But now I get it,” she said.
“Get what?” I pulled the towel from my head, letting the wet strands fall against my back.
“Piano Boy is hot.”
“He—” I paused. “Yeah, he’s hot. So what?”
“You’ve got a thing for Piano Boy.” She said it nonchalantly, like it was a fact, not an opinion.
“No one’s got a thing for anyone. And can we please, please stop giving everyone and everything nicknames?”
She pouted. “Nicknames make everything better.”
I rolled my eyes. “Even if I did have a thing for him, Jake certainly doesn’t have a thing for me.”
“Have you asked him if he does?”
I blanched. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“If you haven’t asked him, then has he told you he doesn’t have a thing for you?”
“No,” I growled.
“So you can’t say he doesn’t because you don’t know. Same way you can’t say you hate shrimp if you’ve never tried it—you don’t know.”
“You are not seriously comparing guys and food right now, are you?”
Kat waved a hand, moved over to the Walmart bag, and pulled out another box of hair dye. “Don’t you know what a metaphor is?”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Here, we can use this one on you instead of me. I’m not ready to give up my blond hair anyway.” She held out the box—a deep mahogany brown.
“What? No way!” I would not introduce more torture to my hair. It might all fall out. I would not look good without hair.
“Trust me. This is a dark brown. It’ll make your hair darker. Should take away most of the purple. My brother has a friend who’s a cosmetologist.”
“But you’re not.”
She shrugged. “I’ve picked up a few things. It’s worth a shot.”
So my choices were risk Kat chemically burning my hair off, or go to sociology tomorrow morning looking like a clown.
“But if I lose most of the purple, won’t it be defeating the point of the done-it?”
Her lips puckered, and she shook her head. “I said it would take away most of the purple. Trust me, it’ll still be purple enough.”
“Fine,” I said, feeling defeated. “Let’s do it.”
I put on some music to calm my brain as Kat mixed up the box of dye. Tried to steady my overworked heart. Tried not to worry about my hair.
Even if Kat was right (and maybe she was) that I had a thing for Jake, it didn’t matter. Sure, we had a few inside jokes and I liked spending time with him, but he and I were only friends.
But we weren’t normal friends, like Kat and I were. I knew all about Kat’s life—her family, her horrible and awesome dating stories. I knew her past, her present, and her hopes for the future.
Jake let me see what he wanted me to see, and the rest was off-limits.
Maybe it wasn’t only me. Maybe he was closed off to everyone.
Chapter Seven
By some miraculous phenomenon, the color of my hair actually looked slightly okay: a dark reddish-brown with only a hint of Barney. A color I could get used to. But still, I vowed never to do it again.
I nudged Kat, who was falling asleep in her seat. Professor Otto’s voice was as interesting as a buzzing fly, so I couldn’t blame her.
She blinked a few times, remembered where she was, and scowled at me.
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. The auditorium for our psychology class was huge, but Professor Otto had impeccable vision, and he’d embarrass the hell out of anyone caught sleeping.
“There’s only ten minutes left,” I whispered.
“That’s ten too many.”
I offered her a piece of gum. Not much of a consolation, but it was all I had.
Professor Otto finally said, “That’s it for today,” and Kat popped out of her chair and headed down the aisle. I trailed behind her.
“Do you want to go camping with me?” I asked.
Her head snapped in my direction, and blond bangs flopped into her eyes. “Camping? Like in the woods?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what camping is.”
We walked through the glass doors and out into the quad. The late-September sun beat down, warming my face even as a light breeze raised the hair on my exposed arms. I blinked a few times as my eyes adjusted to the light.
Kat made a low noise. “Ahh. I’m not exactly a bug fan…”
“Well, who is?”
She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Why the hell do you want to go camping?”
“It’s on the list.”
“Ah. Right.”
“But I like camping. And yeah, bugs suck. But campfires are great. S’mores and stars and nature, you know?” Aside from our spending time in my tree house as kids, Kat always vetoed outdoor activities, so asking her to come with me was a long shot.
“I want to say yes, I really do.” She gave me big, regretful eyes—which had stopped working on me three years ago. “But camping and I…I don’t think we’d get along. Besides, doesn’t Jake need to be there to take the photo? What, are the three of us going to share a tent?” She snickered, humor replacing the regret in her eyes.
“You could invite Dillan.”
“Oh, he’s off my list of date-worthy guys. But really, three is enough of a crowd. You know camping in the woods with Jake alone would be epic, right?”
“No.”
“Why not? Because you wouldn’t want to do that with him?”
I looked up, squinting at the sky. “That’s not the reason.”
We crossed the courtyard, where students sat on the grass reading textbooks or writing notes. There were even a couple sleeping.
Kat studied me. “You know, girl, you’re going to have to start asking for the things you want. People aren’t mind readers. Especially guys.”
“I ask for things.”
“Like when you asked for Jake’s number?”
My stomach toppled over. “I did everything else. I found him on Facebook. Asked him to meet me. Did I want his number before? Yes. But I wanted him to ask me. Just one thing. Just that one tiny little thing.”
“I know. I know.”
“You really won’t go camping with me?”
She smiled—one that looked like it belonged in a commercial for gum. “When you’re all alone with him in the middle of nowhere, you’ll be glad I’m not there wrecking the party.”
And two hours later, in the middle of biology, I found myself texting Jake.
Me: Hey. It’s me. Audra. Do you like camping?
Forty-seven minutes later, after I was back in my dorm, I got a reply.
Jake: Hey Audra, it’s me, Jake.
I stared at the phone, blinking a few times. “
What?” I muttered, fingers poised to type back when another text came through.
Jake: Yes, I like camping. Why, you want to do that Cheez-It?
I laughed even though no one but the walls could hear it.
Me: Yeah, but I can’t fend off a bear. Can you?
Jake: Of course. But you have to do me a favor.
Obviously, I asked him what kind of favor.
And he didn’t respond before our seven o’clock lesson time. So I showed up in the piano room a full twenty minutes early and literally sat on the edge of my seat.
“Your texting skills are kind of lacking, sir,” I said when he walked in. He wore a form-fitting dark green shirt that did his appearance all kinds of favors, and I averted my gaze to keep from ogling.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? I use complete words, proper punctuation, and correct grammar.”
And it was kind of a dream come true.
“In what way are my skills lacking?”
“You didn’t respond to my last text.” And the times between his responses were painfully long.
“I knew I’d be seeing you soon.”
Touché, Piano Boy.
“All right, so what’s this favor?” I asked as he sat on the bench next to me.
“I need a model.”
“Like…a model you take pictures of?”
He grinned, pressing a key down with one finger. The high-pitched note rang through the open space, electrifying my nerve endings. “Don’t you know what a model is?”
“I know what a model is, but you want me to model for you? Aren’t you getting enough shots of me with the list?”
“Obviously not.”
My cheeks burned, stomach flipped, and my secondhand heart sped up. “What do you need a model for? And why me?”
Jake twisted, inching closer. “I’m working on a photography project. I don’t need a model, but I do think your face would be a nice addition to my images.”
“My face?”
His expression shifted like he was the keeper of a grand secret. “Yes.”
That look and the way he made one simple word sound so warm and smooth lit a lavalike fire in my chest. “What’s so special about my face?”
“I thought I told you already.”
The Heartbeat Hypothesis Page 6