A Kiss in the Dark

by Gina Ciocca

  I try not to cringe. For the past few years, the cheerleaders-versus-football-players pennant hunt at Old Mill Park has been a tradition. But this year some of the girls felt like it was getting tired and predictable. Meredith was the hunt’s most staunch supporter, while Jadie piped up more than once about wanting to try something new. So we ended up taking a vote, and by a super-slim margin, the hunt got scrapped.

  I thought Meredith would be over it by now. Clearly I was wrong.

  “Would you rather she lied about it?”

  Meredith props a leg up onto the fence and bends into it, part of her pre-game warm-up. “I guess not, but what’s up with her lately? Just because the hot black quarterback makes googly eyes at her all the time doesn’t mean she gets to constantly one-up the co-captain of the squad. She pulled the same shit last week when we were practicing the new routine. In front of everybody just, ‘Oh, hey, I think it would be better this way’ and doesn’t even run it by me first. And now she voted to ax the pennant hunt in favor of that stupid put-makeup-on-the-football-team idea?” She stretches her arms behind her head, scowling. “Like there’s any team-building value in slapping guyliner on a bunch of jocks.”

  Maybe not, but it does sound like fun. I don’t dare say as much.

  Luckily, Meredith is distracted by something behind me. Her face breaks into a grin, and she switches from stretching her arm to waving it vigorously.

  I turn around to see Ben approaching the track, wearing a button-down shirt that has his name sewn onto a patch beneath his left shoulder.

  “Hey,” Meredith says, leaning closer to me while Ben is still out of earshot. “Did I see you leaving his house the other day?”

  “The other—? Oh, right. I drove him home after the boys’ soccer game.”

  “Oh.”

  So she noticed. And she cared enough to bring it up almost a week later. And was that a trace of relief I detected in that oh-so-loaded single syllable?

  Not my type, my ass.

  “Look at you,” I say to Ben as he nears the fence. “Are you here to watch the football game or change the oil in my car?”

  Ben tugs at the name patch on his shirt. “I can change your tires if you want, but I’d rather make you a milk shake. You’re looking at Buck’s Diner’s newest employee.”

  Meredith claps and laughs. “Every time I think that floats couldn’t get any better, Benny shows up to make them for me.”

  “One scoop of chocolate ice cream, one scoop of vanilla,” Ben says.

  Meredith winks. “You know how I like it.”

  Okay, Meredith may be a born flirt, but dirty innuendo is definitely my cue to see my way out of this conversation. Before I can come up with an excuse, Ben asks, “How’s your brother doing?”

  I shrug. “He’s all right. Mostly good days this week, with a few bad moments. Better than the other way around.”

  “I bet. But I was reading this really interesting article earlier about how music can be therapy for behavioral disorders.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s supposed to reduce anxiety and boost all sorts of healing hormones in the body. Especially instrumental and classical music, stuff where the patterns repeat. And I know your brother’s not gonna want to sit around listening to Mozart on loop, so I wanted to ask you—what if I taught him to play guitar?”

  “You play guitar?” I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does.

  “He’s a man of many talents,” Meredith says. “And he never brags about it, so I will.” She must realize how that sounds, coming from someone who claims Ben doesn’t occupy extra space in her head, and she nudges me a little too hard. “Told you he’s good with his hands.”

  I rub at my arm, and Ben looks embarrassed. “Aw, thanks, Mer. I quit taking lessons a while ago, but I remember the important stuff. Enough that I could maybe help out by giving Aaron something to focus on.”

  “I bet he’d love that!” My mother has been beside herself, trying to dull the edges of Aaron’s outbursts while dealing with Michael’s accusations of being ignored. This could be a tiny ray of hope to alleviate some of the tension. “That’s so, so sweet of you to offer.” I turn to Meredith, taking full advantage of my shot. “You’re right. He is great.”

  Meredith responds with a playful ruffle of Ben’s hair, which he shyly pats back into place. “It’s nothing. I’ve been meaning to get back into playing for a while, anyway.” He eyes the brace on my wrist. “And what’s your story?”

  I hold up my hand. “Sprained my wrist at practice. The same one I broke three months ago.”

  “Ouch.” Ben winces. “You’re on a roll.”

  Meredith hooks an arm around my neck, making my camera strap dig into my skin. “Macy’s sitting out tonight, so she’s playing team photographer instead.” She turns to me and runs my ponytail through her hand. “I hate when my road dawg goes off-roading.”

  “Relax. You’re not getting rid of me.” I snap a picture of her pouting face. “And I’ll still be at the diner later.”

  “Awesome.” Ben grins. “What kind of pie do your brothers like?”

  “Apple crumb. One of the few things all three of us agree on. Why?”

  “They throw away whatever doesn’t sell at the end of the night, so instead of trying to eat everything myself, like I did last time, I’ll sneak some aside for you to take home. See you there.”

  “And blueberry for me!” Meredith calls after him, waving her arm in the air.

  “Don’t worry, Mer,” Ben calls back. “I’ve got you covered.”

  I flash a grin at his retreating back, because that’s a promise I intend to make sure he keeps.

  Seven

  SENIOR YEAR

  My sleepless night and restless morning of running finally catch up to me, and after lunch I pass out on the couch in my dad’s office while I’m waiting for him to install a program on my laptop.

  It’s not long before I wake up to the sound of the rain announcing its escape from the clouds with loud slaps against the roof. Dad jumps up from his chair, swearing softly. “Forgot to pull my car into the garage. Be right back.” He starts off, but doubles back when he sees me rubbing my eyes.

  “It’s not like you to crash in the afternoon. Are you feeling all right?”

  I flex my fingers around my wrist brace. “Still sore and kind of swollen. I don’t know why this keeps happening.”

  “Which is exactly why you should have it looked at.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but the beat of the rain intensifies and Dad starts off again. He does a little shuffle like he stepped on something, then bends and scoops my phone off the carpet. “Here,” he says. “You dropped this.”

  The screen lights up, showing two new text messages. When I see that one is from Meredith and the other is from Joel, my heart does a funny extra beat.

  Meredith’s is a group text that says: FLAG HUNT @ OLD MILL CANCELED. STUPID RAIN.

  I’m disappointed. I thought maybe she was trying to reach out to me. But it was just a formality, the only type of interaction we’ve had in a very long time.

  Frowning, I click on the message from Joel.

  CAN WE TALK BEFORE SCHOOL ON MONDAY? AT THE FIELD?

  My heart does that weird skip again, and I stare at the screen. I start and erase a response three different times. Finally I hit send:

  PROMISE TO TELL ME EVERYTHING?

  A full minute goes by before my phone buzzes with a reply, and I wonder if Joel was similarly angsting over his answer. Until I see that all he’s written is:

  SEE YOU THEN.

  * * *

  I have every intention of getting to school half an hour early on Monday. But somehow a blueberry from one of Mom’s homemade pancakes explodes on my shirt, and after I change, I reemerge from my room to find that Michael and Aaron have missed their bus—an almost impossible feat, considering the stop is our next-door neighbor’s driveway. Still, they managed it, and by the time I’m finally dashing to my locke
r after dropping them off at school, I’ll be lucky if I can make it down to the football field with five minutes to spare.

  I can feel Noah watching me as I unload my bag. He’s talking to Tyrell Davis at the opposite end of the hall, but each time I look up, I catch him averting his eyes one second too late. I get the feeling he has something to tell me, and it’s making me irrationally nervous. Then again, so does everything lately. I silently will Tyrell to keep their conversation going until I can get my book bag loaded.

  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to Noah; I just don’t have time right now.

  I honestly have no idea what I ever did to catch Noah’s attention. After Joel became the thing that made me think I will never be that stupid again, I had no intention of going on another adopt-a-former-Pirate campaign when Noah transferred to Ridgedale. If anything, I’d planned to totally ignore him. Then we got paired up for a biology lab. When I told him my name, he said, “Like the department store?”

  “No,” I replied. “Like my great-aunt.”

  “Ah.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, I’m Noah.”

  “Like the ark?”

  And even though I realized my mistake immediately and wanted to crawl under the table, I swear the grin that lit his face might as well have been the sun breaking through the clouds after forty days and forty nights of rain. It was that beautiful.

  “Noah built the ark,” he said through guffaws. “That was cute.”

  His chuckling was so warm and without a trace of mockery that I couldn’t help but crack up too.

  That was really all it took to break the dam. He was so open and friendly that I couldn’t not be nice to him. Before I knew it, he was sharing the story of how his parents were divorced and he’d been living with his mom in Mortonville, but after a knee injury that required surgery left him (and his grades) in a funk, he’d decided to move in with his dad in Ridgedale for a fresh start.

  I revised my plan of action, telling myself we could be friends. As long as that was all we were and I stayed in control of my better judgment, it seemed totally doable. Until he started walking a little closer and his jokes became a little more suggestive and he started texting me for no real reason.

  And, of course, until someone snuck up on me in the dark and kissed me senseless.

  I slam my locker door shut and almost drown out the voice that says, “Hi.”

  I turn to see Meredith walking past me. I blink at the sight of her tall frame and her chestnut-colored ponytail pooling into the hood of her tight, baby-blue zip-up, and then I scan the hall to see who else could’ve spoken. There’s no one. So unless my ears were playing tricks on me, Meredith just acknowledged my existence for the first time in ages.

  “What do you mean, ‘hi’?”

  Meredith stops. One shoulder lifts slightly, like she’d been hoping I hadn’t heard her. She turns. “It’s a pretty standard greeting. Doesn’t usually require an explanation.”

  “Right, but”—I hoist my bag onto my shoulder—“you haven’t directed any kind of greeting at me in a while.”

  Meredith hooks her thumbs into the pockets of her hoodie and looks at the floor. “I know. But Ben told me you said hi. So . . . Hi.”

  She starts down the hall, and all I can do is watch her go. I’ve tried to open dialogues with her at least a dozen times since last year’s homecoming, but Meredith Kopala runs the Hotel California of shit lists: Once you’re on it, you never leave.

  It doesn’t make sense that a message relayed through Ben is what finally broke the seal, except that it kind of does.

  “Wait, Meredith!” I bolt after her, hoping the window of opportunity isn’t about to slam down on my fingertips as they catch her arm. “Do you—can we please talk?” I pull her toward a nearby exit to a courtyard without giving her a chance to respond. “Please come outside.”

  She resists but ultimately lets me lead her out the door.

  I dump my bag onto the ground when we reach one of the stone benches at the center of the courtyard, and sit. Meredith doesn’t. Before the tidal wave of words building in my throat can come crashing out, she says, “You knew how I felt about him.”

  “I—yes, of course I did. You were the one who kept denying it, remember?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that there was a reason for that?” She tosses her bag onto the grass but still doesn’t join me on the bench. “You knew the kinds of guys I dated. They were all goddamn mirages. The minute I got close—poof—all the good stuff disappeared. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy that it wasn’t going to work out.”

  “Meredith, you’re not a jinx.”

  “Well, that’s how it felt, okay?” She finally drops down next to me, her expression pained. “Ben . . . Ben is different. He’s like a sacred cow or something.”

  I laugh before I can help it. “A sacred cow?”

  She smiles, albeit fleetingly, before her lips turn down and her fingers find the M on her necklace. “You know what I mean. Once I realized I had . . . a crush”—she falters on the word, like she’s never said it out loud before—“on him, I didn’t want to do anything about it. Because he was so different from what I’m used to, and because I liked him so ridiculously much.” She presses the M into the underside of her bottom lip. “I knew screwing it up would suck ass.” She stands abruptly, like she’s said too much. When she retrieves her bag from the grass, she turns to me and adds, “Only, I didn’t have to worry about screwing it up, because you did that for me.”

  She might as well have taken a pen out of her backpack and stabbed me with it, for how deeply her words cut me. And still, when she starts for the door, I shoot to my feet and call after her.

  “Meredith, I swear to you, nothing happened. Not before homecoming, and not during. It was only a dance, and I know it was stupid for the two of us to be out there together, but it was all my fault for even showing up in the first place. Ben was trying to cheer me up, and I’m sorry he left you alone to do it, and I’m even sorrier that it looked like something it wasn’t.”

  “There was a lot more to it than what it looked like, Macy.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Part of you must understand how bad I feel, or you wouldn’t have said anything to me in the hall before. I don’t know what else to say except that you were right. If I’d listened when you said Joel couldn’t be trusted, none of this might ever have happened.”

  A shadow of something that looks a lot like confusion passes over her face. “You still think he set the fire?” She stiffens, steeling her expression like she said something she shouldn’t have. The change in her demeanor is so quick and yet so unmistakable, I feel like I’ve missed a very important detail.

  “Everyone thinks Joel set the fire. It’s the only thing that makes sense . . . isn’t it?”

  Meredith grips the strap of her bag against her shoulder. “He says he didn’t. And maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I want to believe him. I guess it says a lot that I’m willing to trust Joel Hargrove over someone I used to call my best friend.”

  She disappears inside the building, and I sit down hard on the bench. My mind is reeling. What did Joel say to Meredith to turn the tables? And why did she forgive him and Ben so easily, but any steps I make toward progress are destroyed as quickly as footprints in sand?

  I wasn’t the only one who hurt Meredith last year. But somehow I’m the only one she still sees as a traitor.

  Eight

  JUNIOR YEAR

  I almost don’t see Jadie coming toward me as I adjust my camera lens before the halftime show. The marching band is spilling over the football field in their bright white-and-teal uniforms, and I’ve been having so much fun capturing the energy and action of the game, freezing moments in time, that I decide to keep snapping.

  “Meredith’s really mad at me about voting down the pennant hunt, isn’t she?” Jadie says.

  I bite the inside of my lip. I don’t want to get in the middle of this. “You know how Meredith is. She’s used to b
eing the leader, and she doesn’t handle it well when people don’t think that her way is the best way.”

  Jadie crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, it’s not like I was the only one. I’m not going to apologize for remembering that there’s no I in ‘team.’ I mean, don’t you think she’s a little ridiculous sometimes?”

  “What’s ridiculous?” another voice cuts in. Joel is suddenly on my other side, his football helmet dangling from his hand. He’s sweaty and dirty and his hair is a mess, and somehow he still looks like he should be strutting in slow motion toward a movie camera while cheesy music swells in the background. I lift my camera and snap a picture of him.

  “That catch you made in the second quarter,” I say.

  “That you never come to the diner for Friday Night Eats,” Jadie adds without missing a beat.

  Joel bumps her with his helmet as if to say Good one. “Thanks, but I won’t be there tonight, either. My dad ships out tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It must be so hard on you.”

  He shrugs. “It’s not the first time, and it might not be the last. And I get that he has to go, that it’s his duty or whatever, and I’m proud of him. But I still feel . . .” He trails off, scratching his eyebrow.

  “Abandoned?” Jadie offers.

  Joel points his finger at her. “That. Exactly that. I mean, he’s got a wife who has to work, four kids, one of them is about to be admitted to the hospital—” He cuts off when my eyes go big and Jadie gasps. “It’s nothing serious,” he adds quickly. “Well, I mean it’s not life-threatening. Peyton, our littlest guy, has cystic fibrosis, and every so often they bring him in for what they call a ‘tune-up.’ He stays about ten days while they pump him full of antibiotics and do breathing treatments. So it’s not like we don’t need my dad here, you know?” His features harden. “I think it’s fucked up to put your country before your family.”