by Gina Ciocca
My mind flashes back to Meredith and the confused look she tried to hide when I brought up Joel starting the fire. “I used to know where my friends stood when it came to Joel. Now I don’t know what to think except . . .” I don’t know why my resolve is gone in that moment, but I blurt it out: “I think Joel kissed me the other night.”
“You think he kissed you?” Noah says with a laugh.
“At the game. When the lights went out. Someone came up to me and kissed me, and I thought it might’ve been you, but it makes more sense that it was him. Except he hasn’t copped to it, and I don’t understand why he’d do that and then just walk away.”
Noah snorts. “Walking away is something he’s good at.”
I ignore him, swiping my phone until I come to the picture of the photograph I found on the football field.
“I even went back the next day looking for clues, but all I found was this.”
He takes the phone, and his lips settle into an unreadable line as he studies the black-and-white image of the tattoo. He stares in silence for so long that I wonder if he sees something I didn’t.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask.
“Snake tattoo,” he murmurs.
I roll my eyes. “That much I gathered. Do you know what it means?”
He hands the phone back to me with a shrug. “A lot of Native American tribes use snakes as symbols of defiance.” When he sees my eyebrow arch, he adds, “I’m a quarter Comanche, according to my great-grandfather.” He takes the phone again and gently tosses it and the plastic bag onto the blanket behind me before threading his fingers through mine. When he looks into my eyes, his have gone dark.
“So why does it make more sense for Joel to have kissed you, and not me? I’m assuming you’ve kissed him before?”
“Well, no, but—”
His thumb traces the inside of my wrist. “Then what makes you so sure it wasn’t me?”
“I—because you haven’t said anything. You haven’t acted any differently. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem like the kind of guy who, if you kissed a girl, would take the credit for it.”
“How do you know that’s not why I brought you here?”
My breath catches in my throat. “Is it?”
One of his hands moves to the small of my back. He doesn’t respond—at least not with words. In the next breath his mouth is against mine, and I know this is supposed to be the answer to my question.
It’s sweet and it’s sexy, and unapologetically thorough.
It’s also not even close to the answer I’ve been searching for.
It’s not that Noah isn’t a good kisser. But I know after only a few seconds that he’s not the kisser. The way we fit together, the way he tastes, the way my body reacts—it’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just that it’s not right.
He pulls back, tugging my lower lip between his. “I lied,” he says. I’m about to tell him I know, when he adds, “I brought you here to talk about something else.” He pulls me closer and winds his arms around my waist. “But I guess confessing worked out okay.”
What?
I push out of his arms and start to gather my things. “I don’t know if this is a joke to you or what, but it’s not funny.”
“Whoa, hang on.” Noah is at my side in a single leap and grabs my arm. “What did I do?”
“You’re taking credit for something you didn’t do. I’m not saying you don’t know your way around a kiss, Noah, but it wasn’t you on the field the other night. So if you’re only saying it was because Joel’s name came up, then you can count me out of whatever twisted game you’re playing.”
I try to jerk out of his grip, but he takes hold of my other arm. “Wait, Mace, listen to me. We were in the dark before, and now it’s broad daylight. There are people around, and—I’m nervous, okay? Because I have to ask you something.”
“Ask me what?”
He takes my phone from my hand and sits down on the blanket, patting the ground next to him. I hesitate before settling into the spot he indicated. When I do, he puts his arm around me and brushes his nose against my temple, his long hair tickling the side of my face.
Did I feel hair tickling my face that night in the dark? Why are those damn lips the only detail that’s crystal clear? My anger crumbles away with my conviction. Maybe Noah is telling the truth.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t live up to your expectations just now,” he says. “But I hope this makes up for it.” He holds my phone out with his other hand, and I see he’s turned the camera on. “Since you like capturing important moments in pictures, you can call this one . . . ‘When Noah asked me to homecoming.’ ”
My head snaps toward him as the phone clicks. I don’t even have to look at the picture to know that what he captured is proof that this day hasn’t gone as expected for either one of us.
Twelve
SENIOR YEAR
Meredith and Ben are still heavy on my mind when I get down to the football field the next afternoon. Joel is already sitting toward the top of the bleachers. I hope he doesn’t ask for details on why I had to bail yesterday. I’m also hoping he has a plan for how to start this conversation, because I’m drawing a total blank.
“Hey,” I say as I slip into the row of metal seats. He’s staring out at the field where practice is in session with a sad, far-off look in his eyes. When I sit down, he doesn’t say anything.
Joel quit the team after last season. He’d told me he planned to, but I never thought he’d actually go through with it. Football was something he loved and was genuinely good at. And from the look on his face, it’s something he regrets giving up.
“Do you miss playing?”
He jumps a little, like I’ve caught him red-handed, then rubs the knee of his jeans and shakes his head. “Nah.” He glances up, and even though I’m pretty sure my expression is neutral, he backpedals. “Okay, sometimes. But quitting was the right thing to do.”
It seems more like he’s parroting something that was told to him rather than stating his convictions. Especially when his eyes dart back to the field, and I catch a glimpse of that same wistfulness before he says, “Do you miss cheering?”
“Yes and no. I miss the games. I miss being in the center of everything. I miss being part of a team. But I don’t miss feeling like I was under a microscope all the time.”
And I’m not sure I even knew I felt that way until right now.
“I hear you. Sometimes you’re so busy trying to keep everyone else happy that you end up making yourself miserable in the process.” He takes one last look out at the field before sitting straighter and flipping his preoccupied expression off like a light switch. “So I thought you’d chickened out when you didn’t show yesterday.”
“Chickened out? Should I be scared to have this conversation?” I am, but I don’t want him to know that. Of course, if the way I’m perched on the bleacher like I might take flight at any second is an indication, he can already tell.
“No, definitely not. I’m glad we’re finally going to get it all out there. This should’ve happened a long time ago.”
“Then why didn’t it?”
“Might have had something to do with the fact that you said you were done with me.”
“Oh, that.” We both chuckle nervously, and I sneak a sideways glance at him. “So all joking aside. What happened that night?”
Joel draws a breath and looks at the ground. “I really don’t know, Mace. I guess I just . . . lost my nerve.”
“About taking me to the dance?”
“Not so much taking you as going, period.” He picks at the fraying denim near his knee again. “I had a lot going on last year, things that I never talked to anyone about. No one here trusted me, my dad was gone, my mom had her hands full with work and my brothers, and I was basically the default father in the house. It was a lot of pressure. And I guess I did a pretty shitty job of dealing with it.”
“I get all that, Joel.” I stop, trying t
o figure out how to forgive him without excusing what he did. “But I bent over backward trying to prove to you that some people didn’t care what school you came from or what team you used to play for. I always had your back. And you slapped me in the face for it.”
More than that, he made a fool out of me. Betrayed my trust. The hurt has lingered like a phantom limb ever since.
“You’re right. And you have no idea how sorry I am for that. But if you think it didn’t hurt me that you turned on me so fast, you’re wrong.”
“Turned on you? The night started with you pulling a disappearing act and ended with Meredith’s house almost burning down. How was I supposed to react?”
Joel’s voice sharpens. “You really think I’d do something that petty? I mean, I know everyone else believes it, but really think about it, Mace. What the hell does it prove to destroy your homecoming float? How does it make a shit ton of sense to put on some douche bag display of loyalty to Mortonville when I still had to show my face here for the next two years?”
His anger is so real and his response is so logical that I don’t even know what to say. It would be frightening to think that anyone could lie this convincingly.
“Who else could’ve done it?” I ask softly.
Joel rubs at his eyebrow, looking both agitated and tired. His tone softens. “I honestly can’t tell you.”
“Okay. Then maybe you can tell me this.” I swallow over the sudden dryness in my throat, debating whether or not I want to know the answer to my next question right up until it leaves my mouth: “Did I tell you where the float was hidden?” Joel looks at me like I’ve grown a third eye, so I elaborate. “In the parking lot at the slushie stand that night. I was . . . pretty drunk.”
To my surprise, Joel laughs. “So was I. You could’ve told me where to find the Holy Grail, for all I know.”
“Oh.”
I don’t know what else to say. I feel like I should be relieved. Yet I’m not. Because even though my memories of that night are hazy, the feeling of dread that I woke up with had little to do with a hangover. The feeling that I said something I shouldn’t have—to someone I shouldn’t have—has been following me like a shadow ever since.
“You look upset,” Joel says.
“I guess I’m disappointed that I still don’t know who set the fire.”
To my own ears, the words sound uncertain. But Joel’s whole face changes. It’s like I lifted a year’s worth of storm clouds off his shoulders, and the smile that lights his face is brighter than a summer sky.
“You believe me, then?”
After a moment, I say, “If Meredith does, then why shouldn’t I?”
Joel must not realize the question isn’t entirely rhetorical because he looks positively giddy. He must know it too, because he clears his throat and takes his cell phone from his pocket. “Well, I can’t give you any leads on the fire, but there’s at least one mystery I can solve for you.” He taps the screen of his phone a few times, and the next thing I know, I’m looking once again at the picture of him, me, and Ben from junior year.
“You posted that?” Blood starts to pound in my ears. What else is he going to confess to about the night that picture went online?
“Guilty as charged.”
“But why?”
Joel flips the phone between his hands. “Because I know you’re into pictures, and I feel awful about the way things happened. I was a huge jerk to you, and you didn’t deserve it. I wanted to make things right. And I thought it would help if I reminded you that things were good once.”
Did you also think it would help to ambush me on a dark football field and kiss me until I couldn’t remember my own name?
I don’t ask the question out loud. If he felt what I felt, why should I have to pull a confession out of him?
Simple. Because he either didn’t do it . . . or he didn’t feel it.
Joel fidgets under my expectant stare. “I’ll delete it, though,” he continues. “If it bothers you.”
I sit on my hands, trying not to look disappointed. “I don’t think it bothers me as much as it bothers the other person in the picture.”
“Oh.” Joel stays quiet for a few beats, turning his phone over in his hand. “Guess I didn’t appeal to Ben’s nostalgic side?”
“Not exactly.”
“I won’t do it again. I can’t keep up with all these people trying to make it look like their lives are perfect, anyway.”
I’m taken aback by his comment. “That’s not what the site’s about at all. People use it to share pieces of their lives. It’s a way to capture memories, not a competition.”
“If that’s the real reason people use it, then you and Jadie shouldn’t need to moderate the content and the comments. Right?” He taps his temple. “Memories are up here.” Now he taps his phone. “Putting them here is about other people’s reactions to them.” I don’t get a chance to argue before he pulls up something else on the screen of his cell. “But I do have one more picture to show you.”
He holds up the phone. When I squint against the afternoon brightness, he hands it to me instead. I’m totally confused to find myself looking at a picture of a silver heart-shaped necklace in the palm of what I’m assuming is Joel’s hand. My own hand goes instinctively to my neck, even though the locket I used to wear, so similar to the one in the photo, is long gone.
This picture isn’t posted to the RF page. It’s in his photo gallery. And there’s a simple, one-word caption scrawled in editing pen at the bottom: Homecoming?
When I look up, the necklace from the picture is dangling over the back of Joel’s hand. And while the curve of his mouth says he’s super-pleased with himself for pulling this off, the slight bounce of his foot against the concrete gives away his uncertainty.
My hand lingers at my collarbone as my eyes drop to the necklace. “Is that for me?”
Commence the asking of dumb, super-obvious questions.
“It’s for you.” He chuckles and lays the pendant in my hand. “I noticed you never got another one after what happened last year. That day that I ran into you and Ben at the—”
“I remember,” I say.
It’s the fact that he remembers that has me totally confounded.
Thirteen
JUNIOR YEAR
Bad luck or not, I don’t have a choice about going to my brothers’ next soccer game. It’s my parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary, and their friends offered them a stay in their time-share on Tybee Island for the weekend.
My mother was hesitant, but between Aaron’s new medication, his guitar lessons with Ben, and the heart-to-heart we sat him down for after the last game, we felt we’d covered the bases for getting through one weekend without incident. Plus Mrs. Milton, one of the other soccer moms, offered to let the boys sleep over on Friday night, so that I’d be alone with them only on Saturday before my parents come home on Sunday afternoon.
So far, night one is in the bag. I cheered at the football game, then went to the diner and slept at Meredith’s afterward. As I start my car in preparation for heading to the soccer field, I can’t help but think, How hard can this be?
The coaches are leading warm-up exercises when I arrive. I spot a silver-haired woman on the sidelines waving me over, sparing me the awkwardness of having to admit that I didn’t quite remember which one was Mrs. Milton. “How did they do last night?” I ask, taking a seat on the bleacher below hers. “Did they drive you crazy?”
“No. They were very well behaved. The boys can stay over anytime,” Mrs. Milton says warmly, and I wonder if she’s just being polite. They’re not bad kids, though Aaron has his moments. But they both have more energy than the sun, and it combusts often and much.
“My parents threatened to take away their comic books for two weeks if they weren’t angels. I guess it worked.”
“That would do the trick for me,” says a voice on the other side of me. I turn to find Ben taking a seat next to me on the bleacher. “So what did you
try today? Real four-leaf clovers for breakfast?”
I point to my mother’s camera hanging around my neck. “I promised to pretend I’m shooting them for Sports Illustrated. And—” I hold up my arm to show him the gold charm dangling from my bracelet. “I broke out my grandmother’s good luck horn from Italy. We’re totally covered.”
Ben squints and leans closer. “What is that? A chili pepper?”
“It’s supposed to be an antelope horn. According to my grandmother, it wards off the evil eye. I normally never wear it. It makes me feel like I have a sperm dangling from my wrist.”
Mrs. Milton snorts, and I realize that probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say, especially since we’re on church grounds. I turn to Ben, giggling behind my hand.
“Like I said before,” he says. “Whatever works.”
And this time it actually does. I spend most of the game squatting on the sidelines snapping pictures, and maybe something about the fancy camera inspires the kids to play like professionals, because the Blue Dragons win the game by six points. My brothers are so excited that they run over to slap me sweaty high fives, and Aaron even gives me a hug. I text my mother a picture of the three of us with our grinning faces squished together as proof of how much ass I’m kicking at this babysitting gig.
One of the coaches brought a cooler full of ice cream bars, and I give the boys permission to eat theirs on the playground behind the church before we head home. Ben’s brother gets the okay from their mom to do the same, and Ben and I stroll together to where the boys are darting around as if they hadn’t spent the last hour in constant motion.
“So will you be at Mer’s working on the float today?” Ben asks.
“Yep. Will you?”
“I’m not so sure she wants me there.”
My face scrunches in confusion. “Ben, you know she does.”
“But does she want me there, or my magical hands?”