by Liz Fichera
“Oh, I intend to,” Ryan said. “And you don’t think I’ll be pressing the ‘like’ button on your Facebook posts anytime soon, Hawkins. I’d recommend you take them down.”
“Ooooh,” Jay said, puffing his chest. His fingers fluttered in front of his face like a fan. “The Lone Ranger and Tonto are suddenly making threats.” His jackass friends snorted around him but there was a hint of fear in their faces, too. Jay was taking this further than they expected, that much was clear. “I am so scared,” he added.
Unable to restrain myself a moment longer, I lunged for Jay, while voices chanted “Fight! Fight!” around us. I had grabbed the leather collar of his jacket with one hand and connected my other fist to his jaw when I felt hands pull back both my shoulders. A third pair of hands pulled on my backpack, still looped over my shoulders. I’d forgotten it still hung on my back.
Suddenly the hallway was a sea of blurry hands and arms in front of my face, a hundred voices, hot sticky chaos. Hot skin. I was pulled backward and forward. I wanted to break free from all the hands and pounce right onto Jay Hawkins, but the hands and arms wouldn’t let me. Someone launched a punch to my stomach and I felt bone against my right fist. Girls shrieked.
Out of nowhere, a security officer appeared in the middle of everything, one of the stockiest ones at the high school. “Break it up!” he yelled, his voice drowning out everyone else’s, except no one broke apart, least of all me. I still had a grip on Jay’s stupid wool jacket and my arm had just pulled back for another punch when two hands grabbed my fist and pulled back.
“Tracy started it,” Jay yelled, pointing at me, retreating into the fold of his friends as the crowd reluctantly separated. Blood dribbled down the corner of Jay’s mouth.
“He deserved it,” I said, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.
I turned to see whose hands still pulled on my right shoulder. It was Ryan. “This wouldn’t have happened if you kept a closer eye on your sister.” I glared at him.
“What are you talking about?” Ryan’s hands dropped from my shoulder. His blue eyes, carbon copies of Riley’s, blazed like dry ice. “I know exactly what’s going on with my sister. I live with her. Remember?”
“You know nothing,” I said, waving away Martin’s and Peter’s hands. The security officer was barking information into a walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder. More bodies brushed by me as the distance between Jay and me increased. The air grew lighter.
Then I saw an opening among the bodies and backpacks.
Before anyone could stop me, I pushed through the glass door with my palm and sprinted toward the courtyard like my shoes had caught fire.
39
Riley
I knew that Mom was right and I should study but I didn’t want to. No—scratch that. I wouldn’t study and give Mom the satisfaction that she had any control over what I would do or not do anymore. I’d rather that she and Dad see a few C’s on my report card for a change, maybe even a D, because that’s where I was headed. Thing was, I had never fallen behind before in anything in my entire life. I was usually two chapters ahead of everyone else, carefully planning my assignments and research papers before they were due, highlighting important parts of a textbook in yellows and pinks, even doing homework on Friday nights when Drew wasn’t available for sleepovers.
Drew. I couldn’t text her. Couldn’t call. I didn’t know if she wanted to speak to me again.
Another day at home and I was going to lose my mind. I felt fine, even if Mom didn’t think so. And it had been four days already of solitary confinement—five, if you counted today.
I crept over and placed my ear against the door. I wasn’t sure whether Mom was still in the house. I knew that Dad and Ryan had left almost an hour ago.
The floors hummed. Connie, our housekeeper, was running the vacuum somewhere on the first floor. No doubt Mom had already advised her about my captivity.
I pressed my ear harder against the door. The humming seemed to be going in the opposite direction. With any luck, Connie would be occupied on the first floor for an hour or so and I could sneak into Mom’s bedroom and hunt for my phone. She’d probably hidden it on the top shelf in her closet, where she hid the Christmas presents every year. I needed my cell phone. Just for a little while….
Outside, another hum started. A familiar hum.
I ran to my bedroom window and threw open the shade My hands reached for the glass as I squinted against the sunlight.
Sam Tracy was parking his motorcycle alongside the curb, his long legs still straddling the seat, in between the two pick-up trucks and a trailer from a landscape company. Sam removed his helmet, dragging his hands through his hair, and then his dark eyes scanned our house, taking in the lawn guys first and then working their way up the front of our house. Almost as if he could sense someone staring back at him, checking him out. Which I totally was. The sight of him seated on his bike melted me.
I stared back, too stunned to wave. Sam Tracy was here? At my house? In the middle of the morning?
But how had he found me? How did he know? And could he see me through the window? I tapped on the glass.
It only took a moment before Sam’s gaze locked onto mine.
My jaw quivered. I was too surprised to say anything, not like I could. The window was shut and there was all the noise….
Seeing me, Sam lifted his hand, waving, but almost like he was embarrassed. Or uneasy. He stayed on his bike, his hands dropping to his sides, as if he expected me to come outside.
I waved back, grinning like an idiot. “I’ll be right down!” I said. I spread my fingers. “Give me five minutes.” I pressed my hand against the warm glass, hoping that he understood.
To my delight, he nodded.
I felt an anxious smile build across my face. Then I turned and darted like a crazy person around my room. Busting outside was going to take a miracle. My hand reached for my hair. I’d barely combed it in days. I raised my hand over my breath and exhaled. Morning breath. Ugh.
In five minutes, I’d splashed ice-cold water across my face, brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my hair, slipped on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, grabbed the five ten-dollar bills that I had rolled in my top desk drawer for emergencies and slipped on my pink Converse. Just in case, I grabbed a sweatshirt and tied it around my waist. I glanced quickly in the mirror over my bedroom dresser, realizing that I’d never gotten ready so quickly in my entire life.
I didn’t know where Sam and I were going, but my shoulders lifted with the possibility that we were going somewhere.
I threw open my bedroom door, ran across the floor to the stairwell, flew down the stairs two at a time and then threw open the front door, ignoring Connie’s perplexed expression as she stopped pushing the vacuum and stared at me.
“I’ll be back!” I told her without more than a quick glance over my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I added.
“But…” she yelled over the vacuum.
Before she could finish her thought, I was crossing the front porch and running down the path to the street, leaping over a leaf blower like it was a track hurdle, heat rushing up my neck.
Sam was still seated on his motorcycle, the helmet cradled in his arm.
“You came,” I said. My smile returned. “I…I can’t believe you’re here.”
He nodded.
“But it’s Friday. A school day.”
“So?” Sam said, surprising me.
“How did you find me?” I had to yell over the lawn mower.
He pointed to our front door. Welcome to the Berengers’ was engraved on a piece of wood in the shape of a four-leaf clover next to our house.
“Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that.” I glanced back at the house. I had exactly one minute before Connie ran out of the house, probably waving a vacuum attachment at Sam. Or maybe she was already on the phone to Mom. “Can you start this thing up? Like, as soon as possible?” I said.
“What’s the hurry?” He handed me t
he helmet.
“I’ll explain later. Just go. I don’t care where. Please.” I jammed the helmet over my head. Then I slipped my leg over the seat and wrapped my hands around his waist and squeezed him hello.
Sam twisted the throttle and then turned the bike.
I hugged him tighter.
In an instant we were cruising toward Pecos Road. I leaned forward, balancing my chin on Sam’s shoulder, and smiled.
The day was turning out a lot better than I’d expected. I was seriously going to get in more trouble than ever before, and I didn’t care one little bit. I guess that officially made me a crazy teenager.
Who cared? Thanks to Sam, I was finally free.
40
Sam
Riding with Riley on my motorcycle was better than spending the rest of the day in Principal Graser’s office or, worse, trying to explain my fight with Hawkins in front of Mr. Romero. I was in deep. And maybe a part of me wanted this.
Now I was riding toward Pecos Road with Riley behind me, her thighs straddling mine, sending electrical shocks all the way up my back, her arms wrapped around my waist and the wind slapping against my face like a warning. If it was a warning, I didn’t heed it. I pulled back on the accelerator.
Halfway down a mostly deserted Pecos Road, I drove off into the soft gravel, if only to wait for my insane actions to catch up to my brain. The Rez stretched south as far as we could see, acres of brown ground sprinkled between farms. Staring across the desert, my heart raced. I let the bike idle and turned to Riley. Her big blue eyes blinked at me through the helmet and I swallowed, hard. Her hands fell to the tops of her thighs and the electricity in my body slowed, allowing me a steady breath.
“Why are we stopping?” she said.
I cleared my throat. “We don’t know where we’re going.”
“I know!” Her grin stretched wider.
My head tilted.
“Anywhere but here,” she said.
“Anywhere’s a big place.”
“How about California?”
“California?” My eyes widened. I was hardly expecting that. “That’s a six-hour ride.”
“So drive faster.”
When she smiled at me like that it was practically impossible to say no. I turned away, just for a moment, to get a grip on what I should say next. “Why California?” I said finally. It was a totally crazy stupid idea, and yet I liked the sound of it.
“I want to see the ocean,” she said. “Haven’t seen water in forever. And we’ve got the whole day in front of us.”
The ocean? I inhaled, as if I could already smell the moist air. It’d definitely be a great ride. “Are you sure you can handle sitting all day on this bike?”
She smiled, patting the sides of her seat. “Positive.”
“What about your parents? Shouldn’t you call them?” It was the only sensible thing I’d said in hours. Days, even.
“They took away my cell.” Her hands lifted in surrender. “Besides, we’ll be back tonight. Right?”
“That would be the plan. But it’ll be a long day,” I warned.
“That works for me.”
“Are you sure you’ll make it?”
“Totally.”
I pulled back the throttle, considering the idea a second longer. Then I said, “When we get there, we’ve really got to talk.”
She sat straighter. “About what?”
“Stuff,” I said, sighing. “Stuff you’re not gonna like.”
“I know. I figured this was coming. But could you save it till we get there?” She cringed. “I don’t want anything to ruin this ride.”
I considered this plea. “Okay. Later, then.”
Then I pressed down on the pedal and the bike growled louder. It even reared back, like a horse anxious to gallop, and Riley wrapped her arms around me again, resetting that electrical current in my veins.
We rode down Pecos Road until we reached the freeway. Then we drove south until we hit I-8 before we turned west, deep into the desert and straight for the ocean, although it’d be hours before we’d see anything but cactus and tumbleweeds. Whether Riley and I were racing away from our problems or toward more, I wasn’t certain, but at least we’d see blue-green water stretching to infinity once we got there. That alone was worth it.
Life would have to wait.
41
Riley
The sun beat down upon our backs but I was content to watch the world fly by with my chin resting in the slope of Sam’s shoulder.
An hour into the ride, Sam leaned back into my arms rather than riding as if someone had duct-taped a ruler to his back. I enjoyed the feel of his back pressed against my chest and my arms wrapped around him. We melted into each other so perfectly. I could ride forever with Sam, just like this. I liked the comfortable familiarity that had grown between us. It was as though we could read each other’s minds. I knew he was angry with me (what else was new?) but at least this ride gave me a reprieve. An afternoon at the beach had to soften him.
The wind roared against our ears, preventing conversation but, one time, when we passed a stretch of cotton fields around Wellton, I pinched his stomach just because I was bored. That’s when I realized Sam’s stomach was rock-hard and there was barely any skin to pinch. He jumped up in his seat, startled, and glanced at me over his shoulder. In the next instant we laughed. “So Sam Tracy is ticklish,” I said, unsure if he could hear me through the plastic helmet and the wind. Sam just nodded and returned his attention to the long stretch of road in front of us, and I returned my chin to his shoulder. For some reason, you never think that big guys like Sam, who rarely cracked a smile, would be ticklish. It seemed like an innocent, little-kid thing. And I kind of liked knowing this tidbit about him. I wondered if anyone else knew. I wondered if Fred had ever gotten this close to him.
When we reached Yuma, I couldn’t feel my legs, never mind my butt. Everything below my belly button was tingling numbness, like the feeling you get when you cross your legs for too long.
Sam pulled into a gas station. The little arrow on the gauge was past E. Once he parked alongside a gas pump, he had to help me step off the bike, because my legs had forgotten how to bend at the knees.
“Still doing okay?” he said, holding my shoulders until it was clear I wouldn’t topple forward.
“Never been better.” I shook my legs one at a time.
“Good,” he said, placing his hands on his hips, still looking down at me. “Hungry?”
“Starved.” I glanced across the street at a McDonald’s as I unhooked the helmet strap beneath my chin.
“Mickey D’s. Here we come,” Sam said, unlocking the pump.
I pulled a couple of bills out of my pocket for the gas.
Sam lifted his hand. “I got it.”
“Then I’ll get lunch.”
Sam smiled. “Deal. But I should warn you, I eat a lot.”
“Good. So do I. Wanna bet who can eat more?”
“I’m done playing for a while,” Sam said, his smile turning serious.
“Okay,” I said, unfazed, “but you’re gonna lose.”
“I never lose.”
*
Between the two of us, we ate: three cheeseburgers, two large fries, an order of chicken nuggets (Sam), a vanilla shake (me) and a chocolate shake (Sam). And Sam ate all the pickles, too. It was just your regular, run-of-the-mill McDonald’s, but somehow it was the best food I’d ever tasted.
We finished driving through Yuma and then reached the state line where the freeway got busier and crazier. Somehow Sam knew where to go and for that I was glad because I sure didn’t, even though I’d been to San Diego with my parents lots of times during summer vacations.
When Sam turned off an exit, I sucked in another deep breath. The air got moister. It was like breathing through cotton. Now I could feel it, taste it.
Sam pointed straight ahead, anyway.
I squinted.
The ocean loomed in front of us,
twinkling below the sun. After so much brown desert, it was blinding.
In the distance, water sparkled a deep blue and stretched outward as far as we could see. White caps frothed along the surface like whipped cream. As we rode closer, the ocean peeked at us between buildings and trees, teasing us even more. I squeezed Sam tighter, and he pressed his palm over my hand.
We’d made it! On a Friday when we should have been in school, probably bored to tears in chemistry class or waiting in a cafeteria line for a tasteless sandwich, we were actually at the beach! How cool was that? I smiled at the sky. The sun was no longer directly overhead and I wondered how much more daylight we’d have.
Sam turned into a parking lot that overlooked the first beach we could find. Besides a couple of vans and cars, the beach parking lot was mostly vacant. The three lifeguard posts that lined the beach were empty. A surfer bobbed in the distance, but no one was swimming. It was as if we had the entire Pacific Ocean to ourselves.
My body felt lighter with each discovery. I knew that riding on the back of a motorcycle to San Diego was all sorts of wrong, but I couldn’t deny that everything felt better than all right. Everything felt possible. Perfect.
Sam parked the bike in the spot closest to the beach entrance. We hadn’t brought bathing suits or blankets. The water had to be freezing, even for May. Yet there was no way I was getting this close to the water without dunking my feet. I wanted my toes to squeeze in wet sand, and maybe I’d even make a sand castle. As soon as Sam parked the bike, I ran toward the beach and kicked off my shoes. In the next beat, I stripped off my socks.
“What are you doing?” Sam said.
“What’s it look like?” My feet sank into the sand. “Aaahhh,” I sighed, reveling in the warm goodness.
His lips twisted as he glanced at the parking lot.
“Oh, come on, Sam. Live a little.”
Then he bent over and untied his laces. His shoes were the big, brown clunky kind that you see on construction workers.
We headed toward the water with our shoes dangling from our fingertips, sinking deeper and deeper into the warm sand with each step.