Just You

by Rebecca Phillips

  Robin reached for my hand and started counting along. Eight. Seven. A second later Jeremy joined in, followed by a few other people near us. Six. Five. Michael and I stayed silent, our eyes on the clock. Four. Three. Two. By now almost the entire party was counting down, a collective chorus of voices.

  One.

  A cheer went up. Drinks were raised, couples kissed, friends hugged and wished each other a Happy New Year. Beside us, Robin was in a lip lock with Jeremy, kicking off yet another hopeful romance. Right now, as a new year began, everything felt possible.

  And in the middle of all this bedlam, Michael kissed my forehead and then whispered in my ear, “I love you, too.”

  I was in too deep, for sure, but right then I didn’t care if I ever broke the surface.

  Chapter 14

  On the first day back to school after Christmas break, I taped a picture to the inside of my locker door. It showed Michael and me sitting together on the sectional couch, the party a blur behind us, Michael’s arm around me and our heads almost touching. Robin had taken it on New Year’s Eve. We were smiling, but a little out of focus as Robin had been pretty wrecked when she took it. But I treasured it, knowing I couldn’t leave it anywhere at home in case Mom found it. By keeping it in my locker I could look at it every day, several times a day. Michael had a copy too; I wondered if he kept it in his locker.

  “No wonder I barely saw you during the break,” Ashley said the first time she saw the picture. She had yet to meet Michael, but going by the way she examined that picture every time our locker was open, I knew she approved of him appearance-wise at least.

  However, she did not approve of me seeing him behind my mother’s back. If I was a goody-goody, then Ashley was Mother Theresa. I suppose it had to do with her strong morals, which I respected but rarely shared. In fact, sometimes I out-and-out clashed with them.

  “You’re going to get caught,” she said one Friday in mid-January as we sat in the noisy cafeteria with Erin and Brooke. We were discussing my scandalous secret affair over rubbery chicken fingers and undercooked fries.

  “Stop being so negative,” I said. “My mother trusts me, okay?”

  She shook her head disapprovingly. “She won’t once she catches you.”

  “Come on, Ash.” Erin poked Ashley’s arm with her plastic fork. “God, you’re so…holy.”

  “What, so I’m holy because I don’t think it’s a good idea to outright deceive your parents?”

  Erin sighed dreamily and laid her hands over her heart, batting her long, dark eyelashes for effect. She’d signed up for drama class this semester and jumped at any chance to be the slightest bit theatrical. “I think it’s romantic.”

  “Two star-crossed lovers,” Brooke said with the same dramatic flair. They both loved to tease me about Michael.

  “I think it’s stupid,” Ashley said. “One lie will turn into two lies, and then more lies to cover up those lies, until one day you realize your whole life is one big lie.”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “Exaggerate much?”

  Irritated, Ashley shoved her carton of milk, causing some drips to slosh out and land on her sleeve. “I’m just trying to help. I think lust is affecting her common sense.”

  “Who can blame her?” Brooke said, nudging Erin. They had both seen the picture in my locker.

  “Thanks, Ash.” I sniffed a chicken finger and then dropped it back onto my plate. “But I can handle this myself.”

  She pursed her lips like she’d eaten something sour. “Suit yourself. But I still think it’s going to end badly. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  She scowled at me. “And don’t ever ask me to cover for you, Taylor. Because I refuse to lie for you.”

  “Fine. I won’t ask.” I was getting sick of this conversation.

  “Ask me,” Erin said eagerly. “I don’t mind lying.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t have any need for alibis yet.”

  She frowned. Erin loved anything to do with intrigue and conspiracies.

  After lunch, we headed to our lockers. Brooke’s locker was at the other end of the school, but Erin tagged along with Ashley and me because she and I had English together next period. As I got my books together, Ashley continued to lecture me on the evils of deception.

  “Brea used to sneak out at night, through her window,” she said, stuffing her math book into her backpack.

  “Yeah?” I was intrigued. Maybe I could learn some pointers from Ashley’s sister. I knew sneaking out was far from the worst thing she’d ever done.

  “Yeah, and she eventually got caught. And grounded for, like, three months.”

  I started hunting for a working pen. “Maybe she got sloppy.”

  “You might get sloppy too.”

  I thought about all the things I’d been hiding from my mother since November. The picture. The swan charm Michael had given me for my birthday, which I kept on my necklace but was careful not to wear around the house. The nightly phone calls that I lied about, claiming they were from my friends. The fact that I had a new boyfriend at all.

  Okay, so I was deceiving her. Still, the way I saw it, what my mother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  “Lighten up, Ash,” Erin said, and then she leaned on the locker next to ours and gazed at the picture of Michael and me. “Does he have a twin brother?”

  I laughed. “No.”

  The three of us started down the hall together through the swelling crowd. Suddenly, Erin let out a loud yelp, scaring the hell out of Ashley and me. We all spun around in time to see Mitchell withdrawing his hand from her rear end. He was walking behind us with his friends, including Brian, and they all had big stupid grins on their immature faces.

  “How about you keep your sweaty paws off my ass,” Erin snapped, but a flickering of a smile softened her anger. She and Mitchell had recently broken up for the millionth time.

  “Where would you like me to put them then?” Mitch asked, leering.

  His sidekicks thought this was hilarious. Erin flicked her hair at him and Ashley rolled her eyes skyward. I turned forward again, but not before glancing at Brian. He wasn’t looking at me. Ashley had told me earlier that she thought Brian had heard about the picture in my locker. Like I gave a crap what Brian thought about who I dated. He and Kara were practically engaged by now, so he had no room to judge.

  “Will they ever grow up?” Erin said a few minutes later as we took our seats in English class. “Guys our age are so infantile. Grab my ass in the hall in front of dozens of people? Oh baby, that turns me on.”

  I snickered. “Are you getting back together with him or what?”

  “I guess so…that is, if your man really and truly doesn’t have a twin brother.”

  I patted her shoulder. “Sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.”

  I giggled as the image of Mitchell’s inappropriate ass grab and the funny way she’d screamed replayed in my head. Erin looked at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking, and then she started giggling too. By the time our teacher came in, we were hysterical. Mrs. Conner looked at us and shook her head tiredly, like she knew—as we all did—that it was going to be a long, long winter.

  ****

  After getting my learner’s license and completing driver’s ed, I was finally allowed to practice my driving skills. On weekends, when the roads were clear, Dad took me out in the Camry. Stella wasn’t road-ready yet, and I didn’t feel comfortable driving Lynn’s big minivan. But even the sedan proved to be too much for me to handle sometimes. I tended to take turns a little too fast, always leaving my father terrified and white-knuckled as the car swerved. He may have had a successful career as a teacher, but his skills seemed to be contained within a classroom setting only. Encase him in three thousand pounds of steel and glass, with me at the wheel, and suddenly he turned into a raving basket case. Eventually he came to recognize his limitations and let Lynn take over. She’d taught Leanne to drive, so
she knew the ropes. And she never accused me of trying to kill her.

  “She has a lead foot,” my father said one Saturday evening at dinner. My stepmom and I had just returned from a driving lesson, and I was pumped. After many failed attempts, I had finally gotten the hang of backing into a parking space, perfectly and symmetrically.

  “I do not,” I said, helping myself to some pot roast.

  Lynn smiled in my direction. “She’s really progressing, Steve. You should see her now.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, Dad. I haven’t run anyone down in weeks.”

  Jamie looked at me, wide-eyed. “You ran someone down?”

  “She’s kidding, J,” Leanne assured her brother, and then turned to her mom. “Remember when you were teaching me how to drive and I smashed into that Corvette?”

  Lynn laughed. “How could I forget that?”

  “Did you ever run over any people?” Emma asked Leanne, dead serious.

  “So far, no.”

  “I ran over a raccoon once,” Dad said.

  “Ewww!” Emma dropped her fork. “Did you just leave it on the road?”

  He winked at her. “No, I brought it home. That wasn’t chicken you ate last weekend.”

  When Emma rolled her eyes, she reminded me of myself.

  “Road kill stew,” Leanne said, and Dad sent her a surprised smile. Leanne engaging in any kind of banter, especially with my father, was a rare occurrence in this house. Whenever she would let down her guard like that, even a little, my father would get this quiet, pleased look on his face, as if he were treasuring the moment.

  “Well,” Lynn said as she got up to get dessert. “I think Taylor is going to be a wonderful driver. Better than some other Brogans I know.”

  She laid her hand on Dad’s cheek as she passed him. Dad reached out to swat her behind and she giggled, backing up to plant a kiss on his bald spot. I averted my eyes, like I always did when they got all touchy-feely in front of us. It didn’t bother me, exactly…I’d just never gotten used to seeing adults act that way, my father especially. Never, even in my most distant childhood memories, had I ever seen my parents show affection toward each other. They fought, a lot, and when they weren’t fighting, they were either acting coldly polite or not speaking at all. I thought this was normal until I started paying attention to how my friends’ parents interacted. My parents had always seemed happy enough to me, but I knew from the time I was six that they weren’t in love like Cliff and Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show reruns I sometimes watched after school.

  But Lynn and my father, they were constantly all over each other. Dad ogled her as if she were a twenty-year-old lingerie model instead of an average-looking woman in her forties. They were so disgustingly happy together, so much in love, that sometimes I could almost understand why he chose her. Almost.

  After dinner I loaded the dishwasher, listening to Lynn and Leanne’s college discussion as they wrapped the leftovers. Leanne was going to Kinsley in September and majoring in sociology. She wanted to be a social worker or a counselor for troubled teens. I thought this was interesting, as Lynn and Dad still considered her a “troubled teen”. Her attitude had improved a lot over the past few months, but she still had her moments of hostility during which she’d scream at her mom and storm out the door. But these outbursts were becoming fewer and farther between. And there was the noticeable thawing-out toward my father. Still, it surprised me that she didn’t want to go away to college. I thought when the time came, I’d probably want to go away and leave my boring little town and this congested city behind for something bigger and more exciting.

  That evening when Michael picked me up, college was still foremost on my mind.

  “So,” I said as we drove down the slushy streets to his house. We’d agreed to hang out with Michael’s sisters while his parents went to some sort of fundraising event. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To my house?” he said, confused.

  “I mean…” I shook my head, irritated with myself for thinking he could read my mind. “To college. Where do you think you’ll go?”

  He hesitated before answering. “I don’t know. There’s no point in deciding now. Acceptance letters don’t come out for another couple of months.”

  “Your dad wants you to go to Avery, right?” Avery was considered the best school in the east. About four times the size of Kinsley, it was harder to get into and also six hours away by car. His dad had been pushing it pretty hard.

  “Yep,” was all he said to that. College was like a taboo subject with him. Whenever I brought it up he either clammed up or tried to change the subject altogether. Like now, for instance. “Hey, how was driving practice today?”

  I let it drop for the time being. “Fine. I am an expert parker.”

  “Even parallel?”

  “Well, no. I haven’t gotten to that yet.”

  We pulled into his driveway. “I can teach you, if you want. Tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Spending an evening with the twins wasn’t exactly a hard job. They were good kids and Michael was great with them, kind and patient. Still, they liked to test him in the same way Emma liked to test me. Little sisters must have a manual they’re all required to follow.

  We ended up watching a movie downstairs in the family room. When it was over, both girls went up to bed and Michael and I stretched out on the couch in front of the TV, which now showed some gory action movie. Not that we were watching. Michael kissed along my collarbone, his hand searching out the clasp on my bra as I lay against him, torn between going with it and straining my ears for any movement upstairs.

  “You’d better go check,” I whispered, too distracted to surrender myself.

  He sprinted upstairs to make sure everything was sound and then returned to my side, assuring me that yes, his sisters were definitely asleep and no, his parents weren’t pulling into the driveway anytime soon. We picked up where we left off and this time, I let myself relax.

  During the past month, whenever the opportunity presented itself, Michael and I had been edging closer and closer to the inevitable. Still, we’d always stop before the point of no return, which usually happened around the time his hand ventured lower, past the waistband of my pants. I knew if we progressed past that point, everything else would predictably follow. And I wasn’t quite ready for everything else. At the very least, I had to make a trip to the doctor first.

  “I’m sorry,” I said about an hour later, after yet another cease and desist. My fingers, still clutching his wrist, trembled a little.

  “Why are you always apologizing?” He freed his hand and linked it with mine.

  “It’s just…it’s frustrating. I feel so stupid when I stop you like that.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he said, and then let out a breath. “It is hard to stop sometimes, but I can take it. Really. It’s not like I’m going to explode if we stop.”

  “I want to…I mean, I want you to…” My face burned, and I gave up trying to spit out the words. “It’s hard for me to stop too, but I’m…I don’t know. Scared, I guess.”

  “Of course,” he said, as if any other possibility had never occurred to him. “Like I told you before, I’m not going to pressure you into anything. And there are other ways to—.”

  “I’m a virgin,” I blurted out. I had never spoken those words aloud to him before. To his credit, he didn’t laugh. He just smiled slightly and kissed my forehead.

  “I kind of figured that out on my own already.”

  “And you’re not.” I stated this like I knew, though he’d never told me one way or the other. But it was so obvious to me that he wasn’t. He was hot. Girls liked him. And the fact that I had to continually force myself to stop him was a good indicator that he knew his way around certain areas.

  He looked at me, and through his eyes I could almost see his brain working, trying to forecast my reaction to what he was about to say. “No,” he confirmed. “I’
m not.”

  I turned away, toward the TV. A bald man in a white tuxedo was getting shot up by the Mafia. I watched as splotches of red soaked through the white, ruining the suit beyond repair. The shooter didn’t seem the least bit remorseful; he walked by the bald guy and sunk his boot into his stomach for good measure.

  Michael held my chin, turned me back toward him. “Does that bother you?”

  Of course it bothered me. It bothered me that he had done all this with someone else. It bothered me that he knew precisely what he was missing each time I slammed on the brakes. “Maybe a little,” I said.

  “It shouldn’t. It’s ancient history.”

  “Was it Christina?”

  He nodded and then glanced away. He never talked about his ex-girlfriend. The only reason I knew her name was because Robin had told me about her. She went to one of the high schools downtown, not Redwood Hills High, and she was—according to Robin—“gorgeous but mean”.

  “Just her?” I asked.

  “Just her.”

  I felt a certain sense of relief. There hadn’t been a harem before me, at least. “Were you in love with her?” I asked. Shots rang out on the screen, signaling another blood bath.

  “For a while,” Michael said. “But it wasn’t like this. Like you and me.”

  “How are we different?”

  He absently ran his fingers over my necklace as he thought about my question. “You’re real,” he said, and then shook his head. “I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

  “She wasn’t real?”

  “It’s hard to explain. The whole time I was with her, I could never see it lasting. She was so insecure, being with her exhausted me sometimes. And when it ended, it was almost a relief. I didn’t love her anymore.”

  This jibed with what Robin had told me a while ago about Christina supposedly being a “controlling bitch” who liked to keep Michael on a short leash. But I didn’t mention that to Michael. I just vowed to myself that I would never be anything like her, no matter how jealous or insecure I felt inside.