Choosing You

by Allie Everhart

  I hurry down the hill to the track which is still damp from the rain we had earlier. Wet leaves are scattered on the surface and as I run I have to keep dodging them so I don’t slip and fall.

  The dark, gloomy sky reminds me that today is Halloween. Soon everyone will be drinking and partying even more than at last night’s Halloween Eve parties.

  Garret hasn’t said what he’s doing tonight. I wonder if he’ll go to another party. Saturday is usually our night to hang out, but it’s such a huge party night that I’m sure Blake will force him to go out, threatening to tell Garret’s dad about us if he doesn’t.

  The thought of Garret hanging out with Blake makes me run faster. I really hate that guy. I’ve dealt with assholes before, but something about Blake really bothers me. It’s one of those gut feelings that doesn’t make sense but nags at you, telling you something isn’t right.

  The biting wind eats through the fabric of my clothes. My muscles tighten up, signaling me to go inside. But it’s not time yet. I’m still so angry at Frank that even my run isn’t helping get rid of my rage. I counted on him. He’s all I have. In a few years, Ryan will move on and get married, maybe have some kids. He’ll forget all about me. Frank is the only person I’ll have left in my life. And now I can’t trust him.

  I focus on my breathing, trying to calm down. You can’t count on people, Jade. They’ll only let you down. She’s there again, talking in my head. And she was right. I can’t count on people. And the fact that she was right infuriates me.

  My mother’s world was dark and sad. I used to tell myself that her words were a reflection of that. That her words weren’t true. That the world was a better place. It had to be. I couldn’t live in the world my mother described. But now I’m realizing it’s exactly what she said. Dark. Lonely. Dangerous.

  “Jade.” I look up and see Garret on the side of the track, bundled up in a coat and scarf.

  I run over to him. “I can’t talk right now. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast, okay?”

  I’m mad at Garret, too. I’m not even sure why.

  I turn to take off again but he holds onto my arm. “Tomorrow? What are you talking about? I thought we were spending the day together.”

  “Let go of me.” I tug on my arm.

  “Did you talk to Frank?”

  “Yes. Now let go of me!” The bitter wind is drying my sweat, making me shiver.

  “So it didn’t go well. Is that why you’re out here freezing your ass off?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I need to run. We’ll talk later.”

  “You’re done running. You’re not even dressed right. It feels like winter out here. Come on.” He puts his hand firmly around mine and starts dragging me off the track.

  I yank my hand back. “Dammit, Garret! Would you just leave me the fuck alone? I’m sick of this!” I scream it at him as the wind howls around us. My cheeks are so frozen it’s hard to even form the words.

  “Sick of what?”

  “I’m sick of you trying to rescue me all the time! I’m sick of you interfering! I’m sick of you thinking you know what’s best for me!”

  His eyes search my face, trying to figure out what’s going on. I can see that I’ve hurt him and I feel horrible about it. There’s no reason for me to yell at him. So why am I doing it? Why am I screaming at the one person who is the only glimmer of light in my life? Why am I like this?

  “Just go! Leave me alone, Garret! I need to be alone!”

  It’s not at all what I need. And it’s definitely not what I want. And yet I ask for it. Beg for it!

  I stand there, waiting for him to scream back at me. Waiting for him to tell me I’m not worth it. Waiting for him to turn and walk away, vowing never again to involve himself with the crazy girl standing before him. But instead he takes his coat off and puts it around my shoulders, zipping it up in front. He takes his scarf and wraps it around my neck. Then he plants his arm firmly around my shoulder and starts walking back, pushing me forward. I go with him, confused but also incredibly relieved that he’s taken charge of the situation that I’ve lost all control over.

  On the walk back, he says nothing. I can’t tell if he’s angry or frustrated or just wants to drop me off in my room and never speak to me again. I’m convinced it’s the latter.

  When we’re back at my room, he waits for me to unlock the door, then follows me inside. I can’t figure out why he’s still here.

  He takes his coat and scarf off me, then starts going through my dresser drawers. He pulls out some clothes and shoves them into my hand. “You’re freezing. Go take a hot shower and get dressed. I’ll wait here.”

  I take the clothes and leave for the bathroom, unsure why I’m listening to him. The hot shower feels good so I linger a few extra minutes letting it thaw my muscles and warm my skin.

  When I’m done I get dressed and head back to my room, certain Garret will be gone. But he’s not. He’s sitting right there on my bed, waiting.

  “Feel better?” he asks.

  I slowly walk over and stand in front of him. “What’s going on here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you still here?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Am I supposed to be somewhere else? Because last I checked my day was pretty much open.”

  “But didn’t you hear me out there? Screaming at you?”

  He shrugs. “You didn’t mean it. You’re just pissed about something.”

  “I told you to leave me alone.”

  “You don’t want to be alone. You just say that.”

  “How do you know? Maybe I really do want to be alone.”

  He smiles and pulls me onto his leg to sit. “Why would you want to be alone? Alone sucks.”

  I can’t argue because it’s true. Alone does suck. But it’s all I know. When you lose faith in people, alone is your only option.

  “So do you want to talk about what happened now?” he asks. “Or later?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, then later it is.” He loosely holds my hand. “So here’s what I was thinking. I have to get at least an hour or two of swim practice in and I thought you could come with me. You don’t have to swim, but you could bring a book or music or whatever and just hang out. It’s nice and warm in there.”

  “I guess I could do that.”

  “And then after that is the Halloween party.”

  I look at him confused. “I’m not going to a Halloween party. That’s like a regular party on steroids. And after the vodka incident last night, I can’t be around all that alcohol right now.”

  “We’re not going anywhere. The party is upstairs. I’ve got my room all ready. We’re having a horror movie marathon.”

  “We are?” I find myself smiling like an idiot. “But you hate horror movies.”

  “I know. But what the hell? It’s Halloween, right?”

  “So what else is going on at this party?” I try to act cool but I can’t hide the excitement in my voice.

  “Well, I’ve loaded up on candy, of course, and your other favorite junk foods. I thought we’d order a pizza for some real food. That’s about it. It’s not that great but—”

  “Are you kidding? It’s totally great! I can’t believe you did all this.” I have to hug him. I can’t stop myself. I don’t know how it’s possible, but he’s somehow turned my anger and sadness into pure joy and happiness.

  “Wow. A hug. Thanks. I’m glad you’re excited about it.”

  “But I thought you were going out tonight like everyone else.”

  “It’s Saturday. That’s our night, remember?”

  “But it’s Halloween. It’s a major party night. Isn’t Blake gonna get mad?”

  “Blake’s already drunk off his ass. I talked to him earlier. He didn’t even know who he was talking to.”

  “So when does this party begin?” I say it with such enthusiasm it doesn’t even sound like me.

  He gets this huge smi
le on his face. “It starts as soon as I get some swimming in. I’ll go grab my stuff upstairs and then we’ll go.”

  My enthusiasm seems to be spreading to Garret. I know it makes him happy to see me this excited about something he did. And I like that. I like making him happy. It’s so much better than yelling at him.

  25

  Watching Garret in the pool, I can’t help but check out his body. It’s total perfection. Muscular arms, sculpted chest, six pack abs, broad swimmer shoulders. Every part of me wants to get in the pool with him and replay the scene we didn’t get to finish.

  I told myself I wouldn’t get involved emotionally or physically with a guy in college. But I’m already emotionally involved with Garret and am more than ready to be physically involved with him. We’re not even technically dating, so I know it’s too soon for that and it might ruin what we have going on between us, but that doesn’t make me want it any less.

  As I watch him swim laps, I wonder how many girls he’s been with. It’s got to be a lot. From the few physical encounters we’ve had together, he definitely knows what he’s doing. I, on the other hand, have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to that. Back in high school, I didn’t have a ton of experience with guys. That said, I have had sex. One time.

  It happened after homecoming last year. The guy went to a different school. I met him at a knowledge bowl tournament which I participated in only because I have a better than average ability to remember random trivia. Plus, I thought it would look good on a college application.

  A really cute guy from the opposing team asked me out. We went on a few dates, then he asked me to go to homecoming at his school. For the week leading up to it, I kept hearing my mom’s voice in my head, saying how girls always got pregnant at school dances. Because of that she told me I’d never be allowed to go. But since she was no longer around, I went. And for a reason that makes no logical sense at all, I decided to challenge her theory and have sex, proving to her and myself that I wouldn’t get pregnant. And I didn’t. I’ve been on the pill forever and he used a condom.

  It was over in a minute. Okay, maybe not a minute. I wasn’t timing it, but it was over really fast. After that, the guy never called me again. So much for remembering your first time. I try to forget it ever happened.

  “You bored yet?” Garret is hanging off the edge of the pool, smiling at me with those yummy wet lips that are begging to be kissed.

  “No, not at all.” I’ve been pretending to read a book but I’ve spent the entire time staring at his nearly naked body.

  “We can go soon. I just need to do a few more laps.”

  “That’s fine.” I glance up at the clock. We’ve been here for two hours? I didn’t realize it’d been that long.

  A few minutes later, he jumps out of the pool. “I’m done. I’ll go get dressed and be right back.”

  He’s in such a good mood. He’s almost always in a good mood. I don’t know how he does it. My mood changes from hour to hour and it’s usually not a good one. Except I’m finding that the more I’m around Garret, the more good moods I have.

  We get back to the dorms and Garret goes upstairs while I go to my room to drop off my book. It’s early afternoon and girls are already getting ready to go out. Harper has a new guy in her life and she’s been staying at his apartment all week. I’ve barely seen her.

  I head upstairs to Garret’s floor. Some guy at the end of the hall has the door to his room propped open. About 20 guys are stuffed inside, watching a football game on a giant TV. I can smell their beer from the hallway.

  One of the guys stumbles out, nearly falling on me as I walk by. “You know, you’re kinda hot,” he says, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “You wanna come back to my room and—”

  “Get off me.” I push his arm off, but he puts it right back.

  “Come on.” He pouts. “I promise I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

  Garret comes out of his door and sees drunk boy hanging on me. “Shane, get the hell away from her.” He comes over and shoves the guy’s arm off my shoulder.

  Drunk boy looks offended. “I was just being friendly. Shit, can’t a guy be friendly?”

  “Go be friendly to someone else.” Garret takes my hand. “Come on, Jade.”

  “Where did you find her?” Shane yells from behind us. “Does she go here? She’s got a nice ass on her.” He continues his drunken rambling as he stumbles down the hall.

  “Ignore him,” Garret says as we walk to his room. “He’s been drunk for hours. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  “Are you saying he was wrong about my ass?” I smile. “Because I took that as a compliment.”

  He smiles back. “You do have a nice ass, but I don’t want him looking at it. That’s my job.”

  “Oh, really? Because I don’t think you should be checking out your friend’s ass.”

  “Speak for yourself, there, Jade.” He flashes that cocky smile. He totally caught me checking him out at the pool.

  He stops in front of his door. “Okay, are you ready?”

  I nod and he opens the door. His whole room is decorated for Halloween. The blue lights along the ceiling have been replaced by bright orange lights. Cobwebs are draped along the walls, the windows, the dresser, his desk, and around the TV. Ghost and witch cutouts are taped to his closet door. And the infamous concession stand is filled with more candy than any trick or treater could ever want.

  “I told you it wasn’t that great, but it’s Halloweeny, right?”

  “Totally Halloweeny! I love it! This is way more than I was expecting.” I lie down on his bed and stare up at the bright orange lights. His drapes are closed but it’s such a gray, dreary day outside that even with the drapes open, it would still be dark in here.

  “I’m glad you like it.” He lies next to me, propped up on his side, resting his hand on my stomach as if it somehow belongs there. It immediately takes my focus off the ceiling lights. “Do you want to look through the movies I rented? I don’t know anything about horror movies so I got like 10 of them. You can pick what you want.”

  I turn to face him and his hand moves to my hip. “Garret, thanks for doing all this. The movies. The decorations. The food. The lights.” I can’t stop smiling as I glance around the room. “This is so great.”

  He leans in to kiss my cheek. “I love how excited you get over stuff like this.”

  “What can I say? You combined junk food and movies, my two favorite things.” I tug on his shirt, a black thermal henley that fits snugly over his chest. “You even wore Halloween colors.”

  He looks down. “Yeah, I guess I did. I wasn’t even thinking about that when I put it on.”

  That shirt looks really good on him. His hair looks good, too. Actually everything about him looks really good. I have this major urge to kiss him right now in a non-friend way and see where that leads. I need to take control and stop waiting for him to make a move. Just as I’m getting the courage to do it, he gets up from the bed. Damn!

  “Okay.” He picks up a stack of movies and brings them over to me. “We have zombies, ghosts, vampires, witches, or the classic psychotic killer who lives next door. What do like?”

  “Zombies.”

  He sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Don’t you think it’ll be boring? I mean, zombies don’t even talk, right?”

  “Then how about witches instead?”

  “We have all day and night to watch these, so if you want we can start with zombies.”

  The zombie movie is so dumb that we make fun of it for the whole 87 minutes, making up lines for the zombies to say. Next we watch the witch movie, followed by a vampire one. After that, we get our pizza and watch a ghost movie which turns out to be way scarier than I thought it would be.

  At 10, we’re still sitting there on his giant bean bag chair and I’ve completely stuffed myself with pizza and candy.

  Just as movie number five, the psychotic killer movie, begins, someone knocks on
the door.

  “Kensington, get your ass out here,” a guy yells.

  “Just ignore him,” Garret says.

  “We know you’re in there. Hurry up,” another guy yells.

  “Just talk to them,” I say. “Otherwise they’ll never go away.”

  Garret gets up and opens the door and the smell of strong cologne wafts into the room. He walks out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

  “What do you want?” I hear Garret say.

  “We’re leaving for the party. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going. I told you that earlier.”

  “What do you mean you’re not going? Do you know how many girls are gonna be at this party? I just talked to Aiden and he said the girls are all wearing costumes and they’re practically naked.”

  “I told you I’m not going.” Garret’s voice is more forceful.

  “Why? You got some girl in there? Well, finish up with her and let’s go.”

  “Don’t be an ass. Just get out of here.” I hear Garret’s hand on the doorknob.

  “Who’s in there? Ava?”

  “It’s none of your damn business,” Garret says loudly. “Just go.”

  “Whatever, man.” I hear them walking away. “You used to be fun, Garret. Now you’re just a fucking loser.”

  Garret comes back in the room and sits next to me again. “Sorry about that. They’ve been drinking so were even more obnoxious than usual.”

  I turn the volume down on the TV and scoot closer to him. “You know, those guys are right. You should be out at one of the gazillion parties going on right now. You’re missing out on all those girls in sexy nurse costumes, not to mention all the half-naked angels, witches, devils—”

  He puts his finger to my lips. “This is where I want to be, Jade. Right here.”

  I pull his hand away and look up at him, practically begging him to kiss me. He leans down and gives me a quick friend kiss, then looks up at the TV. “So what’s going on with this one?”

  “The psychotic killer met this girl on an Internet dating site.” I shudder. “It’s totally freaking me out. Look at that guy. Look at his eyes. I feel like he’s watching me.”