Junk Miles

by Liz Reinhardt

  I ran faster and harder, like I could outrun what worried me. It just wore me out. My muscles burned and my head ached, but I pushed past the stars that whizzed in front of my eyes.

  By the time I finished, Coach Dunn was happy, I could barely breathe, and my stomach was churning. One more period, and I would be at Tech. One more period, and I would be sitting across from Jake for hours.

  Running until sweat drips down your face isn’t the best thing for makeup or hair. I spent a long time in the locker room repairing what damage I had done and possibly avoiding Saxon. When I came out, the hall was cleared. Saxon was waiting.

  “You look nice.” His voice was cold.

  “I ruined my makeup running,” I explained. We started walking to the cafeteria. It would be the first time in months I had eaten at Frankford. Jake had been picking me up so we could eat lunch together at Tech. I liked his sweet, happy friends. I liked his hand on my thigh under the table. It wasn’t going to be anymore.

  “Why are you all dolled up, Blix?” Saxon asked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.

  “I know the answer.” His mouth screwed into a tight little knot. “I just need to hear you say it. So I can come to grips with this bullshit.”

  I stopped and looked right at him. “I got dressed up because I knew this day would be super shitty. And I wanted to look nice for me.”

  He snorted. “Lying to yourself doesn’t change the truth, Bren.”

  “That is the truth!” I insisted. It was. Partially.

  “Your misery is contagious,” he griped.

  “Then get away from me,” I said, my teeth gritted.

  “I wish I could,” he snarled.

  We marched to the lunchroom, moodily selecting food and coming to the table where Saxon reigned like some hot young lord. He turned it on for the rest of his entourage big time, and their jovial kindness extended to me, since he and I were linked. I was in no mood, and after a growl or two, everyone gave me a wide berth.

  Finally the bell rang. I jumped up and started out, Saxon hot on my heels. “You don’t have to walk me,” I said hurriedly. “I’m going to be late if we talk. Where’s my bike?” I demanded.

  “Back of my car. I came out and moved it after first,” Saxon said. “Get in. I’ll drive you to Tech.”

  “No!” I panicked. I had this hope, this crazy hope that I was clinging to hard and fast. I hoped Jake would be waiting for me outside the squat little building, just like he had in that weird in-between time after we started flirting but before we’d been a couple. I wanted that possible moment all to myself.

  “Get in.” His eyes were sharp.

  “No!” I yelled, my panic made worse because I knew, I knew Jake wouldn’t be there, waiting. What had I done? “Leave me alone!”

  “No.” He grabbed my arms and then pulled me to him. “No way. I have to do this. Get in.”

  So I got in, only because he was so determined that I didn’t know if I could sway him after all. And, in the end, I just needed to get there and get this over with.

  We pulled up at VoTech, I searched the parking lot with a wild twitch of my eyes, and my stomach actually clenched hard. I could feel the cold slosh of whatever I had shoved in my mouth for lunch.

  Jake wasn’t there.

  He wasn’t there.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I started to climb out of the car, but Saxon grabbed my wrist. I twisted away from him, but he pulled harder and kissed me. For a second, I settled into the kiss and relaxed enough to breathe. Then Saxon ripped his mouth away, and said, “Get out. I’ll be here to pick you up. We both have practice after school.”

  I was going to tell him no, but was too impatient to fight again. I ran into the school, down the dark, low hall and into class.

  I had been wishing things would be just the way they had always been. I was a little scared that Jake had switched tables or even classes, and I thought about how that would have broken my heart. But my heart felt pretty thoroughly smashed looking at him, sitting exactly where he always sat, refusing to look up when I banged into the room. Every other person looked, even our jolly teacher.

  I walked to our table, nervously, took out a sheet of paper and got sketching. I was glad to have something to do. Jake sketched too. Silently.

  He was there, sitting right across from me, but he wasn’t there. Same shiny brown hair, overlong and sexily tousled. Same long lashes, same adorably crooked mouth, same faded t-shirt and jeans, same tanned, muscled arms. My body ached for him.

  I sketched, but couldn’t keep my mind from remembering the way he tasted, how his body had cradled mine so many times, the sound of his voice at night on the phone, the way he drove and smiled and moaned. I wanted to apologize, wanted to ask him about our kiss and what it meant to him, but nothing came out.

  He never looked up. Not once. When the bell rang, he was out of his seat and out the door before I could even put my things away. My eyes filled with tears, but I blinked and swallowed hard.

  I had done this to myself. I totally deserved this.

  I was walking to my next class when I saw him, a little more like the old Jake. He was laughing softly. He looked relaxed. I wanted to approach him. That’s when I saw that there was a reason he was so happy.

  She had long bleach-blonde hair and green eyes. She was pretty, in an obvious-pretty way, I thought meanly. She was wearing one of those tiny babydoll shirts that crimps up under your armpits and leaves a sliver of belly an inch wide hanging out. It was pink and said ’Gucci Princess’ in silver letters. Didn’t he realize how ironic it was that she, a lower-middle class farm girl, would be wearing a shirt proclaiming herself the autocratic ruler of a brand she’d never be able to afford to wear on a regular basis except in the form of tshirts that were basically cheap billboards? My heart pounded, and I couldn’t catch my breath.

  She was tan, really tan, and when she reached up into her locker, I saw that her belly button was pierced and had some dangly silver thing, like a fishing lure, hanging off of it. Ugh.

  That was who he wanted to date? I wanted to look away, but it was like a car wreck. My eyes were glued. Then he looked over her head, right at me. His look was so completely pissed off it made my heart thump. He looked back down at her and smiled that delicious smile that I knew so well. Then he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard and long. When he pulled away, she squealed and giggled, and Jake looked at me again, his eyes triumphant.

  And there, in the crush of the hallway, I held up my middle finger like a middle school kid, and marched to my class.

  The girl next to me gave me a sympathetic look when I sat down.

  “I’m sorry you and Jake broke up,” she said, not sounding very sorry.

  I wasn’t even sure of her name. “Thanks,” I said, my manners too automatic. I wanted to give her the finger, too.

  “But, you know, Nikki has had a thing for him for like, forever. So, maybe it was like, fate,” she said sweetly/meanly.

  “Hey, Kara?”

  “Um, actually it’s Krista.” The girl backed down a little, I assumed because of the fury radiating from my face.

  “Fuck you. Okay?” I glared at her an extra few seconds, then got to work.

  Again, no one talked to me. I worked all period, not stopping for a second, trying to erase the image of Jake kissing Nicole, or whatever her name was, from my memory. He attracted such a type. I mean, what was he going to talk to her about? Where were they going to go on dates? I didn’t think about those questions too much. Jake had a certain reputation for a reason, and I could bet he’d start living up to it again really quickly.

  By the time I left class, I was so pissed I could barely see straight. Jake caught my eye in the hall and winked, a mean, snide little gesture that made me hate him all over again.

  Maybe I had orchestrated this entire disaster. Maybe this was all completely my fault. But I hadn’t rubbed it in his face.

  Yet.

  I sure coul
d start. I went into our project period class. Jake came in after a minute and sat next to me. He could have changed seats. It might have been a little weird, but he could have done it, and he didn’t. Even at the peak of my hate, I still loved to be near him. And I loved the way he smelled.

  I took all that love I had in me, all the love for the way his cologne clung to his skin, for how his long fingers held his pencil too tight, for how he frowned when he worked hard on a project, and held it tight for a minute, then dropped it hard and tried to let it go. Despite my best efforts to distance myself from him, I was happy to smell that it was the cologne I had picked up for him.

  Desperate to stop thinking about his smile and his cologne and how I messed it all up, I turned to the hulking lug who sat at the table near us. I batted my lashes at him. I had his almost immediate attention. Jake glared.

  “Hey, Matt? Do you have an eraser I can borrow?” I asked, and giggled. That’s right; I giggled like a mad woman.

  “Sure. Yeah.” He fumbled in his bag for an eraser.

  Then I winked! I winked right at him, and Jake looked like he was having a hard time keeping that smug smile on his lips. “Thanks, Matt. I owe you one!” I gushed, then went busily to work erasing things that didn’t need erasing because I had just asked to borrow an eraser, and now Jake was watching me.

  “I had an eraser. If you needed one,” Jake said coldly, not lifting his eyes to look at me.

  It was the first thing he had said to me since he’d ordered me to leave Zinga’s.

  “I did need one. And Matt was happy to lend it to me,” I said very slowly. “Thanks anyway, Jake.”

  Jake scowled, then glanced at me from under his bunched brows. I wanted to smile meanly, but I didn’t.

  “I like your shirt,” he muttered finally. Finally!

  I felt a secret thrill of happiness that we were talking again. “It’s something I designed when I was five.” The one I wore today was the scene where the little girl in the fairy tale asked some sparrows for help defeating the witch. I loved her wooden clogs and the kerchief on her head. I had colored over them with pink marker when I was young, so it looked like she had a pink halo and glowing shoes. I kept the original babyish letters and scribbles, but also added typed ‘interpretations.’ I translated this one as saying, “Even though she’s a little girl, she’s brave and kind. She knows that the sparrows are smart and will help her. She knows who to trust.” I wondered what I had originally intended for it to say, but that’s what I saw when I looked at the illustration in the present.

  “Really?” Jake asked, his voice finally soft and low and sweet.

  “Yeah. The typing is mine from now, but the picture is something I worked over and colored on when I was just a little girl.”

  He laughed and shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

  “What?” I smiled a little to encourage him.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head again, looking like he wanted to say something, but knew enough not to say it. That made me extra curious.

  “What did you laugh about?” I refused to let the conversation drop.

  He looked up at me, his eyes sharp. “You would have done something that amazing when you were five years old.” He shrugged. “Just typical Brenna,” he added sourly.

  And everything nice he had implied was blown away with that last sentence and the sour clang of his words.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, my voice low enough to keep the teacher from coming over to investigate.

  “That everything comes easy to you,” he accused, his gray eyes hot and angry.

  “That’s a load of crap. I work my ass off for what I have.” My fury was so fierce I felt a rush of pure hate.

  Jake shrugged his handsome, muscled shoulders.

  I don’t think anything on earth could have made me more pissed off.

  “What? You think I’m just lucky? Or you think I’m spoiled?”

  He looked at me and shrugged again, and my blood boiled. “Maybe a little bit of both.”

  The teacher gave a general command to everyone to get back on task, and I did, but I was so mad I could feel myself shake. Is this what Jake always thought of me? Did he ever respect what I did, or did he just see me as some spoiled girl with a silver spoon in her mouth? Had he said it to make me angry? Why had it worked so well? How much truth was there to his words?

  Jake didn’t look up at me, though I couldn’t believe it was possible that my furious glares didn’t scorch his skin. I had never felt this kind of plain, drag-out hate. I hated Jake. For what he had said. For what he tried to make me feel. For what he wouldn’t say.

  When the bell finally rang, Jake kicked his chair back and strode out of the classroom. Nikki was waiting to play tonsil hockey with him right outside the doorway. I pushed past hard enough to jostle them both.

  “Watch it!” Nikki cried. “Bitch!

  Jake and I locked eyes for a long moment, then I turned and rushed out, into the cold parking lot.

  I burst out of the doors, and too late remembered that my bike was in Saxon’s trunk.

  “Brenna!” Jake called. He had run out, no coat on, no sign of Nikki.

  “What?” I bit out. “I’m not apologizing for bumping into you. You two should get a room. Or a truck,” I said snidely. But it hurt, to remember that the truck had been the place we had held each other such an incredibly short time ago.

  “I just wanted…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to leave it. Like this.”

  “Like what? Like two people who aren’t dating anymore?” I asked. “Because that’s why you’re wrapped around Nikki. Or whatever girl it is now.”

  He stared at me and his mouth hung open. “What?” he yelled. “Are you serious? You dumped me, Bren. Or did you forget? You called me from across a fucking ocean to tell me that you were busy throwing yourself at the worst guy you could find.” He pulled his cap off and ran a hand through his hair. “How the hell did you think I’d feel about that?”

  “I had reasons,” I said, desperate to explain.

  “To break my fucking heart?” he asked, his voice cracking a little.

  I wanted to run into his arms. I wanted to take the last week back and erase it.

  “I wanted to come and talk to you about it,” I said quietly. “Yesterday. I’ve been thinking a lot, and I think I know why I did it. And I’m sorry I hurt you, but I feel like I had to do it. So, if you want me to explain, maybe we could sometime, when you’re not busy with what’s her face.” My mom hated that expression; what’s her face. It sounded petty and mean, and that’s exactly how I felt about her.

  “Bren, I don’t know,” Jake said, the pain raw on his face. “Maybe we can…”

  And he stopped. I heard the roar of the engine that stopped him. His face lost its vulnerable pained look and hardened.

  “Forget it.” He shook his head with disgust. “Your ride’s here, Bren.” Jake stalked back to the school, throwing the door open with a wild bang as he went back in.

  It was completely unfair to hate Saxon as much as I hated him at that moment, but I hated him anyway.

  I got in and slammed the door hard.

  “Great. I can see you’re still in a good mood.” He peeled out.

  “You wanted to do this, be with me. Did you think I was always nice?” I asked, my mind reeling. Jake said I had broken his heart.

  “No, Bren, but I didn’t think all of your evil would be directed my way,” he griped.

  “Are you saying there’s someone more deserving of my evil?” I popped one eyebrow up at him.

  He grinned. “Nope. I would like to argue that your rage would make more sense if you let me be a little worse and earn it.” He reached across the seat and put his hand on my thigh, then inched up. Under normal circumstances, I would have swatted his hand away, but I just settled back and looked at him expectantly.

  Saxon pulled over immediately and took off his seatbelt. “Get in the backseat and giv
e me fifteen minutes. You won’t regret it.” He was wickedly good looking, his eyes bright, an eager smile on his mouth.

  I thought about Jake and Nikki slobbering on each other in the hallway. I thought about the look of disgust he gave me when he saw Saxon’s car, how he had walked back, presumably to her, with intention that I didn‘t want to consider. The white hot rage roared through me again. I clicked my seatbelt off and climbed back.

  Saxon followed. The road wasn’t often used, but it wasn’t exactly deserted.

  “What’s your big plan?” I felt a shred of nervousness.

  “Just picking up where we left off.” His fingers flicked the button of my jeans and tugging down on the zipper. Just the sound made me feel a strange excitement, and I pressed my hips to him.

  He kissed me, frenetic little biting kisses that made me feel happily irritated. It was dizzying to be this close to Saxon. Before, I had been unable to turn my brain off, but now I was so pissed, I felt like I couldn’t think straight. Then I just stopped thinking. I let the fury crash over me, and it was nicely mind-numbing. I kissed him back, pulled his mouth to mine eagerly and pushed against him with my hips again. It felt bad, but I also wanted it. Like a guilty pleasure.

  His hands worked around my waist, his fingers pressing under the line of my underwear before he snaked down, up and in with a movement so quick it made me catch my breath. He moved fast, his hands unlike Jake’s. I didn’t want to think about Jake at that moment, but my mind wouldn’t let me stop the comparison. Saxon dipped in and out fast and moved immediately to the place that made me squirm. He kissed me hard and deep, matching his hand to his tongue somehow, and I felt the loopy slide just before the fall. It all happened so fast; suddenly I was crying out and shaking and then Saxon pulled away, grinned, and climbed back to the front seat.

  I lay in the back, panting, my pants still undone, my underwear strangely bunched.

  “Bren, stop slacking,” Saxon said, his smile wide with triumph. “We’re gonna miss practice. Put your pants on.”