I zipped up and righted myself before climbing next to him, feeling a little woozy. What had just happened? When I was with Saxon, I felt like it was always a challenge, a clawing, drag-out fight. Even my orgasm felt a little like something he’d won somehow.
He seemed completely happy about the whole thing. He even whistled. It wasn’t until he looked over at me that his face fell.
“Bren, you’re killing me. Didn’t you come?” He was clearly irritated.
“I did.” I wanted to put the emphasis on the ‘I,’ but that seemed kind of ridiculous.
“What’s your deal, then?” he asked. “That was nice of me. I did it for you.”
I took a deep breath, but I can’t say if I chickened out or not. How was I supposed to answer that?
“It was nice. That I came,” I said haltingly.
“I guess it’s just weird to have all three of us here?” he asked nastily. He had screeched into the parking lot.
“Jake?” I took a deep breath, but my head spun more. “Fat chance. He’s with someone else.”
“I can guarantee you, he doesn’t want to be,” Saxon growled. He banged his fists on the steering wheel.
“How can you be so sure?” I was excited that he’d even given me that glimmer of hope. I had my theories, but I wanted to hear what Saxon had to say.
“Because I saw his fucking love-struck face, Brenna,” Saxon said. “I saw the two of you. Why am I even bothering? Seriously, get the hell out of my car.” He elbowed his door open, got out, and slammed it so hard the whole car shook.
I pushed my door open and followed him into the school. “I’m not apologizing about how I feel,” I said to his retreating back. “And I’m not pretending, either. Not with you. Not for one second. That’s the only good thing about whatever we’re doing, and it’s great!” My words rang out and bounced around in the cold air.
“What’s that?” He turned to look at me closely. His black eyes bored into me.
“I feel no pressure to lie with you. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this honest before. Or this much of a bitch,” I added. I closed the space between us and looked right into his bright, black eyes. “You’ve given me the freedom to just do what I want without caring.”
“Great.” Saxon shut his eyes, and I watched his dark lashes tangle together at the corners. He shook his head. “I’ve unleashed a hot sociopathic bitch.”
“You have.” I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him gently. “Thanks for that.”
Then I left Saxon and hit the track, running hard. Too hard. I was worn out less than halfway through practice. I had to dredge into my reserves and push harder. When it was all over, I was so exhausted I slept on the ride home. Saxon didn’t talk to me. He played his Celtic music loud, but it didn’t wake me up.
“Invite me in,” he said when we were in my driveway and he’d shaken me awake.
Mom would be home soon. I tossed him a quick smile. “No thanks. I got my orgasm.”
“I’m good for multiples,” he promised, his fingertips creeping up my thigh.
“Pop the trunk,” I returned, twisting his hand away.
Surprisingly, he did.
“Should I pick you up tomorrow?”
I wanted to say ‘no,’ but I was taken a little aback by how nicely he had asked. “Okay. Meet me at the end of the road?”
He shook his head. “Not quite a full-fledged rebel yet.”
“Nope.” I kissed him quickly. “Bye.”
I know he wanted to say more, or do more, but I wasn’t interested. Saxon was helping me unlock a part of myself that I had never known lurked evilly beneath the surface. I had a hard time caring about anyone but myself, and I had no patience for anything that irritated me in any way.
Breaking up with Jake had set an entire chain of events in motion. I was changing. I could feel myself stretching out and breaking through, and the new me was coming out with a harder shell, twice as fierce as the old me.
My mind felt lost and my head pounded. I felt hot and uncomfortably achy. I was falling apart, and I didn’t know what to do to stop it.
I went inside my dark, cool house, flipped the heat on and headed to the bathroom, where I took a long shower, the hot water pouring over me in relaxing streams. I was falling asleep under the warm rush, so I got out and toweled off. I pulled on my pajamas and climbed into my bed. I hadn’t eaten dinner, seen my mother or done my homework, but my body was so tired, I just fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Friday came, the last thing I wanted to do was go out anywhere, but Saxon had been persistently nice and Jake had been doing every single thing he could to throw his relationship with Nikki in my face. There was such buzzing nastiness between the two of us, it was starting to erase even the best memories, the ones I kept nestled close to my heart and only took out to sob over late at night.
But every once in a while, I’d catch Jake’s eyes on me, just for one fleeting instant, and something so strong and amazing it was electric would shock between us and melt all the anger for a little while. Once Jake broke his pencil in half while we stared at each other, not saying a word, not sure what we were feeling. As if she could sense it, Nikki attached herself to him like a burr and didn’t let go for the rest of the afternoon.
“C’mon, Blix.” Saxon wove his arm under my backpack and around my waist in the hall. “Zombies and sushi. They make sense together somehow, right?”
“Alright.” I tried not to sigh, because I’d done enough to upset him this week, even if I hadn’t meant it. Saxon had a worse reputation than he deserved, and it made me feel like a lowdown creep to put any blame on his shoulders. What Devon and Kelsie said may have been somewhat right, but it was a skewed picture. No one knew Saxon the way I did. No one knew how good and kind he could be like I did.
“It’s zombies. And sushi.” He squeezed me harder than was friendly. “The face your making kind of communicates root canal.”
I hip-checked him gently. “I’ve never even had a cavity, so there’s no way my face is saying root canal.”
“You’re a freak of nature.” He leaned in and kissed my neck, and it felt good and foreign at the same time.
“Hey guys,” Kelsie said, her voice falsely bright. She cleared her throat and tucked a piece of her dark, shiny bob behind her ear. “So, Folly is having a show. Kind of unexpected. They got space at The Grange, so they’re playing tonight, and we’re trying to get the word out.” She tugged a flyer out of her pin-covered leather satchel. “Think you can make it?” She studied the grimy dirt whirls on the linoleum while Saxon scanned the flyer.
“If we do raw fish, but nix brain-eating mutants, we’ll make it. Sound like a plan?” He ruffled my hair as I studied the neon green flyer. “I know the idea of any monster that eats brains hurts the brainiac deep inside you, so don’t act like this isn’t an awesome favor on my part.”
I managed a quaky smile and nodded my agreement, he kissed my forehead, saluted Kelsie, and headed back down the hall, whistling. It was the whistle that tore at my heart.
Kelsie gave me a long look, licked her lips, twisted her silver rings on her fingers, and finally asked, “Okay, what’s up? What is it, Bren? Don’t you dare even utter the word ‘nothing,’ because I’m not an idiot. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. You’re even paler than normal, which I didn’t even think was humanly possible. Spill.”
I opened my mouth and shook my head. Nothing came out. She tugged on my wrist and pulled me through the doorway into the cluttered chaos of the craft room. She set my mangled project in front of me, and it all started to feel like a pattern; I would pour my heart out to Kelsie while I bungled through another art mess, and she would listen, nodding at all the right times, clicking her tongue with concern, and producing some artistic masterpiece while she did.
“I feel so completely confused.” I jabbed my finger on the bent corner of my new copper plate and winced. “I know that it’s
all my fault, this whole thing with Jake and Saxon, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. The thing is, I’m really happy to be able to have Saxon around. He’s important to me. But I don’t think I can be his girlfriend. Something feels off, and I don’t know why. Because he’s not a jerk. I know you and Devon think he’s awful, but I swear he’s been really nice to me. So why aren’t I happy to just stay with him? Isn’t that what I wanted? Isn’t that why I kissed him in Paris and broke up with Jake?”
Kelsie wove her thread with quick, nimble fingers. “Are you asking me? Because I don’t have the answer to that one, Bren. All I know is that you’re smart. If you broke it off with Jake you must have had a reason. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Right?”
I groaned and bent the wire tool I was using to make designs in the copper. My head felt soupy, foggy, totally unfocused. “I don’t deserve Jake. He’s with this girl Nikki now, and I think he’s, like, been with her.” I hadn’t told Kelsie about the condom wrapper picture or the many, many sessions of tonsil hockey I witnessed. Her eyes went so wide, it looked like her eyeballs might pop out and roll across the floor. I took a deep breath and was comforted by the mingling smells of chalk, paint, and clay. “Maybe what they have is real. I mean, he’s still with her. It’s never been like that before with him. I mean, other than with me. It was always one night stands. But they’re all over each other.”
Kelsie picked at an errant string in her project and pursed her lips. “What does Saxon have to say about the whole thing?”
I could feel my ears burn like they were on fire. “Saxon says that Jake still loves me and always will. He says he can tell I’m still thinking about him, even when we’re together.”
I focused on Kelsie’s hands, palms down on the crafts table, and it took me a minute to look up into her face. “Saxon said that?”
“Yes.” I felt humiliated and stupid and like every single decision I’d made in the last few weeks was so wrong, I should have been walking around like a social pariah. What had I done?
The soft slide of Kelsie’s fingers covered my knuckles as she pulled my hand into hers. “I’m sorry it’s all so fucked up right now, Bren. But I think you just need to be really honest with yourself and stop beating yourself up. You’re allowed to screw up. You’re allowed to make big, colossal mistakes. Trust me, Jake and Saxon kind of have to understand that, right? Aren’t they, like, the kings of screwing up? Big time?”
She was right. And she was so wrong. I didn’t want to make big, colossal mistakes, and I didn’t really feel like I should be allowed to. Because while I was thinking about what I wanted and what I needed, I was leaving disaster in my wake. Jake and Saxon, two people I cared about more than almost anyone else, were getting hurt, and it was stupid, heartless, immature, and spineless of me. Every move I made, every path I chose seemed to cause more chaos, and I couldn’t wrack my brain and figure out what would make it all better, once and for all. I had never encountered a problem I couldn’t find the solution to before. And I’d never imagined I’d be the cause of so much hurt. It sucked, and I wanted to fix it. Scratch that; I needed to fix it.
That point got driven home when I saw Saxon, an easy, happy smile stretched on his face as he fell into step by my side, ready to walk me to gym. Running didn’t help me figure anything out either, no matter how hard or how mercilessly I pushed myself. My lungs sucked air in and gasped it out like a bellows, and I finally doubled over on the track, then staggered to a tuft of grass where I threw up.
Coach Dunn jogged over and thumped me on the back. Saxon came flying down from the soccer field and ignored his coach’s yells and Coach Dunn’s reassurance that she had it all under control.
“Overdo it, Blixen?” she barked.
I spit and grimaced at the sour taste in my mouth. Saxon yanked a container of orange TicTacs out of his pocket and shook a few into his hand. He held them up to my lips, and I ate them awkwardly, trying not to lick his smoky-smelling palm.
“Thanks,” I groaned.
“Maclean, it’s all good here,” Coach Dunn said roughly. When she looked at his face, her voice softened. “She’ll be fine.”
“Should I walk her to the nurse?” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked so worried, it shot through my heart like a shard of glass.
“No!” I shook my head. “I just overdid it. I think I was a little dehydrated. Maybe I’ll just sit on the bench for a few?”
Coach Dunn nodded, and Saxon narrowed his eyes at me, then pointed two fingers at his eyes and flipped them in my direction. “I’ll be watching. You get back on that track, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the nurse no matter what anyone says.” He gave Coach Dunn a grudging nod and jogged back to his waiting team.
Coach Dunn put a hand on my shoulder.
“Maybe if I feel better, I’ll just do a couple of slow laps?” I looked up into her tanned face, desperate for her to tell me I didn’t have to sit on this bench with only my guilt-heavy thoughts to keep me company.
She shook her head. “That’s just junk miles, Blixen. A waste of your time and your energy. You’ll ruin your pace, you’ll wear down your strength. If you’re going to run, run with purpose, at full health.”
“Junk miles?” I mulled the word over as I watched Coach pace back to the track and listened to the swish of her track suit. That’s exactly what I felt like I was doing, and not just on the track. I was just logging in slow, useless miles, not sure where I was going or why I was even running.
I watched Saxon tear across the field, his feet so quick and sure, and my stomach heaved again. What was I doing? He was a good person. And I was using him. My clammy hands shook, and I wished as hard as I could for the irritating shriek of the bell that would end this period. I wished for the end of this miserable day. I wished for a solution, a trip back in time, a way to make the right decision without ruining everything for everyone I cared about.
I stared at the food during lunch. No matter what I looked at in the cafeteria, it made my stomach churn like a washing machine. Saxon kept adding things to my tray with determination, but I lifted them back off and shook my head.
“You look like you’re about to pass out. Let me take you to the nurse.” He slid his hand under my hair and around the back of my neck, and his fingers kneaded the space between my neck and shoulder.
“I have a big project due in graphic design, and I can’t get the shadowing right on this new program. I have to go in.” I swallowed hard and picked up a banana and a carton of milk.
Saxon chewed on the side of his lip. “You doin’ this project with Jake?” He worked way too hard at keeping the words even.
I paid for my lunch and kept a good yard in front of him. “No, not with Jake. Not that it should make a difference to you.” I collapsed into the orange plastic chair and attempted to choke down some food. The milk was watery and lukewarm, and the urge to vomit took over again. The banana was soft and bruised, overly sweet and squishy. It was like the world was conspiring to keep me puking all day long.
“No difference to me?” He folded a spork in half and twisted its plastic neck violently. “What’s going on between you and me, exactly?”
I stood up and swayed like I was on a boat. “I gotta go.”
I hit a solid wall of Saxon. “Where?”
“Tech. I told you. I’ve got a project.” My empty stomach and crushing headache made my reflexes sluggish. I tried to duck and weave, but he was way quicker.
“You aren’t riding there.” It was an absolute command.
I had a foggy thought that Saxon should join the army. I had a second, clearer thought that he’d either become the youngest general ever or go completely AWOL.
I looked up into the swirled gold of his eyes and at the tight pinch of his mouth. I pressed one hand against his arm to turn him, and breathed easier when the current of air that wafted towards me didn’t smell so deliciously like Saxon. “I appreciate it. I do. But you don’t have any bu
siness telling me what I can and can’t do.”
“This isn’t a pissing contest, Blix. You look like shit. Seriously.” He glanced at the lunch monitors, busy with a head-on double-tray goulash collision. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you.”
I would have said no just to avoid the question he’d asked and I’d dodged, but I did feel kind of shaky, and my pathetic lunch hadn’t made up for all I’d chucked in gym. We walked silently to the lot, avoiding the office and the two hall monitors busy grading papers. The silence deepened in the car until it felt like we were avalanched in it.
He didn’t even look up when we pulled in at Tech. It was like his steering wheel suddenly held all the secrets of the universe and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Pop the trunk?” As small as I tried to curl my voice, it was still deafening.
“I’m coming to pick you up. We’ve got a date, remember?” He felt around for his cigarette pack, then drummed his fingers hard on the dashboard.
I put my hand on his cheek. “Saxon?”
I couldn’t translate what I saw in his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll have to get ready, you know. Get dressed. Do my hair. We can’t just leave from school. And I want to double-check with my mom. I didn’t remind her about it, and I never mentioned Folly at all.”
He nodded, popped the trunk, and crooked his finger. I leaned into him and pressed his lips flat against mine, then pulled back. “I’m still gonna pick you up. Maybe we should just stay in tonight? Movies on the couch at your place? I’ll keep a foot of space between us at all times, scout’s honor. Or we could go back to my place, and I promise you’ll rest the whole time. Or at least you’ll be lying down the whole time.” He tried to deliver a crooked grin, but it just looked like a smile that had come unhinged.
“We’re going out. I’m dressing up. You can drive me home. I feel fine.” I ran my fingers through his thick hair and laid a quick kiss on the smooth patch of forehead I exposed.
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