Proof

by Craze, Chelle C.

  “Goodnight,” I echoed into the night as I closed and locked my window, not clear which way he had gone.

  Fifteen

  Cal

  I was a fucking idiot to ever think I had any control over forgetting Jaci. Every time we were around one another, things seemed to get a little more complicated and leaving her was more difficult than the time before, which was the exact reason I knew we shouldn’t be around each other. I thought I needed her to be like me, a fuck up, but I realized that was a lie. I wanted her to be more than that, because out of the two of us, one of us deserved it. We’d both been planted into the dirt as kids, and statistically speaking, one of us would be a weed and the other a bloom. I wished the latter for her. I was okay with being the unwanted plant in someone’s yard.

  I’d been selfish every time I saw her since we reconnected and finally put my foot down by not climbing through her window, even though it was the only thing I wanted to do at that moment. In fear, if I did, we’d both fall into the category of the unwanted. There was no sense in pulling her down with me, so I did something selfless for once and walked away from her.

  Sixteen

  Jaci

  The next morning, I awoke with Cal on my mind. I replayed our conversation as I showered and thought of the brief connection we had while I ate cereal. Needless to say, he’d gotten under my skin again. This was the second time in our lives he was the person I thought of most, and it bothered me. I wasn’t one-hundred percent why, though. Actually, I knew why, but I didn’t want to admit it and never would out loud. If I had any lingering questions if he’d found our friendship memorable, he answered them by brushing me off. Honestly, I stayed by my window for a little too long, half-expecting him to return. Without question, I would have if the roles were reversed. He didn’t. Normally, I wasn’t this pathetic. Perhaps I could be jumping to conclusions, but my intuition was pretty spot-on as a general note.

  After running my thumb over the tongue of my left tennis shoe and securing my double knots, I walked outside, locking the door behind me as I always did. My keys fell from my grasp and clanked against the cement walk that led down our yard to the black asphalt of the road. It was when I bent to retrieve them that I saw him.

  A familiar maroon hoodie was on the back of someone leaning against our mailbox with their back to me. Excitement hushed all the doubt I’d wallowed in all morning, and I mentally kicked myself for being such a girl.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” I truthfully blurted out as I approached him and tried to hide how glad I was to see him.

  “It’s been a few days,” a voice gruffer than Cal’s answered as Dax’s blue eyes found my face as he pulled the hood down and shook his blond hair away from his face as he stuffed his phone into the front pocket of his hoodie. “If I’d known you wouldn’t come back the next day, I would have followed you home.” He winked and nudged me with his elbow, and I wondered if he actually had, considering he was here at my house, and yet I hadn’t told him where I lived.

  “Yeah. I took a day or so off.” I made up some excuse, mostly to answer him and to attempt to mask I was a little upset he wasn’t who I expected. Suspicion inched farther into my body, and as I was about to ask how he did in fact know where my house was, the happiness pulsating in his eyes quieted the unspoken questions before I had a chance to speak them. I made a mental note to remember to ask him as soon as he wasn’t so elated, not sure why I really cared about hurting his feelings. It was just hard to think with that stupid smirk of his on his face. For now, I’d keep skepticism to myself. I wasn’t always a jerk. It was just I usually spoke before thinking.

  He took my backpack and tossed it onto the ground after checking its contents, pulling the waters out and counting them. He sang a semi-familiar tune, but just when I thought I’d figured out the title, he changed the lyrics. Finding it hard to do anything other than listen when he sang was a challenge. In my opinion, everyone had something they were born to do, and for Dax, it was singing. He had one of the voices that if you closed your eyes, you imagined yourself surrounded by millions of people at a concert. He really was that talented.

  He abruptly stopped singing and took a big swig from one of the bottles before putting it back into the backpack. I would probably have to start packing more if he planned to make a habit out of the two of us running together. Who knew? Maybe it was complete chance that he’d stopped to check his phone at the end of my driveway, but I seriously doubted that.

  I gave him a questioning look as we both stretched, something I forgot to do most mornings, but wasn’t completely awake. Plus, he’d thrown me for a loop being here, so I just followed his lead. Whatever made the situation easier was what I was going with today.

  “What?” He smiled, touching his toes with his fingertips and making it clear to the both of us I’d been staring at him. My track record of not stretching before a run wasn’t exactly getting broken right then, I guess. You had to actually move to do so, and apparently, I’d been too deep in thought to move my arms or legs from the first position.

  “You do know I’m not going to hurt myself, right?” I assured him of something I figured we were both aware of, but wanted to make sure he was, just in case the idiotic thought still lingered in his head somewhere and inspired him to figure out where I lived. Instead of the very slim odds that he randomly chose my driveway to check his text messages, or whatever he was doing on his phone. There weren’t too many people who knew where Mom and I lived. Other than the few people who had given Mom a ride home from Dad’s Skillet, the diner that she worked at, after her shift, I knew two people with the knowledge, Cal and Mar, and I didn’t think either of them knew Dax. Well, the truth was, I didn’t know much at all about Cal like I wished I had. I definitely wasn’t familiar with the people he knew. Okay, I didn’t think Mar knew anything about Dax. In fact, if she did, I’d have heard about him by now. Dax was absolutely mouthwatering. Honestly, he reminded me of Alex Skarsgård’s younger twin, although that wasn’t possible. But still, they shared a lot of the same attributes. Especially how delicious they were. I shook my head, a little disgusted with myself for being a typical teenager, when I was anything but that.

  The only true things I was certain of about Cal were without a shadow of a doubt he was anal-retentive as a kid, and when things got too tough for him, he painted stars. The vision of his hands covered in blood as he uncontrollably cried and ran his fingertip through my dad’s blood to make a star was something I tried to forget, but hadn’t.

  I blinked my eyes and quickly matched Dax’s current action, allowing my neck to rotate from one side to the other, trying to shake the thoughts of someone who clearly didn’t wish to be remembered. I was unsuccessful. I bit my lip out of frustration and continued to spiral down the Cal rabbit hole.

  The brutal truth was, I had no clue who he genuinely was or how he really reacted to things, other than the sparse times our paths had crossed. Despite all of that, I was drawn to him, and I didn’t know why. Maybe it was just the past we’d shared had intoxicated me with memories of brief happiness with him. He was a lot like the whiskey we’d drunk in the graveyard. Although I was surrounded by death and heartfelt dedications engraved on tombstones, the whiskey numbed me and helped me forget what was happening around me.

  Cal had a similar effect on me, even though I didn’t want him to. It was as if I’d drunk too much, and everyone knew once alcohol was in your system, it was there until it wore off. Except if you were an alcoholic, then you were screwed. Every day an alcoholic woke up and promised their loved ones today was the day they’d quit drinking, and sometimes they really meant it. Some days they made it the majority of the day and night without a drink. Others, it was minutes. Typically, it was when someone pissed them off, or at least that was how Phillip handled things. Alternatively, there were people, like Mom a few years back, who although she seemed sincere with her declaration, her body was addicted to the poison she allowed to run rampant in h
er veins. She made me truly believe alcoholism was a disease and no one was immune to its grasp. Anyone could become an alcoholic. It was funny, I hated the moments after we lost Dad. They were obviously hard on Mom, given the amount of booze she poured down her throat. One would think I would have never started drinking, but everybody needed an escape. At least I did anyway. Truly, one wasn’t enough for me. I tended to choose anything to help my brain find a new course.

  “I told you that you weren’t getting off the hook that easily, Blue.” He switched sides and reached for the toes on the opposite foot, and I did the same, kind of winging the stretching thing. Like I pointed out, I wasn’t a pro at the pre-run prep. Not to mention I might have been a little preoccupied thinking of someone I decided I wouldn’t anymore. When I wasn’t thinking of the nameless, I stared at Dax. It was a losing battle and I was the loser either way.

  Momentarily, I paused, hearing the name that I not only associated with him, but with Cal. That reminded me Cal referred to Dax as an asshole. As I watched him, I couldn’t imagine him being an asshole, at all. Cal fit the description a lot easier than Dax ever could, in my opinion. At least Dax kept his word, even though I’d never expected him to.

  “Are you an asshole?” Burst out of my mouth like word vomit before I could stop it. Even though I regretted the words, I was thankful to have a distraction.

  It was his turn to stop stretching for a beat, and then he arched his left arm over his head, letting the right do the same afterward. “I can be, I guess.” He choked on a laugh as the last word passed his lips and his tongue curled upward and disappeared into his cheek for a few seconds.

  “Are you?” he returned the question, working on loosening up his torso.

  I laughed and nodded my head as I spoke. I deserved that. “More often than not. Clearly,” I truthfully admitted, waving my hand in front of my body. “I did just ask you if you’re an asshole,” I pointed out something that neither of us needed a reminder of.

  We both laughed, and when the laugher died down and our eyes locked, I pretended to know what I was doing, standing and then falling into a split. His Adam’s apple visibly rose and fell, and I could all but hear him swallow hard. My skin flushed as the realization of how much more awkward I’d made the situation between us became apparent.

  “Yeah. Uh, I can’t do that one,” he said in a thick voice and turned away from me quickly for a few seconds and cleared his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck.

  Although I’d embarrassed myself, I had to admit it was easy to be myself with Dax, or at least it felt that way. In reality, I’d only been around him twice, but he was the type of person that you didn’t question everything around. He gave off a comfortable sort of vibe, except when I remembered how much I was attracted to him…or when my reaction was just plain weird. Me dropping down into a complete split onto the concrete couldn’t be described as anything else. In my defense, I wasn’t exactly experienced in the department of being around guys, unless watching True Blood counted. If it did, then I had a masters in that art, but I was pretty certain it didn’t.

  He unzipped the backpack and stuffed in the hoodie that must have been on sale at a local shop, considering both guys I’d met had worn it. Next, he pulled his shirt off and rolled it into some semblance of a folded ball, shoving it on top of the hoodie, and zipped the backpack to close it. Dryness found my mouth, and watching him suddenly made me want to guzzle one of the bottles of water. If I didn’t have to risk waking Mom up by going back into the house for another, I’d take the chance just to put distance between Dax and me.

  “You’re honest. I like that about you,” he shamelessly complimented me and ran his hand along the waistband of his shorts, pulling them up as he stood and flipped the backpack onto his back.

  “Thanks,” I managed to say, when my mouth remembered what words were and my tongue finally got motivatied enough to form them. Heat rose into my body, and even though I hadn’t run any amount of mileage, suddenly my whole body was burning up as if I had already run my two miles. I glanced back to the house to make sure Mom wasn’t up watching us from the window and pulled my T-shirt off, leaving me in a spaghetti-strap crop top. I wasn’t sure which. I refused to look him in the eyes, knowing stripping wouldn’t make this situation easier for anyone, but I couldn’t take the heat anymore. It was unbearable.

  Again, he swallowed hard and suggested we take off. Without argument, I let him lead the way, not caring where we were going as long as we moved. The sexual tension between us was rising, and I didn’t plan to relieve it now or anytime soon, if ever, so running was the best thing we could do.

  Somehow, asking him how he knew where I lived fell short and slipped my mind. I guess if a teenager was presented with sexual tension, either male or female, neither could function correctly. I just welcomed the silence between us for today’s run, because talking or doing pretty much anything else wasn’t working for either of us.

  * * *

  Every single morning Dax returned, and each time I told him I wasn’t going to off myself. He always reminded me of the same thing. “You’re not getting off that easily,” he would say with a sexy smirk, and I started to wonder if we were still talking about me running away from him, but I never asked him. In fact, I think I’d die on the spot if I ever did muster up the nerve to ask him. I wondered if he was talking about sex, but I wasn’t sure because I’d never had it, much less knew how to talk dirty.

  As the end of the week approached, I’d grown to expect him at the end of the driveway daily. Mom had even noticed him the one morning she’d gotten up early, and much to my surprise only spazzed out a little. It wasn’t a full-blown freak out, which I thanked the fact she wasn’t caffeinated yet. If she’d had her coffee, I would have never left the house again.

  Guilt started to paddle into my wondering mind when I kept wishing Dax was Cal, even though he’d shown no interest. He didn’t stop by my house. He wasn’t in the graveyard. He basically vanished. I convinced myself I was better off without him. It’d been eight years since we’d seen one another and I’d been okay, so I didn’t need him now or ever. Not to mention the fact I didn’t want to think about him. Each time my traitor mind wandered to him, I forced myself to think of anything else. I told myself to think of the first thing that popped into my head, which usually resulted in me putting way too much concentration into some random object in front of me. I was ashamed of how much effort I’d put into not thinking about him, but refused to openly accept the alternative.

  “I met the most gorgeous man!” Mar babbled, her excitement apparent from the goofy grin that hadn’t left her face since she picked me up to go shopping for school clothes in her new-to-her car that her dad bought. We would have to drive almost to the university to get to the mall, unless we wanted to shop at the few local shops Blackwell had to offer. I wasn’t what most would consider a fashionista, but even I didn’t want to commit social suicide by buying all of my wardrobe there.

  “So you’ve said,” I commented in a bored tone, purely because she paused and made it obvious she was waiting for me to say something. She’d described everything down to his “black skater shoes,” which it was hard to tell what the guy actually wore. I’d only been about halfway listening, so for all I knew he could be someone famous. Usually, I tried to be supportive of Mar and her decisions, but she’d become boy crazy recently. Something I couldn’t say about myself, I didn’t think. Really, I wasn’t sure.

  Mar, on the other hand, had spent our summer jumping from one quick relationship to the next. None of them ever amounted to more than a French kiss or at the very least some over the clothes groping, which was more than I had done with anyone, but still. I wasn’t the subject right then. It was Mar.

  Thinking of the stories Mar had filled her summer with made me think of the last few weeks. When Mar wasn’t around, Dax was. The more time I spent with Dax, the longer we watched one another stretch and the shorter our walks were. Yes, walks. I wanted to run
, but we couldn’t really talk when we ran, so we both slowed to a brisk walk without ever actually verbally agreeing to do so.

  At least I mostly focused on Dax nowadays. There was the rare occasion Cal crept into my head, but those were the times I quickly reminded myself that he wasn’t interested in the slightest and forced myself to move along.

  “Anyway, I was thinking about trying out for the cheer squad,” she beamed, grabbing clothing from the nearby racks and pretending to use them as pompoms as she shook them in the air.

  “You aren’t,” I flatly said, knowing neither of us would last long as a cheerleader. The only thing we’d be throwing in the air this year would be an occasional middle finger and hopefully a cap when we graduated.

  “You know I’m not, but I do plan to land that hottie,” she reassured her goals with a nod of her head and hung the now wrinkled from her tightened grasp clothing back onto their previous spots.

  “You’re relentless.” I laughed, shaking my head, and grabbed the shirt she’d used for her left pompom. It was actually pretty cute. Mom had given me a wad full of cash and told me to buy whatever I wanted for school, but we both knew it wasn’t what I wanted. She wanted me to buy things that would meet the dress code and wouldn’t draw too much attention to me. We were still “flying under the radar,” according to her, even though I was pretty sure the government had filed us into the not important folder and forgotten all about us.

  “Whatever works, right?” She snagged a few items herself and pulled me to the dressing room.

  “Besides, he goes to our school. We’ll need someone to show us around and give us the skinny on who to hang with and who to avoid.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right, and we both knew that she was. From what I remembered about public school, reputation was everything and I was ten years old the last time I stepped foot into one. Other than the actual fact of learning, of course, which I was pretty sure fell in second place when compared to reputation. Back then, your popularity was pretty much gauged by your skills on the jungle gym and what toys you had, which I didn’t have too much of either. It was still kind of the same, in my opinion. From the movies I’d seen, high school was pretty much a jungle, and your peers still judged you by what you did or didn’t have.