by Tracy Deebs
“How long have you been emancipated?”
“A little over two months.”
“That’s about as long as you’ve been at NextGen.”
Yeah. The boy is too smart for his own good sometimes. Or mine. “Part of the judge’s condition was that I finish high school, not get a GED. So here I am.”
“Here you are.” He pauses like he’s assimilating all the information he’s gotten in the last few minutes. Then he reaches over and puts his hand on top of mine, where it rests on my knee. “I’m sorry about your dad being such a jerk. That must be awful.”
My heart flutters at the contact—and at the sincerity in his words.
I try to shut it down quickly—Dream Girl, Dream Girl, Dream Girl, I remind myself—but it’s getting harder and harder to do that. Especially when he’s always so kind. So caring. So perfect.
“It’s not great, but dealing with him isn’t as hard as losing my mom was, so…”
He nods, but I can see he’s biting his lip. Can see that there’s more he wants to say. I start to push him—better to get it all out now so that he’s not stewing about this and coming up with more questions during the slam.
Before I can, though, he asks, “What’s it like?”
“Being emancipated?”
“Losing a parent. My dad has…my dad has lung cancer and it doesn’t look all that good, so…”
“Oh God.” It’s my turn to grab his hand with both of mine. My turn to hold on tight. “I’m so sorry, Keegan. I’m so sorry.”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything else. And neither do I. I’ve spent the last few days trying to think of something to say to him about this, but there’s nothing to say, really, and I feel just awful. It’s obvious from the way Keegan talks about his family that they’re close, and it sucks that he has to go through this. Just absolutely sucks.
My home life has been screwed up for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying I’m wishing cancer on my dad, because I’d never, ever wish it on anyone, but sometimes I can’t help wondering why the universe has to spread the shitshow around so much. I mean, if one person is already having a miserable time, why don’t they get the extra-bad shit, too? Why make sure that the happy people, the really good, kind people, have to suffer, too? If anyone deserves to just have a nice, normal life, it’s Keegan. And yet here he is, dealing with what might very well be his father’s imminent death.
It just sucks.
I hold his hand more tightly, then bring it up to my mouth and kiss the back of it before I even know I’m going to do it. I’m not sorry, though, not when I see the way Keegan’s jaw is working. And not when he flashes me a grateful look just before pulling into a parking spot across the street from a funky-looking building that I can only assume is the Spider House Ballroom.
It’s light green and kitschy-looking, with Japanese lanterns, neon lights, and a short little picket fence that’s obviously more for ambiance than it is to keep anyone out. I love it on sight.
Keegan turns off the car, but instead of climbing out, he just sits there for a minute, head down, shoulders bowed. He’s biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, and he looks miserable. Absolutely miserable.
As I watch him fight the demons inside him, my heart doesn’t ache for him. Instead, it feels like it just might explode, and I can’t sit here, can’t just watch him and do nothing.
“Keegan.” I reach for him and he all but throws himself at me, his arms going around me at the same time mine wrap around him. And then he’s burying his face in my neck and holding me tight, tight, tight.
I hold him the same way. I hold him as tightly as I can, hold him with every broken thing I have inside me. It’s not enough, but it’s all I’ve got. It’s all I am.
He shudders once, his shoulders shaking, and for a second—just a second—I feel a wetness against my neck. I squeeze him even tighter, run my fingers through his cool, silky hair. Murmur nonsense words against his ear until the shaking stops.
It only takes a minute or so, but it feels like forever—especially when he makes these tiny, gasping noises that tell me just how hard he’s working not to cry. But then he’s pulling away, dashing a quick hand across his cheek and forcing a smile that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel.
“I’m s—”
“Don’t you dare!” I whisper fiercely. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry for that.”
He presses his lips together, looks away. But after a second he nods, and I feel my shoulders relax.
He climbs out of the car without saying anything else, then comes around to my side and holds the door open for me. Helps me climb out.
When I’m standing next to him, he pulls me in for another hug—a short one this time, though it doesn’t feel any less heartfelt. Or any less desperate. He kisses my cheek, and as his cheek brushes against mine I can still feel a trace of moisture there.
This time it’s my heart that melts instead of my panties.
I grab his hand and hold on tight as we walk across the street to the ballroom. When we get to where they’re selling tickets, I start to reach for my wallet, but Keegan stops me with a look. He pays for both of us, then escorts me into the main ballroom area to find a seat.
About half the place is filled up already, but we find a few empty seats in the second row to the left of the stage. He gets me settled, then asks, “What do you want to drink?”
Normally I’d ask for a glass of champagne—it’s pretty much my go-to drink—but we’re not in L.A. or New York and I’m not Cherry here. I’m just Dahlia, regular high school student who is still several years away from being legal.
It’s kind of liberating to be able to ask for a bottle of water and not worry about being judged for it.
Keegan’s back in a couple minutes, brandishing water and a king-size pack of M&M’s. I lift a brow at him, but he just grins. “Chocolate makes everything better.”
“It really does,” I agree.
As more people file in, we talk about regular stuff—school and our senior project and music—while we wait for the show to start. We have a good fifteen minutes to kill, but it feels like no time at all before a girl bounds up to the stage and announces that things are about to begin.
She goes over the rules—about how each poem will be judged and how we should scream and shout and boo and whistle and give as much feedback to the judges as we possibly can. Then she asks for people who are virgins, who have never been to a slam here in Austin before.
I slide down in my seat a little, but Keegan grabs my arm and waves it in the air. “This is how they pick the judges,” he tells me. “First-timers.”
“How many times have you been here?” I ask when it becomes obvious that he’s not a virgin like me.
He shrugs. “A few. I like poetry.”
I shake my head. Of course he does. He likes poetry and music and basketball and business and picnics at the art museum. Can the boy be any more of a conundrum?
Suddenly the girl on stage points to us and grins. “I see you over there, Keegan, bringing in some poor, unsuspecting virgin. Looks like we’ve found our last judge!”
People around us clap and cheer and I duck my head, worrying a little about the attention. But it’s dark in here and it’s not like anyone is looking for me—they’re here to hear some poetry, maybe drink a little, and have a good time. No one is going to recognize me.
A couple minutes later a guy comes strolling down the aisle with a set of scorecards for me. He, too, greets Keegan by name, and they do some kind of elaborate fist bump/handshake thing that has obviously been practiced quite extensively.
Keegan introduces me to Rush, who smiles at me and then gives a very suspect—but very approving—eyebrow raise to Keegan. “You’ve been here a few times, huh?” I ask as Rush walks away and the sacrifice is chosen—a poet who volunteers to perform as a way for the judges to kind of calibrate their scoring before the actual competition begins.
He shrugs, smiles a lit
tle shyly. “Maybe more than a few.”
Yeah. I just bet. As the lights go down and a spotlight comes up on the sacrifice, I lean over and whisper, “Something tells me there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.”
It’s his turn to grin and wiggle his eyebrows at me. “Something tells me the same can be said about you.”
If only he knew…
Chapter Twelve
“They’re good,” Dahlia leaned over and whispered to him after the first two poets finished. “I mean, they’re really good.”
“They are.” Keegan nodded. “And these are just open mic. Wait until the semifinals and finals in the spring. It’s crazy. They bring brand-new stuff and just blow everybody away. It’s awesome.”
“Yeah? Maybe we can come back and see them then. I mean, if you don’t mind me tagging along?”
“Sure.” It took every ounce of self-control he had not to do a fist pump à la John Bender from The Breakfast Club. So Dahlia figured they’d still be hanging out in the spring—that counted as a good thing in his opinion. In three days, he’d gone from the guy she barely knew existed to a friend she made long-term plans with. That was definite progress, right?
“I’d love to bring you,” he said, just as the third poet was introduced.
“Hey,” Dahlia exclaimed suddenly, then quickly lowered her voice as the applause died out and the guy started toward the stage. She put her hand on his knee as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Doesn’t he go to NextGen?”
It took a minute for her question to actually make sense to him, considering the warmth of her breath against his ear was sending shivers up and down his spine. And making every synapse in his brain riot. For a second, he wanted nothing more than to get his hands on her. To pull her onto his lap and tangle his hands in her short hair. To tilt her head back and kiss her like he’d been wanting to since Saturday night. But they were in the middle of the Spider House Ballroom and the last thing he wanted was for their first kiss to be plagued by wolf whistles and catcalls.
So he pulled back just a little and ran her words through his head until they finally registered. When they did, he grinned. “Yeah. That’s Nick Todd. He’s a senior, too.”
“That’s what I thought. I think he’s in my economics class. If he’s who I think he is, he’s a nice guy.”
“Nick’s great. We’ve been friends since ninth grade, and he’s freaking hilarious.”
“He is! He was ripping on Wall Street in econ the other day and he was crazy funny. Like, I was so impressed. Total stand-up comedy material.”
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. His poetry’s the same. He takes on super-serious subjects, but his observations about them are so funny—and true. Which is a little scary, but…” Then something occurred to him that made the last of the residual shivers from her whisper disappear between one second and the next. “He’s got a girlfriend.”
The words slipped out before he even knew he was thinking them, let alone that he was going to say them, and the second they were out he wished he could take them back.
Especially when she looked at him strangely. “I’m not interested in dating him. It was just cool to see someone from NextGen out in the world with us.”
“I know. I got distracted for a second, but what I wanted to say was that she’s really funny, too. And super hyper.” God, he hoped she never met Jesse and discovered he was lying out of his ass here. “The two of them are hysterical together—though I’m not sure how either of them gets a word in edgewise with the other.”
There. That at least was true.
Dahlia looked like she was going to say something, but then Nick started his poem. Much to Keegan’s disappointment, Dahlia leaned back to listen—and when she did, she lifted her hand from where it was resting on his leg.
The warmth of her palm lingered, but he missed it—so much that he moved his leg just enough that it brushed against hers. She was wrapped up in Nick’s poem, though, and didn’t even notice. The story of his life with this girl…
Nick was in rare form tonight. His poem was a rip on the current election, and while he took shots at both sides’ candidates, he spent a lot of time ripping the Republican front-runner. By the time he was done with the poem, Keegan’s sides actually hurt from laughing so hard. A quick glace at Dahlia told him she was feeling the same way.
She scored him a perfect ten, much to the approval of the audience.
Three more poets went before the fifteen-minute intermission. “Do you need more water?” he asked, gesturing to Dahlia’s empty bottle.
“No, I’m good.” She shot him a dazzling smile. “Thanks for bringing me here. This is so much fun.”
“I’m glad you’re having a good time.” He ignored the way his heart skipped a beat when she smiled like that, all bright and happy. “Do you want to walk around for a few minutes, meet some people? Or would you rather hang out here?”
“Oh, umm.” Her face fell a little. “I think I’m just going to hang here. But if you want to go talk to your friends, go for it.”
“I am talking to my friend,” he said, shifting in his chair so that he was facing her.
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. And I still want to hang out with you. I see them all the time.”
“You see me all the time.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve only had a couple of days to talk to you—there’s so much I still want to learn about you.”
Suddenly, she looked uncomfortable. “I’m not actually all that complicated. What you see is pretty much what you get.”
Somehow he really doubted that. Beyond the fact that most seventeen-year-olds didn’t file for emancipation from their fathers unless there was something seriously bad going on, she just had a way about her that screamed that she was deeper than the average high school senior. It was right there in her eyes, an intelligence, determination, and kindness that had attracted him from the first time he heard her answer a question in class.
He didn’t tell her all that, though. Not now, when she was suddenly comfortable enough with him to hug on to his arm and drop her head onto his shoulder. Instead, he just scooted a little closer to her softness and placed his hand on her knee, as she had done to him earlier. When she didn’t pull away—or even startle—he figured it was okay. Especially since she was still snuggled up against him.
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked after a second.
“My favorite color?” he asked, surprised.
“You said there was a lot you still wanted to know about me. Twenty questions seemed like a good place to start.”
“Twenty questions, huh? Isn’t that usually a drinking game?”
She smacked him gently with her free hand. “A drinking game? You shock me, Mr. Matthews. And here I thought you were such a good, upstanding citizen.”
“I’m not sure where you got that idea,” he said with a snort.
“Oh, please. Student body president. Captain of the debate team. Founder of SAFE Rides at NextGen. The current president of Amnesty International at our school and the force behind the food drive that’s going on right now. If I looked up ‘good, upstanding citizen’ in the dictionary, your picture would be there.”
“Doubtful, considering that’s three separate words that wouldn’t be listed together.”
She smacked him again. “Kind of a smart-ass, aren’t you?”
“See? Not a good, upstanding citizen after all.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.” She lifted her head just enough to mock-glare at him. “Now, your favorite color. Please.”
He laughed. “Pink, I guess.”
She went to smack him a third time, but he grabbed her hand, held it to his chest. And she let him.
“Pink is not your favorite color.”
He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her knuckles. “You don’t know that. It could be.”
“It could be chartreuse, but I don’t think it’s th
at, either. Why are you being so secretive?”
“I thought girls liked a man of mystery.”
“Trust me, men of mystery are highly overrated. Good, upstanding guys are where it’s at these days.”
“According to you?”
“According to every girl with a brain,” she said firmly. “I’ve had my share of the others and they so aren’t worth the trouble.”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not!” she told him with a laugh that didn’t quite sound true.
“Actually, I am.” He shifted a little, so his body was turned toward her and she was all but lying against his chest. Then he let go of her hand so he could tilt her face up to his. He wanted her to be able to see his eyes when he said this, to know that he wasn’t handing her any bullshit. “I’m sorry that some guy—or guys—hurt you because he was an asshole. You don’t deserve that, and I wish it hadn’t happened to you.”
She didn’t respond for long seconds, just looked at him, eyes wide. “Are you for real?” she finally whispered.
Before he could answer, the lights went down and the emcee jumped back up on the stage to introduce the next poet. As Jackie took her place on stage, he leaned over to Dahlia and whispered, “Cherry.”
“What?!”
“You asked my favorite color. It’s cherry red.”
She didn’t answer, but her body slowly, gradually, relaxed back against his just as Jackie began a poem about her old friend, deception.
Chapter Thirteen
Seriously? Is the universe just screwing with me at this point? I’d nearly had a heart attack when Keegan said my name, and now the woman on stage is talking about all the ways that her lies screwed up her life. It’s like my own personal version of hell.
The rest of the poetry slam isn’t nearly as much fun. How can it be when I’m suddenly wondering about all the lies I’ve told lately—or at least, the one big lie that I keep cultivating.