“What’s happening here?” I demanded, reminded of the morning he’d caught me in bed with Dare. “You two aren’t dating, are you?” I laughed in disbelief.
Sean scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. Maisy took his hand and blew a bubble with the bright blue gum that was in her mouth.
“I was going to tell you,” he explained, giving me a brief second of eye contact.
“Why does it matter to you?” Maisy sneered. “Do you love Sean?” She pouted, her pink lips forming a falsely sensitive heart.
“Of course, I love him. He’s my best frined!” I screeched.
“Come on, Mel,” Dare muttered, trying to take my arm to lead me away.
I yanked it free. “Sean, are you, or are you not, dating the biggest bully in the entire school? The same girl who’s made my life hell every chance she got? The same girl who never looked twice at you, unless it was to call you a nerd, or a loser?”
His eyes closed in what I could only assume was shame. Or hoped. I hoped it was shame. But really, I thought it was denial.
“She’s just using you to get back at me,” I continued.
His eyes flashed open. “Why? Because there’s no way a girl like her could possibly like me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“What! No! There’s no way a girl like her could ever deserve a guy a like you. She’s evil!” I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides.
Maisy shot daggers at me, but she didn’t deny it. She knew. Even she knew that Sean was way too good for her. But she’d never admit it out loud. She’d rip him apart just to prove she could.
“Darren, could you take your little brother home now. My boyfriend and I have to go…” She giggled and kissed his cheek. “Talk.”
Sean turned the color of hellfire. “Mel…”
I was so hurt, even my hurt was hurt. My lips wouldn’t open. I couldn’t stand to look at them any longer. I turned on my heel and stomped away, angry tears spilling over. How dare she! Digging her evil claws into my best friend.
“How does it feel, Dare?” Maisy’s voice travelled across the parking lot. “To finally have the one you used me to get closer to?”
His jaw ticked. He reached in front of me to reopen his truck door, avoiding my gaze as he did so. I got into his truck and stewed.
“What was she talking about?” I glanced over at him as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Nothing.” He gave me a second of eye contact before turning back to the road. “She’s just trying to hurt you.”
Losing Sean as a friend was almost as hard as watching my parent’s marriage explode and choking on all the dust motes in the world but having no way to breathe. I could not breathe. I didn’t want that. Couldn’t fathom losing Sean. I wanted to text him but remembered—for the hundredth time—that I no longer had a cell phone.
Because I was grounded. For running away.
I was so frustrated, my blood boiled. “Why?” I demanded. “Why is she trying to hurt me?”
He blinked at the road, turning the corner for my street. “I don’t know. She gets off on causing pain. It’s the only emotion she understands.”
That didn’t make me feel better. “But it feels so intentional. Even before you and I started talking, she’s been trying to torture me. You think she doesn’t know what she’s doing standing by my locker? Every morning? She wants me to know she’s hurting me.”
His body stiffened, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re looking too much into it.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“You dated her for months. She never said why she hated me?”
“No, Mel,” he answered patiently. “She didn’t.”
Those pictures came to mind once more. Tumbling from his locker like a secret. Her comments. Her glare. She had a reason. Dare either truly didn’t know what it was, or he didn’t want me to know what it was.
“I don’t believe you.”
His nostrils flared. He took a barely disguised deep breath. “You have to.”
I tried to ignore the gnawing pit forming in my stomach, but it didn’t go away. “That’s the part that sucks. I have to believe you because I’d never ask her.”
He froze, and his throat bobbed. His gaze flashed to me before returning to the road. “Don’t talk to her,” he snapped. “Drop it. This is what she wants. To get between us. Ignore her.”
She knew something. But what could it be to make Dare nervous? He was always so honest and open. I chewed on my bottom lip and sat back. I didn’t like this. She was getting between us. And she’d stolen my best friend out from under me to do it.
“Can I use your cell?” I asked him.
“For what?” Suspicion dripped from his tone.
“To text Sean,” I bit out.
He pulled it from his pocket and handed it to me, but not before making sure he unlocked the lock screen first, and pulling up his messaging app. I snatched it from him and opened up a new message, although I was tempted to go back and read his other messages.
“There are no texts from anyone else in my phone,” he mumbled. “Before you start thinking about going snooping.”
“I wasn’t,” I growled.
He smiled knowingly. “Sure, Mel.”
I sent Sean a string of text messages, all of which said the same thing. How could you? He didn’t reply to any of them, even though I could see that he’d read them. Was I that easily ignored? Years and years of friendship so easy to overlook?
I tossed Dare’s phone into the cupholder and brought my knees to my chest. He put his truck in park and sat back, parked in front of my house. The driveway was empty. My parents weren’t home. But that didn’t mean I wanted to go inside.
It felt like every aspect of my life I’d known: Sean, my parents, and even my naivety; was leaving. Parts that made me who I was were disintegrating, and there was nothing I could do about it. The Tomboy Wars had never ended.
They’d barely started.
I ran my hands through my hair and removed it from my face, using the moment to gather myself. I grabbed my backpack and opened his truck door, ready to leave. “Is it cool if we don’t hang out tonight? I just want to be alone.”
He sighed harshly. “It really sucks when you do that.”
“What?” I peeked at him from the curtain of my hair.
“Put me in the bad guy category. No, it’s not okay if we don’t hang tonight. I look forward to the night all day long, Mel.” He patted his chest roughly. “I’m there for you. Every time. Now I need you to be there for me tonight.”
My heart squeezed in my chest. “Is it hard at home?”
He licked his lips; his eyes tried to hide his pain. “I’d rather listen to your parents fight all night. That should answer that question.”
The air in my lungs left me. I felt selfish. Dare needed our nights together as much as I did. I dropped my backpack on the floor between my legs and closed his truck door. “Okay, I’m all yours until you’re done with me.”
His body immediately relaxed. He gave me a lazy smile, and the metal in his eyes looked liquid. “What if that time never comes?”
I tried to think but found it increasingly difficult with the way he was looking at me. There was a heaviness in his eyes, a fog of truth that covered me in all its mist. It felt like he was asking for more than just tonight. “Uh…”
His small smile turned large. He reached over to tap my bottom lip with his index finger. “I’m serious, Mel. What if that time never comes? What if this is it for me?” His smile faded and exploded, leaving behind an intense and serious expression on his face.
I gulped. “We’re only seventeen.”
He tilted his head to the side, focusing on me so hard, I squirmed. It felt like he was reaching into my heart and pulling at the threads until he found what he was looking for. “What about when we’re not seventeen? What about when we’re eighteen, or twenty, or even eighty? Are you still going to want to make out in the back of my truck?”
I didn’t like his line of questioning. Mostly because it did something to us. I could feel it. “We’ve only been dating for a little while, Dare. I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. We’re not even there yet.”
He tried to hide it, but I saw the way that hurt him. He sniffed and sat back, nodding like he totally understood. “Where are we then?”
“You’re my first boyfriend,” I argued, hating how sad my tone had gotten. “I don’t know.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. My life’s crazy right now. I can’t even think of tomorrow without feeling like I’m going to puke. Mom and Dad are insane. Your ex-girlfriend is a jerk who’s trying to steal my best friend. I don’t know anything, Dare. But I do know that you’re the only part of my life that doesn’t drive me crazy. I know that you make me feel like everything isn’t falling apart. Right now, that’s special to me.”
He nodded throughout my entire speech, and I got the impression he wasn’t really listening. He was putting words in the holes only he could see.
“You’re so intense,” I continued, when he didn’t say anything. “Say something.”
He turned the key and his truck roared to life. “I can’t help it, Mel. That’s how I feel. Intense. Want. I think about you all day, all night.” His eyes sparked with energy. “Everything I do revolves around you. Don’t you get it yet? I can’t turn my feelings off or water them down. And I can’t let myself get attached if you’re never going to want what I want.”
This strange weight pressed onto my chest. I could see that he really felt that way. Fiercely, strongly—Dare felt so much, it scared him. And the strangest, hardest thing to accept was that he felt that about me. In only a few weeks? That didn’t make sense. Feelings that intense had to take years to form. It was like he’d been in this relationship ten times longer than I had. I’d come in at the middle, and he was already ready for the end.
I got this horrible feeling I was losing him.
“That’s how you feel,” I spoke up, my voice wobbling. “I know that now. I want that, Dare. But I’m not there yet. And I don’t think it’s fair to get mad at me because I’m not.” My voice cracked, and I fought to keep the sadness from breaking through.
“You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Making my fears come true.” He put his truck in drive. “Are we hanging out or what?”
Frustration boiled in my blood. In response, I put my seatbelt back on and crossed my arms over my chest, content to keep my lips pressed together for the rest of the night.
He rolled our windows down and drove in much the same state. Quiet and angry, but I knew that he wasn’t mad. He was scared. I didn’t understand why his feelings terrified him. Unless he was scared I wouldn’t return them…
Was that his true fear? That I may not feel for him the way he felt for me? The realization was a bucket of ice water thrown on my anger. It sizzled out and left behind cold.
I peered at him through the protection of my hair. Tendons in his jaw strained under his gnashed teeth, and his messy hair looked more chaotic than intentional.
“Stop staring.”
I didn’t listen. “Where are we going?”
“Don’t know anymore.”
Outside, the desert bled ruddy, and the dark cobalt of evening mixed with the russet hues. It was pretty at night, and it would have been even prettier to park and just stare at the moon with his heartbeat pounding in my ear. “What were your plans before you ruined our evening together?”
He gave the road a sad smile. “Sushi. Ice cream. Park in the desert. And then let my lips and tongue say the rest. You like it when my tongue talks to you, don’t you, Tom? It’s been trying to tell you the truth for weeks.”
I turned away. “I’ve been listening.”
“No, you’ve been running.”
I bit my tongue and glared out the window. I wanted to go home, but at the same time I didn’t want to leave him. Not like this and not when I felt so unsure. “You don’t seem to have a problem chasing me.”
“I don’t have a choice!” he exploded.
“What does that mean?” I shouted back.
The energy in the truck electrified.
“It means I’m in love with you!”
My heart stopped. “You… love me?”
Horror took over his face. It looked like he couldn’t believe he’d said that out loud either. “Do it,” he breathed, pain taking over his entire face. He sounded resolved.
“Do what?” I whispered.
“Break up with me. You know it’s coming. I know it’s coming. An idiot could see it coming.”
“We barely know each other.”
He laughed bitterly and shook his head. “I’ll take you home.”
I could feel him slipping away. As though admitting he loved me was the end to an us I hadn’t even gotten to know. “Maybe you just think you love me.”
“Don’t insult my feelings. They’re all I have. Say it. Say you don’t love me.”
“I don’t love you… yet! Stop trying to push me away. Why can’t you wait for me to feel the same?”
“Because I don’t have four years to wait,” he muttered, his breath leaving him in a gust of pained air. “For you to break my heart. Just do it now. Before we’re eighteen and we both take off.”
The pain in his voice became my pain. My eyes stung. “I don’t want to break your heart. I want to save it.”
“Mel!” he snapped. “If you care about me at all, break up with me now. Don’t do it later. When there’s nothing left for me to salvage.” His eyes shone. “Please, Mel. Don’t do it later. When I leave Phoenix, I’m not coming back.”
My mouth opened in a soundless, heartbroken plea. “Can you please tell me what’s happening right now?”
“You’re breaking up with me. Before you ruin me.” He didn’t look at me for the rest of the drive.
I tried to talk but nothing made sense. Everything in my body hurt too much to sift through his words and come up with a response. When we made it to my place, he reached into the back and came away with his hat.
“Keep it,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Dare.” I took his hat and held it to my chest. “Don’t do this.”
He gave me a sad smile. “I’m not doing this. You are.” He leaned close, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “Remember the good parts of me, please? Not the crap everyone thinks they know about me. But the parts I only showed to you.” He pressed his lips to mine, both of our eyes opened.
In his eyes I saw every single thing he never said.
Just in time to lose him.
“Those parts are for you.”
He reached in front of me and pulled on the handle, pushing his door open.
My heart begged me to stand, not just physically but emotionally, too. What about my parents? I thought, breaking so wide open my heart shattered. How will I get through that without you, Dare? Until I realized that I had to get through that without him. I had to stand up and face what hurt me.
Most of all, him.
“I don’t agree with this,” I told him, unable to keep it in.
He closed his eyes and wouldn’t look at me.
“I think you’re being a coward. I think you’re afraid of feeling anything for someone because your mom and dad stomped all over your heart until there was hardly anything left. But I saw it, Dare. The little part of your heart that was strong enough to survive. And I’m not the one breaking it. You’re the one breaking the little part of mine you healed.”
I threw his hat at his face and then got out, slamming his truck door, sucking back my tears, and put on my favorite mask.
The numbest one.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Maybe Dare had a point when he said that hate and love were each other’s counterpart.
Love and hate were the opposite of each other not because they were on the other end of the spectrum, fighting ag
ainst each other, but because they had once gotten along so well, that the distance after the dust settled turned them into enemies.
Love knew all the good parts of hate.
Hate knew all the bad parts of love.
Like two people who had once been devastatingly in love, they resented how close they’d been, how many walls they’d let crumble down for the other person to see over.
Vulnerability opened the door for revulsion and hurt turned its back on passion.
I’d had my chin pressed to the top of the fence, peering over Dare’s wall and wanting so badly to get invited over.
The fence had gone up overnight.
I’d turned my back to it, so even if it had been low enough for me to see over, I wouldn’t have tried.
So, love and hate got along.
But so did regret and longing.
My life had gone from a war to a loss in one night. After Dare broke up with me, I’d managed to make it upstairs and into my room before I felt the breaks start. They began where he’d been inside of the most—my heart—and ended where he’d last been—my lips. I was a walking talking shattered person, careful not to step down too roughly in case one wrong step sent all my shattered pieces tumbling down.
I knew it would happen. The final blow.
I was right.
I heard Mom and Dad get in late that night, and within minutes the screaming started. It didn’t feel different until I heard Dad screaming louder than Mom. I got out from where I lay under my covers and cracked my door open, listening intently.
“Why are you doing this now?” Dad shouted, but there was a desperateness to his tone I hadn’t heard before.
Usually, Mom had the desperate edge. She was the one begging. The one breaking.
“I need to do it. For… me.” Mom wasn’t yelling. She sounded resolved.
I stepped out into the hall.
“Erin, we’re working through this.”
“No, we’re not, Russell. We’re ruining us. And we’re hurting our daughter. Our Melly. Don’t you see it in her eyes? Feel it in our hearts? This isn’t a relationship anymore. It’s a horrible trap we locked ourselves inside. The therapist is right. We need time apart and I need to work on me. For all of us.”
The Tomboy & the Rebel Page 18