Jason shook his head, looking embarrassed, the fire fading from his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that. It’s not a big deal. It happened ages ago. Forget it.”
But it was too late. There was no way to forget it now and my heart began a new chant: You have to fix this.
And that is why, as my head screamed no, I leaned forward and kissed Jason Stromsen.
Chapter 4
Let me make one thing clear before we get any farther: guilt is a terrible basis for a relationship. I probably could have told you that even back then, but I also had this idea that it was a good idea to sacrifice my own happiness to help others. I have this theory that there are a lot of different types of people in the world. One of these types is like me: we have an overwhelming need to take on the burdens of the world, because we can’t bear to watch people suffer. We probably don’t make sense to all those other people and we usually end up crushed under the weight of the world, but that’s just how we are. Back then, I thought I could handle it.
I didn’t end up leaving early that night at bowling and in fact, I was the only one who kissed my “date.” By the end of the night, we had all agreed to go to the homecoming dance with the boys and had exchanged numbers with them. By the time I got home, my mom still wasn’t home, but I noticed that I had missed a text from Asher, asking me if I could bring him the notebook. A little pang of guilt pierced me then as I remembered that I was supposed to be working on the book that day. We had finally laid out the plot and he had given me the honor of writing the first few pages. With a sigh, I glanced at the clock and decided I had enough time to bike over and drop it off before 10pm, when my mom had a tendency to return. It was the least I could do after slacking off all day.
It was a clear night and the temperature had dropped down into the 30s. I pedaled hard to stay warm and let the full moon light my way. I thought about the book as I rode, hoping he wasn’t too irritated that I hadn’t written anything all day. We had decided to have two main characters: a girl who worked as a bodyguard for an evil wizard who had saved her life and a boy who was trying to bring down the wizard to escape his tyranny. I was supposed to write from the girl’s perspective and Asher had promised to write from the boy’s.
As I pulled up in front of his house, I jumped off my bike and let it fall down into the dirt. I leapt up his front steps and let myself in the front door. His brothers were playing video games in the living room and only gave me a quick hello in between hollering at each other. Laughing at them, I walked upstairs and entered Asher’s room, slipping my backpack off my shoulders.
“Hey,” I said as he looked up from the glow of his computer. He sighed at me and tapped his watch. “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s late.” I grimaced. “Sorry, I didn’t get anything done today, but I think I know how to start.”
He gestured toward his bed. “Want to get started then?”
I shifted anxiously from foot to foot. “Alright, but not for long. I have to get home soon, before my mom does.”
He nodded and went back to work on his computer. I lay down on my stomach and pulled out the notebook, scribbling furiously. After what seemed like only a few minutes, my phone interrupted me, buzzing under my thigh. Irritated, I rolled over and pulled it out of my pocket, gasping as I saw the time.
“Asher, it’s nearly 10:30!” I yelled.
He grinned a little. “You were working so hard. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Well now my mom is calling me. Thanks a lot.” I flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
“Paige, where are you?”
“I’m at a friend’s house. Sorry Mom, I lost track of time. I’m heading home now.” I was already up off the bed, tossing the notebook at Asher and zipping up my bag.
“Well it’s too late to be riding your bike around,” she replied. “Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.”
I grimaced. “I’m at Asher’s house. We were working on homework.”
There was an awkward silence and I glared harder at Asher, who was snickering quietly. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said finally and hung up.
I sank down on the floor and stuffed my phone back in my pocket. “She’s going to kill me,” I groaned.
“So I hear you’re going to homecoming with Jason Stromsen,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.
My mouth dropped open. “How did you hear that?” I hissed.
He turned his computer monitor toward me and I saw a deluge of instant messaging windows blinking. “Jason is friends with Matthew who is friends with a couple of my friends, who felt the need to tell me right away.” He turned the monitor back and fitted me with another accusatory look.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “It’s just something that I have to do.”
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to go with anyone. You go with someone because you want to go.”
I rose to my feet. “Like I said, it’s complicated. I’ve got to go, my mom’s going be here any minute.”
“Okay, I’ll text you tomorrow, probably.”
I heard him typing quickly as I left the room and headed back outside to wait for my mom. As I sat in the dirt next to my bike, I wondered why news had spread so quickly. Why it had spread to Asher. When my mom finally pulled up, I hauled my bike into the backseat of the car and then slipped in next to her. For the first few minutes, we didn’t talk. Then without a word, she pulled the car off the road and turned off the engine.
I looked around, confused, thinking there was something wrong with the car. Well, until I saw my mom’s face, illuminated solely by the overhead light. She was staring at me, studying me. “What?” I asked.
“Are you sexually active, Paige?”
Okay, this is a question that most teen girls get to hear at least once from their mom. Even though I knew she must be panicking inside, praying to God that her little girl wasn’t trying to grow up too fast, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. I doubled over, smashing my head on the dashboard by accident which must have knocked some sense back into me, because I straightened up and tried to answer without giggling.
“No Mom, I’m not sexually active.” I tried to mimic her serious tone as my mouth twitched. “Seriously? I’ve been in high school for one week and you think I’m already out having sex with all the boys?”
She didn’t seem to share my amusement. “No, not all the boys,” she mimicked me right back. “I’m worried about one in particular.”
I started to wonder who had told her about Jason when I realized who she meant. “Asher?” I asked incredulously. “You think- me and Asher?”
Her lips tightened at my answer. “I see.”
“Seriously Mom, there is nothing between us. I just had to return a notebook to him.”
“At 10:30 at night.”
I shrugged. “I forgot to do it earlier and he really needed it. Look, I’m sorry. I thought I’d be home sooner.”
Silent, she re-started the car and we continued the drive home, which seemed to take about a hundred times longer than normal. I slipped upstairs as soon as we got home and texted Asher. My mom just asked if we were having sex. Snickering again, I figured he would get a kick out of it and was a little disappointed when he didn’t reply. Just as I was falling asleep, I heard my phone go off. Pulling it off the headboard, I looked blearily at the screen. In your dreams. :p Hoping that was not a literal answer, I finally drifted off to sleep.
Homecoming wasn’t until the fourth week of classes, so the next few weeks were spent eating lunch with the boys, discussing dresses with the girls, and spending every free minute writing, or daydreaming about writing. I really only saw Asher when we handed off the notebook, but our friendship lived on through the paper. Anxiously reading what he had written, the characters coming alive under the flow of my pen across the page, it was just another type of communication between us. We left each other little messages in the margins, laughing about something the other had written, or suggesting how the story shou
ld unfold.
During those weeks, my mom started coming home at random times and calling the house phone when I got home from school and found the house empty. I knew she still believed there was something between Asher and me, but there wasn’t much I could do to dissuade her. Maybe if I had told her I was going to homecoming with Jason, it would have helped, but I honestly didn’t care too much about what she thought. Instead, when my friends picked me up to go dress shopping one weekend, I told her we were going as a group.
We waltzed through the store together, feeling like champions. We were the chosen: the girls with dates. I enjoyed that feeling, I honestly did. It was only when I thought of Jason that my stomach lurched and my skin felt clammy. I hoped that the feeling would fade, that I would get used to the idea of being with Jason, because I knew that the idea of “us” made him happy. And really, that had become my entire purpose in life. My only reprieve was my other life – the one I wrote with Asher.
“How does this one look?” Sammy held a slinky red dress up, jutting her hips to the side in a model-like pose.
Kandice nodded approvingly. “Sexy. Try it on.” She pulled a sleeveless blue ball gown off the rack and stood on tiptoe, checking its length. “Do you think this would give me cleavage?” she asked.
Sammy and I laughed and shook our heads. “Kandice, you have like, nothing there.” I giggled. “Get something padded.”
She harrumphed playfully and turned away, acting offended. “Well, Matt seems to like what I’ve got,” she said slyly.
Sammy and I looked at each other. “Oh really?” I asked. “Just what have you and Matt been up to?”
Kandice slid away between the giant racks of dresses. “He hasn’t seen me completely topless or anything. I keep my shirt on.” Her voice sounded muffled as she slipped away.
“Oh. All Robert and I have done is make out a little,” Sammy said, sounding a little disgruntled.
“Tongue or no tongue?” Kandice asked, reappearing behind us.
“Tongue,” she replied, sounding defensive.
“What about you, Paige?” They both turned to me and I quickly turned my attention to the dresses, flipping through them quickly.
“Oh, I don’t know. We’ve kissed.”
Kandice gave me a withering look. “Uh yeah, we know that. We saw you, at the bowling alley.”
“Well,” I paused, “that’s all we’ve done.”
Sammy sighed. “You need to get together with him on your own, Paige. We can’t schedule everything for you. You need to invite him over to your house, or go on a date with him, something.”
I knew they were right, but it didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking. The thought of doing anything with Jason like what my friends were doing with their boyfriends made me feel queasy. I looked to Grace for support and found her half-pressed into the dresses behind us like she was trying to disappear. “You’ve been awfully silent, Grace,” I said, trying to change the subject away from myself. “How’s it going with you and Patrick?”
She shrugged. “He comes over to my house sometimes after school. We fool around a little.” Kandice and Sammy whooped and high-fived her, but I couldn’t help but notice how unhappy she looked. I brushed it off, thinking she was just stressed about shopping for dresses. She always fell into a funk when we went clothes shopping together. I felt my phone vibrate against my hip and I pulled it out then, glancing at the screen.
You busy? Come over for lunch. –A
Sammy read over my shoulder. “Is that from Jason?” she asked excitedly.
Kandice appeared at my other shoulder. “A?”
“It’s nothing,” I replied, stuffing the phone back in my pocket. “Just a friend.”
“A for…Asher?” Grace hazarded.
Sammy gave me a hard look. “Paige, you shouldn’t be seeing two boys at once.”
“I’m not!” I desperately tried to defend myself. “Asher and I have been friends forever.”
Kandice shrugged. “If she wants to play the boys, we shouldn’t stop her. Just don’t let Jason find out.”
“WE ARE JUST FRIENDS,” I hollered.
All three girls stared at me. “Sheesh, we’re just kidding,” Sammy said, looking taken aback. “Don’t make a scene.”
“I’m gonna try this one on,” I muttered, grabbing a dress at random and hurrying off toward the changing rooms. I locked myself in one of the stalls and let the dress fall to the floor, pulling out my phone and tucking myself up on the seat. Now what I should have done then is text Asher back, complaining about the girls and telling him I would be over as soon as I got home. If I had known what would happen later that day, that’s exactly what I would have done. But instead, I ignored his text, rattled by the girls’ comments. Instead, I texted Jason.
Ugh, dress shopping with the girls. Want to hang out later?
A few seconds later, I held his reply in my hands.
id love 2 you can come by my house whenever
Sighing loudly at his grammar (sure, it’s only a text, but still), I watched as another text popped up with his address. Snapping the phone shut, I felt a sense of triumph; I was one step further in the relationship. I uncurled myself from the seat and looked down at the dress on the floor. It looked rather like a deflated ostrich. It wasn’t bad, really: mostly black with white layers, fluffy, ankle-length. I quickly stripped off my clothes and slipped it on, holding my arms high above my head as gravity pulled it down into place. My hair stood out against the black silk like fire. I thought back to what Jason had said about my hair and smiled. It was perfect.
Much to the squealing of my friends, I asked Sammy’s mom to drop me off at Jason’s house on the way home. She tsk-ed a little, but didn’t really seem to care, which was fine by me. Standing in front of his house with my shopping bag clutched in front of me, I listened to the girls drive off in the car, leaving me alone on the sidewalk, miles away from my own house. He lived in one of those houses that you buy one place and get shipped to you. You could tell by the seam through the middle where the two halves had been pushed together.
I walked up the stairs to his porch, trying to ignore the sagging couch in the corner, probably home to spiders and scorpions. With a deep breath, I opened the screen door and tapped lightly on the door, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear and I could begin the long walk home. Almost immediately, the door flew open.
“Hey!” Jason pulled me in, looking exuberant. “Is that your homecoming dress?”
I nodded as he shut the door behind me. “Do you want to see it?”
He paused for a second, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I suppose I should wait until the dance, but yeah, I really want to see it now. I’m not very patient.”
I laughed, looking around. We were standing in a tiny kitchen that was mostly taken up by a card table with dirty dishes piled on top. “I’ll show it to you. Where can I change?”
“You can change in my room,” he said, leading me all the way down the hallway to the back room. “I’ll be right out here.”
Softly shutting the door, I sat down on his bed, spreading out the dress next to me. The bedsprings creaked and sank beneath me as I kicked off my shoes and quickly stripped down to my underwear, pulling the dress on again. It was weird – it felt scratchier and tighter, less magical than in the store. I softly padded back over to the door and pulled it open, feeling self-conscious.
“Wow!” Jason’s mouth dropped open as he looked at me. “You look gorgeous, Paige. You look like a magpie.”
I considered that for a moment. “That sounds better than looking like an ostrich.”
He laughed. “Seriously? You thought you looked like an ostrich?”
I laughed, throwing my hands up in the air. “I don’t know! It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it.” My laugh sounded too loud and I quickly silenced myself, glancing down the hallway. “Is your dad home? Is it okay that I’m here?”
Jason nodded, leaning against the wall. “It’s f
ine. He’s not around right now, so he won’t even know you were here, but I doubt he’d mind anyway. He doesn’t care who I have over, as long as we don’t destroy the place.”
“That’s how my mom is,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Or was. Sometimes she wants to know every little detail of my life and other times she could care less.”
“It’s not that he doesn’t care about me,” he replied, sounding defensive. “I mean, he’s just really easy-going. He knows I wouldn’t do anything really dumb and he stays pretty busy.”
My face flushed as I realized I had implied that his dad didn’t care about his life. “So where is he today?” I asked.
“I think he’s at some church thing,” he said. “I used to see you at those events back when we were younger, you know.” I shook my head. I hadn’t known. I didn’t remember anyone from church, except Asher. Oh, and that stupid girl who stole my glasses, but she doesn’t really count. That was back in Chicago, anyway. “How come you don’t go anymore?” he asked.
“Hey, you’re not there, either,” I pointed out.
He rolled his eyes and walked over to his bed, sitting down and beckoning me over. I carefully picked my way over my discarded clothes and plopped down next to him. “Make yourself comfortable. I normally go to the church events, but you texted a little while before we were leaving, so I decided to stick around here.”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You should have gone. I could’ve come over a different time.”
He shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. Hanging out with you sounded like a lot more fun. So why don’t you come to church anymore? I see your mom there every week.”
Ugh. Of all the subjects he could have brought up. Remember the story about Coyote? Well, my mom and I had come into conflict about religion a long time before that. And well, I guess I kind of misled you with that earlier story. Sorry about that. You see, my mom wasn’t totally overreacting when she lectured me about God and tried to get me to stop hanging out with Asher. The troubles started a long time before that.
Regret List Page 5