Follow Me Home

by Monica Goulet

  I glance at Melody. “Are you going?”

  “Probably,” she says. “We usually do.”

  “Okay,” I say, a smile inching its way across my face. “I’d love to.”

  I try to finish my fries, and laugh at the appropriate times, but by the time lunch is over, I’m exhausted from the effort.

  “Hey,” Melody says when the bell rings. “You have to try the ice cream bars here. Come on.” She tugs me by the arm and waves to everyone else. Taylor grabs both our trays and shoots me another smile.

  “You okay?” she asks, when we’re out of earshot.

  I hug my arms around my chest. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Is everything gone?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Melody puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, even though I know it’s not.

  Melody grabs two ice cream bars from the freezer near the door. “My treat,” she says, digging out some change. “So, where are you staying?”

  “A hotel for now. My dad might have found us a place to rent though.”

  She nods. “So why were you asking about Jay yesterday? Is it true he burned down your house? I heard rumors after you called.” She hands me my ice cream as we push out of the cafeteria crowd and into the hallway.

  I pretend to study the packaging so I don’t picture Jay again in that grey uniform. “I don’t know,” I say. I want to believe him, but the police told my parents they had evidence the fire was suspicious, whatever that means. “The police charged him,” I say. “He used to live in my house.”

  “He did?” Melody asks, standing up beside me. “Why would he burn down his old house?”

  “I don’t know.” Maybe he’s a pyro? But I can’t get myself to believe he’d do it just for kicks. As much as I want to hate him, that awful, sad look in his eyes keeps stopping me. But I guess you never know; people can surprise you. Like the friendly neighbor who later gets busted for child pornography or something. Or the best friend who turns her back on you the second you need her. Two girls walk by and glance at me as they whisper. I get the same sinking feeling I used to get in Tulsa.

  “You sure you’re up for the party tonight?”

  I’m not, but I nod anyway. “Sure.”

  “We can pick you up,” Melody says. “Taylor’s driving.”

  ****

  After lunch, I learn Victoria is now in my Art class. She transferred when she realized you actually had to be able to play an instrument to be in music. She just wanted to sing. I have a feeling she’s gunning for my whole no bra thing to be a trend because I don’t think she’s wearing one. I keep glancing at her - worried if she leans too far to one side, one of her boobs will actually pop out. That possible scenario doesn’t seem to bother her though. She’s bent over her sketch book, trying to erase most of her attempt at a tree. At least one other person in the class has less artistic ability than I do. A guy two rows up is staring at her, likely waiting like I am for her to lean too far one way. I move my chair closer to her, blocking his view.

  Victoria leans over to look at my drawing, and I’m pretty sure creepy guy just missed a good peek. “How’d you get yours to not look like a cartoon?”

  I shrug. My own attempt at a tree is pretty lame. It’s way too symmetrical to look realistic. “Try making your branches skinnier. And draw the leaves individually instead of making them look like one big cloud.”

  Victoria sighs. “That would take forever.”

  I watch as she draws another tree with slightly smaller branches and the same big cloud-looking thing. They should have just let her stay in music. From what I hear, she can actually sing.

  “So,” she says, dropping her pencil. “You and Taylor, huh?”

  “What? No,” I say, blushing. “He’s with Melody isn’t he?”

  Victoria waves her hand dismissively. “They’ve been friends forever. They’ve never even kissed.”

  “She seems to like him though.”

  “As a friend, sure.”

  “Oh,” I say, smudging my drawing with my thumb. “But no. There’s nothing between me and Taylor if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve barely even talked to him.”

  “But he asked you to the party.”

  “He asked me to join the group at the party. It wasn’t like he was asking me to go as his date.”

  “Same difference.”

  I smudge my leaves some more and then try to wipe the black off my thumb. Do I like Taylor? He’s nice, sure, but I haven’t thought about him that way. At least, I don’t think I have. Maybe I’m just being too guarded after Wes. I look at my drawing again. I’ve smudged the leaves too much. I flip the page around and start again.

  The blank page is too shiny and intimidating so I wipe my thumb on one corner and stare at it some more. I can’t forget my goal – to find a boyfriend here so I can be sure the rumors at my old school won’t follow me. Taylor’s nice. And he may just be the perfect candidate to help me start over.

  Chapter Seven

  I’ve never been picked up in front of a hotel before. It makes me feel like I’m traveling somewhere exotic and just met some hot tourist. Only this is Sherbrook and I’m standing in front of the Red Carpet Hotel – not exactly five-star material. The carpet isn’t even red. It’s an ugly orange color. Not to mention the reason I’m staying here, and the fact that this isn’t even a date. I’m actually going to be a third wheel. In about five seconds, my fantasy image of being an exotic tourist has vanished.

  Taylor’s vehicle doesn’t help. I don’t know why, but I expected something sporty. Instead, he pulls up in a beat-up grey pick-up truck with the paint peeling on the sides. He rolls down his window as he pulls up to the hotel entrance, but it gets stuck halfway. He sticks his head partway out.

  “Nice digs,” he says.

  Melody pushes open her door, and I climb in beside her, glancing back at the hotel. All I have to do is get through this party tonight. Tomorrow I can go back to figuring out how to fix everything.

  “Is this outfit okay?” I ask Melody.

  “Yeah, it’s cute.”

  I grabbed it at a cheap department store on my way home. It’s a short white skirt with a black top. But now I’m not so sure if the skirt was a good idea for this kind of party.

  Taylor cranks some dance music and Melody tries to change it. “Hey,” Taylor says. “It’s Friday night. Party music.”

  “We’re going to a house party, not a club,” she says.

  Taylor laughs and cranks it up some more. I sit back, thankful I don’t have to make small talk. I wasn’t exactly a big party-goer in Tulsa. Wes dragged me to one at his football teammate’s house once, and I ended up standing around awkwardly while they drank beer and watched the girls in the pool. Wes kept suggesting I go join them in the water. “Make new friends,” as he called it. I couldn’t bring myself to be on display like that so I hovered in the background, and he never brought me to a party again.

  Taylor pulls into a driveway surrounded by a forest. Steve Weston’s house is tucked in an opening of the trees and is probably peaceful when it’s not surrounded by dozens of teenagers. They’re everywhere – under the trees, on the porch, leaning over railings. This is much bigger than the football party. My pulse beats hard in my neck. I put my hand up to try to stop it, but then realize it’s just the bass from the music pulsing through my head.

  I trail behind Taylor and Melody to the wraparound porch and glue myself to the railing. Everyone hugs Melody and pats Taylor on the back. I stay at the bottom of the stairs, trying to be invisible, and tug at the bottom of my skirt.

  “This is Kelsey,” Melody says, opening the circle to let me in. I take two steps up.

  “You’re the boob girl,” some guy says and everyone laughs.

  I cringe. I think I recognize him from World Issues.

  “You’re just jealous you can’t have them,” Melody says. She hands me a drink and I can’t even see where it ca
me from. I sip on it anyway. The alcohol burns my throat, and I try not to grimace. I’ve never had much alcohol before. It’s not something you do when you spend Friday nights at home watching TV with your parents.

  The conversation shifts to something else, and I take a step down again, out of the circle. I sip my drink slowly until it doesn’t burn my throat anymore. By the time Victoria and Ryan join us, I’m a little dizzy. Melody runs to greet them, and I lean back against the railing, the sickly sweet stuff from the drink gurgling in my stomach.

  “Having fun?” Taylor asks, leaning beside me.

  I nod and stumble back a bit.

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Two of these,” I say, raising my plastic cup.

  “That’s it?” Melody asks, coming back up the stairs with Victoria. “She’s fine. Come with us.” I follow Melody inside, but Victoria pulls my arm to hold me back at the doorway.

  “So?” she says. “Have you hooked up with Taylor yet?” She’s still not wearing a bra, and I can see the outline of her nipples through her tight pink shirt. Funny how no one thinks to tease her about it.

  “What? No,” I say, forcing my eyes to her face. “He picked me up with Melody.”

  “You should ask him out. I think he likes you.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Not exactly. But I can tell.”

  I steal a glance at Melody, talking to a group of girls in the living room. “You’re sure Melody doesn’t have a thing for him?”

  “Trust me, she’s had all the time in the world to be more than friends if she wanted to.”

  “I guess,” I say. But Victoria’s already brushed past me toward the group. I stall and pour myself some punch from the table by the door. Maybe she’s right. And if she is, this whole getting a boyfriend plan might be easier than I first thought.

  I join the group and stand awkwardly behind them until a girl with short brown hair touches my arm. I jump back, slopping a drop of red punch on my white skirt.

  “I heard about the fire,” she says once I’ve composed myself. “That must have been awful.”

  I swallow a sip of my drink, ignoring the stain.

  “I heard Jay did it,” another girl says. “Remember Jay Miller?” Half the group nods.

  “So did he?” someone else says. Every pair of eyes is locked on me like I should know. But I keep picturing the way he looked at me when he told me he didn’t do it.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I take more sips of my drink until my head starts to buzz, and everyone realizes the topic of the fire is not so interesting after all. Soon they’re talking about some girl they think might be pregnant, and I slip toward the back of the group and find another drink.

  Eventually, I make my way outside and into the fresh air. It clears my head a little, but everything still feels fuzzy. The backyard is empty. I shove my hands in the pockets of my jacket, and my hand closes around a piece of paper. The flyer for the dance studio. I unfold it and stare at the words.

  I’d promised myself I’d start dancing again – that when I quit it wouldn’t be forever. I stuff the flyer back in my pocket and try a pirouette on the grass, but I don’t start out right and lose my balance halfway through the turn, sending half my drink flying into the bushes.

  I didn’t want it anymore anyway. I thought it might make me forget, but instead it’s just making me remember everything more intensely – the flames, the smoke, Jay. I stare out at the trees until I see nothing but darkness. Then I pick myself up and stumble back inside. The force of something hitting me sends the rest of my drink flying. I shrink away, waiting for the next blow. Instead, someone’s standing over me, my drink running down his shirt.

  “Whoa – where’d you come from?”

  “I’m sorry,” I stammer, my face burning.

  “It’s okay,” he says, handing me a rag. “Here.”

  His shirt is way worse than mine, but I dab myself with the rag anyway before cleaning up the floor.

  “I’m Steve,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to blot the stain. “This is your house?”

  “Yeah. Well, my parents’ house.”

  I nod.

  “You want another drink?” he asks, touching my arm.

  I jerk away from him, like my shoulder’s on fire.

  “Whoa,” he says. “What’s your problem?”

  “Nothing,” I say, turning away. I pick up my cup and toss it in the garbage behind me. When I stand up again, he’s gone. I slip back outside and wrap my arms around my shoulders, moving my shirt to examine the bruise that’s not there. The one that faded months ago.

  Suddenly, I want to go home. I take out my phone, but can’t bring myself to call my parents. Instead, I walk further into the yard and sink down beside a tree.

  The grass is soft underneath me, and I grab a fistful of it. I thought I’d left Wes in Tulsa, but it’s like he followed me here. I shouldn’t be surprised. I thought breaking up with him would make him disappear too, but it didn’t.

  It took me weeks to finally do it. The final straw was the day he caught me talking to Carter – a guy in one of my classes. We were only talking about the homework assignment we were paired up to do. I told this to Wes, but he didn’t believe me. Or didn’t care. He was quiet the whole way back to his place until we got in his bedroom. Then he hit me so hard I had a black eye I couldn’t even cover up with makeup the next day.

  I told everyone I got hit in the face with a baseball when I was walking near the diamonds on my way home. I even let my parents take me to the hospital to make sure there wasn’t any internal damage. The nurse asked me a lot of questions when my parents were out of the room, but I clung to my baseball story as hard as I could. When I got home that night, I decided that was it.

  I broke up with him right in front of the school after the final bell let out. I knew he’d be even angrier if I did it in front of everybody, but I didn’t have a choice. It was the only place I could be sure he wouldn’t hurt me. I even made plans with Julie after so I wouldn’t be alone. I couldn’t tell her the truth just then. It still felt too raw. Too unreal.

  It still does.

  I lean my back against the tree at the edge of the Westons’ property and shift my butt on the pine needles. My hand uncurls, revealing two tiny eyebrow hairs. I pull another one and swipe them onto the grass. Maybe if I’d told Julie then, she might have been on my side with everything that happened afterward.

  “Are you okay?”

  I jump, pulling my hand from my head. It’s Taylor. “I’m fine,” I say, standing up. “Just getting some air.” I brush the pine needles off my skirt and try to shake the memories out of my head.

  “Was Steve being a jerk? He said you were acting weird inside.”

  “No, he’s fine. I think I just had a bit too much to drink.”

  He tosses me a bottle of water, and I down half of it before passing it back.

  “Keep it,” he says. “Want a lift?”

  “What about Melody?”

  “She doesn’t look like she’ll be ready to go for a while. And Ryan and Victoria are still here. I’ll come back for her.”

  I nod, grateful. All I want is to be in a warm bed, sleeping. I follow Taylor to his car and try to check out his butt. It is cute.

  “You haven’t drunk before, have you?” he says. He grabs my hand to help me into the car. I hang on longer than I should and wait for the butterflies, but I’m too numb to feel anything. He lets go, and I shake my head, sending the world spinning.

  “You can tell?”

  “Actually, you’re better than most. First time Melody drank, she had one cooler and couldn’t even stay on her chair.”

  I laugh, but it comes out as a snort. “So are you two dating or what?”

  Taylor pulls out of the driveway and onto the road, leaving the party behind us. “No,” he says.

  “Why not?” I don’t want to ask so many questions, but they fly out of my mouth anyway.r />
  “I don’t know,” he says finally. “We have fun right now. If we start dating she’ll have all these expectations.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like blowing off my friends to spend every night with her or taking her out for dinner. Whatever it is you girls expect.”

  I look at him. I’m the wrong person to ask. All I expect out of a relationship now is not to be scared. “Maybe she doesn’t expect as much as you think,” I say.

  “Maybe.”

  “Aren’t Victoria and Ryan dating?”

  Taylor laughs. “They tried once. It was a disaster.”

  “What happened?”

  “Victoria spent the whole date texting some other guy on her phone, and Ryan spent it checking out other girls’ butts. They both yelled at each other, until they realized they were each just as much to blame.”

  “But they’re still friends.”

  “Yeah I guess,” he says, his eyes glued to the road. “What about you? You have a boyfriend back in Tulsa?”

  I look down at the red stain on my skirt and rub at it, even though I know it’s not coming out. “No,” I say.

  “Must have been hard, moving here in the middle of high school.”

  I shrug. “I didn’t like my old high school much.”

  Taylor nods and glances over at me. I study him, looking for something I find attractive. His eyes are nice – blue and soft. Kind. And his hair is that perfect shade of sandy blond that makes me want to go to the beach. But it’s cut too short, and I wonder what it would look like if it were longer, like Jay’s.

  “So did you know Jay Miller?” I ask.

  “Yeah, kind of. We were best friends in like, the fifth grade or something.”

  “You were?” I ask, sitting forward. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. We just drifted apart I guess. Started hanging out with different crowds.”

  My head starts to spin again, and I roll down my window. The breeze hits my face and takes the buzz away. Now I just feel gross from all the sweet stuff settling in my stomach. “Do you think he did it?” I ask.

  “Your house? I don’t know. I think he got a little messed up after his parents died.”