Full Count (The Catcher Series Book 1)

by Bri Izzo

  “You’re fucking beautiful, B,” he compliments me, quickly sneaking in for a kiss on my lips. He looks behind me after he does it to see if anyone in the hotel room noticed, but his face tells me we’re unseen. I’m caught slightly off guard but really I have been waiting for it for a while. No matter how short, kisses from Skyler are always my favorite. And this one is on my lips; therefore, I know I’m not going insane thinking there’s still something romantic between us. Thirteen year old Bianca is geeking out right now! “When I see your scar, it reminds me that you’re tough.”

  “Then… for now… I’m not hiding it,” I decide.

  The next week at school Tiffany tells me that Chloe is hosting pre-homecoming pictures for some girls in our class who don’t want to go with dates. I’m relieved when she tells me because I don’t want to be the only girl without a date, and I know no one will ask me for real. It would just be a pity-ask if someone does. But partway through the week I hear differently.

  Chloe: Who are you bringing on Saturday?

  Me: I thought we weren’t doing dates.

  Chloe: Andrew asked me, so change of plans.

  Wow, what the hell happened to “hoes over bros”? I’m disgusted that she’s so willing to drop our plans to be with a guy.

  Me: Perfect.

  Pretty much everyone at school already has dates since the dance is in just a few days, so I’m kind of at a loss as who to ask. I also hate that I have to pursue a guy to be my date while apparently all of my friends have been asked. I overhear Rex talking to Leah one evening while they are watching a movie in the living room, which leads me to my ultimate plan.

  “No one is going with dates this year,” Rex tells her. “I mean, I’ll get you flowers since we’re together, but no one else is doing that again. They all said it was stupid to spend that much money on a girl they aren’t even dating.”

  “Typical guys,” Leah shrugs with a smirk, knowing she wins out in the situation.

  Me: I assume you have a date, too?

  Tiff: Yeah.. sorry. Sam said he would go with me.

  Me: Of course. But what am I gonna do?

  Tiff: Ask Skyler.

  Me: Yeah right! Are you kidding?

  Tiff: No, I’m not.

  Tiff: He wanted to ask you last year when you were with Chase. He will say yes for sure.

  Me: I was trying to pretend Chase was a bad dream.

  Tiff: Don’t change the subject. Go ask him.

  After a few minutes of pacing around my kitchen while eavesdropping on my brother and his girlfriend, I run upstairs and call Skyler. My heart pounds a million miles a second in anticipation for this ridiculous charade. I always imagined him asking me, not me asking him. I know we kissed at my birthday party, but this would be in public in front of absolutely everyone in our world. It’s so different. Just when I’m about to hang up after the fourth ring, I hear his scratchy voice.

  “What’s up, Buzz?” he screeches a little too chipperly for a school night. I’m busy trying to analyze the background noise on his phone, so I literally forget to reply to his greeting. With a few seconds of silence, Skyler tries again, “Hello?”

  “Hey, um… it’s…” I stammer as I play with my long ponytail of brown locks. I can taste my heart in the back of my throat, and I have to cough so I won’t gag or throw up with him on the phone with me. That’d be really attractive.

  “Buzz…” he finishes for me, letting his voice trail off. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  I can’t do this. And I just hang up on him and toss my phone across the room like it’s a hot potato. Breathing like I just ran a marathon, I walk in circles in the center of my room until I hear the loud vibration of my phone ringing on the floor against my wood dresser.

  Skyler Swanson.

  I try to tame the marching band in my chest, but there’s no use; I pick up my phone and slide my finger across the green bar and squeak a very high-pitched, “Hello?” Closing my eyes doesn’t mask my embarrassment for sounding like a mouse. You would never know I call him all the time with the way my nerves are acting. I certainly am not sleeping at his house for the rest of the week. No way. Too awkward. Damn it, now I’m pissed at myself. I hate sleeping alone.

  “Buzz?” he questions, probably because of my inability to have a human conversation with him at the moment. God, this is so embarrassing!

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I muster out, catching my breath halfway through.

  “Is everything okay?” he wonders. My mind goes from saying, “Aw he cares about me,” to, “Shut up; he just thinks you croaked over and died.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have the hiccups,” I tell him, sighing out of disbelief for making up such a dumb lie.

  “Is that why you hung up on me?” Skyler chuckles, and I can feel the flirtatiousness in his voice. It’s either that or relief that I have a normal, quirky thing going on in my body that isn’t a result of the accident.

  “Kind of. Maybe. I don’t know,” I ramble. Okay, just forget this. Just tell him you hit the wrong number and hang up.

  “B, why are you freaking out?” he tries again, more calmly.

  “It’s my friends; they’re just being dumb and suddenly want to go with dates to homecoming,” I confess, not knowing how that manages to come out so smoothly. Even though I always feel most comfortable when I’m with him, I’m not excited about having to ask him to the dance.

  “Oh,” his voice shallows, but I got that far so I don’t want to stop there.

  “I was calling to see if you would go with me,” I blurt out. “Before you say anything-” I shout in my next breath so he can’t stutter or instantly reject me because him and his friends aren’t going with dates. Or he’s romantically repulsed by me. “Hear me out; I just need someone to take pictures with. I don’t want to be the only one without a date. As soon as we get to school, you can go hang out with the guys and do whatever. I just need you to get me through pictures and dinner… please.”

  “Ouch. You know I have an ego, right?” Skyler half-laughs. “Let me talk to Alex, and see what he says, okay?”

  “Oh my God, Rex isn’t going to care,” I cry out. I’m naive. Of course Rex is going to care. He doesn’t want me near Skyler if it’s in a romantic setting. He doesn’t even like that I sleep over there so much.

  “If he isn’t going to care, then what’s the big deal if I ask him?” he teases.

  “You would go with me?” I realize what his answer actually means; he’s accepting under the condition that it’s okay with my brother.

  “Yes, B. Don’t act so surprised,” he tells me. “If I hadn’t made the pact with Benny to go without a date, I would’ve asked you.”

  28 Skyler Swanson

  I’m not sure what crazy pills Buzz took today before she calls and asks me to be her date to homecoming, but she’s fucking adorable. I do feel bad that she was that nervous. I kissed her last week, and we share a bed almost every night, so it’s not like I think she’s repulsive. In fact, I think the opposite. Knowing Alex has started warming up to the idea of me and Buzz casually being together, I text him.

  Me: I know you’re with Leah. Call me when you get a chance.

  A half hour later my phone is ringing and his name is flashing on my screen.

  “Hey, I just wanted to run something by you,” I say right away. If he’s still with Leah, I’m sure he doesn’t want this conversation to take forever. We aren’t girls who just call to talk or beat around a bush.

  “Okay, shoot,” he accepts.

  “Buzz called me and needs a date to homecoming and asked me,” I put it all on the table.

  “I thought neither of you were going with anyone,” he questions.

  “She said her friends changed their minds last minute,” I explain.

  “You don’t need my permission, Skyler,” he tells me. “But I can’t believe you made her ask you.” Since when do I not need his fucking permission? He loathes me with her romantically.

 
; “Bye, fucker,” I curse at him and hang up.

  The next day when I pick Buzz up for school, we’re both our usual 7:00 a.m. selves - quiet and tired-looking. I didn’t even realize I never called her back to tell her what Alex said about us going to homecoming together until after I feel her eyes on me in a scary way.

  “Why are you fucking looking at me like that?” I demand to know as I turn into the school’s parking lot. “Was I an ass to you in your dreams last night?” It was another rare night where I didn’t hear from her and where she didn’t sleep in my bed next to me. I’m always curious which she prefers: to sleep in my bed or alone in her own. My sleep is deprived from constantly worrying about her, but at least if she’s in my bed I know I can take care of her better than if she is down the street.

  “No. You were an ass in real life,” she snaps, lightly punching me in the arm.

  “I was? How?” I question her. I’m usually an ass but not to her. This is new.

  “Rex said he gave you his blessing, but I never heard back from you,” she explains. The way her arms cross over her chest put her in a childish light, but she has every right to be pissed. My face must show my realization because she adds, “It’s fine. If you didn’t want to go with me, you should’ve just said so.”

  Just as I pull into my parking spot, I turn to her and put my hand on her shoulder. “No, no, no, no,” I stutter. “Buzz, look at me.” Of course, she has to be her stubborn Italian self and not listen. Her profile is rigid, so I whisper in her ear, “Fine. I’ll just go with you to pictures and dinner. You’re on your own after that.” I don’t want to fucking play these games. I kissed her on her birthday; she has to know that means something.

  “Fine,” she half-shouts back. “That’s all I asked for anyways.” Then she viciously opens the passenger side door, and I flinch as I prepare myself for metal on metal. Somehow she manages to save the door from hitting the car next to us, but it doesn’t slow her down from storming away from me.

  I can’t just leave it like this. I love her more than I want to be the superior one in this fight. Nothing is worth seeing her upset. I jump out and race around my Jeep to meet her near the rear bumper, and luckily she jolts back in surprise when I step in her pathway. Caught her just in time.

  “Let’s not fucking do this, okay?” I beg.

  “We’re not doing anything,” she whimpers, bowing her head to skirt around me. But I can’t fucking let her walk into school in this state of mind. School sucks enough; she doesn’t need to be upset with me, too.

  I lightly grab her arm and allow my lips to creep to just a breath away from her ear. “I’m sorry I forgot to call you back… but don’t push me away,” I tell her. My grip tightens on her, awaiting for her acknowledgement to my apology. She can shove everyone else in her life into traffic but not me.

  When she lets out a deep breath and finally looks at me, my chest relaxes. The fight is over just like that. “I just didn’t sleep last night, so I’m cranky. I’m sorry,” she admits softly. I don’t know what possesses her to, but she leans her forehead down onto my chest and rests it there for a long moment as I run my fingers through her hair. My chin lightly rests on her head so naturally as I try to absorb her anxiousness. I think we are both so incredibly sleep deprived that we forget we’re standing in the school parking lot. In broad daylight. When everyone else is arriving to school. She clearly needs this, needs me, so I let it fucking happen. If we get caught, so be it.

  “Did you not sleep because I didn’t call you back?” I wonder, the guilt in my stomach swimming to the surface to create a tidal wave.

  She shakes her head, an unlikely answer. “No. I didn’t sleep because it makes me nervous to think about losing you,” she quietly declares.

  “Then don’t think about it,” I tell her.

  We’re in our own world until all of a sudden Evan Smith, the football player that lives on the same street between me and Buzz, walks by us and calls out, “Get a room!”

  I can almost feel Buzz roll her eyes as she lets out a frustrated sigh, but before she can move away from me, I yell back, “Fuck off, Smalls!”

  “Sky!” Buzz quietly accuses me of overreacting, but the tiny smirk on her face tells a completely different story. She must secretly love being seen with me, even if it feels like we are being caught, and hearing me defend us.

  “What? He needs to mind his own fucking business,” I decide, keeping an arm around her shoulder as we trail Evan and a bunch of other students into the cafeteria. Buzz has made it a ritual to go to her locker first thing upon arrival. She doesn’t always join us back in the cafeteria, but I know it’s her way of isolating herself.

  “Hey,” I call after her as she heads down the hallway. Her hair twirls around like a fan when she twists in my direction. She’s a model on her own runway. “Am I taking you home today?” I ask since it’s the last time I’ll see her before the final bell rings at the end of the day.

  “I have therapy. If you want to come, we can go together. Otherwise Rex will take me and wait,” she offers and then awaits my response. I promised her at her birthday party I would go, so I figure there’s no reason to push it out any further.

  Nodding, I enlighten her, “I’ll see you later today then.”

  Her therapist is fucking pushy even in her introduction and greeting, and I don’t like it. I don’t like that Buzz has to deal with her every fucking week, and I’m not too fond of having to deal with her myself today. She is an older woman with brown hair that looks like it has been fried on an ironing board. Her slightly crooked teeth make her look evil when she smiles, which is all the fucking time. No one is that happy. And just because you’re smiling doesn’t mean you can fucking drill Buzz as hard as you can for an hour.

  Buzz and I sit on a couch across from Dr. Hughes, who she calls “Samantha” like they’re best friends. I’m not about to fucking fall into Samantha’s shitty scheme of pretending to be our friend but really just being a nosey bitch like every other middle-aged woman in the surrounding area.

  Hearing Buzz talk about the accident the way she does really rattles me. My insides keep jumping and making me nauseous. She’s so stiff and clearly uncomfortable with talking or thinking about it, which is totally understandable. Except that she’s been doing this for weeks. I realize maybe she asked me to come because she is always relaxed with me.

  “Last week Bianca mentioned trust being an issue between the two of you,” Samantha announces to us immediately upon starting our session.

  “Really,” I deadpan.

  “Yes. Something about you keeping a secret from her,” she continues to pry.

  “We already talked about this when it happened,” I argue, looking at Buzz for confirmation. Why the fuck would she bring this up now?

  “Look, whatever happens in the future, I need to know I can trust you. I know you’ll save me and take care of me, but I need you to also be open and honest, too,” she explains. “When I first saw Chase last week at school I vaguely remembered what happened. I wasn’t sure if we ever finished it.”

  Fuck, well now I feel like shit. We kind of did leave that fight in an awkward place, and then the accident happened. I should’ve realized she would forget something that recent. In my head, right now she’s hinting at us dating. Maybe this trust issue and end to that fight are the only things holding her back from me. If that’s what it takes, I’m in. It’s not like I have this giant book of Skyler’s Secrets that I’m hiding from her. I just wanted to protect her.

  “Okay,” I agree, and I watch her relax onto the arm of the couch and kick her feet up, squirming like a child. She looks at me like it’s going to take a little bit more than me just saying “okay” to gain her trust back but she’s willing to let me try. Maybe just not in front of her therapist.

  “So in regards to the accident, Bianca, how do you feel about it today?” Samantha asks her.

  “I’m just glad Sky was there to save me,” she tells Samantha in the most sta
ged voice I’ve ever fucking heard come out of her mouth. It’s like she’s reading a script for the first time.

  “What if he wasn’t there? What if it would’ve been someone else?” Samantha interrogates her.

  “Benny said if it weren’t for Sky I would’ve died,” Buzz continues in her fake voice. And she’s avoiding looking at me, so I know she knows I picked up on her act. Ugh, it’s piercing to my ears to hear her talk like this. It isn’t her. It’s like she fell back into the old Buzz with no memories.

  “I’m sorry. Can I get a second with her?” I interrupt, acknowledging the therapist first and then turning towards Buzz. I lean in and whisper before Samantha can even give me her blessing, “This is what you fucking talk about at therapy? How does this help?”

  “Well we’re kind of backtracking because you’re here,” she confesses, a slightly more pained, but real, expression creeping onto her face. She hates this.

  “You don’t have to do that. I can pick up wherever you left off,” I tell her.

  A flood of grief overcomes me when Buzz locks eyes on mine. Like the feelings she’s trying to hold back, I’m bottling up my anguish over the accident. After she was released from the hospital we never talked about the unfortunate events again. But I know they constantly play back in our minds.

  “Sky,” she begins, grabbing my hand that rests between us on the couch. “I need you to do this, to talk about this,” she declares. Her eyes are soft and forgiving as she pleads with me, and I know I have to make the sacrifice. Those tears she’s keeping hostage are an unusual sight, and I respect her vulnerability.

  Reluctantly I turn back towards Samantha and anticipate questions I won’t want to answer. “Skyler, what would you have done if you heard Bianca died from the accident and you weren’t there?” she asks me.

  What? That’s a dumb fucking question. “I was there,” I remind her.

  “I know. But what if you weren’t?” she presses. Her high-pitched know-it-all Barbie voice is so fucking annoying, but I decide to hurry this charade up and play along.