The Opposite of Love

by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

Chase stared at her and pushed himself to his feet. Becca and Daniel stared too.

  “I can’t leave Daisy.”

  “Bring her.”

  “Rose, neither you nor I have our shit together enough to take care of a kid. I don’t mind playing uncle now and then, but I don’t want to be Daisy’s dad.” Chase reached over Rose’s hair, gathering it away from her face. He looked at her, almost like he was apologizing. “Besides, I want to go to college—Becca, don’t you dare make a crack about my grades.”

  Daniel sighed, tilting his head back until he was looking at the clouds. “Would you ever consider just calling the guy? Saying, ‘Hey look, Dad, I miss you and all but I have a job out here and my friends, and I just don’t want to move’? You know, talk to him man to man?”

  Chase stared at Daniel, unblinking, for a moment. “I guess it can’t hurt to try.”

  31

  CHASE

  Candy agreed almost immediately that Chase should call Walter. Her eyes brightened and she ran to find Walter’s phone number. Daisy crouched at his feet, and Candy sank down next to her. Dialing the numbers, Chase didn’t know whether he wanted Walter to pick up or not. Might be kind of nice to get the machine. The machine couldn’t yell at him, couldn’t make him feel the size of an insect, couldn’t laugh.

  No such luck. “Done Rite Roof Repair, this is Walter.” His voice had that singsong customer service quality. It sounded nothing like the voice Chase remembered.

  Chase seriously considered hanging up. But he figured Walter would call right back, pissed now that someone had crank-called him. So he waited for the words to come to him. They seemed to get stuck somewhere in his throat.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Chase barely whispered.

  “You’ve reached Done Rite Roof Repair, what can we do you for?”

  “Walter—Dad—it’s me, Chase.”

  The pause circled around him, making him dizzy. He’d just about convinced himself that Walter didn’t remember him when he heard a response. “Well, shit.” That was a Walter hello if he’d ever heard one. “Haven’t heard from you in going on three years.”

  Chase nodded, forgetting that Walter couldn’t see him. Daisy edged closer, as if she was trying to protect him from an invisible enemy. “I … I … uh … ” Chase stuttered stupidly. “Walter—I have a girlfriend out here now.”

  Again the long pause. “Well … all right.” Walter said with forced enthusiasm, like Chase had just scored a touchdown. “How’s that going?”

  Now it was Chase’s turn to give a labored pause. He felt torn. Brag to his dad and try to earn some respect, or honor the girl he loved? He might have gone for the bragging, but Daisy and his mother sat there listening to his every word. “It’s just that … I don’t want to leave Simi.” Chase felt little bubbles of sweat gather at his brow. “I want to see you—Daisy does too—I just, I don’t want to move away from my girlfriend.”

  Quiet. It struck Chase that he’d spent more of this conversation in silence than with words. If Walter had been standing in front of him, Chase would have been scared shitless, sure, but at least the silence wouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable.

  “You got my letter, then.” Walter’s voice sounded strained. “You’re telling me you don’t want to come live with me for the summer?” Chase searched for the words, all too aware that his pause told his father more than words ever could. “I’m not talking full time here, just summer and maybe a couple of months at the beginning of the school year.”

  “Next year is my senior year, Dad.”

  “I haven’t seen you in three years.”

  Suddenly Chase felt brave. Walter wasn’t about to reach his hand through the phone and strangle him. He could say what he wanted. “Honestly, I haven’t had any windshields shattered over me recently, and I haven’t minded so much,” he said, then waited. No response, so he went for it again. “Candy hasn’t broken her arm in a while either.”

  Chase could almost hear Walter grinding his teeth through the phone. “Look, Chase.” Walter spoke so softly that Chase actually leaned forward. “I’m different now. I stopped drinking. I’m hitting twelve-step meetings a couple times a week.” Chase thought about pointing out the irony in the word “hitting” but decided against it.

  Instead he held the phone away from his ear, trying to read Candy’s expression. The silence worked in his favor. “Hey kid, I’m not gonna force you guys to come stay with me, but I just want you to know that I’m different now. And I miss you.”

  There were a thousand things Chase wanted to say. Why contact us now, after all this time? Do you really want to see us, or do you just want to get out of paying child support? If you care about us so much, why don’t you come visit? Of course, he said none of that. He’d gotten what he wanted, an out. Chase sighed. “We’ll stop by next time we pass through Bakersfield.” He had never been to Bakersfield in his life.

  “Hey, can I talk to Candy for a minute?” Candy and Daisy sat so close to the phone that they could hear his voice anyway. Candy shook her head back and forth, mouthing excuses.

  “She’s not here right now.” Chase lied. “She’s uh … ”

  It sounded like Walter held the phone away from him while he cursed. He obviously hadn’t changed that much. “Just tell her to call me. Tell her we’re two civilized adults. We should be able to have a conversation every once in a while.” Candy raised her eyebrow at the word “civilized.”

  When Chase said good-bye, he felt his whole body lighten. Daisy grinned and Candy laughed nervously. “Damn. I never would have thought it would be that easy,” she said.

  “Easy?” Now that it was over, Chase’s anger surged. “I was the one on the phone, not you.” Candy tightened her ponytail, and suddenly she looked very young. “Why wouldn’t you talk to him? He can’t break your arm over the phone!”

  Candy’s eyes flashed. “Lay off it.”

  “No, come on,” Chase insisted. “Why don’t you ever have any balls?” His voice gathered strength, like all the things he didn’t say to Walter had built up, gathering force like water behind a dam. “You never stood up for us. Sure, he hurt me. But you let him hurt me. Who’s more to blame?”

  Suddenly the sight of Candy in front of him, chickening out as always, sickened him. He couldn’t stand to look at her one second longer. He squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his fist into the palm of his hand. It stung like a bitch, though, and that brought him back to reality. Wary, he opened his eyes, only to see Daisy inching backward, arms crossed like she was literally holding herself together. She looked scared. Of him.

  He paced his breathing. Relax. He could feel his adrenaline shooting through his veins. “Don’t worry, Daze. I’ll stay cool.” He looked back at Candy. Maybe he’d go for a run. That would help him chill. “I’ll drop it, Candy, I promise. I just have to say one more thing.” Now his voice steadied. “Pull it together and start acting like a mother.”

  Candy opened her mouth as if to say something, but she closed it again, her words unsaid.

  32

  CHASE

  Rose had always thought “lovesick” was nothing more than an expression. But here she was, hunched over the toilet, praying to puke so that she’d feel better. Thoughts raced through her head over and over, like an iPod stuck on repeat. Chase is gonna move away. He’ll leave me, just like everyone else. I was a goddamn idiot to think this time would be different. That someone would actually step up for me. Any flashes of hope fizzled. I will be left with my jail keepers. I don’t even have a best friend to vent to. Ever since Becca got all up in Rose’s face about the Parsimmons, things had been strained.

  She went back to her room and lay on her twin bed, one arm flung over her eyes. It didn’t help that heat had settled over the Valley early this year. Barely May, and already the house felt hot as a toaster oven. The porch wasn’t much coole
r, even with the Santa Anas blowing through.

  She flung herself onto her comforter and buried her face, blaming Mrs. P. for the Pepto-Bismol pink that coated everything in the room. Too hot to lie facedown for long, she rolled over. The wardens came to check on her, as expected, before they went to bed. She pretended to be asleep. Eyes closed, one arm draped over them, lips slightly parted, and slow, deep breathing. She heard the creak of the footsteps approaching and then the slight brush of air as the door swung open. They stood and watched her.

  She heard Mr. P. whisper, “She looks sort of sweet when she’s asleep.” And Hursula’s quiet response, “I know. If only she stayed that way when she was awake.” Then the brush of air again as the door closed, a gentle thud against the door frame, and the creaking of the steps moving away.

  This was the time of night Rose normally psyched herself up for the evening escape. She usually waited another hour or so, of course, until there was no movement within the house, but tonight, there seemed to be no point in going to Chase’s. Why? So she could love him more? So she could have sex with him? So he could go off to his father’s and leave her alone? She’d trusted him, she’d opened up to him, and now he’d be leaving her.

  She fell asleep there, her thoughts still tossing and turning while her body slept. She woke at midnight to hear a tiny cluster of taps against her window. It sounded like a tree branch rustling in the wind, but she knew there were no tree branches directly against the window. She leaped out of bed, her heart instantly bumping around in her chest. Again, light tapping. In one quick movement she threw back the pink flowered curtains. There, nose pressed against the glass, stood Chase, his hair tousled and wind blown.

  After the initial wave of shock passed, Rose rushed forward and put her finger to her lips. Shhh! She eased the window up slowly, soundlessly. She carefully removed the screen from the window and gestured for him to climb in. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, not sure whether to be mad or glad for the company.

  “I had to see you,” he whispered back, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, and she shivered. “I emailed you, but you didn’t respond, and I didn’t want you to worry.”

  Her throat caught for a second. She swallowed. “Well, tell me.”

  “I’m not going to my dad’s.”

  “No shit?” Rose tried to sound casual, but she was pretty sure she didn’t.

  “My dad always had this image of what he wanted me to become. Tough, you know. Maybe even kind of a player.”

  “A player?”

  “I’m not, of course. You’re the only one I’ve ever really been with. But all he knows is I have a girlfriend. And I told him I won’t leave you.”

  Suddenly, Rose’s insides felt like she’d just sipped a mug of hot chocolate and could feel the warmth slipping down inside her. “You won’t leave me,” she repeated.

  Chase pulled something from behind his back. A single stem. A rose. He kissed her forehead. “I know you think giving you a rose is corny. But I don’t.” He put the rose between his teeth and stepped closer. “I’d kiss you with this in my mouth, but I don’t want to poke you with a thorn,” he mumbled around the stem.

  “You’re a dumb ass,” she breathed, loving him. “I might have the flu. I shouldn’t kiss you anyway.”

  “Any flu you have, I want.”

  “You’re an idiot. I’ll have to beat you up.” She gingerly took the stem from his lips. “You broke two rules. Rule number one: coming to my house. Rule number two: you’re not supposed to be in charge, remember?”

  Chase wrapped his arm around her. “We might have to renegotiate that.” He pulled her toward her pink bed in her pink room. “And if you must beat me up—go ahead.”

  Rose leaned forward to pin him to her mattress. She wrapped her hands around his wrists and put weight on her arms. Without warning—no creaks, no thuds, no warning movement in the air—the bedroom door swung open. There stood Hursula, in a light flowered nightgown, staring at the two of them. Her eyes turned hard enough to cut glass.

  33

  ROSE

  Rose might as well have been Rapunzel from Tangled locked up in that tower, totally isolated. Except for school, she couldn’t leave the house. After an hour on the phone with her shrink, Mr. and Mrs. P. decided she was a “danger to herself and others.” Not in the traditional loaded-weapon kind of way, but more in the keep-that-girl-locked-up kind of way. And definitely keep her away from that no-good Chase kid.

  The day after Hursula stormed in on them, she dragged Rose over to the synagogue office to force her resignation. At first Mrs. Rosenberg had greeted them with her wide horsey smile, setting aside the stack of tzedakah money she’d been counting. But once Hursula started explaining Rose’s fragile mental state, Mrs. Rosenberg’s smile melted, until finally she just stood there with her lips pressed into a thin line. Becca stepped into the office just then, but stopped short. She looked like she was trying to catch Rose’s eye, but Rose kept her face down. With a sigh, Becca grabbed a couple rolls of paper towels and left.

  Rose could feel the isolation taking its toll. Like an addict, she felt herself going through withdrawal. Chase withdrawal. Love withdrawal. Attention withdrawal. She felt physically ill. She could hardly even eat. She caught him for moments at school, but it wasn’t the same. No afternoons at the temple day care. No five-minute make-out sessions in the coat closet. No long, drawn-out talks. No being held in his warm arms for hours on end. No falling asleep to the rise and fall of his chest.

  At first, Rose wanted to cut class just to be with him, but Hursula dropped in the front office to check her attendance every day, so it seemed too risky. And now when he saw her, all he seemed to want to do was fantasize about these fairy-tale solutions that would never materialize.

  “The Steins could take you in.” Yeah, but the Parsimmons would never let them. “Be extra good—and they’ll back off this.” You don’t know them. Once they make up their mind, it sticks. They think they’re protecting me. “I’ll go talk to them. I’ll explain.” That what, you were tutoring me in math? That you thought you’d save me the trip to your house? That you love me?

  Rose could barely keep her nose above water. Just shuffled along, home to school, school to home. Slept at home. Slept at school. Slept at home. Ignored Chase and Becca so that they would go away and let her crawl back into her turtle shell where she wouldn’t have to feel anything ever again.

  So when Becca barreled across the quad to confront her, the accusation caught her by surprise. “You self-centered bitch!” she hissed loud enough for Rose to hear, but no one else. Rose had been sitting against the eastern wall, knees drawn to her chest, trying to keep her mind blank.

  Instantly, Rose’s senses switched on hyper-alert. They’d been dulled for so many days that now the light seemed too bright and the sounds too loud. “What are you talking about?” She could hear the slamming of locker doors, the swooshing of shoes padding down the halls, and laughter, laughter everywhere, coming at her from all sides like she was the butt of some joke.

  “You stole the tzedakah money!” Becca yelled down at her, louder this time, her hoop earrings large enough to bang against her chin when she moved.

  “The what money?” Rose pushed herself to standing and faced Becca directly, realizing once again how short Becca was, even with two-inch platform shoes.

  “All you ever think about is yourself. Poor Rose, stuck with rotten parents. Poor Rose has to quit her job.” Becca stood close enough that Rose could smell the bubblegum she used to cover the cigarette stink. “You never get off your pity potty long enough to notice the rest of the world.”

  Rose felt like she’d woken up in class after being called on for an answer—not knowing the question or the topic or the page. “Becca, I—”

  “I know it was you. I saw you watching Mrs. Rosenberg count the tzedakah cash box. The money wen
t missing three days later.”

  “What?” Rose started to step backward, but bumped into the locker behind her. The air felt suddenly thick, and the room too crowded. “Becca, I can’t set one foot out my front door without the parent police breathing down my neck.”

  “That hasn’t stopped you before!” Becca snapped. “You have a one-track mind. You want to get your parents back at any cost. I know you.” Becca’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t care who you hurt. In fact, I don’t think you care about anyone but yourself.” She turned on her heel and started to walk away. “If you cared about anyone else, you’d realize that they’re going to blame Chase,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Someone saw him in the office the day the money disappeared.”

  34

  CHASE

  If Chase had known Rose’s mother would fling open that door at a quarter past one, he never would have knocked on her window. If he had known her parents would make her quit the job, he never would have so much as thought about breaking a single one of Rose’s stupid rules. If he had known that money would go missing from the temple office, he never would have gone up there to look for extra green paint. The day-care kids could have painted blue grass or purple grass. Green grass was overrated.

  But of course, he knew none of that.

  Chase cornered Rose before Math Analysis. She walked with her head low, her long silky hair draped over her face. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty computer lab. “Ouch.” She wrapped her fingers around his, prying them loose.

  “Relax, Rose,” he said softly. He hadn’t meant to scare her. “You’ve been avoiding me. I just wanted to talk for a minute.”

  She backed away from him. “Haven’t you messed things up enough?”

  “Hey, I’m sorry about that. Stupid, I know.”

  “Beyond stupid.”

  “I said I was sorry.” An edge crept into his voice. “That doesn’t mean you have to completely cut me off. It’s not all or nothing, you know.”