“This is my life, Taylor,” I say, daring him to challenge me. “I can’t escape it.”
He shakes his head, getting up to move away from me. “I have no idea why you’d want to be a part of this world. There’s so much more out there.”
I watch him fade into the distance, dropping down to lie across the lawn chair again, letting the sun warm my skin.
* * *
It’s five PM in my empty house when my phone starts ringing. I check the name on the front before sliding my thumb across the screen to answer. I’d been expecting a text from Jackson to tell me when he’s coming over after baseball. I’d planned for him to be over most of the weekend with my parents out of town. “What?” I ask into the phone.
“Hey, Nell.” His voice sounds a little shaky. “I can’t come over tonight. I wanted to tell you myself, and I can’t—uh—exactly see the words on my phone screen right now.”
I stand up straighter. “What? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where are you?”
He laughs. “Ow. If my head didn’t hurt so much right now I would be touched. I, uh, kinda got hit in the head with a ball and seem to have suffered. Um. Some sort of concussion.”
“Shit, Jackson.”
“I know, right?” he asks, making light of the situation. “Anyway, now I’m feeling super fucked up and I gotta get home somehow. Doug is trying to figure out some way to drive over so he can pick me up. I’m probably going to be out of commission all weekend.”
“Don’t,” I say, already grabbing up my keys. “He doesn’t need to do that with his leg. I’ll come get you.”
“You will?” he asks, skeptical.
“Of course,” I say, and I’m pounding down the porch stairs. “Don’t move. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Okay,” he says, dragging out the word a little longer than is necessary.
I try not to feel any panic as I drive over the bridge to get him. He’s fine, of course he is. I pull into the athletic complex parking lot and see the guys are still running through some drills out on the baseball field. Jackson sits with one of the assistant coaches on the sideline. I get out and walk over to him, trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible in the process. Even still, I feel eyes on me. When I look up, I see it’s Taylor.
“I’m his ride,” I tell the coach, who is watching me like I’m up to something. I point at Jackson for emphasis and the coach still looks suspicious.
“Okay, fine,” he says at last. “No physical activity for at least a week. He can sleep some but he needs to be woken up at least once to check his symptoms.”
“So I don’t die,” Jackson interjects wisely.
“Watch for the usual stuff: irritability, short-term memory loss, headaches, dizziness. He should be fine in a few days.”
“Define ‘fine,’” I say, and the coach doesn’t laugh but Jackson does.
“Any heavy vomiting or difficulty waking up, call an ambulance. Otherwise, we’ll just get him checked out by the team physician again next week to make sure he’s all right to come back. You okay, Hart?”
“Yeah. I thought I was dizzy for a minute, but then I remembered Nell Becker just does that to my head.” The coach looks more closely at me when Jackson says my name, and I have to get us out of here, like, now.
Jackson leans into me as we head back to my car, his gym bag hanging off my shoulder. I open the door and I’m about to shove him in when he leans forward and presses the top of his head against my forehead. I push him into the car. “That’s quite enough.”
I’ve been driving in the wrong direction for a little bit before I realize where I’m going. “I’m taking you back to my house. Mom and Dad won’t be home until Sunday so you can stay with me tonight.”
“I have parents, Nell,” he says.
I don’t say I don’t trust them or I’ll take better care of you. But my hands are on the steering wheel and he pretty much has no choice but to do what I say.
It’s not easy, but I manage to get him into the house.
“Are you tired?” I ask, touching his face. It’s hot. “You probably need to lie down.”
But his eyes are all over the place, taking in every square inch of our house. “This is how the Beckers live?”
“Yes,” I say, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Not quite up to your standards, I’m sure.”
“It’s nice,” he tells me, making his way over to a family picture on an end table in the den. He studies it carefully, and I don’t like the way he examines everything like he can see something I can’t.
“What about food? Have you taken anything for the pain?”
He turns back to me. “Yeah. And I’m nauseous as hell, so pass.”
“Sleep?” I ask.
“Yeah, okay,” he agrees. “And can you turn all the lights off? They’re kind of making me want to die.”
I oblige quickly.
“Come on,” I tell him, nudging him up the stairs with my hands on his back. He goes. “You’ll have to sleep in my room because I can’t deal with the complex of you in my parents’ room.”
He chuckles darkly. “Who would have thought it? This is all it took for you to care.” I continue to push him, not amused. I wish he’d stop trying to read me, stop trying to figure me out. I wish I didn’t care.
My room is practically dark thanks to my thick blinds, so I toss his gym bag down and pull back the covers of my bed. I grab on to the bottom of the T-shirt he’s wearing and pull it over his head. He takes one step toward me and I take one back. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll come check on you in, like, an hour. Start slow, right?”
I wait for him to climb under the covers, feeling an absurd desire to tuck him in. To make sure he’s all right.
It’s like I don’t know myself at all anymore.
I’m about to leave when he says, “Nell.”
“Yeah.”
“Will you lie down with me? Just for a minute.”
I almost laugh, he’s so good. I go over to the other side of the bed and climb under the covers in my clothes. He ropes an arm over me, moving in closer, always closer. I find that I don’t mind it so much.
“What happened?” I ask him.
“Speak quietly, if you don’t mind.” His face is resting so close to mine, I’m able to turn my head and watch his eyes flutter open and closed in the dim light sneaking through small cracks in the blinds. “Proctor hit a damn foul ball directly at my head. I wasn’t looking and Reagan didn’t even do me the courtesy of a heads-up. I think he’s in love with you,” he mutters, trailing off.
“Shut up, Jackson,” I whisper. I run my thumb over a piece of his hair on his forehead.
“I would’ve done it to him if the situation was reversed.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I tell him, a grin in my voice.
“I’m so in love with you,” he says.
My hand stills at the words. I pull away, but his hand reaches out and catches me before I can evade him. “Please don’t stop,” he says. I remember saying those words to him when we kissed. Afraid I might lose him.
It’s only been about a month since we danced together at Raven’s, when he talked until I kissed him so he’d stop. I’ve known Jackson for years, known everything about him: his GPA down to the thousandth point, the number of varsity letters he has, the girls he dated, even sometimes how he spent each one of his wonderful, perfect weekends, filtered through gossip. But I’ve never really known anything about Jackson at all.
“Jackson,” I say, so quietly, I wonder if he’ll be able to hear me. “I can’t give you everything. You get that, right? But I can give you something.”
His hand comes to my face, his thumb rubbing over my cheek, his long fingers curling around the back of my neck.
“You have to promise not to suffer short-term memory loss because I’m only going to say it once and if you forget, you forfeit it, all right?”
“I won’t forget,” he promises me.
I br
eathe softly in his face. “I’ve been fighting every day for as long as I can remember—me against a world that I was sure would never want me. And now when I’m with you, for the first time in forever, I want someone to see me. Not the version I’ve created, but reality. I don’t know, I have to exist to do more than succeed, right? I have to be somebody. And you make me feel like maybe I am or always was or something.
“Before, how could I tell you? I was so afraid I’d lose a part of myself in the process.”
He’s quiet for a moment, his fingers still playing with the fine hair at the back of my neck. Then he says, “I promise I’ll never lose any parts of yourself, Nell Becker.” He sounds exhausted. I take his hand away from my face and do something I swore I’d never do. I stay with him. I throw my arm over his torso, cross my leg over his, and hold on to him tight.
It’s like that we both drift to sleep.
29
I wake up at five the next morning, having gone to bed far earlier than any reasonable person would. Jackson is still sleeping so I get some food and Tylenol and make my way back up the stairs. When I get there, he’s awake. I throw his T-shirt over the lamp next to my bed to soften the light and turn it on so I can see. He sits up and already, some color has returned to his face. He looks more alive.
“Can you eat?” I ask him. “I brought you toast.”
“I can try,” he says, first taking the Tylenol with a swig of water. He breaks off a small piece of toast and nibbles at it. It’s almost painful to watch. “Look,” he says, after a minute. He grabs up another piece. “About last night.”
I brace myself, my heart rate jumping. It had seemed all right to say those things when the lights were out, when he was so vulnerable, but now I have nothing. Nowhere to hide. “What about it?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
“I wasn’t trying to freak you out. I just—I don’t know why I said it.”
Oh. I feel relief flooding through me because what he did was worse than what I did. “It’s fine,” I tell him. I want to touch him but I don’t. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
He gives me a look and just as quickly, hops up from the bed and pushes past me, heading in the direction of my bathroom. He runs some water, taking a while before he comes back out.
“I still feel pretty nauseous. I’m sorry for ruining your weekend,” he says, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. There’s something utterly defeated about him, about the soft sleepiness of his eyes and the curves of his shoulders.
“Don’t be. I’m sorry you got hurt,” I say, getting up from where I’m sitting and going over to him, having no choice but to wrap my arms around his neck and press my forehead into his. He accepts it, his arms snaking around me.
“S’okay,” he says at last. “I know you didn’t mean it.” I’m not sure which part he’s talking about.
He’s finally able to get a couple more bites of toast down and then, as if fighting it, falls back to sleep. I have to leave for volleyball practice, so I write him a note to eat whatever he’d like when he wakes up.
When I get back, he and the note are gone.
30
I come in from volleyball practice a few days later, sweaty and hot. I haven’t heard from Jackson since his concussion. I shot him a couple of texts but he messaged me back that his screen was giving him a headache, so I let it go. Well, as much as I can let things go.
My after-practice T-shirt is soaked through from the blazing heat—outside is only tolerable near the river. When I walk over the threshold into my house, I get that uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong. Running both hands through my hair uneasily, I head up the stairs to my room. Mom is sitting on my bed, looking like the Grim Reaper come to call.
Then I see what’s set out on the nightstand next to her.
A box of condoms.
Great. I slowly lower my bag onto the floor as she takes me in. “Hey,” I say.
I can tell she’s going to keep her cool about this if it kills her. “I found these on the floor near your bed when I came in to get your laundry hamper.”
I glance down at the floor. What the hell? “I’m not sure how they got there.”
“Are they yours?” she asks.
“No,” I say quickly, immediately regretting the answer. If they’re not mine, they must belong to someone else. Ten seconds ago, I probably could’ve lied and said I had gotten them for curiosity or proactive safety or something.
Mom sighs deeply. “You’re too old to lie to me about something like this. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?”
I feel my whole body turning red. I stare down at my bare feet, in bad shape from a summer, a lifetime, of volleyball and running. “I’m, uh, seeing someone,” I go with.
“Who?” she asks, her face still a mask of calm. “If he’s been in my house, I deserve to know who he is.”
I don’t want to tell her. This would be different for anyone else. For a girl whose mom didn’t know the ins and outs of Cedar Woods Prep’s student body. For a mom who wouldn’t know exactly what the next words that leave my mouth mean. “Jackson Hart.”
I keep my eyes trained away from her, closing them as I wait for the blow to come. But it doesn’t. I glance up after it’s been quiet for too long. All color has left Mom’s face, to the point where I’m almost concerned. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She stands up immediately, like she can take control of the situation. “You can’t do this, Nell,” she tells me, her voice sharp.
“Do what?”
“Jackson Hart. Have you lost every bit of good sense you came into this world with? This isn’t just you sleeping with some random boy.” I blanch at the horrible way she makes it sound. “This is a way to ruin your entire life. Jackson Hart is one the most manipulative people I’ve ever met. He’s dangerous.”
The words instantly make me feel like the world’s biggest idiot, someone unworthy of her.
“It’s not like that,” I say, playing the part of every petulant teenager ever.
“You’re supposed to be better than this,” she says, and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her voice sound so purely mean, like I am a complete waste of space in her perfect house.
I feel them, then: the tears forming behind my eyes. She doesn’t wait for me to say anything.
“Do you want to be like the rest of them? Like those girls? You’ve never wanted that before. You’ve wanted to be the best, and you know what happens to girls like that.”
A tear leaks down my cheek. I don’t remember the last time she made me cry. “I am still the best,” I tell her, my voice strangled. I won’t let her take that away from me.
She shakes her head. “You’re better than this. Than whatever he’s made you believe.”
I look away. Another tear squeezes out. “This is not about you,” I tell her.
“You’re damn right.” Then she grabs my chin, bringing my face back to look at her. “Don’t do this, Nell.”
“It’s not about him, either! It’s about me. Something is mine for the first time in my entire life. Something I decided.”
“I got married young. Was a mother young—because I thought that was what I wanted. Thought other people could make me happy. Please trust me on this. You have to be your own person before you can be anyone else’s.”
I bend my head down, feeling like I might fall apart at any moment. But it’s the way she says it, the way she knows it.
“But what kind of person am I?” How can I be a person—a good person who does charity and works hard and is smart—and still want all the things I want? I don’t feel like I can fit it all in this body.
“You’re a person who rises to the top. You’re a person who’s better than all the rest of them.
“You’re my daughter.”
I wear it like a burden.
“I can’t tell you what to do, Nell,” she says then, seeming to work back up to it. To pull herself together. “I won’t. I trust you too much.”
; Every day every day every day. She’s who I fight for, keep fighting for. That eventually I’ll feel like enough. The daughter she deserves. The one who everyone wants so desperately to be.
“It’s up to you,” she says at last, stepping away from me, giving me space to think. “I need you to be smart.” She goes over, picks up the offending laundry hamper. I’ve never been so ashamed. “I love you” is the last thing she says as she leaves me in the room alone.
31
I get in my car twenty minutes later, after I’ve had time to compose myself, and drive over to Jackson’s house. He’s clearly surprised to find me at his door, but instead of inviting me in, he closes the door behind him and steps outside with me. “This isn’t a great time,” he says. “What is that?”
I throw the box in my hand at him and it bounces off his chest and falls to the ground. He leans down to pick it up, rubbing at the spot on his chest. He gives it a once-over, then looks back at me, a question in his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what it is? Why don’t you tell me why the fuck it was in my room?” I demand.
He’s still confused by my level of complete rage. “Do you really want to have this conversation out here?” he asks me.
“No, I don’t,” I tell him. “You’re the one who shoved me out of your house.”
He sighs. “It’s not like that. Come on, let’s go up to my room,” he says, turning and reopening the door, giving me room to enter before he closes it behind him again.
“Jackson!” someone calls from the direction of the kitchen. I recognize his mom’s voice. “Who was that?”
“It’s a friend, Mom!” Jackson yells back.
“Well, act like you have some manners! Come introduce me.”
Something tightens in his face. He throws the box on the stairs and walks in the direction of the kitchen; I take that as a sign to follow him.
His mom is at the breakfast nook, drinking what I suspect is not just orange juice out of a champagne flute and wearing nothing but a bathrobe. My eyes flit to the clock above the stove to confirm it is nearly noon.
“Well, hello,” she says, standing up from the stool she’s sitting on to extend her hand. “I don’t think we’ve met before. What’s your name?”
Winner Take All Page 18