Reckless Hearts

by Sean Olin

  “Yeah,” Jake said, turning beet red. “I’m done.” Then, for good measure, he added, “Sorry.”

  He slipped his phone into the pocket of his jeans and sat up straighter in his seat, trying to look like he was paying serious attention.

  He wasn’t, of course. He was tangled in his thoughts. Now that he and Elena had made a date, he had to make up his mind about whether or not to go through with telling her what he’d learned about Harlow. He’d flip-flopped five times already today, and he could feel his mind changing again now. He had to tell her. It would be dishonest, unfair, patronizing of him not to.

  42

  Jake. Jake Gordon.

  The name floated through Elena’s head again as she was jostled in the mob trying all at the same time to push their way through the doorway out of Ms. Samson’s AP English classroom.

  The warm, happy bubble floated up her chest again and she allowed herself a small private smile.

  Good ol’ Jake.

  She squeezed past Dev Mehta and his oversized headphones out onto the covered walkway in front of the classroom. She hiked her backpack up on her shoulder and headed, with a little bop in her step, across the lawn, toward the front quad, where she’d told Jake she’d meet him.

  It was all so weird but at the same time so obvious and right. Since talking to Nina that morning, she’d felt like she’d been liberated, like she’d been walking around all this with a plastic bag tied around her head and now it had been ripped off and she could finally breathe. How had Nina known? And more important, how had Elena not known?

  Pausing to look up at the cloudless sky, she felt the gushing emotion crash over her again.

  And there it was again. Jake.

  She’d depended on him for such a long time. Even when she was alone he was there with her, draping his arm over her shoulder, whispering his quiet opinions in her ear, coloring her way of looking at absolutely everything that happened in her life. If she was being honest with herself—and now, finally, she was—she couldn’t imagine being in the world without Jake by her side. Was that love? Was that friendship? Throughout the day she’d begun to think that maybe there was no difference between the two.

  Picking up her pace, she turned the corner around the cafeteria and arrived at the edge of the quad. It was flooded with people, every student at Chris Columbus, six hundred students, all pushing as one toward the parking lot where the buses were lined up on one side and the cars were parked tight around them.

  Standing on her tiptoes, hopping to see above the throngs of students, she searched for Jake.

  He wasn’t hard to find. Standing a foot taller than everyone around him, he rose like an island out of the flowing sea. Students parted around him and reconvened on the other side. He was wearing his sunglasses, his hair flopping down over his left eye in that way that it did. And he had that expression on his face, that look of slightly mystified innocence that he always fell into in his most unguarded moments. She knew this look so well. It just hadn’t made her swoon like this before now.

  And the feeling totally surprised her.

  Gulping down a deep breath, trying to control the joy leaping through her bloodstream, Elena practically dove into the crowd, weaving and dodging toward him.

  Every few feet she paused to check his location. In a typically Jake-like way, he was holding tight. Surveying the faces in this or that direction. That was just like him, wasn’t it? Sturdy, careful, and full of faith that if he held to what he knew was right, everything would work out. Here came that trill in her chest again. It wasn’t the urgent chaos she’d thought love was supposed to create, more a tickle of recognition, like, There he is. I’m safe now. I know who I am again.

  She zigzagged around so that she could come up on Jake from behind. Ducking around a group of fifteen cheerleaders all decked out in variations on the same ruffled skirt, she snuck up to his right and tapped him playfully on the left shoulder. When he turned to see who was there, she tapped his right shoulder and ducked to the left. He turned again, and she dipped her head cutely into her shoulders, stuck her tongue out, and made a funny face.

  “Gotcha,” she said. She knew she was grinning like a fool, but she didn’t care.

  “Wow, you’re in a good mood,” Jake said. “Did something happen?”

  “I . . . Yeah,” she said. “Let me look at you first.”

  Elena stepped back so she could study him. She wanted to memorize this moment. The earnest, slightly quizzical expression on his face as he waited to hear what she had to tell him, the soft kindness around his eyes, the light brown hair, just a touch too long, flopping down over his round forehead. His face wasn’t traditionally handsome—it was better than that: interesting, magnetic. It had character. She could stare at it forever without ever getting bored.

  “What?” Jake said. “Do I have ketchup on my chin? I do, don’t I? Shit.”

  As he rubbed at his chin trying to rid himself of the phantom ketchup, she bit her lip to keep herself from laughing.

  “Where is it? Did I get it off?”

  Elena tipped her head and grinned at him. “There’s no ketchup on your face, Jake.”

  “What is it, then? You’re being weird. You’re staring at me funny.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the other day,” she said. “At the pier. I’ve been thinking there’s something I should have done.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Just . . . this.”

  Leaping, she spread her arms and hoped he’d catch her. When he did, she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  She looked him straight in the eye and held his surprised gaze for a second. Then, just as he was about to say something, she kissed him like she’d never kissed anyone before, pouring all of the emotions that had building up throughout the day into him through her lips.

  It took him a second to catch up to what was going on, but he held her tight and kissed her back with a timid tenderness.

  She slipped down his hips. As he hiked her back up, he lost his balance and they hobbled, almost tumbling into the grass, but they didn’t stop kissing. They explored each other’s lips with their own until Elena slipped down and stood on her own two feet.

  “I should invest in a ladder,” Elena said. She reached up and ran her palm along the stubble on Jake’s cheek.

  And then, almost exactly at the same time, they began to giggle.

  “Is this really happening?” Jake whispered, bending down to rest his chin against Elena’s forehead.

  “Does it feel like it’s happening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess it must really be happening, then,” said Elena. “Sorry it took me so long,” she added. “I’ve been an idiot.”

  Sympathy and concern and something like acceptance floated through Jake’s eyes. Then he smiled softly and kissed her again.

  They stood there, Jake hunched over to meet Elena on her level, her perched on her tiptoes, bracing herself on his shoulders, and gazed at each other, barely conscious of the students stepping around them.

  “What did you have to talk to me about?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He paused, thinking for a moment, struggling with himself. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  She didn’t push him further. She suspected it must have something to do with his fixation on Harlow, and he was right, it didn’t matter now.

  Reluctantly, she pulled away from him but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of his hand. “I should go,” she said. “I have to go help Nina.”

  “You want a ride?”

  “No. Dad lent me the Volvo, remember? Anyway, I should do it alone. She needs me right now.”

  “Okay, then.” He pulled her to himself and squeezed her tight again. “I can at least walk you to the parking lot, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Entering the stream of students, they made their way slowly down the hill toward the parking lot. Halfway there, Jake shyly pressed his index finger into Elena’s palm. S
he squeezed it briefly, and then laced her hand around his.

  And there was that trill in her chest again. It wouldn’t go away, not even now that they were together.

  They crossed the street to the lip of the lot.

  “Where you parked?” he asked.

  “Over there.” She pointed to an area behind the buses. “You?”

  Waving vaguely toward the northeast corner, he said, “Thattaway.”

  He released her hand.

  “I guess this is it, then,” he said.

  She made a face, teasing him lightly for his lack of confidence. “That’s it, Jake? No. This is just the beginning,” she said. “Unless you decide to run back to that girlfriend in the Keys.” She winked.

  He blushed and dipped his head in embarrassment. “Yeah, well . . . ,” he mumbled.

  “Hey,” she said softly. She touched her fingertips to his chin and guided his face until she could look into his eyes again.

  They kissed one last long time and she felt herself swoon. “I’ll call you later,” she said, reluctantly pulling away from him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Good luck with Nina.”

  And that was it. He squeezed her shoulder and they separated, walking in their different directions toward their cars, picking their way through the traffic jam that had developed in the lot.

  Elena couldn’t help pausing after a few steps to glance back at him and take one more look. She was pleased to see that he’d done the same thing. They grinned. They waved at each other.

  Okay, she told herself. Enough.

  Padding across the gravel toward her dad’s car, she willed herself not to look back again. She had her whole life to gaze at him.

  The events of that morning seemed very far away now—Harlow and his desperate situation and the actions she’d taken to help him that morning, they all seemed like a bad dream that she’d thankfully woken up from. Nina was right. The whole thing had been a childish prank, something that she shouldn’t have done, but what was the worst that could happen? A bad person would be stung by a couple of bees. It wasn’t like she’d killed anybody. All that was left to do was to tell Harlow it was over.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder who owned that Mini and if he’d ever find out that she was the one who’d sabotaged his car. She turned one more time and peered toward the back corner of the lot, where she knew the Mini was parked.

  43

  In a blissful daze, Jake squeezed around the cars jammed at every angle trying to get the quickest jump on the exit from the parking lot. He couldn’t help thinking that somewhere along the line, right around when Elena had kissed him, reality had split in two and he’d floated away from the world as it existed, into some other region where everything was impossibly perfect and beautiful. He felt like he was riding through a dream.

  When he reached the car—another fantastically great thing that had suddenly appeared to change his life—he studied its gleaming checkerboard hood and let himself feel the amazing sensations flowing through his body. He could only describe them as Wow. The physical incarnation of Wow.

  He settled into the driver’s seat and turned the car on. He wasn’t seeing anything except the visions in his head of himself and Elena riding off into the future. It was too good to be true. Everything about his life right this moment was way, way, way, way too good to be true.

  He put the car in reverse and, still getting used to the particular touchiness of the Mini’s pedals, tapped the gas, sending the car jerking backward with a gravel-churning spin of the tires.

  Something toppled on the passenger-side floor. That was odd. He hadn’t put anything there. Glancing over, he saw a Mason jar rolling on its side against the well of the door, and then he heard the buzzing inside the car. Where had that come from?

  Bees. His heart stopped just for a second.

  He tried to roll the windows down, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the layout of the buttons, and in his panicked jabbing, he kept locking and unlocking the doors.

  They were buzzing around his ears. Pounding their faces repeatedly into the windshield. There seemed to be hundreds of them.

  Someone behind him honked his horn.

  Jake swatted at the bees, but they just kept coming.

  Looking around himself in a panic, he saw the cars up ahead, inching toward the exit. He saw the students still walking toward their own cars.

  He felt a sting on his cheek. Then another one on his elbow.

  He could feel his face beginning to swell. As the venom sank in, it felt like someone was pulling barbed wire through his muscles.

  He looked around frantically. The students on the other side of the glass, chatting with their friends and walking to their cars, seemed so calm and far away from him. Didn’t anybody see what was happening? Wasn’t anyone going to help him?

  Then he saw Elena. Her dark golden skin. Her short curls. Her big, beautiful black eyes. Maybe he was dreaming.

  Wait. She was signaling to him. Was that possible? She was waving her hands out in front of her, racing toward him.

  She was crying. She was calling out but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear anything. He could barely see her.

  Everything was growing blurry. He couldn’t see at all.

  And then he couldn’t breathe, either.

  44

  Jake’s body was laid out on the hospital bed like a corpse. His face had blown up to twice its usual size. It was red and spongy and his eyes had puffed shut—they bulged like someone had shoved softballs under his skin. The doctors had connected him to what seemed to Elena like a scary number of tubes and sensors.

  She had been sitting in the institutional blue chair by his side for the past two hours, staring at him through her tears.

  Except for his shallow, rhythmic breathing, he hadn’t moved once since they’d let her into the room, and just the sight of him filled Elena with horror over what she’d done. She understood, intellectually, that he was in a coma, but the small percentage chance of him waking up didn’t comfort her at all. She couldn’t stop thinking about the karmic justice of this happening to him, because of her own stupid actions, as soon as she realized she loved him.

  When, eventually, Jake’s mother arrived, Elena ran to her before she’d gotten through the door. She squeezed her as tight as it was humanly possible to squeeze and wouldn’t let go. She could feel the heaves in Jake’s mother’s chest as the woman gazed over Elena’s head at her immobile son.

  “I’m sorry,” Elena whispered too quietly for anyone but her to hear.

  They stood there, holding each other, Jake’s mother patting and smoothing Elena’s hair, for a long minute, but no matter how long it was, when she reluctantly let go, it was over too soon.

  Stepping back, she made space for Jake’s mom to enter the room.

  Behind her, a suave, suntanned man wearing a flowing white linen shirt held a massive bouquet of flowers. This must be Cameron. Elena felt a pang of nervousness at finally seeing him in person. This wasn’t the context in which she’d wanted to meet him. She wasn’t sure how Jake would want her to act around him.

  As Jake’s mom ran to her son and Cameron busied himself with arranging the flowers on the windowsill, Elena noticed the shadow of someone else in the hallway, someone lurking there, hidden from view. Whoever it was had almost entered after Cameron and then ducked back out.

  Jake’s mom took the post Elena had left when she got up to hug her. Cradling Jake’s hand between her own, she softly prayed over him.

  Cameron pulled a second chair up so he could sit next to her and sympathetically rub her back. “Nathaniel, what’s the problem?” he called out to the person in the hallway. “You came all this way, how about you step inside the room and show your respects.”

  A few seconds later a blond guy with sculpted cheekbones, wearing a black Moschino T-shirt that was more expensive and better tailored than any teenager could possibly need, stepped into the room.

  Elena’s hea
rt froze. Her whole life froze. Her stomach rolled over itself and she begged herself not to throw up.

  It was Harlow.

  He turned his head pointedly and looked directly at Elena, saying nothing, showing no recognition, but holding her gaze like he was daring her to expose him. He abruptly cut a jackknife smile and held out his hand to shake. “Nathaniel. Jake’s stepbrother.”

  What could she do? Swallowing back the acid riding up her throat, Elena shook his hand, noting that it was clammy with sweat. “Elena. Jake’s girlfriend,” she said boldly.

  She quickly calculated the facts of the situation. Nathaniel was Harlow, which meant Jake had been right all along in his warnings. And if Nathaniel was Harlow, that meant Nathaniel had targeted Jake with the bees, because . . . why? Here she got stuck. He’d wanted to hurt Jake. That was why he’d gone after her and that was why he’d orchestrated this plan with the bees. But what could Jake have done to garner such hatred? She couldn’t understand.

  She didn’t have time to parse through these questions. The doctor had arrived. In his suit and tie and crisp white lab coat, he had a chilly professional air to him.

  Jake’s mom and Cameron both stood up to talk to him, but he ignored them. He plucked the clipboard on which Jake’s chart had been attached and tipped his rectangular glasses onto his forehead to study it, frowning, giving off the sense that he was too busy for small talk.

  It was like everyone had entered a state of suspended animation. No one moved. They all just stared at the doctor. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  He turned the page. He grimaced.

  More waiting.

  Elena wanted to scream at him, Tell us what’s happening! Tell us he’ll be okay!

  Jake’s mom glanced over at her and blinked the tears from her eyes. She reached out and briefly took Elena’s hand to calm her.

  Finally, the doctor let the clipboard clang back into the plastic slot at the foot of Jake’s bed.

  He reached a hand out toward Cameron to shake, but Cameron shook his head and, gesturing toward Jake’s mom, said, “You should speak to her.”