Double Clutch

by Liz Reinhardt

  “Go inside, Brenna. I don’t want you to be cold.” He rubbed his hands up and down my arms.

  “Okay.” But I couldn’t uproot myself from the spot right in front of him.

  He kissed me again. “I’m so glad I got to see you. And I had a really good time.”

  “If there are no snowstorms, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I kissed him.

  “Are we going to talk tonight?”

  “Yeah, we will. Call me when you’re showered and in bed after work.” I hated catching him before he took some time to clean up and eat. I knew he would never turn down my phone call, which was sweet but so impractical.

  “I will.” He looked like he wanted to say something else. I thought about the last words he might have said on the phone the night before.

  My heart was so full of feeling for him, it felt like it might rip open in my chest. The words he wanted to say were the same ones I wanted to say. I was feeling brave and good and free all at once.

  I put my hands on his neck and pulled him close to me. “I love you, Jake,” I said. I meant it with every pulse of my heart.

  His eyes went wide and for a minute he was perfectly still, just looking at me. Then he untied his tongue. “I love you, Brenna,” he said shakily, then leaned in and kissed me hard again.

  The next instant he was on his dirt bike and flying through the wooded space behind our house, heading to Zinga’s and away from me for now. I went back into my room and lay on the bed where he and I had just been and wallowed in the sad emptiness of it.

  The rest of the day went by quickly. I felt a little bit like I was in a daze. Mom called to tell me she had her office almost set up and was going to pick up Chinese food. I was glad to have her company at home, but I also felt an incredible sense of guilt when I thought about having Jake over. I cleaned up in the living room and kitchen, and even vacuumed and mopped the floors as a kind of self-imposed penance.

  When my phone rang, I should have realized it was too early to be Jake, but I was keyed up and ready to hear his voice again. It made me a little happy that my heart sank at Saxon’s voice.

  “Hey Blix. We on for Saturday?”

  “I have to check with my mom,” I said honestly.

  He snickered. “Didn’t have the guts to talk to Jake?”

  “Jake’s cool with it.” I was fully aware that I was seriously stretching the truth. “He was wondering if you could come get him first, you know, to help load up his bike and all that.”

  The line was quiet for a while, then Saxon’s voice came over again, hot and deep. “Help with his bike, huh? Have you taken a look at Jake lately? He’s pretty jacked. I think he just wants to make sure there’s no Brenna and Saxon alone time. Am I right?”

  “I thought you wanted us to be friends. Why are you always looking for reasons to screw everything up?” The fact that Jake and I had shared what we did made me feel like I had a protective shell that Saxon couldn’t break through.

  “Cool it.” Saxon sounded upset, and I felt a thrill of triumph. Maybe Saxon didn’t hold all of the cards after all. Maybe I could play this game just as well as he could. “I’ll be at Jake’s Saturday morning to take him to the race. Do you want me to help with Mom? Maybe I can ask her for you?”

  I felt my anger bubble up, but I forced it back down. “Don’t worry about it.” Maybe the shell wasn’t quite as thick as I would have liked. “By the way,” I said suddenly. “Tomorrow’s forecast is sunny and warm. Don’t come pick me up.”

  “Your mom and I had a deal.” His voice was sharp.

  “My mom won’t want me driving with you if the weather is so nice. She harped about your smoking all night after you left,” I lied. “I mean, I know my mom seems super sweet, but she’s just really old-fashioned about manners. She wouldn’t let up about you after you left.”

  I could hear Saxon struggling on the line, trying to see through what I said and judge it as crap or not. But Saxon wasn’t me. Seeing through crap was my specialty. Dishing crap was his.

  “I didn’t check the weather,” he finally said.

  “Wow, it would be pretty pathetic of you to stoop to checking the weather every day. How about I just call you when I feel up for a ride?” I couldn’t help gloating a little at how effectively I turned the tables on him.

  He chuckled. “You’re deceptively good, Blix. Just the perfect amount of bitch to be sexy.”

  I felt my ears go hot. “Whatever, Saxon. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” I threw my phone on my bed.

  Mom and I chatted during dinner, and she turned in early, not even watching her favorite cop show. I guess it had been a long day for her. I went to my bedroom and did a little extra homework on Golding. I also read ahead for Government. I wanted to make sure I kept up with Saxon. I hated to give him the cocky satisfaction of doing better in class than I did. I also wanted to work on a special Folly shirt for Kelsie. I had come up with a design using a picture of Chris and her I had snapped a few days before. But mostly my reason for entering dork mode so completely was to keep myself out of huss mode. Because if my brain wasn’t bogged down with English boys gone crazy and Minnesota voting patterns, I would have been thinking about Jake Kelly and how good it felt to put my hands all over him today.

  When the phone finally rang, my heart thudded with pure happiness.

  “Hello!”

  “Brenna.” Jake’s voice simmered in my ears. “How was the rest of your day?”

  “I missed you. But I cleaned the house and did homework. How about you?”

  “Just work. It was cold as hell, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” I heard a zipper in the background.

  “Are you taking off your jacket?”

  “Yeah. How did you hear that?”

  “Jake, you should take a shower and get ready for bed. Why didn’t you do that before you called me?” I didn’t like to think he was still freezing and achy. “What about dinner?”

  “I’m standing in my kitchen cooking right now.” I could hear him doing things in the background. I heard his keys hit the countertop and the cabinets bang open. I could hear the sharp clatter of the dishes he took out of the cabinet. “That’s so cute.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Your little bossy temper tantrums.” I heard a pan clang. “No one’s given a crap what I do in a long time.”

  “What’s for dinner?” My heart squeezed like it had been pressed into a vice thinking of Jake alone with no one to keep him company.

  “Hot dogs and beans. And a soda.”

  “You’re going to die,” I gagged. “That’s the most disgusting dinner imaginable.”

  “It’s my Tuesday dinner.” I heard him rip a package open.

  “Every Tuesday?”

  “Yep.” I heard a loud sizzle. “Monday is eggs, Wednesday is sandwich day, Thursday is pasta and Friday is TV dinner night. Every week for as long as I can remember.”

  “Are you serious?” It was so disgusting and sad.

  “Yeah. I’m in charge of food shopping. My dad just drops me off with some cash and comes back to pick me up. So, I know exactly how much to buy with the money he leaves me. And it’s all stuff I can make pretty easily.”

  “What about weekends?” I couldn’t imagine eating such a limited amount of food. What about fruits? Fresh breads? Delicious cheeses? Desserts?

  “We go out to Arby’s sometimes. Or I just find something. I used to eat at friends’ houses.” I could hear him eating. It must have been hot, because he was doing the inverted blow.

  “I feel bad for you.” I tried to make my voice light, but my joke was too close to the truth. I really did feel sad when I thought about his pathetic dinners.

  He laughed. “I won’t say no if you want to come over and spoil me with your cooking. But don’t feel bad. It’s not totally unhealthy. It keeps me full, and it’s easy to make. And it hasn’t killed me yet.”

  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what bothered me about it. Maybe it was just ho
w lonely and monotonous it was. My dinners were always at least eaten with Mom. I realized company was probably the exact reason Jake had chosen to call me while he ate instead of after.

  “Maybe you could add some salads in once in a while. And switch to juice or water sometimes,” I recommended.

  “I’ll do it if you think it’s a good idea,” he said easily. “But I don’t really want to talk about all the lame stuff I eat.”

  I lay back on my bed and breathed deeply. I imagined I could still smell his lingering scent on the pillows. “So, what do you want to talk about?” I asked while I nuzzled into the pillows.

  “You and me. I had a good time today.” There was that feeling when he ended the last sentence that made me think he was going to slap a big ‘but’ on. I waited, but he didn’t.

  “Me too.” I sighed.

  “But it can’t happen again for a while,” he said firmly.

  So there was the but.

  “What?” I was so aggravated, I wanted to slap the phone down and take a few deep breaths before we talked again. But he was on now, and I wanted to know why this idiot idea had come into his brain.

  “It was great. But it was too risky. You’re not experienced, and you don’t know what you’re asking for. I‘ve never felt so out of control. I don‘t trust myself with you.”

  “So now you know what I want and don’t want?” I found both my hands knotting into fists.

  “No!” he said too fast. “Well, maybe. I just know more about it in general.”

  “Know more about drunk, awful sex,” I argued, striking low and mean because I was so mad, I was beyond being reasonable. “I liked being with you today. I didn’t feel pressured, and I definitely don’t regret what happened.” I felt like a gigantic weight landed in the center of my chest. “I don’t think I’m cool with you calling the shots.” I knew my voice sounded a little wavery, but I didn’t care. I needed to make my point.

  “What we said when I left…” he said, trying a new track.

  “That we loved each other, Jake. That’s what we said.” Now I was getting pissed. Here he was, telling me the limits of our relationship, and he wasn’t even brave enough to say the word love.

  “Right. That.” He stumbled around it awkwardly. “I meant it. I do. I love you. And I don’t want this to be like the other times.”

  I rubbed my fingers over my eyes. “Jake, I thought you told me every other time has been a one night stand with some girl you barely cared about.”

  “Yeah.” I could hear the frustration in his voice.

  “Then it doesn’t really have anything to do with sex, does it?” I argued logically. “It’s about caring about the person. And being sober and making a choice because you want to and not because you’re drunk.”

  How could he argue with that?

  “You don’t understand, Brenna,” he argued, his words measured with his telltale patience. “You’re really new to this.”

  In my head, I opened my mouth and screamed into the phone.

  In real life, I couldn’t wake my mother.

  “This is so stupid. You’re lumping me with those other girls you used to date. This is unfair.” I sounded childish, and I couldn’t care less.

  “Brenna, I just want to protect you. Things went a lot farther and faster than I expected them to today. We should just be careful.” He spoke with an authority that I didn’t want to respect, even though I knew he technically had more experience and understood more.

  “Fine.” It wasn’t fine. It was far from fine. It was a nasty, messy, tangled knot that only got more snarled the more I thought about it.

  “Are you okay?”

  I’d said fine. Didn’t he know fine was the word that always meant, no, not even close to fine? Usually I was more direct. Isn’t that what Jake told me about myself just a few hours ago? But he wasn’t listening to reason. It was funny that he kept trying to pin it on me when he was the one with regrets.

  “You regret what we did.” The full reality of it dawned on me the minute the words popped out of my mouth, and it made my stomach ache to imagine that he felt the opposite of what I felt.

  “Just that we went so fast.” He took a deep breath.

  “We didn’t have sex!” I cried.

  “There aren’t many more steps between what we did and sex,” he said knowingly.

  “I’m not an idiot, Jake!” I was on the brink of tears. What happened was wonderful, amazing. It was nothing to be ashamed of or to regret. “If I decide to have sex, I will. And if I decide not to have sex, I won’t.”

  “You’re not ready to make those choices,” he said, his voice still annoyingly calm.

  “I am too!” I practically yelled. “I am ready to choose, and I certainly don’t need you to decide for me.”

  “Brenna, I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

  “Yeah, okay. I have to get to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” My throat burned and I closed my eyes tight in an attempt to stop the tears that clawed behind my lids.

  “Wait…”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I cut in and clicked the phone off.

  I squeezed the phone in my hand and shook it. How could he be so pigheaded? How could he feel like this was something he could decide for me? I lay on the bed, but I knew it would be a long time before I fell asleep.

  I tossed and turned, looked at my phone and ran my fingers over the screen with the intent to dial his number six different times. Every time, I stopped myself. We would just wind up having the same roundabout conversation and get nowhere.

  Finally I closed my eyes and counted my breaths. I counted to ten on my inhale and ten on my exhale. I kept doing it until I fell fast asleep.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning I dressed extra cute. I straightened my hair and trimmed my bangs a little. I put on dramatic makeup and wore a tight v-neck tunic t-shirt I had designed and my favorite jeans with Converse sneakers. I opened the window of my room and stuck my head out. It was cool, but not cold.

  “Morning Mom!” I called when I heard her rifling around in the kitchen.

  “Hey Bren.” She smiled when I stepped into the kitchen. “Oatmeal’s on the table. Did you sleep okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks. I read online that the weather is supposed to stay pretty nice. Is it okay if I take my bike? I told Saxon I’d only call if you didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  She sighed, a long-suffering sigh. “Go ahead.” She shook her head. “But I have my school computer set up to get the forecasts, so don’t think you’re going to be on that thing if it’s supposed to be nasty out.”

  “I promise I won’t.” I kissed her and headed to school, free.

  It made my heart skip to feel my blood racing and the air rushing into my lungs and back out. I thought about Jake and his sex proclamations. I thought about Saxon trying to force me to ride with him. Screw them both!

  I whipped into Frankford’s front area and ran to English. Mr. Dawes was handing out a quiz. Everyone groaned and mumbled.

  “Honors English,” Mr. Dawes droned. “It means I’m not your babysitter. If I tell you to read through chapter ten by Tuesday, I think it’s more than fair to quiz you on the reading on Wednesday.”

  A whiny girl raised her hand and asked what to do if we had left the book at school on Monday night.

  “Then, Ms. Henson, you would have been unprepared on Tuesday anyway, wouldn’t you? Here’s some advice; bring your book home. Every day.” An evil smile curled over his face and the girl huffed.

  Devon muttered under his breath. I glared at his back, but decided not to engage with him. Devon didn’t need a broken nose because my boyfriend was an idiot. I finished the test, double checked the answers and turned it over on the desktop. Mr. Dawes motioned for me to bring it up. He graded it while I stood there, then did that crazy, embarrassing thing teachers sometimes do.

  “Class!” he called. Every other student looked up with bleary eyes and vicious mutters. “Ms. Blixe
n has completed her quiz and made a perfect one hundred. Consider your curve ruined.” He laughed cruelly, and I slunk back to my seat and opened the book to read a little more. If the class was going to hate me, at least I could get the best grades and truly earn their loathing.

  Mr. Dawes collected the papers and put notes on the board, finished grading while we wrote, handed the quizzes back, and put even more notes on the board. We copied until another teacher poked his head in, and Mr. Dawes went out to talk to him.

  Devon Conner turned around in his seat and looked at me. “I got a seventy five,” he announced.

  “What are you talking about?” I flipped the pages of my book with my thumb.

  “The quiz.” Devon pointed to my paper “You got a hundred.”

  “What’s with you?” I snarled. “I’m smart, Conner. Accept it. And get over the fact that I do share time. Obviously, lots of smart people do it. Why does it amaze you so much?”

  “I was going to say that you probably have a lot more work to do since you have your normal classes here and all your work at Tech, but you still got a hundred.” He stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes.

  “Oh,” I said, because what else could you say in the face of such social awkwardness? “Well, study more. I study a lot. And I’ve read the book before.”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of boring?” His shoulders relaxed very slightly.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s kind of dense, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring. I mean a bunch of boys going crazy and killing each other on an island? Not exactly boring.”

  He nodded. “We have a group project on this at the end of the unit.” He gave me an expectant look.

  “Okay?”

  “Will you be in my group?” he blurted.

  I wanted to say something mean and blow him off, but there was something weirdly likable about Devon Conner. Maybe it was just his directness. He reminded me a little of me. “Sure. Just don’t think I’m going to be doing all the work, partner. I don’t get Cs.”

  “Thanks.” He looked at me from his small eyes, blinked a few times nervously, then turned around and went back to reading. I noticed he was about three chapters behind. That made his C a fairly decent grade; it also warned me I might not have such an easy time reigning in Devon Conner.