Breaking Free

by Winter Page

  Clare covered her face again, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “Shh. Stop that. Stop being so sweet. Now your turn,” she said, her cheeks flaming redder.

  I laughed. “Just first kiss in general, right?” I clarified.

  She nodded firmly, her eyes expectant.

  I tried to remember back. And I was really glad that my first kiss’s name could be taken as a boy’s name. Things would’ve just gotten too complicated if that hadn’t been the case. “Hmm. Okay, I remember. It was Reily Hann, sixth grade. At one of our school’s cotillions, and we kissed at the end of the night. Outside the school on this little bench that everyone called the kissing bench because it was in the school’s garden. It was also very cute,” I finished smugly.

  Clare nodded in approval. “Okay, first lesbian kiss.” She said it like she was talking about the scandal of the century. I rolled my eyes, a blush flushing my cheeks hotly.

  She squealed in delight at my reluctance and started her story. “Casey Adams. Three years ago. She was a senior, and I was a sophomore. But it’s not that big a deal. I’m as old as a kid can be and still be in my grade. I was born like one day after the birthday cutoff. Anyways, it was in her room. It was maybe three o’clock in the morning, and we had both had a little to drink at this massive party at her house. She asked me up to her room because she had mentioned a Star Wars collection—

  She broke off the tale to add as an aside, “And, if you haven’t guessed it, I am the biggest Star Wars nerd on the face of the earth.” She had to wait until my gales of laughter abated enough for me to hear her continue.

  “Ha. Ha. You may laugh, but Casey didn’t!” Clare stuck her tongue out at me as I struggled to contain my giggles.

  “Back to Casey. This fancy Star Wars collection of hers consisted of a Luke Skywalker poster rolled up in her closet and a stuffed Yoda. Period. She said she’d just been looking for an excuse to “do this.” And then she kissed me. At the time, I wished it had been more romantic. But, looking back, it was actually pretty perfect: just me, her, and the moonlight coming in through her window. As cheesy as that sounds,” Clare finished, laughing.

  But there was a real sadness brewing in her blue eyes that I didn’t understand. I reached across the table and laced my fingers through hers. I started talking, trying to pull her from whatever it was she was reliving and not telling me about.

  After a few seconds, she seemed to shrug off the melancholy and pinned me in my seat with a laser look. “Okay. Your turn.”

  “Mine was a little different. It was this girl I had only really just met. But damn, she was gorgeous. No offense, but honestly, the prettiest girl I had ever seen. And don’t even get me started on her body. It’s stupidly perfect. Anyway, we had only been talking for a little while. But I still felt as if I was getting to know her. I thought she was straight. I mean, she was with this asshole boyfriend that I had the urge to castrate on several occasions. She was off-limits, though. Until I sat in the car with her, watching it rain as she cried.”

  I took a deep breath and looked up at her just as she looked up at me. Two tears spilled over, one from each of her eyes, tracking down her face.

  “Then this awful picture of her was all over the Internet, and it was all anyone could talk about. And I wasn’t there for her like I should’ve been. I still feel pretty awful about that. But we all make mistakes. I honestly thought I had blown any chance with her when I met up with her by accident in a coffee shop. As for the kiss, though, well… it was perfect. Our lips were chapped, and it was freezing out. She kissed me, and it was the most innocent and sweet thing ever. And the rest is history.”

  I smiled a little, reaching out with my thumb to wipe a tear from her cheek.

  “No tears, Clare. Because as long as you’re with me, you should know just how perfect you are to me.”

  Ten

  TO GET into the pizza joint, we had to walk in through double glass doors and a tiny waiting area, then through a pair of hokey saloon doors on swinging hinges. The oak half doors opened with a chilly swoosh as Clare and I walked into the deserted restaurant.

  I followed her, admiring how gracefully she walked. We slid into a booth tucked in the back. I settled onto the cracked vinyl seat, laughing as she bounced against the back of hers repeatedly.

  Eventually, she sat still, but a modicum of nervousness remained in her eyes. It was like whenever she looked at me, she was completely intent on me but skittish at the same time. I could absolutely relate. I was still having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of a girl like her being interested in a girl like me.

  A cute waiter started toward us jauntily to take our orders. Clare’s gaze narrowed dangerously as the waiter approached. But by the time he hovered over us, vulturelike, her expression had smoothed out. Had I imagined that flash of fury? Then Clare smiled up brightly at him, and I swear he nearly rocked back on his heels with the force of her beauty. She looked over the menu quickly, her gaze flicking from page to page. I grinned broadly as the waiter stared at her, his mouth agape. Poor guy was practically drooling.

  “I’ll have the triple threat pepperoni pizza with a side of breadsticks and cheese fries,” she purred at him. I raised an eyebrow at her. I swear, she made ordering pizza sound like porn.

  She shrugged and replied a little defensively, “Brad hated it when I weighed more than he wanted me to. He really got on my case about how I looked the past few months.” She added a little wistfully, “I’ve missed carbs.”

  I recoiled mentally in horror. Brad thought Clare was fat? Shut the front door! What an idiot. I looked over the menu as the waiter cleared his throat and interjected a little awkwardly, “I don’t see how any guy could complain about you.”

  Clare threw back her head and laughed in what sounded like genuine amusement.

  The waiter smiled triumphantly and started scribbling something on his little notepad. I craned my head to see what he was doing and caught the beginnings of a phone number. I felt bad for him. Clare was jacking him around, but I didn’t understand why. I mean, I could understand her being in a pretty severe man-hating phase right about then, but the Clare I knew wasn’t intentionally hurtful to other people.

  “Boys are crazy,” she declared. But then she looked up at him sidelong, smiling a little. “No offense,” she drawled.

  I literally thought the waiter was going to melt into a puddle at her feet. I tried to catch her eye, to silently ask what the hell she was doing, but she assiduously avoided looking over at me. Confused as hell, I kept looking through the menu, glad for having an excuse to look anywhere else but at the two of them flirting aggressively with each other.

  “I dunno. I think girls are crazier. No offense.” The waiter retorted with a grin, ripping the sheet of paper from his pad.

  He had the unfortunate timing to set it down exactly when Clare reached out to trail her fingers softly, suggestively, over mine. I giggled a little—I have to admit it was as much in embarrassment as anything else. What the hell game was she playing at? She’d promised me no public displays of affection that would start any rumors.

  The waiter snatched up the paper and crumpled it in a tight little ball that he jammed into his back pocket.

  Clare turned to the waiter. “Yeah, but girls are a good crazy. Well, in my world at least,” she murmured.

  The waiter scowled, his lips pressed into an angry white line. It was evident that she had just dealt a major blow to his ego. The poor guy just got cockblocked by a chick who didn’t actually like cock.

  I tried to look sympathetically at the waiter, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze at all. I finally mumbled, “I’ll have the garden salad with a side of fruit.”

  He nodded wordlessly and wrote down my order.

  Clare smacked my arm hard enough to make me drop the menu. “Hey!” I protested.

  She laughed and tugged on the waiter’s sleeve. He looked equal parts freaked and reluctant. She pulled down on his sleeve until she could grab his shi
rt collar and force him close enough for her to put her mouth practically on his ear. She whispered something, and his eyes went wide in some combination of surprise, fear, and nervousness.

  He jerked upright as she turned his shirt loose and took a quick step back from her. He turned and all but ran for the kitchen.

  I waited until he was out of earshot to demand, “What the hell was that?”

  She answered breezily, a little too breezily, “Oh, please. It’s just what you get for trying to be healthy. I ordered you some actual food.”

  I threw her one of my mother’s don’t-bullshit-me stares.

  She exhaled hard. “Fine. I admit it. I was screwing with that guy’s head.”

  My mouth opened in disbelief. “But why?”

  Instead of the lighthearted response I expected, she murmured rather darkly, “That’s Chase Housen. Have you met him yet? Do you know what he did to my friend, Mira, last year?”

  I shook my head no in response to both questions. I never had been the world’s best at staying on top of the latest teen gossip.

  Clare played with the straw in her glass of ice water. “He roofied her. Where do you think Brad got them to drug me? That’s his supplier,” she said quietly.

  Holy crap. In retrospect, I had to say Clare had actually taken it pretty easy on him just now. I’d have kicked the guy in the junk if I’d known.

  Clare turned her head to look out the window. Everything was icy, and without the comforting blanket of white that snow brings, it all looked cold and dead, oddly preserved like a sick museum. As we both stared out the window in silence, it started to sleet a little, a winter shower of frozen pellets beating down. I was starting to half believe her claim that she controlled the weather.

  She finally broke the silence, her breath puffing against the glass. “I know not all guys are creepy, psycho, sex-driven rapists. But I certainly have a knack for collecting the ones who are around me.” Her sardonic smile froze on her lips, her eyes reflecting intense pain that didn’t match the smile. She whispered so low I barely heard her, “Maybe that’s part of why I like girls.”

  My eyes softened as I gazed on her. She looked so small and vulnerable and hurt in that moment of raw honesty. Her slender shoulders hunched under the bulky bubble jacket. I slid slowly out of my seat, moving like she was a wild creature I was trying hard not to frighten into bolting. I took off my jacket, unwrapped my scarf, and tugged my hands free of my gloves. Still moving with extreme caution, I slid into the booth next to her. My reflection joined hers in the big pane of glass.

  I rested my hand very lightly on her shoulder and spoke carefully. “Sometimes, it’s not about the cards we’re dealt. Sometimes, it’s about how well we bluff. It sucks that you had to be with Brad for so long. But that’s over and done with. Not all guys are bad, I swear. People are people. It doesn’t matter what gender they are. There are just as many creepy, psycho, sex-driven rapist girls as there are guys. It all depends on the individual person.”

  Someone must have turned on cheesy Italian music in a back room, because without warning, it started crooning through a hidden speaker system. So we sat there, me with my hand on her shoulder, her staring out the window, just letting her work stuff out in her head, while a dopey song about “amore” echoed around us.

  Eventually, she reached up and pulled her scarf off, followed by her jacket. Underneath, she had on a simple, long-sleeved white camisole. It was slightly see-through, and I caught a glance of something on her left hipbone. I poked it playfully.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a tattoo,” I teased.

  Clare shrugged, her eyes clouding over. She replied vacantly, “You never asked.”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Hey. Look at me. Whatever it is, let it go. It’s done, and you seriously can’t change a thing that’s happened in the past. So be here with me, instead. I’ll bet you a million dollars it’s a lot more pleasant than what’s rattling around in your head, right now. Okay?”

  She nodded, slowly retreating from her daze. Luckily, the waiter came just then with two heaping, steaming, huge plates of greasy goodness. He plopped the plates in front of us and fled without saying a word to us. Smart boy.

  I covered my mouth in horror as I stared down at the giant mound of pasta before me. “Oh my God, Clare. I cannot eat a whole damn plate of whatever it is you ordered me. I’m getting sick to my stomach just looking at all of that.”

  She laughed wickedly. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

  The waiter came back to the table with my salad and her pizza. “Anything else I can get you?” he asked reluctantly.

  Clare shrugged and replied, “You never know when I might need to get something from you.”

  Was she hinting that she might want to buy drugs from him sometime? Who in the hell was she planning to roofie? Alarmed, I watched as the jerk actually grinned at Clare and tossed the balled-up paper with his number onto our table.

  She smiled brightly at him until he turned around. And then she neatly placed the paper onto the lit candle in front of us. Clare shivered almost perceptibly as the ashes quietly sifted and settled to the bottom of the tiny pool of wax. I didn’t look up to see if Chase had spotted her burning his number. I was more interested in watching Clare and the way pain morphed into satisfaction in her eyes as she watched that fire burn.

  There was more to Clare than I knew. I was sure of that. But there was also more to me than she knew. So I couldn’t say anything except hope that someday we would be ready to share all with each other. We ate in the comfortable drone of Italian music, downing enough food to keep us bloated for the next three days, and basked in each other’s comforting company.

  All in all, it was pretty nice.

  Eventually, we grabbed our coats and scarves and headed out in a postpizza coma. Chase tried to flirt with Clare again as we were leaving the restaurant, and I barely managed to drag her out before she kicked his shin or assaulted him outright. How could one guy’s ego be so huge that he didn’t realize the mortal danger he was in by attempting to get into Clare’s pants after what he’d had a part in doing to her?

  Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded her tearing off some important body part or two of his. I understood where she was coming from. But I was selfish enough not to want to see her end up in jail for the rest of my time in high school.

  How she could be even halfway civil to Brad’s buddies, or to any of the dozens or hundreds of kids who’d known Brad was blackmailing her and not done anything to help her, I had no idea. She was one strong human being, that was for sure. The more I saw of the shell she put up around herself and the barriers she positioned between herself and others, the more honored and special I felt that she had let me in.

  As we strolled past the restaurant’s front windows, she swung her arm over my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “Chase is watching this, and knowing him, he’s having some pretty nasty fantasies.”

  Blushing furiously, I snorted and whispered back, “Or maybe he’s just constipated.”

  She laughed, looking back at his nearly cross-eyed lust as he watched us saunter past. She tossed her head once, in contempt. We didn’t bother giving him a second glance after that.

  We reached her car and got in. We had to sit a couple of minutes for it to heat up enough to defog the windows, and then she eased out into the street. I was glad to see Clare taking the road with more caution as we wound our way back toward home. The clock on her dash read 5:25 p.m.

  I whistled softly. “We’ve killed seven-and-a-half hours together.”

  Her lips turned up slightly. “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Her voice was quiet in the crisp air of her car.

  We drove for nearly a half hour to get to the other side of town. It would normally only take ten minutes or so, but the ice had slowed everything down. I loved it. It made life a lot calmer, like it was all moving by at half speed. And I got to live it with her.

  She parked her car
in the early twilight, overlooking a semifrozen creek behind the second restaurant she was taking me to. I took everything in.

  The clouds had broken enough for the sun to peek out at us from behind the western hills past town. What must be a lush forest in the summer was now a tangle of bare black trunks covered in a layer of crystal before us, seemingly dripping with golden water, although it was only ice being lit by the fading sun. The one thing missing was a fluffy layer of snow on the ground, but, otherwise, this was the dream of winter I never saw in Texas. I wanted to frame this moment with Clare, capture it in one perfect memory, and keep this picture in my mind and heart forever.

  Clare turned off her car, and we sat together as cold whispered into the car. She let out a soft puff of air that hung white in front of us. I smiled and tried to catch it playfully in my hand. She beamed lazily over at me. I caught her gaze in the dying sunlight. Her eyes looked silver, devoid of color, despite their vivid hue in daylight. I swear, she looked like an angel. I made another memory to add to the first one.

  She spoke slowly, reflectively. “You know, every Christmas my mom would sober up enough to make cookies with my dad and me. One year, we burned a batch and I cried. It must have been ten at night, quite the late hour for ten-year-old me. But my mom just smiled and told me to make another batch, all by myself. She said that I was ready to do it, and I didn’t believe her.”

  I held my breath, not understanding yet why this story was important to her, but I could feel its significance.

  She continued, “I remember that she knelt down in front of me and took my shoulders in her hands. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that, eventually, all of us grow up. And when we do grow up, we have to do things and make decisions on our own. The trick is to have enough experience, to have made the same batch of cookies enough before, to get it right. I remember she whispered in my ear that I would do the cookies absolutely perfectly because she knew I had made enough batches of cookies in my life to get it right this time.”