by A. E. Rought
Mom’s at my bedside in an instant, arms around me. She’s all warmth and flannel and rose linen spray. I slump on her shoulder and inhale deeply.
“Bad dream?”
“The worst.” My fingers curl in the folds of her housecoat.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Why do people always ask that? Talking drags the jagged ugly truth out and tosses it into view of anyone who cares to listen. My silence isn’t enough answer for her.
“Daniel again?” Bless her for not sounding annoyed.
“Not really,” I hedge. Then I sigh, and give in. “Well, not just Daniel. There was a cemetery, too. And I couldn’t catch him.” I inhale a shaky breath and severely edit the rest of the dream. “Then, I fell into a grave and was buried alive.” My voice breaks on the last words, and I hate it.
“Oh, Emma,” she says. “I know losing him was hard. Letting go is hard, too.”
If she knew the rest of the dream, would she still pooh-pooh it? Downscale it to a little heartache? This is so much more than Daniel’s death and me failing to get past it. Alex was there, alive and dead at the same time. A quiver threatens to run down my back when the image of him flashes behind my eyes. I suppress the shudder, and the urge turns inward, twisting my stomach instead.
“It is hard,” I agree, “But I’ve started.”
The cutting sensation lacing through me agrees.
“I know,” she says and her embrace tightens. “I’m here to help, if I can.”
I nod, not wanting to commit more than that. Missing Daniel is woven into every section of my life, flooding my spine and wrapping my nerves. I’m afraid to share, to show how deep missing him has dug into me. Inviting someone in to my empty ache would diminish it, and diminish him.
Mom’s hug loosens and she tilts back to look at me, smoothing hair from my face. “It’s almost time for me to be up,” she says. “Want to help me in the kitchen?”
On a normal nightmare morning, I might have agreed. This morning I sigh and hold up my broken hand.
“Okay. Maybe not. I guess I’ll let you try to sleep some more.”
“Nah.” I scoot back and wiggle my legs free of the blankets. “I’m awake now. How about I keep you company in the kitchen?” Anything to wipe the sadness from her eyes. Mom looks like she lost her best friend, and I don’t want her to share my misery.
She tips her head, blinks like she’s considering something.
“How about we go out for breakfast?”
“Deal.”
After another battle with single-handed dressing, Mom and I meet in the kitchen. She’s cranked her hair into a bun, gray frizz springing out around her face. Her jeans are dark and look like they’ve been ironed, and her purse is worn and limp. Total teen embarrassment material. I’m in comfy jeans, Alex’s yesterday shirt, and my gray, glitter embroidered hoodie to counterbalance the guy-ness of the first layer.
I cuddle into Alex’s shirt, which Mom either ignored or missed. If I’m being honest, I’m wearing the shirt of a boy I barely know, and he ripped it off exposing more than his scars. In some way, I’m wearing his hurt and hiding in his shadows. The edges of the hollow inside quiver, feeling a lot like my heart fluttering. I push the impression away and slam the car door to shake the feeling loose.
“Where to?” Mom asks, sitting in the driver’s seat and starting the car. “Fast food? The sub place? Mugz-n-Chugz?”
My mom at the high school hang out? Everyone will know me. Everyone will see me with my frazzled, uncool parent. She’ll mother me, carry my tray, probably send back her breakfast and want to talk to the chef... But then, we would be inside. No Tiny acting heartbroken and weird at the Walk-Up window. No Alex buying my coffee, sending tingles down my spine, messing up my heart rate.
“Mugz-n-Chugz sounds great,” I say, knowing I’m sure to regret it.
I drag my backpack close, and liberate my cell phone. The screen is dark. The thin black cord of Mom’s charger snakes from the dashboard, coiled and waiting in the cup of her console.
“Mind if I use your charger?”
“Not at all.” She turns into M-n-C’s parking lot. “We can go through the Drive-Thru and eat in the car. That way it can charge, and I don’t have to worry about you stranded and one-handed.”
“Have I told you lately that you’re awesome?”
“No.” She cranks the wheel, steering the front of the sedan around the back corner of Mugz-n-Chugs and aiming for the Drive-Thru order window. “Given your behavior last night, I thought I was on your most hated list.”
Oh God, I groan inwardly. Do we really have to do this now?
“I don’t hate you, Mom.”
“I know.” She drops the conversation, rolls down her window and orders a coffee with cream, and a breakfast bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese. I lean toward the center of the car, and order the Pancake-on-a-Stick with tater tots, and a breve with a shot of caramel.
“Pancake on a stick?” Mom arches an eyebrow.
“Yeah. A big breakfast sausage the size of a hot dog, dipped in pancake batter and deep fried.”
“Sounds awful…and wonderful at the same time.”
Mom’s gaze shifts far away after she pays and drives to the Pick-Up window. I can see her surrounded by ground meat, sausage casings and batter, trying to improve on the recipe. She could do it, too, add a little cinnamon to the batter, make the sausage a maple sausage… Maybe next time Mom asks me to help in the kitchen, I will. When it comes to food, we seem to think a lot a like.
I wish she agreed with me about guys.
Lydia, Tiny’s cousin and daughter of M-n-C’s owner, hands the coffees through the window, and notices me in the passenger seat. “Oh, hi, Emma!” Then she does what I least wanted. She turns toward the inside of the restaurant and yells, “Hey, Tiny! Your girlfriend’s at my window!”
My groan is audible over the car’s motor.
Tiny’s bulk blocks out the light coming from inside when he waddles to the Pick-Up window.
“Hi, Em.” He takes our food bags from Lydia, and thrusts them through the shade on this side of the building. “You ever want a real man instead of that pretty boy, you know where to find me.”
He closes the window with a jerk.
“Do I want to ask?” Mom hands my breakfast sack to me.
“Not really.”
She casts a look back as she pulls away from the window. Tiny’s still there, watching, his bottom lip sagging in an obvious pout.
Outside, the skies are gun metal gray and tending toward inevitable downpour. People glide across the quad, burdened with books and hurrying for the doors. Bree isn’t in her normal spot, prettying up the place. Then, a ray of darkness spears into my vision. Alex Franks, tall, hood up, leather jacket zipped and collar popped, with his head down as he walks away from the Walk-Up window side of the building. The flutter of interest in my chest beats like crows wings.
Mom doesn’t miss it, either. She shifts her focus forward quick enough to shake hair loose from her bun. Suddenly the car is too small, the need to escape burns on my self preservation instincts.
“Well, he certainly looks…intimidating…”
“He’s actually very nice.”
Must be the way I say the word, because Mom’s eyes narrow and she watches Alex cross the street, then turn back and scan Mugz-n-Chugz before shrugging deeper into his coat and standing under the doorjamb of the side door. The black beneath his cowl turns a slow path across the quad, and a silly hope blooms, raw and vulnerable, wondering if he’s looking for me. Then, the darkness lands on my face.
And I know.
Mom connects Alex’s hidden stare to me, and I almost choke on my mouthful.
“He’s the boy who got you into trouble yesterday, isn’t he?”
“It wasn’t trouble,” I argue, unable to wrench my focus from him.
“You were at the med center, filthy, with a fresh brace when I picked you up. I call that trouble.”
My stomach closes like a trap, any hint of hunger dying a shriveling death in my gut. Even the enticing smell of coffee and caramel drifting in misty plumes from my cup has lost its appeal. I’m contemplating making an excuse to exit the car when Josh Mason’s rusty Camaro Z-28 guns past.
“Gotta go, Mom. That’s Josh Mason’s car and he’s almost always late.”
She pins me with one of her serious looks. “We’re going to continue this discussion later.”
Of course we are, I groan inward. I pull the power cord from my phone and tuck it into my jacket pocket, regardless of the charge.
“Yep. See you tonight.”
“This afternoon.” Her voice has taken on a hard edge.
“Bree invited me over after school.” I brandish my braced right hand. “She’s gonna help me with homework.”
“Fine.” She eases back into her seat. “Make sure you call me when you get there.”
“God, Mom. I have a broken hand—I’m not a baby.”
“No,” she huffs when I climb out of the car. “You’re seventeen, still my daughter and I don’t like,” she jabs her half-full cup in Alex’s direction, “that guy.”
I don’t bother arguing ‘you don’t know him.’ She’ll just come back with ‘and I don’t want to.’ We had that argument once before, right after I brought Daniel home for the first time. Look how that turned out.
Biting cold nips at my face and neck when I shut the door and step away from Mom’s car. Storm weight is oppressive, humid, tainting the air. The school looms dark and brooding, waiting for the last of its victims.
A rattletrap Datsun putters behind me as I cross the street toward the school, and Alex. Reckless, maybe, but I’m drawn to him. More than I should be.
“Hey,” he says when my feet hit the walkway leading to the door.
“Hi.”
Surprise and a hint of a smile warm the insides of his hood. The same sense of happiness and disbelief soften his features. I’m his dream come to life, it’s written on every line of his face. The world narrows to us, thought dies. I have the crazy urge to cuddle to his chest and listen to his heart like I did with Daniel. His mismatched hazel eyes fill my vision, the black freckle in the left iris pulling me in, pushing me under. A vine of darkness unfurls in me, nudging and probing, insisting there’s something not right. Then he blinks and the moment’s gone.
“Hey.”
“You already said that.”
“Oh. Yeah…”
A flash of white shows on his wrist when he pulls a rolled-up paper from his backpack. Alex holds the paper out until I wrap hesitant fingers around it. I look from the white tube to him, one eyebrow lifting in a question.
“Didn’t you get my text?”
“My phone was dead.” It’s an automatic response, like a voicemail feature in my brain. Then what he asks hits me. “What do you mean, your text? How’d you get my number?”
“I took advantage of your phone while you were changing into my shirt.” The bemused look is gone, replaced by a smug, teasing expression, made smoky and a tad morbid by new dark shades under his eyes. “Which looks really good on you, by the way.”
“How would you know?” I sneak a peek down at myself. Yep. My jacket is zipped all the way.
“I saw you putting it on yesterday.”
Heat floods my face, another automatic response around him. Did he see me wiping blood from my cleavage? No. I have to convince myself he didn’t see me half-naked, or my confidence around him will die a shrinking, sudden end. If he was getting my number from my phone, I reason, he wouldn’t have had time to watch.
Still, I steal a peek at him to gauge the knowledge hidden in his eyes.
The sky chooses now to open and hemorrhage water like a slit vein. People scurry, rats running for dry ground. Alex drags me beneath the doorjamb, thumping me against him, drowning me in the smell of guy, cologne and leather. Silly goony smiles cover both our faces—I see his and feel mine. Thunder chews across the top of the school. Alex turns his face to the sky, a lightning bolt illuminating the pale line down the side of his neck.
“Better get inside,” he says.
I nod, grateful for distance, and follow as he pushes open the side door.
The storm’s chaotic energy stirs the people milling in the hall, cussing each other in clipped voices. Catty glances are claw-sharp, glaring at me walking so close to the new guy. A load of new gossip fills the hall, focusing on me and Alex, his shirt and where his hands were underneath it. All eyes seem trained on us, peeling, scathing. Alex, used to gossip snapping at his heels, lifts his head and drinks it in. I bow mine, allowing my blonde hair to hang tent-like around my face.
Josh Mason appears in the churn and thrash, his carrot hair dangerously close to my locker. Shifting slight between me and Josh, Alex splays on hand wide, and protective in front of me. His posture hints at “mine” and “stay away.”
And he has no right.
Shaking my head, I sidestep the shielding hand.
“Hey, Rusty,” I tease. “Waiting for someone?”
I expect him to say something like ‘missed you at the curb this morning.’ Instead, he shoots Alex a venomous glare, failing miserably to carry off intimidating with his pale, freckled face.
“Checking to make sure you were okay,” he says. “You looked pretty shell-shocked climbing in his car yesterday.”
Where’s the sniping? The flirting? Where’s his annoying arrogance?
“Didn’t know you cared,” I say, and try to edge past him.
Josh slides directly in my path, tall, familiar and unwanted. An old anger rattles loose from my heart, banging around like buckshot in the hollow of my chest when he compounds blocking my path by grabbing my shoulders. We’d been here before and he didn’t get what he wanted then. Nothing will change now that Daniel’s gone. Beside me, piano-wire tension jerks Alex up to his full height of over six feet. His hand, still open, hangs close and ready to pry Josh off me.
“I do care.” Josh’s grip tightens. “Always have, even when you were with Dan.”
He went there. Josh brought Daniel and their muddy relationship up.
“Funny thing,” I snap, irritated and wanting this little confrontation over, “when he used to be your best friend.”
Josh’s hands fall from my shoulders. His expression darkens, a facial mimic of the black shade of his shirt. “Age old story—the girl falls for the wrong guy.”
“He was the right guy in every way you never will be.”
With that, I shoulder past him, thankful for Alex’s ability to slice bladelike between Josh and me. Alex Franks might have dark secrets buried inside, be the stuff of gossip and too many popular girls’ interests, but I’d rather have him by me than Josh. A ping in my gut says a wounded Alex is not quite right, but a huge alarm screams in my head that a jealous Josh is not safe to be around. Alex remains a buffer for me right to our lockers. He points to my recalcitrant lock and arches an eyebrow, and when I nod he adopts Daniel’s habit of opening my locker, quirks included.
How can he work my combination like he’s done it a thousand times? How can Alex know when to push the lock in, and to nudge the door so it will pop open?
“Thanks,” I say, suppressing the tremor rambling through my insides.
His profile peeks from his hood when he nods. “Anytime.”
I fumble with my backpack and one hand, tempted to at least hang it from my immobilizer. My heart clenches, squeezing ache through my core, forcing images of Daniel into my mind. Daniel opened my locker everyday, the same quirks. The last month of June he used to open the locker without me asking. By the time I force thoughts of Daniel away and have my morning books loaded into the bag, Alex is already done, books in one arm. He stands watching, waiting expectantly.
“Theater’s across the school. You’re going to be late,” I chide him.
“Aren’t you going to look at th
e paper?”
I blink, then memory kicks in and my cheeks heat again. He handed me a paper when he mentioned me in his shirt. I was so flustered I stuffed it in my backpack without thinking. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”
The paper crinkles when I unroll it. The header has Fifth Hour Dune Ecology typed directly under Alex Franks and Emma Gentry. Ink letters jumble and ooze under my gaze. Words like “death” and “vehicular accidents” stand out, accompanied by statistics.
My look must be as blank as the circles under his eyes are dark.
“The report Mr. LaRue wanted,” he says, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“Oh,” is all I can manage. He wrote the report for me?
“I had the time last night, and figured you might not.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, well don’t tell anyone.” He smiles and turns toward the Theater and Fine Arts hall. “Seriously. Don’t mention it. I don’t want my rep ruined already.”
A bark of a laugh escapes me. The burst feels so much better than the tense, awkward sensation usually twisting my heart and nerves around him. I heave an exaggerated sigh and smile at him before he walks away. Arms crossed, hugging the bag strap to me, my gaze follows after him until he turns the corner. Then my senses catch back up with the faded clock anchored to the wall. Only a few minutes left to get to Trig.
I squash the instinct to run to class, and chase down Alex. Tardy happens.
His leather jacket is warm, his flesh firm, and the electric tingle is missing when I touch him. The zing I feel racing my insides is shocking enough. Somehow, he manages to cleave the entire school from existence when he turns and steps closer. I look up but feel like I’m drowning.
“What’s up, Emma?”
“Why are you so nice to me?” Why did I ask that?
He knows the badass rumors floating around the school. He claims to use them to his benefit. So why is Alex so kind? Why does he look at me like I’m a gift he never expected to receive?