by Chris Cannon
Jack groaned. He was probably thinking about how much his insurance would go up. Then again, mine would probably go up, too.
The damage had sounded worse than it was. I’d need a new back bumper and tail lights. Jack would need new headlights and maybe a front bumper. The car was drivable so I wouldn’t need a tow. After taking pictures of the damage, I used the insurance app on my phone and went back inside to check on Zoe.
She still looked like hell.
…
Zoe
It felt like someone had whacked me in the face with a frying pan, and I had to breathe through my mouth, but at least my nose had stopped bleeding. There was only one bright spot to this situation. Grant was more concerned about me than his car, which he loved. If I came before the car, that must mean he cared about me.
“Anything I can do?” Grant asked.
“What’s going on here?” my mom called out, as she came through the front door.
“Everyone is okay,” my grandmother said.
My mom stepped through the kitchen doorway. “Zoe? What happened?”
Grandma explained the situation.
“Come on, Zoe, I’ll help you clean up and put on new clothes,” my mom said. She pointed at Grant. “There’s a bathroom down the hall you can use.”
We went to the upstairs bathroom. My mom’s hands shook as she helped me clean the blood off my face. “When I saw the cars out front—”
She must be thinking about when she’d seen the mass of tangled metal that had once been my dad’s car. I grabbed her hand. “This hurts, but I’m okay.”
“I know.” She rinsed the bloody washcloth in warm water and went back to wiping off my face. “There. I think you’re presentable for your boyfriend.” She said the last part in a teasing tone.
I played along. “Shhhh, don’t use that term. You might scare him away.”
She leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
This was the most invested my mom had seemed in my life in a long time. While I wasn’t happy to have an almost-broken nose, having her pay attention to me again was nice.
Once I had on clean clothes, I brushed my teeth twice, which wasn’t easy when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. Part of me wanted to just lie down and go to bed, but another part of me wanted to go see Grant. When I made it back downstairs, he was sitting on the couch with his eyes closed.
When he heard me coming, he sat up and opened his eyes, and then he cringed. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know. It was an accident. The Tylenol is kicking in, so it doesn’t hurt as much.”
“Good.” He looked sort of lost. “Do you need anything?”
“Couch time with mindless television sounds good. You can stay if you want.” I crossed the room and sat on the couch. He put his arm around my shoulders, and picked up the remote. “Mind if I drive?”
“No.” I leaned into his warmth. My face had stopped throbbing, but I still had one hellacious headache.
He flipped through channels. “I always thought maybe I missed something by not having a brother or a sister, now I’m realizing that I’m better off as an only child.”
“Jack can be a jerk, but he’s basically a good guy.”
Grant snorted like he didn’t agree.
“What’s the story behind your hate/hate relationship with my brother?”
“We competed against each other a lot. And then there was this girl, Katy, that I liked. Lena and I were on and off again, which should have been a clue. I met Katy when we were off, but she ended up dating your brother. We hung out, but then Lena and I got back together so nothing really happened.”
“So, you never dated Katy?” That was different from the story my brother told me.
“Not really. The timing was off. And then she was with your brother and I was with Lena.” Grant flipped through more channels, pausing on one of those shows where people hunt through old barns and find buried treasure. “These things have to be staged.”
“Yeah, I know. If anyone went in the attic of our barn, all they’d find was dust and spiders.”
“Maybe they’re rare spiders worth a lot of money.”
“If you want to climb up there and see, be my guest.”
“Maybe once you’re better, we’ll check it out together.” His voice came right next to my ear. “You know, I’ve heard stories about barns with haylofts and adventurous farm girls.”
Despite my injuries, his hot breath on my ear had my nerve endings in an uproar. “Do any of those stories mention that hay itches and it makes you sneeze?”
“And a perfectly good fantasy shot to hell.”
I glanced sideways at him, his eyes were shining and he was grinning at me like there was no place else he’d rather be. My heart skipped a beat. “Thanks for staying here with me like this tonight.”
Moving very slowly, he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine in a soft, sweet kiss. “It’s the least I can do since my elbow tried to break your nose.”
…
Grant
Zoe pressed her lips against mine one more time. Then she shifted around so she was facing the television and leaned back against me. We watched two guys dig through piles of junk stacked to the rafters of a barn.
When I’d seen blood running down her face earlier I’d felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. She’d been so brave about the whole thing. Lena would’ve demanded a plastic surgeon on the spot. Part of me still thought we should’ve gone to the hospital. After the ice and the Tylenol, Zoe hadn’t complained. I’d taken a punch to the nose before, and I knew it hurt. But she wasn’t making a fuss. The thing she’d been the most upset about was the dance. So I’d jumped in and promised to take her to the next dance. Stupid maneuver.
Every time we established that we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, something like this happened and screwed up the whole thing. I liked her, but I wasn’t interested in any sort of commitment. And I knew that was what she was angling for. What I couldn’t figure out was how I kept backing myself into this same corner.
“Why would anyone pay money for that?” Zoe asked.
On the television, a guy offered two hundred dollars for a pockmarked oil can sign. “You’d think the farmer would have to pay someone to take it. Not the other way around.”
My cell rang, I checked caller ID. Great. “It’s my father. I bet the insurance company called him.” No putting this off. “Hello, father.”
“Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Some idiot hit my car when it was parked.” He didn’t need to know the whole truth. Bringing Zoe into the situation would complicate the issue.
“Is this idiot related to the girl who keeps landing you in detention? Cain is a common last name, but I doubt it’s a coincidence.”
And my plan went out the window. “It’s her brother. He has insurance. The car is drivable. It’s not a big deal.”
“Right. We’ll discuss this when you come home.” Click. He hung up on me.
“So now your dad loves me, too,” Zoe muttered.
“At least we know my grandpa won’t have a problem with you.” I remembered something from earlier in the day. “Do you think your grandma is coming to dinner at my house Sunday?”
“If she said it, it’s true.” Zoe turned around, with an evil expression on her face. “You should record the whole thing on your phone so I can see how it turns out.”
Right. “No deal. If I have to suffer through dinner, you’re coming, too.”
“Really?”
Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. How did I keep screwing this up? How had I managed to invite Zoe to meet my parents? Apparently I was an idiot. I swear some higher power was messing with my head.
“No. Just joking. You’re swollen nose gives you a pass.”
“Oh.” The sparkle left her eyes. She turned back around toward the TV.
And now I felt like a mean idiot. I needed to come up with a consolation prize
to take her mind off my screw-up. “Want to go to the movies tomorrow, since we aren’t going to the dance?”
“Maybe.” She grabbed the remote and flipped channels until she landed on a zombie movie.
What did that mean? Was she imagining I was one of the zombies again, like at the arcade?
She put her hands in front of her eyes. “Tell me when the gross part is over.”
“I didn’t think you had a problem with Zombies dying.”
“This is different. The video game is a cartoon. Cartoon brains, not gross. Special effects brains exploding, gross. I mean, just because some guy can make it look like the zombies guts are spilling all over the floor, doesn’t mean I want to watch it.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t look now.” One of the survivors hacked at the zombie with a tire iron. Not the best weapon of choice in a zombie war. “You can look now.”
She peeked between her fingers like a little kid.
“Wuss.”
“Hey.” She elbowed me in the ribs. “No teasing the injured.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist, blocking her from throwing any more elbows. She didn’t even pretend to put up a fight.
“You’re giving up awful easy.”
She wiggled around a little bit until I could see her face. “I’m biding my time and plotting a sneak attack.”
Right. “Let me know how that goes.”
“Just wait.” She faced the TV again. “You won’t even see it coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Zoe
Twenty-four hours later, greenish yellow circles ringed my eyes. Not a flattering color for me. And my head ached enough that I was switching off between Tylenol and ibuprofen.
Delia sat across from me on my bed opening a bag of Hershey’s kisses. She’d come over to assess the damage. “It’s not that bad. I bet I could cover it with makeup. You could still go to the dance.”
Should I tell Delia about Grant offering to take me to the Christmas dance when Delia hadn’t been asked to this one? “If this annoys you, tell me to shut up.”
“No problem.” She unwrapped a kiss and popped one in her mouth.
“Grant said he’d take me to the Christmas dance instead.”
She unwrapped two more kisses and shoved both of them in her mouth while she stared at the ceiling. Once she’d finished all three kisses, she unwrapped another. “He really came through for you in all this, didn’t he? And yes there is a mild tone of irritation underlying that statement.”
“I’m sorry for you, but happy for me. Even though Grant keeps yelling that he doesn’t want a girlfriend, he stood by me, rather than worrying about his car.”
“That’s pretty awesome.” Delia picked at a thread on my quilt. “Do you think Jack hit the car on purpose?”
“No. He griped about how much his insurance cost before the accident. I bet it goes way up after this.”
“That’s true,” she said. “And it’s not like he hit a normal car. Repairing the bumper on Grant’s shiny little sports car won’t be cheap.”
“I kind of feel sorry for him.”
My cell rang. Caller ID told me it was Grant. “Hey, Grant. What’s up?”
“We may not be able to do the movies tonight.”
Not what I wanted to hear. “Why not?”
“When my mom heard about the change in plans, she freaked out and said I had to attend the dance to pass the crown.”
“If your mom likes Lena so much, let her go pass the stupid crown.”
He laughed. “I suggested that. It didn’t go over well.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“I think I have to put in an appearance at the dance, but I don’t have to stay.”
“Is there a plan B? Because plan A sucks.”
“You could come with me.”
Could I go the way I looked? I wasn’t sure. “My face…I have lemon lime colored rings around both my eyes.”
“People will find out about the accident Monday, anyway. Does it matter if they see you now?”
“What’s going on?” Delia asked.
I filled her in. “What do you think? Should I go?”
Delia walked toward my closet and pulled out the strapless black and white dress she’d made for me. “In this dress, people won’t be focusing on your face.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Okay, Grant. Delia will help me with makeup and hair. I’ll call you back with the results.”
Thirty minutes later, I looked into the mirror and sighed. “From my chin down I rock.” The green yellow rings around my eyes stood out underneath the makeup and my nose was lumpy and swollen.
“Your face isn’t that bad,” Delia said. Her tone was not convincing.
“Don’t start lying to me now. I rely on your painfully honest opinion.”
“Sorry. You must look better now than when Grant saw you right after the accident. To him this will be an improvement.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“What? You said be honest.”
I called Grant and gave him the news. “You’re going solo.” He probably wouldn’t be that way for long. “And since this was supposed to be our date, could you try not to pick up a girl while you’re there?”
He laughed, but I wasn’t kidding.
“I’ll go to the dance, leave as soon as possible, and then I’ll come see you. Deal?”
“Deal.” I ended the call and flopped down on my bed. “I hate this.”
“Everything will be fine. Since you aren’t going out, let’s practice making fancy cupcakes. When Grant comes over, I’ll bail.”
“Sounds good.”
…
We baked a batch of vanilla cupcakes and then experimented with different colors of icing.
I made a giant pink flower on top of one cupcake. “What do you think?”
“I think it needs a little more sparkle.” She grabbed the bottle of hot pink sugar crystals and sprinkled them on the flower.
Now it looked more like something from one of the high end bakeries. “Nice. I believe we have our contest entry. Let’s make a dozen of them, and arrange them like a bouquet on green tissue paper. We’ll call our entry, A dozen roses, aka I’m-sorry-I-was-an-idiot, flowers.”
Delia laughed. “I love it.”
A few hours later when we were watching television, my phone buzzed. I grabbed it expecting to find a text from Grant. A photo of Grant kissing Lena on the dance floor smacked me in the face. Tears filled my eyes. How could he do that to me? I’d trusted him. “That son of a bitch.”
“What?” Delia checked the phone. “Oh my God. I can’t believe he’d do that.”
I tossed my phone on the couch and focused on being angry. Angry was easier than sad. It took less of a toll.
Delia grabbed the phone and flipped through a few screens. “The picture came from a blocked number. I bet it’s one of Lena’s friends.”
I took a step toward the shotguns hanging on the wall. In a perfect world, you’d be allowed to shoot people who cheated on you. And technically, I could shoot Grant, but the whole going to prison thing didn’t sound like a good idea.
“Here.” Delia handed me a throw pillow. “Go beat the crap out of the kitchen table.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Pillow therapy is the reason I’ve never been to jail. Trust me.”
I stalked into the kitchen, cleared off the kitchen table and whacked it with the pillow. Oddly satisfying. After hitting the table a dozen more times, I could breathe.
Delia made microwave popcorn, and then led me into the living room. She found a zombie movie. This time when the movie became gory, I didn’t cover my eyes, I just imagined the zombies were Grant.
As the movie finished, someone knocked on my front door. I checked out the window and saw Grant. Red filled my vision, I yanked the door open. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
He looked confused. “I thought this was the plan.”
“That plan went
to hell when you kissed Lena.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Catch.” Delia threw my phone at him.
He caught it and looked at the picture. “Where did you get this?”
“Where? Why does that matter? What matters is you kissed her.”
“Zoe, look at the picture.” He shoved the phone toward me.
What did he think I was, some kind of masochist? “No thanks. I’ve seen it.”
“No. You didn’t. If you’d looked at it, you would have noticed something in the background.” He enlarged the picture and pointed at a banner draped across a doorway.
It said Fall Dance, but it had last year’s date. My brain tried to process this information. “This is last year’s picture?”
“Yes.”
A new wave of anger flowed through my veins. “That bitch. She set me up.” I could feel Grant staring me down. “I’m sorry.”
His disappointed expression didn’t change. “Zoe, what’s going on between us isn’t working. Is it?”
The floor seemed to shift beneath my feet. The anger fled and in its place came a cold dull ache that radiated through my bones. He was breaking up with me.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “You’re right. It’s not. I can’t do this anymore. You should go.”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t do anything wrong here.”
“Not this time. But eventually, you will.” And it would kill me. Not that this wasn’t killing me. I clenched my hands into fists, driving my nails into my palms. This was the smart thing to do.
“Fine.” He stormed off. I waited until I heard him drive away and then I let loose the tears.
…
My entire body ached, like I had the flu. I knew it was depression over Grant. How had I let myself fall for him, knowing the type of guy he was? It was like signing up to be someone’s punching bag. How could I have been so stupid?
At school, it felt like I was moving in slow motion while everyone else buzzed about at their normal rate. I heard the term “ringer” a few times. Were they talking about me? Wouldn’t that be freaking perfect?
I avoided the cafeteria, eating outside on one of the benches with Delia. “I don’t think I can face him in Foods class.”