West tugs both of her hands toward him so she is leaning into him and they kiss. Sealed with a kiss, she thinks with a smile as their lips mingle.
“We can cross another item off your bucket list now.”
Jules is turned around, staring out the back window of West’s car as they drive away from the stream. The secluded stream has provided them the perfect spot for an afternoon of kisses and conversation. She feels renewed in knowing they are both in this relationship for the long haul. The word ‘love’ tried to slip through her lips several times but she withheld it, afraid it was too soon to feel love. Her brain chides her that need is stronger than love. How many people do you love in your life? Your family, best friends, relationships from your past. Out of those, how many do you actually need? The questions hammer at her as she turns in her seat and gives West a bright smile.
“Lost in thought?” he asks.
“No, why?”
“Liar. What did I just say?”
“Ummm.” She hesitates and tries to recall what he might have been speaking about. Realizing she wasn’t listening at all, she turns towards him slightly with a sweet smile playing on her lips as she tangles her fingers in her hair. She sticks the tip of her tongue out slightly, trying her best to look seductive, and raises her brows as she cocks her head.
The car slows when West sneaks a glance her way. He bites the inside of his cheek as his lip tilts up in a smile and Jules bats her eyes flirtatiously. The car rolls to a stop and Jules leans his way when he shifts the car into ‘Park’. She props her elbows on the middle console and stares at his profile, waiting for him to turn her way. When he doesn’t, she presses forward; placing a slow, simple kiss to his cheek. When he doesn’t budge, she boldly teases the edge of his jawline with a spattering of kisses until she reaches his ear. She hears his inhale of breath as her warm breath fans over his skin, and she is pleased by his reaction to her nearness.
“You said I’m amazing; the best, most wonderful girl you’ve ever known, and we’ll be together forever,” she teases into his ear with a smile before pulling back slightly.
His hand pops up to grasp the side of her head before she can get away, and he smiles like a fox as his face rounds to meet hers. “While all true, I said no such thing, gorgeous,” he drawls; his voice deliciously deep. It makes her pulse quicken the way he sounds, the way his golden brown eyes narrow and meet hers, and the way his fingers dig into her scalp; softly, but with enough force to claim her. It’s like a scene from a movie; the practiced Don Juan seducing the innocent Mary Jane. He wins in the battle of wiles. She doesn’t even wait for him to initiate the first move, and instead jumps right at his lips and kisses him as if her life depends on it. As if they hadn’t just spent the past two hours kissing on and off between small conversations and moments of quiet reflection.
The console between them becomes a hindrance and she begins to feel frustrated as their hungry kisses grow wilder and more frantic with every passing moment. She wants to climb into his lap, touch him and explore him like she’s yet to do. His free hand has slowly worked its way up and under her shirt at some point. The warmth of his touch brings goose bumps to her skin as his strong fingers splay across her ribcage. His thumb just grazes the underwire of her bra and she tries to recall which one she put on this morning, hoping it is something lacy. A small moan escapes her lips as his thumb lifts an inch and his kiss goes deeper. And then cold air hits her when he pulls back suddenly with a gasp and a curse. His hand stays in her hair, massaging her scalp, as the hand that was just centimeters from her breast dives into his own thick hair and pushes it up off his forehead.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, you don’t have to stop,” she whispers; reaching for his shirt to pull him back towards her.
Gently pulling her hand from his shirt, he tugs his fingers from her hair and confesses, “If we don’t stop, you’ll get to see just how much I need you.”
Her eyes flick to his lap. She can’t help it. It’s an automatic reflex, like checking your hair when you walk past a mirror. The proof of his desire for her is evident for all to see, and Jules feels her face turn red as she blows out a deep breath and returns to her seat. She recalls a lesson her mother taught her very early on about how she should never push a boy too far. That it isn’t fair to expect him to act like a gentleman if she allows him to kiss and paw at her (her mom’s words) and then push him away. She feels guilty for turning him on with no intentions of allowing him to go further. Yet, if she’s honest with herself, she knows that if they’d continued she might have given in. Her first time, in a car. How romantic.
“Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”
“For what? For being the woman I desire? I’m not ashamed for you to know how badly I want you, Jules. Own what you do to me. I told you, you drive me crazy.” He winks at her and she blushes even more.
His lack of embarrassment goes to show how much experience he evidently has, whereas she feels awkward and unsure of herself as the hot coals of desire he stoked up start to die out. He eyes her somewhat suspiciously when she says nothing, and then throws the car into ‘Drive’; taking her hand in his and heading down the small path again.
“So originally I mentioned how you could mark something off of your bucket list.”
“You did?”
“Yeah…that’s what you missed when you weren’t distracted,” he teases; emphasizing the ‘weren’t’.
“Bucket list item?” She thinks for a moment. With the exception of losing her virginity, which now seems to be in serious trouble, she can’t think of a bucket list item she can cross off after the day she’s had. “What is it?”
“You’ve skipped school.”
Her mouth forms a small ‘O’ and she winces. “Oh no! I…crap! Are we going to get in trouble or caught? I wasn’t even thinking when I walked off campus.” West laughs at the way she flips out and Jules glowers at him. “I don’t recall ‘Skipping school’ being on my bucket list before. You made that up, didn’t you?”
“Nope.”
“I think it’s time you tell me about everything I said that night. What else did I commit myself to?”
“You’ll remember eventually, cheerleader. Besides, it’s kinda fun holding it over you.”
* * *
“That was an important day for me. It was the day I decided I didn’t care.” She shrugs and looks at the camera with an apologetic smile. “I didn’t say it was a good change, did I? I always tried to be the perfect student, cheerleader and daughter. That day, witnessing Aubrey with West and the snide comment she made to ruin me…it was just, whatever. You know? I decided then and there when I walked off that campus that I wouldn’t care what anyone thought or said about me. Looking back at it now, it was just one of many little notches being made on the wall, sending me over the edge.”
“I’d never skipped classes before. Never. I was freaking out, but West took care of everything. He even spoke to Coach Stiles the next day and got him to write a note to clear my absence with my fourth period teacher. I didn’t bother to ask him what he said, but I imagined by the look Coach gave me when I saw him, it was something pitying. He nodded at me, and after that day began to ask how I was doing several times a week.
“Things were relatively normal for the rest of that week. Aubrey kept her distance, and while the talk of our altercation at the bonfire as well as our conversation on Monday still echoed throughout the campus, it was something I was able to ignore. West and I continued to spend every moment we could together. He brought me to and from school, we ate lunch together, he walked me to fourth period and sometimes was waiting by the door when class was over. After school, we’d grab a drink and sit in his car and talk; always about movies, music, friends or frivolous things. We never talked about the past and we rarely talked about the future. We consciously decided to live in the now. By the end of the week, our fourth since the twister, I knew I was hopelessly in love with West Rutledge.”
/> Eleven
“Friday night, West reluctantly headed out of town with his father for an A&M home game. I figured it was a good thing since his absence meant I could hang out at home, which in turn, kept me away from all things football, cheerleading and partying. All good things. It did not, however, keep me away from the nightmares. One in particular started a new string of terror for me.”
* * *
Jules stands in the cornfield again, except it’s beautiful out. The sky is a crystal azure shade and the sun rides high; its rays hot against her bare arms. She looks down to see that she’s dressed in her Hillsdale uniform, except there’s a large ‘R’ on the chest instead of the usual ‘H’.
“Rossview?” she mutters in confusion as she checks out her surroundings. There are florescent lights in the distance and their distinct buzzing sound teases her ears, even though the sun is shining bright. She blinks as the glare hits her face and opens them to find herself standing in the same place, only it’s dark. The lights are shining now, and moths and bugs swarm around the artificial light. A large black scoreboard is in front of her. The red numbers blink on and off like an alarm clock that’s been reset after losing power. The board confuses her and she looks around, trying to find some type of meaning to it all.
“Hello?” she calls out, and notices the visitor section of the board begins to change. The individual lines that make up the numbers start to randomly light up; forming a zero, then an eight, a two, one…each little, red glowing line — there are seven in all — fumble over every possible combination they can make. It is then that she realizes the ‘Home’ team side says her name in place of ‘Home’. Jules. There it is in block printed, white paint…Jules.
The ‘Visitor’ score speeds up and she turns to see a figure appear, almost as if it came up from the ground. The silhouette runs her way and it doesn’t take more than a minute for her to recognize Tanya in her Hillsdale uniform, complete with the correct letter ‘H’. Tanya runs; her arms waving at something behind her as she twists and looks over her shoulder. Rooted to her spot, Jules squints when another figure comes into view. She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees it’s only a person throwing a football, and that’s what Tanya is waving at.
The urge to cheer and shout for her friend to catch the ball is strong, and she almost shouts encouragement until the sky shifts suddenly; turning from an inky black to a deep, blood red. The excitement rapidly turns to panic and Jules screams, but Tanya doesn’t hear her. She is too focused on catching the ball the anonymous player threw her way. Only…it isn’t a ball. Jules gasps as the ‘ball’ morphs into a black funnel cloud. The cloud elongates and grows until it catches up with Tanya. Reaching out like the hands of the devil, it plucks her flailing body up and flings it across the field with the force of a child picking up a Matchbox car and tossing it.
Jules covers her face and screams, and her stomach lurches as she begins to feel the sensation of falling. She hangs in the pitch black air for one terrifying moment, then everything speeds up again and she falls with a scream. Then nothing.
Slowly, Jules opens her eyes to find herself standing along the bank of the stream where she was with West earlier in the week. The same scoreboard blinks on the bank across from her. She shudders as she notices the ‘Visitor’ score shows ‘one’. Her eyes fill with hot tears. Shaking her head, she closes her eyes tightly and tries to force herself awake.
“This is a dream!” she shouts; pinching her arm.
Instead of her bed, she opens her eyes to see that she’s back in the cornfield again. Blinking rapidly, she observes the sky as it slowly bleeds from cheerful blue to blood red. It looks like someone squirted red across the top of a painting hanging on a wall, and the thick color slowly trails down; drowning out the original sky. Jules stuffs her fist over her mouth as she watches the red drip down until she sees the forms standing in the field. It’s her parents and Jason; each one spread out a good twenty feet away from her and twenty feet apart from each other. She hesitates and her worried gaze ricochets between them all as a twister begins to jump around in the background.
“No!” she shouts to her family. “Run!”
They can’t hear her. They only stand there looking at her, their faces sad and drawn. She notices they each wear black dress clothes and she can see the unshed tears in her father’s eyes. Her mother’s face is puffy and wet with tears as well, while Jason is openly crying. They stare at her with faces turning to horror; their mouths opening and closing in silent shouts.
It takes her a moment to realize they aren’t worried about the twister behind them; they are shouting and worried for her. Jason lifts his arm to point at something behind her. She turns around to look just in time to see a silver car heading straight towards her. She cries out and clenches her eyes shut as the blaring of a horn fills her head.
A light breeze blows over her body, as if the speeding car has gone past her. A smile creeps onto her face and she opens her eyes. Thinking she’s safe, Jules turns towards her family, only to find them gone. The twister is gone as well, and in its wake the sky is now completely red, the blue no longer visible. A lump forms in her throat as terror sends her gaze to the scoreboard in front of her. Under her name she sees a ‘one’ and her heart skips a beat. The car? Her eyes skip to the other side of the board. There, glowing red under ‘Visitors’ is the number ‘4’. Her heart stops.
“No!” she screams; running forward to where her brother stood just moments before. She falls to her knees and the ground gives out beneath her feet; swallowing her legs. Petrified now, she struggles to pull herself up; crying out for her parents, her brother. Her fingers rip and tear at the soil and grass as she sinks deeper into an invisible hole. Just as her limbs tire of the fight, the ground around her falls away and releases its hold on her. Once again, she is at the stream.
Moving her aching body gingerly, she realizes that she’s lying on the rocks beside the stream; her hair gently floating on top of the shallow water.
“No!” she whines and scrambles to her knees. When she pushes her wet hair back, the ice cold water drips across her bare arms.
“Jules?” West’s voice calls to her.
“West? Oh no,” she gasps, and moves to her feet when she spots West standing on the opposite bank of the stream. “You need to leave…now!” she orders with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Babe, what’s wrong?” he whispers, now standing by her side.
She stretches out her arms to hug him, only to hug air as he disappears again; now standing back in the middle of the stream with the water lapping at his legs. Jules glances at the scoreboard, sees the score blinking again and rushes into the water. She tries to reach West as the icy cold hits her and sends sharp, painful stabs up her legs.
“West!”
He looks towards the east and his face falls as if he sees something distressing in the distance. The water rises around her legs, making it hard to wade her way to his side. Her teeth chatter as she calls his name and tries to get him to move towards her.
When she’s only a few feet away, he turns his head towards her and whispers with a shrug, “Don’t worry…you’ll always have the golden boy.” She chokes on his words as his hand stretches out, his fingers reach for hers, and Jules turns at the sound of a train barreling down on them. Only it’s not a train, it’s a tsunami of water charging downstream, heading straight for them. Her fingers barely graze his warm ones before all they feel is ice.
“West!”
As quickly as it comes, the wave is gone. The only thing she sees is the red sky and the ominous scoreboard that now reads ‘Jules’ – one, ‘Visitors’ – five.
She falls to her knees and the jagged stones of the stream bed tear into her skin and cut her shins. But she doesn’t care. Kneeling there, she allows the water to rush by; her blood mixing with the clear water as it flows away. The sky clears, turning blue once more, and somewhere a bird chirps overhead. In a daze, Jules fixes her eyes on the sco
reboard that still flashes ‘Jules – 1’, ‘Visitors – 5’. 5, 5, 5! The red number blinks; mocking her pain.
She opens her mouth to scream and falls face-first into the water; letting the icy blast fill her lungs and burn her eyes. Jules takes a deep breath and swallows the bitterness of her losses with the glacial liquid. Her chest fills and her lungs protest as they lose air, yet she floats there, face-down in shallow water, screaming her pain into the stream.
Air! I need air! her brain screams as her eyes snap open, and Jules finds herself helplessly tangled in her blankets and sheets. She gasps, flips to her back and clutches at her neck; unwinding a sheet from it.
Her fingers tremble and she takes giant gulps of air once she frees herself from the noose. She’s soaked in sweat, shivering, and numb with fear. Pushing the sheets away from her body, she curls into a ball on her side. Her eyes ache with unshed tears as she recalls the nightmare.
Something pokes in her hip and she adjusts her position; reaching for the offending object, only to find her cell phone. The small light in the left hand corner blinks purple, letting her know she has a missed message. She fell asleep waiting for West to text her back after he settled in at his brother’s house. Her finger slides over the screen to unlock the phone and taps on the picture of his face. Looking at her phone, she notices multiple texts from West. She stays in bed with her head resting on her pillow and scans through them. Jules forces her eyes to focus on the words she can barely read with the way she is laying. The last one came at almost midnight.
Spike <3: You must be asleep. Sweet dreams cheerleader. I’ll call in the morning before the game
It’s close to two in the morning, but she doesn’t hesitate for a moment. She presses the little phone icon and slides the cell under her ear without moving. Her body is still shaking from the after effects of the nightmare and her skin is still damp from the sweat.
Out of Ruins Page 10