She's With Me

by Jessica Cunsolo

  Once we pull into my driveway, I turn off the car and turn to look at my new predicament.

  “Chase?” I shove him, and nothing. “Chase!” I shove him again, and again, and the boy barely even moves.

  Fantastic. How am I supposed to get this giant, sleeping man into my house? Maybe I should just let him sleep it off in my car? But what if he pukes? I don’t need my car to smell like vomit and regret. Getting out and rounding the car to his side, I open the door and take off his seat belt.

  “Chase?” I try one last time, and his head lolls to the side as I shake him.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sigh in frustration. Looks like I’m putting that gym membership to good use. Reaching into the car, I put my hands under his arms and after several unsuccessful attempts, I manage to pull him out and lean him against the car.

  “Chase!” I practically yell into his ear.

  He murmurs something and slumps on the roof of my car. Standing behind him, I wrap my arms around his back and link my hands together across his chest, under his arms. When I move him away from the car, the sudden force of his full weight causes me to stumble, and the two of us practically slam into a tree, Chase taking the brunt of it.

  “Sorry!” I automatically say even though he can’t hear me. He’ll definitely feel that later.

  I manage to lead us to the front steps, his body leaning against me and his feet dragging on the ground. By the time we’re leaned against the railing, I’m sweating and huffing from the effort. The boy is heavy. One step at a time, I pull him up the porch steps, his legs banging into each step as we go. I’m so lucky my mom isn’t home right now or I’d be in a heaping pile of trouble.

  I set him down rather roughly when we reach the top step, leaning his upper body against the wall. “Sorry,” I mutter again, my arms practically shaking from exertion.

  Of course my key’s at the bottom of my purse, and after getting the door open, I can’t even manage to pick Chase up. Grabbing him under his arms, I drag him into my house. I make sure to set his head down gently once we’re inside, and close the door.

  Kicking off my shoes and throwing my purse down, I catch my breath and study Chase, contemplating my options. He’s inside, which was a mission in and of itself, but what now? Should I leave him here? Should I try to get him onto the couch? A phone beeps and I realize that it’s Chase’s. I dig in his pockets and see that it’s the sixth message from his mom.

  Well, that’s not good.

  I use his thumbprint to unlock his phone and quickly scan her messages. They’re all along the lines of Are you boys having fun? Are you sleeping over or coming home? Your phone better be dead cause you better not be ignoring me!

  I glance at Chase, who rolls onto his side, trying to get comfortable on my cold floor.

  Sorry, Mom, my phone was charging, I text back to her. Sleeping over tnght. Talk tmrw.

  I send the message and slip Chase’s phone in my pocket. I feel a bit bad lying to Chase’s mom, but I don’t want to get him in trouble.

  I glance at his face and know that I can’t leave him on the floor, even though my whole body is tired from carrying him in here. Sitting him up, I half carry, half drag him into the living room and prop his upper body on the couch, then his lower body, and eventually, I get him onto the couch and into recovery position. I leave a lamp on for him and place his phone on the side table by his head, as well as a bucket on the floor in front of his head, just in case.

  “Urggghhhhh.”

  The sunlight is streaming through the kitchen window when I hear Chase wake up. I walk into the living room and hand him a glass of water and some aspirin. He takes it and sits up from where he slept on my couch last night.

  “I feel like crap,” he complains while swallowing the aspirin.

  “It’s called a hangover.” I sit down on the other side of the couch, facing him and crossing my legs.

  “How did I get here?” He looks around. “And why am I all sore?”

  “You passed out in my car before telling me where you live. None of the guys answered their phones, and Aiden sent me to voice mail, so I brought you here. And you’re sore because I may or may not have dropped you a couple of times trying to get you inside.”

  He gives me an accusing look.

  “What? You’re twice my size!” I defend myself.

  “But I wasn’t with you last night?” He rubs his face.

  “You don’t remember showing up at Charlotte’s just after midnight and proclaiming your love to her?”

  He straightens up at that, suddenly very alert. “I did what? I’m such an idiot. What did she say? Did I ruin everything? I wasn’t supposed to tell her. Damn, I’m such a fuc—”

  “Relax,” I cut him off. “I stopped you before you spilled your guts. You were close though.”

  “Oh thank God.” The tenseness in his shoulders reduces slightly.

  His eyes are blank as I recount everything that happened last night from the moment he banged on Charlotte’s front door.

  “How did you know I was going to tell her how I felt?” he asks.

  “I know how you feel about Char. I’m good at noticing things like that.”

  He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “No one’s ever noticed before—well, except Aiden.”

  That didn’t surprise me one bit.

  “Thanks for stopping me before I did anything stupid—well, more stupid than what I normally do when drunk.”

  “Why haven’t you just told her how you feel?”

  “I can’t do that. Charlie and I have been best friends since she moved here in second grade. She was this cute little girl with pigtails and sparkly pink running shoes. This bully pushed her down during recess, shouting that she had cooties. She was crying when he left her on the ground, and I felt really bad. So I went up to her and told her that I didn’t think she had cooties.”

  He laughs out loud. “She gave me this look. You know, the Charlotte look? The look like ‘Well, duh, idiot.’ And then she lisped through her missing teeth, ‘Well, obviously I don’t have cooties.’”

  I laugh at his seven-year-old Charlotte imitation, but don’t interrupt his story.

  “I asked her why she was crying. She told me it was because there was mud all over her favorite shirt now.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “It was this pink sparkly shirt that matched her sneakers. At the time, I thought the kid did her a favor, but I didn’t tell her as much. She was still sitting there in the mud, crying. You know Charlie, always has been nonconfrontational, quiet, never stands up for herself.”

  Chase frowns at thought.

  “So I offered her the spare shirt that my mom put in my cubby in case I ruined the one I was wearing. It was this blue shirt with dinosaurs on the front, and would’ve been too big for her. I promised her I didn’t have cooties, either, so she could wear it. That way, she wouldn’t have mud on her all day.”

  “Aw, how romantic, Chase,” I gush, picturing seven-year-old Chase coming to Charlotte’s rescue.

  He laughs. “I was always a hit with the ladies. She changed into my shirt and it was too big for her, but I still thought she was beautiful. The mean kid saw her wearing my shirt and pushed her down again, said that she was giving my shirt her cooties. So I beat him up.”

  I laugh, fake gasping. “Chase! You beat up a seven-year-old?”

  “It was a fair fight! I was seven too!” He chuckles. “Charlie and I have been best friends since then. I guess I should thank that kid. Because he had this irrational fear of cooties, he brought me closer to the girl I love.”

  That’s so cute. I wish I had someone who loves me like Chase loves Charlotte. He still remembers the day they met, down to the detail of her missing teeth and shoe color. “I thought you went to elementary school with the Boys?”

  “No, Charlie and I went to one schoo
l, Julian and Aiden went to another, and Mason and Noah went to another. In grade six, our schools started having meets for sports and stuff, and we all met at a basketball tournament. We became friends and hung out outside of school. Charlie never liked them, and honestly, she never hung out with all of us until you came along and made her sit with us at lunch.”

  “I think she likes them now. She even told me that Aiden isn’t that bad.”

  “He isn’t; he just has his own stuff going on that he deals with. He’s a really tough guy, and doesn’t let people in.”

  “Where was he last night? Why couldn’t he go to the party?” It better be somewhere important if he sent me to voice mail during an emergency. I had his passed-out best friend in my car. And he was the one who put his contact info in my phone in the first place.

  “What? How would I know?” The guilty look Chase is trying to hide says otherwise. “Anyway, where was I in the story? Oh yeah, so we all went to grade nine and started at the same high school, and we were happy because we could see each other at school, too, instead of just after and on the weekends. In the middle of freshman year, Aiden casually brought up how I loved Charlotte, and I couldn’t believe how he noticed. None of the other guys noticed and I don’t think I made it that obvious.”

  Aiden’s observant like that, noticing everything.

  “He said he wouldn’t say anything and here we are four years later, with Charlie and everyone else still oblivious to how I feel.”

  “Why haven’t you told her?”

  He shakes his head and looks down at the glass of water in his hands. “I can’t do that. She won’t feel the same way and it’ll crush me, hearing out loud how I’ll never be with her.”

  My heart aches for Chase. I wish I could reassure him that Charlotte feels the same way as him, but I can’t.

  “I always try to put on this player image in front of her to try to make her jealous, which clearly hasn’t worked. I try to go out with other girls to move on from her, but that doesn’t work either. None of those girls are Charlotte.” He laughs a sad laugh. “I’ve known the girl of my dreams for a decade, and I can’t even be with her!”

  This whole comforting-people-in-love thing is foreign to me. “I don’t know how Char feels about you, but I know she really cares about you. Maybe someday it’ll grow into something bigger—maybe she already feels that way about you. You’ll never know unless you tell her how you feel.”

  His eyes widen and he shakes his head frantically. “No, no, no. I can’t do that. And you can’t either! Please don’t tell her!”

  “Hey, I already knew and haven’t said anything.” I calm him down. “I won’t say anything, but this is going to eat you alive. You almost confessed everything to her in a drunken stupor in the middle of the night!”

  “I’ll be more careful, I promise. She just can’t know. She’ll reject me and we’ll be all awkward.” He frowns again and looks back at the glass in his hands. “I’d rather have her as a friend and silently love her than tell her and lose her forever.”

  12

  Chase and I spend Saturday together, hanging out and lazing around my house.

  My mom comes home not long after Chase wakes up, but she doesn’t really say anything. It’s practically lunchtime and we’d cleaned up so it didn’t look like Chase slept here. She makes some small talk before going up to bed since she just got off work, but I don’t miss her giving Chase the I’m-watching-you glare.

  When he leaves later that night, my mom comes down and gives me “the talk.”

  “I know I’m not home all that often, Amelia,” she says. “But I have to be able to trust you.”

  “You can trust me,” I argue.

  “I’m not so sure—parties and staying out late studying. It all seems awfully like your life before we were in King City.” She looks at me, her eyes hard. “I can’t move again. I can’t go through it one more time.”

  “I’m being careful,” I say. “I am, honestly, but being a normal kid is also a way of blending in. It’d be just as weird if I hid in the corner and didn’t talk to anyone.”

  Our version of the talk has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with my mom blaming me for the state of our lives. She leans into this argument every time she sees that I’m getting close to someone in a new town. Chase is technically the first guy friend that she’s met since we moved here, so I guess she feels like she has to say it again, but alter it to be more suitable for boys.

  “On your best behavior, no screwups, no secret talks, let nobody in—you are Amelia Collins, you can’t forget it.”

  It’s the same speech, over and over again.

  “Part of me realizes that you can’t not be who you are, so I’m glad you’re having fun, enjoying your life, but—”

  “I know, Mom, I know. I can’t get close to anyone. I know.”

  My mom’s face has aged disproportionately to her age—the strain of the last year or so weighing on her, causing crow’s feet to appear next to her eyes, and the bags under her eyes never seem to go away. Seeing her like this makes me feel awful, and as she goes on about how I can’t trust Chase even if he’s just a friend, even if he’s got the face of an angel and the body of a Calvin Klein model—he’s not her, and she’s the only one I can really trust.

  Deep down she misses the house I grew up in—she misses my dad, our old routine, the familiar grocery store we could walk to, the school that was just behind our house, the ease of our everyday life. So she’s away as much as possible these days: more overtime, longer flights, farther-away destinations. And lately, I’ve noticed her getting into a car with some guy in the driver’s seat. Maybe she’s dating? Either way, she’s spending less and less time at home.

  I always feel tense after our “talks.” I hate that my mom feels like she needs to remind me to stay away from people. I hate how I know I’ll never be able to be close to someone like Annalisa is with Julian. So, usually, I go to the gym to blow off some steam.

  After hitting the punching bag aimlessly for a while I feel a bit better. I take a drink, then steady the bag and punch with all my might.

  I hate him.

  I always pretend the bag is the same person. The one responsible for everything.

  I take a punch, the lifeless bag taking shape into him.

  He ruined everything.

  I punch.

  I hate that I can’t be close to people.

  I punch.

  I hate that I can’t be my true self. That I can’t get in the pictures with Charlotte and Annalisa. I hate that I can never just let someone in. I hit the bag with all I have until I’m standing there heaving, all my energy wiped, tears threatening to escape from my tired eyes.

  As I’m leaving, I recognize another person at one of the punching bags, hitting with abandon. I see a part of myself in her. Her technique isn’t very good, but she’s here out of anger and frustration, not to practice her form.

  When she takes a swig of her water, I tap her on the shoulder. “Amelia?” Annalisa’s dark eyebrows draw together in confusion.

  “Hey. I didn’t know you came here.”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” She shrugs. “It’s a good way to blow off some steam, you know?”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” I laugh dryly.

  She adds a few more punches, the chains holding the bag squeaking as her final hit sends the heavy bag flying.

  “So, who pissed you off?” I ask her, half as a joke, and half genuinely wanting to know.

  She wipes the sweat off her forehead and turns to face me with a haunted look in her eye. “Someone I thought was my brother, but who ended up ruining my life.”

  She readies her stance and starts hitting the bag again. I get the hint that she wants to be alone right now and leave her be, her words replaying in my mind.

  When we get back our calculus quizzes
from Friday, I’m not even surprised when I see my failing grade.

  What else is new? This is the second calculus test I’ve bombed since I started at King.

  I just don’t get it. And I can’t pay attention to Mr. Fidiott when he teaches for the life of me. Honestly, if he put the lesson on that clock at the front of the room, I’d probably learn something. I spend all my time staring at it.

  With seven minutes and thirty-four seconds left of class, everyone packs their bags.

  Mr. Fidiott turns to the class. “Okay, I’ll let you out of class now since it’s is almost over anyway.”

  The class is filled with different choruses of excited yeses, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I might have been the loudest one. Mr. Fidiott is so cool, letting us out of this hell six minutes and fifty-two seconds early.

  “Except you, Amelia. May I speak with you?”

  I take that back. Mr. Fidiott is not cool. He’s a dream stomper. He just stomped all over my dreams of escaping this hellhole.

  The class is filled with immature oohs, and it’s unfair that I have to stay while the rest of the class gets freedom.

  “Amelia,” he says as I walk up to his desk, “this is the second test you failed in my class. The other quizzes you just barely scraped by.”

  “I know. I’ve been working really hard trying to get my grades up. I study with my friend practically every night!”

  “You need this credit to graduate,” he says, deadpan.

  “I’ll get the credit, I’m working really hard.”

  “I don’t want you to fail, Amelia. That’s why I asked one of my best students to tutor you.”

  “I don’t need a tutor! Charlotte is helping me!”

  “Charlotte needs to focus on trying to raise her own grade, never mind helping a failing student.”

  “Who agreed to tutor me?” I ask hesitantly.

  His next words shock me so intensely that I might’ve been electrocuted. “Aiden Parker.”