by Kasie West
“What happened?” she asked. “You look miserable.”
“Jackson.”
“I don’t understand. How did Jackson happen? Is that like a metaphor or something? Are we using Jackson as a verb now?”
I smiled. “I can think of several words where the name Jackson would fit perfectly in their place.”
She moved her eyebrows up and down. “I’m sure you can.”
I smacked her arm. “They would be bad words, not good ones.”
“So. Tell me how you got Jacksoned.”
“He squirmed his way into hanging out with me and my dad at the yogurt place.”
She grabbed my arm in faux horror. “How awful.”
“It was! He made my dad like him.”
She pulled out her bagged lunch. “How did he do that?”
“Basically he didn’t stop talking the entire time and told a million stories that made him sound funny and charming. I have a feeling this is all part of some elaborate joke he’s put together.”
She laughed. “Jackson flirting with you is part of a joke?”
“He wasn’t flirting.”
“I know you don’t have a flirt meter like the rest of us, but I promise you he was.”
I opened my mouth to tell her what my dad had said when she added, “You do not need to give in to him, though. I like him just fine, but I can see why you don’t.”
I shut my mouth. “You can?”
“Yeah. He’s pretty self-absorbed and childish. He makes me laugh, but I could never take him seriously.”
“Right . . . exactly.” It felt weird admitting that. It felt like admitting that I wouldn’t have liked my brother. And apparently Amelia wouldn’t have liked him either.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Absolutely nothing.
“Did you bring a lunch?” she asked, nodding toward my bag.
I stood. “Yes, but I need to go talk to Coach. I’m not going to the awards banquet.” I had just decided this, and although three people had told me I’d make the right decision, it didn’t feel right. My stomach was twisted tighter than it was prerace. I figured either decision would’ve produced that feeling, though, so I didn’t change my mind.
“It’s mandatory,” Amelia said.
“For people without dead brothers.”
“I hate you.”
“I know. If only we could all be so lucky.” I felt a twinge of guilt for joking about it, but sometimes it was all I could do to lighten up the whole subject. And besides, if my brother was as “fun” as my dad claimed, he would probably find the exchange amusing.
“I thought you wanted to go to the awards banquet. Cement your place as favorite with the coach.”
I picked up my bag. “I did, but I’ve been thinking, and maybe I am too singly focused.”
“Did Robert get in your head? I’ll kill him.”
“No. Well, sort of, but I started it. I do think a lot about swimming. My life kind of revolves around it.”
“Mine would too if I were as awesome as you.”
“Thanks, but even if I were that awesome, it’s no excuse to be so obsessed.”
“I think any excuse is a good one to be obsessed.”
I smiled, took a step away, then said, “You okay here . . . ?”
She rolled her eyes and nodded to a table behind her. “I’ll go sit with Katie. Good luck with the coach’s wrath.”
“Dead brother,” I called as I walked away.
I knocked on the glass outside Coach’s door when I arrived, even though I could see that it wasn’t Coach inside but DJ. I bit my lip. We still weren’t exactly back to pre-insult comfort around each other, but I knew he felt bad, so I was trying to get past it. DJ gestured me in.
“Hey, is Coach around?” I asked.
“He had a lunch meeting with a parent.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Can I help you with something?”
“No . . . Well, actually I was just going to tell him that I can’t go to the awards banquet. You want to pass on that message for me?”
He laughed. “Nice try.”
“I’ll give you a dollar.”
“Tempting but still no. You know it’s mandatory, right? I don’t think you’ll be able to get out of it if you plan on swimming next year.”
I thought about telling DJ about Eric. Oh, who was I kidding? DJ probably already knew. It seemed everyone did. I knew having a dead brother had gotten me an extra bit of something—food in the lunch line, percentage points on grades, days for makeup work—over the years. I was sure everybody knew that too. The only thing I could be 100 percent sure I’d earned was my swimming times. The clock wasn’t subjective. Nobody could change that.
I shrugged. “He’ll be mad, but my conflict is important too.”
He picked up a pen and clicked the end. “I’ll leave him a message that you were here. Maybe he’ll call you out of your next class to talk.”
“Sounds good.”
“By the way, thanks for letting me tag along at the museum the other night.”
I nodded. “We kind of ditched you for a while.”
“I’m kind of a loner anyway.”
“Meaning you’d rather be alone or that people tend to leave you alone?”
“Both.”
I tugged on the straps of my backpack. “So you had fun?”
“I love art.”
“What was your favorite piece there?”
“Did you see the aquarium sculpture on the second floor?”
“No.”
“It was amazing. It looked real.”
“We were a little preoccupied that night.”
“I noticed. With what?”
I didn’t want to admit it out loud. I was embarrassed that we had ever taken the Heath Hall thing seriously. “Something stupid. But anyway, I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
“Hadley,” he said before I could leave.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”
“I think you should try, like really try, to come to the awards banquet. You’ll be glad you did.”
I nodded because I didn’t feel like arguing, or telling him my parents had basically said the same thing about their event. That everybody seemed to think their thing was the most important, the most worth my time, the thing that I would be happier to attend. At this point, I wanted to skip both.
Fourteen
“Hey, Ms. Lin.” I stood in the art room after swim practice the next day, taking in all the paintings around me.
“Hadley, hello. What brings you here? Have you decided to add art to your schedule after all?”
As my mentor teacher, Ms. Lin was in charge of helping me figure out my four-year goals and I always thought she felt cheated that she got the one person in the whole school probably the least interested in art.
“Nope. Still not even a little bit artistic.”
“There’s an artist inside each of us.”
“I think I drowned mine.”
She gave a courtesy laugh, then said, “So what brings you here? Did you already fill out your schedule for next year?”
We’d gotten the sheets that morning. I liked to get things off my to-do list as quickly as possible. “Yes.” I handed it to her.
While she looked over it, my eyes continued to wander the room. Art hung on the walls and paintings were drying on easels. I bit my lip. “Did any of your students show a piece at the museum on Tenth Street for the show last week? I saw a painting there that my parents might want to buy.” This wasn’t the reason I had filled out my schedule so fast. I was not still curious about who Heath Hall was. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
She brightened at my mention of going to the museum. “Sounds like you didn’t drown your creative side, after all.”
“It’s for my parents,” I said again before she whipped out an eraser and started changing my schedule.
“Students don’t have to get my approval
to enter pieces there. They have to submit them for consideration like everyone else. Did the piece not have a name with it?”
“No.” And I knew for a fact the piece had been snuck in and not submitted for consideration at all.
“What did it look like?”
“It was a painting of a shipwreck in the middle of the ocean.” It was dark and alive and even thinking about it now gave me goose bumps again. Maybe I did have a creative side clawing for air somewhere inside of me.
“I haven’t seen a piece like that come through my class. But most serious students work on paintings at home too.”
“Who would you say your most talented student is?”
“Everyone is an artist in their own way. I don’t pick favorites.”
I laughed. “I won’t tell anyone.”
She looked around, as if to make sure we were still alone, and led me to the far corner of the room where a half-done painting sat. Even incomplete, it was gorgeous. It was a tree, twisted and gnarled, dark and perfect. It had the same feel as the ocean scene from the museum. The same strokes or depth or something. “Yes. Who painted this?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you that without his permission. But I’ll ask him if he’s interested in selling any of his work. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay. Thanks, Ms. Lin.” He’d know why I was asking. We’d been face-to-face in that hallway at the museum. We’d chatted online. He wouldn’t let Ms. Lin tell me who he was.
The door to the art room flew open and I whirled around.
“Hey, Ms. Lin. I heard you needed some muscle in here.” Jackson walked into the room.
Ms. Lin smiled like he was the cutest thing in the world. I curled my lip but then smoothed my hair, all too aware that I had just gotten out of the pool. Not that I cared what he thought of me, but still.
Jackson noticed me, and his mouth twisted into a sly smile. “Oh, I see you already have plenty of muscle. Never mind.” He started to back out of the room.
“No, Jackson,” Ms. Lin said. “Hadley was just here turning in her schedule. I still need your help.”
“Moore. We keep running into each other. It’s almost like you’re following me.”
He wanted me to point out that I was in here first. I wasn’t going to do that.
“I didn’t know you liked art,” I said to Jackson.
“There’s an artist inside each of us,” he said with a wink in Ms. Lin’s direction.
“So which painting is yours?” I asked.
“My artist just moves around other people’s paintings.”
Ms. Lin began pointing to some easels that Jackson immediately folded and moved to the far end of the room. “I asked for a student council member to help me stack paintings once a week and Jackson answered the call.”
“I am a call answerer. People call, I answer.”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Do you really get it? How about one more iteration? If I answer, it means someone has called.”
Yes, he was still the most annoying person on the planet.
“Maybe you’ll have the desire to paint by being around the paintings,” Ms. Lin said to him like she’d had this conversation with him before. So he obviously wasn’t the artist responsible for the piece in the corner.
As I moved to leave, my dad’s words about my brother being like Jackson came back to me. Dad could’ve compared Eric to almost anyone else and I would’ve been fine. But Jackson? Maybe I just didn’t know him well enough. Maybe he had another side. But that wouldn’t matter. My dad had met only this side. And this was the side that reminded him of my brother. If I hung out with Jackson more, would I get used to him? Would this over-the-top personality become endearing?
Jackson lifted an easel over his head. “You need a body model for class, Ms. Lin? I’ve been told my physique is nearly perfect.”
Nope. That would never become endearing. This sucked because before, being around Jackson was only an irritation, but now it was depressing. My stomach hurt, my chest hurt, my head hurt. Why had my dad said that? It tainted all the things I had learned about Eric over the years.
“What did I do?” Jackson asked, and I realized I was staring. I could feel the scowl on my face and I quickly smoothed it back to uninterested.
“Nothing. See you later, Ms. Lin.”
“Wait up,” Jackson called as I left the classroom.
I walked faster but he still caught up with me. I gave myself a mental pep talk. I could be nice to Jackson. He was a nice guy. He was just helping Ms. Lin. That’s what nice guys did. “I thought you were moving easels.”
“I’m finished. She only had a few for me to stack today.”
“Lucky me.”
“So I have a serious question for you.”
Did Jackson know how to be serious? “I’m listening.”
“Was Amelia your ride home?”
“Um . . . yes. Why?” I turned to him, now wary.
“Because isn’t that her?” He pointed to the street, where I saw her yellow car, its tiny blinker going on and off, indicating she was turning left.
Why was she leaving me? I’d told her I needed to drop off my schedule and that it would only be a minute. She took longer than me in the locker room, so it shouldn’t have been a problem even if it had been more like fifteen minutes. “Did you tell her to leave me?”
Jackson’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “Why would I do that?”
“Why do you do anything?” I said more to myself, then pulled out my phone to see ten texts littering my screen. All from Amelia.
The light turned green and she turned. I called her but she didn’t answer.
“You’re in luck, Moore. I can drive you.”
“That’s okay. I’ll walk.”
“You’d rather walk than let me drive you?”
That did sound kind of stupid, but I wanted to answer yes. It was only two miles away.
“My car is dying to drive you home. This has nothing to do with me. You wouldn’t deny my car what it wants, right? It just got out of the shop.”
“Why was your car in the shop?”
“My friend thought it would be funny to see what would happen if he put milk in the gas tank. I probably don’t have to tell you that it did not end well.”
I laughed.
“Oh, now you laugh.”
“I just think it’s funny when you’re on the other end of pranks for once.”
“My life was endangered.”
I laughed again. “Milk is noncombustible. I’m sure it screwed up your car but you were safe.”
“You know about cars?”
“Not really.” Not like my brother. He and my dad had restored his truck from the engine block up. I knew my dad missed talking cars with someone, so sometimes I would humor him. “Do you?”
“Not a thing.”
This thought relieved me. It was a way he wasn’t like Eric.
“This makes you happy, for some reason? Do you hate cars?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
“So? A ride?”
“Sure. Why not?” Maybe I would learn a few more things about him that would make him different from my brother.
“This is your car?” I asked as we approached a beige sedan. It was at least twenty years old and looked like a car my grandpa would drive.
“You don’t like my Buick Century? It’s a classic.”
“No, this cannot claim that title.”
“You’re going to hurt his feelings.” He stuck the key in the lock, turned it twice to the left, once to the right, then jiggled it before pulling it back out and opening the door. I wasn’t sure if that was really necessary or if it was just something he did as a joke.
“I thought you had a Lexus.”
“Who wants a Lexus when they have the opportunity to drive this?”
“True.”
“That was my dad’s car. He let me borrow it a few times while my car was getting fixed.”
“Oh.” I climb
ed in and spent the entire time he walked around the car trying to buckle my seat belt.
“That one doesn’t work,” he said as he sat down. He patted the middle seat. “Guess you’ll have to sit next to me.”
“Did you break this seat belt on purpose?”
“Best pickup line ever, right? I wish I had thought of it on my own. But no, I didn’t. It legitimately broke all by itself.”
“Right.” I slid over next to him and buckled up.
He draped his arm across the back of the seat, lifted one side of his mouth into a half smile, and met my eyes. “Hey.” His eyes were green. Like my brother’s.
I scowled, and he laughed and put both hands on the wheel.
“Sorry, I’ll behave. It was just a joke,” he said.
Of course it was.
“Where to?” he asked, starting the engine.
I told him where I lived, then reached for the radio.
“It doesn’t work.”
I gasped. “How can you drive without music?”
“Well, it might be an old-car thing, but my gas pedal isn’t connected to the radio at all.”
“Funny. It’s just, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“But to be fair, you don’t do anything without music.”
“Music is life.” It was to me at least. It filled me up, gave me words, helped me to feel or not to feel.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t until we were almost to my house that I remembered my brother’s truck up there on the platform like a trophy in our front yard. I knew the whole town knew the story behind it, but people still had this need to hear it from me. They wanted the details. And they’d ask in this soft, sad voice. I wasn’t ready to hear that voice from Jackson because it would sound even more fake than when other people did it.
A sharp pain shot through my right shoulder. I clutched at it, then pinched the muscle, hoping to soothe it faster.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just get shoulder cramps every once in a while.”
“From swimming?”
I gritted my teeth as a new wave of pain surged through my shoulder. “Yes.” And they seemed to be happening more frequently, which worried me.
“Is there anything I can—”
“No, I’m good.” And I was. A minute later my shoulder relaxed and so did I. Until I remembered the truck in my front yard as we pulled up to the house.