Текст книги "Slow Twitch"
Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
I pulled my jeans on and put my feet in my sandals. “We’ll come back here, right, Jake?”
“Of course.” He looked over his shoulder as he packed the duffel bag and his smile was so sweet, it seeped through all my bitter worries. “This is our spot now. We’ll come back while we’re in Sussex County, and then we have our five-year-plan, when we’re big, important hotshots. This will be that place we come back to when we need to get away from everything.” He reached for my hand, and we went back up the rocky incline, away from our little secret sweet spot full of magic. Jake didn’t give it so much as a backwards glance.
We jumped back in the truck and he whistled. He grinned. He tapped the steering wheel in a happy beat. When he didn’t have to shift, he reached his hand over and held mine.
“You’re in an awful good mood, Jake ‘Speed Demon’ Kelly.” I pulled his hand up to my lips and kissed it.
“I really hope that’s a reference to my racing skills and not my, uh, other skills.” He glanced at me and winked.
“Winking! All this sexy time definitely went to your head.” I leaned back on the seat and let out a long, sweet laugh. “And I think your skills were above average.”
“Above average? Is that, like, a B+?” He shook his head.
“Yep. And you know what that means?” I winked back at him. “Practice. Lots and lots of it.”
“I swear I will practice until I get an A from you, Ms. Blixen.” He turned the dial on the radio and sang along with the first song that came on.
I’d never heard it, and I don’t really think Jake had either, because his version of the lyrics was totally off key and made no sense. He stuck his head out the window and sang with the full capacity of his lungs, then screamed with pure pleasure into the wind.
“Jake! What’s up with you?” I laughed.
“This is just a great day. Just a really great day, and I’m happy. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy.” He leaned his head back out the window and yelled again, and everything in me felt fever warm. I switched to the middle lap belt and snuggled against Jake’s shoulder, contented and sleepy after a long day of happy goodness.
I started the day different, and had changed in ways that were too new and raw and wonderful to process. I wondered if Jake would come back to my house tonight and say over. Or maybe we’d go to his. Would we have sex again? My whole world was suddenly full of intimate possibilities that just weren’t there before.
My thoughts wandered back to this time when I was a little kid. Mom and Fa bought me a fish tank. We agonized over rocks for the bottom and the background pictures, made the poor guy at the store net practically every fish in the place until he got the three specific ones I wanted. There was a little treasure chest that opened with a geyser of bubbles and a mermaid statue, which I thought was the sexiest, most amazing thing in existence. We took our time setting everything up, and then Fa plugged it in, and I snapped the power on. The whole thing lit up in a crazy dance of sinuous fish, buzzing too-bright lights, and streams of bubbles. I stayed awake way too late looking at that tank full of beauty, the tank that had been so many dull pieces in the store, but, all put together, turned into this underwater paradise.
That was today. So many little pieces, all placed just right, now something more than normal. Something with a tiny bit of magic that I would be able to tuck away and look back at forever.
My eyes were just about to close when Jake pulled down a long, bumpy road I’d never seen before and stopped at a squat ranch house with falling-down siding and dozens of people in the yard. Over to the side was a huge, roaring bonfire, fueled by everything from old branches to chairs, boxes, and even what looked like an entertainment center.
Jake’s arm snaked around my shoulders in a possessive slide. His muscles loosened, but he walked with a wary confidence, like he was sure everyone was watching him. I would have thought it was just his nerves. Then I noticed people were watching him. We walked through the crowds, and Jake kept his arm around my waist.
Jake held his hand up whenever someone called to him, but he never stopped, and he turned down beers from at least half-a-dozen people, mostly heavyset older guys with neck tattoos and multiple facial piercings who seemed very happy to see Jake around. It was like the entire party was crushing in, nervously excited to embrace Jake back into the fold.
He looked down at me and smiled. “Kind of my old group. They’re nice, you know.” At that minute a guy wearing a skull hoodie threw a dresser with no drawers into the fire, then followed it with an entire can of lighter fluid. The flames shot high and exploded so hot my cheecks glowed hot from the fire that was thirty feet away. “Crazy, but nice,” Jake amended.
I looked around with wonder. So this was the kind of gathering where Jake had spent so many summer nights? It was still comfortable and familiar to him. It was also obviously a place he’d grown away from, like a favorite jacket one size too tight that still fit, but strangled your shoulders and clung too hard around the zipper.
“Kelly! Blix! Come forth and revel!” Saxon’s voice rang out, loud and slurry, but not completely drunk. He sat near a smaller fire, a beer bottle in his hand, Cadence on his knee. She looked slightly confused, and not very comfortable as she ran her fingers through her shiny black hair and looked at us with a helplessly nervous smile hello.
Jake and I walked up to the roaring, belching fire, kindled partially on things that probably weren’t meant to be burned. It loosed a chemically, thick smoke and, every once in a while, sputtered or gave off a loud, crackling pop. Jake’s arm tightened with possessive constraint around my waist, and I was happy to lean into the comfort of his overzealous embrace.
“Hey Saxon. Cadence.” I waved at her, and she gave me a shy smile in return.
Jake glanced around and rocked back and forth on his heels. “There’s a shit-ton of people here.” People were spilling out of the dilapidated house, burying their hands in coolers filled with cans of beer, throwing things into multiple fires, and gathering around a huge roasted pig. “Shambles’s dad slaughtered a pig?”
“Would it be a bonfire without a hog?” Saxon raised his beer and laughed before he took a long, eager pull from the bottle. Cadence touched his wrist and shook her head, and he nodded, then laid a long, dramatic kiss on her lips before he turned his attention back to us. “So, what have you two fine, upstanding youths been up to?”
“Just hanging out,” Jake said vaguely, shaking his head at yet another beer offered by yet another hulking, tattooed man with a huge smile. He pulled me closer when the man licked his lips openly in my direction.
“Jake took me to see this waterfall.” The words flipped out because of a nervous need to fill the uncomfortable feeling of not belonging that dredged up in me. Jake kissed my temple and avoided looking at Saxon, who was staring right at him.
“A waterfall, huh?” Saxon nodded slowly and took another long sip. “Hell of a way to celebrate that second place win, eh, Jake?”
Jake’s arm tightened into anaconda territory, and he and Saxon locked eyes in a long, nasty standoff of unspoken, raging tempers. I pulled at Jake’s hand and squeezed it until his stance relaxed.
Cadence said something sharp and quiet in Saxon’s ear, and he locked his jaw tight.
Just when I was getting nervous about how everything would iron itself out, the man who’d ogled me a second before came back to the fire. “Saxon, could you pull your car around? Davey parked like a fuckwad and can’t get his truck out.”
Saxon stood on unsteady legs, and Cadence reached into his pocket for his keys and pressed him back.
“I’ll move it.” She started across the field at a brisk jog before he had a chance to argue or follow. About twenty half-drunk male heads swiveled in her direction. Saxon stood back up, weaving from side to side as he attempted to chase her, but he swayed so badly Jake had to catch him before he careened into the fire.
Jake looked at me, and I nodded. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and we didn’t need to say a single word. I felt a warm swell of pride that my boyfriend was the kind of guy you could depend on to pick up the pieces when things fell apart.
“I’ll help her out, Saxon,” Jake said, his voice cool and smooth around the electric air between them. To me, in a lower voice, he asked, “Bren, you wanna sit with him while I go?”
“No problem.” I kissed him softly and he smiled his relief and thanks.
Saxon shook his head with a bleary jerk and thudded down heavily.
I sat down next to him, careful to maintain a few necessary centimeters. “How’s the bonfire?”
“I’m ruining it for Cadence.” Saxon stretched his lips up in an attempt to grin, but there was a scowl of self-hatred right underneath his expression.
“On purpose?” I leaned forward, pressed my hands between my knees, and squeezed them together. The fire roared when it caught a bunch of pine branches thrown on top ablaze, and I closed my eyes against the explosion of heat.
“Not…exactly.” He twirled the brown beer bottle between his fingertips and looked up at me, his face so full of hurt and worry, it singed more than the fire. “What did it feel like when you fucked it all up with Jake?” He slid closer, so our legs were brushing against each other, and I could smell the yeasty, bitter-sweet stink of beer thick on his breath.
“It was awful, but you know that. So why are you asking me this?” My voice shook all over the words I had to rip from my throat, and a little of the glimmer of the day rubbed off under Saxon’s questioning.
“I’m a little scared, Blix. Help a guy out.” His next attempt at a smile was so far from the real thing, it bordered on farce. He patted around in his pockets and found a pack of cigarettes. He lit one with trembling fingers and took a long drag, his face finally relaxing a little.
“What do you have to be scared about? You did it, Saxon. You did what no one thought you ever would. You got Cadence to date you, and she’s amazing. She loves you. Her family loves you. Aunt Helene loves you. You proved how hard you can work, you proved that nothing can beat you. What’s the problem?” I leaned forward as the cool night wind picked up and sent a shatter of sparks mixed with smoke from his cigarette whirling through the air. He looked up at me, his dark eyes full of a fear so cellular, it popped and crackled in the inky black pigment of his eyes.
“I’ve been this hero. This whole summer, I’ve been the anti-fuckup.” Those wild eyes snapped and snarled like rabid black dogs chasing their own tails. I shook my head. “Hear me out. Hear me out, Blix.” He held his fingers up, the burning cigarette sparked between them. “They have no idea what a fuckup I really am. In here.” He tapped his heart with the solid thud of those two long fingers and the orange cherry danced in the darkening night.
“You’re not,” I argued, my voice insistent. “You’re going to be totally fine. You’ve already proven it, Saxon.”
“Shouldn’t it be a little less scary?” He took a long drag, then tilted the beer bottle to his lips. I watched his neck muscles work as he drank too much, way more than he needed unless he was going for full-on obliterated. He stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think my pendulum swung, you know.” He held one balled fist to his left. “Dirt bag.” He moved it to his right. “To hero.” He shook his head and stared at the fist. “Which am I?”
“Both,” I whispered, wrapping my fingers around his fist and squeezing. “And they’ll all love you no matter what. Trust me.”
His eyes shone with mocking laughter. “Why? Because you loved me when I was a dirtbag? You’re something else, Blix. You can’t get it. Oh, and newsflash! Gerald’s giving me the money as soon as summer’s over.” He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up at weird, shiny angles. “All that fucking money. I could just give Aunt Helene a chunk and blow out of there. Maybe I should. Because I have this awful feeling that things are too good, and I’m going to fuck it all to hell.”
I breathed in and out, deep and calming. “No. Listen to me. You’re drunk and you’re over-thinking things. Just slow down. Cadence is the one for you. She’s amazing. You have to give this a chance. You have to try for both of you. If you leave, you’ll regret this forever. I’m telling you right now.”
He opened his mouth and crooked his lips in a cocky smile.
“Hey gorgeous. You didn’t crash my car, did you?”
I watched Saxon’s face and saw the truth of his profound sadness mingled with his intense love when his eyes snared Cadence in their sight. He wrapped his arms around her willowy waist and she ran her fingers through his hair. I saw in the clutch of his hands, too tight and shaky at her hips, that he wanted to do what was right, but didn’t know how.
“We probably need to get going.” Cadence pointed a finger down at Saxon and rolled her eyes lovingly, throwing us an indulgent smile. “This one had a little too much to drink.” She lifted him up and he swayed, but found balance at her strong shoulder.
“I love you. So much,” he said overly loud and with a twinge of despair that struck me low in the gut.
Her smile was dazzling, and her eyes were full-on adoring and only for Saxon. “Shh. I know. I love you, too. Let’s get home.”
“You need any help?” Jake asked.
She shook her head as she led him away. “We’ll be alright. Thank you guys! Sorry we’re ditching so early.”
Jake and I watched the two of them stumble back to Saxon’s car.
He led me to the log Saxon had been sitting on, and we watched the fire lick all the way up to the navy sky. “They seem pretty happy.” Jake’s voice settled with a peace that felt the polar opposite of Saxon’s struggling, mangled confessions.
I snuggled against him. “They do. I hope they stay that way.”
I wondered if I should tell Jake what Saxon said to me, but decided against it. He was drunk and over-emotional. He’d come back to Sussex County after making so many changes. It wasn’t real. It was just too much alcohol and rambling words. Nothing to worry about. I squeezed closer to Jake anyway, clamping next to his skin for comfort.
“The fire is beautiful.” He held me in his arms and rocked me back and forth in a rhythm I never wanted to stop.
“Jake, are you planning on taking your inheritance?” I asked as the flames crackled and licked in front of us.
His gray eyes held steady. “I don’t know, Bren. It’s a hell of a lot of money. And I was around a whole lot of it this summer. I kinda think it does more bad than good, but who knows? I’ve got months to think about it, anyway. They won’t release my trust until I graduate high school. You worried I’m gonna get rich and up and leave you?”
I stretched my legs out in front of me, hoping Saxon was wrong about the terms of his money, hoping everything was going to work out just the way it was supposed to.
“Nah. You and I are in this for the long haul.” I laced my fingers through his.
“That’s right. I love you for life, Brenna Blixen.”
And then he pulled me close in the aching beauty of the fire-backed night and kissed me in the cool, clean air on this simple, free evening at the end of a day that had started one way and ended in a whole other, different, better place. I pulled him close and held tight, because, deep down, I knew that Jake Kelly and I were about to face the biggest changes of our lives, and I wanted to hold the beauty of this moment still and warm and forever unchanged in my heart for as long as I could.
Acknowledgements:
There are a vast array of peeps who get my jump-up and high-five thank you grand-slam. They include my ever-loving, drive-me-nuts fam, both blood and married (and any other way we rope them in) and my colossally cool, supportive, amazing friends, and I love each one of them equally as much as they drive me nuts. And, probably, as I drive them nuts. Hugs, kisses, and squeezy-cheeked love!
My books would merely be soggy cucumbers if not for the brine that is my editing/beta-reading/eye-rolling friends. Most of these are people who adore grammar and debate colons and parenthesis and hyphenated adjectives with me until the sun goes down, and all of them love angst, romance, youth in revolt, and, most of the time, me. Big love to Elisa Keller, who manages to lay it out for me in such surgically clinical terms, the scalpel of her criticism doesn’t even smart. And, to go along with this whole surgeon analogy, she knows exactly when to tell me that my book is riddled with wisdom teeth, gallbladders, appendixes, and tonsils…useless and potentially irritating stuff. Hugs and sloppy kisses to Courtney Kelsch for holding my hand through the swoony memories of our strangely similar teen love days and being so fiercely in love with my characters, I feel like she definitely has possession. And also like Jake, Bren, Saxon, and Cadence need to get on writing her love letters and making her soulful mixes. Tamar Goetke will totally turn her head to the side when I deposit my millions of kisses, but she deserves every one, both for powering through the teen angst she pretends to hate, and for mocking my every grammatical mistake with such naked glee, it actually hurts so good. Something a little more risqué for Angie Stanton, who kicks me to push the envelope even when it’s downright chokingly scary and blows me away with her talent and enthusiasm. Last minute thanks to Tammara Webber who pried this manuscript from my cold, aching hands and made sure I had my Southern slang correct, capitalized my brands, and used the universally recognized spellings for my slang. She’s an amazing, soulful, brilliant woman and I’m proud to have her and Angie on my side as we forge into the brave new world of Mature YA together. One, two, three, JUMP!
An expletive-laced thank you to my lovely FP friends, who know exactly what to say during my darkest and lightest hours, and every one in between. I love everyone of you to your bones, and wish so much success heaped on all of your heads, you faint from the deliriously amazing weight of it all.
If I could list and love every blogger and reader who helped by beta reading, interviewing, reviewing, and just morally supporting me and being rad, I would, but this book would be 7,000 pages long. That’s how many totally cool, amazing readers and bloggers there are out there. Hey, I read a lot. A ton. There’s awesome, amazing stuff to be read in this wide world, and if you chose to read my books out of the lot, I’m so in love, even my wordiness can’t encompass it. My hat is off to the readers who have so much passion for what they read, they just want to spread the goodness around. Your encouragement, love, and sometimes scary demands about when the next book is coming have warmed me, hair follicle to toenail, and the love in my heart for you is explosive. Or, at least, it’s definitely bubbly and frothy…explosive sounds dangerous!
Big, huge, incredible, mind-blowing thank yous all around.
Biography
Liz Reinhardt, author of Double Clutch: A Brenna Blixen Novel, Junk Miles: Brenna Blixen Book 2,and Forgiving Trinity, was born and raised in the idyllic beauty of northwest NJ. A move to the subtropics of coastal Georgia with her daughter and husband left her with a newly realized taste for the beach and a bloated sunscreen budget. Right alongside these new loves is her old, steadfast affection for bagels and the fast-talking, foul mouths of her youth. She loves Raisinettes, even if they aren’t really candy, the Oxford comma, movies that are hilarious or feature zombies, any and all books, but especially romance (the smarter and hotter, the better), the sound of her daughter’s incessantly wise and entertaining chatter, and watching her husband work on cars in the driveway. You can read her blog at www.elizabethreinhardt.blogspot.com, like her on Facebook, or email her at [email protected].
ARC Excerpt from
Inherit
By Liz Reinhardt
A Mature YA Paranormal
Coming Summer 2012
Chapter One
When the box passes from the airport customs clerk’s hands to mine, the weight shifts so suddenly, I have to throw one hip out to offset it.
“It moved.” I address the statement to the man, sour as a bag of lemons and dull as a turnip, behind the scarred counter. He is a feast of unpleasantness, and he clearly wants me to leave quickly and without a fuss.
“It has air holes.” He waggles his pen at me and sighs. “Watch out for urine.”
“Excuse me?” I hold the squirming box far out in front of me and my arms shake from the effort.
“Urine.” He stretches the word out so it bounces and echoes off of the gray walls and dirty blue chipped laminate counters and nasty pens that don’t work, but are attached by chains like you might bother to steal them. “If it has air holes, it urinates. It will go right through that cardboard.”
“Thanks.” I back away fast and we exchange smiles. It’s the first and last time he or I smiled during our brief meeting. Parting is such sweet pleasure! Good-bye grouchy airport employees, dismal, rundown airport desk and pacing, grumbling passengers!
The air outside is wonderful, cool and fresh on my face, a tall, icy glass of water after the gritty desert of that abysmal, stuffy interior. I clip quickly to my truck, shivering in black leggings, a red off-the-shoulder tunic with skulls on it and a fantastic silver scarf. I should have worn a coat, but I didn’t have one that matched, and this outfit would be a sin to cover!
I check the box for pee, and then shake it gently, side to side. No pee, only the sound of scratching, like tiny nails scraping the cardboard. I kick the door shut, shimmy to the driver’s seat, and call my best friend. One hand on the phone, one on the wheel, I back up and pull out carefully, praying my truck won’t break down before I make it home.
“Nevaeh!” I can hardly hear her on the other end. “Nevaeh, is that you?” A voice pops through and I feel the low citric burn of jealousy that I’m working on curbing. “Oh. Hi Zivalus.”
My best friend Nevaeh is my rock, the serious, smart, motivated person I anchor myself to when I feel like a kite about to break its string and float away to my tree-top and electrical-wire doom. She pulls me in. Talks me down. Keeps me away from high branches and bodies of water and birds…and whatever else kites need keeping away from.
Well, she used to do all those things. Until Zivalus.
He’s nice. So nice. He plays the trumpet like Louis Armstrong, has a 3.75 GPA, manipulates a soccer ball like he was born without arms and dotes on Nevaeh. A better friend would be happy for them. I’m working on it.
“Hey Wren! Where’ve you been lately? Nevaeh’s missing you. Did you get our message about the movie last night?” His voice is cheery and sweet; Zivalus sounds like a trumpet even when he’s nowhere near a horn.
“Uh, sorry, Zivalus. I was busy. I had night shift tutoring. I told Nevaeh that.” Why does he have to be my best friend’s mouthpiece? Why do I get a message from ‘them’ instead of ‘her’? I’m being a spoiled brat, but these things irritate me!
“She must’ve forgot.” He sounds honestly upset. “Maybe tonight?”
“Can’t. Gotta watch Bestemor.” Bestemor is what I call my mother’s mother, my grandmother. She’s a little wicked, a lot funny, and losing her mind fast. My fingers curl tight on the steering wheel when I think about her pouring dishsoap into her tea, depositing the crossword puzzle at the bank, and leaving all the plants in the shower with the water running for eight hours while I was at school. In the end, all it amounted to was some diarrhea, a confused but entertained bank teller, some soggy plants, and a fat water bill. But these kinds of things were happening more and more often, and it ate at my heart.
“Maybe we can drop by?” Zivalus presses.
I grit my teeth. Maybe you can stop answering Neveah’s phone.“Not tonight. Bestemor’s been really confused lately.” Last time Zivalus pulled up to take us out, Bestemor wanted to know when we got a driver. I know she didn’t mean it, but it made my ears burn to remember, and I don’t want him to get offended by something my lovably loony grandmother says.
“We definitely need to hang soon. Well, I’ll tell Nevaeh you called, Wren!”
Zivalus clicks off before I can tell him I need to speak to her. Not him, her. And that there is a mysterious box from Ageo, Japan sitting next to me in my truck, silent but alive. I can feel the vibrations of life coming from it, and I imagine I can even sense a heartbeat and breathing.
I have family in Japan. Mom always said we’d make a trip there to see my father’s family, but then she’d disappeared to New York to shack up with a graffiti artist, and I haven’t heard from her since last Easter. But I don’t know anyone well enough to get a gift from overseas. Especially one that went through a special customs process and had heavy, secretive papers drawn up for its delivery. Whoever sent it has to be pretty powerful to break through the rigid codes of the United States transportation and customs systems.
The box fits in my arms. Maybe it’s a cat or a dog. A sigh deflates my body at the thought of a new puppy pissing on the rugs and chewing my favorite leopard-print kitten heels. It’s not that I don’t love warm cuddly things; I do! But I have Bestemor and myself to take care of, and that’s more than I can handle most days.
I used to have Nevaeh to help take the edge off, but she’s been as flighty as I am lately, now that love with Zivalus has her all in atwitter. We’re just two stupid kites flying in opposite directions, about to crash into the first trees we come across.
Since the thing in the box isn’t making any serious attempts to get out, I let it sit and blissfully ignore it. The croon of a lyrically genius girl country singer bubbles out of my spent speakers and sets my fingers thumping on the wheel. I’m catching the lyrics on my tongue and letting them vibrate back into the air when the sudden lurch of the truck breaks my heart in an instant.
Much as I try to pretend that this isn’t happening, it is. My truck veers into oncoming traffic and I have to hyper-correct my steering to keep from crashing because one tire is flat.
I have a flat!
Bestemor is probably ironing the couch or opening every single can of soup in the pantry. Nevaeh is listening to Zivalus make funny jokes with his horn of a voice. There is a box with a questionable life form on the seat next to me. Life vibrates in overwhelming shifts and waves. I’m about to give up all hope, lay my head on the steering wheel and weep until I wring my eyes dry, but I see a gas-station, and it’s so close I can coast there safely.
Problems boil in my mind; I have seventeen dollars to my name, my spare is a very crappy donut, Bestemor could be in serious trouble, but it’s not all bad; this is still a gas-station. It could have been a dentist’s office or a school! And I have my cell phone.
I punch in Nevaeh’s number again and this time I melt into her sweet voice, but I can’t disclose all of my worries right now, much as I want to. I just beg her to drag Zivalus to Bestemor’s and ask if it’s fine if I’m ridiculously late. And, even though I’ve been pouting about Nevaeh, she makes sure I’m okay, tells me not to worry for one second about my grandma, and that Zivalus will be ready to jump up and run to get me at a minute’s notice if I need.
I let Nevaeh’s love wash over me before I have to face the very bad music about to come. And just when the music seems most off key, Jonas Balto saunters to my truck in grease-stained Dickie work pants, a blue button-down with his name embroidered in a light blue oval and tightly-laced, grease-smeared work boots.
Oh yeah, the particular music I’m facing is like a kid jumping on a set of bagpipes, and seeing Jonas means that bad just got a whole lot worse.
I drag air into my nostrils and whoosh it back out of my lips. Jonas Balto is not the worst person to have approaching me with a wrench when my truck needs a fixing hand. He and I may not see eye to eye on everything, but the boy is handy with a tool.
“Hey, Wren.” His voice is smooth as driftwood pummeled by a million waves. He’s icy calm and cool, no worries, no hurries.
I shiver and jitter in contrast.
“Hey, Jonas. My truck has a flat. But, listen to me, okay? I have, like, no money. At all. Because I’m on E right now, too, and what I have is barely enough to fill my tank.” I suck air into my lungs and they fill like two hopeful party balloons, then I wait.
His eyes comb over me, shift to the flat, then sit still on my face. “My shift ends in ten minutes. If you can wait, I’ll fix your tire for free. And if you need some gas money, I’ll spot you. I know you’re good for it.” He chooses each word like he’s sifting through gems, and his clear blue eyes are twin glaciers of cool collectedness.
“Thank you.” My arms bob up to pull him close, but I weigh them down with sense. You do notgo hugging a guy just because he offers to change your tire, I lecture myself. Especially if the guy is Jonas Balto.
Who had it out with me during debate about reparations for American families wronged by the government at the end of last term. Maybe I’d gotten too furious, since I’m half Japanese and there was that whole messy internment period in American history during World War II. And maybe he was just being a good debater, volleying his cool logic about generational responsibility and fulfilled obligation, but it feltlike more. To me. It felt personal.
Our history teacher had to call a break after the debates, and it took two trips to the water-fountain and a ton of under-my-breath cursing to still my blood. I wished he would have approached me and apologized, but he never did, and that was the nebulous for an ice-age of dislike that I felt like a winter wind every time we passed in the hallway or met eyes across the cafeteria.
