Текст книги "Double Clutch"
Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
“I will.” He looked like he wanted to say something else. I thought about the last words he might have said on the phone the night before.
My heart was so full of feeling for him, it felt like it might rip open in my chest. The words he wanted to say were the same ones I wanted to say. I was feeling brave and good and free all at once.
I put my hands on his neck and pulled him close to me. “I love you, Jake,” I said. I meant it with every pulse of my heart.
His eyes went wide and for a minute he was perfectly still, just looking at me. Then he untied his tongue. “I love you, Brenna,” he said shakily, then leaned in and kissed me hard again.
The next instant he was on his dirt bike and flying through the wooded space behind our house, heading to Zinga’s and away from me for now. I went back into my room and lay on the bed where he and I had just been and wallowed in the sad emptiness of it.
The rest of the day went by quickly. I felt a little bit like I was in a daze. Mom called to tell me she had her office almost set up and was going to pick up Chinese food. I was glad to have her company at home, but I also felt an incredible sense of guilt when I thought about having Jake over. I cleaned up in the living room and kitchen, and even vacuumed and mopped the floors as a kind of self-imposed penance.
When my phone rang, I should have realized it was too early to be Jake, but I was keyed up and ready to hear his voice again. It made me a little happy that my heart sank at Saxon’s voice.
“Hey Blix. We on for Saturday?”
“I have to check with my mom,” I said honestly.
He snickered. “Didn’t have the guts to talk to Jake?”
“Jake’s cool with it.” I was fully aware that I was seriously stretching the truth. “He was wondering if you could come get him first, you know, to help load up his bike and all that.”
The line was quiet for a while, then Saxon’s voice came over again, hot and deep. “Help with his bike, huh? Have you taken a look at Jake lately? He’s pretty jacked. I think he just wants to make sure there’s no Brenna and Saxon alone time. Am I right?”
“I thought you wanted us to be friends. Why are you always looking for reasons to screw everything up?” The fact that Jake and I had shared what we did made me feel like I had a protective shell that Saxon couldn’t break through.
“Cool it.” Saxon sounded upset, and I felt a thrill of triumph. Maybe Saxon didn’t hold all of the cards after all. Maybe I could play this game just as well as he could. “I’ll be at Jake’s Saturday morning to take him to the race. Do you want me to help with Mom? Maybe I can ask her for you?”
I felt my anger bubble up, but I forced it back down. “Don’t worry about it.” Maybe the shell wasn’t quite as thick as I would have liked. “By the way,” I said suddenly. “Tomorrow’s forecast is sunny and warm. Don’t come pick me up.”
“Your mom and I had a deal.” His voice was sharp.
“My mom won’t want me driving with you if the weather is so nice. She harped about your smoking all night after you left,” I lied. “I mean, I know my mom seems super sweet, but she’s just really old-fashioned about manners. She wouldn’t let up about you after you left.”
I could hear Saxon struggling on the line, trying to see through what I said and judge it as crap or not. But Saxon wasn’t me. Seeing through crap was my specialty. Dishing crap was his.
“I didn’t check the weather,” he finally said.
“Wow, it would be pretty pathetic of you to stoop to checking the weather every day. How about I just call you when I feel up for a ride?” I couldn’t help gloating a little at how effectively I turned the tables on him.
He chuckled. “You’re deceptively good, Blix. Just the perfect amount of bitch to be sexy.”
I felt my ears go hot. “Whatever, Saxon. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” I threw my phone on my bed.
Mom and I chatted during dinner, and she turned in early, not even watching her favorite cop show. I guess it had been a long day for her. I went to my bedroom and did a little extra homework on Golding. I also read ahead for Government. I wanted to make sure I kept up with Saxon. I hated to give him the cocky satisfaction of doing better in class than I did. I also wanted to work on a special Folly shirt for Kelsie. I had come up with a design using a picture of Chris and her I had snapped a few days before. But mostly my reason for entering dork mode so completely was to keep myself out of huss mode. Because if my brain wasn’t bogged down with English boys gone crazy and Minnesota voting patterns, I would have been thinking about Jake Kelly and how good it felt to put my hands all over him today.
When the phone finally rang, my heart thudded with pure happiness.
“Hello!”
“Brenna.” Jake’s voice simmered in my ears. “How was the rest of your day?”
“I missed you. But I cleaned the house and did homework. How about you?”
“Just work. It was cold as hell, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” I heard a zipper in the background.
“Are you taking off your jacket?”
“Yeah. How did you hear that?”
“Jake, you should take a shower and get ready for bed. Why didn’t you do that before you called me?” I didn’t like to think he was still freezing and achy. “What about dinner?”
“I’m standing in my kitchen cooking right now.” I could hear him doing things in the background. I heard his keys hit the countertop and the cabinets bang open. I could hear the sharp clatter of the dishes he took out of the cabinet. “That’s so cute.”
“What?” I demanded.
“Your little bossy temper tantrums.” I heard a pan clang. “No one’s given a crap what I do in a long time.”
“What’s for dinner?” My heart squeezed like it had been pressed into a vice thinking of Jake alone with no one to keep him company.
“Hot dogs and beans. And a soda.”
“You’re going to die,” I gagged. “That’s the most disgusting dinner imaginable.”
“It’s my Tuesday dinner.” I heard him rip a package open.
“Every Tuesday?”
“Yep.” I heard a loud sizzle. “Monday is eggs, Wednesday is sandwich day, Thursday is pasta and Friday is TV dinner night. Every week for as long as I can remember.”
“Are you serious?” It was so disgusting and sad.
“Yeah. I’m in charge of food shopping. My dad just drops me off with some cash and comes back to pick me up. So, I know exactly how much to buy with the money he leaves me. And it’s all stuff I can make pretty easily.”
“What about weekends?” I couldn’t imagine eating such a limited amount of food. What about fruits? Fresh breads? Delicious cheeses? Desserts?
“We go out to Arby’s sometimes. Or I just find something. I used to eat at friends’ houses.” I could hear him eating. It must have been hot, because he was doing the inverted blow.
“I feel bad for you.” I tried to make my voice light, but my joke was too close to the truth. I really did feel sad when I thought about his pathetic dinners.
He laughed. “I won’t say no if you want to come over and spoil me with your cooking. But don’t feel bad. It’s not totally unhealthy. It keeps me full, and it’s easy to make. And it hasn’t killed me yet.”
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what bothered me about it. Maybe it was just how lonely and monotonous it was. My dinners were always at least eaten with Mom. I realized company was probably the exact reason Jake had chosen to call me while he ate instead of after.
“Maybe you could add some salads in once in a while. And switch to juice or water sometimes,” I recommended.
“I’ll do it if you think it’s a good idea,” he said easily. “But I don’t really want to talk about all the lame stuff I eat.”
I lay back on my bed and breathed deeply. I imagined I could still smell his lingering scent on the pillows. “So, what do you want to talk about?” I asked while I nuzzled into the pillows.
“You and me. I had a good time today.” There was that feeling when he ended the last sentence that made me think he was going to slap a big ‘but’ on. I waited, but he didn’t.
“Me too.” I sighed.
“But it can’t happen again for a while,” he said firmly.
So there was the but.
“What?” I was so aggravated, I wanted to slap the phone down and take a few deep breaths before we talked again. But he was on now, and I wanted to know why this idiot idea had come into his brain.
“It was great. But it was too risky. You’re not experienced, and you don’t know what you’re asking for. I‘ve never felt so out of control. I don‘t trust myself with you.”
“So now you know what I want and don’t want?” I found both my hands knotting into fists.
“No!” he said too fast. “Well, maybe. I just know more about it in general.”
“Know more about drunk, awful sex,” I argued, striking low and mean because I was so mad, I was beyond being reasonable. “I liked being with you today. I didn’t feel pressured, and I definitely don’t regret what happened.” I felt like a gigantic weight landed in the center of my chest. “I don’t think I’m cool with you calling the shots.” I knew my voice sounded a little wavery, but I didn’t care. I needed to make my point.
“What we said when I left…” he said, trying a new track.
“That we loved each other, Jake. That’s what we said.” Now I was getting pissed. Here he was, telling me the limits of our relationship, and he wasn’t even brave enough to say the word love.
“Right. That.” He stumbled around it awkwardly. “I meant it. I do. I love you. And I don’t want this to be like the other times.”
I rubbed my fingers over my eyes. “Jake, I thought you told me every other time has been a one night stand with some girl you barely cared about.”
“Yeah.” I could hear the frustration in his voice.
“Then it doesn’t really have anything to do with sex, does it?” I argued logically. “It’s about caring about the person. And being sober and making a choice because you want to and not because you’re drunk.”
How could he argue with that?
“You don’t understand, Brenna,” he argued, his words measured with his telltale patience. “You’re really new to this.”
In my head, I opened my mouth and screamed into the phone.
In real life, I couldn’t wake my mother.
“This is so stupid. You’re lumping me with those other girls you used to date. This is unfair.” I sounded childish, and I couldn’t care less.
“Brenna, I just want to protect you. Things went a lot farther and faster than I expected them to today. We should just be careful.” He spoke with an authority that I didn’t want to respect, even though I knew he technically had more experience and understood more.
“Fine.” It wasn’t fine. It was far from fine. It was a nasty, messy, tangled knot that only got more snarled the more I thought about it.
“Are you okay?”
I’d said fine. Didn’t he know fine was the word that always meant, no, not even close to fine? Usually I was more direct. Isn’t that what Jake told me about myself just a few hours ago? But he wasn’t listening to reason. It was funny that he kept trying to pin it on me when he was the one with regrets.
“You regret what we did.” The full reality of it dawned on me the minute the words popped out of my mouth, and it made my stomach ache to imagine that he felt the opposite of what I felt.
“Just that we went so fast.” He took a deep breath.
“We didn’t have sex!” I cried.
“There aren’t many more steps between what we did and sex,” he said knowingly.
“I’m not an idiot, Jake!” I was on the brink of tears. What happened was wonderful, amazing. It was nothing to be ashamed of or to regret. “If I decide to have sex, I will. And if I decide not to have sex, I won’t.”
“You’re not ready to make those choices,” he said, his voice still annoyingly calm.
“I am too!” I practically yelled. “I am ready to choose, and I certainly don’t need you to decide for me.”
“Brenna, I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“Yeah, okay. I have to get to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” My throat burned and I closed my eyes tight in an attempt to stop the tears that clawed behind my lids.
“Wait…”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I cut in and clicked the phone off.
I squeezed the phone in my hand and shook it. How could he be so pigheaded? How could he feel like this was something he could decide for me? I lay on the bed, but I knew it would be a long time before I fell asleep.
I tossed and turned, looked at my phone and ran my fingers over the screen with the intent to dial his number six different times. Every time, I stopped myself. We would just wind up having the same roundabout conversation and get nowhere.
Finally I closed my eyes and counted my breaths. I counted to ten on my inhale and ten on my exhale. I kept doing it until I fell fast asleep.
Chapter 10
The next morning I dressed extra cute. I straightened my hair and trimmed my bangs a little. I put on dramatic makeup and wore a tight v-neck tunic t-shirt I had designed and my favorite jeans with Converse sneakers. I opened the window of my room and stuck my head out. It was cool, but not cold.
“Morning Mom!” I called when I heard her rifling around in the kitchen.
“Hey Bren.” She smiled when I stepped into the kitchen. “Oatmeal’s on the table. Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah, thanks. I read online that the weather is supposed to stay pretty nice. Is it okay if I take my bike? I told Saxon I’d only call if you didn’t think it was a good idea.”
She sighed, a long-suffering sigh. “Go ahead.” She shook her head. “But I have my school computer set up to get the forecasts, so don’t think you’re going to be on that thing if it’s supposed to be nasty out.”
“I promise I won’t.” I kissed her and headed to school, free.
It made my heart skip to feel my blood racing and the air rushing into my lungs and back out. I thought about Jake and his sex proclamations. I thought about Saxon trying to force me to ride with him. Screw them both!
I whipped into Frankford’s front area and ran to English. Mr. Dawes was handing out a quiz. Everyone groaned and mumbled.
“Honors English,” Mr. Dawes droned. “It means I’m not your babysitter. If I tell you to read through chapter ten by Tuesday, I think it’s more than fair to quiz you on the reading on Wednesday.”
A whiny girl raised her hand and asked what to do if we had left the book at school on Monday night.
“Then, Ms. Henson, you would have been unprepared on Tuesday anyway, wouldn’t you? Here’s some advice; bring your book home. Every day.” An evil smile curled over his face and the girl huffed.
Devon muttered under his breath. I glared at his back, but decided not to engage with him. Devon didn’t need a broken nose because my boyfriend was an idiot. I finished the test, double checked the answers and turned it over on the desktop. Mr. Dawes motioned for me to bring it up. He graded it while I stood there, then did that crazy, embarrassing thing teachers sometimes do.
“Class!” he called. Every other student looked up with bleary eyes and vicious mutters. “Ms. Blixen has completed her quiz and made a perfect one hundred. Consider your curve ruined.” He laughed cruelly, and I slunk back to my seat and opened the book to read a little more. If the class was going to hate me, at least I could get the best grades and truly earn their loathing.
Mr. Dawes collected the papers and put notes on the board, finished grading while we wrote, handed the quizzes back, and put even more notes on the board. We copied until another teacher poked his head in, and Mr. Dawes went out to talk to him.
Devon Conner turned around in his seat and looked at me. “I got a seventy five,” he announced.
“What are you talking about?” I flipped the pages of my book with my thumb.
“The quiz.” Devon pointed to my paper “You got a hundred.”
“What’s with you?” I snarled. “I’m smart, Conner. Accept it. And get over the fact that I do share time. Obviously, lots of smart people do it. Why does it amaze you so much?”
“I was going to say that you probably have a lot more work to do since you have your normal classes here and all your work at Tech, but you still got a hundred.” He stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
“Oh,” I said, because what else could you say in the face of such social awkwardness? “Well, study more. I study a lot. And I’ve read the book before.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of boring?” His shoulders relaxed very slightly.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s kind of dense, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring. I mean a bunch of boys going crazy and killing each other on an island? Not exactly boring.”
He nodded. “We have a group project on this at the end of the unit.” He gave me an expectant look.
“Okay?”
“Will you be in my group?” he blurted.
I wanted to say something mean and blow him off, but there was something weirdly likable about Devon Conner. Maybe it was just his directness. He reminded me a little of me. “Sure. Just don’t think I’m going to be doing all the work, partner. I don’t get Cs.”
“Thanks.” He looked at me from his small eyes, blinked a few times nervously, then turned around and went back to reading. I noticed he was about three chapters behind. That made his C a fairly decent grade; it also warned me I might not have such an easy time reigning in Devon Conner.
Saxon looked up when I walked into government and stared me down as I came to our seats. We were setting up a polling survey we would later have to actually call on. “You all have cell phones!” Sanotoni barked. “We’ll call on Friday. The team with the most responses wins.”
“What do we win?” asked shrew-faced Lynn.
“A trip to the polling booth next week,” Sanotoni answered. “All day pass out of class.”
I was going to raise my hand and ask about my schedule. I didn’t want to win if it meant missing Tech. It would also be a day alone with Saxon, which was a bad idea no matter what I might secretly want. In the end, I decided the simplest thing was to make sure I didn’t win. It would be easy enough; I just wouldn’t be that good a caller.
“Hey, buddy.” Saxon looked me up and down.
“What are you looking at?” I snapped.
He smiled, a slow, coiling smile. “You look hot when you’re a little riled, Blix. Come. Sit. Learn.”
He was writing! He actually had a pen in his hand and was working.
“What are you doing?” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pen clasped in his hands. Had I ever seen Saxon willingly hold a pen during class? I couldn’t recall a single instance.
His black eyes danced with evil mischief when he looked my way. “I’m winning a date with you. Granted, it’s the frigging lamest date on earth, but I’m winning it anyway.”
“The poll?” I asked dumbly.
“I saw your face when Sanotoni announced it. You’re going to throw our chances,” he guessed. “But I’m going to use my many, many skills to win.”
“We’re only a two person group,” I pointed out. “You drove Lynn off the first day.”
“That nag will have the most hang ups in the class,” he said with absolute conviction. He looked over at her and shook his head. “She would have brought us down. Of course, I might not be right about you.” He looked up at me again and smiled, a gleaming, wolfy grin.
“What do you mean?” I asked narrowly, clicking my pen so fast it was like my finger was having a spasm.
“You’re a sneaky one, Blix.” He put one hand over my clicking finger and squeezed. I stopped clicking and the void left by the lack of that frantic metallic staccato was deafening. “I can’t wrap my head around you. Even if you want to throw this, you might not. A date with me might be more than you can resist.”
“Saxon, first of all it wouldn’t be a date.” I tried to pull my hand out of his grasp, but he held tight. I relaxed my hand and he released his hold, finger by finger. I shook my hand out and glared at him. “Secondly, I don’t have time to screw around at the polling booth. Third, I have no interest in sharing any more time with you than I have to.”
“Liar,” he muttered under his breath.
I gritted my teeth and went to work. The thing was, I was so busy being mad at Jake that I wasn’t sharp enough to deal with Saxon. By the end of the period, Saxon and I had completed writing out our polling survey and got Sanotoni’s stamp of approval.
He clapped us both on the back. “Look at these mighty brains!” he said, his rough laughter punctuating his words. “Rule change. Any team finished by tomorrow gets Thursday and Friday to call.”
Our AP Government classmates looked around with steely glares. I felt like I should keep a solid eye over my shoulder. Every single hair on my neck prickled in anticipation. This was war.
“Great,” I said under my breath to Saxon. “Now you have an entire battalion of brilliant geeks out for our blood.”
“They have drive, but they have no charisma.” He put his hands behind his head and leaned on the back two legs of his chair. “We’ll take this by a landslide.” Then he let the chair drop hard.
The bell rang, we filed into the hall, and Saxon threw an arm around my shoulder. It was the kind of simple, friendly gesture that people exchange all of the time. When they’re friends. But Saxon and I weren’t. My blood ran hot feeling the long length of his body against mine. I could smell the musky clean scent of his deodorant, my face bumped against his solid shoulder. Something in me prickled and squirmed.
He looked down at me, nestled in the crook of his arm and pulled me closer against him with one rough jerk, turning my body so we were face to face. Now both of his arms were linked around my shoulders. His mouth was a few inches away from mine. I could smell him; cigarettes and orange Tic Tacs.
“I have to go.” I tried to scuttle back out of his embrace. He held me closer, and I could feel the lean muscles of his arms at my back.
“Don’t.” His voice was velvety and rich in my ears. It was an invitation I almost wanted to accept. Almost.
“I have to.” My eyes met his, and I could see his pupils dilate, making his eyes look completely, endlessly black. “Let me go.”
“Skip art.” His eyes smoldered like hot coals. He pulled me a little closer.
“No.” I snapped out of his spell. I pushed at him with both hands, and his body was solid muscle under my palms. “No, Saxon. Go.”
He shrugged, but there was a gleam of anger that flashed in his eyes. “Fine, Blix. I’m gone.”
I saw him stalk down the hall and grab the arm of a Karen Tanner, cheerleading captain. He smiled and whispered something to her. She smiled back and practically rubbed herself against him. He didn’t even check the hallways before he went out the side doors, dragging Karen behind him as she hurried to catch up.
I went into the art class and sat by Kelsie and Chris. My head spun, and I was glad they were so wrapped up in each other, because it meant they wouldn’t notice if I sat quietly, lost in my own thoughts.
“Brenna! Brenna!” Kelsie waved her hand in front of my face. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I fished for some semblance of a smile that would convince them. “I think the snow day just threw my sleep off.”
“Are you sure that’s it?” She leaned away from Chris to give us a chance for private confession. I nodded. She gave me a long look, then reached into her school bag. “Well, I have something that might wake you up. We just got the Folly t-shirts this morning!” She shook on out so I could see it.
“Wow,” I breathed. It was very cool to see my design on a t-shirt and to know that, soon, a whole lot of people would be wearing it. My final design was a silhouette of all four band members surrounding an exploding “Folly.” I had outlined each figure in neon colors, and the entire effect was bright but also edgy. “It’s cool, right?” I asked.
Kelsie nodded, opened her mouth, closed it, and waved to the shirt as if to say, ‘See for yourself!’.
“Oh.” I leaned over, excited. “I forgot. I made you a special one at home.”
I pulled it out of my bag. It was Kelsie and Chris in profile with an exploding heart behind them and tiny “Follys” with hearts instead of o’s.
“Oh my God.” Kelsie squealed and did a quick, energetic dance. “This is so cool! Chris, look at this!”
“Bren, that’s rad,” Chris said. “Seriously. Do you have the design lying around? This would be an awesome shirt for the Folly fans who are a little…softer.”
Kelsie glared a little, but Chris kissed her forehead quickly, and she smiled at him.
“Yeah, I have it saved on my jump drive.” I fished around in my bag and handed it to him. “It’s under ‘Folly Hearts.’”
“Love it.” Chris jumped up to go to an open lab computer in the corner of the room. “Thanks, Bren.” He ruffled my hair as he walked by.
“Chris is so nice.” I watched Kelsie watch Chris walk across the room, and I knew that look of love on her face. It was the exact look I saw in the mirror when I was thinking about Jake.
“Yeah.” Kelsie sighed. “He asked me out last year, but I turned him down.”
“Really?” They seemed so well-suited, it was odd to think Kelsie ever had a reason to say no to him.
“I just didn’t want to date right then.” She shrugged, her dozens of silver bracelets clattering together when she threw her hands up. “And he seemed really intense, like he’d want to be boyfriend and girlfriend right away. I thought it would be more fun to date around.”
“Was it?” ‘Dating around’ was what Mom always encouraged.
“Yes and no.” Kelsie wound her dark hair in a makeshift bun and stuck two colored pencils in it. “It was fun to go on dates, but the guys who want to date around aren’t usually interested in conversation and art and music, if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrows and opened her eyes wide.
“I hear you.” Kelsie went back to her pottery project and I tangled with my sad macramй mess for a few minutes. “Kelsie?”
“Yeah?” She was concentrating on her clay.
“How much do you and Chris, um, fool around?” I closed my eyes a little as I prepared for the impact of asking such a brazen question.
Kelsie put her tool down, but she didn’t look like she was going to faint or anything. “We haven’t had sex.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip.
“We’ve done other stuff.” Kelsie wiped some clay off of her hands with a rag and folded them in front of her.
“Is there…do you guys ever disagree about how far is too far?” I looked down at my cream-colored, stiff string, which was badly knotted and very ugly. It felt a little like I was looking at the mess Jake and I had made of our relationship.
“Chris has already had sex, so there’s that. He’s not pressuring. Not now anyway. But sometimes I want to go farther because I’m curious. It’s just a big step, and I want to make sure I’m doing it with someone I really care about, not just out of curiosity.” She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Why is Ms. Sexy Mama Blixen asking these questions?”
“Jake and I fooled around yesterday. And I felt really good about it. Then we talked on the phone, and he basically said he didn’t feel comfortable with it because he didn’t want it to end up like all the other times.” I shoved the knotted strings across the table and rubbed my temples in an attempt to squash the headache that was slowly throbbing to life.
“What did you say?” Kelsie leaned towards me, her eyes shiny with interest.
“I told him he had no right to tell me how far to go with my body and that he didn’t run the relationship. Then I hung up on him.” I offered her a sheepish half-smile.
Kelsie crowed, obviously delighted with me. “Holy crap! Bren, you are so awesome! That’s exactly what I would have said if I had half your guts. Good for you! The fact that Jake has all of this baggage sucks, but he has to deal with it. Not dump it on you.”
“He never called back.” I bit my lips and tried not to think about the fact that our little fight might have tangled into a knot that would be impossible to undo.
“Jake seems really nervous with you, Brenna.” Kelsie rubbed a piece of clay between her fingertips slowly. “You know his mom died when he was really young?”
“Yeah. How did you know?” My senses prickled.
“Jake used to be…with one of Chris’s cousins. She said he was always super emotional about his mom, and the big fight he had with Saxon was over her.”
“What happened?” I believed Jake when he told me his version of the night, and it made sense that if he had been as drunk as he said, he wouldn’t have remembered many details.
“She didn’t say. Just that it was about Jake’s mom. Anyway, he’s probably got issues. Like with women.” I looked at her curiously. “With women leaving him.” She gave me a look and nodded her head.
“Oh.” I felt deflated, like all the strength suddenly seeped out of me. “So I was probably overly harsh to him?”
“No. Just because he has stuff he’s dealing with doesn’t mean you should become some kind of doormat. I’m proud you spoke up for yourself.” She put one clay-crusted hand on mine and patted. “If Jake really cares about you as much as he says he does, he’ll think about what you had to say.”
I nodded. Before I knew it, class was over and I was headed for gym. I was surprised to see Saxon on the soccer field after his abrupt departure with Karen Tanner, but there he was, hooting and calling whenever I finished a lap like all was fine between us. Coach Dunn tried to corner me to ask about track, but I wiggled away from her. I sat quietly through half of lunch, brooding.
“What’s up Blix?” Saxon threw a fry at me. “There’s still food on your plate. What’s wrong with you?”
I had been thinking, mulling over everything that happened since Jake first told me about his big breakdown. I looked at Saxon, his black eyes laughing, his mouth twisted in a self-confident smile, and I felt a burning hatred for him.
“What did you say to Jake the last night you hung out?” I asked suddenly.
The entire table went dead quiet. Saxon stood and grabbed me under the elbow, then marched me out of the lunchroom, past the teachers on duty.
“She said she feels like she’s going to puke!” he called, and we were given a wide berth. He brought me outside, next to the bike rack. It was warmer than it had been, but still too cold to stand outside without a jacket on. “What the hell was that about?” he shouted in my face.
I shivered, but I didn’t want him to see me shake, so I clenched my teeth and held my body rigid. “I just want to know what you said to Jake. The night you broke his tooth.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I didn’t say a thing!” he yelled, then ran a hand through his hair. Saxon had lost all cool. He wasn’t even trying to act like he was keeping it together.
