Disarm (13 page)

Elsie started going to Monterey High School when Jason and I were juniors. I don't know if it was his dad's influence or what, but Jason watched over her like a hawk at first. He recruited me to stalk her, to make sure that nobody was messing with her. Elsie was a sweet kid and some of the older students liked picking on the freshmen, so Jason and I had to have words with a few people. We were football players and people actually listened to us like we had real authority.

Elsie, for her part, had her friends and was a genuinely likeable person. Coupled with her good looks—she'd learned how to style her hair a little better by then—she quickly became one of the popular girls at school. I'd see guys trying to talk to her all the time and I'd get this urge to throw my arm around her shoulder to chase them off. I thought at the time that it was just overprotectiveness. Now that I'm older, I can now tell you that those were the first flames of jealousy burning in my chest, but when you're young and have never loved a girl, you don't know those things. Unfortunately, not knowing what the hell I was feeling, I ended up doing some pretty stupid things.

Take, for example, in senior year when this guy took Elsie to the homecoming dance. Elsie was only a sophomore at the time but John was a senior and a known ladies' man, so Jason and I were already on high alert. John was on the football team too, albeit a second-stringer, so we all chipped in for a limo and rode together. I really pushed for it so Jason and I could keep an eye on the guy and his wandering hands.

Everything was going fine at the dance. I took my girlfriend, Nina, who was smoking hot in her tight green dress, which really looked good with her red hair. We were dancing and Nina was whispering really raunchy things in my ear when I saw John lead Elsie onto the dance floor.

They started off innocently, with her hands around his neck and his around her waist, but there's a lot of truth in John's reputation and he started to get fresh with her. She kept trying to pull his hands away from her ass but he was relentless, until she just gave up and let him touch her all over that dance floor. I'll never forget that blissful look on her face, when she closed her eyes and let him kiss her neck.

It made me so fucking furious.

I pulled away from Nina and ran over to John, grabbing the back of his shirt and throwing him across the room. I turned to Elsie, ready to . . . I don't know. I wanted to yell at her and kiss her and keep her safe from disgusting guys like John.

“What the hell, Logan?” John shouted and pushed me. I pushed him back, waiting for him to hit me. I'd instigated the fight, so if I threw a punch I would get expelled for sure, maybe even get charged for assault.

“You were practically molesting her in front of the whole school!” I yelled at him.

“It's not molesting if she wanted it!” John shouted back.

We were both trying to out-shout each other when Jason got into the mix. Then I realized Elsie was gone. Luckily, someone said they saw her running to the exit, so I took off after her with Jason right behind me.

We caught up with her, and I swear, it took everything I had in me not to just tackle her to the ground and . . . I didn't know. Those damned teenage hormones were firing on all cylinders.

Jason went back to his date right after he realized that Elsie was fine, that we were just acting like children. There, alone in the dark hallway with Elsie, I was filled with so many warring emotions, the main one being protectiveness. I didn't want her with guys like John who didn't respect her, but honestly, I didn't know one guy deserving of her. Me? Hell no. I was just a horny teenage guy too. “You shouldn't have let him do that,” I told her.

“We were just dancing.” She looked like she was about to cry.

I didn't know what to say to take that look away from her face and ended up saying the first thing that popped into my head. “Now the whole school will see that you're easy.” I didn't know why I said it. I meant to say the school would
think
she was easy. “Elsie, I didn't mean it like that,” I added quickly.

“I hate you,” she said and flipped me off.

“I didn't mean it like that,” I said again, but she was already gone. I faced the nearest locker and pounded my head into it repeatedly. Nina found me like that a few minutes later.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

“I'm great, Nina,” I said. “What the hell does it look like?”

“It looks like you got jealous because John was touching Elsie.”

I took deep breaths to stave off the headache. “She's like a little sister to me, all right?”

Nina didn't look convinced but she nodded anyway. “Fine. Can we just go back to our homecoming dance?”

I took her by the hand and led her back into the gym, glad for any kind of distraction.

“Well, if you look like a whore and quack like a whore,” she said under her breath.

That was the first time I noticed the nasty streak in Nina, but at that point in my life, she was the only female left who could still stand me, so I just asked her to can it.

I didn't stop coming over to the Shermans' house but Elsie made sure I felt the chill. She froze me out, refusing to even acknowledge my presence. One night, during dinner, her parents asked flat-out why she was so angry with me.

“Because Henry is a jerkface,” she said and kept eating.

The colonel eyed me but said to her, “Can you expound on that?”

Elsie shook her head. Jason spoke up. “It was because at the homecoming dance last week, Elsie's date was touching her inappropriately and Henry put an end to it.” Jason yelped. I was pretty sure Elsie kicked him under the table.

Mrs. Sherman shot me a look of gratitude. She loaded my plate with another slice of meatloaf and another heaping of mashed potatoes. “Well, we really appreciate that, Henry.”

Elsie sputtered. “What? You're taking his side?”

“Yes. He did the right thing,” her dad said, and her face turned even redder. “Who knows what the boy would have done to you if Henry hadn't put a stop to it?”

“It didn't occur to you that maybe I was letting John touch me?”

The colonel's eyes narrowed. “I should hope not.”

“Oh my God, you're so sexist!” she shouted and pushed away from the table.

I was pretty miserable by then, my earlier feeling of vindication trumped by how awful Elsie must be feeling. But it was too late. Whatever anger she felt toward me had now been compounded by everyone's support of me. I had inadvertently turned her entire family against her.

“May I be excused?” she said through her teeth, glaring at me through slitted eyes. Then she fled the room.

I stayed away for a while, giving her some time to calm down. By then I knew the way she worked: She had a wicked temper but she just needed to be left alone and she'd eventually calm down. Elsie was someone who forgave her loved ones freely; I just hoped I was still one of them.

After two weeks of refusing to talk to me, I'd finally had enough. I couldn't stand not talking to her so I finally put a real effort into making her forgive me. I'd approach her at school; she'd walk away. I had people give her messages from me; she just threw the notes into the trash. One time, she even pretended to wipe her ass with it before going into the girl's bathroom, presumably to flush it.

Finally, I knocked on her window one night. She pulled open the curtains and just stood there with her arms folded across her chest, refusing to unlock the window.

“I'm sorry,” I mouthed through the glass.

She just gave me a sassy look and shrugged, then reached to close the curtains.

I made a choking motion across my throat and pretended to punch myself in the jaw. I fell to the ground then jumped back up and punched myself in the gut.

She tried to hide a grin but I saw it, so I beat myself up some more for a good three minutes. That majestic piece of thespian artistry convinced her to open the window a crack.

“You've got five seconds,” she said.

“I'm sorry. I'm a dickhead.”

“Yeah you are.”

I smiled at her. “I don't think you're easy. I don't even know why I said that. You're the opposite of easy.”

She said nothing, just looked me with her big hazel eyes. I swear, sometimes I think she can see into my brain and read my thoughts, and it freaked me the hell out.

“Can we be friends again?” I asked.

“Why? What does it matter if we're friends again?”

“Because you're important to me,” I said. It's weird; now that I look back on it, my most honest moments are almost always with her.

That did the trick. She gave me a hug through the window, and I went home, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my chest, replaced by something else, another little anchor of a feeling that I didn't yet know what to call.

P.S. I think it was love.

Nina noticed the change in me after Elsie and I started talking again. Nina became even clingier. She was one of the most popular girls in school—and I suppose you could say I was pretty popular as well—so I didn't understand why she was so insecure. She started to ask me if she was prettier than so and so, if she was skinny enough to be a model, if she had what it took to be on the
Real World
. I always said yes because I knew that if I said anything else, she would argue with me until she was blue in the face.

I just wanted some peace in my life; that's why I told her what she wanted to hear.

I took Nina to the Shermans' house one night because Jason's mom, Elodie, wanted to meet her. Dinner was uncomfortable. Elsie was unusually quiet, just pushing her food around on her plate and not even looking at me. Nina, on the other hand, acted as relaxed as if she were eating at her own house. She talked to Elodie and John as if they were peers and even asked if Elodie used low-fat ingredients when making dinner.

The next day at school, I overheard Nina telling her friends that the Shermans' house was a mess, and Elsie's room was decorated like a little girl's. I disputed the fact, but nobody listened to me.

Then Nina and her friends turned their menace on Elsie. I wasn't aware of any of it until I started noticing Elsie's moods when we came home from school. She'd go straight to her room and when she came back out for dinner her eyes were red. Her parents asked her about it but she would just glance at me, then shake her head. Eventually, I figured she must have told them because they stopped asking.

One day, Elodie asked me to help her load the dishwasher. I didn't mind; I offered to help whenever I could. It was the least I could do since they fed me most nights of the week.

“Henry,” she said when we were alone in the kitchen. “I think you should be aware of something.”

I placed a plate in the dishwasher. “It's about Elsie, isn't it?” I asked. I leaned on the counter and prepared myself for the news. “Is she sick?” My heart clenched at the thought.

She shook her head, smirking at my dramatics. “No, not at all,” she said. “It's about your girlfriend.”

I froze. “What about her?”

“Elsie told me that Nina and her friends have been bullying her.”

“That can't be right,” I said. “I've never seen them do anything like that.”

“Elsie said they do it when you're not around. They surround her at her locker and say mean things. Last week they trapped her in the toilet stall for fifteen minutes during lunch.”

I shook my head, still unwilling to believe that someone I was dating could be so cruel. “That doesn't sound like Nina.”

“Apparently, Nina doesn't like that you're friends with Elsie. She wants Elsie to stop talking to you.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “I think I've got salmonella,” I said, clutching at my middle. “I feel like ralphing.”

Elodie laughed. “Henry, I think what you're feeling is guilt.” She looked at me for a long time. “Look, I'm not your mother, so I can't tell you who to date. I don't know how much you like this Nina girl, but Elsie is my daughter, and anyone who hurts her is automatically on my shit list.”

I nodded, feeling mildly horrified that Jason's mom had used a swear word in front of a minor. That's how I knew she was dead serious.

“So if you could talk to Nina and tell her that I will wring her pretty little neck if she messes with my daughter again, I would appreciate it.” I must have looked aghast because she laughed and pinched my cheek. “Now be a good boy and finish loading the dishwasher, please.”

I really liked Nina, obviously. I mean, we went out for over six months. She was funny and sexy and we had quite a lot in common. Plus the girl could give head like nobody's business.

I'm sorry, that was crass. But damn.

Anyway, as much as I liked Nina, I just couldn't stand by knowing she was making Elsie's life hell. I don't have siblings but if I had a little sister, I knew I'd be as protective of her as I was of Elsie. So I ended it with Nina, telling her that I'd cheated on her with a girl from another school, throwing in that the girl thought she might be pregnant.

That did the trick. Nina was a lot of things but she was
not
the girl you cheated on.

It was a huge lie but at least it took the heat away from Elsie. If I'd told Nina the real reason why I was breaking up with her, she would have made sure that Elsie's life was a living hell, and I just couldn't take that chance.

Of course, Nina made sure the rest of the school knew I was a cheating bastard, but since I already had a history of delinquency, cheating was just another notch on my proverbial Bad Boy Bedpost. I think, to some girls, it made me an even hotter commodity. Like maybe they wanted their hands on me so they could try to change me.

I noticed Elsie's mood lift immediately. Her smiles reached her eyes and she was laughing again. It made me happy to see her in high spirits and it erased whatever lingering doubts I had about breaking up with Nina. That was the first time I realized that I would do anything to make Elsie happy.

I even almost stayed in Monterey, to attend the local university so that I wouldn't have to be far from her, but the colonel talked some sense into me.

“You know that's not where you ought to be, son,” he said to me one night. That was the first time I noticed that he called me
son
and it gutted me and filled me with pride. “You know exactly what your future will be like if you stay here.”

He made me believe that I was bigger than Monterey, that I was destined for adventure. “Do you really think I have what it takes to be in the Air Force?”

The colonel didn't even hesitate. “Of course I do!” he boomed. The man had such a mighty presence. “I don't know if you know this about yourself, but you are braver and more honorable than you give yourself credit for. ROTC and then the Air Force will bring that out in you, make you the leader that you were meant to be.”

I'd never actually felt like a leader, but I bought his words. He was a military officer, for crying out loud, only two promotions away from general before he'd retired. If the man told me to jump off a cliff because that's the kind of man I was, I probably would have done it. I'd never even thought about my future until he welcomed me into his home.

In many ways, John Sherman was the father I had always wanted so I was going to do my fucking best to make him proud.

I was accepted into the University of Missouri with an ROTC scholarship, the same as Jason. The first day of college, I signed the contract stating I would enter the military after graduating, exhilarated and scared shitless.

My fate was sealed.