Authors: Liz Reinhardt
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What? That can’t be the only option!”
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That’s what it said in my packet.” I pointed to the packet on top of the fridge that Mom glanced through before school started. I was usually pretty good about filling her in on everything she needed to know, so Mom didn‘t drive herself crazy reading every letter from the administration.
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I can’t believe that’s the only option.” Mom flipped through everything with an angry shuffle. She found a phone number, but no one was there when she punched the number in. I guessed they left early with the snow. “Well, I know I don’t usually allow this, but that Saxon boy can take you back and forth. Just back and forth to school. He seems very responsible. Though he smelled like smoke. Does he smoke?”
I felt my panic subside. Mom hated nothing like she hated a smoker. “Yes. I had to tell him to put out his cigarette before he picked me up.”
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Well, as long as he never does it when you’re in the car, we’ll have to make do.”
Then Mom went filling pots with tap water in case we lost electricity and getting ready for dinner like it was any other night and she hadn’t just broken a half dozen of her own firmly set rules and told me to ride back and forth to school in Saxon Maclean’s black shark of a car as long as I made it clear he couldn’t smoke.
I opened and shut my mouth a few times and tried to come up with a logical argument, but I couldn’t will myself to argue for a bus ride that would eat up close to two hours of every afternoon. It would take about ten minutes to drive to school and back. Saxon couldn’t get under my skin if I didn’t let him.
Yeah, right.
I went to my room after we‘d eaten dinner and watched some television together, and excused myself by saying something vague about a lot of homework, but I tried Jake’s number as soon as I was behind my closed door. It went to his voicemail. I knew he was at work, probably doing something labor intensive and mundane in this horrible, freezing snow storm. I realized if I reached him just to complain and confess, I stood to make his work day suck even more than it probably already did. I couldn’t do that to him.
But I needed to talk to someone. Kelsie had wrapped her life completely around Chris, to the point where it was hard to talk to her about anything else, but that was actually okay with me. When Kelsie was paying attention, she was very perceptive, and there was way too much going on that I’d rather not have her know about.
Before I could think much more, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number that popped up, but something told me it was him.
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Hello?” My irritation grew when I heard the voice I’d anticipated.
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Blix, I really need help with that chapter on jury duty. I’m really confused.” Saxon chuckled softly. “Don’t be mad.”
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You’re a dirty liar.” I punched a throw pillow a few times, then flopped back on my bed.. “My mom thinks you’re some sweet friend of mine.” I kicked my backpack off the bed and onto the floor with one thrust of my leg. “You can’t just barge into my life like that.”
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I wasn’t barging.” His voice was all sweet coercion. “Listen, some girls would consider what I’m doing a modern form of chivalry. I truly do have your best interests at heart. If you get run off of the road, and I didn’t do anything to stop it…” He let his voice trail off expectantly.
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You’ll have no one to harass?” I put in edgily. “I just don’t want to play your games.”
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What games?” His voice sounded a little surprised. But I knew Saxon well enough to know that could just be a layer. Of a game. Ugh!
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I know you don’t have any actual interest in my health and well being…” I started, but he interrupted me.
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Look, that’s a load of crap.” Saxon was usually good about never letting anything ruffle him, but he definitely sounded ruffled now. “I don’t know why, and trust me, I wish I did know just so I could somehow stop it, but I can’t put you out of my mind. I know you’re doing your thing with Jake for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean I can just switch off what I feel. And that doesn’t mean I want to see you ride that piece of shit bike in a snowstorm.”
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It’s a great bike.” But my voice fell flat. I tried my best to absorb what he’d just said. “You could date anyone you wanted,” I said after a few long seconds.
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I know that.” His voice ground out irritably. “Don’t you think I know that?”
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Why don’t you?” I got up and looked out the window, staring into the vicious tangle of snowflakes that swirled outside my window. I worried about Jake working and getting home in this mess.
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Don’t you feel it for Jake?” he asked, his voice barbed. “Or are you just another conquest? You seemed pretty damn self-righteous about the whole thing a few days ago. Is that all gone?”
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No. I care about Jake. It’s not about physical stuff. I mean, it’s not only about that.” My face got hot just talking about it. I couldn’t stop myself. I knew I should just end the conversation as soon as possible, but something about Saxon’s honest, raw voice kept me on. I leaned my overheated face on the frosty glass of my bedroom window.
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I…Jesus Christ,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “I care about you. I can’t even believe I’m having this discussion.”
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How could you care about me?” I was desperate to undo the thing he’d just done to us with four little words. My breath made a fogged patch on the glass.
The line was so quiet, I checked to make sure we were still connected. After another few seconds, his voice came through, crackling with frustration. “How could I not? It was first sight crap. I wanted you out of my system, and I’m still hoping that’s going to be the key, though I doubt it more and more every day I’m around you.”
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This doesn’t seem like a head game,” I ventured cautiously. I traced a heart in the circle of condensation on the window with my fingertip.
He snorted. “You guessed it, Blix. This is all part of my elaborate plan to be crowned prom king. C’mon. You think I like this? You think I haven’t tried to ignore you? You think I wouldn’t like to roll around with Karen Tanner? It just isn’t happening. And it’s because of you.”
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Karen Tanner?” I asked dumbly, picking the safest group of words in his confession to parrot. I pressed my palm to the window and blotted the heart out.
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Head cheerleader.” He took a deep breath and blew it all out in one long rush. “Hot and into me. But I can’t get serious with her. I can’t get you out of my damn head. It sucks.”
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I’m with Jake.” I clutched the phone so hard my hand shook.
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I know that. I’m not begging for you to dump him. I’m just explaining why I keep creeping around like some sad old pervert.”
That made me laugh. “I guess it would suck,” I conceded.
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Yeah.” His voice was hard.
We sat for a minute, and the quiet tempted us to say all those things that we weren’t really ready or able to say. Finally I broke through the swirl of unsaid emotions with a watered-down version of a few things I’d been thinking. “Let’s just be friends. Maybe you’re so used to getting girls to like you romantically that you think that’s what you want from me.” Where was this coming from? Probably mostly from the fact that he had softened me with all of his embarrassing confessions. And maybe there was a tiny sliver of plain attraction; not the intense amorous kind I felt for Jake, but an attraction, nonetheless.
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I think it’s a fairly shitty idea, but let’s try it. At this point, I’m willing to go along with anything.”
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Karen Tanner will be rolling around with you before you know it,” I promised. “There’s nothing particularly awesome about me, Saxon. Once I’m not so unattainable you’ll back off.”
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I hope so. Look, let’s go to Jake’s thing together and then we’ll all go to Folly. As friends.” He added an extra sneer to the last word, just for good measure.
I didn’t want to touch that offer with a ten-foot pole. “You and Jake aren’t really friends, though. Won’t it be really weird?”
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I’m sure he needs a ride there anyway. His old man isn’t going to bother to take him. There’s some unresolved stuff between me and Jake. Maybe it’s time to resolve it.”
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What is it that makes you hate each other?” It had bothered me since the movies, but I couldn’t get a thing out of Jake. Bringing up Saxon’s name practically guaranteed he would be in a foul mood.
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Mostly stuff we never said, misunderstood stuff. Nothing serious. Nothing I can’t smooth over.” The words were all cocky bravado. I heard a hint of uncertainty underneath them. As strangely attractive as Saxon could be when he was arrogant and swaggering, this weirdly human version was even more interesting. It was as if Saxon was peeling back a layer and letting me see something flesh and blood that he didn’t show to anyone else. I loved the sense that I shared some kind of secret with him.
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I still don’t think he’s going to be into you taking me to see him.” I tread carefully around his invitation. “I’m not really willing to upset him before a big race. It’s important to him.”
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Maybe you should talk to him about it,” Saxon challenged.
That’s exactly what it was. A pure challenge. He knew I was uncomfortable about it, and he wanted to call me out on my
I’m nobody’s girl but my own
rant.
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I will.” I realized just how easy it was for Saxon to manipulate me into doing what he wanted. It was not a pleasant realization. “I need to call him soon anyway. We have other things to talk about.” I just wanted the conversation with Saxon to be over. He made me think way too much, and it was unnerving. Talking to him wasn’t comfortable, even if it was exciting. I got off of the phone with him as quickly as I could, but I could hear the laughter in his voice as we hung up. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he enjoyed it.
I called Jake’s number, even though I knew he’d probably literally walked through the door from work that exact minute. I didn’t like calling before he had time to shower or relax for a few minutes. It seemed somehow desperate. But today I made an exception. And in Jake’s typical fashion, he didn’t seem upset to hear from me at all.
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Hey Brenna! You called me early.”
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Sorry.” I felt the sinking in my heart. How was I going to put this to him? Saxon had snared me in an old trap; if I didn’t ask and just told Saxon no, he would assume, correctly, that I’d chickened out. If I did ask…well, that was its own distinct craziness.
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Don’t be sorry. I love hearing from you. Call any time you want to.”
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Thanks,” I said. Then, awkwardly, I added, “So I don’t have a lot of details about your race. What’s up with it?”
It was like I opened up a flood gate. Jake talked faster than I’d ever heard him talk before. He said he’d been preparing in his free time, this race was a huge deal, and he was really excited I would be able to be there to see him. That it meant so much to him that I would be there to support him.
And that’s when I had to drop the bomb on him.
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So, how are you getting there?” I closed my eyes and winced at his frustrated silence.
He finally said the obvious. “You need a ride.” He wasn’t offering because he couldn’t. I’d never met anyone so worried about the fact he couldn’t drive.
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Not exactly.” I twisted the corner of my comforter. “I have a ride. Kind of.”
He waited with typical Jake-like patience.
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With Saxon.” Even as the words left my mouth, I wondered if I should mention it. Mom could still veto the whole thing; but this afternoon’s insanity gave me the feeling it was unlikely. She had really taken a strange liking to Saxon. That and her desire to see me go out with friends more would probably push her towards saying yes. How weird to be upset that my mom was most likely going to give me permission to go hang out all day Saturday.
Jake exhaled in one long, irritated whoosh of air. But he didn’t say anything.
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Say something.” I really didn’t know what I wanted him to say. I didn’t want him to be annoyed, but I could understand why he would be. I knew it would be strange to expect him to be cool with the whole thing, but it was a also a huge leap for him to ask me to understand why if he never gave me even the slightest detail about what had happened between him and Saxon.
And then he said something so un-Jake-like it shocked the words right out of my mouth.
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I’d rather you don’t come see me than show up with Saxon.”
I hadn’t expected him to go that far, and I felt hot boils of anger pop and sizzle right below the surface of my skin.
I finally managed to string a few words together. “You don’t want me to come if I get a ride from Saxon?” I clarified, fighting hard to keep my voice even and controlled. Because in a few more sentences, all of that control would be gone, and I knew it.
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That’s right.” His voice was granite hard.
That edge set me off. “I don’t know what the big secret is, but it’s getting obnoxious. Just tell me!”
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It’s not important.” He’d never spoken so sharply before. “Look, do what you want, Brenna. I can’t tell you what to do.”
I felt that annoying, cloying heat in my throat, the itch way in the back that let me know I was very close to crying.
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It is important.” My voice wobbled, to my complete humiliation. “We’re arguing about it, Jake, so I guess it’s pretty important. What is it?”