Heart's Reflection (3 page)

Mrs. Ellsworth
jumped up and grabbed a water pitcher from the sideboard. "It's so nice to
have you here tonight, Tara." She grabbed my glass, which was
three-quarters full already, and began pouring. "We haven't seen you in so
long. Isn't that right? A longtime. How's your grandmother? I
haven't—"

"Minnie,
stop." Mr. Ellsworth picked up the saltshaker and waved it around in the
air. "I'm trying to talk to my son."

"You don't
need to talk to him now," Mrs. Ellsworth said with a wan smile in my
direction.

"Why not?
You're always talking about the family conversing at dinner."

"But we have
a guest."

"Tara's
hardly a guest," Mr. Ellsworth scoffed. "She's like one of us."

Mr. Ellsworth
smiled in my direction and I mumbled, "thank you."

"She's aware
Keagan's a delinquent screw-up."

Liam stifled a
laugh, disguising his snort with a cough into his napkin as I pierced him with
a glare.

I wanted to shout
at Mr. Ellsworth to shut up. But he was an adult and, no matter what he said
about it, I was a guest in his home. Mr. Ellsworth's verbal abuse of Keagan was
bad enough but lately Liam had been getting more and more infected by the
attitude.

My eyes returned
to Keagan who was playing with his potatoes again. He drew two eyes with the
tip of his knife at the starchy circle center before he directed his gaze back
to me and drew a frowny mouth.

"Well?"
Mr. Ellsworth demanded of Keagan.

The mental vibes
of "I'm keeping my promise but it's damn hard" were wafting my way in
waves from across the table as he answered his father.

"No,
sir," Keagan finally replied.

"Been
expelled yet?" At his son's shaking head, Mr. Ellsworth continued,
"If you're not flunking out or getting in trouble, what are you
doing?"

"I'm playing
football. I'm the team's new middle linebacker."

"Linebacker?
Hmmmm." Mr. Ellsworth took another bite and chewed. With his mouth still
full of food he said, "You're a decent football player. I'll give you
that."

Mr. Ellsworth was
a fiend for football. Figured his only half decent comment to Keagan was about
that sport.

"Thanks,"
Keagan drawled.

"'Course with
Liam as running back, you don't stand a chance," Mr. Ellsworth continued.

"Yeah. The
Flyers are gonna win whether you're on that pathetic team of not," Liam
piped in.

"Oh really? The
Hawks are a great team. We're gonna murder you."

Keagan's words
took my breath and turned the food in my mouth to rock salt.

"I'm
personally gonna score at least one TD by breezing right by you," Liam
shouted.

"Dream on,
bro," Keagan shot back. "You won't get one play past me, let alone a
touchdown."

"You can't
touch my speed," Liam yelled, clutching his dinner knife as if it was a
stiletto he was about to stab his brother with.

"You move in
slow motion. Your team sucks and so do you," Keagan said.

"Don't talk
to your brother that way," Mrs. Ellsworth shot out at Keagan.

With a glare at
me, Keagan threw down his napkin as he pushed the chair back.

"I'm so outta
here," he said, before stomping his way to the front door.

"You come
back here, young man," his dad shouted.

The words had no
effect and Keagan continued out, slamming the door behind him.

Mr. Ellsworth
turned to Liam with his fork upturned as he waved it almost like an epee.
"Just make sure you play a good game, son. I hear there'll be a scout there
from the University of Georgia."

"Yes,
Dad."

The rock salt
dropped from my mouth to the pit of my stomach. The chance of convincing Liam
not to play in Friday's game had just officially gone from slim to none.

* * * * *

Sitting and
holding hands with Liam on the Ellsworth's porch swing after dinner would have
been a peaceful bliss, a respite after the family hostilities, if not for the
fact that my mind was churning. Liam's voice blah blahing droned on about some
subject...I didn't even know what. My ears were blocked by the locomotion of
the freight train in my brain. Ways to try to convince Liam not to play in the
football game, now less than forty-eight hours away, kept turning over and
nothing seemed likely to succeed. Oh well, I had to try.

"Liam."
I interrupted him mid-blah. "Don't play in the game on Friday."

"What?"
His expression went from relaxed to wide-eyed shock. "Why would you say
that?"

'Cause I'm a
banshee and I know you're gonna die if you play in that game. Na. Saying that
was my last resort. The one I'd take just before they had me drug tested. The
one I'd take right before the men in white coats came to put me into the
straightjacket.

"Ummm.
I—" The argument I'd planned suddenly didn't seem that good an idea
but I went with it. "I think you shouldn't fight with your brother. This
game is escalating the war between you two."

"Who
cares," he scoffed.

"I do. You
have the power to convince your dad to change his mind and send Keagan back to
school at the Academy. Then you wouldn't be on opposite teams."

He released my
hand and it dropped in a thud on the seat of the swing as he jumped up to move
to the edge of the porch. "Why are you so concerned about my brother? You
into him or something?"

"Of course
not."

"You
are," he accused. "Just like every other girl. You think he's
hot."

"Nnnnnno,"
I sputtered. "He gives me the creeps. I wouldn't let him touch
me—" I stopped myself mid cliché. What was that quote about
protesting too much? Keagan gave me the shivers but not the creeps. However,
saying that wouldn't help my cause.

"I'm
concerned about you, not him." I got up, crossed to Liam, and then placed
a hand on his arm. "All this with your brother—It's making you into
a person I don't recognize. You aren't you."

He jerked his arm
out of my light grasp. "Because I won't let Keagan get away with his bull?
Because I stand up to him?"

"No." I
shook my head. "You don't just stand up to him, you gang up on him."

"Gang
up?"

"With your
parents. Yes. The three of you gang up on him."

Liam's face
reflected a shocked kind of betrayal that made me cringe inside.

"Nice, Tara.
Real nice," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry,
but it's true," I defended. "And you can stop it right now by not
playing that game on Friday."

"I've gotta
play. You heard Dad. There'll be a scout there."

"Is that the
most important thing in your life?" I shouted. "What if I said I'd go
to the reserve with you on Friday?"

The meaning of my
words dawned and a slow smile turned to a grin. "Really?"

"But only if
you
don't
play."

"I'm not
gonna be manipulated into giving up a chance for a scholarship to UGA."
Shaking his head as if to clear it, Liam said, "This makes no sense.
What's the real reason you don't want me to play on Friday?"

Time for the last resort
, I thought.

"I had a
vision that you're going to...going to get...get hurt if you play."

"Now you're
just being ridiculous."

"Are you
saying I'm lying?"

"Either that
or crazy."

Now it was my turn
to be hurt. "Is that what you really think?"

"No."
His jaw moved with the clenching and unclenching of his teeth. "I think
you enjoy teasing. I think you enjoy trying to wrap me around your little
finger. And I've let you do it. But no more. I'm not gonna be whipped."

"Whipped! By
me?"

"That's what
the guys on the team said and they were right."

"Yeah. Billy
and his band of jerkwads are real authorities on women," I said with more
than a dollop of sarcasm. "If that's who you want to listen to, then I
can't stop you."

"Good,"
Liam shouted. "I will."

"Fine,"
I shouted back.

With one last
glare at me, Liam marched to the front door, tugged it open and stormed inside
the house. The slam of the door behind his departing back caused the porch to
shake under my feet.

That went well.

Long seconds
later, I acknowledged to myself Liam wasn't coming back out. I trudged my way
down the steps to the sidewalk before starting toward the street in the
direction of my parked car. I was about halfway there when a low, teasing voice
came from behind a bush.

"Whew. You
sure made him mad."

Startled, I jumped
and whirled to face Keagan.

"How long
have you been hiding here?" I demanded, my mind furiously racing over the
conversation Liam and I had.

"Long
enough," Keagan said, stepping out and under the full force of the
streetlamp. "Long enough to hear you making a very provocative offer."

A blush caught
fire in my cheeks. Thank heavens for the cover of the dim light. "I don't
know what you're talking about."

"Sure you
do," Keagan drawled. "My brother is a real fool. If you offered me a
night of passion at the reserve I wouldn't turn you down for football."

"I bet."
Managing to make my statement a monotone and keeping all reaction from
registering on my face, while my heart was doing more flips than an Olympic
gymnast, was one of the harder things I'd ever done.

"Yeah. I'd
have jumped at that offer in a heartbeat." Keagan's low, sensual baritone
teased as if he knew exactly what I was feeling. "A chance to pop the
cherry of a gorgeous and notorious virgin weighed against a mere football game?
No contest."

"You're crude
and disgusting." Turning on a heel, I presented a stiff back to him before
walking away.

"And you love
it." The low rumble of his laugh burned my ears. "You were my little
champion back there. Trying to get Liam to go to bat for me with Dad."

"Like I said
to Liam, that was for him and not you." My car parked at the end of the
block seemed like a mile away.

Keagan grabbed my
arm and pulled me to a stop. Turning in reluctance, I saw his face set in a
serious frown.

"Sure,"
he said. "I know it's Liam you love and Liam you want. But no matter who
you did that for, you shoulda saved your breath."

"Why? It
would solve everything if you would just come back to our school."

"Even if Dad
would send me, I'm not going back to that toity Academy and its hoity students.
I'm happy where I am. And it'll be my personal pleasure to make sure my brother
never sees the end zone let alone a UGA scholarship. Liam's ass is
grass—or in this case Astroturf— on Friday."

* * * * *

The next
day— Thursday—I spent most of the morning trying to get Liam to talk
to me with no luck. He remained furious. In all the years we'd known each other
we'd never stayed mad for more than a few hours. I felt completely unsettled.
The earth was off its axis and all I could do was list around helplessly.

I'd gone through
the denial phase, then the anger phase, and then started bargaining, but
nothing worked. Every time I managed to touch Liam...nothing. No vision of a
new and different death. He was still on course to die at Keagan's hands during
the game. With so little time left, how was I going to stop Liam from playing
in that game if he wouldn't even speak to me?

In a depression, I
escaped to the girls' room and locked myself in the middle stall. I sat down on
the seat and put my head in my hands.

The bell for fifth
period rang. The chattering of the girls who'd been washing their hands and
putting on make-up trailed behind them as they left. The outer door swooshed
shut and just as quickly swooshed open again.

"Are you
okay, Tara?" My friend, Juliette's voice, high-pitched and dripping in
placid concern, echoed against the tile walls. "You've been acting weird.
I'm worried about you."

"I'm okay. Go
on," I said. "You'll miss class."

"No,"
she replied. "I have an appointment with the guidance counselor and she
said it was okay to ... anyway, I don't have to go."

As she chattered I
glanced up. The graffiti carved on the inside of the door screamed out at me:
Tara Sucks.

Lashonda had
carved those words into the stall on the first day of the school year when I'd
refused to join a group of the cheerleaders in a drinking party. She seemed
certain I could pass for twenty-one and buy them a supply of beer. I refused,
as did Juliette.

"You and
Juliette," Lashonda had groused. "Just a couple of goody-goodies. You
both suck."

But in the end it
was only my name that ended up on the stall door. Juliette was too nice. Too
sweet. Nobody wanted to hurt
her
feelings.

The words on the
door, even if not true then, were certainly true now. I did suck. I sucked big
time. Reaching into my purse, I got out a ballpoint and scratched in an
exclamation point next to Lashonda's carving.

But defacing
public property didn't make me feel any better. Had I expected it to?

Sabotaging the
football stadium briefly seemed an option to saving Liam, until I acknowledged
that I had no idea how to do it. Maybe calling in a bomb threat would...but no.
The mania about football was so high around here that it might cause a delay
while they checked for a device, but it wouldn't cause them to cancel the
entire game.

"Come out and
talk to me," Juliette said, knocking with a delicate rap on the metal
door. "I want to help."

"Can you set
fire to the Astroturf in the stadium for me?"

"What? No. Of
course not," Juliette sputtered but I barely heard her.

Grabbing the phone
out of my purse, I did a quick Internet search. The answer about synthetic
grass being pretty much nonflammable made me toss the phone back into my bag in
disgust.