Interim (12 page)

“Regan, I’m sorry,” he said.

“Save it.”

He jumped in front of her, forcing her to a halt.

“Please, let me by,” she said.

She was a ticking time bomb. He knew it. Somehow he had to abate the anger, manipulate a friendship even if it wasn’t genuine. He knew that now. He had no choice. They had to be friends or else she’d destroy his life. And he had to do a better job with his words. He couldn’t say offensive shit anymore.
Think, Jeremy, think!

“I’m a virgin, too,” he blurted. Came out of nowhere.
What the fuck?

She stared at him.

“In case you were wondering . . .”

“I wasn’t.” But she was clearly flattered by his admission. She tucked her chin, partially obscuring the smile.

He took a deep breath. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Why would you volunteer any more information to me? You know, since you’re mad I know your secrets,” Regan asked, still hiding her face.

He searched for a reply. “Well, what’s one more?”

She wasn’t expecting such a dismissive response.

“Sooo . . . we’re just a couple of virgins,” she said, kicking around a pinecone.

“Evidently.”

“Sooo . . . where do we go from there?”

“What are you asking me, Regan?” His tone was playful. He didn’t know he had it in him, and the flirtatious question both shocked and delighted him.

“No! I wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean to suggest . . . !” She headed for the sidewalk. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God . . .”

Jeremy picked up his pace to catch up.

“I was just joking,” he said, laughing.

It felt strange to laugh. It felt strange to flirt with no ulterior motive. He should have been in manipulation mode, but the joke was genuine.

She smiled up at him. A pang of nostalgia gripped his heart as he watched her lips part, revealing perfectly straight teeth. He rather missed her braces, or perhaps it was the girl behind those metal brackets his heart longed for. He couldn’t help it. He had to ask. But she beat him to it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“You do?”

“You’re wondering why I changed. You’re wondering why I’m dating Brandon.”

Jeremy shoved his hands in his pockets.

“He wasn’t always mean,” Regan said.

Yes, he was.

“I mean, he seemed to change in ninth grade.”

No, he didn’t.

“He really showed a lot of interest in me, and . . . I don’t know. It felt good.”

He manipulated you.

Regan sighed. “Okay, truth time. I got so sick and tired of being the champion for all the dorks,” Regan admitted. “You know?”

Gee, thanks.

“I don’t say ‘dork’ in a mean-spirited way.” She waved her hand and added dismissively, “You know what I mean.”

Uh, riiiiight.

“It was easier to just—” She really didn’t want to say the word. “—conform.”

And you did a hell of a job.

“I know you think I’m pathetic,” she said.

A little.

“Say something!” she cried.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. You already read my journal.”

She wasn’t sure if it was another joke, and waited for his cue.

“You can laugh,” he said.

“Oh, ha ha.” And then the “ha’s” turned into real giggles. And then those giggles turned into hearty laughter. For whatever reason, it felt good knowing he saw her as a gutless follower. Lessened the guilt.

He waited until she composed herself. He didn’t think it was all that funny, but he imagined she wasn’t only laughing at his joke. Perhaps she was laughing at him—having recalled something he wrote in his journal that sounded silly and stupid. He grew self-conscious.

“I better get to work,” he mumbled.

She swallowed. “Where do you work?”

“At a garage.”

“Doing what?”

“Fixing cars. I’m apprenticing.”

She nodded. “That’s cool.”

He said nothing.

“Which one?”

He hesitated. “Roy’s Body Shop.”

“Ohhh, I know that place. My dad had some work done there on his car,” Regan replied. “That’s, like, right around the corner.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Maybe I’ll stop by some time,” she offered.

When he didn’t answer, she grew embarrassed.

“Um, I work at a bakery. During the off season,” she said.

He nodded.

“I mostly decorate cakes,” she went on.

He continued nodding.

She fell silent.

I don’t know how to do this
, he thought.
I don’t know how to be her friend.

He has zero interest in being friends,
she thought.

The words stuck in his throat, and he cleared it to clear them.

“You can come by whenever. The garage, I mean.”

Her face brightened.

“If you bring cake,” he added, and forced a smile.

“I can do that.”

“I . . . I hope this means you forgive me,” he said softly.

“I do,” she replied immediately. “Guys are always saying stupid stuff. I understand that.”

He chuckled. “I suppose so.”

“Well, now you can’t complain about knowing none of my secrets,” Regan offered.

“Huh?”

“I dropped, like, the biggest one on you!” she said. “Hello?”

“Ohhh, right, right,” he replied. “But then I gave you another one, too, so you’re still O for, um, about a thousand,” Jeremy explained.

Regan bit her lip. “Hmm, I guess you’re right.”

What could she share with him? Oh, a million things, easily. What would he want to hear right now? She instantly knew.

Jeremy checked the time on his cell phone. “I’m late. Roy’s gonna kill me.”

Well then, this was the perfect secret to share.

“I always wanted to be your friend,” Regan said. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

He stood stunned, his mind flooded with a trillion questions and no time to ask them. She did it on purpose! He looked down the sidewalk toward the garage. And then he looked back at Regan helplessly.

“Don’t you need to go to work now?” she asked.

Her face was unreadable, allowing him no further insight into her claim. What the hell was she trying to do to him? If this was a joke, then he’d label it the worst kind of bullying—emotional torment that does permanent damage.

“You know I have to,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off her face.

“Then I guess you better go,” she said just as slowly.

He stormed off, muttering under his breath. He was over it—over her little game. She always wanted to be his friend? Bullshit. There were plenty of opportunities, but she chose
them
. Even now, she couldn’t or wouldn’t break free from them. That made her one of them still, and he couldn’t be friends with his enemy. He knew it was paramount to try—even if he had to fake it—but he didn’t want to share her. He shouldn’t have to! And, anyway, she still owed him. She owed him all her feelings and a better fucking apology. And while they were at it, her body, too. Yeah. That’s right. She had no problem touching him without permission—tactlessly poking at his scar. Maybe he ought to poke her and see how she liked it.

God
, he wanted to back her into a corner—smash her right up against the goddamn wall—hold a gun to her temple, then kiss her lips gently. I love you. I hate you. The image didn’t even bother him. He found pleasure in the fantasy of tasting her tears while his tongue explored her mouth. I love you. I hate you. The pendulum swung. Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Right. Wrong.

Victim. Vigilante.

Sanity.

Slipping.

***

She parked her mother’s sedan in an empty space beside the blue-gray building. She sat for a moment practicing breathing exercises for cardio endurance, imagining running up and down the field with Jeremy chasing after her. Heart palpitation. And another. She fixed her eyes on the faded plastic business sign—
Roy’s Body Shop
—with patches of red missing from several letters.

You wanted to be friends
, her brain reminded her.

She nodded and glanced at the cupcakes sitting in the passenger seat.

And he did say to bring cake
.

She grinned, peeling back a stray hair that was plastered to her cheek. Her sweat dried earlier, making everything around the perimeter of her face crusty and dry.

“Why didn’t I shower first?” she said aloud. “I’m revolting.”

But she knew why. She barely let Coach Allan finish her end-of-practice speech before booking it to the car for her special errand—cupcakes. It was the only thing on her mind all day, and every stolen glimpse at Jeremy served as mini tests of her patience. By 6:15 she had none left.

She breathed deeply one last time and exited the car, walking slowly around the corner to the front of the garage where the doors stood wide open. Four bays. Two empty. One was occupied by an old Camaro and a shirtless boy—
shirtless
! Icing on her cupcake day!

The words “Oh my” slipped soundlessly from her lips as she gripped the pink cupcake box tighter. She gulped down the view, thanking all the gods in the history of every religion on earth for delaying the fall weather. Summer continued to sizzle, even at the end of September, and the heat mixed with a broken air conditioner was responsible for her delicious, decadent visual treat.

His back was to her, and she reveled in her voyeurism. She noted his broad shoulders, defined by what she could only imagine was a strict weight lifting regiment. Strong shoulders. Sculpted back that highlighted every muscle, tapering in a V-shape to his waist. Slender and athletic, like a basketball player. She never thought of herself as a visual person. She thought of herself as more of a words person. But in that moment, she would have been fine to stare at him indefinitely without a single word uttered between them.

And like all the heroines of any great love story, she was a sucker for tattoos. She would never brand herself with one, but she liked what she saw on him. She squinted to read the scripted words spanning his upper back, starting below his left shoulder blade and arching up and over to his right:
Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti
. Black ink. No images. Just words—dark and bold against his fair skin.

She quietly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and typed the words one-handed into her “Notes” app. Her thumb flew around the keypad with ease—a special skill only teenagers of the Disney Channel generation possessed.

On my to-do list for tonight
, she thought, if Jeremy was unwilling to explain his tattoo. And he probably would be. After all, he wasn’t the sharing kind unless he was scribbling his feelings in a notebook.

“What are you doing?”

Her face flew up as the cell phone crashed to the ground. It bounced once and cracked open, battery spilling out beside her feet.

“Oh, shit!” Regan spat, bending over to retrieve all three pieces—front, battery, back cover.

“Were you taking a picture of me?” Jeremy asked.

“Are you crazy?” Regan replied.

He blushed and clenched his jaw.

She approached him and shoved the pink box in his hands, shooting a stealthy glance at his bare chest.

“Here. Take your cupcakes,” she barked, putting her phone back together. And then she muttered, “If I lost all my freaking pics . . .”

“You
did
take a picture of me!” Jeremy cried. “What the fuck?”

Regan held up her hand, demanding his silence. He complied. She turned on her phone and opened her picture gallery. Every shot accounted for. And then she relaxed, looking him in the eyes.

“I did not take a picture of you, you conceited ass,” she said. “I was typing something.”

“What were you typing?” he asked.

“None of your business.”

“Does it have anything to do with me?”

She shuffled her feet and muttered, “Well, maybe.”

“Then it’s my business.”

“You’ll think I’m weird,” she confessed.

“I already think you’re weird. The mere fact that you’re here talking to me right now is freaking weird. So let’s have it.”

She hesitated.

“I’ll just snatch your phone,” Jeremy threatened.

“Fine! I typed your tattoo in my phone so I could look it up later.”

Silence.

She wouldn’t look at him straight on. She let her peripheral vision do all the work as she watched him walk deliberately to the counter, toss the cupcakes, and retrieve a T-shirt. He pulled it over his blond head, down past his green eyes to his flushed neck. No, not flushed. It was screaming-in-pain red.