“It’s that bad,” she said. Her voice broke, and she wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t stand to see her so sad.
I changed the subject. I told her about Kyle and Steven. I talked about Repete’s and the lake. I put just enough hope and enthusiasm in my voice that she didn’t warn me to be careful. I made sure she heard the unspoken promise—that things were going to be fine, that I was going to patch everything together, that I was going to be what she’d always hoped I would be. Mom worried she hadn’t done the right thing by dragging us down here. I would show her it was going to be okay no matter where we were. Because I would make it that way. For all of us.
“It’s going to be great,” I promised Mom. There was a sizeable pile of weeds behind each of us, and we’d managed to clear out most of the bed in front of the house. The ones on the sides taunted us, but we wouldn’t be able to tackle those tonight. Small steps. Everything could be accomplished with small steps forward.
Mom leaned back and smiled at me. It reached her eyes for the first time in months. “I know it will be,” she said. She stood up, stripping off her gardening gloves and dropping them on the porch. “I’m glad you’ve met some friends.”
She disappeared into the shadows, and I scooped up the weeds and tossed them into the garbage can. The screen door slammed as Mom stepped back outside. She sat down on the top step and handed me a glass of ice water. Nothing had ever tasted so clean.
A small puff of air became a slight breeze and dried the sweat on my skin. Two squirrels chased each other up the trunk of the large oak tree at the end of the driveway. One of them leapt from the oak toward a thin branch on a nearby pecan tree. He soared through the air, completely oblivious to what would be a fatal drop if he couldn’t catch the limb. He landed on the very tip of the branch, which dipped and bounced, then he shot into the thick leaves at the top. The other squirrel fussed and barked from the safety of the oak.
“I love you,” Mom said. “I haven’t said it enough lately.”
She hadn’t said it at all lately. “I know you do,” I told her. “Me too.”
She leaned over and kissed my cheek. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that either. “Now go take a shower. You smell like a goat.”
I laughed. “You don’t exactly smell like roses.”
She slapped the side of my leg. “You got some stuff in the mail, too. I put it in your room.”
The house was cool and quiet. Luke’s door was shut when I passed, and I felt no inclination to open it. There was a large stack of mail sitting on the corner of my desk, and all of it had been forwarded from Massachusetts. Boston University. NYU. Colorado State, Virginia Tech, Baylor. They topped off an already large stack.
I had to do it right if I was going to make it right. Everything was going to have to be perfectly put together by the time I graduated. Because college was going to be how I surgically removed Luke from my life. His grades were bad and his record worse. There was no way he was going to get into college. So everything was going to have to be lying flat by the time I left. And it would be, no matter what I had to do to make that happen.
Steph called on Friday afternoon and invited Ian and me to play laser tag in Middleton with her and Steven. She misinterpreted the hesitation in my voice, thinking it had to do with the plans when really I was afraid of calling Ian and getting Luke.
“Please,” Steph begged, “if you don’t come, Steven is going to make me invite Kyle and Dani, and I have so totally filled my quota of Dani Peters.”
I laughed. I’d filled my quota for the summer after five minutes.
“Sure.” The answer came easier than it should have. What was wrong with me?
I called Ian before I could change my mind. There was a wild moment of uncertainty when he answered, because for a second I wasn’t sure if he was Ian or Luke.
“Ian? It’s Jenna.”
“I was just thinking about you,” he said. He sounded like he was telling the truth.
“Steph and Steven want us to go play laser tag in Middleton,” I explained.
There was a beat of silence, then Ian spoke. “I’d love to see you again, if that’s okay with you.” His sincerity solidified my guilt, especially since, after hearing his voice, I really wanted to see him again too.
“Let me just text Steph and see what time and everything. I’ll let you know.”
An hour later, I was sitting in the back of Steven’s Jeep Cherokee on our way to pick up Ian. Steph and Steven were arguing over the radio station. I chewed on my lip and picked at a hangnail and prayed silently over and over again that Luke wouldn’t be home when I got there.
Steven tapped the horn as soon as we pulled in the driveway, and Ian met us in the front yard. His blue polo shirt made his eyes bluer than I would have thought possible, and he smelled like soap and aftershave. My heart flopped over when he leaned in and kissed my cheek.
It was like he’d been a part of the group since its inception. He teased Steph about her emo choice of music and talked football with Steven until I thought my ears were going to bleed. There were no shadows in his face or disappointment in his eyes. No mocking smile. Instead, there was laughter and possibility and hope. I didn’t have to be a mechanic when I was with Ian; he wasn’t broken.
Middleton was an hour away and our closest link to civilization, but it only pretended it was a city. It had plenty of businesses and a little traffic. There were movies, restaurants, even a community college, but Middleton was still a child, all bony knees and scraped elbows. While it was the biggest place I’d ever been, it was really just an overgrown town that sprawled across more land than it needed. But it wasn’t Solitude, and that fact made it a little endearing.
Ian absorbed everything. He was like a wide-eyed kid looking at Christmas lights. He wanted to know what certain buildings were and how many times I’d been there and why that restaurant had closed if I thought they had the best seasoned fries. I saw Middleton in a whole different way when Ian looked at it, because he really looked at it.
Ian was solid—he was sure about his future, his place, maybe even me. The fact that he’d been tossed into a new environment didn’t seem to unsettle him at all. And while I’d lived around here my whole life, I wasn’t sure about anything.
The list of things I didn’t want was getting more concrete, while the things I was certain of kept shifting. I didn’t want to settle when I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to wake up twenty years down the road and realize I hadn’t done any of the things I’d said I would. I didn’t want to trade happiness for convenience. I didn’t want to have my choices taken from me or let someone else determine what I ended up being, or let fear keep me from making a fool of myself if that was what I needed to do. And I didn’t want to lose either one of them.
The Middleton Laser Tag Center was in an abandoned Walmart building in the older part of town. A skinny boy with glasses checked our vests and made sure our guns were working. There were two other groups of people going in, all about our age, and Steven took charge like he always did when Kyle wasn’t there to do it for him, declaring it a battle between the sexes. Steph and I were on a team with five other girls, two of which looked slow. I was pretty sure we were going to get our butts kicked.
When the door shut behind us, all I could see was blackness and glowing paint. The boys shouted insults from the other side of the room—they sounded like they’d known each other for years.
We scattered as the buzzer sounded. I tore down a long hallway and cut underneath a bridge. Footsteps pounded in front of me, but a high wall blocked my view, and I didn’t know if it was a teammate or not. I backed up against the wall and held my breath, easing around the corner. I shot a boy I didn’t know and his vest beeped loudly.
“Gotcha!” I laughed. He raised his gun, and I tore off in the other direction.
The room filled with shouts and loud beeps. I didn’t hear Steven creep up behind me, which was a miracle considering how big he was, and he shot me in the back and took off in the other direction before I could shoot him in return.
I found a small fort with a door and a window; it was the perfect place to wait in ambush. I slipped inside and crouched down, listening to the beeps and trying to decide how many points we were behind.
I aimed my gun out the window and shot Steven as he ran by. His shocked look morphed into an arrogant grin. He aimed at me and missed before Steph shot him. He turned and ran after her just about the time Ian snuck into my hideout.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Truce?” he asked. He eased closer to me, ducking his head toward mine. “At least long enough for me to get a kiss?” he murmured.
I grinned. “Not a chance.” His vest beeped as I shot him in the chest and climbed out the window.
It was glorious sprinting through the dark. I pounded up ramps and across bridges, neon paint a blur as I whipped around corners. I earned more points for our team than I lost.
“You’re dead,” Steven said as he shot me again. Before I could raise my gun, he sped off.
I flung myself into a black corner at the back of the room, stalking him. He was quick. I heard him tear after another girl on our team, and I waited for him to come back around.
I was standing in almost total darkness. There wasn’t any paint on this part of the course, and the only light was the occasional glow from the team base when someone earned a point. When I thought I heard Steven coming, I leaned away from the wall and poked my head out to look.
Someone stepped right up behind me. Strong arms encircled my waist, and a hand clamped down over my mouth. He dragged me around the corner and turned me around, pressing my back against the wall.
He put his hands on either side of my head and leaned in. “Surrender,” Ian whispered in my ear. He brushed his lips across my neck.
“Never,” I told him. My voice was breathy and rough.
His lips were a whisper on my jaw.
“Is this your idea of coercion?” I teased.
He kissed me then, deep and real, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me into him. I put my arms around his neck, my gun clattering to the floor, and curled the fingers of my right hand around the hair at his collar. I forgot about the game.
It was Ian who pulled out of the kiss, his forehead against my forehead, nose to nose. He put his gun against my chest and pulled the trigger. My vest lit up and beeped, and the alarm went off on the boys’ side, signaling their win and casting a bluish glow over us.
“Game over,” he said. His wicked smile was just like Luke’s. Same scar. Same reflection. I wondered what else they shared. Besides me.
The restaurant was crowded and we had to wait thirty minutes for a table. Steven kept replaying our victory and Steph argued with his assessment. I held Jenna’s hand and snuck glances at her when she wasn’t looking.
The hostess finally squeezed us into a tiny table near the bathrooms, which didn’t bother me since that meant I was forced to sit close to Jenna. Her leg ran the length of mine underneath the table, and our arms kept bumping into each other. I couldn’t forget the shape of her lips in the dark. I refused to let that one disappear into the folds in my memory.
The restaurant had gotten noisy by the time the waitress brought our order, especially a group of adults at the bar who were laughing loud enough that we had to lean in to hear each other. Jenna’s hair kept brushing across my face. I wasn’t complaining.
“Jenna,” Steven said, pointing over to the group, “isn’t that your mom?”
Jenna’s face went still. There was absolutely no expression in her eyes as she stared at her mom, who had just leaned out from behind a post. Shot glasses were upside-down in front of her. When I reached under the table and squeezed her knee, Jenna turned to me and forced a smile. “She’s going through a phase,” she said. “We keep thinking she’ll grow out of it.”
But I could tell Jenna was upset. She got quieter as the group got louder.
We were waiting on the check when Vivian spotted us. She was headed to the bathroom, her heels tapping over the restaurant noise. Her eyes got big when she saw Jenna. She smiled, then stopped and leaned against the back of our booth.
“Jenna! And Ian! What are you guys doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing,” Jenna said, her teeth clenched.
Vivian dismissed Jenna’s tone with the wave of a manicured hand. “Oh, I’m just hanging out with some friends.”
Jenna eyed the table. “I don’t recognize any of them.”
Vivian ignored her. “Steph! I sure haven’t seen you around much. How’s the squad?”
“Great, thanks. We’re going to Florida for camp this year.” She looked excited about it.
“When I was captain,” Vivian sniffed, “we always went to camp at the university. It definitely wasn’t a vacation. But we were good back then. Disciplined. That was the best time of my life.” She eyed us grimly. “Enjoy it while you can.” She turned to Steven. “Now aren’t you William Nelson’s son?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Steven, is it?” When he nodded, she winked at him. “I think Jenna had a little crush on you in middle school.”
“Mom, please.” Jenna didn’t sound so much embarrassed as angry.
“Oh Jenna, Ian doesn’t mind. And a little healthy competition never hurt anyone.”
Jenna tensed. “You should probably get back to your friends,” she said.
Vivian waved her hand again. “They’ll wait. Now Steph, your hair is always so beautiful. You’ll have to tell Jenna your secret. She obviously can’t do a thing with hers.”
Steph looked uncomfortable. “I don’t do much with it,” she said. “Just good genes, I guess.”
“Oh, Jenna has plenty of those.” She laughed. “Though sometimes you can’t tell.”
Jenna’s face was steel, and anyone looking at her would think she wasn’t in the least bit bothered by her inconsiderate mother. It was obvious to me the comments had more to do with Vivian’s insecurity than any of Jenna’s flaws. Vivian had spent her life being the center of attention and didn’t know what to do when she wasn’t. It had nothing to do with Jenna, so she shouldn’t have taken it personally. But her leg was trembling next to mine.