Foster stroked pacifying patterns on my back, giving us time to regroup, or in my case, reload.
I pushed away the way I’d pull off a Band-Aid. “Why?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Maybe we just needed to get it out of our system?”
“I don’t think kissing you will make it anything but harder. Feel free to notice the double entendre there at the end.”
There was something really sexy about a guy who could speak to me in literary terms.
He exhaled harshly and bent his head, rubbing the tense muscles at the back of his neck. The impulse to place a soft kiss at the exposed skin rocked me. When had I become someone I didn’t know or understand?
He finally spoke, and his words shifted the tectonic plates under my feet. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my system in ten years.”
Despite my heart slamming against my chest like a paddle ball, I teased him. “AP English but remedial math, huh? It may seem like ten years but—”
“It was a Wednesday.” He raised his head and pinned me with a dark gaze.
“What was a Wednesday?”
“It smelled like someone in the neighborhood was burning leaves. The air was crisp, but the sun felt really warm. You had messy braids and you were wearing a leopard-print jacket with black fur trim on the cuffs and collar.”
I didn’t trust my voice, but I remembered my favorite coat quite clearly. I was seven.
He rubbed his face absently while looking into a faraway place that only he could see. “There were four or five of us sitting under the dome monkey bars, and we were talking about what we were going to be when we grew up. Michelle…something—I can’t remember her last name—said she wanted to be the president, and Cody Calloway told her he didn’t think that girls were allowed to be presidents. Out of nowhere, you exploded on him with this perfect left hook.” Foster laughed at the memory. “You just clocked him in the cheek. You stood up with your hands on your hips, and you told him, ‘You take that back, Cody Calloway. Girls can be anything they want to be.’ Your cheeks were flushed, and you were filled with all this righteous anger.” Foster looked at me. “Do you remember that?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. My voice… Where was my voice? I cleared my throat. “Of course I remember that. I couldn’t go to recess for two weeks because he told on me.”
I still didn’t know what this was about, but Foster was sort of lost in his hazy memory. He smiled and began again. “I went home that day, and I wrote your name over and over on a piece of paper. I must have written it a hundred times. My mom found the paper a few days later in my sock drawer. She asked me why I’d done that…”
I wanted to know why more than anything I’d ever remembered wanting, but a part of me hoped he’d chicken out.
“I told her I liked the way your name made my heart jump.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I gasped his name. Here I thought his kisses turned my world upside down. I didn’t realize his raw heart could unarm me so easily after all the years of building my arsenal of defensive weapons.
Could it be that easy? In all the things I imagined, I never gave myself the room to fantasize about something healthy, a real relationship with him. Why was it that the scariest emotions I’d ever had were the honest ones?
“Foster, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”
“If we were seven, you would throw me a left hook.”
I laughed through tears.
He reached across us to gently wipe the ones that had fallen. “If we were in a movie, the music would swell and we’d rush into a perfect kiss while the credits roll and the camera pans away.” His hand fell to his side and his face cemented into the mask of the hardened boy I’d known for four years. “Since it’s us, we’ll circle like boxers in a ring until one of us remembers the distrust. You’ll look at me with eyes full of doubt and wariness, and I’ll say something insulting to you so you feel justified.”
“Foster…” It was too late. I knew it as soon as he’d dropped his hand.
“You have a piece of lettuce in your teeth. See you tomorrow.”
Chapter Eleven
Mr. October
“You look worse today than you did when you had two black eyes.”
“Why, thank you, Tyler. You always say the sweetest things.”
He wasn’t wrong. Sleep and I were no longer on speaking terms, because every time I went to sleep, I dreamed The kinds of dreams that woke me up, my heart racing and my skin bathed in cold sweat. I didn’t even know what happened in the dreams—I could recollect nothing but the edges of terror that stuck with me long after the lights came back on.
That night, I just didn’t bother shutting my eyes.
“You’re still having those nightmares, aren’t you?”
I nodded and stirred my yogurt aimlessly with no real interest in eating. That was the second thing to go.
“You should talk to someone,” Tyler said, his voice lower than normal. Like I was a scared animal he was coaxing into the open.
“I’m pretty sure I’m talking to you. Are you not someone?”
He sighed, and I felt bad. He only wanted to help me. I knew that. I loved him for caring.
My concern over the state of my health carried over to the state of my brain. The dreams reminded me of my anxiety attack at the roller rink. My head seemed intent on dredging up old memories better left alone, and it wasn’t a giant leap to assume it had something to do with the all the guy angst I’d allowed into my life lately.
I’d successfully avoided Foster and Micah for several days. Which also meant I avoided the newsroom, the bathroom, and had skipped two classes. I was phoning in my work and holding my bladder, and I’ll admit to being a little put out that neither of the guys seemed to care. But tonight was date night—some demons had to be faced.
The bell rang and Tyler kissed the top of my head and took my barely touched lunch tray for me. On my way to class, I somehow detoured to the other side of campus and found myself staring at the guidance counselor’s office door. I hadn’t meant to. I would never consciously choose to talk to someone about…me.
But I was there, wasn’t I?
A deep breath gave me the fortitude to rap my knuckles on her door, but I chickened out and pivoted to run away and instead ran smack into Ms. Lowell herself.
“Hello, Layney. What a nice surprise.”
“Um. Hi.” Internal debate: Lie or run? Lie or run?
Ms. Lowell held up a bag of doughnuts. “I’m glad you are here. I couldn’t decide between chocolate and jelly, and I know better than to eat both. Come tell me why you’re here and I’ll split them between us.”
I followed her into the office. Lie won, I guess, as run seemed a touch dramatic by this point.
Ms. Lowell had only been at our school for two years, so she didn’t exude that aura of jadedness a lot of the staff developed after years of working in a high school. And she dressed like any minute she was moving to SoHo—an eclectic, funky mix of clothes that I would have loved to be able to pull off, though I lacked the vision.
And part of me loved that she always had a pencil sticking out of her crazy curls. It appealed to me that she felt the need to be prepared to write something at a moment’s notice, as I shared that urge but opted to use my pockets for writing instruments.
She cut the doughnuts and chattered at me, not once asking why I wasn’t in class. Which was good, since I didn’t know. By the time she sat down and delved into her sugar rush, I had formulated a plausible plan.
“Ms. Lowell, I’m doing a story about a sensitive subject, and want to make sure I’m not giving misguided advice or anything.”
“Okay,” she mumbled through a mouthful of pastry. She pushed the plate of them toward me. “But please eat some of these.”
I took the smallest piece, not that I didn’t love unhealthy food. I just really wasn’t hungry.
“How can I help?”
Ticktock. A cold wave rushed from my head to my toes, and I knew I wasn’t ready yet. But she was staring at me with that concerned look, warm feelings emanating at me from across her desk. I suddenly felt just as trapped as I did in my nightmares.
But I really didn’t want to live my life this way anymore either. Being afraid of warm feelings—or even feelings in general—was stunting my growth.
“Actually, it’s not a story.”
Lie or run
. “My friend has a secret. It’s a big one. But she won’t tell me or anyone about it. Is that going go make her go crazy or something? I mean, if she just pretends it isn’t there, can she still have a normal life?”
“Sometimes, talking about our fears can lessen the fear. I can’t say she’ll never have a normal life, but I think her life would be better without the burden of keeping a big secret all by herself, don’t you?”
Easy, Layney. This woman knows all the tricks. “I don’t know. I mean, she said it happened to her a long time ago. And that she thought the worst of it was over—she never thinks about it anymore. She’d moved on, totally. But lately, she’s been having bad dreams.”
Ms. Lowell stopped eating. Elbows on the table, she propped her head on her hands. “When something bad happens to us, especially when we are young, our brains will sometimes protect us from it until we are strong enough to deal with the issue. It’s not uncommon for people to completely black out an experience for years and revisit it only when they feel safe enough to face it.”
“So, she’s strong enough now?” That sucked. The universe seemed pretty unfair.
Glad you’re over your trauma, kid. Have some nightmares on the house.
“If she’s ready to face it, does she have to, like, talk about it?”
“Repressing is a natural instinct, but it doesn’t allow for healing. Coming out of repression can be very similar to reliving the original fear. I’m sure not everyone who needs help gets the help they need, and that may not necessarily mean they won’t be okay. But it sure is a lot easier. I’d suggest that you tell your friend to open up to someone. A parent, a friend, and adult she trusts, maybe a professional if she’d feel better telling her secret to someone she doesn’t know. But I’d say she is ready to tell someone.”
“Why?”
“She told you she had a secret, and she asked for advice. It sounds to me like she knows she can’t do this alone and is ready to at least start opening up.”
Not so sure about that. “I’ll see if I can convince her. You’ve been a lot of help.” I pushed away from the desk and uneaten doughnut.
“Wait.” Ms. Lowell pulled out her pad of hall passes and scribbled me a note to get back to class. “Layney, please tell your friend that I would be happy to talk to her at any time if she feels comfortable with me. In fact”—she wrote her number on the back of a business card—“please give her my cell-phone number in case she wants to talk after school hours. Or weekends.”
The light of recognition shone in her eyes. She knew. She knew the secret was mine. Of course she knew. Just as I knew taking that card from her outstretched hand meant one more rung into the abyss. But I took it and I nodded. Then I fled.
I thought all day about what she said. Maybe I could just tell
one
person. But who? I got home at six and found my mother cooking dinner in the kitchen, where she spent the bulk of her time. Mom is a foodie.
I adored my mom, but we were so different. She had wanted children desperately but didn’t get pregnant until she was forty-five and Dad was fifty. During the long wait, she baked. A lot. She bakes when she’s happy. She bakes when she’s sad…worried, frustrated. Her oven is to her what written words are to me.
Despite my long-awaited conception, my folks didn’t suffocate me with the over-adoration some people might have succumbed to. They gave me a longer leash than a lot of my peers.
And they went to bed early.
“How was school today?” she asked.
Horrible
. “Fine. I have an interview tonight. How was home?”
“It was a good day. Can you set the table, sweetheart?”
I nodded, stopping at the cabinets next to her. “Hey, Mom…I was wondering…um.” She looked up from chopping salad veggies, her face so open and sincere.
I just couldn’t.
“I was wondering what you want for Christmas.”
She rolled her eyes. “Heavens, Layney. Christmas is months away.”
“Yeah.”
My heart raced and my hands shook while I tried to place the plates gently. This was crazy. She was my mother. She would understand. Logical Layney knew that. Layney Unhinged, however, was apparently in control right then—and very out of control.
I retreated to my room until Mom texted me that dinner was done. My stomach fluttered, and the thought of pot roast churned all the acid into sludge.
Then the doorbell rang.
“Layney,” Mom called up the stairs. “There’s a boy here to see you.”
Thanks for texting me the dinner message but yelling about the boy, Mom.
Boy?
It couldn’t be Ty. Mom would have used his name. That meant the boy would be unexpected. Micah or Foster? Which one was it? And if I were honest with myself, which one did I want it to be? I mean, if I couldn’t choose neither, of course.
Mom called up again. “Layney, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’ll be right down.”
I checked my reflection, and the mirror showed me a ghost white girl I didn’t recognize. I pinched my cheeks and bit my lip. I saw that in a movie once. I didn’t really notice a difference in my face, though.
I was so not ready to deal with either of them. Micah would be the easiest on my oh-so-fragile psyche right now.
I summoned all my thoughts and energy on Micah. His gorgeous blue eyes, the color of the deepest ocean water. The slow, seductive smile that belonged to a man, not a sixteen-year-old boy. The flash of jewelry in his mouth that never failed to make my insides quiver like JELL-O.
I smiled. See? I could do this. I wasn’t unable to navigate the waters of my own life after all. I was still the captain of this boat.
Micah treated me well. He asked about things that interested me, knew how he felt about me, and best of all, he never kissed another girl while he was my boyfriend.
But as I pushed myself out of my bedroom and toward the stairs, I realized that it was Foster I wanted to see.