I didn’t think the final bell would ever ring. Calculus was excruciatingly long and boring, and English was nerve-racking. I caught myself glancing across the room at Wesley several times, anxious to feel the mind-numbing effects of his arms, hands, and lips again.
I just prayed my friends didn’t notice. Jessica, of course, would believe me if I told her she was imagining things; Casey, on the other hand… well, hopefully Casey was too absorbed in Mrs. Perkins’s grammar lesson—ha, yeah right!—to look over at me. She would probably interrogate me for hours and guess everything that had happened, seeing right through my denials. I really needed to get the hell out of there before I was exposed.
But when the bell finally rang, I was in no hurry to walk outside.
Jessica skipped toward the cafeteria with her blond ponytail bouncing behind her. “I can’t wait to see him!”
“We get it, Jess,” Casey said. “You love your big brother. It’s cute, really, but you’ve said that… twenty times today? Thirty, maybe?”
Jessica blushed. “Well, I can’t wait.”
“Of course you can’t.” Casey smiled at her. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, too, but you might want to calm down just a tiny bit.” She stopped in the middle of the cafeteria and looked over her shoulder at me. “You coming, B?”
“No,” I said, crouching down and messing with my shoestrings. “I need to… tie this. You guys go ahead. Don’t stall the reunion for me.”
Casey gave me a knowing look before nodding and pushing Jessica ahead. She started a new conversation to distract Jessica from my lame excuse. “So tell me about this fiancée. What’s she like? Pretty? Dumb as a sack of potatoes? I want the details.”
I waited in the cafeteria for a good twenty minutes, not wanting to chance seeing him in the parking lot. How funny that, less than seven hours earlier, I’d been avoiding a completely different guy… one I was now desperate to see. As sick and twisted as it was, I couldn’t wait to be back in Wesley’s bedroom. Back on my own private island getaway. Back in my world of escape. But first I had to wait until Jake Gaither drove out of the parking lot.
When I felt confident that he’d gone, I walked out of the school, pulling my coat tight around me. The February wind bit at my face as I moved across
the empty parking lot, and the sight of my heat-challenged car didn’t hold any comfort. I slid into the driver’s seat, shivering like crazy, and started the engine. The ride home seemed to take hours even though Hamilton High was only about four miles from my house.
I’d just started to wonder if I could go to Wesley’s house a few hours early when I pulled into my driveway and remembered my dad. Oh, great. His car was in the driveway, but he shouldn’t have been home from work yet.
“Damn it!” I wailed, punching the steering wheel and jumping like an idiot when the horn sounded. “Damn it! Damn it!”
Guilt surged through me. How could I forget about Dad? Poor, lonely, barricaded-in-his-bedroom Dad? I worried as I climbed out of the car and trudged up the sidewalk that he might still be in his room. If he was, would I have to break down the door? Then what? Yell at him? Cry with him? Tell him that Mom didn’t deserve him? What was the right answer?
But Dad was sitting on the couch when I walked inside, a bowl of popcorn in his lap. I hesitated in the doorway, not sure what the hell was going on. He looked… normal. He didn’t look like he’d been crying or drinking or anything. He just looked like my dad with his thick-rimmed glasses and untidy auburn hair. The same way I saw him every other day of the week.
“Hey, Bumblebee,” he said, looking up at me. “Want some popcorn?
There’s a Clint Eastwood movie on AMC.”
“Um… no thanks.” I looked around the room. No broken glass. No beer bottles. Like he hadn’t been drinking that day at all. I wondered if that was it. If the relapse was over. Did relapses work that way? I had no clue. But I couldn’t help feeling wary. “Dad, are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” he said. “I woke up late this morning, so I just called work and told them I was sick. I haven’t taken any of my vacation days, so it’s not a big deal.”
I glanced into the kitchen. The manila envelope still sat on the kitchen table. Untouched.
He must have followed my gaze, or guessed, because he said with a shrug, “Oh, those stupid papers! You know, they had me in such a fit. I finally thought about it and realized that they’re just a mistake. Your mom’s lawyer heard she’d been gone a little longer than usual this time and jumped the gun.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“No,” Dad admitted. “But I’m sure that’s the problem. It must be. Nothing to worry about, Bumblebee. How was your day?”
“It was good.”
We were both lying, but I knew that my words weren’t true. He, on the
other hand, seemed genuinely convinced. How could I remind him that Mom’s signature was on the papers? How could I bring him back to reality? That would only drive him into his bedroom again—or send him in search of a bottle—and ruin this moment of manufactured peace.
And I didn’t want to be the one to fuck up my dad’s sobriety.
Shock, I decided as I walked up the stairs to my bedroom. He was simply in shock. But the denial wouldn’t last long. Eventually he’d wake up. I just hoped he’d do it with grace.
I stretched out on my bed with my calculus book in front of me, trying to do homework I really didn’t understand. My eyes kept jumping to the alarm clock on my nightstand. 3:28… 3:31… 3:37… Minutes ticked by, and math problems blurred into patterns of unidentifiable symbols, like ancient runes. Finally I slammed the book shut and conceded defeat.
This was sick. I should not have been thinking of Wesley. I shouldn’t have been kissing Wesley. I shouldn’t have been sleeping with Wesley. Hell, barely a week earlier I would have thought speaking to him was horrific. But the more my world spun, the more appealing he became. Don’t get me wrong, I still hated him with a passion. His arrogance made me want to scream, but his ability to free me—if only temporarily—from my problems left me high. He was my drug. Seriously sick.
Even more sick was the way I lied to Casey about it when she called at five-thirty.
“Hey, are you okay? Oh my God, I can’t believe Jake’s back. Are you, like, flipping out? Do you need me to come over?”
“No.” I was feeling jumpy, still glancing at the clock every few minutes. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t bottle it up, B,” she urged. “I’m not. I’m fine.”
“I’m coming over,” she said.
“No,” I said quickly. “Don’t. There’s no reason to.”
There was silence for a second, and when Casey spoke again, she sounded kind of hurt. “Okay… but, I mean, even if we didn’t talk about Jake, we could just hang out or whatever.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I, um…” It was five-thirty-three. Still an hour before I could leave for Wesley’s. But I couldn’t tell Casey that. Never. “I’m thinking I might go to bed early tonight.”
“What?”
“I stayed up way too late last night watching, um… a movie. I’m exhausted.”
She knew I was lying. It was pretty obvious. But she didn’t question me.
Instead, she just said, “Well… fine, I guess. But maybe tomorrow? Or this weekend? You really do need to talk about it, B. Even if you don’t think you need to. Just because he’s Jessica’s brother…”
At least she thought I was lying to cover up my issues with Jake. I’d rather she think that than know the truth.
God, I was such a shitty friend. But Wesley was just something I had to lie about. To everyone.
When six-forty-five finally rolled around, I grabbed my coat and raced downstairs, already pulling my car keys out of my pocket. I found Dad in the kitchen, microwaving some Pizza Rolls. He smiled at me as I put on my gloves. “Hey, Dad,” I said. “I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going, Bumblebee?”
Oh, uh, good question. This was a problem I hadn’t anticipated, but when all else fails, tell the truth… or part of it at least.
“I’m going to Wesley Rush’s house. We’re working on a paper for English class. I won’t be home late or anything.” Oh, please, I thought. Please don’t let my cheeks turn red.
“Alright,” Dad said, “Have fun with Wesley.”
I bolted out of the kitchen, my cheeks burning. “Bye, Dad!”
Practically racing to my car, I reminded myself not to speed as I merged onto the highway. Getting my first ticket because of Wesley Rush would be a line too far.
Not that I hadn’t crossed plenty already.
But seriously, what was I doing? I’d always made fun of the girls who hooked up with Wesley, and now I was turning into one of them. I tried to justify it—those girls thought they stood a chance with him, that he was attractive and worth their time. And, yeah, he was hot in that aggravating way. They believed they could change him. I, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was: a complete jerk. I didn’t want his heart, just his body. No strings, no emotions, just the rush.
Did that make me both a junkie and a slut?
Pulling up in front of his massive house, I convinced myself I was justified. People use weed for medicinal reasons; this wasn’t all that different. If I didn’t have Wesley as a distraction, I’d lose my mind. I was saving myself from a mental breakdown and a mountain of therapy bills.
I walked to the door and rang the bell. A second later, I heard the lock click. Wesley’s smirking face greeted me as the door opened, and in that moment, despite all my excuses, I knew this was a terrible idea. Twisted. Gross. Wrong on every level.
And completely exhilarating.
