Spiraling (6 page)

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It’s just…sometimes I don’t think—”

“You didn’t do anything.” He smiled, touching my hand.

I looked up at him, staring into his deep blue eyes. Suddenly, the automatic movement of air through my lungs stopped. Everything stopped. The cool wind that had brushed my cheek all afternoon was gone. Complete stillness surrounded me. It was as if the universe had paused to take notice of our moment. Then he pulled his hand away.

“I should get going,” he said. “I have to be at work by four.”

I exhaled and nodded. “Ok. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

As soon as he left, I walked inside. My brain was too fragmented to form any rational thoughts, so I tossed my bag at the bottom of the stairs and went into the kitchen. Ice cream sounded good. I pulled the quart-sized container out of the freezer, grabbed a spoon, and sat down at the bar.

Everything was so messed up. My house was a war zone, my best friend hated me, and my boyfriend couldn’t have cared less about me. I had no idea what was going on with Devon. He acted like he wanted to be more than friends, but at the same time, he had a girlfriend. I felt like I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of disappointment. There was always something stopping me from getting what I wanted.

As I walked out of algebra, the sound of Jeremiah Turley’s obnoxious laughter overwhelmed me. I looked toward the noise and spotted the out-crowd gathered by the vending machines. They were all laughing, but Jeremiah’s baritone voice carried farther than any of the others.

Moving cautiously through the commons area, I could feel the weight of eyes on the back of my neck. With a quick glance, I discovered the dark-haired girl and one of her friends glaring at me. I still didn’t know who the dark-haired girl was aside from a few rumors about her promiscuity, but I recognized her friend from detention. She was the girl that had informed me of the rules the first day. I didn’t want to invite unwanted attention, so I diverted my eyes the second I saw her. The last thing I wanted was another verbal lashing.

When I got to my locker, Kennedy and Jason were there. I attempted to interject myself into their conversation, but they weren’t interested in any additional input. Kennedy rolled her eyes at me. Then they both turned their backs.

“Okay.” I sighed.

I retrieved my books, closed my locker, and walked away. When I returned to the main hall, the commons area bustled with people. The deviants had moved on and a group of football players hyped-up on testosterone were making a lot of noise. I looked at them as I strolled past, annoyed by their idiocy. They somewhat resembled a troop of apes, bounding around and smacking each other on the back. I didn’t understand jock behavior. If any other group of people had acted the way they did, we would have branded them savages and cast them out of civilized society. Yet, having athletic ability seemed to exclude some people from the rules the rest of us had to follow.

Turning my attention back to the hallway in front of me, I noticed that Devon was only a few feet ahead. I hadn’t seen him since Friday. When he hadn’t been at his locker all day, I assumed he wasn’t at school, but obviously I’d been mistaken. I quickened my pace to catch up with him. He squinted at a sheet of notebook paper and didn’t notice that I’d joined him until I said hello.

He smiled at me as he folded up the paper and put it in his back pocket. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Just headed home,” I said. “What’s up with you?”

“Not much.”

“I didn’t think you were here. I haven’t seen you around the last couple days.”

“I have in-school suspension all week.”

“Oh.”

He smirked. “Did you miss me?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I was just curious where you were.”

“Sure.” He chuckled. “So, how’s your day been going?”

“All right. Nothing terrible has happened.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

As we approached the double doors at the end of the hall, I reached for the handle, but he grabbed it before I could. When he pulled it open, a sudden blast of heat hit me. It had warmed up since that morning and we were both drastically overdressed for the weather. Stepping through the open door, I moved to the side and set my bag on the ground. My heavy knit sweater had to go. There was no way I was walking all the way home in it. I’d have a heat stroke before I made it across the parking lot.

Devon followed me through the door and slipped off his black leather jacket. When he did, his left shirt sleeve was pushed up and I spotted something on his arm. I tried to get a better look at it without making it obvious, but he straightened his sleeve before I had the chance. Then he gave me a nod that said “See you later” and started away. Sighing loudly, I picked up my bag and put it back on my shoulder. It was heavy with another long night of homework.

“You sure everything’s okay?” Devon turned back around.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“All right. See you then.”

I watched discreetly as he walked over to where the miscreants had gathered near a green pickup truck. Jake Wilson sat on the tailgate smoking a cigarette as if it were perfectly acceptable behavior on school grounds. I looked around to see if one of the teachers would notice, but there weren’t any. When I turned back to the green truck, Devon was next to Jake with a cigarette of his own.

“Oh, my God!” Kennedy screeched as she raced through the doors and stampeded into my line of vision. “Tori, you will never believe what happened.” She paused to catch her breath. “Jason asked me out! Can you believe it?”

“That’s great, Kenn,” I replied half-heartedly.

“You could at least
try
to be happy for me,” she said.

“I
am
happy for you. I just kind of have my own stuff going on right now.”

“You mean like that loser skank you’ve been talking to?”

I looked squarely at her. “Devon’s
not
a skank.”

“Come on, Tori, he dresses like his mom shops at Homeless R’ Us.”

“No, he doesn’t. Just because he doesn’t look like everybody else doesn’t make him a skank. He has his own style.”

“What’s that ‘Vagrant meets Future Drop-out’?” She scoffed. “Did you know he’s on probation?”

“Yeah. So what? He’s still a nice guy.”

“A nice guy on
probation
. Do you really want to go out with a criminal?”

“We’re just friends,” I said.

“It doesn’t look that way,” she replied. “Amanda Long said she saw you talking to him after school on Friday.”

“The operative word there is
talking
. Who cares if we were
talking
?”

“Chad does. He’s getting pretty upset about all the rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“People are saying you’ve been seeing that guy behind Chad’s back. Everybody was talking about it at Camber’s party. A couple people said you weren’t there because you were with that loser.”

I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous. I was grounded all weekend and even if I hadn’t been, there’s nothing going on with me and Devon. He has a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, and you have a boyfriend. That hasn’t stopped you from flirting with him though, has it?”

“Flirting isn’t cheating.”

“As long as that’s all that’s going on.”

“It is,” I said. “Come on, Kenn. You’re my best friend. You should know me better than that. I’m not cheating on Chad. If I was, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“Maybe,” she replied.

“I would.”

“Fine, but you should still be careful. You don’t want people to think you’re a slut.”

“Okay, Kennedy.” I looked away and rolled my eyes.

I should have paid more attention to what she said, but I was more annoyed than concerned. It wasn’t the first time rumors had spread about me. I assumed people would figure out they weren’t true and the gossip would die down like it usually did. The only problem with that theory was that fires keep spreading as long as they’re being fed. I didn’t stay away from Devon like Kennedy suggested. Instead, I did the opposite. I created opportunities to bump into him. However brief our interactions, they were the best parts of my day. Seeing him gave me something to look forward to when everything else in my life sucked.

“Hey,” Devon walked around me and opened his locker.

“Hi.” I smiled.

“You going to the game tomorrow night?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Are you?”

“Yeah. The guys want to go.”

“Oh,
the guys
want to go. Do you do everything
the guys
want to do?”

He looked at me. “No. Do you do everything
your friends
want to do?”

“Sometimes.” I shrugged. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“What they want to do.”

“Makes sense.” He chuckled.

I put my bag on my shoulder, shut my locker, and turned toward him. “Is this the first game you’ve gone to?”

“Yeah. High school football’s not really my thing.”

“Why not? You could be a football player.”

“Could I?” He shut his locker.

I walked beside him as he started out of the wall. “Yeah. You’re bigger than a lot of the guys on the team, and I’m sure you could play better. It wouldn’t be hard. Last week, Tim Gholston fumbled the ball three times before Coach finally took him out.”

“Who’s Tim Gholston?”

“Number thirty-five. He’s a wide receiver, but he should really be a cornerback because he’s fast. He just can’t catch or hang on to the ball to save his life.”

“You know a lot about football, don’t you?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “My brother used to play.”

“Chris played football?” He smiled.

I nodded. “Until last year. He made the varsity team, but he didn’t want to play anymore, so he quit.”

He shook his head and opened the door leading outside. “I didn’t picture Chris as a jock.”

I walked through the door. “He used to love sports. He played basketball and wrestled, too. So did Jake. Well, Jake played football and basketball. I don’t think he ever wrestled.”

Devon chuckled. “Jake Wilson?”

“Yes, Jake Wilson.”

“That’s funny.”

“Did
you
ever play any sports?”

“No.” He shook his head. Then he narrowed his eyes as if he’d thought of something. “Actually, yeah, I did. I played baseball when I was nine.”

“Were you good at it?”

He chuckled. “Not even a little bit.”

“I suck at sports, too.” I smiled. “I’m probably the most uncoordinated person on the planet.”

“Is that why you’re not a cheerleader?”

“Pretty much. My mom made me take ballet classes when I was five. She thought they would make me more graceful, but I was so terrible, the instructor made me a tree at the recital so that I wouldn’t have to move very much.”

“I’m sure you were the best tree there.”

“I was the
only
tree. Everybody else got to be swans. Except Kenn, she was a princess.”

“Were you jealous?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I hated ballet. I didn’t even want to be in the recital, but my mom said I had to go. It wasn’t all bad, though. After the recital, Camber’s mom took everyone to get ice cream.”

“Camber? Isn’t she that anorexic bitch that’s always running her mouth at pep rallies?”

“Camber’s not anorexic, but yeah, she’s captain of the cheer squad.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult one of your friends.”

“She’s not my friend. I
can’t stand
Camber. She told Taylor that Angie slept with her boyfriend, Aaron. Now everybody’s mad at Angie and she didn’t even do anything. The whole thing was that Dustin blew off Miranda to go out with Angie and Miranda and Camber are best friends, so Camber thought that if she told everyone Angie was sleeping around that Dustin wouldn’t want to go out with her anymore, but it didn’t really work out that way.”

I paused to take a breath and realized that I had lost Devon’s attention. His eyes were focused on something on the other end of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry,” I said and he looked at me. “You couldn’t care less about any of this, huh?”

“It’s all right,” he replied. “Go on. What happened?”

Although I knew his interest wasn’t genuine, I went on as we continued across the parking lot and away from the school. By the time we reached my street, I had filled him in on every snippet of gossip from the last week.

“You’re just a powder keg of information, aren’t you?” He chuckled.

“I’m not sure what a powder keg is, but sure,” I said. “What about you? Anything interesting happening with
the guys
?”

“You aren’t going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope.” I shook my head and laughed. “Not a chance.”

We stopped at the end of my driveway. I glanced at the house before turning to look at him. It was the first time I wished I lived farther away from the school so the walk could be longer. I didn’t want him to go.

“I guess we made it,” he said.

“Yep.” I nodded. “Thanks for walking with me.”

“Anytime.” His voice was low, almost a whisper, and he spoke through a soft smile.

Slowly, he leaned closer until I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. My heart raced in anticipation. I’d dreamt of this moment. He put his hand on my cheek and I closed my eyes, turning into his touch. His thumb swept across my soft, pouty lips. Then he kissed me.

It was a gentle kiss, like a delicate breeze, but it stole my breath. Opening my eyes, I blinked a few times. My heart fluttered and I had goosebumps. He was so close that I could see the lines of black running through his irises. His tongue brushed softly against his bottom lip. Then he grabbed my face in his hands and kissed me again.

I put my hands on his chest, pushed myself onto my toes, and kissed him back. When his tongue touched my upper lip, I opened my mouth. Unlike the mechanical way Chad French kissed and my eighth grade boyfriend’s slobbery attempt at it, Devon knew what he was doing. His tongue massaged mine instead of assaulting it. I never wanted it to end, but he pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. “I don’t mind, really.”

He brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek. We stared at each other for what felt like hours, but was likely only a few seconds. The tiny voice in my head that steered me away from trouble prompted me to walk away. Yet, my feet didn’t move.

“I should go,” he said as if he were trying to convince himself.

“You don’t have to,” I replied.

“I should. I have to go to work.”

“All right.” I sighed. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitated for a moment longer before he turned away. Running his fingers through his hair, he glanced back at me as he walked past the neighbor’s house. He smiled. Then he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.

I stood where he’d left me until he was at the end of the street. Once he’d gone around the corner, I went inside and picked up the phone to call Kennedy. I knew she’d disapprove, but I felt like I would explode if I didn’t tell someone. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. Her mom said she’d gone to the mall with some of the other girls from school. She promised to have Kennedy call, but I wasn’t surprised when the phone didn’t ring.

After I’d gotten the twins to bed and done my chores, I attempted to finish my homework, but my mind wouldn’t focus well enough for any of it to make sense. The only thing I could think about was Devon and the kiss. I desperately wanted to talk to someone about it, even if just to get it out of my system. The whole thing had completely thrown me for a loop. I wasn’t sure what to do. Breaking up with Chad was obvious, but there was still Devon’s girlfriend to think about.

What if he doesn’t break up with her?
I thought.
What if he doesn’t want to be more than friends and the kiss was a regrettable impromptu mistake? No. It couldn’t have been. He kissed me twice. He wanted to kiss me. That doesn’t mean he liked it, though. I don’t exactly have a lot of experience. I might be terrible at it. Maybe Chad isn’t a terrible kisser. Maybe
I
am.

Setting my textbooks to the side, I took some paper and colored pencils out of my desk drawer. The sound of the pencils scratching the thick paper helped calm my nerves. Slowly, the chaos in my brain went from apocalyptic thunderstorm to light rain. I fell asleep with a pencil still in my hand, hoping the morning would bring more answers.

“Are you and Chad going to the mall with everybody tomorrow?” Kennedy asked.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.

“Why not?”

“Because I think I’m going to break up with him.”

She jerked her head so fast I was amazed she didn’t give herself whiplash. “Why on Earth would you do that?”

“Some stuff has happened and—”

“This is because of that stoner creep, isn’t it? You
have
been seeing him behind Chad’s back, haven’t you?”

“No.” I scrunched my brow. “Devon and I are just friends.”

“You keep saying that, but you don’t act like he’s
just
a friend. You’re always flirting with him and now you want to break up with Chad because of him.”

“
Devon
doesn’t have anything to do with it,” I lied. “I want to break up with Chad because
Chad
is a jerk.”

“No, he’s not.” She shook her head. “All boyfriends have moments when they’re complete idiots, but Chad is
not
a jerk. He really likes you. He told Jason he just doesn’t know what you want because you’re never happy about anything he does. I really think you should stop being so hard on the guy. It’s not like you’re going to find anybody better.”

I rolled my eyes. “There are tons of guys better than Chad.”

“Do you really want to go back to being a Nobody? Because if you break up with Chad, that’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to be a
No
body with
no
friends and
no
life. I’m sorry, Tori, but I
really
don’t want to go back to being a loser.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked. “It’s not like I’m
some
body now.”

“Sure, you are.” She smiled. “You’re Chad Jenkins’ girlfriend. Everybody knows you.”

I sighed. Being known as Chad Jenkins’ girlfriend wasn’t my idea of fame. It was like being Chris Douglas’ sister or Kennedy Phillips’ friend. When people only know you because of your relationship to someone else, they don’t know you at all.

Walking into the side hall, I saw Devon standing at his locker and paused for a moment. Absentmindedly, I put my hand to my lips. It was impossible to look at him without thinking about the way he’d kissed me and how much I wanted it to happen again. When he glanced at me, I pretended to yawn. Then I put my hand down, smiled, and continued to my locker.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he replied indifferently.

I looked at him. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Why would there be?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.

He closed his locker and turned toward me. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Without giving me the chance to reply, he walked around me and out of the hall. I had no idea what his problem was, but for the rest of the morning, he didn’t say more than a handful of words to me. He claimed that he was busy. I doubted that was true. From the way his friends kept looking at me, I got the feeling there was more to the story. He just didn’t want to tell me.