A Song for Julia (22 page)

“I know that I will never get involved with someone over lust and attraction. I will never lose control of myself that way again.”

I squeezed the steering wheel hard. “If you’re so damn sure, why the hell won’t you go out with me, then?”

“Because I want you! So bad I can taste it! Because you remind me of him!”

Silence fell in the car. That’s not what I wanted to hear. Seriously, who does? I reminded her of the guy who molested her when she was fourteen? What the hell? That didn’t even make any sense. Okay, I’ll admit, I can be an asshole. I’ve spent most of the last few years avoiding relationships and screwing anything in a skirt. But one thing I never did was force anything, or play stupid power games. You don’t want me? Fine. There are plenty other girls in the crowd.

So what made Julia different?

Part of it was me. I was tired. Tired of waking up with strange girls in my bed. Tired of tense and uncomfortable scenes in the morning. Tired of living like I was still a bug, smoking pot in the Pit at Harvard Square, not giving a shit what came tomorrow. I wanted to have a life that meant something. Call me crazy, but I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to make a difference. No, I wasn’t a cop. I didn’t protect people, or put my life on the line for others. But I felt like I could make a difference with my music. Like I could say something real about the world. And maybe lately, I’d been feeling like I wanted to share that with someone.

Julia struck me the same way. She cared about people; she cared about making a difference. She went out of her way to be kind to my brother, to be a friend to him, when she didn’t have to. She didn’t need me … she didn’t need anyone. She was going to make her own choices in life. And that was damn attractive.

I swallowed, trying to find words that made sense, trying to say something to calm her down, to persuade her, to make her understand that I wasn’t the kind of guy that would do to her what that guy did. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized: this wasn’t about me at all. It wasn’t about that guy, whoever the hell he was. It was about her. It was about her feeling like she’d lost who she was, feeling like she’d lost her identity, her family, and her self worth.

I tried to imagine what she was like at fourteen, and I couldn’t. She was all woman. Proud, and angry, and isolated, and in some ways, scary as hell, but this was no innocent girl. She’d been through the wringer. 

“Tell me about the snow,” I said.

“What?”

“You don’t like snow.”

“It’s cold and wet. What the hell kind of a question is that?”

I glanced over at her. She was leaning against the door, glaring at me. 

“Tell me,” I said.

She looked at me dismissively. “Why don’t you put on some music? Loud.”

We have to stop meeting like this (Julia)

Crank was right. I was being a complete bitch. It was self-defense, really. Because the more time I spent around him, the more I felt my defenses falling to pieces. It wasn’t that he was hot. I mean—I’ve been around hot guys. They’re nice to look at, but they don’t make me feel like this. It was his smile, his charm, his sense of humor. Inside that hard-ass exterior, he was compassionate. Insanely protective of his brother. I wanted to laugh at his smart aleck comments, and I wanted to touch the dimple in the corner of his mouth. I wanted to hug him and heal the hurt that had damaged him.

I wanted to run away as quickly as I could. Because it was all I could do to keep a grip on who I was.

He did as I asked and turned on the stereo. Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” suddenly blasted out. Jesus. I almost broke out into a sweat. How did he do that? The driving bass blasted through the car, one of the sexiest, angriest songs I’ve ever heard. I closed my eyes, still leaning against the door, and bobbed my head along with the music. It was lust and rage and hunger all wrapped up in a bow. So very much not what I needed to be listening to right now. But so much how I felt.

A big part of me wanted to just say, screw it. Screw my reservations. Screw my walls. Give in. Give in to him. Not just for a date, but tell him to pull the damn car over right now and climb on top of him and slowly unbutton his shirt while I chewed on his ear. This music was not helping at all.

I was jarred back to reality when Crank cursed suddenly and slapped the radio off. I opened my eyes and realized the car was sliding, and I nearly screamed. I reached out, grabbing the dashboard with both hands, bracing as we slid toward a tree. But a second later, he got it under control.

“Sorry,” he said. “I think the temperature must have dropped. A lot. Patch of ice.”

We were coming up Mass Ave now, close to campus. This definitely looked like a Nor’easter, dumping snow and ice very fast now. It was two or three inches deep already and getting deeper by the minute. Crank was wrestling with the wheel, overcompensating, which was making the car slide way too much for comfort.

“I thought Boston drivers were supposed to be all that,” I said.

He looked over at me with a fierce grin on his face. “I’ve been taking the T all my life. Practically just got my license.”

“Please don’t get me killed.”

He laughed. “I’ll try not to. We’re almost to the campus, which way?”

I peered ahead. The snow was coming down thick enough it was hard to see very far. “Past the campus. Keep going, it’s about five blocks up, then take a left.”

He nodded, concentrating on driving, both hands on the wheel and leaning forward to see.

“Slow down,” I said, as we got closer.

He glanced at me, simultaneously looking amused and annoyed I was being bossy. Screw him. I wanted to live. A moment later, he slowly turned off of Massachusetts Ave just as a city bus went racing past, splattering Crank’s car with snow and slush. Yuck.

“That’s just wrong,” he muttered as the bus blasted past.

“See the lot up there on the left?” I asked, pointing.

“Yeah.”

“Park in there.”

“If I park, I’m not getting out of there again.”

“You can’t drive any more in this … especially not all the way to Roxbury.”

“Is this a private lot?”

“I’ve got a guest pass in my car.”

He nodded. “All right.”

Very slowly, he turned into the lot. I could feel the car sliding again as he took the turn, but the wheels got a grip again, and we surged forward, into another slide.

“Crap,” he muttered. 

“Stop,” I said.

“Trying!” he said, his voice raised.

“Stop!” I yelled.

The car just kept going, sliding forward, the tail end of my car looming in front of us, bigger and bigger, a slow-motion slide.

He yanked the wheel over to the side, trying to divert us, but it was too late. With a sickening crash that lurched us both forward against our seatbelts, he crashed into the rear end of my car.

We stopped.

I slumped back in my seat and closed my eyes. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

“I can’t look,” I said.

“It’s bad,” he replied.

“We’re still alive,” I said hopefully.

I opened one eye. The back of my car and the front of Crank’s were hopelessly crumpled. Steam was rising in a great cloud from the front of his car. Radiator must have ruptured.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“You know,” he said, just a little bit of mischief in his voice. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

 I broke into laughter. Hysterical laughter, actually. With tears running down my cheeks. He grinned, apparently happy that I wasn’t screaming at him.

We both opened our doors at the same time, and a blast of cold air hit me, freezing the tears onto my cheeks instantly. The temperature had dropped a lot since we’d left the beach. My laughter evaporated, and my heart sank, as I looked at the extent of the damage. The entire back end of my car was … crushed. The front of Crank’s was only marginally better.

“That’s not good,” he said.

“I guess I deserve it for wrecking your other car.”

He snickered. 

“Stop laughing, it’s not funny,” I said. But his face was so bemused, that I couldn’t help but laugh myself. “Oh, God,” I said, groaning. “My parents are going to kill me.”

For some reason, he thought that was even funnier, and he leaned on his car and let out a giant belly laugh. After a few moments, he got himself together. “Should we call anyone?”

I shook my head. “Leave it … you’re not blocking the other spots. We’ll sort it out tomorrow. It’s too late, and wet and cold right now.”

He nodded. “All right,” he said. “I guess I’d better get over to the T.”

Impulsively, I said, “Come on. Not in this. I’m in Cabot Hall, right over there.”

“Won’t you get in trouble having a guy in your room?”

“Not really. Not that anyone would notice, anyway.”

He shrugged, and we trudged through the snow toward Cabot. He stopped for a minute, turning away from the wind and cupping his hand at his mouth to shield his lighter from the wind and light a cigarette. Then he turned his face up toward the snow and ice, a grin on his face. “I love storms,” he said.

“Come on,” I said. “I’m freezing. And … to be clear … this is not an invitation.”

He grinned and said, “It sounded like you were asking me up to your room.”

“I am. But I’m not … damn it.”

He laughed. “I’ll be nice.”

“Seriously.”

He nodded. “I get it, all right? No touching, kissing, groping, snogging, shagging. None of it.”

He was ridiculous.

The Quad was covered in snow, and scattered with students playing and having snowball fights. It was getting late, but not late enough to put them to bed yet. I narrowly avoided a flying snowball. 

“Looks like fun,” Crank said, eyeing me.

I shook my head. “I don’t like snow, I told you that.”

He gave a dramatic sigh, and we kept walking toward the front steps, finally stopping at the door and kicking the snow off our feet. My feet felt like blocks of ice inside my boots, and I couldn’t stop shivering. 

“Raw out there,” he said.

I nodded, still trying to get some blood circulation back into my feet. I scanned the large ground floor common room. There were a few students in here, people I knew, but not well. “Come on,” I said, leading him across the hall to the stairs. It’s not that I didn’t want people to see us going upstairs together. 

Okay, that’s not true. I didn’t want people to see us going upstairs together. I didn’t want to be the object of gossip or discussion. My life was nobody’s business. If I wanted to take Crank onto the roof and give him a blow job in the snow, that was my business, not theirs. But that’s not the way things worked in my life … never had been.

I led him to the back stairs, then up six flights of stairs and down the hall to the suite.

And, of course, this would be the first Saturday ever that Linden and Adriana and Jemi were all still in the room. And from the looks of the casual clothes and pajamas, they weren’t planning on going anywhere. The three of them were all curled up in chairs around the coffee table, drinking hot chocolate and playing cards.

Of course, my entry with a guy wasn’t going to go unnoticed. My entrance with Crank Wilson, who they all knew, both from his band and his reputation—that was something else entirely.

Adriana jerked up straight in her seat, practically shoving her boobs on display. Linden’s eyes opened wide, and Jemi just slightly raised on eyebrow.

“Um … hey,” I said, suddenly very uncomfortable. “Um … Crank … this is Linden, and Adriana, and Jemi. My suitemates. Guys, this is my friend, Crank.”

“What’s doin’?” Crank said, nodding at them. As usual, he had a smirk on his face, which I wanted nothing more than to punch right at that moment.

The girls burst into speech, and I let it float by. It was all nonsense anyway. 

“So, um …” I said, having no idea where to go with this. “We’re off to bed.”

Crank winked at them. I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward my room, and as I closed the door, I heard a flurry of whispers. God only knows what they were saying. I sure didn’t want to know.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Never trust again (Crank)

Julia didn’t say a word as she pulled me into her room. She let go of my hand, shut the door, and then shrugged out of her coat.

Her room was big for a dorm, about ten feet to a side, with a large window overlooking the Quad. Outside, I could still see college students playing in the snow. She had a decent sized desk with her PowerBook on it, papers stacked high next to the laptop. A long, low bookshelf extended the entire length of the wall underneath the window. Except for the desk and the bookshelf, the room was sterile. Nothing on the walls. No pictures. It looked like she was ready to move out tomorrow. Weird. 

The shelves were interesting, though. Textbooks, and what looked to be primarily fantasy and sci-fi novels. Never been my thing, but I recognized a bunch of them. Sean had a lot of the same books. Which got me to thinking about her sitting in his room, and the discussion I’d overheard. I’d never heard him speak that way: openly. 

“You never said where you got Sean’s gift,” I said. “Do you read that stuff?”

“Manga?” she asked. “No. But I know a guy on the second floor who’s nuts for it. He took me to a shop over in Somerville to help me pick something out.”

“I know the place. Sean makes me take him there sometimes. It was … it was a nice gift. Really thoughtful.”

She sat down in a big, overstuffed chair and started unlacing her boots. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing or not.”

“You couldn’t have picked anything better … but, can I ask you a question?”

She shrugged and went back to unlacing the boots. “Sure.”

“I’ve never seen anyone connect with my brother so quickly. How?”

“I just treated him like a person.”

That was useless, and I answered defensively. “You’re saying I don’t?”

She shook her head slowly, setting her boots down next to the chair. She had tiny little feet. “No, I’m not saying that. But … no offense, but you and your mom and dad? You seem like you’re so wrapped up in his Asperger’s that you can’t see anything else.”