A Whisper To A Scream (17 page)

There was something about the way Adam looked
at me that was different from the way he looked at Katie. He looked
at me and his eyes were full of adoration. I feel a little better,
knowing that. Knowing that just from the way he looks at me that I
mean more to him than any other girl in the whole stadium.

For the first half of the game I don’t really
pay attention to what’s happening on the field. There is way too
much happening on the sidelines. Some kid a few rows down from us
stands during some big play and lets out a ferocious roar, banging
his fists on his chest like Tarzan. I place my lips against Wren’s
ear and shout, “People really go crazy over this, huh?”

“Well, what do you expect?” she shouts back.
“This is a play-off game!”

During the second half of the game, I
actually get into it. I keep my eyes on Adam watching as he
completes every pass he throws. On top of his amazing arm, he’s
quick, like poetry in motion, gracefully maneuvering around the
opposing team’s members as they attempt to sack him.

My boyfriend is a Gridiron God, lethal with a
pigskin.

Finally it’s the fourth quarter, with only
seconds left on the clock. Enough for one last play. The team
breaks from their huddle and takes their positions. Adam looks to
his left, then to his right and shouts something. The center snaps
the ball back and it only take’s Adam a nanosecond to find Blake
ten feet away from the end zone, with his arms outstretched. He
whips his arm back and the ball sails through the sky. I hold my
breath, focused on the brown spinning dot as it arches and plummets
down right into Blake’s arms.

Blake clutches the ball tightly and runs over
the goal line. Touchdown. I shoot out of my seat, hug Wren, and
jump up and down. “We won! We won!” I calm down and stop
jumping.

Wren laughs. “See. Now you know why I like
coming to the games.”

“I guess I can see the appeal.”

After the game, I lean against Adam’s car,
waiting for him. Headlight’s fade in and out as cars pass me,
gravel crunching beneath their tires. Various drivers honk their
horns and several guys roll their windows down and scream, “Logan
High! Whooo!”

Adam approaches me, smirking. He’s dirty,
drenched in sweat, and as he closes the gap between us, his musky
body odor wafts up my nose. I don’t care that he’s dirty or that
he’s a bit on the smelly side. This whole rugged side to him makes
me think he looks ten times hotter than usual.

I straighten myself out. “Good game.”

He pops the trunk and puts his gear in it.
“Thanks.” He clutches my waist and brushes his lips against my
cheek. “My good luck charm.”

I eye him curiously. “Who? Me or Katie?”

He backs away, glaring. “What are you talking
about?”

“I saw you looking at her.”

He widens his turquoise eyes. “So. I looked
at her. Big deal. I look at lots of people. I’m looking at you
now.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then enlighten me, Ellory. What’s the
point?”

Part of me wants to tell him about the
letters I’ve been getting and how I think Katie might be sending
them. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to because I’m not
one-hundred percent sure. But I do know that I don’t trust Katie.
At all.

I think of a time freshman year when I had a
crush on a boy named Mike who was in my art class. He might have
actually liked me too, except Katie found out that I liked him. And
just because I liked him she went after him.

One day she placed an open can of tuna fish
in my locker with a sign that said fish crotch. Mike walked passed
my locker, plugged his nose, read the sign and laughed. And well,
that was the end of Mike. Katie dated him for about a week then
dumped him—which proved my theory even more. She only wanted him
because I did.

“Have you forgotten that she’s my sworn
enemy?” I snap.

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this,”
he says coldly. “I’m allowed to talk to other girls, Ellory. You
know you’re my one and only. I’d never do anything to mess that up.
I wouldn’t be able to function without you.”

I can’t listen to him. If he wants to be
friends with the girls at Logan High he can take his pick. He can
be friends with any other girl. Anyone but her. I stomp off and
start walking, silently fuming.

“Where are you going?” Adam calls.

For once, I use a play from the Wren Thompson
playbook and ignore him. Seconds later he rolls up next to me.
“Ellory, quit being difficult and get in the car.”

I ignore him and continue walking. Turning, I
peek over my shoulder at the line of cars behind him. People are
getting pissed. The guy behind Adam shouts out his window. “What
the hell is the hold up?”

“Would you please get in the car?” he
begs.

I look at him, roll my eyes and keep marching
forward. Finally I speak up. “If I were you, I’d step on the gas.
You’re blocking traffic.”

He checks out the line of cars in his
rearview mirror, squints at me, and then he shoves the car into
park. Drivers in cars behind him blare their horns, and a few of
the people even resort to shouting profanities out their windows.
Adam doesn’t care. He isn’t even paying attention to them. He gets
out of the car, rushes over to me, scoops me up forcefully, throws
me over his shoulder, and puts me back in the car.

I don’t react. I’m kind of in shock. I think
about bolting—running—whipping the door open and taking off into
the night. But I don’t because I know he’s fast. I know even if to
run he’ll catch me and we’ll be right back in the same situation.
So Instead I keep my eyes on the window watching the outside world
go by. Watching the shadows dance along the trees and the smog
unfurl from the tailpipes of cars as they speed past us.

Adam tries to get me to speak to him. It’s a
lost cause. I can be pretty damn stubborn when I want to be. I’m
also mad at myself for blowing everything out of proportion and I
feel childish. I always tell myself that I’m not going to act like
that. I tell myself that how I’d reacted wasn’t the mature way to
handle how I felt about him gawking like Katie the way he did.

“Would you please talk to me?” There is a
needy, yet urgent tone to his voice.

I sigh, prop my elbow against the window, and
prop my chin up in my hand.

We pass the town center and a group of kids
and crowded around a car decorated in our school colors. They must
have just come from the field. One of the guys yells, “Yo, Adam!”
Adam nods to guy and we fly by them.

Adam tries again. “Ellory, please.” His voice
cracks. “I swear I won’t talk to her at all. You mean more to me
than anything in the entire universe. If you don’t want me to talk
to her, I won’t.”

I face him and let out a frustrated sigh.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I acted like a crazy person. If you want to be
friends with Katie, who am I to stop you? You should be able to
have girl friends, you were right. I just have some issues going on
with Katie and I don’t trust her.”

“But you should trust me and you don’t,” he
says harshly.

“I do trust you.”

“No you don’t because if you did we wouldn’t
be having this argument.”

“I don’t trust her!” I rest my head against
my seat. “You don’t know her like I do.”

“You’re, yo—,” he stutters trying to get the
words out. “You’re different. You always will be.”

He’s confusing me. Adam isn’t the nervous
type, but right now he looks a mess. Like there’s something he’s
itching to get off his chest. “Adam, is there something you want to
tell me?” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel and rakes
his free hand through his hair. Fresh beads of sweat perspire on
his forehead. Something is up with him. Something is wrong. “You
know you can tell me anything. You can trust me with anything.”

Adam doesn’t answer me. I don’t know what
bothers me more, the fact that I know something is wrong or the
fact that he won’t tell me what it is.

He pulls into his driveway and several cars
are already parked in the grass. Early party guests linger on the
porch, waiting for Adam to let them inside. He exhales, trying to
stay calm, but he can’t. Adam is breaking—shattering into a million
pieces and the hurt clutches my insides. I want him to let me help
me. I want him to know that whatever it is that’s bothering him, we
can get through it. I reach out to him. He looks tortured and I
want to caress the pain away. “Let me help you,” I say lovingly. “I
can help you.”

He slaps my hand away and gives me a deadly
glare. “No you can’t.” He laughs into his palms then shrieks, “I’m
a monster! No one can help me!”

“Adam—I”

“Get out!” he snarls. “Just go home!”

“What’s wrong with you?” I shake my head. “I
don’t understand. Did I do something? Is this because of
earlier?”

“No,” he growls. “Just stay away from me.”
Then he gets out of the car, stalks off into the night and leaves
me alone to drown in my own misery.

Chapter 20: Confusion

I’m moving in slow motion, an empty bottle
floating in stream without a current. I block the voices of the
party guests as I navigate through the crowded hall. Limbs flail.
Music pounds through the entire house shaking the walls. I’m numb
to it all. I snatch a red cup full of beer from the kitchen counter
and sneak outside to the back porch.

I sit alone, eyes lost in the darkness spread
out in front of me, nursing my stolen beer. My pocket vibrates and
I set the cup down. I have a text from Wren.

We’re not coming. Call me 2morrow.

Great. Since neither Wren nor Molly is
coming, I’m left to hash out the way feel and my confusing
relationship with Adam alone. This sucks.

As I pick my cup up, the scraping sound of
the back door sliding open distracts me. I peek over my shoulder.
Katie stumbles onto the porch—wasted. She fumbles through a pack of
cigarettes, dropping a few in the process. She lifts her head,
sneering at me. “Well, weell,” she slurs. “If it isn’t Ellory
Graham, the town train-wreck.”

I slit my eyes prepared to give her a snarky
comment, but I’m too upset and too exhausted to deal with her right
now. I watch her intensely as she tries several times to light the
cigarette in her hand. “You still smoke?”

I turn around and smell the smoke as the
greyish cloud wafts toward me. I fan the musty, staleness out of my
face and cough. “What do you care?” Katie snaps.

“I don’t.”

When we were kids, Katie used to steal
cigarettes from her father’s pack. She’d sneak behind the shed in
her backyard and smoke them. Once she tried to get me to try one
too. I’d never been a follower, plus smoking was never something
that seemed appealing to me. I remember how pissed she was when I’d
refused to smoke with her. Katie had always been someone who liked
to have minions, followers who did whatever she did.

My brief memory is interrupted when Katie
tosses her butt into the yard. “Hey!”

I shout before she goes back inside. She
places her hands on her hips. “What?”

“Did you send me letters?” I blurt out.

She clears her throat. “Excuse me?”

“Did you send me some letters in the
mail?”

She tsks and laughs. “Why would I send you
anything?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

Katie struts to the back door and opens it.
“If I had something to say to you. I’d say it to your face. I
wouldn’t send you a damn letter.” Then the door slams and the porch
lights rattle and flicker. Katie is right. As long as I’ve known
her, if she has something to say to me, she says it. She doesn’t
need to torture me with random notes to get her point across. I’m
also hit with the reality that this is the first time in years that
Katie and I have actually had a civil conversation without verbally
ripping each other’s throat out. It feels good for a change.

I’m not all punches and bitchy comments.
Sometimes I think everything would be so much easier if Katie and I
could co-exist and be content with each other. I’m not saying that
we have to resume our BFF status. I’m just saying that it would be
nice to be able to see her and not have to worry about our
feud.

Feud aside, something bigger looms in my
mind. Who sent the letters then? And how do I find out who sent
them?

I drain the rest of my beverage while walking
through the door. I come to a halt in the living room, trying to
spot Adam in the crowd. I don’t see him anywhere. I have to go
somewhere quiet. Somewhere to think. The porch is kinda quiet, but
when the guests get too rowdy you can still hear them. A wave of
emotion splashes inside of me. I’m sure it’s visible on my face.
I’ve never allowed anyone to witness the emotional side of me and
I’m not about to.

Scaling the staircase, I make my way to
Adam’s bedroom. I feel like sleeping my sorrows away. It’ll be
quiet in there. No one will disturb me. I turn the gleaming brass
knob. Then turn it in the opposite direction. Shit. He locked the
door. Digging into the back pocket of my jeans, I whip out a
bobby-pin and pull it open with my teeth. I crouch down and close
one eye. I stare into the key-slot and stick the pin inside. I
jimmy it to the right, and then move it to the left. The door
clicks and I push the heavy wood door open.

I’ve locked my own door on a regular basis
since I was thirteen. Once Mom snuck in a snooped through it and
found a note between me and a boy my age. After that I’d kept it
locked. There was a few times where I’d accidentally locked myself
out so I taught myself how to pick a lock.

I close the door behind me and lock it.
Adam’s smell permeates through the air and I inhale, falling back
on his bad. I’m drunk. Drunk off his scent. I hug a pillow and tuck
myself into a ball. The hurt cuts into me like a dull carving
knife. I don’t care if he wants me to stay away from him. I’m not
going to. It wish it was that simple, like some random hook-up, but
it’s not. He’s pulled me in, clutched my soul. I won’t ever stay
away. No matter how much he pushes me away. I know that I belong
here. I’m at home here. With Adam.