Addison Blakely: Confessions of A PK (13 page)

With Wes, nothing would ever be official.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” His dark brows lifted in silent question. He wanted to know if I’d been avoiding him. Had I?

“Been at school at lot.” I sipped my mocha, suddenly remembering I held it. The coffee warmed me and cleared the mush crowding my brain. “I somehow got roped into helping with the end-of-semester talent show.”

“You have talent?”

I swatted his arm before I could wonder if contact was a wise idea. “I didn’t say I was in it. I’m behind the scenes, trust me.”

“I gotcha.” He nodded, as if for once out of sarcasm.

I studied him over the rim of my cup, appreciating the way his blue thermal top brightened his complexion and the pushed-up sleeves revealed the corded muscles in his forearms—and that mysterious bird tattoo. His ever-present leather jacket draped over the seat next to mine at the table, and I breathed in. The scent was probably in my imagination, but I enjoyed it anyway. Had it really been two weeks since he draped it over my shoulders in my driveway? Was that Wes the one I sat with tonight, or was this the rebel-without-a-cause Wes? I never could tell until I was too invested to run away.

“Too bad you aren’t in our school. We could use some realtalent.” I gestured to the piano.

“That’s what a GED will get you out of.” He ran a finger over the keys, a gentle
plink
breaking the silence.

I knew GEDs were equivalent to a high school diploma now, at least as far as the job force was concerned, but I hadn’t realized he’d truly dropped out. Thought that was just another rumor. “Did you really hate school that much?” I knew doing well and actually liking school most of the time wasn’t necessarily normal, nor was my love of reading, but that didn’t mean I was the only person in my grade. Everyone else was sticking it out. Why hadn’t he?

“Wasn’t my favorite.” He shrugged it off, as if dropping out of high school was a no-big-deal decision. Maybe to him it was.

But somehow I doubted it. I doubted every single layer of that tough-guy act, more so now since our late-night talk than ever before. I persisted like a Labrador sniffing out a doggy biscuit. “But don’t you want to work? Get a job? Do something?”

“And give up all this?” He waved his arms over the piano in a grand gesture. There was the sarcasm. That meant I was getting closer to the main issue.

“I’m not buying your defense mechanisms.” I crossed my arms, realizing too late it was a defense mechanism of my own.

Wes shut the lid over the piano keys with a snap. “Last time I checked, Dr. Phil didn’t need any help. So quit psychoanalyzing me. I get enough of that.”

I dropped my arms and leaned forward, unable to change the subject. “Wes, you’re eighteen. You have a gift for music. Why waste that? Why not go for something? College or a career.”

“What’s the point?” His voice rose, and he glanced over his shoulder at the front counter. Thankfully Bert hadn’t returned yet, another hint we should leave soon. But I felt glued to my chair. Wes lowered his voice slightly. “My dad is so busy trying to play like he wants me around that he’s just glad I stay out of his hair. And my mom is the one who shipped me here so she could live her own life. So why should I care about my future? No one else does.”

“I do.” The words slipped off my tongue so fast I actually touched my mouth after. But I meant them. And he already knew that.

Wes narrowed his eyes at me. “And you said I was a player? You’re the one playing games now.”

“No, I’m not. And I never called you a player.” I cradled my cup with both hands, wishing there were a coffee that could both wake you up
and
give you the right words for conversations like these. “I just said you had a girlfriend. Or whatever Sonya is.” Shudder.

He shook his head. “Things aren’t always black and white, Addison.”

They were in my world. Drinking, black. Church, white. Boys with motorcycles, black. Christian music in the car, white. It was definite, simple, defined. Easy.

Suffocating.

“Are you with Sonya or not?” I winced. Out of all the things I could have said in that moment, that’s what I picked? I mentally poured my coffee over my head.

“Tell me this, PK.” Wes scooted to the end of the bench and leaned forward until our knees nearly touched. His breath smelled like peppermint mocha, and his spicy aftershave wafted toward me, drawing me in and nearly consuming me. “Would it even matter if I wasn’t?”

My heart pounded like a frontline drummer during a football game, and I knew what he was asking. But I couldn’t give an answer. Not an honest one. My mouth dried, and I stared into his eyes, wishing I could nod, say yes, anything in the affirmative. I knew my heart, knew what I wanted … but I knew my dad and his rules even better.

My dad. Dad! I checked my watch. He’d be home any minute—and see one kitchen table full of books, minus one daughter. I grabbed my cup and stood up. “I’m so late. I’ve got to run.” Literally.

Wes stood with me. “What’s it like to play by the rules all the time?”

What’s it like being considered dog poo on society? I opened my mouth to shoot off that creative barb but closed it at the glint in his eyes. This wasn’t sarcastic Wes back for more. This was still-serious Wes, despite the rough-around-the-edges tone.

“What’s it like?” I asked as I buttoned my jacket. I thought for a moment of all the things I should say, all the things that could possibly witness to him and draw him to the light side.

Then I ditched all the
shoulds
and blurted out the truth instead. “Exhausting.”

I turned and left like a good PK, my heart heavier than the boots weighing down my feet as I jogged home, trying not to slosh my coffee. My thoughts churned with each step. Black. White. Black. White.

If that were true, then why was everything suddenly so gray?

F
or the first time in my life, I walked into English class with a knot in my stomach.
And it had nothing to do with the lukewarm corndog I’d choked down at lunch.

I hadn’t finished my homework.

I heard that stereotypical horror-movie sound effect
(reeee! reeee!)
in my head every time I thought about it during the morning. Despite my attempts to complete my discussion questions on chapter 6 during lunch, it just hadn’t been possible. Kids kept coming up to me at the table with questions about the talent show, and by the time I realized I should have gone to the library for privacy instead of the cafeteria to eat, it was too late. The bell had rung, signaling my doom.

After racing home last night and sliding into my kitchen chair mere seconds before my dad came in through the garage, I was emotionally spent. Let’s just say concentrating became impossible. I tried to finish reading but could only see a replay of my conversation with Wes on the pages, the black letters against the white page a taunt of his earlier words.
“Things aren’t always black and white.”

I slipped into my desk chair and opened my book like every other day. Yet my palms were sweaty, and I couldn’t look Ms. Hawthorne in the eye. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. This was foreign territory. Did I tell her the truth up front? Hope she didn’t make her typical rounds collecting assignments? Lie? Beg for mercy? Play it cool?

My corndog bobbed along in a private mosh pit in my stomach. My vision blurred. I was
such
a gummi bear. No doubt Wes would be snickering right now if he saw me. Never mind—Wes was too cool to snicker. He’d guffaw. No, that was worse. Smirk. That’s it. He’d smirk. Those gorgeous lips turning up into a half—

“Addison?”

I jumped so hard, my foot jerked across the floor, pushing me back in my seat. Unfortunately, I’d been sitting with one leg curled under me, and the momentum was enough to heave me right over the side. I landed on the floor in an ungraceful heap. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as Ms. Hawthorne stood over me, one hand pressed to her chest as if
I’d
scared
her
. “I’m so sorry, Addison! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Around us, the classroom (must have filled up while I’d been lost in my guilt-ridden daydream) of students—ahem—snickered. I closed my eyes briefly, wishing the dirty tile would swallow me whole. But we were on the second floor, and I wasn’t sure what classroom lay beneath us. Probably biology, full of dissection trays and formaldehyde. That wouldn’t be any better.

“It’s okay.” I wasn’t about to confess that my backside hurt. Besides, the only thing I could think of now was how grateful I was to have worn jeans and not a skirt.

“You all right?” Luke’s deep baritone sounded over my left shoulder, and the next thing I knew, his strong grip hauled me to my feet. Ms. Hawthorne hovered over me, a handful of homework assignments tucked under one sweater-clad arm.

Concern pinched her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Do you need the nurse?”

Only if Nurse Gill had an erase-the-last-fifteen-minutes pill I could take. I shook out of Luke’s grasp and slipped back into my chair. “No, I’m fine.” Pride bruised. Please leave.

And forget to ask me for my homework.

I held my breath as Ms. Hawthorne continued to hover. “If you’re sure, Addison, then I won’t embarrass you further.” She straightened the collected assignments into a neat stack by tapping them on my desk. I bit my lower lip as she stared right at me, waiting.

This was it. Any minute now I’d get detention or at least a frowny face on my next paper, along with a giant red D for disappointment. Earlier this week Austin had blown off the assignment yet again, and Ms. Hawthorne had sent him to the principal’s office to “realign his attitude,” as she’d put it. How would it look for me to waltz back into Principal Stephens’s office as a flunkie just weeks after I’d been the Mother Teresa of Crooked Hollow High, arranging for money to be sent to illiterate children?

I cleared my throat, determined to handle the unfamiliar situation with grace and elegance to make up for my chair dive. “I, um. I don’t—that is, I didn’t have a chance to—” Forget it. I flopped my head on my desk and banged it twice. “I suck.”

“Addison, are you sure you don’t need the nurse?”

I forced myself to look up. Ms. Hawthorne lowered her previously panicked voice as understanding dawned in her eyes. “Do you not have the homework today?”

From my peripheral, I caught Luke covering his smile with his hand. Any minute now I expected to hear a “loser” cough from somewhere in the back of the room. Or maybe a few gasps of shock. I finally managed to shake my head. “No.”

Ms. Hawthorne studied my eyes for a moment then nodded once. “All right, then.” She moved on to the student behind me and continued taking up the papers.

That was it? I had a stomachache half the day for that? Part of me wanted to call her back and point out the misery I’d been in all day, but the other, smarter part of me hollered to shut up and count my blessings.

Beside me Luke leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Lucky break.”

Maybe so.

The rest of class flew by in a blur, and I became the epitome of the model student, raising my hand to volunteer when no one else would, picking up my neighbor’s pen when they dropped it, reading out loud when asked. I copied down the homework assignment twice, just in case I needed proof I’d been paying attention. When the bell rang dismissing us, I took my time gathering my papers, giving Ms. Hawthorne one more time to change her mind and reprimand me. At least this way it’d be privately, though I don’t see how any punishment she could have doled out would have been more embarrassing than falling out of my chair. Maybe that’s why I’d avoided any consequences—she knew I had put myself through enough.

I stalled at my desk until the classroom almost cleared. Then Austin pushed past me from the back of the room. “Must be nice to be the favorite.” He shook his head as he kept going, and at first I was so relieved he hadn’t made a pass at me that it took a minute for his words to sink in. The favorite? Like, teacher’s pet? Really? Guess he hadn’t gotten his attitude “realigned” that day after all.

“See you tomorrow, Addison,” Ms. Hawthorne called from her desk with a knowing smile, as if guessing why I continued to stand in the empty room. That was it. Free and clear.

But the whispers and furtive glances my fellow classmates shot my way told me I was anything but.

After the day I had, ice cream was a must. I stood in line at Screamin’ Cones after school and wished Marta were there to share the fat grams and encouragement. I’d invited her on my way home, but she’d had to get back to her host family. Apparently her fill-in mom had planned a shopping spree that she refused to let Marta out of, wanting her to take plenty of “American” clothes with her when she went back home in the spring. I’d secretly envied the opportunity to shop with a real mom figure, but Marta barely tolerated it. “Mrs. Davidson is so nice, but she thinks I need to look like the cover of
Seventeen
magazine.” Marta had shaken her head as she closed her locker door. “I don’t really see many kids looking like that.”

We took a shared glance around the crowded hall of Crooked Hollow High. No verbal agreement on my part had been necessary.