Breakaway (9 page)

“I know the concept is completely foreign to you,” she said with a patronizing tilt of her head, “but I'm just making polite conversation.”

“You're still mad at me,” I said.

She eyed me coolly, letting the silence hang between us as she considered my question. I was thinking about her lower lip again when she spoke. “Don't flatter yourself. I have better things to do than sit around being mad at you.”

Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was trying to be funny, and I liked that. Her hair was a color unknown in nature, but her eyes were a clear blue, unusual because the blue irises were outlined with a pronounced black edge. Her skin was sun kissed and luminous, completely unblemished. The way she looked at me gave me the impression she could read my thoughts. As I thought about her I realized she was maybe more than pretty, maybe beautiful.

“What kinds of things?” I asked.

“What?” she asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

“You said you had better things to do,” I said to remind her. “What kinds of things?”

“Are you still trying to be funny?” she asked.

“I don't really have to try,” I said with mock humility. “I'm just naturally funny.”

The look she gave me was meant to sting but it just gave me a silent thrill because I had gotten a rise out of her again. I bit the corner of my lip to keep my mouth from spreading into a grin.

“Who were you fighting with this time?” she asked.

“Just some D-bags who were messing with Chick,” I said. “They were following him around, calling him a retard and stuff.”

“Chick—he's that little guy on the soccer team, right?” she asked. “Why do you call him Chick?”

“His scars,” I said as I gestured at my own cheeks and jaw. “The ones on his face. They're left over from when he had chicken pox. He was so sick, it almost killed him.”

“Isn't it kind of mean that you call him that?” she asked earnestly, like she was really concerned about Chick's feelings. “It's like you're making fun of him by calling him that.”

“Nah,” I said as I drummed my fingers lightly on the table. “He likes it. Makes him feel like the original gangsta.”

She shifted her legs under the table and her leg bumped mine. She pulled her leg back quickly, as if scorched by touching me. “You get in a lot of fights,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she assessed my injuries more critically. “You just got in a fight three weeks ago at the soccer game.”

I leaned in toward her and placed my elbows on the table, my head resting against my hand. She held my gaze as I spoke, looking at me in a way that made me want to know what she was thinking. “I like fights,” I said. “When you're fighting, it's the only time you're not thinking about something else. You know? What's right there in front of you is the whole world, the only thing that matters. It feels good. Not to think. Just to … be.”

We watched each other for a long minute, me expecting her to pull away any second, to sink behind the ice-queen exterior again. The air between us was charged with some kind of electric current, and my heart was beating so loudly in my ears, I wondered if she could hear it too. Then she said, “You should try getting laid instead.”

I laughed so suddenly that my split lip opened up painfully, the salty tang of blood flooding my tongue. The librarian at the reference desk shot an ugly look in our direction but I lowered my voice again when I spoke. “You offering?” I asked as I nudged her hand with mine to let her know I was joking.

She smiled, not shining me on, but not giving away too much. “I'm surprised to see you at the library,” she said. “I didn't get the impression you were a big reader.”

“I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what you think of me,” I said. “Unless it's some kind of weird fantasy involving fetish stuff. In which case, I want to know all about it.”

“In your dreams, Jason. Only in your dreams.” She was blushing like crazy now, her cheeks so red that it made her eyes stand out in vivid contrast. I liked it. So much, in fact, that I thought I could sit there all night just saying stuff to make her blush if she would let me. “So, what are you doing here?” she asked as she cleared her throat, trying to cover her embarrassment as she glanced around the room to see if anyone had overheard our conversation.

“I was just using the computer,” I said. “We had an online assignment for Calc.”

“Is your Internet down at home?” she asked, the color ebbing from her cheeks now that we were talking about a safe topic.

“We don't have Internet at my house. We don't own a computer.”

“Really?” she asked in surprise.

“I didn't mean to upset you, princess,” I said, not intending to be snide but hearing it come out that way anyway. “I suppose before now you thought that everyone had an iPhone and drove a Lexus.”

She cut her eyes away from me, looking at some imaginary point in the distance, and her expression turned sad. “Of course not,” she said in almost a whisper. “That was a mean thing to say,” she said. “Take it back.”

“Take it back?” I asked with surprise. “Like a do-over?” I was being a total smart-ass but she just nodded, waiting for my apology. “Okay, fine,” I said, feeling ridiculous as I did. “I take it back.”

She nodded her head once, her eyes shut, as if earnest in her acceptance of my apology. It was strange, the feeling that came over me, like a sense of relief that the tension between us had passed.

It was right on the tip of my tongue to ask Raine if she wanted to get together sometime. I wasn't really sure what kind of expectation a girl like Raine had, what kind of place a guy usually took her on a date. All I wanted was to sit and talk to her without interruption, without worrying about who was watching or listening.

I had just decided that I would casually suggest we get together one day that week for coffee or to go off campus for lunch when a guy walked up to the table and interrupted. He stood right next to Raine's chair, his hip touching her shoulder, and his expression told me he hadn't expected to find her talking to another guy.

Raine's face relaxed into an easy smile as she looked up at him and I took a minute to envy him for that. I felt stupid suddenly, for thinking that there could have been anything between Raine and me.

The guy was dressed in a button-down shirt, ironed, with khaki pants and, I guessed without looking, some kind of loafers for shoes. He was clean-cut and carried himself confidently, with the swagger of an athlete. Though his face was familiar to me, he didn't go to our school.

“Hey,” the guy said in my direction because it would have been awkward if he just ignored me, but he didn't wait for a response, just turned to Raine and said, “You ready?”

“Sure,” she said. “You're finished with what you needed to do?”

“Yeah,” he said as he stepped aside, his hand on the back of her chair as if to pull it out for her.

“Brian, this is Jason,” Raine said. “We have Civics together.”

“How you doing?” Brian asked without much interest and with a chin thrust at me.

I nodded at him, unsure where to rest my gaze but not wanting to just look at the table like I was some kind of pathetic whelp. At least he had walked up before I had a chance to make a fool out of myself, asking Raine out when she clearly set her standards a little higher than a guy like me.

“Jason plays soccer too,” Raine said, and as she did I realized why the guy looked familiar. I had played against him before. He played for W & L, a high school on the north side of town. The north and south sides of our town were separated by four lanes of traffic, but it might as well have been an ocean. South of the main highway that divided the town in half was where most of the immigrant and working-class families lived, though there were a few neighborhoods, like Jordie's, where people had money. On the north side, the two high schools were full of kids who came from rich families.

“Yeah?” Brian asked. “What position?”

“Center midfield, usually,” I said. “You?”

“Forward,” he said.

Of course, you do,
I thought. Nothing less than a glory position for this guy. He probably drove a BMW convertible and already had his last name waiting on the side of a law firm.

“Jason is an old friend of Jordan's,” Raine said, determined to drag the awkwardness out.

“Really?” Brian asked with some surprise. “Jordan and I play tennis at the club sometimes. He's never mentioned you.”

No surprise there. Jordie was good about keeping his two lives separate. “He's never mentioned you, either,” I said. “Guess he can't admit to fraternizing with the enemy.” The way I said it was friendly, like I was just making a light joke about our soccer rivalry, but he took it the way it was meant. I could tell by the hard set of his eyes, but he wasn't going to take the bait in front of Raine.

“Well, I guess I'll see you on the field next Friday,” Brian said.

“I guess you will,” I said with a nod. Challenge delivered, and received. I had never wanted to beat W & L so badly in the years I had played against them.

“Yeah, well, I'll see you around, Jason,” Raine said as Brian took her backpack from her and slung it over his own shoulder.

“Yeah, I'll see you,” I said as she turned away, Brian's hand on her lower back in a possessive way. He didn't even bother to acknowledge me as they left.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

That weekend, Chick asked me to go to the movies with him. There was some new horror movie out and he really wanted to go. I didn't go in for movies much, didn't like to sit still for that long, but he sounded so pathetic when he asked me that I couldn't really say no.

We took the bus to the theater, which took almost an hour because we had to wait first for the bus by my house and then for a transfer. Ever since Jordie got his car at the beginning of junior year we had all gotten used to riding everywhere. Since he started dating Cheryl I had barely seen the inside of Jordie's car. Cheryl had taken the shotgun seat for herself and wouldn't give it up for anything.

From the bus stop we had to run across six lanes of traffic to get to the theater. It was two blocks out of the way to cross at the light, so we never bothered even though it was a busy road with lots of traffic. A low hedge ran around the theater parking lot and I jumped across it but Chick had to walk through it, cussing under his breath as the sharp branches snagged his clothes.

The strip mall that housed the theater included a pizza place and a coffee shop, places where kids from school congregated on the weekends. Even if people who attended the local high schools weren't going to a movie or eating out, they tended to gather here. The back corner of the parking lot, far away from any of the businesses, was crowded with cars, music pumping out the windows of some of them. There were lots of kids just hanging around, goofing off, riding skateboards. Nobody had anyplace to go, but even a parking lot was better than just being at home.

We stopped to talk to a few of the guys from the soccer team since we had missed the early show and were going to have to wait around for the late movie. While we were hanging around talking, Alexis and a few of her friends pulled up in a minivan.

“Hi, Jason,” Alexis said as she sidled up to me and put a hand on my hip. Whenever I saw Alexis she always put her hands on me in a familiar way, like there was something between us. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Chick and I are going to see a movie.”

“You should come with us instead,” Alexis said. “There's a big skate rally down at the waterfront. There will be bands and food and everything.”

“Sounds cool,” I said noncommittally.

“So, you'll come?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, come on. Please.” She dragged out the word “please,” her voice high pitched and whiny.

“I don't know. Chick really wants to see this movie.”

“So?” she asked, her brow creasing with disdain. “He can go see the movie. You don't have to go with him.”

“I'll see if he wants to go to the waterfront,” I said. “We can catch the movie another night.”

Her expression shifted to distaste and she wrinkled her nose. “No offense, Jason, but I don't really want him to come along. He's so creepy.”

“He's not creepy,” I said. As I said this I glanced around to locate Chick, make sure he wasn't within earshot. He was loitering at the edge of a group of guys from the soccer team I had just been talking to. Chick never said much but he had perfected the art of looking like he was part of a group, even if no one really noticed he was there. “He's just … a little socially awkward.”

“You can say that again,” Alexis said. “And he
is
creepy. I see him talking to himself at school sometimes. He's totally weird.”

She had a point. But Chick was completely harmless.

“Just tell him you're going to go with us,” she said, tugging at my sleeve and stepping in closer to me.

“Nah. I'll catch you next time,” I said.

Alexis acted like she was really disappointed and for a few minutes kept trying to talk me into going with them. It's not as if I really wanted to see the movie, or that I hated the idea of making out with Alexis again, which she was clearly offering with her body language and the look in her eyes, but it had been weeks since the four of us had hung out—Jordie, Mario, Chick, and me. In fact, other than soccer practice, the four of us hadn't seen each other much since Syl's funeral. I could tell it was worrying Chick, and I felt too guilty to leave him.

Alexis's friends were talking to some of the guys hanging out in the parking lot, but after a few minutes most of them piled into their cars and drove off. I collected Chick and we started walking toward the theater, still thirty minutes early for the show.