Cornerstone (10 page)

I take a triangle, dripping with veggies instead of pepperoni, and a bottle of water. Garrett tips his head in the direction of the descending staircase across from the dining room. I nod and follow him, weaving through the chairs. I’d follow him anywhere he wanted.

“We’re going to eat downstairs.” he says to his dad on the way out. Mr. Reese nods his approval to Garrett and looks across the table to my mother. I don’t look back because I don’t even want to know if she doesn’t approve.

The downstairs is instantly quieter and the sage green carpeting along with the pair of thick, homey couches, relaxes me. Garrett flips a switch that ignites gas logs in the fireplace and the room grows as warm as a kangaroo pouch as we sit at opposite ends of a couch, eating our pizza. Even with a busted arm, I’m a pro at eating over my own lap. It makes me feel like I’m at home.

Garrett stretches out from the opposite end, so that his feet almost touch my arm. I think of the way he rubbed my hand at the track and I want him to touch me again, even if it’s only with the tips of his toes.

“How’s your arm doing?” he asks, one foot brushing my arm. I glance at his feet and then jump to his face, worried I might have been thinking out loud.

“Oh, uh, good. Really good, actually. I don’t know what you did to it, but it doesn’t hurt at all. It doesn’t even feel broken.”

“Good.” he smiles, biting into his pizza. He dodges a glance to the stairs. “I figured you might like eating down here, away from all that noise upstairs. It’s got to sound like a never-ending fire drill to you. I know it’s a lot to take, since you’re not one of us.”

I put my pizza down. I was going to say how the noise makes me feel like I’m finally alive, how I want to join right in and be part of all their chaos and laughter. But now I can’t even swallow what is in my mouth. My throat closes on his distinction of
us,
which makes me a
them.
My heart misses three beats, as if a door has been slammed on it. Garrett pushes my elbow with the ball of his foot.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Oh yeah.” I say, hiding the burn in my cheeks by setting my plate on the floor. I clear my throat. “I was just wondering what happened after I lost you in the woods.”

His eyes look almost brown in the warm light. He chews the last bite of his pizza like he’s chewing over a bunch of different things he could tell me. I hope that whatever he picks is the truth. He swallows down his food and clears his throat with a drink before putting his plate on the floor too.

“You’re quite a runner.” he says.

“Back at you.”

“You should go out for track. The coach would...”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened with the guy?” I ask. We stare at each other. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “You aren’t going to say, are you?”

“What do you want to know?” he asks like he will tell me anything. Like he won’t keep secrets from me.

“What did you tell the cops?”

“Cops?” He seems surprised.

“The cops weren’t at the school?”

“Uh...no?” His eyebrows lift, snagging him in the lie. Or in someone’s lie. It might not even have started as his lie, but I can see in his face that he’s a poorly informed accomplice to it.

“Your brother called the cops. He told me they were sending a car to the school.”

“Oh.” Garrett winces.

“Oh?” I stand up from the couch and look down at him. His hair is touching the hollow of his cheek, exactly where my lips would fit. I try to remember that I’m about to start a fight with the most handsome, most popular boy in school. I’m about to completely snuff any chances I ever had with him, but I can’t let it go. I take another look at the tiny cave under his cheekbone, wondering how smooth his skin might feel against my own and then I say, “Why aren’t you telling me the truth, Garrett? What is going on with everybody?”

“Nothing’s going on. It’s just really...complicated.”

“You sound like my mom.” I look away, tears welling up that I don’t want him to see. I am so overwhelmed with no one telling me anything, with being a Maxwell instead of a Reese, with having a life that locks me away behind a paper tower.

“You all right?” His voice is deep and gentle. I’m not all right and him asking is only making it worse. I sink back onto the couch cushion and put my face in my hands, maneuvering the stupid cast like a wounded wing.

“I’m fine.” I lie between my fingers. Garrett kneels in front of me, pulling away my hands. His fingers are calloused, but his touch is so gentle that it breaks me open and my eyes begin to spill.

“Don’t cry, Nalena.” he says. “I know how it seems. I do.”

I want to tell him that the last thing I want is to be sitting on his couch sobbing, but my voice is trapped under the dead weight of my own defenses. He rubs a thumb over my cheek, spreading a tear that evaporates instantly from his heat. All I want to do is press my face into his palm, but I stay perfectly still, letting the wave of his electricity burn its way through my skin. His touch could set water on fire.

My eyes drift up and anchor in his. In the flickering light, his face is open and his eyes make me ache with want. He moves toward me, his fingers sliding over my jaw and threading into the hair at the nape of my neck. I want him to kiss me. I close my eyes. His breath fans over my cheek. Then his voice is deep in my ear, whispering, “Don’t cry. Please. Just trust me.”

I murmur that I
do
trust him and the whole time I am waiting for him to silence my confession with his lips. I wait with the ache deepening every second that the heat of his mouth scribbles across my cheek. I know that I will never forget this minute, for as long as I live, as the first kiss that could do damage.

My eyes are still closed and I part my lips, but instead of him bringing his mouth down on mine, I feel his hand sliding out of my hair. His heat pulls away and I open my eyes.

“I won’t let you down.” he says. His eyes are downcast as he clasps his lips. He moves to the opposite end of the couch.

I look everywhere, except at him, as I put the back of my hand to my mouth and try to blot away the warmth of his breath. My cheeks are boiling. He must’ve been mortified as I sat there with my eyes closed and head tilted and lips waiting and thinking up things that are impossible between Simon Valley’s All-Star Athlete and its Waste. I wish I could dissolve. Instead, I’m just left sitting in the rubble of a wall that he knocked down as if it was nothing at all.

~ * * * ~

Garrett sits back like nothing happened.

It seems like I’m the only one that noticed the chemical fire roaring between us.

I look around the room, at anything, besides him. I study the bookshelves on the far wall, stocked with hard covers. I don’t recognize even one title because I’m too busy leafing through a whole volume of What A Big Idiot I Am. I let my eyes wander over the family photos on the wall, but all I see in the frames are images of myself as I lean toward Garrett with my big dumb eyes fluttering shut and my stupid lips parted, waiting for him not to kiss me. This will be a great story for him to tell at school.

“Nalena,” he says from behind me, but I won’t look at him. Instead, I flounder onto my feet from the spot where our first kiss never happened.

“I’m going to get something else to drink.” I say and I don’t ask him if he wants anything. I just leave. I go around the couch and up the short stairs.

The blast of the Reese household that greets me as I enter the dining room seems less exciting now. They, after all, are the
us’s
and my mom and I are obviously never going to be that.

My mom looks up as I come in and her face switches from laughter to concern on the spot. I’m sure my eyes are still puffy from crying and my mascara is probably welled below them. I drop my head to avoid anyone seeing anything else, but it is too late. My mom’s expression is passed around the table, smothering each voice in turn.

“What’s the matter? Is your arm hurting you?” My mom asks.

“No.” I say. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

Mr. Reese glances toward the descending staircase and back at me.

“Is everything okay down there with Garrett?” His voice is all business.

“Everything’s great.” I say. I try to press out a convincing laugh, but it only fades as it hits the silence of the room. I keep my eyes on the floor as I work my way around everyone’s chairs to get to the kitchen. I should have escaped to the bathroom instead. Sean’s chair legs scrape as he scoots out of my way. Great. Now I’m a leper.

“I just came up to get some tea.” I say.

“You go right ahead, honey.” Mrs. Reese pipes up, all loud and upbeat. I can tell that she is trying to restore everyone to normal and stop them from looking at me. I’m grateful for that, even though it doesn’t work.

“Go on and help yourself to whatever you like.” she says as I dive at the pitcher of tea. “Brandon, get her some ice out of the freezer.”

I’m about to say I don’t need any ice, but Brandon pops up in front of me. The Reese boys are like nesting dolls, definable by age, variations in hair color, and in this one’s case, overdramatic manners. He bows. “One lump or two, ma’am? Or three?”

“Two is fine.” I say and I have to wait as he fishes out the ice and dumps it in my plastic cup. It is a mistake not to let him pour for me too. I slosh the tea right over the rim of my cup, onto the counter. Ugh. I close my eyes and imagine squeezing my own head in my hands until it pops. When I open my eyes again, my mom is mopping up the counter in front of me.

Mrs. Reese announces that it’s been a long night and there’s school tomorrow, so everyone should get ready for bed. Despite the rebellion that rises up from the three youngest, Mrs. Reese insists and they give in. When the kitchen clears, Mrs. Reese focuses on my mom. “Coffee, Evangeline?”

“I’d love some.” my mom says. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

I snap my head toward my mom and whisper hotly, “We’re staying?”

She drops the soggy pile of napkins into the Reese’s trashcan and nods.

“For a little while.” she says. I jut out my jaw and give her the
I don’t agree with this
look, but my mom just gives me a tiny, shake-of-her-head response,
It’s fine
. I bug my eyes at her and she sighs. She turns and tells Mrs. Reese, “Nali and I are going to get some air, Miranda. If you’ll start the coffee, I’m sure we’ll be back in before the pot is done.”

“Certainly.” Mrs. Reese says and my mom walks me out of the kitchen, through the Reese’s living room, to a set of French doors. She flips the latch and we step out onto a polished, cobblestone patio.

My mom immediately lets out an
ohhh
, which is the same sound she makes when she eats New York style cheesecake with her eyes closed.

“This is gorgeous.” she says.

She’s right. The backyard is a mini park. Twelve-foot-tall bushes fence in the yard and blot out the neighborhood. There is a huge swimming pool with a wrap-around deck on the left, still closed from the winter, and in the back of the lot, there is a koi pond that stretches beneath a chocolate-colored gazebo.

I could be completely happy to be in Garrett’s back yard paradise, if I wasn’t so confused about what we are doing here and why we are staying. For the first time in maybe forever, all I want is to be back at our apartment, surrounded by my mom’s paper towers.

“I want to go home.” I tell her.

“What happened downstairs?”

“Nothing happened.” I say and I think of myself sitting on the couch downstairs, waiting for the kiss that never came. My insides simmer. “I just want to go home.”

“Sorry, kiddo. We need to stay so I can talk with Miranda and Basil.”

“About what?” I ask. “Why is everyone working so hard not to tell me
anything?
”

“No one’s doing that.” My mom says but she laughs, a fluttery, streamer of a laugh that doesn’t float with me. I give her my face that says
Come
.
On. Mom.

“Okay, look,” she says. “I’m very concerned about running into the man that attacked you again. I’m afraid of what he might be capable of, so we’re going to stick around here for a little while longer just to be safe.”

“How much longer? I’ve got homework to do and...”

“We’re staying the night.” she says. The words just staple themselves in the air between us. I make noises that don’t form solid sentences. I can’t have a sleep over at Garrett Reese’s house. He’ll be mortified. And if anyone else finds out, I’ll be dead before first bell tomorrow.

“What are you talking about?” I grasp my temples with my fingertips. “They’re strangers! We don’t even know them!”

My mom’s lips buckle in a frown. “They’re from Grandpa’s congregation, Nalena. Old friends…”

“Are you
nuts
?” I yelp. “You’ve never even mentioned them…ever! How can we live ten minutes away and all go to the same school and never visit…but now we’re just dropping in for a sleep over? If they’re old friends, how come you had to introduce yourself on their porch tonight?

“Lower your voice.” she snaps and I fire back at her, “Then be sane!”

She takes a deep breath. “Nalena, this is just very...”