Hate (16 page)

August 2002

“BLANE!” I YELLED AS I moved towards the departing soldiers at a run.

When I had finally found the balls to go over to his house that morning, two whole months after he’d walked away from me at graduation, the last thing I expected to find was his distraught mother telling me he was gone. She said he told her his “country was one of very few things he had left worth fighting for.”

It didn’t take me long to figure out why she was blubbering, and it took even less time for me to join her.

He was leaving.

To go to war.

And he hadn’t said one goddamn word.

“Blane!” I screamed again, searching for him in the crowd of uniformed clones and coming up empty.

Of course, then I’d had to come up with a plan. It’s not like it was easy to get onto the military base.

They didn’t let any old schmo who sobbed about their broken heart waltz around unaccompanied.

So I’d thought fast. There was only one person I knew, and when I said knew, I didn’t mean well.

Blane and I had attended high school with Heather, but if I’d spoken five words to her, that was a lot. But I’d heard through the grape vine of gossip (my mom told Gram, and Gram told me), that Heather had married an Army soldier, and they were stationed right there on Blane’s base.

According to Blane’s mom, all I needed was a person on base to sponsor me for the day so that I could get on to find him before he left.

Easy, right?

Yeah. Right.

Once Heather put me on the list, after a couple of phone calls and a lot of fast talking in order to convince her, I had to get to the base, wait in line to get a paper pass, then get back in the line of cars to get searched at the gate. After that, I was free to drive around, but not really do anything without my escort.

And getting close to the soldiers themselves was like trying to get Santa to grant my Christmas wish.

When I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I went straight to Heather’s house and begged her husband to get me as close as he could.

Sexual favors were offered (by me), murders were almost committed (by Heather), and a couple of tears were shed (by Heather’s husband Eric when I accidentally kneed him in the balls in the middle of my hysterics).

Half an hour later, here I was.

Of course, there was still a fence between us and a sea of people that I had no idea if Blane was actually amidst.

Pulling the air from the very bottom of my lungs, I shouted his name one more time, hoping that by some miracle he would hear me.

“Blane!”

Several heads turned my direction, surely thinking I had completely lost my mind.

I was running along the line of the fence, screaming like a banshee, and if I were to make a guess about my appearance, I’d wager that it was as disheveled as my ragged emotions.

The crowd of soldiers parted and from between them came a man I didn’t know. His hair was shorn close to his scalp and the set of his face snubbed even the thought of a smile.

But his blue eyes were the same. At least, they were the dead version I’d come to know over the past several months. They didn’t dance like they used to, but they pointed to something familiar. The once loving boy I knew. The boy who smiled at me the first time I saw him even though I scowled.

He made his way to me slowly, exiting the cordoned off area and ending up on the same side of the fence with me.

When the toes of his boots touched mine, I didn’t stop myself from reaching out and grabbing a handful of the camouflage covering his chest.

“You’re leaving,” I accused, completely at a loss for how to put what I was thinking into the so few words I had time for.

I needed at least a week, maybe a year, to tell him what I was thinking and feeling—what I’d been thinking and feeling for quite some time.

His hand moved slowly and settled over mine at his chest. It didn’t feel real—his grip wasn’t firm enough—but I knew it had to be. I could see it with my own eyes, and the rapid beat of my heart told me it felt it just fine.

“I have to, Whit,” he whispered, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing noticeably. “It’s inside me, eating me up every day. And I can’t just do
something
, I have to do
everything
I can.”

“You can’t do this. Tragedy seems to follow you everywhere,” I accused.

A grin pulled at the left corner of his mouth. “My dad always said the only way to stop something from following you, was to chase it.”

The telltale tingle hit my nose, and I knew I was only moments away from drowning both of us with my ever-present tears.

Turning my hand over, I laced my fingers with his, and after considering it for only a moment, finally did what I should have done a long time ago.

All of my weight shifted to my toes as I stretched to cover his lips with my own.

Aside from the spasm of his hand in mine, he froze, but I pushed forward, massaging the plush pink of his lips with mine. Asking—begging—for his permission and participation, I eased the tip of my tongue into the crease of his lips and lifted my free hand to cradle his freshly shaved head.

I hadn’t ever gotten close enough to run my fingers through his hair, but I so easily associated it with him that I missed the feel of it. Missed the reminder that it was him I was kissing as my heart spilled all around us.

Finally, when I was about to give up, his tongue met mine, and it didn’t do it slowly.

He tilted his head to go deeper and drank from me like he’d been doing it for years. He was precise and passionate, and he knew my mouth in a way that suggested he had a blueprint of it hanging in his room.

Electricity surged into my body and all I could do was hold on. His right hand gripped my hip hard, digging in his fingertips and leaving behind the marks to prove it, while his left dove straight into the long brownish-blond locks of my hair.

His moves dictated mine, moving so fast that all I could hope to do was follow, meeting the strokes of his tongue with my own and pressing my body as close to his as I could get it.

A haze clouded my mind and erased the knowledge of our location and audience. For me, in that moment, the only two people on the planet were Whitney and Blane, and for as close as we were we might as well have been one.

A sob left my throat as his mouth left mine. He twisted his hand free from my grip and stepped back, but left a hand in the tangled tussles of my hair.

“I’ve always loved this hair,” he reflected to himself. Trust me, I was there, but he wasn’t talking to me.

As his hand left, it brushed the apple of my cheek, but it didn’t stay long.

And neither did he.

Without another word, he turned on his boot and headed for the rest of his unit at a jog.

Just like that, my heart shattered and fell into jagged pieces at my feet.

I hated that he was such a good kisser.

And I hated that that was the last time I saw him.

But most of all, I
hated
that I loved Blane Hunt. And he would never love me.

“WHATCHA GOT THERE?” GRAM QUIZZED as I put the last packet of Chiclets Tiny Size into the cardboard box for the fifteenth time.

Accompanying the gum were several sleeves of Chips-A-Hoy chewy chocolate chip cookies, Cool Ranch Doritos, and a cool, unused leather-bound journal I’d found in a thrift store.

He loved Fierce Grape gatorade too, but I’d have to go to another store for that. Target had run out.

I know. Blasphemy.

Why was I looking for all of this stuff?

I’d been asking myself the same question for the last several days.

For some reason, I hadn’t been able to let go of the idea of Blane, out there alone, or at least without the comforts of home, and putting together this care package had soothed my ragged nerves.

Sort of.

Unfortunately, I really hadn’t decided whether to actually send it or not, and Gram catching me in the act was really putting a snafu in my plans to keep it on the down low.

“Nothing,” I lied easily in an attempt to play it off. Those snacks could have been for me. Stored in a cardboard box instead of in the pantry for no reason.

Maybe she wouldn’t notice. She was getting older every day.

A girl could hope.

“Okay,” she acquiesced. “If you don’t want to talk about that, let’s talk about the other item that has my attention.” Shoving past me, she walked into my bathroom and picked up the box of home hair dye that had been sitting on my vanity counter for the last five days.

Two options.

Fighting for supremacy in the ultimate battle. My decision would surely shape my future, both romantic and regular, and for five whole days, I hadn’t been able to choose. I’d packed and unpacked the box, prepped and un-prepped for a hair transformation.

One meant holding on. The other meant letting go.

And I just couldn’t seem to commit to either one.

How do you let go of the person you’re in love with?

I didn’t have the answer.

But how do you hold on to someone who’ll never love you back?

That answer might have been worse.

Avoiding the real subject, I explained, “I’ve been thinking about a change. Going darker with my hair. What do you think?”

“I think whatever you think. If you don’t like it, color can always be changed back. That’s what all these girls are going to cosmetology school for. So they can change your color like the leaves for the season and get free cover ups of their own gray hairs.”

I moved into the bathroom, evaluating myself in the mirror and twirling a hunk of brownish-blond hair around my index finger.

The lighter strands seemed to glow in the light as I moved and flexed it. The girl reflected looked like me and moved like me, but the feeling I got when I looked at myself was decidedly devoid of
me
.

As a lump formed in my throat, I bit my bottom lip and forced myself to swallow.

I needed a change. I needed a rejuvenation. I needed something to wake me up, make me feel alive again. And I needed it to happen soon.

I could spend my time waiting and wishing, or I could take the bull by the horns, and steer my own destiny.

But that didn’t mean I could have anything I wanted. Naïveté would do me no favors.

It hadn’t in the past, and it more than wouldn’t in the future.

I looked up, meeting Gram’s questioning eyes in the reflection of my bathroom mirror. “I think it’s time to make a change.”

She heaved a sigh. Doubt swirled through her chocolate eyes, but she didn’t say anything.

“How are you at dying hair?”

She smiled, just slightly. “I don’t have much experience, but your Gram can do absolutely anything.” She giggled. “And more importantly, if I screw it up, I know a girl who can fix it.”

I wished everything was as easy to fix as bad hair. You could color over it, cut it different, or put extensions in. And if all else failed, time would erase any mistakes. The positive outlook for this decision was nowhere near as definite.

“Sit down,” she instructed pointing to the closed toilet seat. The sound of the paper box ripping echoed in the bathroom as she opened it up and started reading the instructions.

That act alone really threw me for a loop. Gram wasn’t a rule follower.

“You’re actually reading the instructions?”

She shrugged casually. “You’re the one keeping me in Soaps for now. As long as I’m getting something out of you, I figure it pays to try not to screw this up.”

She squirted the ingredients into the bottle provided, covering the open nozzle of the top with her finger before shaking it, the sleeve of her loose sweater whooshing back and forth as she did.

Grabbing the clean towel hanging on the rack in front of me, I wrapped it around my shoulders, making sure to pull each and every strand of hair free.

“What’s it like?” I asked without actually asking the real question.

“What’s what like?” she replied, understandably confused but not discouraged.

“To be in love with someone and know that they love you back.”

She moved the bottle to my head, sectioning off a part of hair and starting without even warning me. I guess there really was no turning back.

Her heavy breath moved swiftly against my skin, the sudden burst of it making the hairs on my arms stand up on end.

“It’s…powerful…and completely debilitating all at the same time. It’s ecstasy and agony, and it’s one of the single most terrifying feelings in the world.” She moved mindlessly to the next section of hair, her gloved fingers rubbing softly into my scalp. “It’s safety and danger, and the thought of living without it after you’ve had it is almost enough to make you stay away. But only almost. It’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“I want to have that,” I said softly, the feel of the soft denim at my knees soothing my stroking thumbs.

“You already do,” she declared immediately and without apprehension.

My disbelieving eyes sought her face just as quickly.

“Your mom, your dad, and me.”

I appreciated her point, but it wasn’t the same. I looked back down at the threadbare knees of my jeans, picking at the loosest thread with my thumb and forefinger.