If I Tell (10 page)

I hardened my heart against the tears that plopped down her cheeks. “This time I can’t just forgive you,” I told her.

“You can’t forgive me?” Lacey said. “I don’t forgive myself, Jaz. I feel awful. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”

I hardened my heart. “No, you can’t.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and rubbed under her eyes with her fingertip.

Her misery hurt me. “Why, Lacey? Why do you have to be this way?” I asked.

Her lips pressed together tight. “You want to know?” she asked and blew out a puff of air. Her voice turned icy. “You want to know the truth?” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Remember how I told you about my stepfather? Number two. The way he watched me. Trying to sneak in when I showered or changed?”

I squirmed and bit my lip, nodding.

“Well, what I didn’t tell you, what I forgot to mention was that number one was worse. Much worse.”

I swallowed a lump of dread. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean.” Her voice was bitter, dripping with cold. “He did more than watch. The only person I ever told was my mom, and you know what she did? She blamed it on me. She said that I asked for it.” Lacey closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she opened them, her eyes were full of hate. “I was only thirteen. A kid. What kid asks for that?”

I swore softly under my breath, but she kept going.

“Mom dumped him, but before long she brought home number two. At least number two only looked. I had to live with that until I was old enough to get out of there.”

Another car pulled into the parking lot, its wheels crunching over the pavement, but it pulled into a spot behind Lacey, and neither one of us moved.

“So maybe that’s why I drink. To try to forget. It doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure it out. Why I’m such a slut, as you said.”

I opened my mouth to speak and closed it. I tried again. “I’m sorry, Lacey. I mean, why didn’t you tell me before?”

She stepped back, looking away from me. “Because I didn’t have to, Jaz. I don’t go around bragging about the gory details in my life. You accept me for who I am. Or you did. You put up with my stupid drinking. And the boys. You never made me feel like I was a bad person because of it. Until now.”

A third car pulled into the parking lot and stopped, waiting for us to move. Lacey stared at me, her expression wounded but at the same time just as hateful as mine felt. The car honked and I walked off to the side. Lacey didn’t move. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I managed, but my voice was strained. I wanted to go to her, take her by the hand, and move her out of the way, but I couldn’t.

Why had we never told each other the secrets we carried around? Talked about the things that had happened to us? We’d been drawn together, sensing somehow our wounds and differences, but we’d never opened up. We’d never talked about the things that could have brought us closer. Maybe we could have helped each other sooner.

The driver in the car rolled down his window. “Hey, would you get out of the way already?”

“Forget it, Jaz. Just forget everything.” Lacey started to run. Her feet pounded on the ground. I felt paralyzed, stuck to the cement and helpless as I watched her go, unable to go after her and give her what she needed from me. I couldn’t forgive her. No matter what had happened to her in the past.

My insides gurgled with bile. My stomach churned with my inability to forgive my best friend. Or Simon. I couldn’t forgive either of them for what they’d done.

***

I walked down the busy hallway in the mall, spotting Mom at our meeting place in front of the food court. I hurried toward her, clutching the paper bag full of cookies I’d brought from work.

She whimpered when she saw the bag. “Oh, God. No. Not the cookies. Take them away. Please.” She stepped back to distance herself from the bag. “I don’t need cookies around me right now. Willpower. Zero.”

I dropped my arm, shifting the bag to my other hand.

“I’m such a cliché, aren’t I? Fat pregnant woman with raging hormones.” She started waddling away with a crazy look in her eyes. “I want to buy you some new clothes. Thin clothes. Live vicariously through you. You, skinny minny, got your metabolism from someone else.”

“You mean the Sperminator?”

She clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth just like Grandma and lifted a shoulder. Him again, her expression said. She’d brought him up, not me.

“Maybe.” She stopped. “Anyways. Here. Let’s go in here.”

She grabbed my arm and dragged me into a trendy jean store. “Pick out any pair of jeans. What are you, size four?”

“Um. Two,” I answered, embarrassed at my skinniness. I headed for the jean rack, my enthusiasm for a new pair of jeans dampened by the mention of the Sperminator.

Mom groaned, shuffling behind me. “My thigh is a size two right now. Why don’t you try some different styles? You have such a cute figure.” She sounded almost annoyed.

I made a face and flicked through a rack of jeans. She always tried to get me to wear what she liked.

“Jaz?”

“Mmm?” I studied jean styles without enthusiasm.

“Do you think Simon really loves me?”

I stopped flipping past pant styles. “What? Of course, he loves you,” I lied.

Did a man who loved his pregnant girlfriend make out with her daughter’s best friend? If yes, he was head over heels.

“I’m worried Simon won’t be able to handle fatherhood. His dad couldn’t. He fooled around on his mom until they divorced.” She laughed, but her humor quickly dissolved and her face crumpled. Fine lines deepened around her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days. I’m mad at everyone. I want to kill Simon. Your grandma is making me crazy. I spend every day at work trying not to yell at my customers or cry.” Tears plopped down her cheeks. “Can I have the cookies?”

Flustered, I handed the bag to her.

A salesclerk appeared out of nowhere, a sneering teenage girl about my age with curly auburn hair piled on top of her head. She clacked on gum and shook her head. “No food in the store, ladies.”

Ignoring her, Mom pulled a cookie out of the bag and bit off a big hunk. Crumbs fell to the carpet. “My doctor tells me I’m gaining too much weight, but all I want to do is eat.” She shoved the entire cookie in her mouth and chewed.

“Hey, no eating in the store.”

I shot the girl an evil eye and put a hand on Mom’s back, pushing her toward the exit of the store. “You’re not fat. You’re pregnant,” I said to calm her.

“Ha. I’m as big as a house.” She sniffled and handed the bag back. “Take it away from me.” She patted her stomach. “I’m supposed to be glowing and beautiful. Instead I’m huge. And grouchy. With pimples.” She sniffled again. “Don’t let Grandma throw me a baby shower, okay? I can’t handle a party.”

“I’ll try.” I tried to think of something reassuring to say. “Anyway, you look great. You’re supposed to have weird cravings and be grouchy, aren’t you? Maybe you’re just tired. You should sleep more. Let’s go. I don’t need a new pair of jeans, anyway.”

She just stood there with a sad expression.

“Really, Mom. I don’t.”

She flashed a fake smile. “Sorry, Jaz. I didn’t mean to wreck our shopping trip. Listen to me rattling on about myself.” She wiped cookie crumbs off the side of her lip. “I’ll take you shopping after the baby is born. I promise. We’ll have lots of time to spend together doing fun things. Like shopping.”

She reached inside her purse and pulled out keys. “I’ll drive you home.” She sniffled loudly. “Sorry. I’m up and down like a roller coaster on speed, but I’m fine.” She held out her hand. “Give me the rest of those cookies.”

I handed her the bag without a word.

“To hell with calories. I’ve been on a diet my whole life. I’m pregnant, and I’m letting loose.”

As we headed for the exit, I watched her uncharacteristically gobble a handful of cookies. Her bloated face looked miserable.

“Simon loves you. He’ll be there for this baby,” I said. I felt worse telling another giant lie but she ate it up, just like the cookies.

At least school was a place that offered solitude. No mom weeping about her size or discomfort. No grandma telling me to get out of my room, off my guitar, and out in the fresh air. And with my grades still hanging in there, teachers left me alone. When my schedule didn’t jibe with Ashley’s, my favorite place between classes was outside. Alone in the unseasonable warmth with my guitar, I closed my eyes and faintly hummed the lyrics of my latest song.

Betray me. Betray you. I will if I must.

“What’s that?” a voice asked.

My body jerked, and my eyes flew open as a gasp escaped my mouth.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Is it okay if I sit here?” Jackson said nonchalantly, as if he came and sat with me at school every day. Which he didn’t. Ours was mostly a coffee-shop thing.

“It’s a free country.” I sat up, not wanting him to see that his proximity made my nerves jump around like toddlers overdosing on sugar.

“Yeah, I hear it is,” he said as he plunked down on the grass beside me. He switched his iPod off, pulling earbuds from his ears and letting the wires dangle in front of his shirt.

“So you realize you’re sitting outside the school all by yourself, strumming and humming?” he asked in a conversational tone.

“I do indeed.” I crunched my legs and hugged myself tighter.

“Perhaps this is one of the reasons you’re considered a freak by some of our esteemed classmates.” He winked to take the edge off.

“Perhaps.” Resting my chin on the top of my knobby knees, I studied him. “But an advantage of people thinking I’m a freak is freedom to act like one. No one thinks anything of it.”

“I see your point. Unexpected privileges. So. What song were you playing?”

“It’s just a song.”

“I don’t recognize it.”

“I guess not.” I held my breath a little as if I was about to tell him I wasn’t wearing underwear or something. “I wrote it.”

“You wrote it?”

I nodded, waiting for his reaction and realizing it mattered.

“Cool.” He grinned at me like I’d done something amazingly clever. A better reaction than I’d hoped for.

“You crack me up, you know,” he said. “Putting yourself out there with some things and trying to just blend into the scenery and not be noticed with others.”

“What makes you think you know so much about me?”

“I’m good at figuring people out. It’s a gift.”

“That right?” I asked.

“I know you work in a coffee shop but hate drinking coffee. I know that you’re obsessed with Neil Diamond, and I know you’re kind of a lone wolf. But how come I didn’t know that you wrote a song?” He leaned back, his hands pressing into the grass, and watched me.

“Songs,” I admitted. “I’ve been writing songs for years.”

He pushed off the grass and wiped his hands back and forth on each other. “Plural. You’re prolific. I guess I should have known.”

My insides smiled at his easy teasing. He was so much easier to talk to now.

“What’s it about?”

The shine inside me dimmed, and I shrugged and glanced around us at the front of the school yard. “It’s kind of private.” The song and the content. I couldn’t tell him the inspiration for my bitter ballad. Seeing Simon and Lacey.

Jackson picked a long blade of grass and stuck the end in his mouth and chewed on it. “That right? You still keeping secrets from me?”

I studied the grass in his lips, wondering why he was chomping on the lawn but feeling envious of the blade nonetheless. I frowned at myself.

“Hey, cheer up. They can’t be that bad.”

I slowly breathed out and shrugged, pretending nonchalance.

“That’s cool. I mean, that you write songs. I’m quite the singer myself.” He grinned at me and I smiled. He sang while we were working at the coffee shop. His voice wasn’t bad but he always goofed around, exaggerating high notes and wiggling his hips.

“That song sounded kind of sad. Don’t tell me…let me guess. It’s about your one true love?” He grinned like a kid eager to share a silly knock-knock joke.

I stuck out my tongue. “If I ever write a song about true love, please shoot me.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it doesn’t exist.”

Jackson tilted his head. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“I’ve never seen it.” I’d thought my mom and Simon were in love like that. But look what he’d done to her. And true, Grandpa Joe and Grandma had been married for a million years, but it’s not like they were big on public displays of affection. Never mind that demonstrations of passion from my grandparents would have grossed me out anyhow. I couldn’t remember ever seeing them kiss or hold hands. Grandma was very proper.

“Maybe you will. One day. Maybe it will even happen to you.”

I studied the lawn to cover up the flutters in my belly, then picked a blade of grass and stuck it in the corner of my mouth the way he was doing. “My song isn’t about love. Kind of the opposite, really. It’s more about a secret that could destroy love, actually. A secret that can never be told.”

He tilted his head. “Intriguing. Is it based on fact?”

I shrugged, excited to share a tiny bit of what I’d been holding inside for months. “I have to protect someone else.”

He curled up his lip in a sexy half grin, tugging on the grass hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “You know, Jaz. I told you I’m good at keeping secrets if you need to talk. I have a few of my own. We could do a swap. Kind of like exchanging blood. Only less painful. And more sanitary.”

I wanted to know his secrets so badly that I bit the blade in half to keep from asking. I tasted grass and spit it out and then shook my head.

“Well, keep it in mind. The deal stands.” He sat up straighter. “You working tonight?”

“Nope.” I tried not to show disappointment at the topic change. I wanted to know more about what he hid from the world. Like maybe his dealing? I wanted to ask him if he still did it. I wanted to tell him to stop. That it worried me.

“Too bad,” he said.

My heart pattered a little more. I studied his features. His slightly crooked, thin nose. I wondered if he’d broken it. Maybe at juvie? I didn’t want him to go back there or, worse, to jail.

“I don’t work Wednesdays,” I told him instead of begging him to stay out of trouble. “My grandma signed me up to do volunteer work.”

“That right?”

I nodded.

“I totally see you as the volunteer type. Candy striper? Short little skirt with extra-high heels?” He grinned at the preposterous image.

I burst out laughing. “Not quite.”

“So what are you doing then? Feeding the hungry? Saving the environment?”

“Jaz?” A voice interrupted us.

We both turned. Ashley stood close by. She was staring down at us, her eyebrows raised slightly. I’d been so wrapped up in my conversation with Jackson that I hadn’t even heard her approach.

She smiled. Today her hair tips were dyed neon yellow. She adjusted her glasses and lifted her hand in greeting.

“Hey, Ashley,” I said. “You know Jackson, right?”

Ashley lifted her hand again. “I know who he is, but we don’t have classes together. We’ve never officially met. You work with Jaz, right?”

“You mean she doesn’t talk about me? I’m crushed.” Jackson grinned at her playfully. “So you’re the famous lesbian of the school.”

“And you’re the juvenile delinquent,” Ashley shot back.

“Touché,” he said and tilted an invisible hat.

I stood, wiping grass from my butt. “I can’t believe you two haven’t met before.”

“I don’t take women’s studies.” Jackson grabbed my hand and used it to pull himself up.

“I don’t study criminology,” Ashley said.

I laughed. “Come on. Let’s go inside. It’s almost time for class.” Jackson let go of my hand, and I secretly wished he’d hold it all the way inside the school.

I hurried forward in case he’d read my thoughts, and Jackson and Ashley quickly caught up. The three of us headed toward the school as a group, with Jackson in the middle. It felt nice, like I had people.

When we reached the front door, Jackson opened it and held it for Ashley and me. “You have classes this afternoon?” he asked.

“Chemistry and math,” I told him.

“I’ve got a free period,” he said. “How sweet is that?”

“Me too,” Ashley told him. “I’d hang with you, but you don’t seem to like lesbians.” The corner of her mouth twitched up. She glanced at me, something unreadable but nice in her eyes.

“You heard wrong. I happen to highly approve of lesbians.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“It’s not a spectator sport, you know.” She smacked him on the arm.

Jackson laughed his kooky baritone laugh. I poked his other arm, trying not to notice how solid it was. I had an urge to touch it again for reference. “Jerk!”

He bowed his head with a smile. “I jest. I’m off. See you later, ladies.” He headed off into the loud hallway and away from us. I stopped to watch him go.

“Hey,” Ashley said, pushing her shoulder against mine. “You’re staring at the pretty boy like he’s a big old scoop of vanilla ice cream.”

I stopped staring and smacked Ashley back. “I am not. And since when do you think boys are pretty?”

“Um. You were so. And I’m gay, Jaz. Not blind. He’s hot. And he seems cool. I don’t know why you’ve been keeping him to yourself. I’m glad you finally introduced me.”

“I haven’t been keeping him to myself…we just usually don’t hang out at school. And you never come to Grinds.”

“Yeah, because I’m in the pool. And since you and Lacey had your mysterious fight, you’re never at Marnie’s anymore either.” She glanced down the hallway. “Maybe if Marnie feels comfortable, we could double-date.” She looked at me and started laughing. “Chill. I’m only teasing you. Ha. You should see your face!”

I narrowed my eyes and gave her a dirty look, not amused.

We came to a “T” in the hallway and Ashley pointed left. “I’m this way. You want to meet on the front steps at lunch?”

“Sure.” I waved and rushed to my own class, cheered by an unusual sense of belonging.

***

I met up with Ashley at my locker, and we grabbed our lunch bags and then headed for some fresh air outside. This time of day, kids would be sprawled all over the front walk and steps, spilling onto the lawn and enjoying the break from class.

As soon as I stepped outside, the sunlight blinded me. I breathed in cool, fresh air and heard a car horn honking. Just another car alarm going off, I assumed. I assumed wrong.

“Jaz. Hey, Jaz,” a voice shouted over the noise.

I lifted my hand to block the sun and tensed when I spotted the person shouting.

“What the heck is he doing here?”

“Hey. That’s Simon,” Ashley said, noticing him at the same time.

“No kidding.” I swore under my breath and snarled. “What does he want?”

Simon waved his arms in the air and jumped up and down on the other side of the road.

“Hey, Jaz! Jaz,” he shouted.

He seemed reluctant to cross the sidewalk separating the school yard from the road, even though in jeans and a T-shirt and hoodie he barely looked older than most of the high-school kids. I wanted to yell at him to get away from the school. Get away from me.

People stared, watching him and then me. I spotted Tina and her clones a few feet away. Tina was standing and looking around as if she was waiting for someone.

“Another new boyfriend?” Tina called when she saw me.

“It can’t be. She’s with the lesbian,” one of Tina’s groupies squealed.

“I liked it better when they ignored me,” I said.

Ashley raised her middle finger without looking over.

Simon continued waving his arms. I lifted my hand to let him know I’d seen him and to stop his ridiculous gesturing. “I have to go see what he wants,” I told Ashley, even though he was the last person in the world I wanted to talk to. “Do you mind? I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

“Uh, I guess not,” Ashley said. “Things cool between you guys now?”

I ignored her and hurried down the sidewalk toward Simon, eager to get away from the people watching us. I hurried to cross the road, but when I reached him, I stopped.

“What?” I demanded, frowning at his expensive designer sunglasses. Who was he trying to impress?

He grinned. “Hey. I haven’t seen you in ages, and that’s all I get? What?”

I clutched my lunch bag close. “What are you doing here, Simon? You’re a little too old to be hanging around my high school.”

His sunglasses almost hid his hurt expression. Almost. He smiled again with regular voltage. “I knew you’d come outside for your lunch break. I’m on a break from work too. We’re doing a house close by, so I thought I’d pop over to see if I could take you for lunch.”

I uncrossed my arms and lifted my brown paper bag in the air. “I brought lunch. Grandma insists I don’t waste my money.”

He stepped toward me and took the bag out of my hand. “Throw it out. I’ll buy you something hot and greasy.”

I glanced behind me at the school. Ashley had disappeared. “Grandma will be pissed if I throw out my lunch.”

“Don’t tell her. You don’t need to tell her everything you do, you know.”

I already knew Simon was good at hiding things.

“Come on, Jaz.” He pushed the bag toward me. “Save it for later if you don’t want to throw it out. I’ll buy you McD’s.” He put an arm on my shoulder. “I’d really like to talk to you. It’s been awhile.” He squeezed my shoulder. “It’s important.”

I wanted to say no. I pressed my lips tighter.

“Please.”

I grabbed my bag from his hand and wiggled my shoulder away from him.

He pointed to his car. His stupid yellow Beetle. “Come on. I’m parked illegally.”

We were being watched. I had a couple of choices. Make a big scene and stomp away. Or, go and deal with him in private.

“Fine.” I strutted to the passenger door, yanked on the handle, pulled the door open, and jumped inside.

I tossed my paper bag into the backseat as Simon climbed into the driver’s seat. He started the engine without noticing. I hoped my lunch would rot and smell up his car.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “I’ll make it a fast lunch and have you back in time for your next class, I promise.”