Magnolia (25 page)

“Just stop right there.” He holds out one hand. “I don't think anything like that, okay? It was . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. “Shit, Jemma. I'm not going to lie to you. It was nice. I'm glad I kissed you. I'm pretty sure I've been wanting to for . . . well, a long time now.”

“You did a pretty good job hiding it, that's for sure.”

“It's just that . . . well, I've had to listen to seventeen years' worth of how you're the perfect girl for me. And goddamn, Jem. My mom already controls enough in my life. What food I eat. What clothes I wear. Hell, even my underwear. You wouldn't believe the fight she put up a few years back when I wanted to switch to boxer briefs instead of regular boxers.”

I swallow hard, remembering the sight of him wearing the
underwear in question. Yeah, I'm glad he won that particular battle.

“Anyway, if my parents want it for me, it must be wrong. So I convinced myself that
you
were wrong for me. You had to be.” His gaze sweeps across my face, and I swear I feel it linger on my lips. “No matter what I felt every single time I looked at you.”

Oh my God. I did the
exact
same thing—thinking he had to be wrong for me just because Mama insisted we were a perfect match. Now I don't know what to think. What to feel. What's real and what's a trying-to-prove-something fabrication.

But Ryder . . . he
gets
it. He's lived it too.

I let out a sigh. “Can you imagine how different things would be if our families hated each other? If they were feuding like the First Methodists and the Cavalry Baptists?”

“I bet it'd be a whole lot less complicated, to tell you the truth. Heck, we probably would've already run off together or something by now.”

“Probably so,” I say, a smile tugging at my lips.

“There's something else,” Ryder says, shuffling his feet, looking uncomfortable. “It's about Rosie. I wasn't being honest with her, or with myself. You were right—I
was
leading her on. At Josh's party, I mean.”

“But . . . but why?” I stammer.

“Truth be told, I think I was trying to make you jealous. It
wasn't fair to her, and, well . . . I came clean to her and apologized. I just wanted you to know.”

“Uh-oh, I bet that wasn't pretty,” I say.

“Yeah, you could say that,” he answers with a wince. “She was awfully mad. Not that I blame her.” His lips twitch with a smile. “You're tryin' real hard not to say ‘I told you so,' aren't you?”

“I admit, it's taking some serious restraint,” I say. Glancing down at my cell, I notice that I've missed three calls. Two from my parents—probably wondering where the heck I am—and one from Lucy. “It's getting late. I should probably go in.”

“C'mon, I'll walk you.”

He holds out a hand to me. I take it, falling into step beside him—marveling at how right it feels. I glance up at him, his face illuminated by the moonlight. Something in his expression sparks a memory. Ryder at the beach, watching me when he thought I wasn't looking. Ryder at school, glancing at me from across the hall. Ryder at Magnolia Landing, sitting across the table from me at Sunday dinner, watching me eat. I always interpreted his expression as something bordering on contempt—disdain, maybe. But now . . . now he's looking at me with that exact same expression, and I realize that maybe I was wrong all along.

In so, so many ways.

T
he stadium lights are blindingly bright as I step out onto the field and make my way to the fifty-yard line. I take my place in the semicircle with the rest of the cheerleading squad and look out at the sea of orange and blue filling the stadium. The crowd is quiet but for the shuffling of feet, the occasional sneeze or sniffle. Off to the side of the stands, the band remains seated and silent as the football team takes the field, filling in the space behind the dozen cheerleaders. There's no running out onto the field tonight, no bursting through colorful banners while the fight song plays and fans cheer enthusiastically.

Lucy and I managed to get separated somewhere between the sidelines and the field, but she makes her way back to my side, shuffling Jessica down a spot as she squeezes in next to
me. Morgan's on my other side, standing in the same pose as I am—feet planted apart, hands clasped behind our backs, heads bowed.

“You okay?” she whispers, and I glance up at her and nod.

Her hair is pulled up into a high ponytail adorned with an enormous orange bow, and she's got a temporary tattoo of our mascot, the Magnolia Branch Mustang, pawing the air on one of her rosy cheeks. Her lashes are wet with gathering tears, and she reaches up to brush one away as Ryder makes his way to the front of the assembled group with Mason and Ben following behind.

The three of them move to stand in the center of the semicircle. The principal taps the microphone twice to make sure it's on and then hands it over to Ryder.

He somehow manages to look larger, more muscular, in his football uniform—tight blue pants that end at his knees, orange jersey emblazoned with the number ten. He's wearing eye black under his eyes, and his dark hair is damp and smoothed down. I can't explain it, but he feels like a stranger to me tonight. I drop my gaze to the grass, feeling numb and strangely dissociated as he clears his throat and begins to speak.

“Tonight,” he says haltingly, “we play this game in memory of Patrick Hughes, whose life was cut tragically short during Hurricane Paloma.” He takes a deep breath before continuing
on. “Patrick was more than just a teammate—he was a friend. To me, to everyone on this team. He always gave one hundred percent out on the field—every game, every practice. He was loyal. He was proud. He was determined.”

Ryder glances down at the index card he's holding, then back up at the crowd. He scratches his chin, then clears his throat once more. I shift my weight from one foot to the other as I wait for him to continue. Ben lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Mason meets his gaze and nods once before Ryder's able to find his voice again.

“Patrick was a good guy,” he says at last. “He always had your back, no matter what. You could count on him to make a play, to push through adversity, to play through an injury. Off the field, Patrick liked to have fun—to laugh, to play. He always knew the right thing to say to cheer someone up. He had a joke for everyone who needed one.

“This team has lost a friend,” he says, his voice breaking on the last word. “A brother. We miss you, Pat. Rest in peace.” Ryder wipes a tear from his cheek as he hands the microphone back to the principal.

I can't help it—a quiet sob tears from my throat. It's not just me, either. Most of the squad is crying now, and the football team too. Morgan reaches for my hand, Lucy the other. I clasp theirs, squeezing tightly, holding on for dear life as the principal begins her speech.

The rest of the ceremony is mercifully short. His jersey—number seven—is officially retired. A small section of the band stands and plays a mournful tune. The entire stadium is sobbing by the time the last note fades into nothingness. And then we clear the field. It's game time.

I can barely breathe as I take my place on the sideline.

“You don't have to do this,” Lucy says as we retrieve our fluffy pom-poms, preparing for the fight song routine.

“I do,” I answer. I force myself to take several deep, calming breaths. “For him. For Patrick.” We've dedicated this game to him—our first game since the storm, thanks to the extensive damage wrought by the wind and the rain. I owe it to him to participate, to do my job, to cheer his team to victory. I can't just sit this one out.

Lucy nods, her eyes full of understanding. “Let me know if you need to sit down, though, okay? And if you don't want to do the stunt—”

“I'm fine with the stunt.” I fell three times at practice, unable to get enough height in the toss. But I won't mess up tonight—I can't.

“I'm just not sure that—” Lucy's protest is cut off by the opening bars of the fight song. I hop into position and plaster a forced smile on my face.

I can do this. I can. Baby steps. I just have to get through the first half, and then the homecoming presentation at halftime.
After that, the last two quarters will be a breeze. And then I can go home and snuggle with Beau and Sadie and pretend that everything's okay when it isn't.

*  *  *

“What do you mean you didn't buy a dress yet?” Lucy shrieks. “The dance is in eight hours! What were you planning to do? Stop by the mall on your way there?” She hurries over to my closet and throws open the door. “Let's see. . . . There's gotta be something in here that'll do. Hey, what about your gala dress?” She holds up the gown in question, fluttering the tulle skirt with one hand. “It'll look awesome with the tiara!”

I shake my head. “I dunno, Luce. I just . . . I don't feel right about this.”

Her dark eyes widen. “Right about what? The dress? Okay, I know you just wore it a month ago, but hardly anyone from school was there to see it. Just our friends, and they don't care. The boys won't even remember.”

“No, not the dress. I meant . . . the dance. Last night was bad enough.” I shudder at the memory.

Things hadn't gotten any easier after the pregame ceremony. When they'd announced the court during halftime and pinned an enormous mum to my cheerleading uniform, I'd looked out at the sea of faces and saw the pity there, heard the hushed whispers that rippled through the stands.

That's the girl who was going out with Patrick. Poor thing, so
brave. I wonder who's going to escort her tomorrow night.

At least, that's what I imagined they were saying. So yeah, I'm not exactly looking forward to tonight. The crowning will be ten times worse than last night's presentation. I never asked anyone to escort me. I'm going solo. Well, not really solo, because Morgan, Lucy, and I are supposed to go together. Or that had been the plan right up until two a.m. last night, when Morgan had texted to say that she and Mason had stopped for pizza after the game and run into Clint Anderson—he'd graduated from Magnolia Branch High last year and was a freshman at State now. Apparently, they'd started talking and one thing led to another, including a make-out session in the parking lot. The end result was Clint offering to take her to the dance tonight.

I don't want to go. Only I can't seem to make Mama understand. She's over-the-moon excited about the whole homecoming court thing. She said it was going to make me a “hot commodity”—her words—at Rush next year. I'd stupidly asked why it mattered since I was just going to pledge Phi Delta anyway. At least, that was “her plan,” wasn't it? Yes, I'd put extra emphasis on those words. That had led to a big lecture about how I wasn't taking it seriously enough, how important it was to go to the right houses' pref parties even if I
was
a Phi Delta triple legacy.

I glanced over to where Lucy was digging in my closet,
looking for shoes to go with my dress, and sighed. “Will you hate me if I don't go with you tonight?”

She stood so abruptly that she bumped her head on the doorjamb. “Ow! What? Are you dumping me for a guy, like Morgan did? Crap, is my head bleeding?”

I take a look at her scalp. “No, you're good. And no, there's no guy. I just . . . really don't want to go. That's all.”

She fixes me with a glare. “That's not funny, Jemma. You have to go.”

“You sound just like my mom.”

“Well, Miss Shelby is right.
This
time.”

I shake my head. “I don't know, Luce. I mean, everyone's going to be watching me. If I look like I'm not having fun, they'll all be like, ‘Poor Jemma Cafferty! It's so sad, what happened.' And if I
do
have fun, it'll all be, ‘Shouldn't she be in mourning or something?' I can't win either way.”

“Why do you care what they think? Your friends know the truth—know how much you cared about him. That's what matters.”

I swallow hard, feeling like a fraud again. “But . . . that's just it,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I
didn't
care that much about him. I was going to break up with him right after the storm, Lucy. How awful is that?”

She just stares at me, her eyes wide. And she doesn't even
know
about me making out with Ryder.

I drop my head into my hands. “I'm such a terrible person.”

The mattress sinks beside me as Lucy sits and wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders. “Oh, Jem. Girlfriend . . .” She sighs loudly. “I'd think a lot less of you if you
had
been in love with him. That's the honest-to-God truth. I know it's awful to speak ill of the dead and all that, but you know what? Patrick Hughes was trouble. He wasn't right for you. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what you saw in him. But . . . you know, I was trying to be supportive and all that.”