Shot Through the Heart (18 page)

It kills me that she can’t see how we can support each other’s dreams.

I stand up to leave, eliciting a surprised gasp from Peyton. “I think you’re looking for an excuse for us not to be together. Because if you’re really taking your own advice, you’d go for the whole package. Everything you want. But you know, trust isn’t something that can be proven. You have to take a chance. You have to stop being chicken.”

I hate the harsh edge in my voice, but with everything that’s happened this week, I’ve had it. Plus, I’m still damp from standing on the front porch for so long. If Peyton wants me, she needs to show it.

I tell her no hard feelings, that we can still be friends like before, and then turn for the front door.

“Connor, don’t go. It’s only that I’m still trying to figure out—”

“I’ll see you Monday.” One week to the day since I uttered the words,
Peyton’s pretty level-headed…she doesn’t get all emotional about girly stuff.
Little did I know.

I wedge my feet into my shoes without bothering to bend down and untie them first, then scoot out the door, cutting through the woods despite the puddles in order to avoid sniper fire.

This would be a hell of a lot more comfortable if I had my own car.

I’m halfway home when my phone vibrates with a text:

grayson wz in cumbys pkg lot & I didnt see him

A second text from Josh bumps the first:

he called joe & im out…keep yr head down less than 24 hrs 2 go ok?

I shove the phone into my pocket without responding. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours.

Chapter Fifteen |
Peyton

M
y heart jumps in my chest, pounding as hard and fast as if a gun fired near my head. A pair of wide blue eyes stares down at me.

“What the—”

“Hi, Pey!” Tessa’s crowded onto my bed, sunlight from my now-raised window shade streaming through her blonde curls. She has a huge smile on her face, oblivious to the fact I realized she wasn’t a homicidal intruder only half a second before screaming an alert to the entire house.

“Um, hi.” I will my heartbeat to a less-frantic rhythm and squint at her. She’s had her teeth whitened. I wonder if it’s for Matt. It’s blinding at—I roll over and check my alarm clock—six a.m. No wonder my dream was so vivid; I was in the midst of it.

“Sorry I woke you up, but I couldn’t wait another minute. I’ve been dying to talk to you!”

Dying to talk to me? Really? She’s lucky she’s not dead at my hand. It’s about a five-hour drive for Tessa to come home from college, so weekend visits are rare. Rarer still when she has a boyfriend. Rather than commit murder, I manage a semi-gracious, “This is a surprise,” push to a sitting position, and blink my room into focus.

You’d think Tessa would heed my mood and move cautiously. Instead, she bounces off the bed and leans over to give me a celebratory bear hug, rocking me back and forth with over-the-top excitement. When she releases me, I slump backward against my pillows, desperate to go back to sleep. My early morning brain is semi-functional at best; having it rattled around my skull by her hug after last night’s bout of insomnia doesn’t help. I couldn’t stop obsessing about Academic Olympics, nosy e-mails from Tina and Kendall, or my kitchen fiasco with Connor—though mostly about Connor—and the dream was a wonderful respite from my turbulent thoughts.

What’s worse, I spent all of Friday night awake, too. After finishing my homework and walking Mom through her portion of the Academic Olympics paperwork, I considered returning the phone message I’d received from Connor after school. But I needed time to think before I talked to him. I owed him that, and I owed it to myself, too.

Then he showed up on my doorstep.

Forced into a corner—literally, since he was trying to kiss me while I had my back to the wall—fear got the better of me. I couldn’t decide what I wanted fast enough and the decision was taken out of my hands.

I screwed up. Now Connor is gone.

Sometime around two a.m., I realized that while I’m scared of making Tessa’s mistakes, I’m far more scared of having my heart broken. And that’s exactly what I got.

Not that Tessa has noticed the mountain of wadded tissue in the garbage can beside my desk or she’d stop with her giddy bed-rocking.

“What’s the happy occasion?” I ask. “Laundry?”

She flips a hand. “Ha, ha. Very funny. I came to see you! Mom and Dad are still asleep and don’t even know I’m here. I wanted to give you the news first.”

Lucky them. I don’t hide the suspicion in my voice. “What news?”

“Because of you—what you said to me during our last call—I’m going to get my teacher training.” She takes a deep breath, then flops backward to lie next to me, sprawling to take up every inch of free space. Thank goodness I have a queen-sized bed, because I doubt she’d have done any differently if I had a twin. “I’m so happy, Peyton, I had to tell you in person.”

I want to choke her. First for waking me up, and second because I’m so
un
happy with my own life. “You drove all the way home from Syracuse to tell me you’re happy? What time did you leave?”

“A little after one a.m., I think. The roads were empty, so it was an easy drive.”

“You’re lucky the cops didn’t bust you for speeding.”

“Such a pessimist.” She shifts closer to me, exaggerating a sigh. “Don’t you want the details?”

No. I love her, I do. But I’m not in the mood. “Since you drove all the way here to tell me, do I have a choice?”

She angles herself so I can see her face without having to move my head from its comfy nesting spot in the pillows. “You may be my little sis, but I’ve learned so much from you. From how you take control of situations, rather than letting situations control you.”

“I don’t know about that.” Exhibit A being the last twenty-four hours of my life.

“But you do. You always have. You’re the queen of common sense.” One side of her mouth curls. “I know you don’t think I’m very practical, but at my core, I have too much of Mom and Dad in me not to be. I might flit off now and again, but one thing I’ve learned through yoga meditation is that I’m only truly happy when I feel secure. Accounting gives me security. I couldn’t imagine majoring in anything else.”

I push up on my elbows, then to a full sit. As much as I crave sleep, I’m awake for the day now. It’s not like I can return to where I left off in dreamland, anyway. “What does all this have to do with me, again?”

“You showed me that I can be as practical about my yoga education as I am with my accounting education.” A timid smile flicks across her face. “Peyton, I got a job. I start Monday.”

“That’s…good?” Mom and Dad are going to kill her.

“Of course it’s good!” She laughs. “I thought a lot about what you said. I had to decide what I really want and then take steps toward that goal without having to rely on Mom and Dad. Like you said, I needed to just do it. I went right out that night and applied for the perfect job. They made the offer yesterday afternoon. I’m working at the front desk of a yoga studio—not Matt’s—registering students for class two nights a week. Even better, I’m helping with their financials, which is something I can do on my own time so it won’t interfere with classes. It’s perfect—I’ll see firsthand how a successful yoga studio’s run, I’ll get more accounting experience, and I’ll be earning money to help pay for teacher training when I’m ready.”

Now she has my attention. Maybe Mom and Dad won’t kill her after all. “That’s impressive, Tessa. Good for you.”

“Now do you see why I couldn’t wait to tell you?” Her grin stretches ear to ear. “Even if I decide that I don’t want to teach yoga, it’ll look fantastic on my resume that I handled finances for a small business while in college. And if I ever decide to pursue an MBA, it’ll look good on those business school applications to have some work experience.”

I can’t believe she just mentioned the possibility of an MBA. Dad would die of joy if he knew. “I assume you told Matt about all this?”

She squeezes my wrist. “That’s the best part. All these years, every time I made a decision, if I had a boyfriend I ran it by him first. This time, I made a decision that was all for me. I saw the ad online for a part-time receptionist and went straight to the studio and applied. When I told them I was an accounting major and did bookkeeping, too, I could tell they were impressed. But I was so nervous about what Matt might say, I didn’t tell him until it was official.”

“How’d he react?”

Tears of happiness puddle at the bottom of her eyes. “He was so supportive. I could see the excitement on his face before I’d even finished giving him the news. He might’ve been more excited than I am!”

“Even though it’s not his studio?”

She nods. “He thinks it’s
better
that I’m not working in his studio. If I want to teach yoga someday, Matt says it’s helpful to get as broad a range of experience as possible. The place I’m going to work—it’s called Westminster Yoga—has been around for nearly twenty years and has a great reputation. Matt says working there will give me the opportunity to see how someone else operates.”

She lets go of my wrist and relaxes into the pillows beside me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tessa so…giddy’s not the right word…it’s a deeper happiness than that. I’ve never seen Tessa this
content
. Happy, yes, but at peace with herself.

I’m both thrilled for her and insanely jealous.

She lets out a long, slow breath. “Pey? Keeping my mouth shut while I made this decision felt good.”

“In that case, I’m glad you woke me up to tell me.” And I mean it.

She glances sideways at me from her nest of pillows. “Well, now that you’re awake, I’m ready to go to sleep.”

“That’s what you get for leaving Syracuse so early. That was nuts.”

As I slide out from under the covers, she describes how much she enjoyed the drive. It gave her rare time alone with her own thoughts. “The sun rose over the horizon at the exact moment I crossed into Massachusetts,” she says, her tone wistful. “It felt like I was seeing a sign.”

“You did. A big blue one that says, ‘Welcome to Massachusetts’ with a picture of a turkey dressed like a pilgrim. But since you ignored the sign with the speed limit—”

“Silly. I mean a sign I’m moving in the right direction.”

“I know that. I was trying to be funny.” Why I try with my siblings, I don’t know. Maybe because I wish I’d seen a big blue sign about this time yesterday telling me what to do about Connor.

When I return from a quick bathroom break and start foraging in my closet for shorts and a T-shirt, she says, “You looked so serene when I tiptoed in here that I didn’t want to wake you. Were you dreaming?”

“Since I didn’t fall asleep until roughly an hour after you left Syracuse, yes. I was zonked.”

Frown lines crisscross her brow as she comes to stand beside me. “Is something going on with you? If I’d known you were up so late—”

“No big deal.” I ignore her question and wave off the apology even as she yanks the dirty clothes basket out of my closet and rummages through it. She withdraws a delicate pink and caramel ruffled top that used to be hers, raising an eyebrow as it dangles from her fingertip.

“You gave that to me,” I point out so she doesn’t think I stole it from her closet while she was away.

“Yeah, I know. Ages ago. If you’re still wearing it, you need to update.” She lets it fall back into the basket, then pulls out another shirt for inspection. “So back to my original question. What were you dreaming about? Do you remember?”

Since she’s not pestering me about the reason for my insomnia, I give. “You’re going to laugh.”

“Was it a guy?”

“Ha! Those are
your
dreams.”

She tosses the shirt into my face and sticks her tongue out at me, because we both know it’s true. I mimic her expression, then explain, “Believe it or not, I was running. Out behind the high school, on the path that loops behind the track and then cuts through the woods. You know, where the cross country team sometimes trains.”

“You?
Running?
Don’t you despise running?” Before I can answer, her eyes widen in concern. “Wait, were you actually running, or were you being chased? That’s a fairly common dream, with much deeper connotations—”

“No, not being chased. Running.” I retrieve the shirt she threw at me, flipping it back in the laundry basket. “It’s weird, but in my dreams, I run a lot. If there’s a barrier, like a branch on the path or a guardrail at the side of a road, I leap over it and it’s fun. I even scale fences and splash through water obstacles. You know, like those urban courses where the runners can go over walls, up fire escapes, and through the subway system. Except mine’s behind Eastwood High School.”

“Parkour,” Tessa says. “I watched a TV special about it. It’s non-competitive. Like yoga.”

“
So
not like yoga.” No moody music, no dark rooms, no calming voices telling me how to move or hold a pose. Just
me
.

“But it’s freeing.”

“Exactly. It’s nothing like real life running. It’s more like I’m flying. Exhilarated. My head is so clear I can think straight and I’m never tired. My muscles don’t get sore, my lungs don’t ache. It’s…it’s like I’m completely liberated.” I sound like a goon, but I can’t stop.