This Is Not a Drill (7 page)

CHAPTER 12

JAKE

I’M TRYING LIKE HELL TO BE INTERESTED
in the kids’ computer games, ’cause I hate when grown-ups give you those little “uh-huh,” “that’s nice” comments when they’re not really paying attention. But my mind is racing—if I could talk to Cole, he’d figure out what we should do. People don’t give Cole a lot of credit for smarts, but most of the time he’s great at getting out of trouble—he’s had
lots
of experience. He definitely comes through in an emergency. Emery says I spend too much time with Cole, and my dad thinks so, too. After we got into trouble this summer, my dad had some line about if you hang out in a barber shop, you’re eventually gonna get a haircut.

Emery just doesn’t understand our friendship, but Cole’s my boy. He checks in with me every few days to see if I need anything, he’d beat the crap out of anybody who said a word against me, and if there’s a crisis, he usually has me laughing like a hyena by the end of the disaster. He’s been great since the weed thing; I think he’s trying to make it up to me for not taking the blame, even though he never apologized.

Emery gives me a look from the back of the room that makes me wonder if there’s something going on outside. What the hell was she trying to do anyway, talking to Stutts? Does she think they’re going to be buddies or something? This ain’t the freakin’
Oprah
show. The best course of action is to stay as far away from that guy as possible.

Her eyes have that intense look they get. They study you like they’ll swallow you whole. A shaman’s eyes, I told her once. I don’t know if she can see the future, but she can damn sure see anything you’re trying to hide.

We started going out after we met up at a party at Tab’s house. We’d been talking in art class, and okay, I’m not gonna lie, I liked her a lot. This’ll sound really cheesy, but for the first time since my mom died, I actually woke up feeling pretty good just knowing I’d see Emery when I got to school.

I’ll admit I felt a little off base with her at first. Emery has a low tolerance for bullshit, so I knew my usual tricks weren’t gonna work. But I liked it that I was never sure what she was gonna say—and that I could count on her to always tell me the truth.

Things were going good. But then something happened. Okay, full disclosure: I was a jerk, I admit it, but when Stacey Jordan called and invited me to Heather Raby’s lake house for a party that Sunday afternoon, I told myself she was just being friendly. I mean, senior girls don’t go after junior guys. It wasn’t a date. We didn’t even ride out there together. She just asked if I wanted to meet her there. Seriously, Stacey Jordan—who’s gonna turn
that
down?

Emery was working on a research paper that weekend, so I didn’t mention the party. Stacey and I hung out all afternoon, mostly with everybody else. I had a few beers, and then a few more, and Stacey was being pretty friendly, especially when she asked if I wanted to take a walk in the woods with her. Sure, I felt a little guilty about making out with her, but like Cole said, Emery didn’t own me. It wasn’t like I’d made some big commitment to her.

I had a lot to drink—way more than I should have—and I think I said something to Stacey like I wanted to get to know her better, and I guess she took it the wrong way, ’cause the next thing I know, Stacey’s posted on Facebook that we’re in a relationship. Hell, I don’t know why she did it. Who knows why girls do shit like that?

I knew something was up when Tab called me at one in the morning and said, “Asshole,” and hung up.

I was waiting at Emery’s locker when she got to school that day. I tried to talk to her. I told her Stacey didn’t mean anything to me, but that just made her madder. She wouldn’t even look at me. She just opened her locker, pulled down the picture I’d taken of us on that first day of art class, tore it in little pieces, dropped it at my feet, and walked away. She wouldn’t answer my phone calls—I tried for days.

I did everything I could to make it up to Emery. I even wrote her a long note about how I felt about her. I’ve never been able to talk to any other girl the way I could talk with Emery. We always had a great time together. And even though we never said we were exclusive or anything, to be honest, what I did was pretty low. I mean, I’d definitely be pissed off if she’d done it to me.

I can blame it on the beer, but it’s a pretty sorry excuse if you get right down to it. The thing is, if you have to think about whether something’s right or wrong, it’s probably wrong.

Bottom line, I screwed up. I wanted another chance to make things right, so I left the note on her car while she was at an Honor Society meeting at school.

And then I waited. I was pretty sure that note would do the trick. I mean, hell,
I’d
go out with me if I read the stuff in there. It was an
epic
apology.

And then I waited some more. Two days passed, then three. I started to call her again after a week with no word, but what was the point? I’d said everything I had to say. When she never even bothered to answer me, I knew we were finished.

I was a complete jerk, but everybody makes mistakes. I just wish there was a way for Emery and me to start over.

• • •

That’s why I was happy about getting partnered with her for tutoring, even though I knew she wouldn’t make it easy. I was hoping I could spend time with her again and maybe show her I’m not a total dick.

“Heard you got put with Emery Austin for tutoring,” Cole said after school the day the list was posted. News travels fast.

“Too bad she hates my guts,” I said.

“She doesn’t really,” Bethany, his latest girlfriend, said, patting me on the shoulder.

Bethany was kinda rubbing my shoulder, so I moved away from her. I’m a friendly guy, and girls get the wrong idea sometimes. Emery makes fun of me ’cause I got voted Biggest Flirt in the yearbook freshman year, but sometimes I get the feeling she doesn’t think it’s funny.

Who knows how girls think? Guys are like simple machines—we’re pulleys and levers that react to whatever happens right then, and then we’re over it. Girls are complex computer systems—complicated motherboards no one can understand. All I know is, it seems like every time I pay attention to somebody, the girl has me practically engaged by the next day. Look, I just like to have a good time. I’m not interested in getting too serious—with anybody. Well, with almost anybody.

CHAPTER 13

EMERY

“I have to go to the bathroom,”
Rose says suddenly, tugging at my hand. It’s the first time she’s preferred me over Jake—this is a girl thing.

“Me too,” Natalie says.

I turn to Stutts, but he frowns and shakes his head before I can even ask.

This is going to be an ongoing problem with eighteen first graders. What are we going to do?

I look around the room for tools to build a makeshift bathroom.

“You know what this place needs?” I turn to Rose. “A private potty. Jake, can you get me one of those big plastic tubs up there—with a lid?” I reach up and lift the huge corkboard off the wall. Jake comes over to help me, but it’s not very heavy, just awkward.

“What’s that for?” Rose asks.

“A wall. A wall for our very own bathroom,” I tell her.

Rose looks doubtful.

“I’ll hold this up in front of you while you use the plastic tub as a toilet,” I say. She looks horrified. “Hey, it’ll be fun—just like camping. Haven’t you ever used the bathroom in the woods?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, you have missed a real treat, I’m telling you.” I’m acting like peeing in a plastic tub in a room full of people is an amazing adventure. “Alicia, hand me that Kleenex box, will you?”

“My cousin showed me how to go without getting my clothes wet,” Natalie announces. “I’ll go first.”

“Awesome,” I say. For once I’m grateful for Natalie’s need for the spotlight. “And will you show Rose?”

Rose frowns. “Don’t worry,” I tell her, “no one can see you with this big wall up. It’s a little easier for the boys to go to the bathroom in the classroom, but we girls’ll manage just fine.” I push a chair behind the bulletin board wall. “Here’s something to hold on to if you need it for balance.”

Natalie’s skills as a toilet tutor are in high demand. Three other girls line up immediately, and then four of the boys. Jake holds the wall for the guys.

“Nice work, Teach,” Jake says as I put the lid on the “potty.”

“I just hope you don’t have to hold the wall for me,” I tell him.

“You need to go?” he asks. “I got you covered.”

“Not just yet. But thanks.”

He helps me get them all settled back on their carpet, and I sit on the floor with them, watching them color. The tension shows in their small bodies. DeQuan grips the crayons so hard he breaks one, Kenji’s tiny tennis shoes tap the air anxiously, Alicia fiddles nervously with the button on her shirt, and Mason Mayfield III is drumming on a notebook with a pencil. At every sound in the quiet room, heads bob and eyes dart.

Olivia is chewing on her fingers. I reach over and pull her hand away and point to her painted nails. “Pretty,” I whisper, and she smiles and drops her hands into her lap. Carlos cracks his knuckles, then gives me an
oops
look, like he’s been told at home not to do that.

I try to remember what I was like at age six—back in the days when I thought the moon was made of cheese and buffalo wings came from buffaloes and you could dig your way to China in the sandbox. That was about the age Molly and I rubbed dandelions all over our heads, not knowing the bees would chase us. Did I understand real danger?

I always felt so safe when my dad read to me in our big upholstered rocking chair, the one with soft, sink-down pillows and big cushy arms. It was covered in plush red velvet—the kind you could dig your toes into. Mom complained that we’d rubbed half the fabric off the arms, but I loved snuggling with my dad in it. It was our special place.

He read all my favorite books to me, and I’d fall asleep on his broad chest, the vibration of his deep voice rumbling against my cheek. Sometimes he sang to me, or just hummed as I drifted off.

And then one day in third grade, I came home from school—he had already moved out by then—and my mother had recovered our chair in a stiff plaid material. I just stood there staring at what was left of it and feeling my heart break into a thousand tiny pieces.

• • •

DeQuan glances up to see if I’m noticing his good behavior and I give him a thumbs-up. Jake laughs at the way the kids are always showing me stuff. And telling me stories about their dog dying or their grandpa being in the hospital or their mom getting mad or their dad getting fired. With all the trauma at home, it’s easy to understand why they can’t wait to get to school. It’s one way life with my mother and her nightly running monologue has paid off: I’m a very good listener.

It seems like kids are always waiting for something—waiting for a bike without training wheels or for a trip to the beach. Waiting for the puppy they’ve been promised. They shouldn’t be waiting to see if they get to go home from school. Or waiting to be released as hostages.

I try not to think about what would have happened if Jake and I hadn’t been here when Mrs. Campbell passed out. I reach over and squeeze Kenji’s hand. His smile is a little wobbly. Rose is watching Jake. He has a way of putting people at ease, even in the worst situation possible. That trait was a blessing and a curse when we were together. He always talked to everyone, and sometimes I felt a little left out.

When Jake and I had art class together second semester, there was a lot of downtime to chat. Tab and Molly can talk to anybody, but before Jake, I swear I couldn’t form a complete sentence if a hot guy was around.

Jake made it easy. For that whole first month of art class, we talked every day for pretty much the whole period. It was hard to believe the relationship I’d fantasized about since that ninth grade cafeteria rescue was becoming a reality. Tab’s birthday party, the day after Valentine’s Day, was the first time it was just the two of us.

The party was getting rowdy that night, and I slipped out onto the screened-in porch when the guys broke into Tab’s dad’s liquor cabinet. I was listening to the rain in the dark and suddenly he was there.

“Not much of a party girl?” he asked.

“There’s a pretty nice party out here,” I told him, just as a flash of lightning lit our faces.

“Am I invited?”

“If you want to be.”

We talked for over an hour. Jake is so completely focused on you when you’re talking to him, it’s almost unnerving. I’ve never seen him text or check Facebook when he’s involved in a conversation. He makes you feel like everything you’re saying is important to him.

When I finally stood up to leave, he grabbed my hand. “Don’t go, Emery,” he said. The way he said my name lit up places inside me like pinball pegs.

“Curfew. My mom’s a tyrant.”

He walked me to my car in the rain, holding his jacket over our heads. It seemed so natural when he leaned down to kiss me. Then he held on to me for a long time, both of us getting soaked and not caring. I felt like he was telling me something without words; I understood that he needed me to be there just then.

“I’ll call you,” he said, and I told myself I’d be okay if he didn’t.

My phone rang before I was out of Tab’s driveway. I looked back to see him standing on the steps smiling at me, getting drenched.

“What’s up?” he asked, like we hadn’t just talked for an hour.

I talked to him all the way home, while I got ready for bed, and after I turned out the lights. We talked about everything and nothing—until the sun came up.

And every night after that.

For weeks.

My mom would flip out if she knew how little sleep I got. She obsesses about my not getting enough rest. I went to his baseball games all through spring and we went out to eat after. On weekends we went to movies or he came over. We sat together at lunch at school and he walked me to my car every day.

But it was those late-night conversations I loved most. I told him things I’d never told anybody—mostly about my parents’ divorce, about how I used to hide under the bed with my stuffed animals when they were fighting.

And after a while, he opened up to me about his mom dying. About how he helped her buzz her head when her hair started falling out after chemo. He said they tried to make a joke of it, but he went in his room and cried after he was done, and later he heard her crying, too.

He told me how he read to her when she was sick. She said the sound of his voice made the pain go away. But, toward the end, when the cancer was worse, she’d fall asleep as soon as he started.

I’ve never talked that way to anyone before—not even to Tab and Molly.

Molly was all excited about me and Jake. She said it was “so Edward and Bella”; she’s a big fan of the Twilight books. I wasn’t sure how to take that—being compared to an ordinary, clumsy girl in love with a gorgeous, shimmering boy. I never felt ordinary when I was with Jake. He told me I was beautiful in a way that sent me back to my mirror with fresh eyes. I wanted to see what made him choose me. I knew others were looking at me differently, too. It was a new experience to see envy in other girls’ eyes.

Tab never trusted Jake. She said he was superficial and full of himself. She didn’t like the way he kidded around with people. She didn’t think it was funny when he’d do things like put a book on erectile dysfunction in Hunter’s backpack when we were all at the public library. Then, when the alarms went off, Hunter had to hand off the book to the librarian—in front of everybody. It seemed like a pretty harmless prank to me.

I thought Tab just didn’t understand Jake. He has this charisma that draws people to him. He tunes in to everybody in the room in a way that’s hard to explain. I’ve watched him seek out the awkward person at a party who’s standing in a corner and strike up a big conversation, and he always acted like he was having a ball talking to my mother when she fed him snacks in our kitchen. He did magic tricks with the little boy next door I babysit for and brought bones to Molly’s dog. He sincerely likes people and he just makes these instant connections, even with total strangers. He’ll chat up anybody—at ball games, the mall, wherever.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be that easy with people—to always know the right thing to say and to feel like you fit in wherever you are. I was so flattered by his attention, I let my guard down. I believed in him. I trusted him.

But in the end, I guess Tab was right about him.

She called that night to tell me she’d heard Jake was with Stacey Jordan at the lake party, and that Stacey had posted on Facebook that she and Jake were in a relationship. After we’d been going out constantly for almost four months—February, March, April, and part of May. Even though we’d never said we were exclusive or anything, he had to know how I felt about him.

It was a shitty thing to do.

He met me at my locker before school the next morning, and when he didn’t even try to deny what happened, I knew it was true.

“So you
were
making out with Stacey Jordan?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it making out.”

“What
would
you call it, Jake?”

“Emery, she doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That you cheated on me and you don’t even care about her?”

“I didn’t really see it as cheating. I mean, we never really—”

I walked away. I didn’t want to hear the rest.

We never really were exclusive? Or did “we never really” mean something else?

Jake had pressured me about sex during the last few weeks we were together. Even though we did a lot of other stuff—things I’d never done with any other guy—I just wasn’t ready for that last big step. I was crazy about him and he knew that, but I didn’t feel like I’d known him long enough.

Or maybe there was a small part of me that didn’t trust him to stay.

Jake acted like I had no right to be mad. Maybe he was trying to tell me it wasn’t really a breakup if we were never together. Apparently, I made the whole thing up and he never thought of me as his girlfriend at all—which makes me the lamest person ever.

That didn’t stop me from completely falling apart when it was over. I hid out in my bedroom listening to angsty emo music in the dark and sleeping for the better part of a week and a half, until Molly had enough and dragged me out.

“You know, Emery,” she told me, “a lot of guys do something stupid when they’re afraid they’re getting too serious and it scares the crap out of them. Maybe that’s what happened with Jake. Maybe he cares about you
too
much instead of not enough.”

“I don’t think so, Mols.” It was typical of Molly to try to put a positive spin on things. “I have to face the truth; it’s over.”

The worst part was knowing all the places I couldn’t avoid him during the school day. My peripheral vision went into overdrive, and I was painfully aware of his position in the lunchroom or hallway or even the school parking lot. And I kept waiting for him to show up with Stacey Jordan or Callie Edwards. But he didn’t.

I skipped art for four days, until Mrs. Hicks stopped me in the hall to tell me she was going to have to write me up. So I sat in the back for the last two weeks of school and tried not to look at him.

After I had the summer to piece my life back together, I was really looking forward to senior year. I knew I’d see him, but I felt like I was ready to deal with it and get on with my life. And then I got stuck with him as a tutoring partner.

I look over at him laughing with the kids at the computer.

“Are we gonna get to go home when the bell rings?” Nick is asking him, his face serious above his SpongeBob SquarePants shirt.

“Same as always—when the bell rings,” Jake says confidently.

“That bell rings, I’ma be outta sight,” Carlos says, looking up from his coloring to join their conversation.

“That’s right, Dy-no-mite,” DeQuan chimes in with the rhyming game.

“That’s right, Bud Light,” Jake adds without thinking, distracted by the computer game. I look up, shocked, and Jake gives me an
uh-oh
face, which makes me laugh, and pretty soon we’re all giggling at the complete inappropriateness of his rhyme. We’re so stressed, we can’t think straight. I’m pretty sure I catch sight of a grin on Patrick’s face, but Stutts seems zoned out. He doesn’t tune in to the conversation at all.

“Do you drink beer?” Tyler asks.