Rules We're Meant to Break

by Natalie Williamson

  Which leaves Cammie and me sitting in silence, eyeing each other across the table.

  Finally, after a long moment, she says, “How mad do you think they’ll be if we put it all down the garbage disposal?”

  There’s no need for her to specify what she means by “it.”

  “I’m willing to risk it,” I say, grabbing Mom’s soup bowl and mine and pushing my chair back.

  With a nod, Cammie grabs her bowl and Kevin’s abandoned one and follows me into the kitchen.

  Ten minutes later we’ve dumped the soup, loaded the dishwasher, gotten the not-brown parts of dinner divided into Tupperware and put into the fridge, and wiped down the kitchen counters and the dining room table. All without speaking another word to each other. Now that we’re done I’m expecting Cammie to bail any second. Mom and Kevin still haven’t emerged from Kevin’s office yet, which can’t be a good sign, so “family” night is clearly over. But she’s lingering by the island and fiddling with her keys, like she’s not sure whether she should stay or leave. Which makes me feel like I should be polite and stay down here too, at least for a little bit longer.

  “Thanks for helping me clean up,” I say, just to break the silence.

  She shrugs and studies the sparkling countertop. “You’re welcome.”

  Insert long, awkward pause.

  “Well.” I take a step back. “I need to go get Buffy and take her on a walk, so…”

  Cammie straightens up. “I’d better go anyway. I told J I’d stop by before I go back to my mom’s.”

  “Oh, right.” I assume by J she means Jordan, and I get a pang of anxiety at this reminder of how many rules I’ve bent when it comes to him. And at picturing her car in his driveway, if I’m being honest. I want to ask her what their whole deal is, why they don’t hang out at school, but that breaks like half of my rules. So I keep my mouth shut.

  “Right?” Cammie asks, one eyebrow raised. “Did he tell you I was coming over or something?”

  “What? No.” I take another step back. “I haven’t talked to him since—” I cut myself off, not sure how or if I should mention the fact that I was at his house last week. I can’t decide if talking to Cammie about the fact that I’m helping her childhood friend makes it more or less weird. Probably because the weirdness is going to be the same regardless of whether we ignore it or not, which is why I should have said no in the first place. This is what I get for making exceptions to my rules. So much cringing.

  Cammie watches me for a second after my strange pause and then goes, “Since your tutoring thing?”

  “Editing,” I correct automatically.

  “Right,” Cammie says, a hint of a smile on her face. “That.”

  “Whatever it is,” I say, “I haven’t talked to him since then. I don’t even have his number, actually. Just Facebook.”

  “Got it,” Cammie says. “Want me to tell him you say hey?”

  “No!” I blurt, and her eyes widen.

  “Girls, I am so sorry about that,” Kevin calls, and I send a silent prayer of thanks up to God or whoever else might be listening for this perfect timing.

  I scurry back into the dining room right as Mom and Kevin come in from the living room. They stop short at the sight of the cleared table and look over at me.

  “You girls cleaned up?” Mom asks. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Cammie says from somewhere behind me.

  “Did you save the soup?” Kevin asks.

  Cammie snorts. “Dad. No. Come on.”

  Mom and Kevin both smile, but Kevin still looks a little anxious. “Are either of you still hungry?” he asks. “We could order pizza or something. Or I could make omelets.”

  I shake my head and start toward the living room. “I need to take Buffy for a walk, and I can scavenge later if I need to.”

  “And I need to go,” Cammie says.

  “So soon?” Kevin asks, disappointment clear in his voice. Though Cammie comes for dinner when she’s supposed to, she never stays long and has never spent the night, and I can tell Kevin is really anxious about it. I don’t stay to hear the rest of the conversation though. Instead I take the stairs two at a time to go break Buffy out of bedroom jail. She’s lying in the doorway with her nose barely out in the hallway, and she wuffs excitedly when she hears me coming.

  It only takes me a couple of minutes to grab a sweatshirt and Buffy’s leash, and then we’re heading back down the stairs. I call out to Mom on our way out the door to let her know that I’m taking Buffy for a walk and won’t be gone too long.

  Cammie’s little blue Honda, which is much newer than my car and doesn’t look like it’s ever needed any major parts replaced, is still in the driveway when we get outside. As soon as we hit the grass the driver’s-side window rolls down and Cammie sticks her head out. “Hey, Amber?”

  “Yeah?” I ask, giving Buffy some slack in her leash so that she can sniff around the front yard.

  “Next time I’m here don’t worry about putting Buffy in your room, okay?”

  I blink at Cammie for a second, completely thrown by this. “Um, okay.”

  “Cool,” she says. “See you.”

  eleven

  On Thursday it’s cold enough that I’m shivering in layered sweatshirts when I walk over to Jordan’s. Buffy pants beside me, her toenails clicking on the hard ground, ears pricked forward like she’s already focusing them on our destination. When we turn onto Jordan’s street and she realizes for sure where we’re going, she pulls at the leash to get me to move faster, something she hardly ever does.

  “Don’t get too excited. This isn’t a regular thing,” I tell her. She looks up at me and tips her head to the side, like she doesn’t believe me. “I’m serious. Up to winter break and that’s it.”

  All I get in response to that is a disdainful blink.

  Jordan’s already out in the garage and waiting for us when we get there. As I step inside, he makes a wide, sweeping gesture at the weight bench and card table. “Hey. What do you think?”

  I look behind him and see an extra space heater under the card table, a bowl of water and a makeshift bed of towels for Buffy at our feet, and the basketball out and waiting behind his laptop.

  “Looks great,” I say, bending down to unclip Buffy’s leash. She makes a beeline for the water bowl and laps half of it up in about three seconds. Then she goes over to Jordan and nudges his knee with her nose. When she backs away there’s a giant wet spot that I know can’t feel good in this chill. “Sorry about that. She’s just excited to see you.”

  “It’s okay,” Jordan says, reaching his hand down for Buffy to sniff and then running it over the top of her head. “I’m excited to see her too.”

  But he’s not looking at Buffy. He’s looking at me.

  Four more weeks. That’s it.

  After a second, Jordan clears his throat and adds, “I actually got Buffy something else, if it’s okay for her to have it.”

  “What is it?” I ask, taking a deep breath to soothe my jittery stomach.

  He heads to one of the shelves on the far wall of the garage and comes back with a knuckle bone. Buffy immediately plunks her butt on the ground and stares at him with sad puppy eyes, silently begging.

  “Oh man. Is that the peanut butter–filled kind?”

  “Yeah,” Jordan says, glancing from Buffy to me. “Is that okay? I wasn’t sure what to get but the lady at the store said that these are better for dogs than rawhide, so I went for it.”

  “It’s perfect,” I tell him. “Seriously. Give that to her and you’ve earned a lifelong friend.”

  “That’s the idea,” he says, holding the bone out to Buffy. She delicately takes it from him, tail wagging at warp speed, and immediately goes to her towel bed to start chomping on it. At the sight of this, Jordan grins at me so brightly that my breath catches and I have to look away.

  “Right,” I say, hugging my coat more tightly around myself. “Well, uh, go
od. Should we get started?”

  “Oh yeah.” He waits until I get settled on the weight bench to slide in beside me. “Let me know if you get cold, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, even though between him and the space heaters, I doubt I’ll be feeling cold for days.

  We work for about an hour before he gets distracted and starts glancing over his shoulder out at the driveway, where the basketball hoop waits.

  “Break time?” he asks as soon as I finish the paper I’ve been reading.

  “Sure.” I could use some movement after sitting still for so long. And, okay, I could also use some time not sitting next to him on this weight bench.

  He grins and grabs the ball off the table, palming it in his hand.

  We don’t talk too much for the first few shots of the game, and Jordan gets me to HO in the first two rounds without even breaking a sweat. But when he misses a three-pointer from the very edge of the driveway and I get the ball back again, I decide to try something a little different.

  “Backward?” Jordan asks, raising his eyebrows when I position myself about six feet in front of the basket and turn my back to it.

  “Yeah. Got a problem with it?” His eyes dancing, he shakes his head. “Good. Now, shhhh. I need to concentrate.”

  He mimes zipping his lips and takes a step back, and I fight a laugh. Then I tip my head back to look at the basket, getting a feel for what kind of arc I’ll need to make this happen. Jordan is watching me when I pull myself upright again, and I know I’ll miss if I can see the look on his face when I do this. So I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and blow it out as I toss the ball up and over my head. A second later I’m rewarded by the thwack of the basketball on the backboard and a swish as it goes through the net.

  “Ah, shit,” Jordan says, and I open my eyes to find him grinning at me. “Do I have to keep my eyes closed, or is it just the spot and position I need to get?”

  I think about that for a second. “If you make it with your eyes closed, we can play one more game before we go back inside.”

  He narrows his eyes and points at me. “You’re on.”

  He misses, barely, but it’s still a miss, and I try and fail to keep a smug grin off my face as I go get the ball for my next turn.

  “I’ll get you next time,” he says, pointing a finger at me, his expression mock-serious.

  “We’ll see,” I say, turning to face him. His hair is halfway stuck in the hood of his sweatshirt and the rest is a crazy mess, like it doesn’t know which way to go now that it’s free. I have this urge to run up to him and smooth it down, but I clutch the basketball to my chest and take a step back instead.

  “Yeah we will,” he says. “Next week I’ll—” But then he stops himself and frowns. “Actually, I guess we won’t be able to meet next week, since it’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Yeah, probably not,” I say, ignoring the stab of disappointment I feel at the thought.

  Giving myself a shake, I line up my next shot at the free-throw line, needing the ritual dribbling to steady myself. I make the free throw easily and so does Jordan, but on my next turn, I miss. And instead of watching as he takes his next shot, I look over at The Castle. I’ve been trying to avoid it all night, which is difficult, let me tell you. Now that we’ve brought up Thanksgiving even vaguely, though, it’s kind of hard to ignore it.

  “You gonna be there for Thanksgiving?” Jordan asks. I jump and glance over my shoulder to find him looking at me, standing closer than usual.

  I take a small step away so that he’s out of my bubble, even though my insides are screaming at me to move closer. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “It’s what Kevin does every year. Cammie hates it because it’s so over-the-top. She usually comes over here after the big dinner, to fill me in on all the shenanigans.” He pauses and taps his foot on the concrete. “I don’t know if she will this year though. Since it’ll be the first big holiday there without … well, you know. I think she’ll want to go hang out with her mom.”

  “That makes sense,” I say, nodding. It’s what she does after all our regular dinners, so I don’t see why this one would be any different. I know this whole split-up-parents situation has to suck for Cammie, but I still get a little jealous sometimes, because she has both of her parents around. She has somewhere else to go when she doesn’t want to be at her dad’s, and that must be nice. I’ve never had that luxury.

  After a beat of silence, I sneak a glance at Jordan and add, “Do you know them very well? The Kleins?”

  I’ve been wondering about them more over the past couple of weeks, since I knew we’d be spending Thanksgiving there. Rule number four for surviving my mother’s love life is to get used to spending holidays with strangers, but it’s one of my hardest rules to follow. So many of my holiday memories are just blurs of faces and strange traditions that they don’t even feel like mine. That’s a weird feeling to get used to, no matter how hard I keep trying.

  “Yeah, a little bit,” Jordan says. “They’re not too bad. Sometimes Oscar comes over to drink scotch and talk basketball with my dad.”

  I crinkle my nose up. “Fancy.” Then for some reason I add, “Did you know he also calls in the middle of dinner to talk about plumbing problems?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jordan grin. “Yeah, Cam mentioned something about that the other day. I didn’t ask for details.”

  “Good call,” I tell him.

  We’re quiet for a moment, just looking up at that big house. Then Jordan steps closer and taps my arm, holding out the basketball with his other hand. “It’s your turn, remember?”

  I jump a little and turn to look at him. “Right. Sorry.”

  After I lose the game and we’re back in the garage, me reading Jordan’s papers, Jordan crouched down on the floor trying to figure out all the tricks Buffy knows, I’m still thinking about next week and how much I am not looking forward to it. I’ve never had what I’d call a normal holiday, and suddenly I need to hear about what it’s like to have one. About what normal holiday plans look like. Since Jordan’s mention of Cammie earlier didn’t totally freak me out, I decide to bend the rule a little more and ask him something personal. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

  “Usually we go to my grandparents’ house in Kansas City, but this year they’re coming here.”

  Perfectly normal, just like I thought. “Nice.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “You don’t sound very excited.”

  He hesitates, watching me for a second. “I’m just worried. My sister is bi, and she hasn’t come out to my grandparents yet. She’s got this awesome girlfriend now though, and things are getting pretty serious between them. So she’s planning to tell Grandma and Grandpa when they’re here next week.”

  “You’re worried about how they’ll react?”

  “Yeah,” he says, blowing out a breath and looking at his feet. “Tasha and my parents are too. Grandma and Grandpa have made some really hurtful comments about LGBT rights in the last few years. My parents always shut them down, but they keep saying those kinds of things. So I’m not super optimistic.”

  “That sucks,” I say.

  “Tell me about it.”

  The slump of his shoulders and the way he won’t meet my eyes both tug at my insides. Clearly I’m not the only person with family issues and holiday baggage, and I wish I could help him with his instead of dwelling on mine. Which is probably why I blurt, “Well, hey. Maybe we can meet on Thursday after all.”

  His head comes up. “Yeah?”

  Oh no. What did I just do?

  “Yeah. I can promise you I’ll need an escape plan. Like, promise. And tutoring—I mean editing—is the perfect excuse. And you’ll be right next door.”

  His face relaxes a little. “It’d be nice to have something planned after dinner since I doubt Cam will be around. Plus, we wouldn’t want to miss out on our game. Maybe all the food I’m gonna eat will give you an advan
tage and you’ll finally beat me.”

  I snort. “I highly doubt that.”

  “You never know.” He sits up straighter. “All right then. Gimme your phone.”

  “What for?” I ask, but I hand it over anyway. He gives me a look.

  “What do you think?” And then he puts his number in it and calls himself so he’ll have mine.

  I eye him when he hands my phone back, remembering how I word-vomited to Cammie on Tuesday night about how Jordan and I didn’t have each other’s numbers. “Did Cammie say something to you about this?”

  A crinkle appears between his brows. “About Thanksgiving? I told you she did.”

  “No, never mind,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Ooo-kay,” he says, smiling slightly now. “Send SOS if you need to get out next week, okay?”

  “You too,” I tell him. He nods in agreement and I go back to his papers and in a minute everything is back to business.

  It’s just one extra week, I tell myself. One extra day. But it feels like more than that.

  twelve

  I barely have time to look at the inside of The Castle before I’m swept into a bone-crushing hug by a giant man. My face fits into his armpit. Happy Thanksgiving to me.

  “You must be Amber!” the guy booms over my head.

  “Yup,” I say to his pit. “That’s me.”

  “So nice to meet you. We’ve heard all about you. All good, promise!” And then, thank God, he lets me go. I suck in air like it’s going out of style and put a hand to my chest so I can feel it expanding. He squished it so hard I’m a little worried, but everything seems to be okay. The Giant doesn’t notice my distress. He’s already moved on to hugging Cammie.

  “Cammie!” he yells. “So good to see you, kid!”

  Mom’s next to be hugged, and then Kevin and The Giant do a grown-up bro handshake, with lots of back slapping. I try not to laugh while it’s happening but it’s hard not to. They look so ridiculous. It’s only after that’s done that we’re allowed to move further into the house and The Giant starts calling out to the other people that “Kevin and the girls are here!”