I press the remote unlock on the key chain, thankful that the only noise it makes is a click before the headlights go on. There is no beep. I’m grateful because the last thing I need is to get busted before I even make it there.
The Porsche has been facing direct sunlight for the morning and the inside is like a furnace. I don’t have a driver’s license, but before OCD controlled my life, I drove with my mom a time or two.
I slide the key into the ignition and crank the dials to their coldest setting while beads of sweat drip down my forehead. I have no idea if they’re caused by nerves, or the actual sweltering heat of an LA day in June. I turn the key over in the ignition; my stomach squeezes my insides. I can do this.
I close my eyes and beg my memory to help me. Slowly let out the clutch and press the gas at the same time. The engine grinds and I cringe. I try a second time, only this time I’m successful and the car shifts into gear.
Maybe something bad will happen, because people die in cars. My mind tries to force an image but before it can, I stare at the road ahead. I only see the road, because the image of anything else, anything vile or repulsive, is a thought. It’s only a thought. The thought can’t control me. I control the thought.
Once down the driveway, I dare a glance at the house, in the unlikely event my dad heard my attempts at divesting the Porsche of its clutch, but the front door remains closed. I roll out of the driveway, shift into second gear, and I drive.
The class following lunch is already under way. The hallways of Bel Air Learning Academy are quiet, save for a student here or there. I walk toward Mr. Lowry’s class with my head down.
I take seconds to find him. Slouched back in his desk, on first glance he looks like a bored teenager forced to endure modern education, but on closer inspection, Kyler is interested in whatever Lowry is speaking about. His brows knit together, and his jaw is tense as he traces the back of his pen along his bottom lip. His sand-colored hair hangs down enough to blanket his cheek, but it hasn’t been set that way on purpose. He’s wearing a Nirvana T-shirt. No beanies. No hoodies. Just Kyler.
Kyler, the boy I’ve waited six weeks, or forty-two days, to see. The boy I’ve spent the last 1,008 straight hours thinking about. And since I’ve waited 60,480 minutes to see him, my stomach twists itself into a knot before it wrings itself out. And because I’d dreamed about him for the last 3,628,799.996 seconds, my breath dies out when he’s finally close enough to touch. I rap my knuckles on the door as a courtesy before I swing it wide open.
Lowry turns, and his eyebrows dart skyward in surprise as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. I’m as surprised as he is. Question is, which of us is the most caught off guard? Good chance it’s me, because I drove here and I’m about to do the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And trust me when I say I’ve done a lot of crazy, messed-up stuff.
Kyler is already out of his seat.
Mr. Lowry looks at me. “Well, hello, Miss Davis. I trust you have a superb reason for interrupting my class.”
“I—I do.”
He points a finger in Kyler’s direction. “Sit down, Mr. Benton.”
Kyler scowls and sits. The effort looks physically painful for him, but he obliges. Guess he figures he’s in enough trouble.
The weight of everyone’s eyes on me presses down so hard, my feet sink into the tile floor like quicksand. I take a deep breath. “I know we finished Romeo and Juliet, but I’d like to say something.”
“This isn’t even English,” someone shouts out. “It’s a poetry module!”
“Shut up,” another yells, “let her speak!”
I look at Lowry. “Please. It’s important. I know Kyler handed in our project, but I have a modern-day, documentary-style take on it I’d like to add.”
The whole class is staring at Lowry. He gives a dismissive wave. “Go ahead, Miss Davis. Your project with Mr. Benton was both refreshing and original, so please, by all means, entertain us.”
“Yeah, I can’t promise it’ll be that, but”—I pause—“when I was first partnered with Kyler for our project, we had many conversations about Romeo and Juliet and the debate about the balance of tragedy and love. I’d try to argue pro-love, which yeah, is stupid, but I liked to believe it could happen.
“And here’s the thing, we could debate it for hours, because I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. And I overthink everything. All the time, every second, every minute, every hour of every day. I think about how clothing needs to be organized, how my books have to sit in groups of five, how I need exactly five notebooks, and if not five, then three or one. Never an even number, because something terrible could happen if things come in even numbers. I wake up thinking if I don’t tap something five times, my dad will get crushed by a cement truck as he’s crossing the street to get to work. And then I see him dead inside my head and no matter what I try to do to stop it, I watch it, over and over like a bad movie unless I tap the walls, the roof, the floor. So if you can imagine living that way, all the time, every second of every day, it would be easy to fall for the stupid idea of love being so powerful you’d die for it. That something so real could actually exist.”
I have everyone’s attention. The room is dead silent.
“But then I fell in love with Kyler, and he fell in love with OCD me. Suddenly, it was so obvious. True love, the kind that’s real, should never make you wish to die for it. I know this because the only thing I want to do is live. But my dad, he’s like Juliet’s father, the Capulet head of the household, and he’s trying to keep us apart, because he thinks Kyler would do something like post my medical records on his Facebook page for you all to get a good look at. My dad has no choice but to believe in Kyler’s guilt to save face. He’s married to Claire Davis, one and only heroine of Cascade, the soap every single one of your grandmothers or mothers watch on TV every day at noon, and Claire is the mother of Andrea, who is in fact the guilty party behind our sabotage but to this day insists on her innocence.
“But I don’t care that she did it. I don’t care anymore, because I never want to die for love. I want to live for it. I promised I’d never come back here, because I was humiliated. I was ashamed of how my brain works. I was ashamed of thinking about people dying all the time, about their brutal murders or horrific accidents all on me because I didn’t tap five times. I was ashamed of being the person that I am.”
I look at Kyler. “Until you taught me not to be. So that’s why I’m here, I don’t want us to be a tragedy,” I tell him. “Not like Romeo and Juliet. I want us to live.”
Silence blankets the entire room, the hum of the fluorescent lights the only thing bold enough to challenge the lull of twenty high school seniors.
Angela Markham is holding her phone up. Whether she’s photographing or recording me doesn’t matter. I don’t care who in the world sees this, because I will defend it until I die. Kyler rises from his chair, but Mr. Lowry holds out his pointer finger as if he’s magic and can render Kyler unable to continue forward.
Kyler looks at me, then at Mr. Lowry. He shrugs and proceeds ahead in wide strides. When he reaches me, his hand grabs my face, slides down my cheek, and underneath my ear. He smiles. “You’re so fucking weird,” he says. “I missed you, Davis.”
I opt for one last push of OCD me into the atmosphere. I make it loud and clear to everyone I will never fit in, and that’s okay. “I’ve waited three million, six hundred twenty-eight thousand, nine hundred thirty-nine point ninety-nine seconds to hear you say that. I missed you, too.”
Kyler’s mouth finds mine, there in front of Mr. Lowry, in front of the whole class, and I get lost in the taste of him, the silky touch of his lips. I close my eyes and inhale, searching for the scent of dryer sheets purporting to smell of ocean breeze.
Every single girl in the room issues a collective sigh of Aww until Mr. Lowry tears us apart with an ostentatious display of clapping. One of those slow and patronizing claps. “Well done, Ms. Davis. Am I to understand you
’re to have no contact with the boy you’ve just kissed in my classroom?”
I nod. “That understanding is correct, sir.”
Kyler squeezes my hand. “Lowry,” he says. “Cut me some slack, man-to-man. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“Let them go,” Angela Markham says.
“C’mon, Lowry. Have a heart,” a guy I’ve never seen before urges.
Mr. Lowry turns and looks at us, then at the class, then back at Kyler and me. “Should I turn my back for a moment, and find you both gone, there’s not much I can do except have the school call and report your absences. That won’t be until classes have been dismissed for the day.”
Kyler squeezes my hand again, gives me a small smile, and winks. “Ready, Davis? Bonnie and Clyde style.”
I’ve never been more ready for anything.
WAVES FROM THE SEA WASH AWAY SORROW AND PROMISE
A BETTER TOMORROW
Random Thoughts of a Random Mind
I POWER WALK. I tow Lennon down the hallway so fast, I’m amazed we haven’t set the place on fire with friction from the soles of our shoes. We attempt to avoid detection, but when we round the corner, there’s Mae standing at her locker; I freeze. Lennon is immobilized, too. Macy’s shutting the door, clicking the lock into place, when she spins and sees us.
She blinks. “Lennon, hi.” She nods as though I’m an afterthought. “Going somewhere, dear brother?”
“What are you doing in the hall?” It’s a valid question. First period after lunch is still ongoing, so technically, Macy should be in class.
She holds up a metal rectangular case and smirks. “Forgot my geometry set. What’s your excuse?”
“We’re on the run from authorities, parents, and academic institutions who try to fight fate.” I hold up Lennon’s hand in mine to show Macy. “They’re failing.”
“Glad you’re back, Lennon,” Macy says. She studies me. “Don’t get busted.”
“Cover for me if you have to,” I tell her.
“Done,” Macy says. “I’d better get to class. Dad’s head will explode if you disappear and I get reported as skipping all in the same day.”
I salute Mae and continue walking, steering us to the parking lot, where I spot Josh’s Porsche. There’s no one in it. My eyes go wide and as much as I try not to sound shocked, I do, because I am. “Did you drive yourself here?”
“I stand behind what I said when I was at Willow. I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to take risks and drive in cars and be myself without having to apologize for it. You were right.” Her eyes are teary. “I can’t let fear win. Not anymore.”
Making out with this perfect girl should, in theory, be the furthest thing from my mind. We are, after all, fugitives. But I can’t help it, so I stop walking to pull her close. “You keep kicking OCD’s ass, Lennon. I’ll be behind you every step of the way, because we aren’t a tragedy, we’re an epic love story. Maybe the greatest one ever told. And maybe we’ll be happy for moments, days at a time, maybe even weeks or years. I don’t care as long as it’s filled with once-in-a-lifetime things with you.”
I kiss her and feel her lips pull into a smile underneath mine. “We need to go,” I say against her mouth.
“I know.”
She veers ahead, toward Josh’s car. My feet freeze for a moment, in horror I try to hide. To be honest, I’m not sure I want to trust my life to someone who was terrified to ride in a car a few weeks ago, even if it is Lennon the Badass. Thank God, she seems to have the same sense as she breezes by it and heads toward my blue beast.
“My heart is racing,” she says, “probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel.”
“Solid logic,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about a thing, Davis. I’m a good driver.”
She climbs into the passenger’s seat with a lot less effort than I’d expected and buckles up. I start the car and put it into reverse before leaving the school, and our chances of being busted, behind.
I take us to the 101 North. “Hope you’re really okay with driving, Lennon, ’cause we have a while.”
El Matador State Beach in Malibu is the most beautiful beach in southern California. That’s my humble opinion, but it’s an opinion hard to argue with. The beach feels secluded from the world, nestled at the base of large, imposing cliffs that span the coastline. The sand is dotted with caves and coves perfect to escape from life, or in our case, parents. I love this spot because compared to Huntington or Laguna, it’s got more character and it never fails to take my breath away. Kind of like the girl at my side.
Lennon leans back, crosses her arms over her chest while a smile tugs at her mouth. “I can’t believe I did that,” she says. “I drove.”
There is unmistakable pride in her voice. We could be in a world of trouble right now and then some, but it doesn’t matter because she drove, and because she loves me and she’s with me.
I grin. “Can’t lie, I didn’t see it coming. I knew you had it in you, but I wasn’t so sure you knew the same thing.” I look at her. “I’m proud of you.”
She rests her head against the window, her expression dreamy and content. “Yeah,” she says, “I am, too.”
An hour later, we park and navigate ourselves down the maze to the beach. Seagulls caw in the distance and the sound of rolling waves invades our ears. The scent of salt lingers in the air, enough for a mouthful. This must be what life tastes like.
Lennon reaches down and takes off her shoes, setting them atop a collection of seaweed gathered at the base of one of the rocks. A risky move considering all the things she could step on, but I get it; she wants to live life and take risks, and that includes stepping on a crab buried in the sand, so I do the same.
She heads straight for the ocean and dips her toes in the water, letting the tide come and caress her ankles. Her mouth opens, and her eyes widen with awe, drinking in the ocean in front of them. Meanwhile, I plant my feet there, too, and drink in so much of her that I’m scared I’m going to drown.
It was six weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. Endless days and sleepless nights filled with the echo of hollow thoughts have come to an end. I’ll make sure of it because Josh may not know this, but every time he kicks me down, I will get back up and fight for her. I will prove she matters.
“This place is so beautiful,” she whispers.
I step forward and wrap my arms around her waist. “Like you,” I say in her ear. “Never go away again, Davis. Be weird if you need to be, be crazy if you need to be, just be. As long as it’s with me.”
She spins in my arms to face me and laces her fingers through my hair, pulling me so we’re forehead to forehead. Her eyelids flutter closed. “I love you. I won’t let him keep us apart, Kyler, I swear, I’ll figure something out.”
“Your old man will try to get a restraining order, or since his car was stolen, he’ll probably try to pin me with accessory to grand theft auto, so he can send my ass to jail.” I kiss her nose. “Doesn’t matter, though. I’d go to jail for just a few hours with you, Lennon.”
She shakes her head. “I won’t let him. I promise I will never let him do that.” Tears fall and slip down her cheeks. I grab her face in my hands and slide my thumbs across her cheeks to dry them. “Don’t cry. We’re here, next to each other in this amazing place. You fucking drove a car today. Let that sink in for a second, yeah? That’s so badass. You’re so badass. And, while we’re here, in this moment, in this amazing place, I can kiss you, touch you, and hold you. That’s nothing to cry about, is it?”
She smiles through her tears, bites her lip, and shakes her head. “No, it’s not.”
I pick her up, wrap her legs around my waist, and walk us over to one of the hidden coves. I lie on the sand, Lennon still affixed to me, and make her question whether Make-Out Junkie is the solid winner of the band name debate. I’d love to do more, and I think she would, too, but I hadn’t counted on seeing her today, and I didn’t come prepared.
I kiss her until my lip
s feel dry. I run my fingers along her skin, tracing small grains of sand across its surface. She lies down and rests her head on my chest, her fingertips tapping softly in time with my pulse, and we fall asleep that way.
Hours later, the sun descends slowly across the ocean, and we’re awakened. My eyes open as the view of the sunset is shadowed by two men in uniforms. Police officers. I squeeze Lennon’s arm. “Wake up,” I whisper. “We’re busted.”
A tall, bald guy stands dutifully next to a short, pudgy one who should know frosted tips were out sometime around when Macy was born. Frosty looks at me, then Lennon, before tilting his head down toward the radio clipped to his shoulder. He pushes a button and in the midst of static says, “We found them.”
Lennon gasps, but I bring my finger up and move a strand of hair that has settled over her eye. “Bonnie and Clyde style, Davis.”
She smiles. “Are you suggesting a murderous rampage?”
“Not at all. I wanted to point out that we’re wanted criminals now, hunted, just like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“I thought we were Romeo and Juliet—”
The bald cop clears his throat. “Come out with your hands up where we can see them.”
I link my hands behind my head and give Lennon the biggest smile I can manage. “Didn’t know you were packing heat, Davis,” I whisper. “Mighta changed my mind about bringing you here.”
She giggles. “Shut up! They’ll think you’re serious.”
“Relax,” I tell her. “My dad’s a lawyer.”
FACT: CALIFORNIA HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST
RATES OF CAR THEFT IN THE UNITED STATES.
KYLER AND I ARE ESCORTED to the back of the police cruiser to wait while a tow truck comes to hook up his car. I assume something similar has happened to my father’s car. Either that, or my dad himself has picked it up. The bald policeman, who I now know is Officer Hudson, pulls me aside and asks what happened, while his partner, Officer Lewis, talks to Kyler.
All Our Broken Pieces Page 28
