Put It Out There

by D. R. Graham

  Eventually, I spoke. “You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?”

  His resolve to steer clear of me melted away. He took long strides forward, dropped his backpack on the ground, wrapped his arms around me, and lifted me off the ground. I pressed the side of my face against his neck and held him so tightly it was probably strangling him. After he put me down, he rested his forehead on mine.

  I wanted to get mad at him for being like his mom and trying to take off without a word, but I couldn’t bear the thought of us being on bad terms. “Be safe, Trev.”

  “Always am,” he choked out. He cupped his hands on either side of my face and ran his thumbs over my cheeks to wipe away my tears. His weight shifted forward, but instead of kissing me, as I hoped, he gently touched the tip of his nose to the tip of my nose. He inhaled deeply as if what he was about to do required a ton of strength. His hands slipped away from my face, he picked up his backpack and got into his dad’s truck. I had to move so they could back up. Trevor didn’t look at me as they drove away.

  Once I was back inside the Inn, I didn’t bother to take my boots or parka off before I got into bed. I was too sad to even cry.

  When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I almost called Steve to cancel our date. I didn’t because I decided it would be easier to distract myself if I went to the party. He showed up at the Inn with a bouquet of Gerber daisies, which was sweet. Before we headed out to Doug’s house, I made him promise we wouldn’t talk about the things that were making us sad. He shook my hand to seal the deal.

  The party was insane. Sophie wasn’t kidding when she said the entire school was going to show up. Doug’s parents were both partiers, so they didn’t care as long as the cops didn’t get called, and as long as nobody drove if they’d been drinking. Ironically, the band didn’t usually play at their own parties, so the music blasted from a stereo system instead.

  “Do you want to dance?” Steve asked over the noise. He looked good in dark jeans and a retro Aerosmith concert T-shirt.

  “Sure.”

  He led me out to the dance floor and he kept glancing at my body as we danced. Even though the song was fast, he pulled me close and we moved more like we were dirty dancing. I didn’t mind. It felt good to know he liked me in that way.

  As we did a slow grind, images flicked through my mind.

  A forest and deep snow. A small blonde girl in a red jacket huddled under a tree, hugging her knees into her chest. A chocolate-brown lab snuggled up close to her.

  “Derian.” Steve squeezed my arm. “Deri. Are you okay?”

  I smiled to cover it up and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I zoned out for a second. Sorry.”

  “Do you have epilepsy?”

  “No. I’m fine. Really.” The girl in the vision wasn’t familiar to me. I tried to see more, but nothing came to me. It was so frustrating to only have bits and pieces to work with. The music was too loud to focus, so I pulled Steve’s hand and led him down the hall towards the den.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows.

  I shoved his shoulder playfully. “You’re not getting lucky, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to tell me why you looked like you were having some sort of seizure, you’re going to have to distract me with a little action.” He winked.

  I turned and leaned my back against the wall. He smiled and rested his arm on the wall above me. He was acting sexy. I grabbed his shirt and tugged it lightly to pull his body towards mine. “It wasn’t a seizure.” I wanted to kiss him. I didn’t kiss him, though, because I was pretty sure missing Trevor was the only reason I felt the urge.

  “If it wasn’t a seizure, what was it? You didn’t take drugs, did you?”

  “No.”

  He stepped back to study my eyes for signs that I had taken something.

  “You promised we wouldn’t talk about anything that makes us sad. Remember?”

  He stared at me as if he wasn’t sure whether to let it go or not. A party was not the best place to focus on developing my intuition anyway, so I ran my hands up his abs and over his chest. Partly because I was trying to distract him and partly because I wondered what it would feel like. He smiled in a slightly confused way. “Are you putting the moves on me, Miss Lafleur?”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, stood on my tiptoes, and kissed his ear. “I’m just trying to distract —”

  He abruptly stepped forward and pushed me against the wall. I couldn’t finish my sentence because he kissed me hard. His hands ran over my hip and up the sides of my body. His thumb grazed the side of my chest purposefully, but he was cool about it and kept moving up towards my neck. His hands were warm as he moved them over the curves of my body. He leaned his weight closer to me, and I could feel his heart beating against my chest. I didn’t know if it was because I was depressed, or because Steve was a really good kisser, but what he was doing was hot and I didn’t want him to stop.

  After we kissed for a while, he breathed into my ear, “You are so beautiful. Good job at distracting me.”

  I laughed. “Maybe we should dance again.”

  “Or we could find a private place and you could distract me some more.” He kissed his way along my jaw and down my neck.

  I shook my head, not ready for anything quite that ambitious.

  He stopped but didn’t lean back. It seemed as if he really wanted to keep kissing me. Eventually, he shifted his weight and stood up tall. “I’m not the one you want to be kissing, am I?”

  It took me a while to fumble through excuses in my mind. “I, um, that’s not it.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and stared at his chest. “It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I’m really inexperienced in the boy department. I’m not ready yet.”

  Without even trying to change my mind, he nodded and said, “All right, let’s dance.” He held my hand to head back towards the living room. We approached Mason, who stood with his back against the wall, waiting for the bathroom.

  Steve pulled me closer and acknowledged him, “Cartwright.”

  “Hey.”

  We squeezed past him. I glanced over my shoulder. He smiled when our eyes met. God. He was devastatingly handsome.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  There was something about the way Mason smiled at me that I couldn’t wipe from my mind. It reminded me of how, right before Giselle had collapsed, he had crossed the room as if he maybe planned to talk to me. Also, I never forgot the way he had hesitated when he saw me crying in the hall. He seemed sweet. It made me wonder if he did know who I was, and maybe would be interested in getting to know me even better. Who knew? Sophie told me not to sell myself short. I scanned the room and when I spotted Sophie, I turned to Steve. “Do you mind getting us something to drink?”

  “Your wish is my command. I’ll be right back.”

  Sophie and Doug were making out on the couch, so I sat on the armchair and stared at them until they felt my presence. Sophie lifted her head and sat up, straddled over Doug’s thighs. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Sure you are.” Sophie feigned a snarl.

  “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t care. You guys have plenty of time to do that.”

  “This better be good,” she said as she reached over to grab her red plastic cup off the coffee table.

  “I think so. Close your ears, Doug.”

  “Okay,” he said, but he didn’t cover his ears.

  “So, I have very strong feelings for Trevor, as you know, but Trevor just took off and is going to be gone for almost half a year. I’m very unclear on the status of our relationship because it’s not technically something we’ve ever talked about. So, if I think out loud here, he kinda, sorta asked me on one date that we never went on, and we kinda sorta slept together, but we had our clothes on, and although I’ve sat on his lap in my underwear, we’ve never even kissed on the lips. Presumably, one of the reasons nothing happened between us is because he
prefers mature, sexually confident women, not reserved girls who are too wimpy to even talk about a relationship, let alone have one. So, long story short, I assume it’s a good idea for me to get as much experience as possible while he’s gone.”

  “Yes,” they both said in unison.

  “Okay, well, in that case. At the risk of sounding sleazy, would it be out of the question to date more than one person at a time?”

  “Ooh,” Sophie squealed. “Who?”

  Doug frowned.

  “I was thinking maybe Mason.”

  “No.” Doug shook his head adamantly.

  “What do you mean no? Why?” Sophie asked.

  “Unless she’s looking for a one-night stand, Cartwright’s not the guy for Deri.” He shot me a cautionary look. “And I’ll tell you right now, Trevor will lose his shit on Mason if he uses you.”

  “Trevor’s not here,” I reminded him.

  “Doesn’t matter. He. Will. Lose. His. Shit.”

  “It’s really none of his business. I can do whatever I choose, thanks.”

  Doug sat up and shot me a serious look. “Listen, Deri, I think it’s cool that you’re trying to come out of your shell and experiment a bit, but you don’t need to go crazy. You can date Steve but not Mason.”

  Sophie shoved his chest. “Why are you acting like a control freak? Deri can date both of them if she wants to.”

  “Mason is just going to sleep with her and leave her. Trevor asked me to keep an eye on her, and he wouldn’t be cool with that.”

  “What?” I blinked repeatedly as what he said sunk in. “You and Trevor talked about me before he left? What else did he say?”

  Sophie spun around and waited for Doug to answer. Doug didn’t answer exactly, he shrugged as if he regretted the disclosure.

  “What else did he say?” I repeated.

  “He just asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  My eyebrows angled into a frown as I attempted to interpret what that implied. “The protective way you would keep an eye on his kid sister for him, or the possessive way you would keep an eye on a potential girlfriend to make sure no one moves in on her?”

  Doug took too long to answer, so Sophie punched his arm. “What was it—kid sister or girlfriend?”

  “Ow! I don’t know why Trevor is all hyper-protective over Derian.”

  “Has he said he likes her?”

  “We’re not girls,” Doug protested. “We don’t talk about shit like that. All I know is that Trevor will mess up anybody who hurts you. I don’t know if it’s because he cares about you like a sister, a girlfriend, or both.”

  My head spun with what it all meant, so I clarified, “And who decided I have permission to date Steve, you or Trevor?”

  He shook his head, obviously wishing he’d never promised Trevor he would take care of it. “Just stay away from Mason.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but I think I’ll make my own decisions from here on in.” I stood and pointed at them with authority. “As you were.”

  Doug looked uneasy. Sophie looked amused by the drama my more assertive self had stirred up. She pulled Doug in and continued their make-out session where it left off. I turned around and looked for Steve. He was talking to Lisa Alvarez, so I stood next to him. He turned when he noticed me, and kissed my cheek before handing me a bottle of water. Lisa smiled coldly and walked away.

  “Are you going to tell me what was going on with you earlier?” he asked.

  I squished up my face. “I thought I distracted you enough to forget about that.”

  “I’ve recovered.”

  I sighed and debated whether to tell him about the intuition. Only my family, Trevor’s family, and Sophie knew I could do it. It hadn’t been happening all that much, so I decided to lie and not weird him out. “I get mini migraines. They don’t last long. The doctor says they’re nothing to be concerned about. Should we dance again?”

  I tugged his hand and led him back out onto the dance floor to end the conversation. He didn’t seem to mind. When the song was over, I looked across the room at Mason. He was surrounded by a harem. A competition I had no business entering. What made me think I could date a guy like Mason, let alone Mason and Steve at the same time? It was conceited and selfish to have even considered it. When did I become that girl? Maybe it was time to go back to sweet, bookish Derian and abandon high-on-herself, boy-obsessed Derian.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The vision of the little girl in the snow didn’t happen again, but I searched the face of every kid I saw in town and at the Inn, hoping to recognize her or her dog. I also scoured the news to check if any children were missing. Nothing came of all my vigilance, so I tried to put it out of my mind.

  Although I had decided that attempting to date two guys in order to shape myself into a viable contender for Trevor’s affections was arrogant and ridiculous, I was still irritated with Doug for telling me what I could and couldn’t do. It was bad enough when Trevor acted like my big brother. I didn’t need Doug doing it too. He thought it was funny I was giving him the silent treatment, and his smug expression is what finally made me break my stand-off. We were sitting at our table in the students’ lounge. “Wipe that satisfied look off your face.”

  “Why? I did a good deed. I saved you from being used by a womanizer.”

  “Isn’t that a little judgy? You don’t even know him.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “Well, I’m free to get to know him if I want to.” I glared at Doug with the most defiant look I could muster.

  “Go ahead. You’ll just find out that I’m right. In the process, you’ll lose what you have with Steve. If you want to learn about the shitty side of dating the hard way, suit yourself. I’m just trying to save you the heartache. And the potential unwanted pregnancy.”

  I shook my head, pissed that he didn’t trust my judgment. I was still squinting, and he was still smiling as Sophie walked up and sat between us. “Aw, so cute, look at my two besties getting along so nicely.”

  “Doug feels I’m too naïve to make my own decisions, so I’m going to become friends with Mason, just to spite him.” I stuck my tongue out at him, then ate a spoonful of my pasta.

  Doug laughed. “All right, but when it all blows up in your face I’m going to sit here and tell you I told you so.”

  “Whatever. I can’t waste any more time on boys, anyway. My GPA is suffering. I need to get some homework finished.” I stood and packed my things into my bag. “I’ll see you guys later.” I left the lounge and something crashed against a locker down the hall. Then I heard Nikolai’s cartoony voice say, “Stop”. I rushed towards the art wing, where the noise had come from.

  “Hey! Cut it out.” A male voice intervened before I got there.

  Once I rounded the corner, I saw Nikolai sprawled out on the floor, reaching for his glasses. He tried to put them on, but the frame was twisted, and one of the lenses had a big crack across it. He was surrounded by a crowd of grade-eight and nine boys, and Mason.

  “Don’t mess with him again or you’ll be laid out on the floor,” Mason said, which made the boys all scatter. “You okay, Niko?”

  Nikolai nodded, but he didn’t look okay. I stepped around Mason and sat down on the floor beside Nikolai. “What happened?”

  Mason leaned against the locker to listen to the answer.

  Nikolai shrugged. “Same as always. They tease me because I’m small and because of my voice.”

  “Your voice?” I reached over and rested my hand on his forearm. “I love your voice. It makes me happy.”

  His face turned red and his big brown eyes filled up with tears. “My voice is embarrassing. I went to a speech doctor when I was little, but it didn’t help. I hate how it sounds.”

  “I don’t agree. It’s unique and original. Sometimes people don’t understand how cool something is if it’s a one-of-a-kind.” I picked up his glasses and tried to straighten out the frame. “You should be proud of all the things that make you spe
cial and interesting.” I considered telling him about my brain glitch but didn’t want Mason to hear. Maybe I needed to take my own advice before telling other people what to do.

  “Were you ever teased?” Nikolai asked.

  “Yeah. The kids in elementary school used to tease me because of my name. They would come up with a different dairy product every week to call me—cheddar, Gouda, skim, two percent, sour cream. Kefir was one of the more creative ones. Even the teacher accidentally called me that one.”

  Nikolai laughed, then pointed at Mason. “That’s Mason. He tutors me in science. Mason, this is my big buddy, Derian.”

  Mason extended his arm to shake my hand and said, “Nice to officially meet you.”

  “You too.” That was all I could manage to say to him because I suddenly felt insanely nervous in his presence. Instead, I turned back to Nikolai. “I’ll make you a deal. If you try to be proud of the things that make you different from everyone else, I will too.”

  “Okay.”

  I stood and helped Nikolai to his feet. “If they bother you again, let me know. I’ll ask Doug to talk to them.”

  He raised one eyebrow and said, “They’d be more afraid of Sophie.”

  The fact that he was dead serious made me laugh. She could be very intimidating if she wanted to be. “Okay. I’ll ask Sophie to take care of it if they ever bother you again.” I glanced at Mason, wishing I had the nerve to strike up a conversation with him. “I should get going. I’ll see you around, Nikolai. Don’t forget to be proud of what makes you unique.”

  “You too.” He pointed at me. They both smiled, and my cheeks flushed as I walked away.

  I headed to the computer room. With everything that had been going on for me emotionally, I had gotten behind on a few assignments, which was so unlike me. I hadn’t even fallen behind the year after my dad died. The fact that a bit of boy drama threw me off wasn’t something I was particularly proud of. So, with renewed determination to be a serious and focused student, I got to work.