by Cassie Mae
“Mmm… bacon cheeseburger—”
“Stop.” Ryan puts his hands over his ears. Lexie pulls on them.
“With a side of steak and sausage and—”
Ryan growls and tosses her over his shoulder.
“Ryan!” Lexie punches his back, but he just laughs.
“See you guys later,” he says and disappears amongst the crowd.
Kaylee blows out an exaggerated breath, her arm flinging toward their retreating backs. “How is that not PDA?”
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her to me. “It is. They’re just too blind to see it.”
“We should totally make them see it.” A mischievous look darkens Kaylee’s green eyes.
“Oh no! No. No. No. We are not to get involved. Ever.”
“But—”
“No buts.” The last thing Ryan wants is Kaylee spilling his best kept secret. Not exactly best kept since I’m pretty sure everyone knows except Lexie, but that’s the point. Lexie doesn’t know, and it needs to stay that way.
Before Kaylee we were always the Three Musketeers, but there’s always been a connection between those two. Something deeper than friends. Beyond boyfriend and girlfriend status. They are each other’s glue, and I’m afraid if I said anything, or tried to get them together, it would backfire.
“But—” Kaylee continues. I rest my finger on her lips.
“Please. For me?” I give my best puppy dog look, blinking my eyes a mile a minute.
“Fine, but only because you’re so darn cute.” She jumps up and plants a kiss on my lips.
“Ready for rehearsal?” I ask, draping my arm over her shoulder and guiding her out of the school.
“You bet. I think I finally got that box thing down.”
“It’s not a box thing. It’s the zig-zag box.”
“Yeah, yeah that thing.” She waves her hand, and when she smiles, I know she’s joking. “Anywho I think I got it down, now if you’ll just stay out of the box when I’m in there, we may actually be able to finish the trick.”
“Why don’t we practice at your house then? That way there’ll be no temptation. Plus I’m kind of scared of your dad, and he won’t let us in your bedroom so we’ll have to be on our best behavior.”
“Um… Sure.”
“Why the hesitation?”
“My mom might be there.”
“That’s great. I’ll finally get to meet her.” Her bright eyes dull and lips curve down. I stop walking and urge her to look at me. “Do you not want me to meet her?”
“Oh no. It’s not that. It’s just…my parents fight when they’re together. A lot.”
“So do my grandparents.”
“No. I mean scream. Like I may as well go put on a referee uniform and go stand in the middle of them.”
“I bet you’d look adorable.” I pull her close and kiss the top of her head.
“Well duh, but that’s not the point.”
“Kaylee, I’ve picked Lexie’s mom off the ground after an all-night binger. I’ve been there when her mom starts screaming at Lexie. Things you couldn’t imagine a mother saying to her daughter.”
“Poor bestie.”
“The point is. I don’t look at Lexie any different because of who her mother is. And I definitely will not look at you any different if I witness a little verbal altercation between your parents.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky promise.” I hold my pinky up, and she hooks hers around mine, yanking hard until my mouth falls onto hers. She pulls back and gives my suspenders a little tug.
“How are you so perfect?”
A laugh rumbles up my throat. “I’m far from it.”
“In my eyes you can’t get any closer.”
***
Kaylee wasn’t lying when she said her parents fight. I’ve heard the saying “like cats and dogs” but they take it to a whole other level. More like a rabid dog and a deranged cat. We don’t even have to walk into the house to hear them since we can hear them from the driveway.
“You can’t call me every time you have a problem with her. I have a life you know. I have a job and clients and I don’t have the time to drive up here for every little god forsaken thing.”
“I’m sorry if your daughter is inconveniencing you. Maybe you should have thought of that before going off the pill!”
My eyes shoot wide and immediately turn to Kaylee. I want to cover her ears, carry her far, far away so she doesn’t have to hear a single word being said. But when I go to wrap her in my arms, she’s already strides ahead of me. Her braids bounce with each determined step.
She flings the door open and plants her hands on her hips. “Can I not leave you two alone for three seconds? Ugh!” She storms upstairs, with her dad standing ten feet away from me, and considering what happened the last time I was up in her bedroom, I decide to stay in the doorway.
“Uh…hi.” I give an awkward wave as Kaylee’s parents’ eyes leave her retreating frame and land on me.
“You must be Nate,” the former Mrs. Sperling says. I wanted to meet her. But now, after hearing what she said, the sight of her makes me sick to my stomach.
“That would be me.”
I bite my tongue, wanting to tell her that she should be honored to have Kaylee as a daughter. That she should be happy her daughter still needs her in her life. Am I the only one with a decent mother? Must be something in the water in these parts.
The most awkward of silences spreads across the room, and if it had hands, it would strangle me.
Kaylee appears at the top of the steps, Mr. Pippi cuddled into her chest. “It’s okay, Mr. Pippi. I know you don’t like the yelling. Come on, we’ll get out of here.”
She bounces down the steps and doesn’t even acknowledge her parents as she walks out the front door. I offer up a wave and bolt after Kaylee. I find her in the driveway stroking Mr. Pippi’s head.
“You okay?” I ask as I approach.
“Yup,” she says, but I can tell it’s a lie. She doesn’t make eye contact with me.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I talked to Mr. Pippi when I went upstairs. I’m good. It’s not like I’ve never heard it before.”
I want to hug her. Rewind the day so she doesn’t have to hear those horrible things her mother said. I can’t imagine how it must feel to have your own mother looking at you as an inconvenience.
But Kaylee looks fine. Her hair is in its signature braids, her green eyes still bright, but as she continues to babble to Mr. Pippi, I can hear the unease in her voice.
I gotta do something. Have to find a way to make her laugh or at least distract her. Unfortunately she’s pouring all her attention into her gerbil.
I wrap my arm around her, even though she acts like she doesn’t want to be comforted, I know deep down she does. She rests her head on my shoulder, and I tug on one of her braids.
“I know you’re upset,” I say and she shrugs. “What can I do to make it better?”
“I don’t know.”
The smile that I never thought I’d see vanish is nowhere to be found. I hate that I can’t snap my fingers and make it reappear.
There has to be something I can do. Anything to take her mind off the screaming adults in the house.
Kaylee lets Mr. Pippi crawl up her shoulder, and I reach over and take him in my hands.
“What are you doing?” Kaylee asks.
“We’re supposed to be practicing. I figured Mr. Pippi can be my little helper today, and you can just stand back and watch.”
A slight smile tugs at Kaylee’s lip. “What did you have in mind?”
“Prepare to be amazed,” I say and stroke Mr. Pippi’s head. His nose twitches as he looks up in the air. He’s pretty darn cute.
Kaylee steps back and claps before lifting her hands to her mouth and shouting, “Woohoo! Go Mr. Pippi.”
“Hey? I’m here too.”
“I know, but you’re a pro. This is Mr. Pippi’s first
show.”
I laugh and go with it. “I’m very excited to have a special guest with me today. Meet the beloved Mr. Pippi,” I say. “Today we are going to perform a disappearing act.”
Kaylee gasps, her hands flying over her mouth. Her eyes widen, and she very quietly claps to herself.
I hold Mr. Pippi behind my back and get ready to perform the illusion. But before I can put him up my sleeve and bring my hand back to the front, I feel his claws leave my fingers. Crap. Where did he go?
I try to keep my cool as I turn around and look up and down for the white gerbil. My eyes drift to the tail pipe and… shit… Mr. Pippi’s tail is poking out.
“What’s wrong?” Kaylee asks.
“Uh…” How do I tell the girl of my dreams that her beloved pet crawled out of my hand and into the tailpipe of her mom’s car?
“Nate, where is he?” Kaylee asks, and I can feel the red settling on my cheeks. “Nate!”
“He crawled out of my hand. He’s right here.” I drop to my knees and point to the tailpipe. Kaylee falls beside me and gasps.
“Mr. Pippi, you get out of there right this second!” she demands, but she may as well have been speaking Swahili to a New York raised dog.
“What does he eat?”
“Gerbil food…oh, he likes carrots!” Kaylee says and takes off toward the house. Just as she’s about to run through the door, her mom steps out and hits the automatic start button on the car. The scent of singed fur stings my nostrils.
Oh no. Oh god no.
Kaylee’s wide eyes triple in size while the engine roars. They catch mine briefly before she mouths “No!” and drops to her knees, sobbing into her hands.
Chapter 15
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears trickling from my lashes, and count to three. I’m asleep. I have to be. That did not just happen. Things like this don’t happen.
My left eye opens first and the right follows. Nate’s babbles finally compute in Mom’s brain, and she shuts the engine off. I pluck myself from the porch, push through them and crouch near the exhaust.
“Mr. Pippi?” I call out, but my voice is snotty and gross and even with all that I can still smell burnt fur.
“Kaylee, I don’t think—”
“He could still be okay,” I interrupt Mom. “He could’ve crawled out in time. Maybe he was blown out instead of…” sucked in. But the smell and the heat and the lack of gerbil on the pavement tells me otherwise. A sob rips through my throat, and I fall to my butt on the driveway, hitting my forehead against the bumper.
I push away any attempts of comfort from Mom, Dad, or Nate. I can’t make myself grasp the reality of it yet. What a horrible way to go for my best friend. This stuff doesn’t happen. It doesn’t.
But it just did.
Someone’s saying something, sitting next to me, holding my hand, and I can’t see past the blur, and I’m talking too, but I don’t know what I’m saying. But whoever’s holding me gets a fist in the chest, a shove, a push, anything I can because I’m so beyond rationale.
“Did that really just happen?” I manage one full sentence.
Nate pulls me into a hug. My limbs are so limp now I just fall on him, and he says, “I’m so sorry. So, so, so, sorry.”
***
An hour later Nate’s hand runs circles over my back as I pick at my toenail polish. There’s a rolly polly crawling across the walk, making its way into our overgrown front lawn. I stare at it, biting my bottom lip.
“I’m sorry,” he says. I don’t say anything back, and he sighs. “It was an accident. I… I really am…”
“Sorry. I know.”
His hand pauses on my back, and he shifts next to me on the porch. Mom left nearly an hour ago, and Dad went inside because crying girls make him nervous. That and Nate sort of said something about taking care of it or whatever. I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening.
I pull a weed out from the crack between the front step and the walk and start shredding it to pieces. Nate clears his throat.
“Do you want me to go?”
Yes, I think as loud as my brain will shout, but my voice is back to ignoring him. How could he do that? How many times has he practiced that trick? And if it’s not a lot… how dare he do it on Mr. Pippi. I’m trying to keep my tongue locked tight behind my teeth, worried it’ll run if I open my mouth.
“Do you want to go for a drive?” he offers.
“No.” I chuck the weed into the grass.
“A walk maybe?”
“No.”
“A movie then. We can go see—”
“No.”
He blows out a breath, and I catch him running a hand over his fedora in my peripheral. “What can I do?”
You can turn back time, magic man, and bring my best friend back.
We sit in silence again, and my anger keeps boiling and boiling the longer he’s here. Mr. Pippi was the only constant in my life. In the back of my mind I realize he wasn’t going to live forever, but I thought he’d at least help me through a lot more. Mom’s not around, and it doesn’t seem like she wants to be. Dad’s here but has no idea how to deal with me.
Nate gets to his feet, and I think, It’s about time, hoping he’ll leave before I say something I’ll regret. But he holds his hand out to me, and I look up to his crystal eyes.
“Will you help me with a trick?”
He smiles, and that’s it. He’s got to be freaking kidding. My eyes narrow, and I refuse his hand, crossing my arms in my lap.
“I don’t know,” I snap. Gone is the girl who was going to bite her tongue. “You might kill me too.”
His stance falters, then it’s like he puts up a force field between us. “It was an accident. Will you just… I don’t know… stop freaking out about it? He was a gerbil, not a person.”
My armor shoots up now. “He was my only friend!”
He furrows his brow. “What the hell am I?”
“You’re an expiration date,” I say, slapping him with my words. Words I’m not even sure I mean. “We’re in high school. Like that’ll last.”
“Then what are we doing? And don’t say ‘having fun’ because I know it’s more than that.”
I was falling in love. Falling in mad, true, deep, can’t believe this is happening love. But my mind hits repeat on the engine growling to life, taking away the only thing that I could depend on, and I can’t even look at Nate without wanting to blame him.
“We aren’t doing anything. I’m sixteen. No one falls in love, like real love at sixteen. So it was fun for me, and that’s it.” The words fall out like they aren’t mine, like I never meant or felt them, but there they are, in between us, twisting his features, visibly hurting his heart, destroying his smile. And I hate it all and don’t know how to take it back so I slap my hands over my face, too cowardly to watch his.
“Was?” he croaks. “You seriously want to just forget about this, us, because of an accident? Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”
I don’t know what I want. If I need space or time or whatever the heck else people need when they feel like this.
“Can you just leave? I want to be alone.”
He stands in front of me a good ten seconds before sputtering a “fine” and marching across the grass to his car. The tires chirp as he speeds off, and a fresh wave of tears pour down off my chin. I think I lost more than one friend today… and even though I blamed Nate, it’s entirely my fault.
Chapter 16
Kaylee doesn’t answer her phone all weekend. I show up at her house, and her dad tells me she isn’t up for visitors. I have a feeling she just isn’t up to see me. I leave her voice message after voice message. Text. IM. Even send flowers, but still not a single word from her.
It was an accident. She can’t hold that against me forever. Can she?
I stand in front of my mirror and cross the longer side of my bowtie over the shorter side. Kaylee once told me how my bowties make me look like a sexy professor and according to
those magazine tests she always takes, sexy professor is her type. They don’t have a sexy magician option because if they did I know she would’ve gotten that every time.
I tighten the ends and roll my fedora down my arm before placing it on my head. All my other attempts have failed so my only option is going the shallow route and making myself too appealing for her to ignore.
My suspenders snap into place, and I give myself a last once over then head out the door.
It’s not a hot day, but I swear to all that is holy, I walk out my front door and onto the sun. The closer to school I am the hotter I get. My armpits are like faucets, and my brow is a dripping mess.
So much for being all Rico Suave and wooing her back to me with my looks. Not that it would work anyway. I killed her best friend. Nothing I do or say will get her back. But I have to try. Because the last few weeks with her have been the most amazing weeks of my life.
She gets me. Not many people do. She finds my magic intriguing and my suspenders adorable. Her laugh is the perfect combination of cute and sexy, and her smile is brighter than Vegas lights. Everything about her is perfect. The way her two braids are always exactly the same. The way her big eyes get even bigger when she gets a new magazine.
She has to forgive me. If she doesn’t, I may as well dig myself a spot next to Mr. Pippi because life as I know it is over.
I tuck my keys into my pocket, grab my books off my passenger seat and head across the parking lot. I get all of two feet when Lexie jumps in front of me with her hand out like a stop sign.
“What’s going on?” She crosses her arms and gives me that look. The one that makes me feel like a five-year-old who just got caught in the cookie jar.
“Nothing. Just heading to first period.”
“My ass,” she says, moving with me like a darn mirror. Right, left, back, forward, she blocks my every step.
“Why is Kaylee so upset?”
“I don’t know.” The last thing I’m going to do is admit to killing her gerbil. But I have to tell Lexie something. The girl deals with a drunken mother on a daily basis. She’s tougher than any girl I know and to top it off, she’s persistent. Either I tell her something or I stay in the parking lot for the rest of my life.
