The Bad Boy and the Tomboy

by Nicole Nwosu

  “Sam—”

  “I’m in love with you, Macy Anderson. That’s what I’m saying.”

  I didn’t think I heard him correctly. To have Sam Cahill say those words out loud was something. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more: the fact that he had said my real name or that he was in love with me. I didn’t think there was a proper response to his words until I settled for, “You’re what?”

  “I’m in love with you.”

  “No, you’re not.” Denial. There was no way he meant that. “You’re drunk—”

  Sam reached over to grab the bottle of alcohol, wiggling it in one hand. While his plan had been to possibly finish it, enough of the liquor was gone for him to at least be tipsy. “I’m not. I’m not lying.”

  The seriousness of his tone sent a wave of emotions I couldn’t decipher. “Sam.”

  “You don’t have to say it back,” he said. “I need you to hear me out.”

  My heart was pounding loud enough for me to hear it in my ears. “Then talk.”

  “The first time I saw you was at the rec center a few weeks after I was sent to live here. Ivan said I could play soccer there because of the indoor fields. You were with a few of the guys and I watched your game. You scored.” His voice had gotten quieter. His eyes were on the water bottle, too, talking almost as if I wasn’t here. “You were always doing your own thing, especially when it came to football. Didn’t matter if you were the only girl trying out—it didn’t stop you, and I admired that about you. One day in November you were part of hosting the football tryouts at the rec center and it was so obvious you were going to be captain. I overheard Coach say it.”

  My face flushed.

  “Then that day when you clumsily tripped over your soccer ball and fell right into me—”

  “I didn’t fall—”

  “You fell, Hazel, don’t lie.” A smirk came onto his face. “You didn’t know who I was. You didn’t flirt with me. I really wanted to get to know you and instead I fell. Hard. And I’ve done stupid things because of my decisions. I’m sorry about what happened with Beatrice. I’m sorry I hurt you. I was jealous—I saw you with Cedric at that party and I acted on impulse, to get a reaction out of you. I didn’t do anything with her. I swear it.” His head hung low and his hands dug into his hair. “I kept fucking up with you and even with Cedric.”

  “You’re not the only one to blame here,” I said. “I should’ve broken it off with Cedric the second I knew I felt something for you. We shouldn’t have thought that what we did over the break was going to settle anything.”

  “I didn’t understand why you would want to be with me. Especially after hearing about the girls I’ve been with, the rumors. I thought you didn’t need to be with someone like that.”

  “I don’t care about all that.” I took his hand. “I don’t and you can’t tell me who I need to be with, Sam. We should have done this right the first time.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you like that again,” he said quietly.

  “If you’re in love with me then you won’t.” His gaze softened and I leaned forward, pressing my lips against his as our eyes fell shut. My right hand moved down, over his leather jacket, and rested on his heart, which was beating rapidly, like mine. I missed this. Being with him like this.

  He pulled back first. “I want to try. This. Us. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  “You’re not going to,” I said. “I want to try this, too, but not today. Today is a day about Bethany. A day you can fully remember her, for her. Since we’re going to try this, I need you to be fully certain. We can wait until you’re ready.” I stood, grabbing his cold hands to pull him up with me. “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to take you somewhere,”

  “Where?”

  I grabbed the empty water bottles and the bottle he had brought with him.

  As we made our way down the path, I threw the bottles and the cigarette pack he had given me into the garbage. Sam grabbed my hand, pulling me to him and we kissed for the second time that night. My hands dug into his hair, bringing him as close as possible.

  We didn’t say anything after pulling away but there wasn’t much more that needed to be said about us as we approached the car. “Give me the keys.”

  He sighed, reaching into his leather jacket to pull them out. “Can you even drive?”

  “I have my license.”

  “That doesn’t really make me feel safe.”

  I snatched the keys out of his hand. “Get in the car.”

  Sam climbed into the passenger seat as I started the engine. I drove out of the parking lot. At a red light, Sam murmured, “You didn’t take off the necklace.” I probably never would.

  “Wait,” I said, getting closer to our destination. “Is Bethany the reason you had a playlist dedicated to boy bands?”

  “She was obsessed. I could never delete it.”

  “Play a song,” I urged him, and after multiple refusals, he eventually did. I didn’t miss him singing the words under his breath as the music filled our ears.

  “Where are we?” Sam asked as I got out of the car.

  The gates were still open, meaning we had some time before someone would come to scope out the area. Grabbing Sam’s hand once he closed the door on his side, I locked the car and led him through the open gates. We walked through the compound I hadn’t entered in a while, then I stopped not too far from the entrance. Sam took in our surroundings. “You brought me to a cemetery?”

  Sam leaned down to look at the writing on the tombstone in front of us.

  here lies

  lauren “abrina” jessica anderson

  1974-2005

  dearly loved mother, daughter, lover and friend

  “Dad said she used to hate the name ‘Abrina’ but grew up with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had rolled her eyes if she saw they engraved that into her tombstone.” Visiting the graveyard wasn’t uncommon for my family. Every year for the anniversary of her death, Justin, Dad, and I came here. “I miss her every day.”

  “I miss Bethany every day,” he commented.

  “Even though they’re gone, you know that we’ll be okay, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He wiped another tear away and I pulled him down to sit in front of the grave. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Bethany? Like your motorcycle, BS? It’s not really what I thought it was, is it?”

  “Bethany and Sam,” he recounted. “She went with me to get the license. I’ve wanted one since I was a kid.”

  He mentioned how she would force Caleb and him to watch romance movies they’d never have watched otherwise. How they constantly sang around the house. That she had discovered the quarry with a friend’s family one summer and brought him to it. How it was their place over the years. How happy she was to hear they were going to have a little brother.

  “What about your mum? You have any more stories about her?” His green eyes were curious, and for the first time tonight, I didn’t worry about him as we shared stories of our lost ones.

  Our conversation moved to the car when the caretaker told us they were closing the gates. Sam continued talking about Bethany, and the more he spoke, the more at ease he seemed. His stories included his family—his brother, cousins, Caleb, even Cedric. I was in the middle of telling him a story about my mom and Justin when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Dad wants me home.” I started the car, feeling the slight disappointment of this night being over, but I urged him to keep talking throughout the drive.

  When I parked the car in the driveway of my house, I squeezed his hand, saying, “You should call your family in England and talk to your family here.”

  Sam kept his eyes on the house. A light was on. My suspicions were clarif
ied when my dad walked down the driveway toward the car. “I will.”

  Opening up the car door, my dad glanced at me before asking Sam, “How’re you doing?”

  “I’ve been better,” Sam admitted. “But I’m okay.”

  “I’ll give you a ride home in my car,” Dad offered. “I’ll find a way to send yours over tomorrow.” Dad walked over to his own vehicle.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I asked Sam. “You can be honest with me.”

  Sam cast his eyes down for a moment before pulling me in for a short kiss that left me dazed. “Yeah. Thanks for tonight and everything.” He exited the vehicle, entered my dad’s car, and the two pulled out of the driveway.

  29

  We Need to Find an Off Button

  Making my way across the threshold of the dining room the next morning, I found food and fruit were on the table where my dad and Justin were eating. “You could’ve woken me up a little earlier—I just got dressed faster than I ever did.”

  I took a seat at the table, nudging Justin, who was most likely texting Emma. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” he mumbled, concentrating on his device.

  Reaching over the bacon laid out on a plate, I ate as Dad got up and took his plate into the kitchen. “Finish up quick, I’m dropping you off—if we leave now we can make it before the first bell.”

  I shoved two more pieces of bacon into my mouth and grabbed a banana as Justin ran out the door and toward the car, ready to climb into the passenger seat. I lingered behind with Dad, watching him grab his briefcase. “Did you guys talk much in the car?”

  “We did. He was pretty tired, though.” I agreed, ready to head out the front door when my dad held me back. “If he doesn’t show up at school today, don’t be surprised, okay? He needs time to himself and with his family.”

  Patting me on the back, my father walked ahead and I followed, ready to get Justin to give up the front seat.

  The lack of sleep caught up with me and I yawned loudly at the end of the school day, making my way down the hallway. Spotting Cedric with a bunch of his friends, I raised a hand in acknowledgment, and he approached me.

  “Hey.” My attempt to stifle another yawn failed.

  “Didn’t sleep long enough? Me neither.” He did look tired, his normally put-together hair was messy and dark circles had settled under his eyes.

  “Are you okay, Cedric?”

  “I’m getting by.” He shrugged. “Everyone at home is too.”

  “Look, Ced, can I say something? I’m sorry for how I handled everything at the party. You didn’t deserve that.” My grip on the straps of my backpack loosened. “I really am sorry, and if you need anything, I’m here.”

  Suddenly, he furrowed his brow. “You took chemistry last term, right? I’m having trouble with something. Any time we could talk one of these days?”

  I nodded, knowing that this definitely wasn’t about chemistry as he walked back in the direction of his friends.

  Cedric was all I could think of later as I was sitting in Caleb’s car behind him and Stevie, heading to Caleb’s. Caleb had texted me earlier to see if I wanted to hang out after school. Now a small part of me was regretting my answer as he sang along horribly to the High School Musical soundtrack.

  His falsetto voice was cut off by Stevie slapping him on the shoulder. “I should stop asking you for rides home.”

  “Princess, tell her,” he urged me. “The movie is a classic.”

  I shrugged, not wanting to have any input into their argument when Stevie said, “I haven’t even watched the movies.”

  The car slammed to a sudden stop that nearly caused whiplash for all of us. My head hit the back of the driver’s seat and I rubbed it in pain, hearing the honks from other vehicles around us. “Caleb!” I warned him, but he didn’t move the car. In fact, he was in the middle of the road, not moving at all.

  “None of them?” he asked in shock.

  Stevie let out a harsh breath. “I haven’t watched any one of them. Now please drive, you’re causing a scene.” He completely ignored her comment, still stunned at what he had learned. “Caleb, drive!”

  “I’m in shock.” Someone swerved around the car, giving him the middle finger. “How is that possible? It’s childhood.”

  “Then clearly we had different childhoods, Caleb.”

  I kicked the back of his seat. “Caleb, drive!”

  “Shit.” He pressed his foot on the gas. “Tomorrow, you, me—a marathon. I don’t care how long it takes. We’re even going to watch the bonus scenes.”

  Caleb and Stevie’s arguing continued as we got onto the elevator, and his horrible singing didn’t stop until we reached Stevie’s floor first. “Caleb?” The doors opened. “We need to find an Off button for you.”

  “I’m bringing the popcorn and the movies, expect me at your door—tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Macy.” Stevie exited the elevator.

  When we reached Caleb’s place his aunt came over to us as we took off our shoes—Caleb wiggling his pink socks at me—and reminded him, “Romero, you’re doing dishes tonight.”

  “Got it!” he yelled, urging me to head down the hall. She said something back to him in Spanish. “I was responding, not yelling!”

  He made his way over to his aunt and I went to his room, where a stack of notebooks and his open laptop lay on his bed. I picked up the picture on his desk as he entered the room. Caleb reached under his bed and pulled out two notebooks similar to the ones he carried around.

  I sat on the bed while he settled for the floor in front of me, crossing his legs. He handed me one notebook. Most of the book was filled with words covering almost every inch of white space, except for some of the last pages. I skimmed through it, moving by sentences of Caleb talking about her, how she was that day, how she acted, his thoughts of her.

  “I knew I loved her when I met her. Even when we became best friends,” Caleb said. “She had hobbies, something new almost every week. She went through this phase of making bracelets and she forced me and Sam to make them with her, and I made one for her.

  “That day was the first time we really talked. About my parents’ death, moving countries with my sister, and how we ended up here with our aunt. How weird it was coming to Port Meadow and being the new kid with a strange accent. I loved talking to her, I loved it when she talked back to me. I told Sam I had feelings for her. Surprisingly, he was fine with it; in fact, he encouraged me to tell her.”

  He flipped through the other journal until he found a picture. In the photo she was wearing a white dress and was hugging a younger version of Caleb, who was in a tux and had neatly combed hair. They were both smiling in a snow-covered garden. She looked like Liz, with her straight brown hair, and had green eyes like Sam.

  “That was on their fifteenth birthday when they came over during winter break. It was a big party; but then again, everything with the Cahills is extravagant.” Caleb’s fingers moved through the journal before fetching another picture.

  He handed me a strip of photos from a photo booth. They were of him and Bethany making funny faces at the camera. The last picture was Sam pushing Caleb out of the photo booth as he and his sister looked happy, not paying attention to the camera taking the picture.

  Caleb sat next to me on the bed. “She had a good voice too. Really talented. She practiced like crazy for tryouts at the art school she ended up going to.” Caleb reached down to his ankle. He pulled his pant leg up and his sock down to show the small lily on his ankle. “I wanted a tattoo one day and she suggested this. It was her favorite flower—it reminds me of her.”

  He cleared his throat. “When she met Drake, I wrote a lot more.” He handed me the second notebook. The amount of writing within this book was far more than I had ever seen in his other notebooks. “I wrote about a love triangle.”

  Realization
made me take a deep breath. “About the three of you.”

  “She introduced us to him and everything. She was happy with him.” Caleb may have sounded sad but his eyes sparkled at her memory. “And he was good for her. I was honest about that in the story.”

  “Did you finish the story?” I asked.

  “I did. I showed it to her and watched her read the entire thing. She realized who each of the characters was. I didn’t expect a response right away, but was hoping to get a sense of what she was thinking. Sam inadvertently interrupted the conversation. It was fine. She looked happy and that’s all that mattered to me in the moment. A week later, we got into an argument.”

  “Over what?”

  “It was the first time I asked her how she and Drake were doing. He was her first boyfriend and I was her friend, so I thought I was just looking out for her. She tried to change the subject and we ended up fighting when she said this.”

  Caleb turned around, taking off his shirt to expose his shoulder blade and the quote I had spotted once before. Curiosity can be a risk you sometimes don’t want to take. —B. C.

  “Why did she say that?”

  “She didn’t want to hurt me by telling me anything about their relationship. She knew that I had feelings for her but she was in love with Drake, and then that relationship ended and she went back home.” Caleb put his shirt back on. “Then I never saw her face to face again. It was hard to accept that she was gone but eventually I found my way through it. Sam didn’t. He went through a lot of bad moments. He kind of lost himself, and there were times when I thought I was going to lose him.”

  A sigh left my lips at the knowledge of what he was referring to. “He told me.”

  Caleb released a harsh breath. “I had already lost one of my best friends; I wasn’t going to lose another.”

  At the sight of his rapid blinking, I was quick to give him a hug, tightening my arms around him. Tears sprung to my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time these past two weeks. But I was tearing up for the loss of someone he had a great bond with; of someone he loved.