Jared opens his mouth to talk, but then shuts it again. While adjusting his Colts cap, he shakes his head and looks over the side of the bridge, out to the sailboats. With the harbor breeze whipping the air around us into a frenzy, his throat muscles tighten several times, and his chest heaves weighty breaths before his tense gaze finds mine once more.
What happened to him during these past 12 years?
Why does he seem so perturbed about me? He didn’t remember me in the first place. What makes it so different now?
What the hell is going on with Jared Beckett?
CHAPTER 6
“Jared, you okay, buddy?” Dash knocks my arm with his when it’s clear I’m not into talking.
Whipping my head to face him, I expeditiously string my words together. “I didn’t tell you about her. Is this a joke? How’d you know about her? Are you shitting me, Calder?”
Dash laughs, of course. “What are you talking about? Kat is a friend of mine. I didn’t know you two had met before. We went to Bowie together.”
Kat says, “When my mom was out of town visiting my aunt last fall, her house caught fire. It was a total loss. Jared and his dad are helping with the rebuild.” She shakes her head, darting her eyes to me, before saying to Dash, “He didn’t realize who I was. I thought he forgot about me.”
I never forgot about her.
I’m just an imperceptive moron, proving that I can be fucking slow on the uptake when it comes to seeing something right in front of my face.
Even more, I never wanted to reopen this particular old wound, even if I had my suspicions, fears, and hope that it was her.
I must be a fucking masochist.
Damn it.
Here goes ripping off the bandage that has been fused to my skin for over a decade.
In high school, my dad wouldn’t let me get my driver’s license until I took driver’s ed., since he could get a discount on his insurance policy if I passed the newly offered class, and seeing that I would also be helping to pay for insurance, I needed to take it. Anything to make my damn life harder.
I was 16 years old when I met 15-year-old Katriona Merrick. As soon as I saw her in that afterschool class, it became apparent that something was different about the way she made me feel, and she had yet to even look my way. I was enthralled with her. She was so pretty, but she was one of those girls who didn’t see it, flaunting it to anyone for praise. She wore small, gold-rimmed glasses that complemented her chocolate brown eyes, and as much as I liked her chin-length, dark brown hair, it often hid her face, which irritated me. I wanted to move it out of the way, running my fingers through the silkiness. Whatever lip-gloss it was that she wore, made her lips an iridescent, cherry red. Once, I caught her licking her lips while we were taking notes, and I automatically gripped the edge of my desk. Damn it to Hell and back if she didn’t almost drive me to groan out loud.
I was thinking about her to no end: during class and everything in between, the ride home from school, while not eating dinner, not doing homework, in the shower, in bed… Yeah. I was thinking about Kat nonstop. It was so bad that I was becoming extremely distracted and forgetful, having to ask people to repeat things because I wasn’t paying attention the first two times, or had forgotten what they told me altogether. My dad and Hadley gave me strange looks that seemed to stay on their faces whenever I was around them. I blamed my preoccupancy on complicated game plays. Stupidly, they fell for it, which was a miracle since my dad was constantly on my ass about something.
During class, I constantly was glancing over at Kat, but the girl beside me kept blocking my view. It was awkward when the girl thought I was looking at her instead. In the hallways, I was endlessly looking for Kat and when I found her, I followed her to see where her classes were. It was ridiculous how much of a stalker I had become. Be that as it may, I didn’t care. I was late to a couple of my classes more than once, even snagging detention, but being on the football team, it didn’t stick since my coach dragged me out of it after half an hour there; though, he made me make up for it in extra drills.
I didn’t even know Kat, but my every waking thought was of her. I couldn’t explain the reasoning even if I tried. In a matter of two weeks, I found myself obsessed with Kat Merrick, yet I didn’t realize the depth of how much until the girl sitting between us called me out, and it was during the first time Kat looked back at me and smiled. Fuck. That was all it took for me. I had to get closer to her.
“Oh, my God. Are you checking out Kat?”
I looked down at my desk, caught off guard, yet a buzz coursing through me, and a smile overtaking my face. When I glanced back to Kat, her mouth and eyes were wide open. She looked scared.
So was I.
“Do you like her? You two would look so cute together! You should totally ask her out on a date!”
I wanted to.
Kat jerked her head away, looking at the back of the chair in front of her as her face turned a tomato red.
Was that an appalling suggestion? Would she have gone out with me if I asked? I couldn’t drive anywhere by myself yet, but I could’ve met her somewhere. Would she go to a movie or dinner with me? Both? Take a walk around town or watch the boats from Spa Creek Bridge? Hell, we could sit in the school’s parking lot, talking like we did during class for all I cared. I just wanted to be with her.
I didn’t casually date. I had had a few short-term girlfriends, but I didn’t take them out much. For the most part, they were restricted to only seeing me at school. I didn’t even do much of the phone thing because many times, I wanted to fucking hang myself with the phone cord.
Two weeks before school started, I had broken up with Anya, which was a long-time coming. She was too much for me to deal with and I had no reason to stay with her. She had seemed like a good idea when I met her at the pool where Dash was a junior lifeguard over the summer, but that turned out to be a huge error in judgment. I wanted something more. I didn’t know exactly what, but I felt like I was wasting my time with her. Dash thought the bizarre things she did were hilarious—like in some comedy skit. Sadly, most of the things she did weren’t intended to be funny. She was just fucking weird.
For our parking lot “excursions,” as Carl, one of the instructors called them, we were to pair together. I wasted no time snapping up Kat. There had been a girl approaching her to ask, but I beat her to it, almost knocking her over in the process.
Carl handed Kat the key and followed us to the car to watch her do a pre-drive car check.
Kat uneasily glanced at me. “Do you want to drive first?”
“No. I’ll watch you.”
“Great. I’ll be even more nervous.”
“It’s just you and me. Nothing to worry about.”
“Just don’t laugh at me too much.”
“I won’t.”
I was going to be gawking at her too much to notice her driving. Silly girl.
I stood on the curb while Kat walked around the car, checking the tires for flats or objects embedded in them. Watching her stoop in front of me was challenging.
Crossing my arms, I stepped off the curb and as she walked past to check the taillights, she brushed against me.
“Sorry!” she said, looking over her shoulder with an apologetic smile, before turning to look at the rear of the car.
All my fault.
When Kat timidly looked up at me again, I smiled back without an ounce of remorse, having enjoyed every sliver of her skin on my arms. The sensation was galvanizing.
Once we were in the car, the tables weirdly flipped on me and I was the one who was nervous. I teased her about stupid shit, just to ease my own anxiety. My stomach had turned to lead. I had no idea how to talk to her. She was so different than the girls I dated before. Dash had called them “airheads” and “tits with mouths.” He was right. Besides sex, they held zero of my interest and I soon grew bored with each one. I wasn’t into those types of girls, but felt compelled to be, at first, following what my friends were
doing. Except for Dash. Nope. For some odd reason, he was holding onto his virginity like it was his lifeline. He said he wanted to “wait for the right one to come along.” This all coming from a kid whose mother was a stripper, and father owned the club where they met. I laughed at Dash, yet thought that maybe he made a little sense. I just didn’t tell him that. I hated my first time. I don’t even know how I got a hard-on, let alone got through it. Being drunk out of my mind helped. Except for thinking she was hot, I felt nothing for the girl, but was I supposed to? Isn’t sex just a mechanical act to achieve a release? It’s always been for me, anyway.
Losing my virginity was a necessity. It made me feel liberated from my mother once and for all, since she was the one who gave me that innocence in the first place.
After my first time, it got easier to have sex. I kept it to girlfriends, not sleeping around with any pussy within a 10-foot radius, like some guys I knew did. I’d ask a girl to be exclusive with me and when I lost interest, dumped them. I always did the breaking up, staying fine-tuned to them. If I sensed they were listless, I immediately got rid of them; however, with only having a handful of official girlfriends, that wasn’t hard. I was always bored first.
Then I met Kat Merrick and she changed everything.
At my football games, I looked for her. By doing research, I found she had two older brothers, Tony and Peter. Tony already had graduated, but Peter was a senior and in the school’s band, therefore, a good chance Kat would be at the games. So, I asked if she would come watch me play, to get her reaction. She said she’d be there. Elated, I told her I’d score a touchdown for her, which seemed to sway her. I looked for her the entire game. I was so distracted that my coach threatened to pull me out. I felt like I could feel her eyes on me, but I thought it was wishful thinking, until she recounted things she saw me do. I was awestruck.
Too awestruck.
Each week, I made sure she was my excursion partner. I asked her question after question about her likes and loathes. Her favorite food was salted French fries, her favorite day of the week was Monday, her favorite actor was Johnny Depp, and her favorite color was purple.
Purple.
That should’ve been a huge flag for me when I saw her striped hair.
I also learned she wanted to be an elementary teacher. So did Dash, but he probably shouldn’t even be teaching animals. God bless those clueless kids and the years of therapy they’ll surely need.
I didn’t know how to proceed with Kat. I had to approach her in an entirely different way. To be more calculated with my moves, I suppose. Yet, all my planning evaporated when we were alone in a car together. I had an urge to touch her. So I did.
“What kind of earrings are these?”
“Sailboats.”
“You like sailing?”
“Never been, so I don’t know. I thought they were cute.”
“Ha. Do you like the beach at all?”
“I love it.”
“So do I.”
Asking Kat to go to Sandy Point with me, which is a state park on the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t push it forward. I couldn’t even muster the courage to ask her to go to a damn movie with me. I was so fucking awkward around her.
Even so, I couldn’t resist her. She was nervous, but I think driving made her more nervous than being around me did. That seemed to calm me some.
“This is a pretty ring.”
“Oh, thanks. I got it for my birthday.”
“When’s that?”
“May 26th.”
“Yours?”
“March 26th.”
“No way.”
“Yep. We were meant to be driving partners.”
I wanted to keep her talking. It was diverting her attention. There I was, holding her hand, and I didn’t want to let go, which was strange to me. I didn’t hold any of my girlfriends’ hands. I never even took it upon myself to kiss them first. Not only is kissing intrusive, it’s disgusting when you really get down to it. When I got to college, I refused to kiss anyone, and even now, I still don’t do it. I don’t do the exclusive thing anymore, either. I haven’t called anyone my girlfriend since high school.
When Kat and I were alone in a car, it became my sanctuary with her. I didn’t want to leave. Her perfume had ransacked me and it lingered on my clothes for the rest of the day. There were times I’d lie on my bed smelling my T-shirt. Twisted? Yeah. Desperate to keep some part of her with me? Yeah.
I wanted more, so much more with her, but I didn’t know how.
I took a chance touching her in new places whenever I could. I obviously couldn’t touch her everywhere. When she drove, I stroked her shoulder, and the back of her neck, telling her she needed to relax, which I was partially telling myself to do. I even audaciously brushed an imaginary eyelash off her cheek, completely enjoying it and taking my time doing so.
The time she wore jeans with a hole in the knee presented itself as another opportunity. Before I could stop myself, I reached over, touching her knee. I reveled in the feel. Her skin was so smooth and when my fingers dipped under the edge of the material, I got a hint of what the rest of her felt like. Instant hard-on. Even though I was wearing jeans, when she looked at me with huge, brown eyes, I was praying she wouldn’t see what she had done to me, and run away screaming.
Just as I calmed down, it was my turn to drive. When I was laughing about how far I had to shove the front seat back, she touched my thigh, teasing me in return, and my laughter fell like a brick. Goddamn. I was suddenly stiff again. Right then and there, I started fantasizing about fucking her hard and fast in the backseat of that car. Fucking her anywhere. Aside from a couple actresses, I had never fantasized about having sex with anyone I knew in particular.
Kat was the first and last.
A few days later, I finally grew enough balls after class to ask her out on a date, but I posed it more as theoretical, to see what her answer would be. She seemed open to it, so I asked for her phone number, writing it down on a lunch receipt. I took that small piece of paper home with me, setting it on my nightstand. I was at a fork in the road. I could call her and ask her to go to a movie that night, or I could sit and stare at her number, thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
My brain chose the latter.
At my next football practice, some of my teammates were discussing whether their girlfriends wore their spare game jerseys on Fridays. I was no longer with Anya, not that I would have given it to her anyway, even if we were still together.
I wanted to give mine to Kat.
Would I sound stupid asking her to wear a damn shirt when I couldn’t even call her or take her out on a date?
Surprising myself, I had asked Kat and she said she’d wear it, but when Friday came, I chickened out. Why? Because I didn’t know what we were or what that made us. We weren’t a couple, but I could change that, yet so could she. If she refused, she’d essentially be breaking up with me before I could do it first.
I knew I was already in over my head with her before we even began anything. It was a strange situation. I couldn’t open myself up to the possibility of rejection, but I couldn’t leave her alone, either. Another reason: I was used to short-term. I really liked Kat. Too much. I didn’t want to hurt her. If she did agree to go out with me and we became a couple, I didn’t then want to find myself bored because it wasn’t what I thought I had wanted.
We stood in the middle of a fucking riddle that I had no idea how to solve, at least without someone feeling the pain.
Looking down at my maroon jersey hanging limply in my hand, I crumpled it and bitterly threw it into my locker, mad at myself for getting my hopes up about something that should never happen. I was pretty useless. I wanted to go out with her—fuck—I wanted her.
I tried to convince myself she wasn’t my type of girlfriend material anyway. I couldn’t fucking win, and I couldn’t blindly take the chance because I had so much more to lose than she did. I wa
s nowhere near ready for that disaster. For that misery.
Yet, despite my turmoil, and because apparently I am a masochist, I went in deeper.
Approaching the end of the semester, and our class together, I was getting desperate and so pissed off for being such a damn pussy. I wanted to ask Dash for advice, but I also didn’t want him to know about Kat. He’d laugh at me and make my crisis a fucking joke. So many times, I stood at Hadley’s bedroom door, poised to knock and ask her for help, but each time, I chickened out of that, too. She’d tell our dad and he would’ve been judgmental and absolutely no help, considering his obvious problems with this kind of thing.
I had nobody to talk to about Kat—except Kat. I could’ve gone straight to the source of my conflict, putting my pride on the line, but I couldn’t.
On my own volition, I went out and bought Kat a keychain for when she got her license. I didn’t want it to symbolize anything other than her getting her license, yet at the same time I wanted her to not forget about me when we weren’t in a car together anymore.
Then one night over winter break, I was loading the dishwasher and Hadley was putting food away when I heard the TV in the living room say that Kat Merrick and her grandmother were in a horrendous car accident. Her grandmother had been killed. Shaking, I ran into the room and stared at the TV. I told my dad I needed him to take me to the hospital because my driver’s ed. partner was the girl in the accident. He said she was in critical condition and in the ICU, there was no way I would be able to see her.
I was so worried. I tried calling the hospital to find out information, but they wouldn’t release any to me.
When winter break was over, I still hadn’t heard anything about Kat, but no news is good news, so I kept that in mind. Overhearing two girls talking about her condition, I learned she was in a coma because of a head injury. I thought back to me holding her hand in the car and wished I could right then, too.
Two weeks later, Kat was brought out of her coma and allowed visitors. Since giving her a keychain would be insensitive, I left it in my room. My dad took me to the hospital and waited in the downstairs waiting room, surprisingly not quizzing me about my motives. Upon finding out Kat’s room number, I went to her floor and stood outside the door. I was frozen to the spot. I didn’t know what to say to her that wouldn’t make me look like a bumbling idiot. Before I could make up my fucking mind, a nurse came out of her room, smiled at me, and said Kat was asleep and to try coming back later.
The Keys to Jericho Page 9
