What Happens After

by Portia Moore

  “That’s your best friend?” he asks.

  I recall telling him I was here with my best friends. “Aidan?” I laugh. “No. Far from it. We’re more friends of convenience.”

  “Good, I think I’d be jealous if the girl I had a crush on was best friends with a guy,” he teases, and I feel myself blush.

  “Well, I actually do have a guy best friend. Chris, who I haven’t seen the entire night . . .” I say, just realizing it. Chris and I usually check in on each other a couple of times when we’re out together. “I should probably go find him.”

  His phone buzzes again. “It’s Claire and Daniel. They have a flat tire. I have to go save the day.” His expression is regretful when he looks up.

  “Well, this is where our night ends then. Not bad.” My eyes lock on his. It’s been a long time since I wanted a boy to kiss me, and today is not the day . . . not yet. But one day soon, I can see myself wanting Brett Stelson to kiss me.

  “Well, Lisa who doesn’t like cookies,” he teases.

  “Chocolate chip cookies,” I correct.

  “I’ll be seeing you very soon,” he says, heading down the steps.

  “I hope so, Brett Stelson.” I give him a little wave before I head back into the house.

  I push through the partygoers, nearly all drunk now, while trying to avoid Deanna so I can keep my promise to Aidan of not getting taken away in handcuffs. I ask several classmates if they’ve seen Chris, and finally one girl says she saw him and Amanda upstairs, which isn’t super helpful. Amanda’s house is huge.

  When I get to Amanda’s room, her door is closed. I knock but don’t get an answer. They probably can’t hear me over the music anyway. When I open the door, my eyes bulge out of my head. I see my friend Amanda topless and kissing some guy in her bed.

  Eww eww eww!

  Amanda and I are close, but that is not something I want to see. I quickly close the door and start down the hallway to continue looking for Chris, but I feel someone grab my arm. I’m relieved when I turn and see Chris, but then I notice his clothes are disheveled, his face is flushed, and his usually perfectly disorderly hair is now just messy. My mouth falls open, and my eyes practically bulge out of my head again.

  “Oooh my God,” I say in disbelief.

  Chris looks down in embarrassment. At first I’m confused. Chris “Goody Two Shoes” Scott wouldn’t be rounding second base with my best friend, whom he’s appeared indifferent toward for the past couple of years. Then I laugh.

  “That wasn’t what it looked like,” he says, looking completely embarrassed. Only my best friend would think hooking up with a beautiful girl at a party is something to be embarrassed about.

  “I’m sure it’s exactly what it looked like. I just . . . how? When?” I ask, flabbergasted.

  Amanda appears behind him with a wide smile as she takes his arm and clings to it. “Sorry about that, Lisa. You’ve got to learn to knock though.”

  Chris looks more than a little uncomfortable at his new appendage, and I feel my stomach sink.

  “Lisa was just telling me that she has to get home,” Chris says with a tight smile.

  Oh no. From the look on Chris’ face, I hope I’m not about to have an Aidan problem. Gah!

  Amanda’s face falls in disappointment. “No, Lisa, just another hour or so. Are you not having fun?”

  I don’t give her the details of her sister’s bitch fit, because it hardly seems the time. My eyes dart to Chris, who has a get-me-out-of-here look on his face.

  “No, really. Evie is going to throw a bitch fit if I’m not home before one,” I say with exaggerated disappointment.

  Amanda frowns. “Evie’s going to throw a fit?”

  Yeah, I should have thought of a better lie than that. My mom isn’t exactly the type to dole out curfews. I suck at lying.

  “I’m grounded. Because of the fight we had about the car . . .” I say, trying to think of something that seems semi-believable.

  “I drove,” Chris jumps in with his own lie.

  “Aww. Okay,” she says, obviously disappointed. She turns Chris toward her. “You had a good time tonight?” Her voice sounds deeper than I’ve ever heard, but her eyes are wide, bright, and desperate.

  “Great. I had a great time,” Chris says quickly.

  She beams, seeming satisfied with his answer, and turns to me without leaving Chris’s side. I have to stop myself from laughing.

  “What about you, hon?” she asks, leaning on Chris. Poor, poor Chris.

  “I did, aside from your sister from hell bitching me out,” I reveal.

  She frowns. “Which one: Claire or Deanna?”

  “Deanna, but it all worked out. I met a guy.”

  She lights up, her excitement contagious. “Really! Who?” She finally lets go of Chris and steps toward me.

  “His name’s Brett, and he’s in college,” I say, but Chris’s eyes beg me to wrap this up. “But I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. I really have to get home.”

  “Yes, you have to!” She turns to Chris, stands on her tippy-toes, and plants a kiss on his lips. It looks completely one-sided, but she doesn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable Chris looks. “Make sure to call me tomorrow, babe.” She might as well be a cartoon with hearts shooting out of her eyes.

  “Yeah. Cool,” Chris says, slipping from her embrace.

  He follows me down the stairs, and I fight the urge to ask Chris a thousand and one questions about what I just saw. Since his face is still flushed a pink I’ve never seen on him, I decide to wait until we’re away from the loud partygoers to get his story. Though I do quickly conclude he’s not drunk because I don’t notice any signs of inebriation or smell any alcohol on him. The only buzz Amanda appeared to be drunk on was love.

  We bump into Devin and Mike, who let us know they’ve found other ways to get home. Now only Chris and I are left on the porch with the partygoers who seem too drunk to leave. And of course Aidan is nowhere to be seen.

  “This is why our parents should get us cell phones, right?” Chris says.

  Every time I’d looked at Chris inside the house, I smirked to keep from giggling, and I can’t stop myself from laughing now. My best friend is only human.

  “Lisa, are you going to keep laughing whenever you look at me?” he asks, exasperated.

  “No. I’m sure it’ll pass after tonight and after I’ve grilled every detail out of you.”

  He grumbles, “I don’t want to talk about it,” for the fifth time since we’ve gotten out here.

  We wait around for Aidan for a half an hour, and I get tired of being dragged around by Chris. He keeps moving us to inconspicuous spots so as not to run into Amanda since she thinks we left a while ago.

  “I don’t think Aidan’s coming back,” I finally huff. “Look, Amanda can give us a ride home. Who knows how long it’ll take for Aidan to come back?”

  “I’m not riding in the same car with her tonight,” Chris says sternly, and I giggle again.

  “Did she force herself on you, Chris?” I say jokingly.

  He ignores me.

  “Because from the brief glimpse I got—which nearly blinded me, I might add—it didn’t look like she was holding you against your will.”

  “This is all your fault,” he snaps, and I really start to laugh.

  “I’m sorry, but this is not my fault. I am not taking the blame on this one,” I say, throwing up my hands.

  “Yes, it is . . . I’m going to go call my parents,” he says before trotting into the house to search for a phone.

  I can’t believe he’s blaming this on me. Okay, yes, I told him to ask her out and keep her distracted so Aidan wouldn’t get his hands on her. I didn’t tell him to practically sleep with her. I never actually thought Chris would even kiss her, let alone have a heavy make-out session with her. As hot as Chris is, I kind of just think of him as asexual. He’s never really called girls hot without prompting from Aidan, and even then he’d agree or shake his head.

&
nbsp; When Chris reappears, he lets me know his mom is on the way, and in less than ten minutes, his mom’s big truck has pulled up in front of Amanda’s house. We say our good-byes to the few people still sober enough to notice who we are, then we make our way to the truck. I quickly pull out a piece of gum from my purse and stuff it into Chris’s hand in case he has any beer left on his breath. His face becomes panicked when he realizes the reason for it. When I head to the back door of the truck, he nudges me to the front. I’m not surprised by that, but I am surprised to see Chris’s dad sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Our small town doesn’t offer much, and that’s a double-edged sword. The only crime, even on the poorer side of town, is mostly bored kids graffitiing on public property or stealing beer from little mom-and-pop liquor stores for a rush. There aren’t a lot of exciting things to do or exciting people to know. So when I get in the car with Mr. Scott, I can’t help but laugh at myself for never having realized what a beautiful man Chris’s dad is.

  Mr. Scott looks amused, and his blue eyes dart between us. The lower part of his face is covered with stubble, about thirty minutes past a five o’clock shadow, and his plump pink lips turn upward. Light from the car door opening displays his deep-set dimples. One strand of his collar-length golden-brown hair falls in his face.

  I try to think of the last time I saw Mr. Scott—maybe a couple of months ago? No, almost a year ago. For some reason, he looks different. I think it’s the hair. It’s longer now. I remember him always keeping it cut short, and I think the length and the color make his eyes stand out. The way Chris described him, I’d expected a sullen man with frown lines and a permanent scowl, but he looks happy, amused.

  “You guys have fun?” he asks, almost as if he’s covering up a laugh. Not in the sarcastic, hard way most parents would ask after seeing a dozen teens with plastic cups presumably filled with alcohol at almost two in the morning.

  “Yeah,” Chris answers quickly.

  “Lisa, how are you? It’s been a while,” he says as we drive away.

  “I’m good,” I say, making sure my smile matches his upbeat tone.

  “I feel like I haven’t seen you and Aidan in forever. Where is he anyway?” he asks.

  “Aidan is being Aidan,” Chris answers.

  “You three have always been like the Three Musketeers.” Mr. Scott chuckles.

  “Yeah, he’s always swinging his sword at someone,” I say and immediately remember that there’s a parental unit sitting next to me.

  Instead of a frown, he gives me a hearty laugh.

  “Thanks for picking us up, Dad. I thought Mom was coming,” Chris says, quickly changing the subject.

  “She was tired, and I wasn’t doing much of anything. I thought the car ride could help me sleep once we made it home. How’s your mom doing, Lisa? I haven’t seen her in a while,” he asks.

  I feel my stomach tighten, but I try to hide how awkward this topic makes me feel. “She’s good.”

  “We used to go to parties like this. Me, your mom, and your dad,” he says with a smile.

  That makes me perk up. No one ever talks about my dad. He left when I was just two years old, so I guess people think it’s a sore subject. As sucky as he may have been to leave my mom and me without as much as a word of good-bye, I can’t help yearning to know more about him. I’d known that Mr. Scott and my parents went to school together, but I guess he never had a reason to talk to me about them since the subject never really came up.

  “My mom doesn’t really talk about my dad,” the words slip from my mouth before I can censor them. The emotion in my voice catches me off guard.

  Mr. Scott glances at me, and he realizes that maybe he shouldn’t have been so free with his words or memories. “When I knew him, he was a great guy.”

  The rest of the ride goes by quickly and without anyone speaking. Mr. Scott changes the radio station from the eighties hits that Mrs. Scott likes to one Chris and I listen to. I’m a little surprised he even knows what we listen to. I try to distract myself by focusing on the song rather than my lingering thoughts about my dad. I look over my shoulder at Chris, who seems to have fallen asleep. I wonder how many beers he had. He had to have had a few, which is completely out of character for him. That would explain the compromising position he was in with Amanda. I look at Mr. Scott as he drums his hands on the steering wheel along to the beat of the song.

  “So what’s the problem you’re having with math?” he asks, throwing me a quick glance.

  I snicker. “I can’t think of one problem I don’t have with math.”

  A wide grin spreads across his face. “I’ve found a lot of people don’t have a problem with math. It’s more the idea of math than anything.”

  “The idea of math?” I ask.

  “Yes. Just think, when did you start having problems with it?”

  “Uhm, maybe around seventh grade, I think. When the letters and numbers and equations all started to happen at once.”

  He nods. “I think you psyched yourself out about it. You became intimidated by it and put up a mental wall. You’re making it more difficult for yourself than it actually is.”

  I can’t help but frown a bit. “I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Then what do you think it is?”

  I stop and think a bit. “I just can’t grasp it. It’s so unbelievably confusing. It’s like my mind just shuts down whenever I try to do it.”

  “See? That’s what I mean. Think about it. Unless you suffer from some type of mental disability, I’m sure your mind doesn’t just shut down at the sight of an equation,” he jokes. “I think you became intimidated by it. You’ve already sent cues to your brain that you’re not going to get it, which causes you to lose focus, distract yourself, and give up before you’ve even started. Math isn’t something you’re incapable of doing unless you’ve convinced yourself incapable of doing it.” He gives me a reassuring smile.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am right,” he says with a nod. “I was the same way with English. I hated to read. I hated to write so much that I convinced myself I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it until I really started to believe that I could.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I say, noticing that we’re pulling up to my old house. He must have forgotten I don’t live near them anymore. “Uhm, we’ve moved.”

  His face scrunches up and realization dawns on his face. “Oh yeah. I remember Gwen telling me something about that.”

  I try to swallow the embarrassment stuck in my throat and ignore the flicker of sympathy in his expression. I can imagine what was said. Mrs. Scott is nice, and I don’t see her being catty or gossipy, but anyone from Madison knows when you move anywhere lower than Fourth Street, the move was strictly a downgrade. After the whole thing with my stepdad divorcing my mom for sleeping with his brother, even if you’re a saint, you just can’t leave something like that out.

  “We home?” Chris asks, awake again.

  “No, I forgot Lisa moved,” Mr. Scott says.

  “Can you let me out then? I really have to go to the bathroom,” Chris says urgently.

  Mr. Scott pulls up their driveway, and Chris opens the door.

  “And, son, next time you have enough beers that you can’t hold your urine, you’re going to be grounded for a week,” Mr. Scott says knowingly.

  Chris’s face turns bright pink before he hops out of the truck.

  “See you later, Chris,” I say, covering my snicker.

  “Just a piece of advice, if you ever want to cover the fact you’ve been drinking, make sure your bladder is completely empty before getting a ride home from your parent,” Mr. Scott jokes.

  He and I don’t say much to each other before he pulls up in front of my house. I see my mom’s car is back. Jack must have run out of gas money to joyride.

  “Are you okay from here?” Mr. Scott asks hesitantly.

  I nod and give him a wide smile. “I’m fine. Thank you, Mr. Scott.”r />
  “So your homework for the weekend is to open up your mind to the possibility that you can be a math genius who is overjoyed by how unbelievably easy it is,” he says with a confident smile.

  “I doubt it, but who knows?” I chuckle, then I remember we never set a time or specific date or anything. “Uhh. Is Monday at eight okay?”

  “Great. Did you want me to come here, or will you be coming to my house?”

  I want to vomit at the thought of Mr. Scott sitting at my kitchen table while my mom flounces around in her skanky shorts with her boobs out, interrupting us by continuously reminiscing about their good ol’ days. No thanks!

  “Your house is fine,” I say, and he nods with a smile.

  I get out, shut the door, and make my way up the steps to my house. Once I open the door, I turn around and give him a wave, and he flashes the lights before pulling off. I hear my mom and Jack Doe are in the midst of loudly making up. I roll my eyes, and a shiver crawls down my spine at the thought of the last time I saw him. He implied he’d be here more than a few times.

  I wonder what his deal is. Is he homeless, jobless, kicked out of his wife’s house? Those are usually the only guys who stick around longer than a few days with my mom. Guys who need help more than they could ever imagine helping. I close the door to my room and move the chair from my desk in front of my door. Just in case he accidentally mixes up our rooms, which has happened on more than one occasion with mom’s friends.

  I take off my jacket, toss it on my desk, grab my CD player, and put on my headphones, blasting Kelly Clarkson’s newest single. As I fall on my bed, I think of Brett Stelson and his beautiful eyes and how he saved me from a night of brooding over Deanna’s bitch attack. I shoot up in bed. I didn’t give him my number. I sigh. How did we forget that? Well, maybe he didn’t forget . . . maybe he was just being nice to a sad girl sitting on his friend’s girlfriend’s steps.

  My thoughts drift to Chris and the embarrassing episode from earlier. I wonder how many beers he actually had. At least his dad was cool about it. Mr. Scott seems pretty cool in general actually. I’ve never really been around him much. I guess there hasn’t been much of a reason for me to be. Well, hopefully he’s a magician because it’s going to take magic to turn my awful grades around.