“That’s why I like to come out here,” Zed said, flashing me a smile. “I like the surprise of nature. I grew up in this shitty city on the east coast, and the only kinds of animals I ever saw were squirrels, dogs and cats. But it’s so pure out here.”
“It’s like all your everyday problems just kind of float away,” I murmured, looking out at the water. “Except they really don’t. They’re always lurking in the back of my head.” I glanced up at him, and this time, his eyes met mine. I reached forward and wrapped my hand around his lower arm. I could feel the rapid pulse of his heart. “I’m so sorry to hear about what’s happened at home. It’s so unfair that they blame you for leaving. You’re doing all you can. Carving out a life for yourself with your talent. It’s all we can do when we have nothing else to stand on.”
Zed’s face was stoic. He took a slight step toward me, almost slipping on the wet stones. His body was now just inches away from mine. “Is that what you have to tell yourself back there?” he asked.
I nodded slowly. “It’s fucking stupid. But if the entire school wants to label me as untouchable or bad luck, then whatever. I’ve had enough bad luck to go around. Maybe I should just pass it along to them.”
Zed chuckled. “It’s funny about this bet that’s gone around about you. About you not making it to Nationals because you’ll have to drop out or whatever. Every time I hear it, I’m like you obviously don’t know anything about Rooney Calloway. She’s a fucking beast.”
My cheeks burned. “If only that were true. I haven’t been on a balance beam in weeks. I’m losing my touch.”
“You’ll get it back. It’s always in you,” Zed murmured. “Although I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’ve never been injured. I know it’ll happen if I keep this up. One hundred-plus miles of running a week isn’t going to do any favors to my knees, and I know that. But until then…”
The light had shifted. Oranges and reds stirred across the trees. It was beginning to feel that we were outside of time. That whatever we did so far from the rest of humanity was off the record. My heart thudded with romance, with wanting, with knowing.
Zed’s lips glistened as he dropped them over mine. I closed the distance between our bodies and wrapped my arms tightly around his muscular frame. My breasts pressed into his lower chest, and I could feel the bulge through his shorts. The kissing became aggressive, filled with yearning. Slowly, he inched me back toward a thick oak and pressed me hard against the wood. The mood had shifted to one of compassion and filled with powerful desire. It was like, after weeks of not being seen, God himself had placed a spotlight over my head. All my senses burst into action. I bit on Zed’s lip as he unzipped my jacket and splayed his hands over my breasts. His thumb and forefinger found my nipple and squeezed lightly, and I arched my back so that the base of my belly dug against his cock. He moved my hand to the bottom of his rock-hard abs, and I traced them, watching my fingers as I poured over the perfectly-stitched lines.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he muttered, looking down at me.
He reached for my thigh and pressed it to the side to open up the warm and wet juncture between my thighs. Slowly, he unzipped my jeans. His eyes remained locked on mine, as though he wanted to make sure every action he did was okay with me. Each movement he made, I gave a slight nod. I felt dizzy but wanted everything to keep going. The space after this felt strange but exciting and I just wanted to live here in the moment for as long as I could.
“Fuck,” I whispered as his fingers slipped between my thighs and drew a line across the wetness of my pussy. He then slipped them deep inside, making me let out a moan I couldn’t control. He found my clit and drew delicate circles and watched my face until I was panting and closed my eyes. He dotted kisses across my ear and down my neck. I forced his shorts down to his knees and his cock sprung into my hand, spitting a bit of cum across my palm. He was so long and I drew my fingers along the delicate skin, all the way to the back. The tender touch seemed to drive him crazy.
“I want you so bad,” he grunted, and his words were loud and sharp in my ear.
Suddenly, he dropped to his knees. I blinked down at him and ran my fingers through his hair and watched as he tugged my jeans to my knees and gazed at my pussy. His tongue flickered out of his mouth. My heart thudded and I nearly shook as he eased toward me. But just a second before his tongue dipped against my clit, there was another shuffle across the creek. I burst to the side, away from Zed’s tongue, and watched as three more deer—two females and a male—burst out from the forest. They looked at us, at our teenage heavy-petting, like we were the wild animals. I actually kind of felt like one.
Zed slowly brought his shorts up to his legs. I did the same with my jeans. He took a step toward me and gripped my hand, and the two of us gazed across at the deer, like this was a stand-off. My hand felt warm and delicate in his.
“What do you think they think of us?” Zed whispered.
I squeezed his hand harder. One of the female deer took two little steps out into the creek and ducked her head down to take a drink. Her eyes never left us.
“It’s like they’re interviewing us to enter the club,” I said, smiling.
“I hope we pass. It looks fun,” Zed returned.
“I’m not sure about the dress code.”
“What do you mean? I’d love it if I ran around naked in the woods with you all the time,” Zed said.
Finally, the deer yanked their heads around and hustled back into wherever they had come from while Zed and I burst into laughter.
“It’s like that feeling when your parents catch you in the act…” he began. Then, his eyes grew foggy. He had realized, once again, what he had done. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“It’s cool. Don’t worry,” I replied, kicking the dirt with my sneaker.
In the silence, he stretched forward and gave me a final, light kiss. It felt like a perfect apology. But as we turned back toward the school and his hand dropped mine, I felt my heart sink. I knew that once we returned, the ordinary rules applied. I wouldn’t exactly be sneaking into Zed’s basement dorm for midnight make-outs any time soon.
When we reached the edge of the forest, I broke off a bit from him. His eyes looked strangely wounded.
“I don’t think we should go out together,” I said. I pressed my lips into a single line.
“Why not?”
“You know why not,” I told him. “Seriously. I don’t even want to talk about it.”
Zed shifted his weight. A little wrinkle appeared between his brows. “I don’t want you to think that I actually have the same brain as some of those idiots.”
“It’s up to me to figure this shit out and handle these assholes,” I told him. “And I can’t do it if they also decide to attack you. It’s better if I do this alone. Besides, what would Clinton and Theo say?”
Zed’s smile was mischievous. “I love keeping what we just did a secret from them. They would be so fucking jealous, Roon.”
My heart pattered wildly. “I doubt it.”
Zed’s eyes burned into mine. “If you actually think that, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
Zed burst into his familiar gait. He trotted out on the path and then burst into the clearing between the two-hundred-year-old buildings. Within a few seconds, I spotted only the bob of his sweatshirt. I heaved a sigh and leaned heavily against the tree and squeezed my eyes tight. There was no greater pain than one of nearly getting everything you wanted, and then having it ripped away. This time, maybe, I would just blame it on the deer, who didn’t know any better.
Chapter Eight
A day before Halloween, I sat at practice while the rest of the girls burst out across the trails. Meanwhile, Poppy stood atop the balance beam, about fifty feet or so away from me—enough distance for me to feel like she was a separate entity, not the Poppy of my nightmares, but the Poppy I had once admired. My eyes flickered up and down from my French textbook, catching as much
as I could of their practice. Poppy’s ponytail caught the light, and her abs were flat in that leotard, and she just looked really good up there on the beam. No wonder she had made it on the cover of Seventeen Magazine. But I knew I was just as good as her talent-wise and I just had to beat her at her own game.
Jeremy lurked around beneath her and paced with his hands behind his back. He barked orders, and Poppy performed what he said. She straightened her leg and arched her back and spun around on her back foot. When he snapped his fingers, she swept back like a kind of graceful bird, pounced on the balance beam with just her hands, and then flung back so that her feet landed soundly on the balance beam. The move had seemed to come from nowhere and it was a testament to how fucking strong her thighs and abs were. I almost wanted to clap because it was truly impressive.
If I’m everyone’s bad luck, then I’ll show them how unlucky I can be.
The thought came out of nowhere, but I cradled it in the belly of my mind for a bit. What did it mean? A slow smile crept across my face. For whatever reason, Poppy’s eyes turned toward mine as I grinned so malevolently, and she hobbled around a little on the balance beam. Her arms cut out like a bird’s and she flailed them. Then her face spasmed.
“Focus, Poppy, goddammit!” Jeremy shrieked.
Poppy found her way to stand straight up. She clenched her fists and stared at me.
“If you’re just going to act like a child, Poppy, then I’m done with you for today. And you’ll have to face the facts of that when you’re at Nationals with all those losers who you should be able to beat. I will be the first person to laugh at you when you get third place, or worse,” Jeremy shouted at her.
Harsh coaching. Some people liked to operate this way. Me, I thought the act of belittling someone’s sense of self while they were meant to demand great and impossible things of their body was a little besides the point, but what the hell did I know? Poppy’s eyes turned away from me, and I hopped to my feet. I had to head to one of the little rooms near the locker room for another check-up with the gymnastics doctor. As I walked, I prayed he would clear me quicker than mid-November. All this talk of Nationals—which was a little less than six months away—made me start to panic.
Inside the doctor’s office, which reeked of sweat and medicine balls and ten-year-old mats, the grey-haired Dr. Patterson checked my balance, listened to my heartbeat, and used that little light to check my pupils. We had gone through it a few times since my accident, and, since he was an older guy and wasn’t in touch with the inner-workings of Denver Top-Level Athletics, he had developed a liking to me and tried out a few jokes. I found a way to laugh at them, and he chuckled louder. I liked this exchange, if only because I liked that he thought of me as just an ordinary, everyday teenage girl, who he could tease and embarrass himself in front of. It was a nice change.
“Still mid-November, then?” I asked once we were finished. I grabbed a medicine ball and tried to twirl it on my finger, which made him laugh.
“I think November tenth, at the very earliest,” Dr. Patterson said. He took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with the bottom of his polo shirt.
“Ugh,” I said. “You’re killing me.”
“Well, you could kill yourself if you…”
“I know, I know,” I sighed. “So dramatic when you say it.”
“Oh, but you know you can lift weights if you want to,” Dr. Patterson said. “Just to keep up your strength. I know what kind of muscles you girls have. You could probably break me in half.”
“True. Very true. And you should never forget that,” I teased.
I said goodbye to Dr. Patterson, thought about arranging for a weight-lifting session with Chloe, and then considered the all-important date of November tenth. That was only eleven days away, which meant I could count down the days. Things were on the up-and-up. And although since Zed and I’s little rendezvous in the woods, we hadn’t spoken, I had still felt his eyes creep across my body as I walked past; I felt his gaze when I ate lunch and chatted with Chloe.
He wasn’t the only one who paid attention. During this “school-wide silent treatment,” Theo and Clinton still seemed to glance my way frequently.
As I burst out of the doctor’s office, I ran into Mr. Everton and Theo on my way down the hall. Mr. Everton stopped and his face broke into a wide grin. “There she is. Rooney Calloway—the future of gymnastics.”
Theo looked at me with deep and perplexed glittering blue eyes. His muscles popped from his t-shirt that looked like a second skin. He seemed to tower over his father, despite them being the same height. Unlike the other times I had seen him around school, he didn’t look away when I stared back.
“Mr. Everton. It’s so good to see you,” I said, grinning at him. I leaned forward and gave him a hug. He was my provider after all, the only man in the world who had given me the one thing I’d never had—the truth.
Theo’s arms just hung beside him. His hand twitched like he wanted to hug me, too.
“You know, I did a little bit of reading about that school you told me about,” I said. My voice was false and bright. “That one in Seattle.”
“Oh?” Mr. Everton said. He was trained in the art of lying in front of whoever was around, it seemed like, and his face didn’t shift. “And what did you think?”
“The president really seems like a good guy. All these articles have been written about his family values. Really remarkable that you used to know him back in the day,” I said. “Rudy….something. Right?”
Theo’s gaze shifted between his father and I. I wanted to translate what a shitty human I felt my potentially real father to be, and I hoped Mr. Everton caught it simmering beneath the surface. His smile faltered a tiny bit. Maybe that meant he had understood.
“Yes. A family man. Really makes you think, doesn’t it?” he offered and raised an eyebrow.
“Think about what?” Theo demanded, looking at both of us.
“About how she’s going to dominate at Nationals, aren’t you, Rooney?” Mr. Everton winked at me. His quick switch in subject made Theo roll his eyes. He sensed there was something amiss, but he didn’t have the power to demand more information.
“Theo, by the way, it’s good to see you. It’s been a while,” I said. I kept up that cheerful and boisterous voice. I wanted to let him know he couldn’t hurt me through his little game of pretending that I didn’t exist.
“Yeah. A while,” Theo replied as he eyed me suspiciously.
“Oh. That’s too bad. I thought you had classes together,” Mr. Everton said.
“We do. It’s just been a chaotic semester.”
“Oh, but she’ll probably be at your Halloween party, right? He thinks I don’t know about his huge ragers, but I always do. To tell you the truth, this is a kind of funny time for you athletes, because you don’t have anything really pressing until April.” Mr. Everton gave off the perpetual impression of wanting you to know that he had lived and lived well.
I hadn’t heard about the Halloween party. I guess I had been nixed from the list with my whole “bad luck” vibe. I tilted my head and blinked up at Theo. I liked this feeling of almost torturing him into asking me to attend his party.
“Yeah. Of course, you’re invited. Who wouldn’t invite Rooney Calloway to a party?” Theo scoffed.
I arched my brow, and my heart flung into my throat and batted itself around. “I look forward to it. Costumes?”
“Yup,” Theo said. “And there will be a costume contest, so dress your best. We don’t fuck around at Denver Athletics.”
“No. I wouldn’t have ever thought so,” I returned.
Theo and Mr. Everton marched away after saying goodbye. Again, I felt fiery with this strange belief in myself, like I had crawled out of the blaze to discover I was a phoenix. I cut back toward the locker room to grab my gym bag, half-considering grabbing some candy from Max’s room (since Chloe and I had run out of our batch). But the second I walked into the locker room, I realized I’d en
tered something I wasn’t meant to know.
There, at the bench, stood Poppy and her new trainer, Jeremy. His face was volatile and weirdly shaped like he was in the middle of tearing her a new one. Tears whizzed down Poppy’s cheeks. His hand waved down to her side, that perfect and beautiful cut of her waist. Poppy’s hand-stretched over his hand, as though she wanted to rip it off but didn’t have the power to. He spoke in hushed whispers. Before they spotted me, I dropped back through the door, and my feet tore down the hallway. I technically wasn’t supposed to run, but I forgot until I barreled outside.
The Accident Page 6
