With my legs swept up in the seat, I cradled my knees and chewed my pinky. Scenery passed outside the window, but nothing came into focus. Objects ran together without beginning or end along with the single question circling in my head. Where had I gone wrong?
The longer we drove, the clearer the answer became. I’d let myself become vulnerable. After everything I’d been through, how could I have let my guard down? I hit the door panel. My hand dropped to my thigh. There’s no one to blame but yourself.
My apartment building came into view beneath a gray cloud covering.
“I’m sorry.” Riley kept his gaze on the windshield, his voice sullen.
“For what? Protecting me?”
He snapped the windshield wipers on. The beginning of raindrops smeared across the glass. “I wish I could protect you,” he whispered a minute later.
“You did. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
His jaw contracted. Another minute passed without a sound. Without a look. “You deserve better, Emma.”
His hands had stopped shaking, but he clenched the steering wheel with the same grip his words had around my insides. I deserved better than Xander Technologies? Or better than him?
chapter eighteen
Second Chance
Monday’s catastrophe still burned in my lungs. My New Balances pounded the treadmill until the soles started to score the conveyor belt cycling beneath them. Adrenaline surged. Sweat poured. Barely able to breathe, I forced my feet to either side of the moving runway, guzzled half my water bottle down, and doused my face with the rest.
What was I thinking? I had one task. One. Earn a stellar performance review. Not tout grand proposals about making a difference, like some wet-behind-the-ears idealist. And certainly not lay my heart on the board table for corporate suits like Jack Peters to trample over. I should’ve kept my head down and mouth shut. Got the job done. That was it.
My heart thudded against my sweat-soaked T-shirt. I bashed my fist into the rails—once with full force, a second time, lifeless. I’d failed. Again.
A girl with a curly ponytail down to her waist advanced from the opposite wall. She flung her arms across her chest, apparently appalled I hadn’t dismounted the machine before she reached me.
The cramp in my left side flared with a pang of agitation. “Can I help you?” Maybe with some manners?
“You’re done, right?” she said, lips pursed. “I mean, you stopped running like five minutes ago, and every other machine is taken. So . . .”
“Right.” I lumbered off the treadmill. “Sorry.” I snagged my book bag from against the wall, rammed through the exit doors, and crashed smack into a walking Nike commercial. White Jordans, black mesh shorts, a charcoal Nike hoodie, and a basketball stowed under his arm.
“Whoa, Steamroller.” A. J.’s hands supported both my arms, his grin as lopsided as ever, even after the library incident. “You know, you’re starting to make a habit of running into me.”
The wind clung to my damp shirt and stung my eyes. I tried to push past him before he saw.
“Hey, hey, hey.” He drew me back around and lifted my chin. “You okay?”
I ducked out of his hold and batted away all signs of emotion. “I’m sorry, A. J. For a lot of things, but I can’t talk right now.”
The wind raged, but I didn’t stop running until I reached the library. Bent over, hands on my knees, I fought for breath and the control I was losing. A gust from behind took another stab at me. I hardened. It’d be fine. Everything would be fine.
I wrenched open the Book Return kiosk and whirled my bag around my arm. The books jammed the harder I pushed. A shriek of anger shattered through my façade of composure. I shoved them in, pounding until I finally tore the pack off my shoulder and left it hanging there in the wind. I slid down the kiosk’s metal side and landed on the sidewalk.
The cold leached through the concrete and chafed against my leggings. My hands locked behind my head. I knew better than to let my heart run away with naïve hope for more out of life than what it always gave. A gut-level sense of self-disappointment almost curled me into a ball. I had to fix this.
I dialed Mr. Oakly’s number. He’d probably heard by now anyway. Bet Jack had a real blast giving him a blow by blow. One unanswered ring stretched into another. My watch caught the lamplight. Seven o’clock. Of course he wasn’t still in his office.
A high-pitched beep blared through the phone line. “Mr. Oakly, it’s Emma Matthews. I’m calling about what happened at Xander. You probably already heard. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. Trust me.” A dry swallow scraped down my throat. “I have six weeks left to find another internship. I won’t let you down. I promise.”
I ended the call, tapped the phone against my leg. Six weeks. I could do this. I had to do this. Elbows on my knees, I dialed a second number. Pick up. Pick up.
“Riley Preston, leave a message.”
Another beep. Another pause waiting for me to fill in the silence. But after five days of leaving messages, no words would come. On top of everything, I couldn’t bear it if I’d lost my best friend too.
The sky darkened behind an ominous backdrop of ash-colored clouds. A storm wouldn’t change what I had to do. Pushing off a fist at a time, I picked myself off the ground and kept moving forward. Same as the last five years.
Trevor’s bravado sailed around the corner of my apartment building. “About time you got here.”
I glanced from him to the rest of the gang congregated on the sidewalk. “For?”
He flung his hands out to his sides. “Night out with your friends. You know, that thing we do every Friday.”
Except it wasn’t every other Friday, and the friend I needed the most wasn’t there.
A. J. approached me, a hint of his earlier concern shadowing his warm smile. He extended his hand. “A little fun with friends goes a long way.”
Too bad it couldn’t go backward and erase the beginning of the week. Forward, always forward. It was too late to make internship calls tonight anyway. I’d work on it first thing Monday. If there were any left.
I took his hand, and he pulled me into a side hug.
“Sweet.” Trevor rubbed his hands together. “Riley said he’s working on a song tonight, so he had to pass. Since we have an even number, we should play some racquetball. Bowers, you’re always up for a little competition, right?”
Testosterone-driven digs slung between Trevor and A. J., the quest to win already surging.
Maybe sweating out my tension was worth another shot. “I’m in.”
“Jae?” Trevor’s look of expectancy met a devilish grin.
“You know me.” She perched a hand on her hip. “I never miss the chance to show you up.”
“Oh!” A. J. covered his mouth with one hand while giving Jaycee props with the other. “You just got slammed, bro.”
Trevor closed in on her with a swaggering stride. “All right, lil’ lady. Bring it on.”
After Ashlea and Becky bowed out, electing to watch a movie instead, the remaining four of us traipsed down to the Sports Center.
“A. J., I’m sorry about the way I acted in the library. You were right. I got too caught up in everything.”
He grabbed two racquets from the utility closet. “Already forgiven.” He handed me one and winked. “Now, you ready to take these two down, or what?”
I poked my fingertips through the racquet strings. “I don’t wanna trip you up.”
Trevor approached us with a sobering look painted on his face. “You better let me pair up with her. I’m used to it.” We exchanged a tight-lipped glance.
Thirty minutes of sweat-dripping, ponytail-slinging, sneaker-squeaking fun ended with my scoring backhand. Trevor gave me a jumping double high five. “That’s what I’m talking about, girl.” He got up in A. J.’s face, arms in the air. “You just got slammed, bro.”
The shade of A. J.’s exercise-reddened cheeks deepened with suspicion. His finger darted bet
ween the pair of us, his face scrunching. “Wait a sec, here. You two totally played me, didn’t you?”
I spun my racquet like a cowgirl with a pistol. “Well, when you say it that way . . .”
“Hustlers. Wow.” A. J. turned to Jaycee. “How do you put up with the two of them?”
She looped her arms around our necks. “Bribery.”
Standing there with my best friends reminded me of what Riley had said that day on the sports field. “Maybe we’ve just been waiting to find the right reason to live in the present.” The right reason still felt like an unanswered question, but friendship had to be part of the answer. The kind that was easy. Unforced. Filled with the ordinary moments that mattered the most.
The four of us paraded toward Paradox Café in a horizontal line with the guys bookending Jaycee and me. A. J. draped his arm across my shoulders. “You owe me a rematch, Miss Playah. But this time, on the basketball court. You’re going down, girl.”
“’Sup, Preston?” Trevor said.
My head snapped up. I hadn’t seen him approaching.
Trevor gave Riley one of those guy half-hug-handshakes. “Didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah, I ended up needing a break.” He scuffed his chin with the back of his hand. “I came by to give Emma something. What are you guys up to?”
“Oh, not much.” Trevor rocked on his feet and flexed his arms like he was posing for GQ magazine. “Just smoking Bowers and Jaycee in a little racquetball.”
A. J. huffed. “More like hustling. You better watch out for this one. She’s dangerous.”
Riley zeroed in on A. J.’s hand on my shoulder.
Trevor nodded down the street. “We’re headed down to Paradox. Since you’re here, come hang out with us for a while.”
Riley looked away from A. J. and me. “Maybe five’s a crowd.”
“Last time I checked, Paradox had tables big enough to fit all five of us.” Trevor tossed his arm around Riley’s broad shoulders and offered his notorious phrase. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
Though we only lagged a few paces behind them, whatever Riley and I’d left unsaid from Monday’s car ride kept a wall between us thicker than the double paned glass doors leading into Paradox.
My unvoiced questions crashed into the horde of students in the café. Huddled around tables and corners, students traded an evening away from their studies for a tonic of oversized coffee mugs and parchment-wrapped cookies.
We were no exception. A compelling tag team of chocolate and caffeine could undermine just about any source of stress. It worked until my gaze intersected with Riley’s across the table, his face torn like it had been that day in the woods.
Why wouldn’t he tell me what was wrong? Or what I could do to change it? Did it pain him to look at me? To be here with me? A coffee grinder agitated in the background.
“So, did you?” Jaycee said, apparently restating a question I must’ve missed.
“I’m sorry?” I blinked away from Riley.
He jumped to his feet so quickly, I checked to make sure someone hadn’t pulled the fire alarm.
Everyone stared. A. J.’s Nike windbreaker crackled against the plastic chair. Trevor stretched over the table. “You all right, bro?”
“Yeah.” Riley fumbled his coat off his chair. “I’m gonna call it a night.” He hustled to the side exit. A gust of wind blew in through the door on the tails of his cool departure.
Already rising, I didn’t bother waiting for my voice to catch up to my body. “I’ll be right back,” I called behind me.
The wind seeped into my skin with a chill that had been building over days of not seeing him. I jogged through the obstacle course of tables and chairs. “Riley, wait.”
He stood on the outskirts of the square patio with his back facing the café and me. “You should go back inside.”
I stopped a foot away, an unseen barrier still hovering between us. “Why?”
“Because I’m not as strong as you think I am, and you’re making this harder than it already is.”
”Making what harder?” I turned him around. “What are you talking about?”
His gaze swept away from mine. He held in a breath. “I want you to be happy, Em.”
“And you think not talking to me is helping?”
His jaw twitched. “If it keeps me from interfering with you and A. J., then yes.”
A. J. and me? Where’d that come from? “You’re not making any sense.”
“Monday, you came home in the same clothes after . . .” He dug his hand in his hair.
“After what?”
“You said A. J. woke you up.”
“So you thought, what? That I spent the night with him?” I clutched my elbows. My insides turned into a wrestling mat, relief in one corner, hurt in the other. The night’s abrasive air joined the fight with a jab to my eyes.
His shoulders fell. “I didn’t mean . . . It’s just, I know A. J.’s crazy about you. I thought . . .”
That I’d fall asleep in his arms one night and then run into A. J.’s a week later? How could he think that?
“I fell asleep in the library, Riley. A. J. just happened to find me in the morning. That’s all.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, the hurt impossible to bury with them. He probably thought I egged Jack on too.
“Is this about the way I fell apart outside Xander? I never said anything about Jack because I was scared I’d lose my internship, but I should’ve seen that coming. Handled it better.” Not have a meltdown, shown weakness and vulnerability. No wonder he thought I’d go crawling to anybody who opened their arms to me.
His hand, momentarily outstretched, recoiled like a reflex he’d trained himself to master. “Don’t you dare apologize for that, Emma. He assaulted you.” Knuckles whitening, he backed away and lifted his head toward the sky.
The brokenness in his voice clamped around my heart. Fighting with Jack must’ve sent him right back to when he was in Nashville. I can’t believe I put him in the same situation he’d spent years trying to run from.
“I’m sorry. For everything.” He turned, his voice a whisper. “I don’t want to keep hurting you.” He withdrew something from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. “The afterschool program idea wasn’t a mistake. I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
The shadow of his movement flickered across the sidewalk as he walked toward me. “Just because the rest of us blow it, doesn’t mean you should doubt what you have to offer.” He placed a folded piece of paper in my palm and curled his fingers over mine.
“What’s this?”
“A second chance.” The warmth from his hand spread to the look in his eyes. “If it’s not too late.”
Too late for what?
My cell phone rang into the stillness. I peeked at the number. Austin could wait.
Riley motioned to the phone. “Take it.”
I swiped the screen. “Hello.”
“Em, have you talked to Mom today?” Austin asked.
“No. Why? Is everything okay?”
The pause from Austin’s side of the line pushed me backward.
“Mom got next semester’s bills in the mail today.”
I padded for the nearest patio chair and dropped into it. Riley sat across from me. “What’s wrong?” he mouthed.
“You know how Mom gets when she starts looking at bills and her bank account,” Austin said. “She’s talking about looking for another job.”
“Another job? She’s already working two. What’s she trying to do, add so much stress she needs anti-depressants again?”
“I know. I’m trying to talk sense into her. I think I finally got everything worked out with the life insurance company now,” he said, “and we both have scholarships.”
My pulse pounded.
“What?” Austin asked. “You haven’t lost your scholarship, have you?”
“Not yet.” I hoped. Had I lost my only chance?
“I thought you found an internship.”
I cradled my legs in my chair with me. “I did, but . . . I lost it.” I lowered my voice in the receiver. “Mr. Oakly gave me until the end of the semester to submit my review. I’m gonna fix this. Don’t worry.” My words turned into white puffs in the night air, disappearing with my confidence.
Riley’s face tightened. He wrenched backward.
“Listen, we’ll figure this out together,” Austin said. “If it comes to it, I have some money saved.”
My feet dropped off the chair. “Absolutely not, Austin. You’re not giving me the money you need for your last semester. Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”
I unfolded the paper Riley gave me. Clear Channel. Paid internship opening for business and finance majors. Possible transition to full-time position. Contact: Mrs. Joan Weberly. A second chance. I looked up at Riley. “Everything’s going to be fine, Aust.” It had to be.
“Haven’t gotten any less stubborn this semester, huh?” He reined in a laugh. “Okay, fine. Just don’t forget you’re not in this alone.”
Riley pushed off his chair and started for the sidewalk.
“Riley, wait,” I called away from the phone. “Austin, let me call you later. I have to go.” I caught up to Riley and grabbed his hand.
He pulled it back. “Please don’t tell me everything’s fine. You wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for me.”
“Losing my internship wasn’t your fault. Jack Peters is just a suit on a power trip. Don’t let him get to you.”
He stood against the wind, a wall of doubt against my words.
He lifted his hand over my frigid ear, stretched his fingers into my hair, and studied me as if I weren’t real. “You really believe what you told me that day in the woods, don’t you? That grace is as much a part of life as passion?”
“I have to believe it.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and let everything else fade. His cotton shirt felt like home. His warmth, his scent, his touch. A place I didn’t want to leave.
“I wish we had longer,” he whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear him. His lips grazed my forehead as he straightened. A sad smile intercepted whatever he’d kept inside before drifting out from under the lamplight.
Eyes Unveiled Page 14
