“Christine, you look green. Are you okay?”
“Fine. I just…don’t like…crowds. Excuse me.”
As I fled the gym, I could hear Joel’s words echo in the background. “I’ve recently gotten to know someone a little better. And she’s taught me a few things…”
I stopped dead in my tracks, pausing before I turned around. I stood in the center aisle, just a few feet away from the doors.
“…It doesn’t matter how old we are, where we came from, or who we used to be. We can’t change the past, we can only set a path for our futures. We strive to grow, change, and prosper, hoping we learn from our mistakes, and revel in our achievements. Change isn’t only possible, it’s inevitable. The minute we stop changing is the minute we stop caring about who we are as individuals.”
He shifted at the podium, and bent the microphone closer to his mouth. After combing his fingers through his hair, he continued.
“She was the first…” He paused to clear his throat. “She was the first to show me that life can be a beautiful thing. And…” He laughed. “That anything is possible with the right combination of patience and persistence...”
I clutched at my chest and ran through the doors.
~*~*~*~
I greeted Jake in back with a hug. “Congratulations, honey.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
All the graduates were trying to find their families, and I saw Watson looking around. His eyes stopped on mine, and a path seemed to clear between us.
“I’m going to use the bathroom, Jake. I’ll be right back.” I spoke quickly and hurried to the locker rooms, hoping Watson wouldn’t follow.
I crept into the shower room and hid behind a curtain. But I quickly heard slow footsteps on the tile. I sighed.
“Ms. Cole?” Watson’s voice echoed around the small room. “Christine, may I speak with you a moment?”
I remained silent, trying not to breathe in fear he’d hear me.
“I know you’re in there, I can see your shoes.”
“Gah!” I swept back the shower curtain. “Please, Joel. Just leave me alone. This—whatever it is—is over.”
“I know.” A deep furrow pinched his brow, and it melted me.
“I didn’t know. I had no idea that you were Darcy’s son,” I whispered.
He nodded. “And I had no idea you were the famous ‘Chris.’ I thought Chris was a guy. At one point I’d hoped the two of you would hook up.”
I laughed but a lump gathered in my throat. “It was wrong from the beginning,” I said. “I shouldn’t have ever pursued you.”
“It was wrong. But for all the right reasons,” he countered with a smile. Shaking his head, he let out a soft laugh. “I’m okay. You’re okay. What happened between us will always stay just between us. You don’t need to worry. I needed you as much as you needed me. And if I remember correctly, it was I who pursued you.”
I wiped my tear, feeling ridiculous for crying. “You sure don’t act eighteen,” I said, laughing.
He put his arm around me, his funny little tassel bobbing next to my face. “That’s okay, Christine. You don’t act like you’re thirty-five—”
“Thirty-six.” I pouted.
Chuckling, he squeezed me a little closer. “You don’t act like you’re thirty-six, either.”
“You know, I had considered calling you again. I mean…” I looked down, fidgeting with my fingers. “I wanted to see you again, but now. Now I just don’t think that’s gonna be possible.”
He looked down to his shoes, his hands in his pockets. “I know. I thought the same thing when I realized you were friends with my mom.”
A few uncomfortable minutes passed as I thought of any way it would be possible to see him again. But I couldn’t come up with anything convincing. For either of us. “This sucks.”
He laughed. “It does.” He elbowed my arm. “Come on. Let’s go get some cake.”
I nodded and wrapped my arm around his, resting my head on his shoulder. “I think it’s safe to say I’m giving your mother my resignation from the PTA.” I laughed.
“Nah. I’m sure she’d be impressed with your determination to shape the young members of our community. Go ahead, tell her. I dare ya.” He smirked.
I laughed again. “All right. I’ll handle your mom. But you get to tell Jake.”
He pulled me closer, smiling, and guided me toward the door. “No, thanks.”
On our way out of the locker rooms, I giggled. “Keep my number. You never know, maybe in a few years…”
The End
Wicked, Wicked, Wicked Witch
By
Penny Reid
When your POS car breaks down on the back roads behind the world’s largest theme park and you’re dressed like the mistress of all evil, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty sans the headdress, it’s never a good feeling.
It’s an especially bad feeling when it’s raining and you’re in costume because you rushed out of work precisely to avoid getting caught in the rain. Because driving in the rain always floods your distributor which always stalls your car.
Of course, the POS, ticking time-bomb car was an occupational hazard of living in a rainforest and making five dollars an hour more than minimum wage.
I tapped the steering wheel lightly with my fingertips, not wanting to allow the threatening frustration escape. I would swallow it down, down, down.
The inside of the car was already fogged. The humidity and heat of Florida in August made me feel like I was swimming in a swampy sea of sweat. Add to that the thunderstorm and torrential downpour and I might as well have been submersed in water already. I could feel my green makeup sliding off my face.
I couldn’t call my aunt for help. She worked in a bar and, after her shift, would likely go home with whatever guy she picked up. In the bonus column, she never brought them back to the trailer we shared. I’d moved in with her instead of opting to move to Jacksonville with my mother mostly because my aunt was hardly ever at home.
The way I figured, I had two options: I could sit in my car, sweating and miserable, until the rain stopped then walk the last three miles home to the equally miserable POS trailer. Or, I could just go now, take a walk in a thunderstorm, which was dangerous but not suicidal, and cool off.
Decision made, I reached over to the passenger seat to grab my wallet when a loud knock at my window scared the bejesus out of me.
My hand flew to my chest, I sucked in a sharp breath, and I jumped in my seat. My head hit the roof of the ancient Saturn sedan. This caused flecks of foam from the ceiling to rain down over my shoulders.
I squinted out the driver’s side window and found a hovering face crouched next to it. Due to the fogging of the windows, I could barely make out the man’s features. I stalled for a moment, staring at his blurry face, thinking he looked familiar. Then, I spurred into action when he knocked again.
“Hey, you need some help?” He shouted; even so, his voice was just audible over a clap of thunder and the heavy sound of rain ricocheting off the metal hood of my car.
I rolled my window down three inches and braced myself for the rain that would assuredly find its way inside. It never came, but I didn’t notice.
I didn’t notice the lack of rain because the man standing outside my window, holding an umbrella, was Phillip McAlister.
In fact, I didn’t notice much for the next ten to twenty seconds because I was staring at him. I was staring at Phillip McAlister, and his goddamn fucking crazy handsome face.
I’m not much of a cusser. In fact, I never cuss because it reminds me of my mother. She cusses like it’s her second job and she’ll get paid in cigarettes every time she says Jesus Christ or any variation of the F-word.
But Phillip McAlister has always been goddamn fucking crazy handsome. He was goddamn fucking crazy handsome as a six-year-old when we played on the same soccer team at the YMCA. He was goddamn fucking crazy handsome as a pre-teen riding his skateboard through the breezeway of our
middle school when I was eleven, especially when he tried to teach me. He was goddamn fucking crazy handsome when he became officially off limits when we were fourteen. And he was goddamn fucking crazy handsome as the captain of the lacrosse team, captain of the water polo team, and even captain of the golf team at our high school.
He was just goddamn fucking crazy handsome. This was how I thought of him. I couldn’t help it. He was the only boy who filled my squeaky clean mind with dirty thoughts.
Maybe it was his large hazel eyes, rimmed with thick black lashes, that I knew so well.
Maybe it was his big mouth currently hiding what I knew would be a wide, delightfully crooked smile. This was the mouth that gave me my first kiss. In fact, it gave me my first French kiss and thirty subsequent kisses.
Maybe it was his olive skin, his thick black hair, his big shoulders, or his large hands—hands that had been the first to touch my body with desire.
Or maybe it was his voice. And not just his speaking voice—which was also very nice—but his singing voice.
In addition to all his extracurricular sports in high school, and despite the objections of his family and judginess of his jock friends, Phillip McAlister was also in drama with me all through our four years. More often than not, he was the male lead in our productions. His roles only made my obsession with him worse because his characters were just as swoony as he was.
I’d been the female lead often enough to be on the receiving end of his staged speeches and love songs.
This was all in the past, prior to our graduation three years ago, a distant memory. But it was the only time we’d been allowed contact by either of our families.
Beyond all the superficial, beyond the goddamn fucking crazy handsome, the worst part was that knew him. I knew his heart and I loved him as a child loves her hero; then later as a vulnerable pre-teen loves the boy who listens to her secrets; then later with the fierceness and fear of a star-crossed love, sweet and painful.
Add to all of this the fact that my mother had a ten year affair with Phillip’s father.
This affair ended with a very public divorce between my parents and the severing of my adolescent friendship and budding relationship with Phillip when I was fourteen. The McAlister marriage, by contrast, didn’t seem to be affected at all.
Then, two years ago, Becky—Phillip’s little sister, sixteen at the time—and my twin brother were arrested together for drug possession. Specifically, lots and lots of stolen prescription pills. Becky claimed innocence, testified against him, and with a team of her daddy’s lawyers behind her, walked free. Lincoln is serving his ten years at the state penitentiary in Starke, Florida.
Small town history, still heavily gossiped about, our families mortal enemies… and I can’t look at the guy without wanting to strip naked.
I know, right? DRAMA!
Phillip McAlister was the last person on the earth I should ever have these feelings for. His family is my family’s kryptonite. His blood makes him toxic to my sanity, my well-being. If only the rest of my body would accept this as fact, including my heart, acceptance of my place in life would be a lot easier.
“Hey…” His voice cut through my stupor at coming face to goddamn fucking crazy handsome face with him. He hesitated, his eyes moving between mine. “Are you ok?”
I shook myself and nodded, clearing my throat before I attempted to yell over the rain. “Yeah, yeah—fine. My car just stalled. The distributor always floods when it rains. I’m fine. I’m just going to wait it out.” I pulled my keys from the ignition and stuffed them in the pocket of my costume.
He squinted his eyes at me like he was trying to hear what I was saying and leaned closer to the window.
“Mal, I can’t hear you.” He shook his head.
Mal is my nickname and it’s what Phillip has always called me. My given name happens to actually be Maleficent. Maleficent Taylor.
The name has always been a bit distressing for me. My mother insisted that I hadn’t been named after the character, but that Maleficent was a family name. Though, she never could tell me who in my family had borne the name before me.
“I said I’m fine.” I swallowed down, down, down my raging hormones and heart flutters. “Go away, Phillip.”
He frowned at me, his eyes moving between mine for what felt like an eternity. I lost myself in them, just a little. Okay, maybe a lot. They were gold, rimmed with olive green and dotted with flecks of amber. Abruptly and before I understood his intent, he’d opened my door and grabbed my hand, yanking me out.
“Get out of the damn car, Mal.” His voice was granite, and his hand was like a vice.
I stumbled to my feet and he wrapped his arm around me. This brought me flush against his chest—which, despite our being under the umbrella, was now wet and clinging to his very fine pectorals. And abdominals. And everything else of equally high-grade, rich boy, goddamn fucking crazy handsome.
He kicked the door shut with a booted foot and began hauling me back to his brand new BMW SUV.
My feet were moving before my brain realized we were almost to the passenger door of his car.
“Wait!” I protested, because I had to protest. Phillip’s family was the reason my family and my life was absolute shit. I couldn’t forget that.
He ignored me and pushed me into the pristine interior of his new car, basically picking me up and setting me on the seat. The umbrella went askew during this operation, and we were both thoroughly rained on. It didn’t really matter, the water was falling basically sideways, in thick sheets of rain. No matter what, we were both going to be soaked.
I shifted as though to escape and he grabbed my wrist, his hold firm, almost menacing. “Do not even think about it.” He said the words through gritted teeth, his hazel eyes now flashing gold fire.
I lifted my chin and glared at him, but made no further move to exit the car. Seemingly satisfied that I would stay put, he slammed my door and jogged to the driver’s side, retracting the umbrella as he did so. This meant he was a hot mess of adorably tousled hair, wet skin, and soaking clothes by the time he slid into the seat next to me.
I glanced at him. A mini waterfall had formed on his cheek, running down the side of his face, his square jaw, down his neck, and pooling at his collarbone before cascading into his shirt.
His eyes flickered to mine and I immediately averted my gaze, opting to stare out the window instead. I knew he’d caught me looking at him. I didn’t even try to fight the heat of embarrassment that blossomed in my chest and made me feel both numb and overly sensitive.
I tried to pretend that this wasn’t Phillip. That I wasn’t about to accept a ride from the brother of the girl who’d landed my only sibling behind bars and cleaned out my meager college fund in the process. The son of the man who’d publically humiliated my father and driven him away.
That this wasn’t the only guy I’d ever fantasized about, late at night, touching myself and imagining my hands were his.
I rolled my eyes then shut them at my body’s response to his closeness. I successfully suppressed the strong urge to rub my legs together and tried to ignore the way my nipples were tightening. My breasts felt full and heavy, like my body was calling to his.
This was madness.
But soon it would be over.
I felt something fall to my lap. I glanced at it—a towel—then at him.
He was watching me, his hand absentmindedly gripping then stroking the emergency break before he released it.
“You’re welcome,” he said. The words were unhappy, bitter, like he’d thrown them at me along with the towel. After another beat, he tore his eyes from mine then started the engine. The car came to life with a smooth sound; a happy, welcoming rumble. It was so different from the sputter and cough of my Saturn. The inside of the car was eerily quiet as well; the ruckus of the driving rain now a faint murmur.
I picked up the towel and began wiping the make-up off my face, or what was left of it between my sweat and the
rain. He flipped on his blinker and pulled onto the road. I noted his hand on the steering wheel—wet like the rest of him—was white knuckled.
Again, I cleared my throat before I said, “It’s not that far.”
“I know where you live.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
I firmed my lips and closed my eyes briefly before responding. This was my attempt to bury my pride because the next words out of my mouth were going to be difficult.
“No. You don’t know where I live. I live about three miles from here.”
He did look at me then, his forehead marred with wrinkles of confusion. “You moved? You don’t live in town anymore?”
He was referring to the small town where we’d grown up. It was a mishmash of middle class and the staggeringly wealthy. All the houses on the lake were ginormous, his family owning the largest, most ostentatious of the McMansions. The houses closer to the center of town were more modest. My home, the house I grew up in, was the smallest in my neighborhood.
We’d lost it two years ago when my mother went bankrupt trying to save my brother from prison.
“No. I don’t live in town anymore. I live in a trailer park just up the street. It’s about three miles, make a left at the sign for Sunshine Park.”
“Why’d you leave town?”
I swallowed my impulse to employ sarcasm against him and his ignorant question—down, down, down—and kept my eyes focused on the road; the road that was barely visible in the storm. Of course, he wouldn’t know, because he was off at college in New York City when everything dissolved into chaos. I was yanked out of my second semester at the University of Florida and started to work full time to help out.
I responded when I was sure my voice wouldn’t betray the turmoil I felt and was proud that my words were devoid of emotion. “Because we lost the house when Lincoln went to prison. Lawyers are expensive.”
I felt him stiffen next to me, both of his hands now on the steering wheel. After a tense pause he asked, “Is that why you dropped out of college?”
Forbidden Fruit Vol 2 Page 48
