Hooked (Harlequin Teen)

by Liz Fichera

  “What?” My voice turned raspy. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I went speechless, and my eyes dropped to her right hand. She clutched a piece of newspaper. It was wadded up into a ball inside her hand. But then my eyes traveled from her hand back to her eyes. They were still wide. Hurt. And suspicious. Finally, I took one step back and dragged my tongue across my lips, sensing the brick wall building around her heart. It might have been invisible, but I saw it as easily as I’d seen the rusted barbed wire at the end of Pecos Road. “Okay,” I said, lifting my palms. “If that’s what you want. But you got it all wrong. You got me all wrong.”

  Fred opened her mouth to say something, and for an instant my breath hitched with hope. But her lips snapped shut, and she said nothing before turning into the classroom just before the bell rang. I couldn’t help but notice that Sam had saved the seat beside him with his backpack.

  And now I was late for class.

  Standing frozen in the hallway, I watched Fred till she took her seat next to Sam. She never looked back.

  Behind me, Seth said, “Told you, dude. You should have listened. The girl is weird. And totally wrong for you.” He paused, peering over my shoulder into Fred’s classroom. “Indians always stick together. Don’t forget that.”

  Still speechless, I walked with Seth to our next class as a familiar hollowness filled my chest all over again like it had never left. Whatever opening in the sky that I’d thought I’d soared through on Saturday night had slammed shut like a steel door right in my face.

  Just like that.

  Chapter 33

  Fred

  THE NEXT TWO class periods muddled forward in a hazy blur.

  Teachers prattled on about hydrogen and mercury, and then their voices morphed into mind-numbing discussions about complementary angles and trigonometric functions. Normally I wouldn’t have minded, but today it was all I could do to stop from snapping my pen in two. For the first time in my whole life, school held no appeal. I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. I didn’t care about chemicals and angles and numbers.

  Sam asked me what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. I already felt terrible for using him, whether he realized it or not. I owed him an apology as much as I owed one to Ryan.

  Why had I behaved like such an idiot after English? I’m sure there was a perfectly understandable reason why Ryan was holding Gwyneth Riordan in the hallway, right? It was just that it hurt so much seeing them together like that, so intimate.

  At lunch, I walked quickly into the school cafeteria. The room buzzed with student voices, chairs scraping across the floor, trays slamming. The fried smells wafting from the kitchen mixed with the unease roiling in my stomach, and not in a good way. I had to press my palms below my ribs to hold myself together.

  I stopped inside the entrance and scanned the room. My eyes swept the tables closest to the windows, a part of me hoping that I wouldn’t find Ryan in his usual spot.

  But there he was.

  The sun streamed through the window behind him, brightening the tips of his hair but shadowing his face. He was surrounded by all of his friends, including Gwyneth. Still Gwyneth. Always Gwyneth.

  I stood at the entrance, watching. Waiting for him to move.

  But Ryan didn’t see me—or pretended not to.

  I should have marched over to his table, but my legs froze.

  Then the room morphed from light speed to slow motion. All of the colors inside the cafeteria began to swirl and blur together, and the room went completely silent—at least inside my head. That’s because I had to watch as Ryan placed his arm behind Gwyneth’s chair like it belonged there. Like it had never left.

  Nothing had changed. Everything that I thought had changed, hoped had changed, had returned to exactly as it was, as if it had been there all along.

  My eyes turned cloudy, watching, and it was like the cafeteria started breathing for me, slow and heavy. Then my temples began to pound as everybody’s faces blurred together in confusing patterns like they were one great big blob at the end of a kaleidoscope. My hands pressed against my stomach.

  “This can’t be happening,” I muttered, fighting back nausea. It was like living inside a nightmare. It was a nightmare. Gwyneth must have been able to read my lips because she flashed me a triumphant smile. “This isn’t real. I must be dreaming,” I mumbled, blinking rapidly to clear my eyes. But then I let my mind think something even worse: Ryan played me. He used me.

  My knees began to buckle, and I had to reach one hand for the wall. Just as I was about to leave, a hand pulled back my elbow.

  “Fred?” a girl said close to my ear. Her voice was light and airy. Steady. Achingly familiar.

  I blinked again.

  “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t answer. Am I okay? The answer was too painful.

  “Want to eat lunch with Yolanda and me?”

  I focused on her face. It was Kelly Oliver. I’d never been so glad to see her in my entire life. Yolanda stood beside her, her eyes narrowing before traveling over my shoulder toward Ryan’s table.

  “Fuckers. Can’t trust ’em. None of ’em.”

  “Watch your language, Yo. Not the time.”

  “Well, it’s true. You know it’s true.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes at her cousin. “Let’s just eat, okay.” Her hand wrapped around my arm like a soft blanket. “Come on, Fred. You’re stuck with your homegirls today.”

  I nodded numbly as the room turned blurry again.

  “Good,” Kelly said, guiding me to a table that faced away from Ryan. “’Cause you look like you could use a friend.”

  Chapter 34

  Ryan

  AFTER LUNCH, I DECIDED TO DITCH school with Gwyneth and Seth. It hadn’t taken much convincing from Seth. Ditching would feel good—anything to numb the hollowness that had crept back inside me. And erase the image of Sam’s hand on Fred’s shoulder. It had been there before. That much was clear. His eyes had told me everything I needed to know.

  “I wanna get baked,” I mumbled to Seth as I drove to my house to party. Really, I wanted to forget about Fred. And I totally wanted to forget about Sam with Fred. Good thing that Mom and Dad wouldn’t be home till late.

  “Me, too,” Gwyneth chimed in from the backseat as she checked her cell phone for texts. Like Seth, she had returned to her old self. It was like the morning had never happened. Everything was forgiven; everything was forgotten. Like a blank slate. A do-over for everybody.

  “I’m down,” Seth said as he turned up the volume on the car stereo. The bass hammered like my temples, numbing my forehead. Seth slapped the back of the seat, startling me. “See?” He grinned at me from the passenger seat. “Now, this feels right, doesn’t it? This feels good. Hanging, just us. What did I tell you?”

  My shoulders pulled back, but I said nothing, pretending instead to concentrate on something in the rearview mirror. All I saw was my expression. It scowled back at me.

  “Now, aren’t you glad you listened to me?” It came out as a challenge. But I knew it had way more to do with Fred Oday than ditching school.

  So I nodded, once, only so that he’d change the subject. Fred was the last person I wanted to talk about, especially with Seth.

  “Good,” Seth said. “Then let the chillin’ begin.” He howled out the window like a wolf and then cranked the music louder.

  For the next four hours, we downed two six-packs from Dad’s basement refrigerator and went through a pack of cigarettes hidden inside Gwyneth’s backpack. Then Gwyneth suggested that we do a shot every time the DJ said the word awesome on the radio. In less than an hour, we plowed through half a bottle of Dad’s best tequila. Dad would be pissed, but I didn’t even start to care until half the bottle was empty.

  And then I woke up in a daze on a lounge chair next to the pool with Gwyneth lying next to me, her arm draped like a weight across my chest. My throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

  Someone kicked my foot.
r />   I stirred a little.

  “Ryan!” someone hissed. She kicked my foot again. “Ryan! Wake up.”

  I licked my lips and tasted chunks of salt from the last tequila shot. My eyes opened, but the backyard was blurry. So was Riley.

  Riley?

  Riley stood over me, her skinny arms making a perfect triangle on the side of each hip. She was all pinks and whites, dressed in her funky dance-practice attire—leggings and a sleeveless T-shirt that stretched down to her knees. The colors burned holes in my eyes. “Go away,” I mumbled before shutting my eyes.

  “Can’t,” Riley said. “The Phoenix police are standing outside our front door.”

  My eyes popped open. I bolted upright but stopped short of standing when a sharp pain slashed across my forehead. It was like being clocked with a golf club. For a moment, everything went fuzzy and my body spun. I needed to spew.

  Fortunately, Riley grabbed my shoulder and steadied me. “What should I tell them?”

  “Why are they here?” I swallowed back the building bile and tasted too many cigarettes.

  “Someone complained about the music.”

  I titled my head. The backyard was completely silent except for the hum from the pool fountain. “What music?”

  Riley sighed, shaking her head. “The music that I just turned down. Jeez, Ryan. I could hear it down the street when I rode up on my bike. What were you thinking?”

  I wasn’t.

  Below me, Gwyneth giggled groggily, and I looked all around the yard for Seth. He was missing. “Perfect,” I said wryly. “Seth is always gone when I need his help.”

  “You’re just figuring that out now?” Riley’s eyes widened.

  “Shut up, Riley.”

  “Well, they’re gonna want to talk to Mom. Or Dad.” I could tell by the way Riley’s eyes stretched across her face that she was scared. And disappointed. Her gaze darted toward the glass table next to the back door. It was littered with silver cans and cigarette butts. I wished that she hadn’t seen that.

  “Don’t worry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry?” Riley laughed, the breathy, anxious, on-the-verge-of-hysteria kind. “What is wrong with you? Don’t you know how mad Dad will be? And Mom will blow.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. Unfortunately, I’d had plenty of experience in the Pissing Off Mom and Dad Department. “Are they ever anything else?” I snorted.

  “You don’t make it any easier.”

  The front doorbell rang. Twice.

  Riley started to twist into a pretzel. “What d’we do?” A veil of old cigarette smoke hung in the air. It would take more than air freshener to mask it.

  Reluctantly, I stood, wobbling till Riley grabbed my arm. “Guess I’ll go talk to them and give them Dad’s cell number.” My feet padded against the warm concrete. Riley trailed after me.

  “Dad is so going to kill you.”

  That made me chuckle. “It’ll just get added to the list.” But then I swallowed, hard, as I braced for the worst.

  At least everything was back to normal again. I only wished that normal felt better than it did.

  Chapter 35

  Fred

  THE NEXT MONTH passed as cruelly as the Monday morning when all of the rules in my life were supposed to have changed.

  Days and then weeks began and ended in alternating waves of slow motion and fast-forward, waiting for me to either catch up or slow down when I could barely manage either.

  I slept and ate very little. One night Kelly and Yolanda showed up at our trailer in Kelly’s pickup truck and pretty much forced me to go mall shopping with them, but even window-shopping didn’t cheer me up. Then one Friday—or maybe it was a Wednesday—Sam worked up the nerve to ask me out on a date, but I had to say no, much to Trevor’s disappointment, even after he offered the use of his motorcycle. Sam didn’t press, but I was pretty sure he knew why I had turned into a total zombie. Unfortunately, the more my friends tried to draw me close, the harder I pushed away.

  Concentrating in class became almost impossible, but I still turned in passable assignments and pretended to take notes. If the teachers were concerned, they didn’t say. Last Thursday before school, when I dropped off my bag, I couldn’t bottle everything inside me anymore. I just cried in Coach Lannon’s office, and he didn’t say a single word. He didn’t ask any questions. He just let me cry into my hands while passing me tissues. But I think he knew. Instead of prying, he hung close to me at practice, waiting, I guess, for me to say something, share anything. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—say anything. I didn’t know how to put into words the pain that had torn my heart wide open, leaving it exposed. It was easier to say nothing.

  Golf was my only constant, and we’d won our last three tournaments. It was the only thing that I could truly control, and for that reason I clung to it while everything else spun around me dull and lifeless, just like it was the day before I’d kissed Ryan Berenger and thought that I was special. At least he went out of his way to avoid me at golf practice. He didn’t even pretend not to look at me anymore. I had become as invisible as the wind again.

  The other players still talked in hushed voices whenever they were around me at practice or during tournaments, and once or twice I’d clearly heard someone mutter “Pocahontas,” but I was too numb to put up a fight, even if the nickname burned like fire inside me.

  I hadn’t uttered one complete word to Ryan since the Monday morning we broke up—if you could call it that. We barely talked at tournaments, even when you’d think teammates would at least exchange niceties, like “good shot” or “you’re up next.” Ryan and I did not. And that was just as well.

  A single word from him would have summoned a new round of tears, especially when I had to remind myself that I had never misjudged a person more in my entire life. Maybe Yolanda was right about white people—at least white boys named Ryan Berenger.

  “You’re awfully quiet again today,” Dad said when he picked me up from school after practice. “Barely said a word to me on the drive to school, too.”

  That was true. I hadn’t felt like talking to anyone, even Dad. “Just tired,” I said, my excuse for everything lately, as I lifted my golf bag into the back of the van. I’d slept in fitful spurts all week. At least I’d have the weekend.

  “You sure that’s all it is?” His eyes, red around the edges, narrowed to tiny slits. “Something happen at school? At practice? You haven’t been yourself, Fred. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I closed the rear door. It slammed with a loud clang. Then I paused, my hand still clutching the door handle, trying to conjure up some nerve. With a deep breath, I walked around the van to the passenger door. “Yeah,” I said with forced brightness. I climbed into the seat. “I mean, no. School is fine. Practice is fine.” Golf practice was always fine.

  “Well, I want you to take a break from golf this weekend,” he said as the van chugged away from the curb. “You’re not coming with me to work tomorrow and that’s final. I want you to do something else.” He turned to me, and his eyes grew uncharacteristically wide. “Anything else. You’re practicing too much. Give golf a rest, Fred.”

  “And do what?” I chuckled and then wished I hadn’t. Other than homework and golf, I wasn’t exactly swimming in extracurricular options.

  “Well, your mother said this morning they were short-staffed at the restaurant. Maybe you should take a shift with her. How’s that sound? That would keep you away from your clubs for at least a day.”

  “Really?” I turned, feeling lighter. It’d been a while since the chef offered me a shift. He must be desperate.

  Dad returned the smile. “Really. And a couple days away from the golf course will do you good.”

  “Maybe.” I sighed, but then my shoulders lightened all over again when I remembered something important. Something I’d forgotten.

  “See?” Dad said, studying my expression between checking his rearview and the traffic entering the freeway. “You’re smiling. It’s helpin
g already.”

  I tilted my head toward him and smirked. Then I turned and watched the traffic from my opened window. I blinked into the wind, the warm air drying my eyes and brushing against my face. The wind blew my hair so that it swirled around my head. I closed my eyes and imagined the most perfect pair of white leather golf shoes with soft pink piping.

  Then I smiled inside.

  How had I forgotten?

  A couple more shifts at the Wild Horse Restaurant and I’d finally have enough money to buy them.

  At least that was something.

  *

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not joking, Fred,” Mom said as she tied a teal-blue sash around her waist in the Wild Horse kitchen on Saturday night. I wore the same uniform and had tied my hair in a single braid that stretched down to the small of my back. Mom fiddled with a few loose strands around her face and then tucked them into the bun pinned next to her neck. Around us, a dozen other waitresses and bussers raced through the kitchen carrying water pitchers and balancing round trays piled high with the evening’s salads and entrées. Sam and Peter nodded at me as they wheeled a full tub of dirty dishes toward the sinks. Tonight just about every Lone Butte Rez teenager had snagged a shift at the restaurant.

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t know till a few minutes ago,” Mom said as she wedged a black leather order pad into the waistband of her pants. “Apparently they’re expecting a large crowd tonight. You think they consult with me around here?” Her widened eyes dared a contradiction.

  I swallowed, suddenly dizzy from the steamy kitchen heat and melting-butter aromas swirling around us. My temples pounded with fear. “But I can’t do it.”

  Mom sighed like I was crazy. “Don’t do this to me, Fred. You wanted a shift. I got you a shift. And you pick now to have a meltdown? On the busiest night of the week? And I don’t have to remind you that if you blow it tonight, you can probably kiss a full-time job after graduation goodbye.”