He looked a little torn about what he wanted to say and I felt a stab of nervousness return.
“Boone, I’m a straight shooter so I’m just going to ask you. Have you not gotten the physical because you didn’t know about it, or can you not afford it?”
Every important time in my life has always come to this, the part where I’m forced to admit I come from nothing. I hesitantly said, “I didn’t know about it, but even if I had I can’t afford it. I plan on talking to my boss this afternoon. He might let me have an advance on my paycheck.”
Coach began writing on a notepad and said, “My wife’s brother is a physician. This is his name and the location of his office. I’ll let him know you’ll be coming to see him. He'll take care of you at no charge.”
No one had cut me a break in my life except for my boss, Earl. I stared at the writing on the slip of paper. “Why would he do that for me?”
“I want you. The sooner I get you practicing, the sooner I can see exactly what I can do with you.”
No one had wanted me my entire life and what I felt inside was foreign. “Thanks, Coach.”
I was glad I wouldn’t have to worry about how I was going to pay for the doctor visit, but I didn’t like feeling like a charity case. I hoped the other guys wouldn’t find out Coach arranged a free physical for me. They’d never finish ragging me about it.
When I walked out of the field house, a lot of the guys were hanging out in the parking lot and more than a dozen girls had joined them. They were all wearing short athletic shorts and T-shirts that read EFHS, so I decided they must be the cheerleading squad arriving for practice.
My new arch rival was holding hands with the hottest one in the group. She was a petite little thing with a tiny waist and a tight shirt to show off her perky breasts. Her long hair was pulled into the classic cheerleader ponytail and I couldn’t decide if it was brown or red, so I settled on calling it auburn.
I walked to my truck, totally expecting a cheap shot, and Henderson didn’t surprise me when he yelled across the parking lot, “Hey, superstar. Are you still waiting for the NFL to send your first paycheck so you can buy a ride that didn’t come from the junkyard?”
As he laughed caustically, his apparent girlfriend jerked her hand from his and I heard a loud pop as she slapped him across the chest. I was disappointed it wasn’t his face, but she had no reason to defend me and I was surprised she didn’t join him in humiliating me.
I opened the squeaky door to my truck and said, “Wow, Henderson. That was creative for someone that just got bumped to second string.”
I got in my truck and shut the door before he had the opportunity to retaliate and belittle me further in front of the cheerleaders. I hesitated in starting the engine. I prayed it wouldn’t stall out on me as it sometimes did. Luck was with me today and I was incredibly thankful when it started on the first try. I left the field knowing this thing between me and Forbes Henderson was only just beginning.
2 Thumbing a Ride
Claire
“Claire! Please, hurry up. Payton is here and you don’t want to be late on your first day of school,” I heard my mom yell from downstairs.
“Great,” I muttered to myself as I grabbed my short, ivory floral dress and quickly slung it over my head. I had the intention of braiding the front of my hair today, but I didn’t have time, so I twisted the front section, then pulled it to the side and pinned it securely with a pair of brown bobby pins in an X.
I looked at the clock. “Ugh!” I groaned. Payton was going to kill me. Tardiness was the story of my life. It was never my intention to be late, but I must have been genetically engineered that way; I couldn’t not be late.
“Payton, give me another minute and I’ll be right down,” I yelled from my room as I sprayed myself with a soft peach and jasmine scented body spray, then rubbed my legs and arms with the same scented body lotion.
As usual, she was on time and it put me on edge knowing I might make us late on our first day of school because I knew I would catch hell from her.
I hated thumbing a ride, even if it was with my best friend and I cursed the ignoramus that backed into my car at the mall and left a huge dent in the bumper. Hopefully, I would have my own ride back from the shop before the back to school bonfire out at Harrison Cleveland’s on Friday night since we planned on using my sound system for the music.
I quickly put on my new boots, took a look in the mirror and thought I was missing something. I looked too plain, so I looked in my closet where I stored my accessories. I draped my apricot scarf around my neck because it looked like it was made to go with my dress and the color looked fabulous with the red in my hair. Once I was satisfied with the way I looked, I grabbed my backpack and ran down the stairs.
My mom was dressed for work and standing at the bottom of the staircase to either greet me or scold me. I decided it was scold when I saw she was clearly agitated. She watched me scurry down the staircase while standing with her hands on her hips and I knew she was thinking she didn’t raise her daughter to always be late.
“Claire, I have group late tonight and your dad is on call, so you’ll have to fend for yourself on dinner, but I should be in around nine or so,” she said as she walked to the kitchen, then returned with my travel mug of coffee.
I took it from her hand and said, “No problem, mom, and thanks for the coffee.” I held it up to my nose, breathed in the aroma, and played our little guessing game of identifying the flavor. “Chocolate Raspberry?”
“You got it, baby girl.” Even at seventeen years-old, I still loved to hear my mom call me that.
“You’re awesome, mom,” I said as I hugged her. After she told us to have a great first day at school, Payton and I left my house and headed toward school. She drove faster than she should because I caused us to run a little late and I promised myself I would do better the rest of the week since she would be driving me.
My phone went off and we both recognized the tone as Forbes’. I grabbed my purse, dug for my phone and waited to see what Payton would have to say because it was always something interesting. She reached to turn the music down, then said, “Let me guess. The guy that thinks only with the head not located on his shoulders wants you to come and blow his mind before homeroom.”
“Leave it to you to say something like that.” I read the text from him asking where I was and told Payton, “He’s looking for me because he’s afraid I might talk to another guy. He puts on such a front, but I think he’s scared I’m going to dump him since he isn’t starting quarterback anymore. But, don’t you dare say a word about it.”
“Claire, his insecurities are highly unattractive. How shallow does he think you are? I mean, is he really thinking you’re going to dump him for the new guy from Collinsville just because he’s the new starting quarterback?”
“I don’t know exactly what he’s thinking, but cut him some slack, Payton. He’s not used to losing,” I defended.
She laughed and said, “Yeah, I get that, but failing to see you’re not it anymore is also unattractive. He’s still stuck in the mentality that he’s the superstar at East Franklin and he lost that spot when he got bumped by the new guy.”
None of that was news to me. Forbes despised the air the guy breathed and I knew firsthand how poorly the new guy’s position was going over with him because I heard about it incessantly.
“So, what is New Hot Guy’s name anyway?” Payton asked.
“I don’t know because I only hear him referred to as some type of profanity, but please don’t refer to him as New Hot Guy in front of Forbes. I so don’t want to hear him go off on you.”
“Screw Forbes Henderson. I’ll tell him myself that the new guy is a sexy mother scratcher and I dare him to say anything about it,” she threatened.
Yeah, I knew she was right, but Forbes was humiliated about losing his spot to a guy from Collinsville and today he had to face everyone at school. He was so certain the student body was laughing behind his ba
ck, but in reality, they wouldn’t care who the quarterback was as long as our football team was winning. I wouldn’t really care either if I wasn’t dating the former starting quarterback.
The whole pity party attitude was a complete turn off, but I didn’t mention it because I was the perfect girlfriend, but I had cut as much slack as I planned to. If he kept it up, I would be forced to say something about it because he was using it as a reason to try to get in my pants and I was getting sick of it.
“How about you try to not jack around with Forbes today?” I pleaded.
“What would be the fun in that?” she said in a daring tone.
“Please don’t, Payton.”
“Ugh!” she groaned. “Okay, I won’t jack with him, but please know it goes against my better judgment to not take advantage of him because I might not get another opportunity anytime soon,” she said.
My best friend and my boyfriend hated each other and it stressed me to no end. “Yes, I am totally aware of how painful this must be for you. Maybe you should hook up with the new guy and then the two of you could both kick Forbes together while he’s down.”
“That almost sounds like a great plan since he’s hot as hell, but you know he’s totally not my type,” she said, like I should know better.
“You don’t even know him, so how do you know his type?”
“Umm...the poor type and besides that, I would never date a guy from Collinsville. You know that much about me.”
Was she serious? “He’s not from Collinsville anymore,” I argued.
She looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. “Well, he was at one point and that tells me all I need to know him. He’s not my kind of boyfriend material.”
“Wow, you really are a stuck up bitch, Payton.”
“Uh...no. It means my parents would have a total come apart if I brought a boy like that home with me. That big ass tattoo covers his whole upper arm and that would not fly with the parents because nothing less than a long sleeve is going to hide that.”
“So what? A tattoo doesn’t make him a bad person.”
“It speaks of his character, Claire. Seriously, what kind of high school kid has tattoos like that? He looks like he’s been in prison-maybe a prison for hot convicts-but you know I don’t do the tattooed bad boy thing.”
I couldn’t dare tell Payton I thought his tattoo sleeve was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen because she would think I was out of my mind. No one, including her, would fathom that the perfect Claire Elizabeth Deveraux could possibly find all that badness alluring. The problem was that I wasn’t the perfect Claire everyone thought I was. Payton knew my imperfections far better than anyone, but even she didn’t realize how badly I wanted to bust out of the protective cocoon placed around me.
3 The Untouchables
Jessie
Aside from Dane Wickham, I made no friends by walking onto the East Franklin football team as its new starting quarterback. Practice had been tense at best, but I wasn’t there to make friends and I preferred knowing where I stood rather than getting blindsided the way I had my whole life.
Today was my first day at East Franklin. I woke up two hours before my alarm was set to go off and began staring at my ceiling with a severe case of dread. On one hand, I would rather have my ass whipped than transfer to EFHS with that bunch of rich, snobby kids. On the other, it could quite possibly be my only chance at avoiding the hopeless path destined for my severely underprivileged life.
The droopy ceiling panels over my bed were another reminder of how different I was from the rich kids attending EFHS. I could guarantee that none of them were lying in bed looking at a ceiling threatening to cave at any minute, so it was very easy to refrain from misleading myself into believing I would fit in with any of them.
I forced myself out of bed and went to the kitchen to eat some breakfast while my grandmother, Rita, drank a cup of strong black coffee and smoked an equally strong cigarette at the dinky dining room table in her trailer’s tiny kitchen. I didn’t bother to offer Rita anything to eat because I recognized the look on her face-she was hung-over. She and her buddies had partied here last night. I didn’t bother to look at the clock, but it was well into the morning when I heard the slam of car doors as they left to drive home wasted.
As I sat eating my breakfast, I noticed several plastic bags filled with marijuana on the table, so I knew what was coming. I ate in silence and avoided looking at the dope on the table as I waited for Rita to give me orders. As I ate, she alternated between slurping her steaming hot coffee and sucking on her unfiltered Camel cigarette with her permanently puckered mouth.
We had an understanding, she and I. Speak only when necessary and our policy suited both of us just fine, but this morning she found it necessary to speak to me. She pointed toward the dope using her hand with the cigarette. “I want you to sell these today. Charge extra because those rich kids can afford to pay a little more.”
Dysfunctional didn’t begin to describe my family dynamics. Other kids’ grandmothers did grandmotherly things for them, whatever that might be, but mine used me as her own personal infiltration into selling dope in school just like my mother had me do before she died.
I didn’t want to do it, but it was our agreement because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d sell her dope and she’d give me somewhere to live. I was a little surprised she wanted me to sell on my first day at a new school-not a smart move. “Don’t you think I should at least feel out the situation out first? I mean, find out who’s in the market. What if I asked a narc if he wanted some pot? I’d be up shit creek for sure because I’m eighteen now.”
“I don’t care where you sell it, just get me some money today if you want to keep staying here,” she threatened.
When I finished eating, I washed my dishes and put them away because we didn’t have the luxury of a dishwasher like everyone else. I didn’t mind though. It wouldn’t have felt right to have anything in my life that made it a little easier, anyway.
I put Rita’s dope in my backpack and then went to the bathroom to get a shower. It was incredible how Rita’s Camels made everything reek. The stench from her strong cigarettes was repulsive to me and I had been a smoker since I was 12. I tried to scrub it from my hair and skin because I didn’t want to go to school smelling like Camel’s ass, but I knew it was useless because I would still have the stench on my clothes.
I put on a fitted black tee and a new pair of stonewashed jeans because it was the best I had and all I could afford with the little bit of money left from my last paycheck after I paid for the work on my truck. Good thing worn out jeans were in style since that was all I had to wear the rest of the week.
I grabbed my dope filled backpack, the same one I had used for the past two years, and Rita offered no words of encouragement as I walked out the door to join a category of hell known all to itself as high school.
I was self sufficient, but not because I was bestowed with the motivation of being an overachiever. I called it being genetically motivated, which meant I didn’t have a single family member that gave a damn enough to do anything for me. Earl, my boss at the garage, was the only person in my life that had ever helped me with anything and he felt more like family to me than the woman I was genetically tied to.
As I got closer to East Franklin High School, I dreaded the stares I’d get when the rich kids saw my old truck parked next to their expensive Beamers and Benzes. They’d probably see my ride and move their vehicles out of fear their luxury cars might catch something from my old jalopy.
I really couldn’t care less about what people thought of me, but it pissed me off when they thought they were better than me, so I expected problems at this school. It was overpopulated with doctors’ and lawyers’ kids after the school board redistricted to send the trailer park kids on the South side to Collinsville and replace them with kids from the neighborhoods on the North side of Franklin. I’m not even sure that’s legal, but it’s what they did five years ago when
the new school was built.
It was by accident alone that I would be attending East Franklin since I was forced to move in with Rita during the summer, and although I’m certain they wouldn’t have a problem with releasing me, Collinsville High School refused to take me back without tuition because we lived just within East Franklin’s school district.
We didn’t have the money for tuition and Rita wouldn’t part with it for me if she had a million dollars. She made it very clear I was unwelcome and the only reason she allowed me to stay was because I agreed to move her merchandise for her. When I graduated, I would promptly be shown the door. The feeling was mutual, so she didn’t have to worry about it hitting me on the way out. She treated me just like my mom, Twyla, had my entire life and I wasn’t plagued with wondering where my mom learned her amazing parenting skills.
I shoved the thoughts of my mother out of my mind and pulled into the parking lot of my new school. I parked on the second row and turned off my truck’s deafening motor in need of a new muffler. Come payday, I would have to come off the wallet if Earl couldn’t find a decent used one at the junkyard.
I didn’t want to admit it because I saw it as weakness, but my nerves were rattled, so I lit a cigarette before I was forced to enter the gates of my new personal hell. While I sat in the refuge of my truck smoking a much needed stress reliever, I watched the returning students around me as they met up in the parking lot. As expected, they got out of anything from tiny two-seater sports cars to gigantic sport utilities I couldn’t afford to fill with gas.
My truck’s clock was busted, so I looked at my watch and saw I had ten minutes until my official day of torment started. I wondered if I had time to squeeze in one more cigarette after I finished the one in my hand and as I took a long drag, I watched a fancy white Lexus pull into the parking spot behind me.
I watched my rearview mirror to see what a high schooler driving a Lexus might look like and I wasn’t shocked when I saw it was a couple of cheerleaders I’d seen during football practice-one of them being Forbes Henderson’s girlfriend.
VA 2 - Blood Jewel Page 28
