Heartland

by Sarina Bowen

  “Dylan,” she whispers, coming closer. “I’m trying to apologize.”

  “Then apologize,” I say under my breath. “But maybe I’m not the one who most needs to hear it.”

  She blinks. “You mean to Chastity?”

  “Of course, I mean Chastity,” I hiss. “You made her feel like dirt. It doesn’t matter if you were jealous. You don’t get to say that shit to people.”

  She looks stricken. “You love her, don’t you?”

  “What? Don’t make this about me. You went apeshit at someone who doesn’t have a thick skin like you do.”

  She blinks. “I was angry at you.”

  “So what?” I demand. “That doesn’t give you the right to be a bitch, Kait. You can say whatever you want to my face. We can have it out. But it’s not cool to be mad at Chastity just because we…” I don’t finish the sentence, because Daphne is trying her best to eavesdrop.

  My life is still complicated. I’m trying to dig myself out of this hole, but it isn’t easy.

  “The milk is defrosted, Dyl,” Keith says. “And the pans are ready.”

  “Okay—you stir Rickie’s pot for a while, and Rickie and I will set up a second one. Daphne, can you dig out the thermometer? It’s somewhere by the vanilla.”

  “Of course.”

  “What about me?” Kaitlyn asks. That’s her favorite sentence.

  “Grab a hairnet,” I grumble. “You can stir, too.”

  I grab my phone and try Chastity’s number one more time, but she’s not answering. Maybe she’s mad that I canceled our trip home. Or maybe Leah came to Burlington and took her away for the weekend.

  Keith puts on some music. He never leaves home without his tunes. And I get another batch of caramel going.

  The first one is just about to temperature when my phone starts ringing on a table somewhere.

  “Should I answer that?” Kaitlyn asks.

  “No!” I practically shout. If Chastity is finally calling me and Kaitlyn answers, I may not be responsible for my actions. “Who’s calling?”

  “It says Campus Security,” she says. “That can’t be good.”

  “Let it go to voicemail,” I decide, vigorously stirring the caramel to keep it from scorching on the sides of the pot. It’s funny how this process seemed like such a miracle the first time Chastity showed me how caramel gets made. And now it’s just another day at the office.

  Chemistry. It’s very reliable.

  “Is it done?” Rickie asks. “Sure looks done.”

  “Timing is everything,” I say. “Pour it off too soon, and it won’t firm up. Leave it on the flame too long, and it will turn into cement. Bring over the first pan, Keith.”

  “Aye-aye, captain.”

  The thermometer spikes to two hundred fifty degrees again, so I stir it down and turn off the flame. Then I grab two potholders and quickly lift the pan off the burner.

  “Grab that spoon?” I prompt my friend. I tip the caramel toward the buttered pan, and Keith helps me scrape it out. “Stop now,” I say. “We want to leave the hardening stuff on the walls of the pot.”

  “Oooh, can I eat it?” he asks.

  “Sure, but give me a second.” The caramel pools into a glossy, beautiful surface in the pan. It’s basically a giant plate of heaven.

  “Dude, that’s impressive.”

  “Thank you. Chastity taught me everything I know.”

  “About caramel,” Rickie says with a chuckle.

  “You hush,” I grumble, just as my phone trills again.

  I set down the empty pot and cross the room quickly. BVU Campus Security, my phone’s screen reads.

  “Hello?” I answer, eyeing the second pot of caramel, which has begun to thicken under Daphne’s watchful eye.

  “Is this Dylan Shipley?”

  “It is. Can I help you?”

  “We’re holding a student tonight for an open-container violation. She failed a breathalyzer and her friend is faring worse. They’re going to spend the night here unless someone signs them out.”

  “Who’s the student?” I ask. All my frequently drunk friends are already present and accounted for.

  “Chastity Campbell.”

  “What? Really?” All my friends swivel to look at me.

  “That’s right, sir. She’s not under arrest, but she won’t leave her underage friend, who’s pretty drunk. And you’re listed as her emergency contact. Could you pick them both up?”

  “Of course! Where are you, exactly?”

  I end the call a minute later, and everyone is staring at me. “Problem?” my sister asks.

  “Is it Chastity?” Rickie guesses.

  “Yeah, I…” My gut says that Chastity would not want me to tell everyone in this room her predicament. “I gotta run out for a few minutes.”

  “Now?” Keith yelps. “Kind of bad timing, no? When will the second batch need pouring out?”

  “Um…” He’s right. I dragged everyone to this kitchen to help me tonight, and now I’m going to walk away from eighty pounds of ingredients?

  “Go,” my sister says with a wave of her hand. “I can watch a thermometer until it reads two hundred and forty-eight.”

  “Well...” I’m so torn. Because Chastity wouldn’t want me to fuck this up. “The temperature has to spike to two-fifty, and you stir it down a couple times.”

  “Yeah, I saw,” Rickie agrees. “Just go and come back, okay? We won’t scorch your liquid gold.”

  “Are you sure?” I hedge. But I’m already removing my hairnet.

  “No problemo,” Rickie says. “I do wonder what a little weed would be like in caramels, though. Do you think it would wreck the texture?”

  “Rick!” I threaten. “Don’t even think about—”

  Keith cracks up. “You’re so gullible, Dyllie Bean. Go help your girl. Is she sick?”

  I shake my head, because I’m not willing to say, No, she’s temporarily incarcerated. And she’s not my girl.

  I grab my jacket and go.

  Twenty-Five

  Chastity

  Of all the crimes that might have landed me in a jail cell, I never thought it would happen like this.

  I was a teenage runaway. I hitchhiked across the country, which is supposedly illegal. Once, in New York State without a clue how I was going to make it to Vermont, I stole food out of a guy’s car in the grocery store parking lot. He was returning his cart to the store when I snatched something out of his hatchback.

  I often wonder what he thinks happened to that package of hot dog buns. I’d scared myself by taking it. I’d cowered between two cars with my stolen goods, sure that the police were seconds away from collaring me.

  But how do I finally end up in the slammer—sitting on a holding-cell bench with my back to a concrete wall?

  By giving cider to a minor.

  In fairness, the bench is padded, and I'm not even sure the door is locked. The policemen who found us under the statue checked our records for priors. And when nothing came up, they turned us over to campus security instead of taking us to the police station.

  "I haven’t led a life of crime!" Ellie had hollered, which didn’t help her case. She kept giggling like a lunatic, too.

  The campus security officer has already grilled us about our “disappointing behavior” tonight. There were lots of questions about how Ellie—a teenager—came to possess the cider.

  “I lied about my age, officer!” Ellie kept insisting, trying to spare me from taking the blame.

  Since she looks about fifteen, though, that defense is a tough sell. Everyone knows I bought that cider. I'm just lucky campus security doesn’t want to make a big deal about it.

  It also helps that Ellie stopped puking. Now she’s asleep, her head in my lap, while I wait to see if the campus security people will get me in any further trouble.

  "We have to call Elizabeth's parents," they’ve already said, "because she's a minor."

  “How did you get so drunk?” I asked Ellie when the
y finally went away to rat her out.

  “Alf gave me a shot.”

  “Of what?”

  “I think it was tequila. They had a ski with shot glasses on it.”

  “A ski? Like…for snow?”

  “Yeah, but it was wood. And there were holes drilled into it where shot glasses fit. The point is to—” She had to stop and yawn. “—tip it and everybody drinks at the same time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because funner,” she’d said. And then she’d sacked out on my thigh.

  So here I sit, questioning all my life choices. I didn’t know she’d had tequila, and it explains her sudden drunkenness. I’m not sure she ate dinner tonight, either.

  I wonder if I could lose my scholarships for giving alcohol to Ellie. The idea makes me feel numb. Getting almost-arrested is emotionally draining.

  With my head against the concrete, I’m just nodding off when I hear someone coming down the corridor. I jerk awake just in time to see Dylan Shipley following the security officer toward me.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more embarrassed.

  “Ellie.” I nudge the girl who’s drooling on my jeans. “Wake up.”

  She sits up quickly, and then grabs her head. “Oh my God. The room is spinning.”

  I brace myself for her to puke again, but it doesn’t happen.

  “Oh!” she says instead. “Hot Farm Boy is here to save us.”

  Dylan cracks a smile. “Who wants to go home?”

  “Me!” Ellie’s hand shoots up the air like the adorable teacher’s pet that she is. The second the officer opens the door, she shoots out past him. “Can we just go?” she asks, a hand on the wall to steady herself. “I think I had a coat.”

  Rising from the bench, I lift my chin, trying to hold on to the last shreds of my dignity. But I probably smell like Ellie’s puke, and there’s a spot of her drool on my jeans.

  I swear it was less humiliating to work at Walgreens in my Laura Ingalls dress and uncut hair.

  When I step outside the cell, Dylan folds me against his chest. I take a deep inhale, because I can’t help myself. And he smells like… “Caramel?”

  “Yeah, I tried to call you. But when you didn’t answer, I just assumed it was because I’m still getting the silent treatment.” He pats my back and then releases me.

  My face heats, because he’s not wrong. I have been snubbing him. But only because I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to go back to being his little buddy, now that I know exactly what he looks like when he’s…

  A shiver runs through me.

  “Cold?” He asks, rubbing my shoulder, the touch doubling my goosebumps.

  “N-no,” I mutter. “I’m fine. Let’s just go, okay? Did they call you?”

  “I’m on your emergency contacts list. And Ellie’s parents said it was okay for me to collect both of you.”

  “Can we go outside?” Ellie asks. “I feel drunk again.”

  “Let’s take you home,” I say, stepping away from Dylan’s hotness.

  “Good idea,” she babbles. “I’m sorry you had to spring us out of jail, Hot Farm Boy. We were a little naughty. We went to a fraternity party.”

  “Really,” Dylan says, sounding amused.

  “Which one?” the security officer asks.

  “I forgot,” Ellie says cheerfully. She won’t throw Alf under the bus, I guess. “It doesn’t matter, because I turned down sex with the vegans.”

  “Oh, Alpha Mu,” the officer muses.

  “So did Chastity!” Ellie continues. Our coats are hanging from pegs just inside the front door, and I lunge for them, hoping she’ll stop talking. But no. “Chastity didn’t have sex with a vegan, either,” she says. “But they were very interested. Very. Are you a vegan?” She blinks up at Dylan.

  “I’m a dairy farmer,” he points out. “So that would be a no.”

  “Good!” Ellie says, reaching up to give his biceps a little squeeze. “I think both Chastity and I are meat lovers.”

  “Ellie!” I yelp, and I’m cringing inside. “Let’s go.” If we could just get out of this building, I could send Dylan on his way.

  Or that was my plan, anyway. But his truck is at the curb. “Climb in, ladies.”

  “Oh!” Ellie says. “But I smell like vomit.”

  “This truck has seen a few things in its day,” he says easily. “Just sit by the window so you can open it if necessary.”

  “Great idea! And that way Chastity can sit next to you.” She winks.

  I should really make a point to choose friends who can hold their liquor.

  We climb into the truck, and it’s just as awkward as you’d think it would be to be sprung from fake jail by the man who doesn’t love you back.

  “Hey—great concert tonight!” Ellie says. “I wish I could have heard the whole thing!”

  “You were there?” Dylan asks, giving me a sideways glance.

  “Only for a minute,” Ellie chirps. “But I don’t have a fake ID, so we had to watch through the window!”

  Oh, kill me already. I can’t even shush her, because that would make it worse than it already is. So I just sigh, instead.

  Blissfully, it’s a short ride back to the dorm. “Nice chatting with you, Ellie,” Dylan says as he stops at the curb.

  “The pleasure was all mine!” she says, as if we were all just out at a party together.

  “I need to talk to Chastity for a second, though. Would you have a seat on the bench for a sec?”

  “Sure!” she says, and then wobbles over to it.

  I’m already unbuckling my seatbelt and sliding toward the open door.

  “Chass, wait. I really am making caramels tonight. And I’m sorry I didn’t reach you in time to ask you to join us.”

  “Us?” I ask, meeting his eyes for the first time tonight. His are brown and bottomless. And now I remember why I’ve been avoiding them.

  “Me, Rickie, Keith, Daphne. For some reason Kaitlyn tagged along, and I’ve been trying to get rid of her. But if you come with me, I’ll ask her to leave.”

  It’s tempting. I don’t want to be a slacker where the caramels are concerned. But I glance at Ellie, who’s playing with her bottom lip. “Didn’t you tell Ellie’s parents we’d look after her?”

  “Yeah, I kind of did,” he says, wincing.

  “Well, I’m going to make sure she gets to bed okay. There was some vomiting earlier.”

  “I had a feeling.” He smiles at me, and my chest actually aches. “You know you can’t duck me forever, though, right?”

  Busted. “I don’t suppose I can.”

  He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to do, Chass. I need us not to be broken.”

  “Broken?” I ask, even though the word resonates with me immediately.

  “Complicated,” he tries. “I shouldn’t have been so impulsive the other night. Because look what happened. You’re not answering my calls.”

  “That’s Kaitlyn’s fault,” I say. But it’s a lie. Kaitlyn put words to some things that I didn’t want to hear out loud. True things. “She’s the one who made it awkward. But it’s my fault for throwing down the challenge in the first place.”

  He gives me a small smile. “Well, I didn’t really argue.”

  Except he did. He’s the one who said it was a bad idea. He’s the one who said he doesn’t date. I didn’t want to hear any of that.

  So if we’re broken now, I’m the one who broke us. I guess I’d better figure out how to fix it. “We’re going to work together next weekend,” I tell him. “I promise.”

  “Good,” he says, giving me a tentative smile. “I’m counting on it.”

  Yup. It’s going to be torture. “I’d better take Ellie inside.”

  “She seems cool,” he says.

  “She’s terrific.” I glance out at the spot where she’s sort of swaying on the bench. “I’m not sure cool is the right word.”

  “It’s exactly the right word,” he
argues. “The cool people are the ones who like you just the way you already are. She called me Farm Boy.”

  “I noticed that.” It was actually Hot Farm Boy, but I’m not going to correct him.

  “Like The Princess Bride,” he says. “Kaitlyn called me Farm Boy, too. But she meant it as a put-down. I’m serious, Chass. The cool people are the ones you don’t have to try to impress.”

  “That’s a nice way to think about it,” I say quietly. “Ellie is the coolest, then. But I should take her inside now.”

  “I know.” He leans forward and traps me in one more caramel-scented hug, while my heart beats wildly against my ribs. I will never get enough of Dylan Shipley. He is my ultimate cool person and I’m just going to have to figure out how to live with that. “You’re pretty cool yourself.”

  “You don’t have to flatter me.”

  “I’m not,” he says, and then he drops a kiss onto the top of my head. “Call me,” he says. “Before Friday.”

  “I will,” I promise, extracting myself and then hopping off the truck’s seat and onto the curb. My skin feels too hot for a cold November night.

  “Call me about algebra, too?” he asks as I’m about to shut the door.

  “Maybe? Might not need help this week,” I lie. Then I close the door and give him a quick wave before hurrying toward Ellie, who looks about ready to pass out again.

  The truck doesn’t move yet, though. Dylan will wait and watch and make sure we get inside. He’ll be my friend and my algebra tutor and he’ll spring me out of jail.

  But he won’t be my boyfriend. And that’s just the way it is.

  Twenty-Six

  Dylan

  It rips me up to watch Chastity walk away from me, and I don’t know why. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve broken something precious.

  Life is full of little moments that don’t matter a whole lot, peppered by a few moments when everything is on the line. Like when your best friend gets a little carried away and asks you to tutor her in sex.

  Or when your father asks you to come straight home from school and help him wrestle a tire off the tractor. And when you don’t, he dies.

  Some mistakes can never be fixed. But when it comes to Chastity, at least I have a shot. So I drive back to the catering kitchen, park my truck, and go back inside.