Chapter Forty-Seven
Struggling to keep his focus on his father, Kyle reflected about his latest conversation with Jennifer - if that could even be called a conversation. He couldn’t deny that with her golden brown hair and blue eyes they would look very good standing next to each other, but sometimes her personality grated on him.
“Focus!” his father snapped. “Distractions cause accidents and mistakes on the field!”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle dutifully replied.
So does being stressed out, he wanted to add but remained silent. Talking back to his father would be a big mistake. He could feel his muscles tensing and it wasn’t because he was thinking about Jennifer and not football.
Why couldn’t Jennifer be more like Grace? Sure, he’d heard a few saucy comments coming out of Grace’s mouth when her guard was down, but she never cursed like a sailor and made intentionally dirty comments. Her hazel eyes seemed so attentive and intelligent, but with her mousy brown hair he doubted they would look very well together.
Appearances were everything; at least that was what his father had always ingrained into him. Brent Goldman would rather his family be miserable and appear to be perfect, than for them to actually be happy.
“Pay attention!” his father snapped again when Kyle managed to miss the throw completely.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle repeated.
“You can’t miss the ball in the middle of the game. Your team counts on you to catch that ball and get it into the end zone. They rely on your leadership abilities and playing skills to win and make it to the State Finals again.” His father’s quiet tone was deceptive; he just didn’t want the neighbors to know that he was yelling at his son. “You cannot ruin this.”
Kyle was beginning to hate appearances and having to strive for perfection. Rolling his shoulders, “I won’t let the team down.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Most of Hannah’s time was spent waiting. Waiting for the apartment Brady found to become available (one more week). Waiting to tell her parents and wondering how they would react. Waiting for Aimee’s next move; it was this one that had many people on pins and needles.
Hannah felt as if there was an endless to-do list that needed to be accomplished before her eighteenth-birthday. There wasn’t much that she could do without arousing her father’s suspicions, and so list after list of supplies and other necessities were handed over or texted to Brady. This didn’t include the list of things that would need to be addressed after their parents found out.
She knew that her father was going to kick her out of the house. It was as set in stone as the Ten Commandments. She had a feeling that it would include being dropped from the family’s cell phone plan. Hannah knew that it was something that they were going to have to address. Maybe his parents would let her be added to their plan and then let the couple pay their part of the cell phone bill directly to his parents each month. It would be a much cheaper than having to sign up for a contract, or even use pre-paid phones.
These practical matters were floating around her brain.
A new doctor.
Furniture for the “living room” of the apartment.
Dishes. Cooking necessities. Trash bags. Dish Soap. Laundry baskets. Laundry soap. Coat hangers. Shower curtain. Shower curtain hooks. Tooth paste holder. Bathroom rug. Batteries. Flashlights. Lamps. Trash bags. Trash cans. Silverware.
She was certain that the list was longer than what she could currently think of. Hannah knew that shew was stressing about the little things in to keep from focusing on the major things.
Like telling their parents.
She would wait and panic later.
Kyle found himself falling asleep on his desk at home more than once. Math was kicking his butt. U.S. Government was turning out to be not as easy as he had thought; thank goodness Mark and Grace were able to help him out at lunch. At least the during the lunches where Penny didn’t claim his time; he never knew when he would be working on an article or would be able to work on homework.
“So, there he was, in the middle of the bathroom,” Jennifer was telling Wesley - he still occasionally joined them, but was sitting with them more often since Kyle had started sitting with them - “… screwing his girlfriend like they were rabbits when I walked in. It’s not my fault that they forgot to lock the door.”
He didn’t know where the words came from, but Kyle turned to look at her before narrowing his eyes, “Can you just stop cussing so damn much? It’s getting old when you pepper almost everything you say with swear words as if they are the only words you know how to say. You’re pretty until you open your month.”
Blinking, he turned towards a surprised and open-mouthed Grace. “Sorry, Grace.”
“No problem,” she whispered.
Kyle grabbed his things and went to sit by himself. He really didn’t have the patience to put up with anything that day and thought it might be better if he was alone until he could get himself back under control.
Across the cafeteria, Aimee sat fuming. It didn’t matter that there was already tension radiating throughout that table. They were starting to fall apart without her interference. Grace and Delilah weren’t talking, even if it meant that Delilah and David ended up spending even more time talking than ever before.
Nothing was working. He hadn’t returned to her side. He hadn’t begged her for forgiveness by saying that he had been blind and never should have broken up with her years ago. That he never should have dated anybody else since the break-up. That he knew that they were supposed to be together.
Her sister had told her as much. Her sister had told her that she needed to get David on her side and the entire class would fall at her feet and love her because they liked David. She needed David at her side; the foundation that she had built was based on fear and it was starting to crumble around her. Nothing was going the way her sister had told her it would if she followed the tried and true plan.
What was she going to do next?
Chapter Forty-Nine
Grace had tried her hardest not to stare at him in the hallways, in class, and in the cafeteria with little to no success. She doubted that anybody would understand her crush on Kyle and after her fight with Delilah she couldn’t even discuss things with her best friend. Jennifer wasn’t even a possibility because Grace suspected that Jennifer had her own crush on him. Penny was out of the running because she ‘worked’ with Kyle on the newspaper. Wesley definitely was out; she suspected that he was more observant than anybody realized.
“I have to talk to somebody!” she exclaimed, grabbing her mother’s keys, - her car was still not running thanks to Jonah - her purse, and three DVD’s before heading to the store to buy snack foods. She was going to fix things with Delilah. Grace needed to do this in order to save her sanity. She needed her best friend.
Friday night rolled around and for once Delilah found herself with nothing to do. They had finished the play the previous night, reading two acts a night on Tuesday and Wednesday and then the final act on Thursday. Originally she had planned on finishing Twelfth Night that weekend, if she had ever managed to get past the first scene, but finishing the play had left her with nothing else to do.
She had hoped that her secret admirer would leave a new book in her locker. She could have worked on reading that over the weekend, but he had let her down. She had forgotten about The Mayor of Casterbridge sitting on her dresser half read until after the doorbell rang. Without waiting for her to answer, David entered the room carrying a bag loaded so full that he was afraid that it would break and ruin his surprise.
For a moment Delilah was surprised that David had entered through the back door as if the years had never separated them. She was even more surprised that he was giving up his weekend. Normally he was doing something with Kyle or Wesley, watching the game, or hanging out with one of his brothers if they had come down for the weekend.
Sitting on the sofa, not even looking at where she was still standing in the
middle of the living room floor, David pulled out a box of popcorn. "Do you mind putting this in the microwave? Thanks." Still frozen solid, she watched as he pulled out two packages of sour gummy worms, one tub of gummy bears, a six pack – bottles naturally – of Dr. Pepper, a bag each of Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, and Ruffles, a jar of cheese dip and a jar of French onion dip – his favorite – and then three movies. "Why are you still standing there? The sooner the popcorn is done the sooner we can watch the movies!"
Shaking his head he got up, grabbing the box of popcorn, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Seconds later she followed him in there. "What are you doing?"
"Popping popcorn,” he answered Delilah without looking in her direction.
"No, I mean what are you doing over here?"
Finally, keying in the last number and hitting start, David turned to look at her. "I'm watching movies with you. I figured you had already finished The Mayor of Casterbridge and your secret admirer didn’t get you anything new to read yet. I thought I would come and cure your inevitable boredom."
Eyes widening, Delilah gave herself a mental face palm. "I forgot I had that in my room. I'm barely on page one hundred!" She was surprised that she had been able to forget that she had a book that she could read.
Maybe her disagreement with Grace was affecting her more than she realized.
David laughed. It was the only sound he made as he went towards the bowls and pulled out one big enough for the bag of popcorn. He moved around as if he knew the kitchen like the back of his hand. Considering it hadn’t changed since elementary school it was possible that he did.
In the process of grabbing a bowl, he noticed a picture on the refrigerator. It was fairly recent; Delilah and Grace with their arms thrown around each other's shoulders and the girls were laughing at some unknown joke. "I haven't seen Grace around lately."
"We got into a fight." Delilah jerked the picture out from under its magnet and left it sitting on the kitchen counter. The magnet, upset from the picture being removed, fell to the floor where it rolled a few feet and was stopped by the toe of David's shoe. "Last week."
"But surely," David started before being cut off.
"She doesn't like you. She saw how I acted after you blew me off freshmen year. She'll only come around if the other girls are present. They haven't figured out that we aren't talking yet." The words even sounded stilted and sad to her ears.
The microwave beeped and Delilah moved before David could do anything. Taking the popcorn out, he watched her shake the bag before dumping the contents into the bowl he had taken out of the cabinets. "She doesn't want to sit at the same lunch table as you. I told her that it was ridiculous and that you would get tired of sitting with us and move on to another table or take back up with your friends. I'm sure you noticed that she's been sitting on the other side of the table from you, glaring."
"They aren't my friends," he answered, wisely ignoring the Grace comments. “Real friends wouldn’t pull the crap that they’ve been doing.”
Delilah turned, popcorn bowl in her hands, and just looked at him. "You don't take the time to get to know Jennifer or Penny. What you know about them is what everybody knows about them. Jennifer is battling for valedictorian with Kyle and Taylor Rodgers. Penny is the editor of the school newspaper. How can you call us your friends?"
"Because I can be myself around you. Will and all of them expect certain things from me. All of those rumors are lies. I haven't had sex with any of those girls that they claim that I have; I’ve made out with them, sure, but nothing more than that. I don't know why I let Meg Watkins say otherwise sophomore year. Maybe I never countered that rumor to get Aimee to leave me alone, not that it worked obviously. Then the others couldn't be left out; they couldn't say that after weeks of dating them that they never got anywhere. So they lied. I had to act like a horny bastard. All that I managed to get out of the lies was that the girls I actually wanted to go out with turned me down because of my reputation. Don’t forget the look of disdain on a couple of teachers’ faces when I acted like a jerk in class and still managed to make nineties on my assignments."
David looked down at Delilah when he made his monologue. His brown eyes were locked into her green eyes as he spilt everything that he had kept bottled up.
“It didn’t help that Aimee would make your exes lives miserable. The smarter girls didn’t want to go up against her.”
"I never should have insulted you like that freshmen year. Pete reamed into me when we got home. He was that disappointed in me. Every time my so-called friends insulted you and I remained silent I would start thinking of ways to get them to shut up. I was thinking that I shouldn't be on that side of the fence. I should have been on your side. That's why I'm the biggest idiot in the world. I let you go when I should have held on tighter than ever." Even with that confession, David still didn’t tell her why he never got rid of his toxic friends.
From the doorway somebody cleared a throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt and for listening in," Grace started to whisper, looking at the floor as she faced what was right in front of her.
David noticed just how close he had gotten to Delilah, kissing distance, and took a step backwards, losing her scent as he did so. Delilah missed his body heat and the boy smell he emitted.
Whispering some more, Grace finally looked up, "David, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have judged you like I did."
“I can’t really blame you. I never tried to stop Aimee; instead I let her slide because...” he took a deep breath, “… I made a deal with her freshmen year after I saw Amanda bullying you, Grace.” David turned to look at the girl he was addressing, “I told her that I wouldn’t break up with her right then and there, loudly in the cafeteria, if she left Delilah and all of Delilah’s friends alone. That meant the bullying, rumors, etc.” Closing his eyes and turning towards Delilah, “In exchange I’d also help her with her homework. At the time it was a great idea, until she noticed my interest in you and started her rumors.”
“She’s obsessed with you,” Delilah added, shaking her head. “Any particular reason why?”
David smiled, noting the movie in Grace’s hands, he asked. "What movie did you bring over?" It was a good chance to change the conversation.
"Delilah's favorite," Grace answered, smiling as she tested him.
"That's funny. Sleeping Beauty is also in my bag. Want to join us? I brought a lot of junk food and several more movies."
Grace looked back and forth between Delilah and David, watching Delilah's nod slightly to let her know that it was okay. "Sure, but we're going to need some more popcorn. I left my Cokes in the car."
"I'll get them," David volunteered.
"And while he's gone we have plenty to talk about. Two weeks’ worth it seems."
Hours later David was kicked out while Delilah told Grace everything that they needed to share and how she was afraid that she was starting to trust David.
Thanks to David’s earlier confession they now both knew why Delilah was on Aimee’s radar. It was just a matter of time before the attempts to keep David to herself would turn solely into attacks towards Delilah. Aimee had a pattern.
“You might want to borrow somebody else’s locker for a little while,” Grace suggested.
“I might need to borrow several people’s lockers,” Delilah added.
Taking a deep breath, Grace knew that she needed to change the subject from David to Kyle. “I have a problem,” she announced without thinking about what she was saying. “I still have a crush on Kyle and Jennifer does too.”
Delilah paused, frozen in place. This was way worse than her growing feelings for David. Their reemergence was a given considering they practically grew up together and shared fourteen years of significant events together. This crush Grace had on Kyle was problematic. Kyle never even noticed Grace, unless she was helping with U.S. Government assignments, when she was sitting right next to him.
“I know,” Grace cried, reading Delilah’s
long silence perfectly. “What do I do?”
Chapter Fifty
Mrs. Stanfield watched her daughter pacing back and forth. She knew that something was up, but decided to hold her tongue. She could barely miss the rumors that were whispered around her, with shy glances in her directions with the words ‘daughter’ and ‘pregnant’ floating around.
Truthfully, she didn’t care. She suspected that Hannah and Brady wouldn’t be able to completely keep their hands off of each other, but she did like Brady better than some of Hannah’s ex-boyfriends.
Certainly, yes, she would admit that the timing was horrible. She knew that her husband would have problems with the situation. He might even ban her from seeing Hannah, from helping out the young couple. I will just have to do things without his knowledge, Mrs. Stanfield decided. She knew that the teenagers would have a difficult time of things before their situation got better. Mrs. Stanfield knew all of this and kept quiet.
They would tell her when they were ready to face Hannah’s father. Knowing her daughter Hannah would make sure that everything was settled and in place before facing him.
She loved her husband, but sometimes she wanted to hit him with the book that he so often cherry-picked his way through. Fire and brimstone indeed.
It was scary facing her future in-laws and Kelly. Certainly things were better once Kelly had stopped hanging out as much with Aimee – often attempting to divide her time between Aimee and Hannah with mixed results - but things still were a bit awkward around her friend.
Taking a deep breath, Hannah fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Was it too short? Was she showing already even though she wasn’t even close to being at the stage of showing? What were they going to think? Was Kelly going to accuse Hannah of trying to trap her brother into a relationship?
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