Jaden's Chance

by Ashlynn Ally

  “Yes,” I growl out. I wait several beats to add, “Sir.”

  For a few moments, there’s silence. Only silence. I’m beginning to wonder if Justin is ever going to let me up from this position or if we’re going to stay like this all night.

  “Listen, Jaden,” he finally starts in. Oh, so that’s it. He’s going to lecture me while my sore and naked ass is up in the air. Typical Justin. “What happened in here today. It shouldn’t have. And I’m going to apologize again for that. I hope you can forgive me. And I hope I can still earn your trust someday.”

  I go still, feeling suddenly awkward. Yet I want to get to the bottom of whatever is, or isn’t, going down between me and Justin. “Why shouldn’t it have happened?” I ask. Somehow, I know it’s obvious he’s referring to the finger fucking and not the belt whipping.

  “Because I don’t want to confuse you, Jaden. And I don’t think either of us are ready to take this relationship to that level.”

  Inexplicably, I feel my heart deflate. My mind races for a second as it plays back all the times I fantasized about Justin sexually. The night of the pat down looking for cigarettes, and that dream I had. But I guess I’m not his type or whatever, and that’s no skin off my back. I shrug as best as I can with my hands still propping myself up against the bed.

  “I’m a big girl, Justin. I think I can handle myself. But whatevs. You do what you think is best. You pretty much always do anyway.”

  “So you’re not confused?” he quizzes.

  I bob my head from side to side, as if weighing my options. “Well, I never said I wasn’t confused…” I pause, just wanting this whole uncomfortable conversation to be over with. “Hey, Justin?”

  “Yeah?” he answers me readily, almost earnestly.

  “Can I get up now? I have homework to do, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. Of course.”

  He lets go of me then, and I right myself. I reach down to pull up my panties, and then smooth my skirt, which had been bunched up by my waist this entire time. I look at Justin pertinently as I make my way over to my desk. For the first time since I met him, he seems different somehow. Not as poised and composed as usual. I realize I think he might even be blushing, though I can’t be sure because he’s quick to excuse himself, mumbling something about dinner.

  I know I should be doing my homework, but I don’t. I just sit at my desk, staring at a sheet of essay questions. The events of the last half hour or so keep running through my head like a loop, and my emotions ping in every direction. At first, I’m happy, remembering how Justin had defended me to his brother. But why did Alex call me a charity case? And who was this Camille person? A girlfriend? A street punk he took in off the street? What?

  Then I feel aroused, reliving the feel of Justin’s hand sliding between my thighs. It isn’t long after that I feel anger though. I wonder why he doesn’t want to be with me in that way? Not that I really care, but could it be because I’m poor? A stupid street kid who never even graduated high school?

  I shift back in forth on my chair, wincing when I rest on a sore spot. That makes me realize I better stop thinking about all this stuff and get started on my homework.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That weekend, my grounding finally lifts, and I beg Justin to go to the beach with me. As usual, he insists he has too much work to do, but tells me to have fun without him.

  “Come on,” I wheedle, kicking my legs back and forth against the bottom cabinets. I’m perched on the counter sipping a smoothie while he rinses out the blender. “That’s boring. Just come with me for a little bit, it’ll be fun, I swear. You can get some vitamin D, for fu…” I stop myself, glance up quickly at the same time he turns to me sharply, his eyes a warning. Hurriedly, I choose a different form of phrasing than for fuck’s sake. “For crying out loud. You call yourself a California boy? You’re as white as a ghost from being shut up in that office all the time.”

  “Why don’t you invite one of your friends from school,” he suggests, completely ignoring everything I just said.

  “My only friend at school is Maritza, and that’s only because I used to bum cigarettes from her. Now I think she’s annoying because she smokes like a chimney and makes me crave ‘em. She’s a bad influence on me.”

  “For once we agree on something,” Justin says, even though I had been speaking facetiously. “But I still can’t go. Now get off the counter, you’re going to chip the paint on the cupboards.”

  “Oh, for once you’re worried about aesthetics,” I say, imitating his tone with a roll of my eyes, though I stop with the kicking. “You know, maybe you should start thinking about fixing this place up. Take in a roommate.”

  “I don’t want a roommate,” he says distractedly, putting away some silverware he just cleaned. “I like my privacy.”

  “Well, don’t I kind of take away from that?” I quiz.

  He’s still sorting silverware, spoons in the spoon-shaped slots, forks in the fork ones. “You’re different. I like helping people.”

  My mind spins, wondering if that’s all he likes about me. That I’m someone he can help, nothing more. “Maybe you can start a halfway house?” I stick to the subject at hand. I’d die before I let him know what I’m really thinking.

  He raises his eyebrows at me, but ignores the suggestion. “Jaden, get off the counter.” He takes me by the arm now, and I hop off as he pulls. “How many times do I have to tell you that we have chairs?”

  “So what if we have chairs?” I make a face at him, taking a long swallow of smoothie. “It’s not like you ever tell me I can’t sit on the counter.”

  “You can’t sit on the counter,” he says bluntly. “Is that better?”

  I don’t say anything, just give him a boldly audacious glare. He responds with the usual shake of his head.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, still distracted as he goes about running a dishcloth over the place where I was just sitting. “Now if you’re going to the beach, I want you home for dinner, do you understand? I don’t want you out there running around all day without checking back in here. Also, I want you to take water, and a snack, and your cell phone.”

  “Obviously I’m going to take my cell phone,” I say with another eye roll. All week after school, Justin had confiscated it since I was still grounded. Technically today would be my first time alone with the thing. “Are you sure I shouldn’t take a first aid kit as well? Maybe some emergency flares in case I get stranded on a deserted island or something?”

  “Jaden, do you want to go the beach? Because your attitude says differently.”

  “Oh, yeah, and what does my attitude say?” I challenge him.

  “It says you want another day added onto your grounding.”

  He gives me a meaningful glare, which I try to return, but in the end I let him win.

  “Well, I don’t.” My voice goes demure now. “I want to go to the beach.”

  “Good girl, that’s better. Now, if I call you, I expect you to answer it or return the call promptly, you got that? Otherwise you can expect not to be going anywhere with it again anytime soon.”

  “Justin, what are you so worried about?” I try to reason with him. “I know how to take care of myself. I used to live on the streets, remember?”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” he gives an apprehensive reply. “Now are you going to answer me, or am I going to have to ground you for an extra day?”

  I scoff loudly, but I do his bidding. “Okay, okay, I’ll answer your call. I’ll be home for dinner. I’ll pack some water. Did I miss anything?”

  “Say it without the attitude this time.”

  I throw up my hands and let my mouth drop open a little. “Are you kidding me? What was wrong with the way I just said it?”

  “Don’t test me, Jaden. You’ll be sitting up in your room all day writing lines.”

  “You’re being mean and unreasonable. I said what you wanted me to say.”

  He strid
es over to me then, takes hold of my arm in one hand and uses his other to lift my chin so our eyes interlock. “Jaden, this is your last chance. Now stop being stubborn, because you won’t win. I’m on your side here, remember? So knock off the brattiness, and say what you’re supposed to say.”

  Fuck, he’s right. Why does he have to be right all the time? After staring into his eyes for a good ten seconds, I let the fight go out of me. Then I take a deep breath, and I say it. “I’ll answer my phone if you call me. I’ll come home at dinner. I’ll pack water. And a snack.”

  “You see, was that so hard?” he says, releasing me now. “And don’t worry about finding water and a snack. I’ll set them out for you here on the counter.”

  “I wasn’t being bratty,” I grumble. I watch disparagingly as he pulls a giant liter water bottle from the cabinet and fills it with cold water from the fridge. “I’m just not used to people giving a shit about me.”

  “Language,” he says.

  I shrug. “I’m sorry.”

  He eyes me calculatingly, but then lets it go. “Do you want flax seed granola, or fruit and honey?”

  “I want a Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream pie.”

  “Okay, flax seed…”

  “No,” I quickly interject. “I’ll take the fruit and honey.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m not at the beach for very long before I realize it’s almost just as boring here as it is in the house. Then I get the idea to use my new cell phone to my advantage. Pulling it out of my bag, I punch in Carly’s number. Then I listen to the ring-ring-ring, sure it’s going to go to voicemail again because she never got any money to put minutes on it.

  But then her voice comes through the other end, groggy and like she just woke up. Of course, it’s still only about nine-thirty in the morning. Carly, like me, never was an early riser.

  “Hello? Who is this? What do you want?”

  “Carly, it’s me!” I say, laughing at her disgruntled voice.

  “Jaden? What are you doing calling me so early? It’s practically still the middle of the night.”

  “Oh, chill out, Carly, I haven’t talked to you in forever, so stop being so rude. I can’t believe how much I have to tell you.”

  “Where are you?” she grumbles, her voice still scratchy from sleep.

  “Pacific Palisades. Where are you?”

  “Venice…” she starts, but I interrupt before she gets too far.

  “Well, grab the next bus and come down here. I’m on the beach about two blocks down from the Chevron station.”

  “Damn, girl,” she sighs. “Stay where you are, I’m coming. But this better be good!”

  About forty-five minutes later, my best friend in the world is walking across the sand to meet me. If I were a different sort of girl, I might jump up and rush to hug her. Instead, I just keep it chill. She does the same, plopping down next to me like we are nothing more than friends at school who see each other every day, sitting at our usual places in the cafeteria.

  “You gotta cigarette?” she says, first thing, tossing back her mane of frizzy brown hair. We always joked together that Carly’s hair was just like her—uncontrollable.

  I slap the patch on my arm. “Nah, bitch. I quit that shit.” It’s funny how fast the swear words start rolling off my tongue once I’m around my friend, after working so hard the past week or so to curb the habit.

  “Fuck, JJ, I’m jonesing. Why you gotta go and do that for? That thing work anyhow?”

  “It’s okay,” I say with a shrug. “Not as good as the real thing, but the place I’m staying at right now is no smoking.”

  Carly raises her eyebrows at me incredulously. “So?” she blurts. “That ever stop either of us before?”

  “This place is different,” I say.

  “How so?”

  Suddenly, I’m hesitant to give her many details of mine and Justin’s arrangement, though before on the phone I was eager to brag. “It’s just not like that,” I finally get out. “The guy I’m staying with…”

  “What, like your boyfriend?” Carly interrupts me. “It’s about time you finally got yourself a man.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I tell her, though of course my mind immediately dashes to the other night. More like my drill sergeant, I almost say, before thinking better of it. “We’re more just friends.” Even this seem to be stretching the truth.

  “Uh-huh,” Carly says, unbelieving.

  “So how’s Billy anyway?” I change the subject.

  “Oh, you know me and Billy,” Carly says with a ludicrous scoff, leaning back on her elbows in the sand. “We fight, we make up, we fuck. We do it again. That’s love for you, baby, that’s love.”

  “You still moving to Texas?”

  “Yeah, if his asshole half-brother ever gives us his address. Who invites someone to stay with them and then doesn’t give out his address? Billy’s asshole half-brother, that’s who. Hey, you got anything to eat? I’m starved. Oh, wait, never mind—I forgot who I was asking, Miss Has-it-really-been-three-days-since-I’ve-eaten-well-gosh Jaden.”

  “Actually, I have food,” I say in an ironic tone, pulling out my backpack and the snacks Justin packed for me. “I have water, bananas, granola, carrots, crackers, hummus… Jesus, he packed enough food in here for a week.”

  “Who?” Carly demands, grabbing a banana.

  “Justin,” I say. “The guy I’m staying with.”

  “Right. Your boyfriend.” She peels the banana, takes a bite, gives me a devilish smirk.

  “He’s not…”

  “So what then? Oh, wait, I know. A sugar daddy. Is that it? He must be an older guy too. You know none of the idiots our age are going to go and pack a nice little picnic brunch like this.”

  “He’s twenty-five,” I say.

  “A little young,” Carly says. “But still a sugar daddy, right?”

  “Actually, he used to be my foster brother. We used to be in the same home.”

  At this new revelation, Carly goes even more still, chewing the banana slowly as she looks up at me with her huge brown eyes. “You serious? Which one? Not the one with the pervy older brother with the porn addiction?”

  “Nah, not him,” I say. Carly and I met in a group home when we were both thirteen, after I had just gotten kicked out of that very foster home for complaining to my caseworker that I thought this older brother dude was a future sex offender. After that, we became each other’s runaway accomplices and partners in crimes, sharing everything we had and watching each other’s back. Until Billy came around about a year ago anyway. After that, I started seeing less and less of Carly, though we still managed to hang out whenever we could.

  “Then who, girl? Do tell. Anyone you ever talked about with me before?”

  “No, actually, I barely remembered Justin myself. It’s a long story, but somehow we managed to get reacquainted. His mom is dead now—my old foster mom—and he has her house to himself a couple of blocks from here. He invited me to live with him. Wants to help me get my shit straightened out.”

  “Girl, who you kidding?” Carly guffaws. “You don’t got any shit needs straightening. You always playing like you harder than you really are.”

  Ha! I’d like to see Justin hear her say that, because in his eyes, I was about two and a half steps away from a correctional facility. “He wants to help me graduate high school and all that.”

  “Hmmm, and you ain’t sucking it?” Carly says, her face still suspicious. “Well, he must have you be doing something to earn your keep around his dead mom’s old house. You scrubbing toilets or something? Mopping floors?”

  “I think he just likes helping people,” I try to explain. Vaguely, I watch Carly devour the last bite of banana and start rooting around in my bag for more food.

  “Ohhh, so you got yourself one of those,” she says now, understanding creeping into her voice. “JJ, you better be careful with him then. They the worse ones.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask,
as she piles a huge dollop of hummus onto a cracker and then pops the whole thing in her mouth.

  “Oh, y’know,” she says, her mouth full, dusting her hands of cracker crumbs. “They think they can save you and all that. Have all these really high expectations no normal person can ever live up to. And then, when you do what the human thing to do is and fuck shit up, they act all like they themselves failed. Like you were some kind of science experiment that didn’t turn out right. And that’s when they throw you away.”

  Her words float around in my head with a sickening realization, as I remember some of the things Alex had said the afternoon of my little eavesdropping fiasco. You can’t save me, so stop trying. And who was this person named Camille? Alex had seemed to think she was someone like me… someone who couldn’t be fixed, and then disappeared…

  “Well, hey, if it doesn’t work out here with Justin, I could always move to Texas with you and Billy, right?” I say, trying to play it cool, even though inside, I’m dying a little bit. What if I couldn’t live up to Justin’s expectations? He always made it out like he would never throw me out, though I’m beginning to see that can all change in a heartbeat. Just like it did at all my other foster homes.

  “Yeah, sure, babe. You know you always welcome. Just don’t hold your breath too long or anything. We still waiting on Billy’s asshole half-brother…”

  “Care if I join you?” Suddenly, Carly’s words are interrupted by a voice behind us. I turn quickly and am surprised to see Justin. He’s a bit sweaty and out of breath, a sweatband around his forehead and his biceps exposed in a muscle shirt.

  “Hey,” I say, my heart skipping a beat as my two worlds collide. “I thought you said you had too much work to do to come out here?”

  He drops in the sand next to me, mimicking Carly’s position, elbows propping himself up. “I realized you were right and I needed a little air, a little sun. So I went for a run and then decided to see if you needed company, but it looks like you got that covered.” At that, he reaches over me and offers his hand to my friend. “How’s it going? I’m Justin.”