Jaden's Chance

by Ashlynn Ally

  “Lie down,” he instructs. “Now.”

  I do so, slowly, never unlocking my eyes from him. Then I hiss out, “You suck.” One last little challenge.

  “You’re doing this to yourself, Jaden,” he says, flicking off the lights. “Now goodnight. See you in the morning when I hope to see an improvement in your attitude.”

  With that, he walks out the door, closing it gently behind him, leaving me confused and rattled in my bed. Why didn’t he spank me? Make me write lines or sit in the corner? Obviously, it’s because he didn’t want to go through the trouble. He’s already starting to see me as a lost cause, so why should he put in the effort to set me on the right track like he kept promising? Much easier to just stash me away in my bedroom—forget about me even. Next thing I know, I’ll be out, just like when one of my foster parents would make a phone call and complain about me. The caseworker would show up the next day, and then stick me somewhere else that didn’t really want me.

  Suddenly, tears spring to my eyes. Carly was right, I’m fucking everything up. Well, she never actually said I was fucking things up, but she said I might—that I had a potential to. God, why did I have to sabotage my one opportunity like this? The one chance I have? If Justin is getting sick of me, he could get rid of me anytime, just like he had done with this Camille person. He wanted to save me like he couldn’t save his foster brothers and sister. But I can’t be that for him. It’s too much for me to live up to, especially since I’m already a person who fails at everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning seems to go as it usually does, causing me to momentarily second-guess my misgivings last night. Justin makes me drink a smoothie, and then he asks to check my homework from Friday. He follows me up to my bedroom, where he starts rifling through my assignment book and all the papers everywhere. Confident he’s going to find everything in order, I sit on the bed with my arms crossed, blowing my bangs out of my face.

  “Okay, Jaden, this all looks good,” he says after a minute or two. “Just where’s the book report?”

  “Book report?” I say dumbly, his words not fully sinking in.

  “Yeah, you have a book report due tomorrow. Looks like you had about two weeks to read the book? We talked about this before, remember?”

  Oh, my God. Ohmygod, oh-my-god, OMG. I completely forgot about the book report.

  “Jaden, I don’t like that look. Please tell me you at least read a book.”

  “Okay, look, Justin,” I try to explain myself with halting words. “I still have time. I could get a book from the library right now. Write the shit on the back cover like I said…”

  “Jaden,” he groans. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know!” I exclaim. “I just forgot. But I can still do it! There’s still time.”

  “You cannot read a whole book in one day,” he says, practically dismissively. “You’re going to have to ask your teacher for more time. How could you forget? It’s written right here in the assignment book!”

  He points it out to me—BOOK REPORT, in big letters right in the center of Monday. “I don’t know, I guess I’ve been looking at it for so long, I just stopped seeing it.” I shrug sheepishly, not sure what else to say.

  Justin lets out a long, weary sigh. “Fine, whatever. I guess it’s lucky you’re already grounded today because you would have been stuck in here anyway reading. But I’m not taking you to the library. You can pick one of my books downstairs. There’s The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath. A couple of Jessica’s old girly books as well.”

  He walks out of the room, still shaking his head at my apparent incompetence, making me feel like I just won the lottery but then lost the ticket. I had genuinely thought my homework was all done. Now I have to read a stupid book all day, and on top of that I have to embarrass myself at school tomorrow by telling the teacher I wasn’t finished with it yet.

  I also can’t help but wonder why Justin hasn’t punished me in any way for forgetting to do the book report. Didn’t he promise he would spank me for missing class, coming home late for curfew, along with a bunch of other things, not doing homework most likely one of those things on the list? I can’t really remember, but either way, it seems odd. He barely even scolded me. Just walked out of the room looking disappointed. I guess he’s finally starting to see me for what I really am—a lost cause. Any day now, he’ll kick me to the curb…

  Suddenly, I decide I can’t live like this anymore. Always wondering when my last day is going to be, when Justin will get fed up with me and throw me out just like all my foster families did before him. Screw going to school, screw telling the teacher I didn’t do my stupid book report, screw all of it! I’m out of here.

  Jumping up, I grab my backpack and start stuffing clothes inside it. I make sure to take only the things I came here with, leaving all the things Justin bought me in a heap in the drawer. I debate taking my cell phone, but then think better of it. I figure there’s probably a tracking device on the thing anyway.

  With Justin stowed away in his office, I know I could easily go out the front door, but decide to sneak down the trellis instead for old time’s sake. I’ll go out just the same way I came in. Halfway down the driveway, I realize I need bus fare. Feeling like a bit of a tool, I sneak back into the garage and raid the catch-all compartment in Justin’s car. Twenty minutes later, I’m heading toward Venice, my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the bus windowpane, trying to convince myself I’m free now. Wishing I actually thought it was true.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Carly is none too pleased to see me waiting outside on the stoop of the hostel after telling the manager I was here for her. “Girl, what you mean you left? You better tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not joking,” I reiterate. “You were right. I’m just gonna fuck it up somehow. Justin’s the type who likes to save people, and when he realizes he can’t save me, he’s gonna drop me like a hot potato.”

  “A hot potato?” she repeats. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I throw up my hands and roll my eyes. “I don’t fucking know, Carly, it’s just a dumb expression. Now, you think I can stay here for a while? What do I have to do anyway? Scrub toilets or some shit?”

  “Girl, nuh-uh!” she says firmly. “You ain’t staying here. You marching your silly little ass back on that bus and going back to pretty boy’s.”

  “Carly, I told you, I’mma lost cause! How am I ever gonna make it out there in the real world? There’s nothing I can do, nothing I want to do!”

  “You ain’t a lost cause, JJ. In fact, you the most unlost cause I know. Girl, you got yourself potential. What about all those clothes you always sewing on and shit? You can be like a fashion designer or something, who knows? Maybe really make something of yourself.”

  I falter, thinking of the macramé-inspired miniskirt I had once made her for her birthday. She had loved it and wore it till it fell apart. “But yesterday you said…”

  “Who cares what I said yesterday! You know I say dumb shit all the time. But this here’s the truth. You actually got a chance to make something of yourself. You think there any homeless seamstresses out there making a killing? No! You need a starting point, a home base, and that’s where pretty boy comes in. You need him. Girl, you having a brain fart or something?”

  She reaches up to tap me on the head, but I back away from her, annoyed that once again she won’t take my side. That she’s sticking up for Justin, even going so far as to say I need him. I don’t need anybody but myself! “I’m not having a brain fart. I just… I can’t stay with Justin anymore.”

  A look of suspicion crosses her face. “He knocking you around?”

  I don’t know why, but I hesitate. Sure, Justin spanked me, but I know he’s not actually abusive. “N-no.”

  Carly gets all up in arms. “‘Cuz if he is I’ll send my boys down there to rearrange his teeth with a crowbar, I ain’t even care how pretty he is.”r />
  “No, Carly, it’s not that,” I say quickly, trying to get her to calm down. “It’s just, I don’t think I’m cut out for that kind of life. You know, three meals a day and an alarm clock. He never even lets me eat candy…”

  “Girl, you got yourself three hots and a cot that’s not in no jail and you moaning and groaning about no candy? What’s in that little head of yours anyway? You need me to remind you of what it’s like on the street? Always having to watch your back. No money, no food, sleeping behind piss-drenched dumpsters. But oh, poor little Jaden, she doesn’t have any candy.”

  I feel my face go red hot, and I’m mad now. “Fuck you, Carly,” I spit, turning on my heels and walking away. “If you can’t help me, fine. I’ll go it alone. Not like I ever needed you before, and I don’t need you now either.”

  “Wait a minute, Jaden, come back here,” I hear Carly hollering. Her voice is heartfelt now, but I ignore it. I just keep walking. Wait at the bus stop till the one comes that takes me to my old spot in the park across from Trader Joe’s. End up just where I started, as if this whole thing had just been a story I read, and then dropped down a well and forgot about. Stories are for chumps anyway.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I forgot how long the days can be when you’re homeless on the street with no money. By the time the sun starts to dip low, it feels like I’ve already been in this park an eternity, my mind spinning in circles saying the same old stuff.

  I remember the night I first met Justin, how he accused me of being a poor little rich girl, and I swore to myself I wasn’t like that. I swore that if I had the opportunities handed to me, I would take them. I wouldn’t squander it the way some kids did, spending all their parents’ money on booze and partying when they should have been studying. Yet look at me now. I’m doing exactly what I told myself I wouldn’t do.

  At the same time though, I had Justin to contend with. Justin and his piles of baggage. His dead mom, his alcoholic little brother, this mysterious Camille person. I knew how badly he felt when all the kids got taken away. He wanted to step up to the plate, but the state wouldn’t let him. Now he must have felt like I’m nothing more than a second chance to him. Just a way for him to make up his failures to himself—nothing more. No, I was right to leave. I couldn’t live up to that.

  There’s another homeless person lingering around my bush, so I stake out my claim early. I spread out my old ratty blanket, bunch up my backpack for a pillow. Ahh, home, sweet hellhole, as Carly so eloquently put it.

  Why did she have to go putting those ideas about Justin in my head in the first place anyway? And why did I always have to be so damn paranoid all the time? Couldn’t trust anyone for one goddamn second. Maybe Justin really wasn’t like she said. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me again. But it’s too late now, I already royally fucked this up. If Justin had been getting sick me of me before, he certainly doesn’t want me back now…

  Suddenly, I feel someone brush against me, and I jump up, ready to defend myself and my space. Unfortunately, after spending the last two weeks not living in fear for my life at every turn, my reflexes must have slowed down. Before I know it, both of my arms are pinned to my sides, rendering me defenseless. But then I look into my supposed assailant’s face, and relief sweeps over me. It’s only Justin.

  “What the fuck,” I growl out, mad now even though I know I should be grateful I’m not being violently assaulted. “You fucking just scared the shit out of me, you know that?”

  “Jaden, what are you doing here?” Justin says, his voice calm but somehow angry at the same time.

  “What am I doing here?” I repeat. “What are you doing here? I left my phone at your house on purpose because I thought it had a tracking device on it.”

  “Jaden… what…?” Justin seems so surprised, for a second he splutters and can barely talk. “Is that why you left it?”

  “How did you find me?” I demand, mimicking the tone of a villain to a private detective.

  “Well, after driving around Pacific Palisades all day looking for you, I finally decided to pay your friend Carly in Venice a visit. She said this was one of your spots.”

  “Yeah, well, Carly can bite me,” I grumble. “I don’t know what her problem is lately.”

  “She seemed pretty concerned about you, Jaden. What are you doing here? Is this about the book report? Jaden, it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  I just sit there for a second, my knees pulled into my chest and my chin on my knees. I focus on glaring at the grocery store across the street like it’s the root cause of all my problems in life. “You said you would spank me if I didn’t do my homework,” I finally mumble.

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about,” Justin says, slow and knowingly. “You’re upset because I didn’t hold you accountable for your actions.”

  “No!” I burst out, although really I’m not sure that it isn’t. “I’m upset because one of these days you’re going to realize you can’t fix me and throw me out.”

  For a moment, there’s only silence. Then Justin says quietly, “Where’d you come up with that idea?”

  “Carly,” I say, hoping to tarnish his perfect image of my stupid ex-friend. “But then after she met you, she took it back.”

  “Oh, okay, I see. So that’s why you were such a grump in the car last night.”

  “No, I was a grump in the car because you wouldn’t stop and get me candy.”

  “Jaden…”

  “Okay, okay,” I admit. “I was also thinking about something your brother said. Who’s Camille?”

  I blab it out rather abruptly, causing a long, awkward silence. Finally, he says, “I guess I should have clarified a few things to you the day of your little eavesdropping session. Camille is my ex-girlfriend. She had a prescription pill problem, and after trying for years to get her treatment, I finally had to break up with her because she wouldn’t help herself.”

  For some reason, this doesn’t seem nearly as bad as I made things out to be in my head. “But then why did your brother compare the two of us?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, Jaden, because he was mad and probably saying whatever it was he thought he could to upset me. You know, this is one of the reasons you shouldn’t be listening in on other people’s conversations anyway.”

  I ignore that last bit. “You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do when I fuck everything up. Because that’s what I do, Justin. It’s kind of who I am. A fuck-up.”

  “Jaden, do you think you get a pass on swearing because we’re on your own turf?” His voice goes stern all of a sudden, and I feel my stomach do its usual flip-flop at the sound of it. “Because you don’t.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, even though it seems pointless at this point. Like I’ve already gone too far beyond swearing for a simple apology to make much of a difference now.

  “And as for your earlier question, I told you what I was going to do to you when you mess up, and that’s put you over my knee for a spanking, or some other kind of punishment. You’re the one who came up with all this stuff about me throwing you out because you’re a lost cause or whatever, which really makes no sense since you’ve been doing so well. You’re going to succeed, Jaden. I know you will, and do you want to know how I know?”

  “How?” I answer automatically, not even really wanting to.

  “Because you want to, I know you do. I can see it in your face. That makes you different. Different from my ex-girlfriend, different from Alex. They don’t want to change, but you do. You’re practically begging for it. Aren’t you?”

  “But what about the book report?” I say in a small voice, evading his question.

  “Jaden, it was an honest mistake. That’s why I didn’t spank you, though maybe I should have.”

  “Well, what about last night?” I goad him. “You just locked me away in my room after I gave you attitude the whole car ride home.”

  “Oh, my God, I’m stupid,” he says, shaking his head a little
bit at himself. “How did I not see it before? You were testing me, weren’t you? Making sure I would stay true to my word. The truth is, Jaden, after our little incident last week, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to control myself around you. I didn’t want to admit it before, but I have feelings for you.”

  “You mean like, real feelings? Romantic feelings?”

  “Right,” Justin says, his usual confident tone wavering just a smidgen.

  “I guess we’re in the same boat then,” I reveal, simultaneously vacant and yet climactic.

  “Jaden?” Justin says, after a beat.

  “What?” I snap, after waiting just as long.

  “Do you know how badly I’m torturing myself by not kissing you right now?”

  I stare him dead in the eyes. “So, then, do it.”

  All at once, I’m consumed by him. He cradles the back of my head in his hand as he brings my face toward his and our lips meet. The feel of his is warm and soft and velvety, with hints of sweet honey. Time becomes meaningless, superfluous. I decide I that I want to stay like this forever.

  Too soon though, Justin begins pulling away. “Don’t stop,” I beg him, feeling his fingers on my chin as he breaks the kiss.

  “Mmm,” he groans. “I have to.”

  “No…”

  “We can’t stay in this bush all night,” he rationalizes. “We can finish this later. Right now I have to take you home and give you a good spanking for this stunt you pulled today.”

  Even though it makes my stomach do a flip-flop to hear this, I’m also feeling oddly comforted and relieved. Though I can’t let Justin know this. “Do we have to?” I whine out reluctantly.

  “You know the answer to that,” Justin insists. “And after all you put me through, I think you deserve a dose of the paddle today. Which I can assure you you’re not going to like very much.”