by Sadie Allen
I was momentarily mesmerized, lost in a way that dulled the pain that was a living, breathing thing inside me. The buzzing bees were muted as I stared into those smoldering depths.
I knew those eyes. I sometimes felt them on me at school. They belonged to Sterling Chapman.
Funny, I thought distantly, that he should be the one to intrude on this moment. I had always had kind of a thing for him. He was insanely hot, hotter than Miles on his best day, but totally off limits. He was a theater kid with a lip ring. My parents would freak and lock me in my room if he ever showed up at our door.
Besides having a cool name like Sterling and the lip ring, he was tall with shaggy black hair and arresting eyes that felt like they could see right through you. He had a square jawline, high cheekbones that highlighted his fantastic bone structure, and when he flashed his signature grin, you could see his perfectly straight, white teeth.
There was just something about him. It was in the way he held his body, so confident and sure that it bordered on cocky. If he was in the room, it was impossible to take your eyes away from him.
A twinge of something that felt strangely like regret tightened my chest. Maybe in a different life, I could have been the kind of girl who was free to make her own choices. One who could be Sterling Chapman’s girlfriend. One who could pick out her own clothes, be friends with whomever she wanted, and who could eat whatever she wanted.
I rubbed my chest, right where my heart should be. What would a life like that be like?
“Hello? Allison?”
I blinked out of my musings as harsh reality intruded.
I was not that girl.
Never to be that girl.
I clenched my jaw. It felt as if ice was creeping, hardening, and encasing my heart, my body, rapidly spreading until I was hard and cold all the way through—a living ice sculpture.
Sterling had been speaking to me for a while, but I was so absorbed in my misery that I had failed to hear his words. His face looked pinched, and his lips were devoid of his usual, carefree smirk.
I didn’t reply. I stared in stony silence, waiting for him to continue or leave. At the moment, I didn’t care either way. I cared about nothing. Then something struck me …
I narrowed my eyes. “Did you just call me Allison?”
“What’s with the pills?” he barked.
I ignored him. “Did you just call me Allison?”
“That’s your name, yeah?”
“Yeah, but no one ever calls me that. Everyone calls me Ally.”
“Well, Allison, what’s the deal with that bottle of prescription pills and you standing up here in your”—he gestured to my uniform—“track shit?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I then closed it and glared, only to open it again, hoping a sarcastic reply would miraculously fly out. Strangely, or maybe not so strange since I felt my icy shell cracking at the idea of him knowing my weakness, shame burned in my gut.
I focused my eyes away from his to a point over his shoulder. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t what it looked like, but sadly, it was exactly what it looked like.
I sighed and looked toward the horizon again. The sun had disappeared, and stars were beginning to dot the sky. The security lights had flickered to life, casting an eerie glow over the stadium and the school in the distance.
I was very aware of Sterling standing next to me. My skin prickled, and my heart danced an erratic beat. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was still watching me like he was still waiting for me to answer.
“Got nothing to say?”
It was like he was taunting me. His face was hard, unyielding, and I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I told him that I was just taking in the scenery.
When I still said nothing, he just shook his head.
“I thought you were better.”
What did that mean?
Before I could unravel the knot that had formed in my throat to ask, he had turned away and was now on his way down the steps.
I watched him go, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his black T-shirt that tapered down to a narrow waist. The guy was built like an athlete, yet he didn’t play a sport.
His last words caused something inside me to break, my icy shell a memory.
He thought I was better? Better than what? I wasn’t better. I was nobody.
After Sterling had left, I had tried my best to pick up all the pills he had knocked from my hands. I even went under the bleachers to pick up the ones in the dirt, using the light from my cell phone. It had taken forever, but I thought I had gotten them all. I would hate for a kid to find them and think they were candy.
I had then stuffed them all back in the pill bottle and stashed it under my driver’s seat. I couldn’t sneak them back into my mother’s medicine cabinet because they were all covered in dirt, so they would just have to wait there until I could dispose of them without danger.
Now I was parking my car in the designated spot on the circle driveway in front of my house. It was late, which meant he was going to be mad. He always got mad if I came home after dark. Then I would have to hear another lecture about psychos who abducted women who had car trouble off the side of the road. Not only that, but I wasn’t supposed to be driving at all.
I blew out a breath. He was going to be in rare form. The prospect left me feeling exhausted and empty.
Most teenagers thought having a license meant freedom. Not for me. I got a different kind of weight shackled to my leg. The morning I took the test to get my driver’s license, I woke to find my bedroom door covered in newspaper articles. Newspaper articles about teenagers who died in horrific car wrecks, drunk driving incidents, people burned alive in their cars, broken necks, or ran over on the side of the road. I was surprised I had passed my driver’s test that morning. I had already been nervous, but after scanning those papers attached to my door, I wanted to curl into a ball and never leave my room.
I unplugged my phone from the car charger and looked at the screen. It was full of missed calls and text messages. Most were from my dad; others were from my mom, Miles, and the girls. All wondered where I was—my dad was getting more belligerent the later it got. I knew he was going to let me have it as soon as I walked through the door.
The front lights were blazing, and it seemed like every light inside the house was on, as well. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes, trying to calm my breathing by taking a deep breath, counting to five, and then releasing it for five. I had read online that this breathing exercise was good for warding off panic attacks.
I tried to visualize my happy place—a beach with warm, white sand and sparkling, clear blue water. However, the only blue I could see were Sterling Chapman’s eyes.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to think about Sterling. I also didn’t want to think about what awaited me inside that house.
What if I just cranked the engine and drove off? What if I just drove until I ran out of gas and disappeared?
I knew that would be impossible. My father was not a tolerant man. He would see my running away as a betrayal. If I left in my car, he would report it stolen and have me arrested. No one crossed Derek Everly, even his own daughter.
The knock on my window startled me. I looked to my left to see my father’s scowling face. He couldn’t even wait for me to come inside.
As I cracked the door open, he stepped back. Then, before I could even get a foot on the ground, he started in on me.
“What the hell do you think you are doing? You aren’t supposed to drive!”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he cut me off.
“Where have you been? Do you know what time it is? We have an appointment with the specialist tomorrow.”
I sighed. It wasn’t like I had just come from a place where I thought I would end my life or anything.
The “specialist” he was talking about was an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in sports medicine. Dad had pulled some strings—a client
who was an NFL player with a DUI record—and had gotten an appointment with the doctor on a Thursday.
Before I could answer any of his questions, he was already opening his mouth again, so I just stared at my feet and hoped he would get this over with soon. I really wanted to crash once I got in the house.
“Do you know what happens to young women who stay out after dark?”
“Nothing good?” I replied, concentrating hard on the bright colors that made up the outside of my Asics running shoes. I loved them because they look like hot pink paint had been splattered all over them.
I heard him make a sound in his throat and looked up to see his eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned until they disappeared.
I quickly dropped my eyes in an act of submission. He never wanted me to look him in the eyes. He might ask me to, but his stare would turn so cold I couldn’t bear to hold it for very long.
“Don’t talk back to me, Allison Marie Everly.”
I sighed again because, really, when you asked a question, didn’t you expect an answer?
“When we lived in Forney growing up, a girl was abducted by a serial killer off the side of the road. All they found was her sock. A sock, Allison! That’s all her parents had left to bury.”
I had heard this story from the time I was mobile and could wander away from them. I knew his next words before he even opened his mouth to deliver them.
“You have to keep your phone with you at all times. But not only that, you have to actually answer it, Allison. Do you want us to bury your socks one day because you weren’t within reach of your phone? Cars break down all the time. Yours shouldn’t, but you never know when you might run over a nail or a tack. We have OnStar for a reason. Even if your phone is dead, you can use the OnStar to call us to let us know where you are.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knew where I had been. I wouldn’t put it past him to have a tracer on my phone or even my car. Derek Everly was an attorney, after all. A defense attorney who kept most of his clients out of jail. He knew all the tricks in the book.
“So, where were you?” When I didn’t answer right away, he snapped, “Answer me!”
I jerked my head up and stuttered, “Um … I-I-I was at school.”
Self-loathing burned a hole in my stomach, and my heart felt heavy in my chest. I hated myself for stuttering in front of him. I hated exposing that weakness to him.
“This late? And in your uniform?” Doubt was heavy in his tone.
“Uh … I … uh … I wanted to make sure I turned in my practice gear before school tomorrow.”
I winced at the lie. It was terrible. I usually did so much better. I had gotten adept at lying over the years. I felt like I did nothing but lie to him. I lied about what I ate, because I wasn’t allowed anything that might be remotely bad for me. I even collected change just so I could have some money to buy Twinkies or a juice out of the vending machine. You wouldn’t believe all the places I had hidden food or hidden myself so I could eat the food I had been denied. I sometimes lied about where I was just because I could. It wasn’t like I was at a crack house or in some boy’s bedroom. Most of the time, I would just drive out to the lake and watch the water.
He eyed me in clear disbelief. “In your track uniform?”
I was so stupid. In my defense, it wasn’t like I had anticipated coming home and getting caught. As a result, I wasn’t prepared with an extra set of clothes.
It took everything I had to control my facial expression. “Um … I didn’t want them to forget I was part of the team. What if it’s the last time I get to wear it?”
It was supposed to be …
He eyed me again like he wanted to call me out on my lie, but I held his glacial stare steady as it froze me in place. I made sure to slow my breathing, relax my face, and keep my hands open instead of clenching them into fists like I wanted to. Any kind of hitch or tension would give me away. I learned that quickly after I had been caught a few times.
He let out a sigh then said, “Don’t think like that. Negative thinking only brings negative results. Just go on in the house. You’re too late to eat anything tonight. It’ll either turn to sugar or it won’t digest enough for you to burn it. Can’t afford to pack on the pounds now that you can’t run.”
I wanted to roll my eyes. Heaven forbid I stored any kind of fat.
I grabbed my crutches from the back seat and hobbled toward the house, through the front door, and straight to my room without another word. My dad didn’t even call out a goodnight like he usually did when I opened my bedroom door. Still, I flicked my fingers behind me anyway without looking back at him. I knew my mother was already in bed because staying up late “gave her wrinkles.”
I closed the door and leaned against it, my head making a thunk against the wood. Then I slid down as the weight of despair took my breath away. This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.
I rubbed the thigh of my hurt leg, my eyes burning right before tears slowly started leaking down my face, feeling hot against my cold skin.
Sterling’s words played on a loop in my head, even after I was in bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling. Five little words had had the power to steal the only activity that ever brought me peace.
I thought you were better …
I pulled into my assigned parking spot in the student lot and threw the car in park. My dad had finally relented this morning and let me drive again. I had missed school yesterday and couldn’t afford to miss another day and keep my position in the top ten of my class.
Dread sat heavily in my stomach like a stone, and my eyelids felt like they had sand in them. How could I go back into that building and pretend like the past two days had never happened?
I leaned back in the seat and tried to breathe deeply. I closed my eyes and pulled air into my lungs for five and released it for five. The hysteria that wanted to claw its way up my throat made it almost impossible. I knew I had to get out. Everyone was inside the building, and the bell would ring soon.
“Sterling!” a feminine voice cried out from somewhere behind my car, and my eyes shot open.
There he was, in the row in front of mine, the guy who had kept me up last night with his parting words. He was leaning against the trunk of an older model car that was rusted around the edges and had no paint, just that matte gray color.
He was just as beautiful as he was yesterday, dressed in worn jeans, a faded navy-blue Nirvana tee, and a slouchy gray toboggan that covered everything but the edge of his hairline. He hadn’t noticed me—thank God for small miracles—so I watched him watch a girl, who had shiny black hair that was so black it was almost blue and so long that it hung to her waist, strut up to him.
The closer she got to him, the darker his expression became. By the time she stood in front of him, his mouth was an angry slash and his brows were furrowed. What made my breath catch were his eyes. They were hard like marble and flat.
The chick’s head was bobbing side to side as she talked, and the more she talked, the scarier he looked.
I felt like a creeper as I watched him with this unknown female. Was she his girlfriend? No, his body language screamed, “go away.” Maybe she was an ex?
I shouldn’t care. Technically, I had a boyfriend. He wasn’t a good boyfriend, but I hadn’t seen the point in stirring up drama right before I killed myself by breaking up with him. I hadn’t bothered to reply to any of his messages, or anyone else’s from our group either. I guessed, if I was going to live, maybe I should scrape him off. My mother would hate it since she loved Miles, but she wasn’t the one dating the cheating jerkwad. I wondered what she would think of Sterling?
His eyes sliced my way like I had called his name aloud, and I froze, his unusual eyes pinning me in place. I could feel heat creep up my neck and hit my cheeks. Crap.
When the girl gave him a harsh shove to one shoulder, his eyes came back to her. He said something, and then it was her turn to spot me.
She looked over her s
houlder and narrowed her eyes while her lips pinched together like she had just sucked on a lemon. She was familiar, but I couldn’t remember her name. She was gorgeous in an exotic way that surpassed everyone in my group of friends, even with her face screwed up like that.
She then turned back to him, and there she went, the head bobbing again. This time, though, she added an arm stabbing in my direction.
Sterling’s face shut down. I knew he was done with whatever this girl was saying.
I didn’t know if I should try to make a run for it—not that I could—or if I should just sit there and wait for them to end their drama. Sterling soon answered that question by simply brushing past the girl as he made his way toward the building.
I berated myself for the small pang I felt when he didn’t spare me another glance. Sterling Chapman was off limits, and I would do well to remember that.
The girl, though, she shot me a venomous look before running after him as she called out his name again.
When the last bell sounded, I blew out a breath. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and all I wanted to do was drive away and never look back. I just hoped no one tattled on me to my parents about being tardy to first period.
I opened my car door and gingerly slid out before limping to the trunk and pulling my backpack out. With it hitched up on my shoulders, I slowly trudged up to the door, crutches digging into my armpits, cursing Sterling Chapman and his speckled blue eyes.
The good thing about being late was that Miles was already at his first period class. I knew he would be waiting for me outside the door when the bell rang, as usual. This time, though, he would be demanding answers.
I had successfully avoided him since the accident. I hadn’t answered any of his texts or calls. He had been busy with baseball, or so his text said, so he hadn’t been to my house. Thank God. Now, I was going to have to finally deal with him.
Irritation and weariness battled for predominance when I saw him waiting beside the door, a scowl marring his classically handsome face.
