by Sadie Allen
I was about to get up and head for the door when she spoke.
“What Asher and Ashley are doing to you is wrong. I was never in a position to say or do anything before since you and I never seem to be in the same place, but I’ve heard. Even a nobody like me hears gossip. Today, Ashley handed me the opportunity to finally say something.”
I couldn’t look at her. Too many emotions were swirling inside of me. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry because of this girl. This girl who I never even paid attention to before today, who had had my back against a person I used to think I loved. Someone who should have stood by me when my life fell apart.
Though I had been Ashley’s boyfriend for over a year, I had been her friend long before that since Asher had been my best friend from the time we started Pee-Wee football. I thought she knew me. I thought we were close. However, one thing this whole mess had taught me was that people weren’t who you thought they were, and blind faith and trust were for fools.
You only really knew who your true friends were when you were at your lowest with nothing to offer. After the smoke cleared, that was when you finally saw who was left standing beside you. Unfortunately for me, I found myself alone when everything had been said and done.
“We’re not responsible for our parents’ actions, good or bad. If your friends couldn’t see that, then they were never really your friends. You and your mom are the victims in this situation, not Asher or Ashley, or even the football team.
“For them to treat you this way says more about them than it does about you. All the people who are standing by and letting them do this are no better. We’re not extensions of our parents, or even reflections of them. We’re separate people with minds of our own, who may or may not agree with all the decisions that they make or have made for us. Yet, here you are, shouldering the blame for something you are not responsible for, and frankly, that’s none of their business. It’s not fair.”
By the time she was done speaking, her chest was rising and falling so fast you would have thought she had just finished running a race. I had a feeling that some of the things she said weren’t just about me, and that maybe having “Laughing Lonny” as a father hadn’t been such a great experience. I also learned that Sunny Blackfox was quickly becoming one of my favorite people in the whole world.
“So, pre-law for you after graduation?”
Sunny let out a breathless chuckle, and I instantly wanted to make her do it again. I didn’t think I had ever seen her smile or laugh.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because it seems like you have a strong sense of justice, or fairness—or whatever you want to call it. You were very passionate in that speech there.”
She blushed, which was another thing I hadn’t ever seen her do.
“Shut up,” she said without any real heat. “Actually,” she continued, “I want to go to culinary school. So, no pre-law for me … Which reminds me that I need to get going, or I’m going to be late for work.”
She then turns to her backpack and starts rooting around before finally pulling out a torn piece of paper. Taking a pen from one of the front pockets, she starts to scribble numbers on the torn piece of paper. When she’s done, she hands me the paper.
“Since our planning was interrupted and we still need to go over what we’re going to do Monday, here’s my number. You can text me if you can come up with something better than box cakes or cookies. If not, I will send you my recipe, and we can divide up the supplies.”
I looked at the scrap of paper in my hand and, sure enough, it had Sunny written in loopy, girly print with her number underneath it.
I took my phone out of my pocket and swiped my thumb across the screen, opening my contacts before entering her info. Otherwise, I would probably forget about it and lose that scrap of paper. Then I opened up my text messages and shot her a text.
When her phone dinged, I said, “Now you have my number, too.”
We stood there, smiling at each other longer than necessary.
“Well, I better get going. I’m already on my way to being late for work. I’ll either text you tonight once I finish my shift or tomorrow morning.”
I watched her put on her coat and grab her backpack before she headed toward the door. When she hit the doorway, she stopped and looked back at me from over her shoulder, her face serious again.
“Don’t let those people get you down, Judd. A year from now, this will all be a memory. Not a good memory, but a memory just the same.” And then she was gone.
She was like a teenage Yoda, I could swear. I definitely had a lot to think over this weekend.
Judd
I SLAMMED THE DOOR SHUT on my Jeep then headed up the walk to my house. The good mood from my time with Sunny was beginning to evaporate with each step I took, dread coiling in the pit of my stomach and leaving a sour taste in the back of my throat.
I hated coming home. I never knew what I was going to find behind that door. What had once been a happy home was now a shell of its former self. You couldn’t tell by looking at it from the outside, but the changes that had occurred inside over the last two months had left my family unrecognizable.
My dad had left us. No, he hadn’t just left us, he had destroyed us. The leaving part of the situation wasn’t what had made my life fall apart, though. It was the way he had left.
The man who had been my father all my life was a lie. The high school football coach and athletic director, with one of the most winning records in the state, the former college football star, the man who loved to hunt and fish in his spare time, the man who had married his college sweetheart—all lies.
In reality, he was a man who wanted to be a woman. That’s right. My father had left to become a woman. Right before Christmas, he had been caught in his alter ego clothes, and the pictures had been posted all over social media.
He had told us he was leaving for a weekend camping trip, but that had been a lie, too. All those weekend camping trips, ones he had never invited me to, were trips he had taken so he could go be “himself,” whoever the hell that was. I had never understood why I had been left out when I loved being outdoors, either camping, hunting, or fishing. Now I was glad I had never been invited along.
Needless to say, Mom and I had been blindsided by this and the community’s reaction. Sand Creek was a small community that was extremely conservative. If we couldn’t understand the situation with my dad, no one else could, either. The difference was that they didn’t want to understand.
The school had called that Sunday night, after he had been caught, letting Dad know his positions as athletic director and head football coach were terminated due to a violation of the “moral clause” in his contract. Thing was, Dad had been gone before they had even called.
He had come home sometime Friday night after he had been caught and must have had it out with Mom, because Saturday morning, he and his stuff were gone. All I got was a note on the kitchen counter, saying he was sorry. No explanation. No conversation. Nothing.
I guessed that had been my mother’s doing.
She didn’t want to deal, and she didn’t want to talk. The mother I knew, the one who would get up and cook us breakfast every morning, who kept the cookie jar full despite working a nine to five job as an accountant, was gone.
I walked down the hall to my room and threw my stuff on the bed. I knew where she was, and I really didn’t want to see her, but laundry had to be done. That was one of the things that I’d had to learn recently if I wanted to wear clean clothes.
I gathered up all the clothes lying on the floor of my bedroom, and then checked the bathroom, picking up the ones in there. When I hit the mouth of the kitchen, I saw her at the counter, pouring herself a glass of wine.
“Did you get mine, too?” she asked.
There was no more, “Hi, how was your day?” or anything anymore. She was more interested in her laundry and the bottom of a bottle.
“Nope,” I replied, co
ntinuing on through the kitchen and into the laundry room.
Opening the washer, I dumped everything in with one of those pod things and turned it on. All my clothes were darks since I had already ruined the whites.
I went back into the kitchen, hoping I could get a drink without having to talk to her. Nothing she said anymore was good.
One of the best women I had ever known was now a shadow of herself. She complained about anything and everything, but never said a word about the one thing I really wanted to talk about, not even to complain. Oh, I had tried to talk to her about what had happened with my dad several times, but she wouldn’t go there. She had shut down, and the nights always ended with her passed out somewhere in the house and me cleaning up her vomit. No thanks.
“I have a pile in my room. And be sure to use fabric softener this time, okay? You didn’t last week, and my clothes were itchy.”
I didn’t even look at her as I opened the fridge, looking for the pitcher of tea I had made yesterday.
“Also, you need a job.”
I accidentally knocked my head against the fridge door as I reared back to look at her. She was leaning back against the counter with the glass in front of her face, looking at me from over the rim.
In some ways, she still looked the same. Her hair was still blonde, and her eyes were still blue. She was thin, but I wasn’t sure if it was from her diet and exercise routine anymore. If you really looked at her, though, her roots were showing gray, which she used to keep meticulously dyed, and there were bags under her eyes. Despite being thin, though, her face had grown fuller and the skin sallow. I didn’t know if most people would take notice because she still dressed the same and mimicked the person she had once been in public, but I saw it. I lived with the knowledge that she wasn’t the same person she had been back in the fall, and maybe never would be again.
“Why?” The word was harsh, and maybe I sounded like a punk, but a job? Who was going to hire me?
“Won’t be able to keep up with your Jeep payments after this month. I just can’t do it on my salary alone anymore. So, if you want to keep it, you’re going to have to take over the payments.”
I clenched my teeth and curled my hands into fists, trying to keep the words I wanted to yell inside. Why was I even surprised? Why was all this happening? I had three months left of my senior year, and then I would be gone. I had gotten a partial scholarship to play football at the University of North Texas, and I needed that Jeep to get me to school this summer. I also needed it to get me to school in the mornings and to the field to train. How would I fit a job into all that as well? I couldn’t trust my Mom to take me places, or for her to be sober when she was behind the wheel.
Maybe I could look for something cheaper, but I didn’t want to. It might be immature and selfish to want to keep the Jeep, but I had lost so many things this year already. Why couldn’t I keep one of the last things I loved? And I did love that Jeep.
Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “Okay, Mom, I’ll start looking for a job.”
Closing the refrigerator door, drink forgotten, I hauled my ass back down the hall toward my room. If I was going to keep the Jeep, I needed to start looking for a job today. After that, I would head out to the park for a run and to throw some balls.
I was almost to my bedroom door when she yelled, “You’ll need to start paying for your own gas, too!”
Eff my life.
Sunny
HAVE YOU EVER HAD one of those days that felt like it was something out of a movie? Like you had to look around to make sure it was real, that there weren’t cameras pointed in your direction, and that this wasn’t your real life, but a movie scene?
That was what today felt like. From the moment I woke up, I knew something was going to happen. My grana would say it was the Cherokee blood running through my veins that made me more in tune with the universe. I didn’t know about all that, but I figured something would happen today that would change my life. And I had been right.
I finally did something I had been wanting to do for months. I took a stand.
For months, boys from the football team and their hangers-on had been punishing Judd Jackson for things that were beyond his control. I had never been around to witness the name calling or some of the “pranks” that were played on Judd, but I had heard. And it was brutal.
The people who were supposed to be his friends, and even the girl who claimed to love him, had turned their backs on him. All because who they considered their “golden boy” wasn’t so golden in their eyes anymore, which was stupid.
I had finally been a witness to Ashley ripping into Judd while he never said a word, and my heart broke. He just took their hate and closed down.
What had once been an outgoing guy with a quick smile had turned into a quiet one who looked like a kicked puppy. I just couldn’t stand it anymore, so I did something. Now I was going to have to watch my back, though I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything Ashley Klein could do to me. I had done the right thing, and no matter what happened next, at least I would be able to look at myself in the mirror when I got up every morning.
It had all been just so surreal.
Not only that; I had actually had a conversation with Judd Jackson and gave him my phone number. The middle school girl inside my head giggled.
Like every girl at school, I’d had a huge crush on him since I first saw him across the playground in elementary school. Over the years, especially after he had started dating Ashley, that crush had lessened. I was too busy working and studying to worry about boys and crushes. I had bigger things to deal with, like bills and saving up enough money to live on while I attended school next fall. But today, for the first time in a long time, I had felt butterflies in my tummy and my palms had sweated when we talked, and I knew that teeny tiny crush was still very much alive.
Now I was late for my job at Sally’s and would have to stay after closing, doing busy work to make up the time.
I ran back to the kitchen while still tying on my apron to let Sally know I was on the clock. All she did was look at me with one brow raised before getting back to stirring what smelled like her famous firehouse chili in a big pot on the stove.
The diner was empty except for a couple of people sitting at the counter, drinking coffee. It was early afternoon, so there wasn’t anyone ordering a meal.
I checked on the two men who were drinking coffee and topped them off before grabbing the silverware basket and a stack of paper napkins. Then I settled into a back booth and began rolling the silverware in the napkins and piling them on the table. That was when the bell above the front door jingled, and I looked up from my task to see none other than Judd Jackson standing in the doorway.
My heart started beating overtime, and my hands lost their rhythm, making a compete mess of the silverware in front of me.
Judd was scanning the diner. His eyes hadn’t made it to my corner yet, so I just sat there and stared at him. He was still wearing the clothes he wore to school: a black T-shirt that stretched taut over his chest and biceps, under a faded leather jacket, faded jeans, and a pair of black Nikes. He was tall, six-foot something, and his shoulder-length golden hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
I loved his hair. It wasn’t exactly straight, and it wasn’t exactly curly. I guessed it was kind of wavy, and it looked amazing when he had it up in one of those man buns.
When he started to grow it out last summer, I thought the school had changed the dress code just so he could have that hairstyle. Now it was something Asher and his friends mocked. I was glad he kept it, despite what those jerks said to him about it.
Finally, those blue eyes landed on me, and when he smiled, I forgot to breathe for a second before answering him with a smile of my own. The boy was just too gorgeous for his own good.
As he approached the table, I sat up straighter, anticipation tingling along my skin and making my fingers feel almost numb. Why was he here? Did he come look
ing for me? I wasn’t sure he even knew I worked here.
“Hey, stranger.”
“Hey, Judd.”
There was a beat of silence as we just looked at one another, Judd with his hands jammed in his pockets, and me still sitting in the booth, the bundled mess of napkins and silverware in front of me.
“What brings you to Sally’s?” I finally asked.
The middle school girl in me was chanting, “please say me, please say me,” while my practical side wanted to slap her across the face and tell her to get ahold of herself.
“Thought I’d come by and talk to Sally,” he said with a shrug. His smile slipped a little, and his brows scrunched together, making a dent form between them.
I could feel myself deflate a bit, but my curiosity was curtailing the disappointment I felt.
What did he need to talk to Sally about? Everyone, of course, knew who Sally was. Her personality was as big as her hair, and she had been running this diner since Kennedy was in the White House.
“Here, let me walk you back to the kitchen. I’m sure she’s almost finished with the chili for the dinner crowd.”
I slid out of the booth and led him around the corner and back toward the kitchen. I could feel his eyes on my back, and it almost made me stumble a few times.
I opened the swinging door and called out, “Hey, Sally! Got a visitor,” as I guided him through the doors and into the kitchen.
Sally swung her head around to look at me with both brows raised. When she saw who her visitor was, her wrinkled face split into a grin, showing her dingy, pack a day, unnaturally straight false teeth.
“Woo, Lordy! Judd Jackson, to what do I owe the pleasure?” She wiped her hands on the towel that was perched on her shoulder then placed her hands on her narrow hips.
Judd coughed into his fist before he said, “I was wondering if I could to talk to you about something.” He glanced at me quickly, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his cheeks pinkened just the tiniest bit. And as if I hadn’t already gotten the hint, he added, “Alone.”
