Just Friends

by Elana Johnson

  The other girls I’d dated hadn’t been regulars at my dinner table. They’d been in my classes or able to leap a mean hurdle. I didn’t know how to bridge the gap between friends and more-than-friends.

  I glanced to my left, knowing who could help.

  Next door, a light seeped around the blinds in the window closest to me. The section of roof outside her room mirrored mine. I could leap the five feet between our houses, knock on the window, and ask Holly’s advice. Before, I would have. Before, she’d already be out here with me, discussing everything— her track training, and the fourteen she’d gotten on her history essay. My sister, and Omar, and Jade.

  I ignored the tightness in my stomach, swallowed hard against the emotion rising in my throat, and climbed back into my room.

  4

  “Drew, come on!” I yelled as I grabbed a Pop-Tart package from the cupboard. “We’re gonna be late!”

  “I’m not coming!” Drew yelled from upstairs. “I have a ride!”

  Dad padded into the kitchen, still wearing his pajamas. “Don’t know if you heard,” he said. “But she has a ride.”

  “I heard,” I said, my mood suddenly dark. I knew who would be giving her that ride, and Omar was probably waiting around the corner for my car to go by so he’d know it was safe to approach.

  “Okay, see you later,” I said to my dad, but he blocked the door leading from the kitchen to the garage.

  “So you and Jade?”

  “What? No. Not yet.” I shoved half of the Pop-Tart in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk.

  “I saw you two last night,” he said.

  I flashed to an image of us holding hands on Danny’s trampoline. No way Dad could’ve seen that. There was a fence and everything.

  “You didn’t see anything, Dad,” I said, wishing I had the force from Star Wars and could wave my hand and erase whatever he thought he’d seen.

  “You usually just wave as she rides off,” Dad said. “But last night, Mom had all your chores done and had read a chapter in her book before you even came in.”

  “So what?” I said. “Mom doesn’t have to do my chores.”

  “You just said ‘not yet,’ which implies that you’re hoping for there to come a time that there will be a you and Jade.”

  “Sure, okay, Dad.” I rolled my eyes like he didn’t understand teenagers, but he was one-hundred percent right.

  Dad shrugged and allowed me to escape into the garage, but it didn’t drown out his words. I saw you last night.

  What had he seen? How did I make sure no one else saw it?

  Holly and Lance were talking at my locker when I rounded the corner to Senior Row. A sense of relief washed over me at the same time I tensed up. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, and I couldn’t decide how to feel.

  “…yesterday,” Holly said as I spun my combination. “Can I hitch one with you today too?”

  I pulled out my books as Lance said, “Yeah, sure.” He met my eyes, and I found absolute glee in his.

  “Great, thanks, Lance.” Holly stretched up and patted me on the head like a dog—something she did to tease me about my unruly hair—and smiled as she left.

  “What was that?” I asked, smoothing my hair back into place.

  “Dude, I took her home yesterday after track. She needs another ride today.” He watched her walk away. “She is so hot.”

  “You’re disgusting,” I said.

  “Have you seen her?” He leaned against my locker, his thumbs hooked through his backpack straps. “She’s hot. Every guy wants her. You’re the only one who doesn’t.”

  “It’s Holly.”

  “She’s not ten anymore, man. Have you even noticed?” He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. “Look at her.”

  I watched her weave through the crowd, her auburn hair swinging left-right, left-right. She was taller than Jade—extraordinarily tall for a girl, I guess—but her skin was glittery-gold from the sun. She wore shorts, and the muscles in her legs were impressive.

  “I see her every day.”

  “Try to see her without her clothes on.” Lance chuckled. “I think you really need a reality check.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Greg doesn’t want her hanging out with me,” I said and closed my locker. The bell hadn’t rung yet, so we leaned against the wall. No sense in going to class early.

  Lance’s attention had shifted to a trio of girls, all of whom waggled their fingers at him like he was a puppy. He put on his undressing smile and gestured between me and him as if he didn’t know who the girls were interested in.

  “Lance,” I warned, ignoring the girls.

  “You know, you’re not using me the right way,” Lance said, glancing at me. “All those girls would love to go out with you.” He jerked his head toward the loitering girls. I couldn’t tell if they were freshmen or sophomores. No matter what, they were way too young.

  Lance straightened and focused on me. “I mean, you’re tall, Mitch. Girls love a tall guy. They think it means you’re, you know….”

  I stared at him with my best you’ve got to be kidding me look.

  “And your hair, while a bit stand-uppy, is a nice shade of brown.” He reached toward me as if to touch my hair. I must’ve put enough anger into my glare, because he pulled his hand back. He gazed into my eyes. “Nice eyes too. The blue is reeeal nice.”

  “Do you like guys now?” I asked, turning away from him, beyond thankful the warning bell was ringing. He laughed as we moved into the stream of students heading toward E-hall and foreign language.

  “So if Holly’s riding with me, can I kiss her when I drop her off?” Lance mused.

  I refrained from shoving some sophomore out of my way. “She has a boyfriend, man. Seriously, you’re such a prick.”

  Lance stopped outside his Spanish classroom. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Prick? You wound me. I don’t think you’d be saying that if you’d gotten some last night. Dinner with Jade Montgomery must not have gone well.” He grinned, saluted, and ducked into his class before I could respond.

  I stared after him, torn between wondering how he could talk so casually about sex and wondering how Lance knew Jade had come over for dinner. Did he really think I’d invited Jade to dinner just to seduce her? Of course he did, because that was what he would do.

  My phone buzzed, and when I glanced down, I wished I hadn’t.

  Is Jade coming over again tonight?

  From Lance.

  I shook my head and responded with a not telling before continuing down the hall. Lance and I had become friends after I quit football and signed up for cross-country. He was fast, and I used him as my pacer. In seventh grade, he wasn’t quite the womanizer he is today. But he did introduce me to “going with” girls, and I watched my first R-rated movie at his house.

  Our friendship had cemented in ninth grade, when we took first and second in the biggest track meet of the year. We became co-captains of the varsity team as sophomores, and Coach Braeburn was counting on us to lead the team to victory. We ran long distances fast and hard, because we both coped with our lives through running. But pounding the pavement wasn’t enough. So Lance kissed a lot of girls, and I escaped into schoolwork, or chores, or whatever would please my parents.

  If I was being honest, Lance was a lot of what I wished I could be: The guy who knew exactly when to smile and could make his voice say whatever he wanted. The guy who could look at and touch girls. The guy who didn’t have a volunteer-pastor father to answer to and a mother who knew if the slightest thing was wrong just by looking.

  Lance didn’t get why I ran so hard, but I understood why he did. His mother had abandoned him when he was in kindergarten. She was supposed to pick him up after school, and she didn’t. Never came that day, and never came home again. By third grade, his father had switched his schedule so he worked the swing shift at the 911 dispatch simply so he wouldn’t have to be around his son.

  Lance was raised by whatever was on television, a
nd TV dinners, and anyone he could get to come home with him. By the time we became friends and he started hanging out at my house, he’d decided to do whatever it took to leave Bellvue. He was a closet almost-valedictorian, something he made me swear never to talk about in public. He didn’t want anyone to know he studied anything besides how to pick up girls, claiming it would “ruin his reputation.”

  I ducked into French just as the bell rang, trying to decide which I hated more: The fact that Holly wasn’t riding home with me, or that Lance knew about Jade Montgomery, or that Omar had kissed Drew.

  As soon as I saw Omar lounging in the back of the class, I knew. It wasn’t that Drew had kissed Omar. I sat next to him and held up my fist for him to bump. He did. No words were spoken. Nothing to be said anyway. I wasn’t exactly approving their relationship, but I didn’t see what I could do about it. Besides ratting on Drew to Mom and Dad… which didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  “Youth group tomorrow?” he asked. Omar wasn’t really into religion—not the way my family was—but his mom worked almost every night, and he said being anywhere was better than being home alone.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Has Holly texted?” he asked next.

  A ripple of frustration streaked through me. I didn’t want to talk about Holly, but if there was one person who wouldn’t question if I liked her—or suggest I start envisioning her naked—it was Omar.

  “Yeah, she has,” I said, real low. “But it’s… weird between us.”

  Omar looked at me with sympathy in his eyes. “She doesn’t talk to me either, if that makes you feel better.”

  It did, a little. Holly and I had met Omar at our Wednesday youth group meetings the summer after sixth grade, when he moved to town. It only took two weeks before he came home with me after youth group, and then we were playing Warcraft to waste the too-hot hours of the afternoon, and then the three of us started spending Friday nights at movies and Saturday evenings playing board games with Holly’s little brother Scott. That summer, and pretty much ever since, we’d been inseparable. Holly’s radio silence clearly affected Omar more than he’d previously let on.

  “She’s…” I started, but couldn’t figure out how to finish.

  “Yeah,” Omar said, because sometimes he knew what I meant even when I couldn’t articulate it.

  I endured French, calculus, and health before lunch found me sitting next to Ivy. She wore a streak of purple in her hair today, and she glommed onto me like she wouldn’t be able to walk without the support of my arm as we moved to fourth period. She giggled and waggled her fingertips at me (the same way those sophomore girls had this morning) as she moved into the girls’ locker room.

  I made a mental note to text her and… do what exactly? Tell her I didn’t want to kiss her after we got ice cream on Friday? Tell her that I didn’t like the way she clung to me like I belonged to her?

  I wouldn’t say any of those things. Let her think what she wants, I thought as I changed into my running shorts and headed outside.

  The fall heat made my lungs feel heavy, but running would be enough to clear them—and hopefully my head. During warm-ups, Coach Braeburn blustered on about cut-off times and Westlake’s strong distance runners, but I didn’t listen. Lance stood next to me, his face as stoic as mine. He took his running seriously, even if he’d never had a real relationship in his life. I caught his eye and recognized the fire inside. I felt it consuming my stomach too.

  As soon as Coach blew the whistle, I set my feet into a blistering pace, and ran, Lance right beside me.

  5

  Omar and Drew were sitting on the front porch when I got home. Thankfully, they weren’t kissing, though I did notice their fingers were all tangled up as I tossed them a glare and continued through the garage.

  “Backpack,” Mom said as I dropped mine on the floor. “Not there. Shoes!”

  I flung everything in the closet where she couldn’t see it and pulled out my phone.

  Jade (17) made me smile so wide, I didn’t care about Omar and Drew sitting on the front porch, or the mountain of calculus homework and French verbs waiting in my backpack, or that Lance had reached the finish line a whole stride ahead of me.

  “Going to shower,” I mumbled to Mom, then I clicked on Jade’s text string, which began during fourth hour track.

  What horrors will biology have today?

  A few minutes later, she followed that with: Never mind. I forgot you have track on B days.

  Maybe I can come over after dinner.

  Or you could come over here…

  The rest of the messages were little things about what the kids in her Ancient Civilizations class were doing, and what Mr. Miner was saying about Tibetan monks.

  Pounding sounded on the bathroom door. I jumped, almost dropping my phone in the toilet. I swore and yelled, “What?”

  “Mitch!” Mom called. “Someone’s on the phone for you. Have you gotten in the shower yet?”

  “No,” I said, opening the door. “Why didn’t they just text me?” I hated talking on the phone.

  “I think its Dan,” Mom said, “I left it in the kitchen.”

  “Dan has my cell number,” I muttered as I went to retrieve the home phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mitch,” a guy said. Not Dan. Not Lance—he would’ve texted a stream of sexual innuendos to keep me guessing if he’d been invited into Holly’s house or not.

  “It’s Greg Matthews.”

  I turned away from Mom humming as she pulled a casserole dish out of the fridge.

  “Hey, Greg,” I said, moving into the living room so Mom couldn’t overhear.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, okay, so I was wondering if you’d seen Holly after track.”

  “No,” I said, determined to keep my answers as short as possible.

  “She left her phone in my car,” he said, “and I’m at her place, and she’s not here.”

  I fought the urge to peer through the slats in the blinds. “Lance was giving her a ride home,” I said. “Because, well, you know, because…” You don’t like me. Don’t want me spending time with your girlfriend, even though I’m not interested in Holly like that and she’s not interested in me like that.

  “…Because he has that sweet Mustang now,” I finished. Lance’s father was notorious for buying his son expensive things, as if they could make up for not having parents. His Mustang was bright red and went from zero to sixty in like, three seconds. I knew, because Lance did it every time I rode anywhere with him.

  “They should be home by now, shouldn’t they?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I got home about ten minutes ago.” I looked through the blinds. Omar and Drew were sitting in front of the window, blocking any view of the street I might have had. I knocked on the glass just so they didn’t start sucking face while I was watching.

  Drew turned and stuck out her tongue.

  I rolled my eyes and dropped the blinds back into place. “I don’t know what to tell you.” I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. Sure enough, Greg leaned against the hood of his own two-seater sports car, phone pressed to his ear.

  I hung up. “Maybe they’re just caught in traffic,” I called. “Or maybe Lance got pulled over. He likes to drive fast.”

  Greg turned toward me, his shoulders wide and his brown hair falling into his face. He didn’t smile as he crossed my lawn. “I’ll leave this with you, then,” he said. “I’m gonna be late for work.” He held out Holly’s phone.

  “You could just put it in her mailbox. Her mom will get it.”

  He shook the phone at me. “Nah. You give it to her.”

  I took it and flipped it over, and over, and over. By the time I looked up again, Greg was sliding behind the wheel of his Miata. In the next moment, he gunned the engine and was gone.

  I shot Drew and Omar a warning glance, and Omar jumped up, that characteristic “I’ve screwed up” look on his face. “I’ve got to get home for dinner.”
/>   What a lie. His mom worked nights at KFC, and fried chicken was as close to dinner as he came.

  “You don’t have to go,” I said in an attempt to de-ice Drew. “My mom just put in a casserole. I’m sure there will be plenty.”

  He looked between me and Drew, who had her arms folded across her chest. She stared pointedly away from me.

  “Nah, it’s fine,” he said. “I promised my mom I’d get the lawn mowed anyway.” He bumped fists with me and left, while Drew continued ignoring me.

  “You can stop the silent treatment now,” I said as I re-entered the house. “I’m not going to punch him.”

  “Really?” The bench squeaked as she stood up. “So you’ll stop lecturing me about him?”

  “As soon as you start wearing shirts that cover that—” I gestured in the vicinity of her cleavage without looking at her. “Then I’ll stop lecturing you.”

  Drew put her hands on her hips. “So now you’re going to lecture me about how I dress?”

  “It’s skanky,” I said. “No offense.”

  “No offense?” Her face blotched. “I’m offended you just called me, your only sister, a skank.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” I argued, tossing the cordless phone onto the couch. “I said that shirt was, but FYI, most guys don’t differentiate the two.”

  “Don’t use your big words on me,” Drew said, following me into the house.

  I sighed. I honestly didn’t want to fight with her. “Look, you gotta give a guy something to imagine. Shirts like that—” I glanced down and back up again real quick. “Well, there’s not much left to imagine, and it’s disgusting the way you’re just throwing those things out there for every guy to ogle.”

  Her mouth worked for a second before she said, “You are such a jerk.”

  “Drew—” I started, but she stomped toward the stairs without looking back. She charged upstairs to her room and slammed the door.