Making Bad Choices

by Rita Stradling

  Picking up the bacon strip with his fingers, he took a bite, crunching it slowly.

  Now that we’d resolved that, I started in on my waffle and stopped talking, the waffle needed my undivided attention. I didn’t even look up as Culter received his coffee and ordered his breakfast.

  “Hungry?” he asked some time later.

  “Huh?” I looked up, mouth full, to find Culter had regained his full smirk. At some point, his food had arrived.

  I swallowed the food in my mouth. “What?”

  “I’ve never seen anyone so focused on their food. It was like you thought the waffle might escape.”

  Staring down at my empty plate, I sort of had a “wake up and realize people are there” moment. Actually, I had been tunnel visioning on my food and not on purpose. I was becoming weird lately.

  Trying to play it off, I suggested, “I’m a growing girl.”

  “Sure.” Culter took a bite of country fried steak. “So, how you feeling about tomorrow? You going to go to school?”

  “Are you?”

  “I have to go, but I don’t think anyone will blame you if you don’t go in.” He watched me carefully.

  Slowly, I asked, “Do you not want me to go tomorrow?”

  His brow furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I want you to go?”

  That was a complete non-answer.

  “It’s got to be weird.” I held my hands out, “I’m invading your school and house and everything.”

  When his face conveyed that he had no idea what I was talking about, I rolled my eyes.

  “If the situations were reversed, I know I’d have issues. Whatever. There’s nothing wrong with you not wanting me at your school, if you feel that way. I’m not going to be like . . . showing up at your lunch table and shit.”

  “I definitely want you at my lunch table,” he said.

  That was nice and all, but hanging out with Culter at school was definitely the opposite of my plan. Nothing against this new, likeable Culter, but he didn’t seem the type to go around school unnoticed.

  Being overlooked by the student population was the core of my plan for the remainder of my senior year. The way I figured it, I’d already done high school, had amazing friends, went to the dances and parties. Now, all I needed to do was graduate.

  “I think you’ll like it at Bulvin, the people are cool. I’ll introduce you around. Maybe I’ll even see if we can transfer over into some of the same classes.” Grinning, he took another bite of chicken fried steak.

  Crap. Now I was in one of those situations where if I told him I didn’t want to tag along with his friends I’d seem like I was looking down on him.

  “I usually just hang out in the art room at lunch,” I said.

  “I’m not sure we have one.” He looked away. “I think we have drama.”

  Maybe I wouldn’t go to school tomorrow, or ever.

  Jesus, was that even legal? Weren’t high schools required to offer art classes? My former school had advanced levels, AP art history, life drawing, sculpture, glass blowing, advanced glass blowing, and so many more.

  “You look worried,” he said.

  I met his bright blue gaze. “I’m not sure I’d know how to function in a school that doesn’t have an art department. Are you sure, or have you just not taken any art classes?”

  “I’m not sure. Don’t worry about it, okay? Everything will be great. I’m going to help you.”

  The waitress came up to our table, and Culter reached out for the check.

  “Wait, let me get that.”

  He gave me another look, like I’d suggested that I’d do doughnuts in his beloved truck or something.

  “Just let me do it, it’s weirdly important to me. Anyway,” I gestured to him, “doesn’t our money come from the same source?”

  “No,” he said, reaching for his back pocket.

  Whatever that meant, I didn’t have time to look into it. Leaning in, I said, “Culter, I’m paying for breakfast.” While I said it, I covertly pulled a couple of bills from my wallet in my lap.

  “No,” he said again, as he extracted a card from his wallet.

  Not looking at the check, I handed the waitress the contents of my wallet. The waitress, who’d been waiting and watching us with a small smile on her face, took the cash and said, “She wins,” before walking off.

  Culter glared, but it only made the victory sweeter.

  I loved the idea that those girls had not only bought my breakfast, but Culter’s as well.

  On the way out of the restaurant, I spotted a gift shop. As I still had almost forty dollars and only one sweatshirt—one dirty sweatshirt—I spent the rest of my late-night earnings on adding two more on-sale sweatshirts to my collection.

  As all I needed to do was change, and Culter didn’t need to do anything but check out, we managed to be on the road and heading south in less than twenty minutes.

  Snow only gathered in the gutters of the main streets in Flagstaff, but as we drove out of the city, large drifts built up around the roads.

  “If Bulvin is anything like this, I’m probably going to need to buy a whole new wardrobe,” I muttered. Even though I wore two sweatshirts on the way to the car, I still froze my ass off in that very short distance. I turned to Culter. “Do you guys have, like, I don’t know, a sporting goods store or general store that might have winter clothes for girls?”

  Culter looked over. “We do have a general store. There are probably jackets or something there. There’s also a lady that will sew you anything, you just need to bring her a casserole.”

  “Oh.” I looked away. Maybe we could stop somewhere along the way.

  A huge grin with full dimples broke across Culter’s face. “We also have a pretty big mall in Bulvin.”

  Embarrassment flashed through me. “Ha, ha,” I said, dryly.

  He laughed.

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember what it’s like there.” I pushed his arm, lightly.

  “Well, we just got a paved road all the way to the high school, so things are looking pretty exciting up in Bulvin.” His eyes sparked with mischief as they met mine.

  “I didn’t think it was like that.” My hands rubbed over my face, but mostly to hide my embarrassed expression.

  “Well, unfortunately by the time we get into town everything will be closed. You can wear one of my jackets tomorrow and then I’ll take you after practice.” He tapped his steering wheel with his thumbs.

  “Is there a town bus route that could take me there? I can probably find my way.”

  He looked over. “Maybe I could skip practice, if you don’t want to wait. It won’t be that long, though, if you don’t mind waiting.”

  I leveled a look on him. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing, but I do. Do you always get your way?”

  The confused look on his face didn’t seem completely genuine; there was too much amusement in it. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can take the bus. As much as I appreciate you helping me, I don’t need you to hold my hand. I have been doing stuff on my own in L.A. for two years now.”

  “If you take the bus, you’ll be stranded at the mall. Also, it’s a pretty dangerous place, best not to go alone.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  He grinned, wide. “Just let me go with you, Cassie.”

  “Jesus. Fine,” I relented.

  To be honest, waiting at a frozen bus stop wasn’t that attractive to me. And neither was getting lost on an unknown bus system. At the same time, I was going to have to be very careful with how much I let this boy win.

  We wound around the snowy mountain roads as the truck blew warm air up my legs. I stretched out, making myself comfortable on his seats.

  “If you’re going to fall asleep on me again, you mind if I play a little music?” Culter asked.

  “Play whatever. But I’m not going to fall asleep on you again.”

  He grinned over with that same expression which held something I couldn’t q
uite place—maybe amusement. “You can go to sleep on me, don’t worry about it.”

  For some reason, what he said about watching me get tattooed last night popped into my head right then, out of the blue. Not that I hadn’t been thinking about it a little bit since he’d said it. I knew it was just drunken rambling from a sexed-out boy, but for some reason, late at night when I thought about what he said, his words had made me squirm, and not in an entirely unpleasant way.

  Likely, it was just that it’d been a while since I’d gotten a compliment like that from a guy. I broke up with my last boyfriend, Markus, six months back and had pretty much dropped out of the social scene when my mom took her latest turn for the worse. Obviously, I was just a little too hard up for someone to tell me I looked hot. You’d think that this close to my mom’s passing, my vanity would have turned off, but I guess a drunken compliment could rock me this hard, regardless.

  Culter plugged his phone into a dock attached to his truck. His truck was conspicuously tricked out, making me wonder where he got all his money from. I mean, Jen and Dad had money—Dad was a hospitalist—but when they’d offered to buy me a car, it’d been a used sedan. I wasn’t complaining or anything, I’d thought it was way too much at the time. But I just didn’t see them buying Culter this beast. Maybe Culter had a job. Or maybe his dad was loaded. It wasn’t really a question I felt comfortable asking, though.

  “You want to pick the music? We might still have service out here.”

  “Sure,” I said, leaning in to look at his phone. I actually didn’t care, but I was kind of curious to go through his collection.

  His phone was mostly filled with names I didn’t know—country sounding names—but there were a couple quality rock and punk bands I liked. His playlists had typical boy titles: working out music, studying, classic rock, and a bunch that were just acronyms: FIMR, FIMT, and a few more like that. A little curious, I clicked on FIMR, and began to read down the list of songs, when I had to fight a grin. The first song was Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye, and the second, Your Body is a Wonderland by John Mayer.

  As I read down the rest of the list, I bit my lip to keep a smirk off my face. I think I could guess what the F in FIMR stood for, but I wasn’t sure of the rest. It took me a second, but I got it: IMR was likely in my room. Looking down the list, I tried to figure out the rest. FIHR would probably be in her room. FIMT might stand for in my truck, which was a little awkward under the circumstances.

  I was trying to figure out was FWWC was, when Culter asked, “No reception?”

  My head shot up. “Oh, um no. I’ll just play stuff in your library.” Quickly, I scrolled over and pressed on the classic rock playlist, setting it to shuffle. Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones came on, and I turned to the window to release my smirk.

  Chapter Seven

  Culter and I didn’t talk much as the truck climbed over the mountains. Beside our stretch of highway, rocks and desert shrubs poked through the sloping fields of snow. Snowy hills rolled away from us and into the distance.

  Curling up into a ball, I laid my head on my knees and watched the hills pass.

  I hadn’t intended to sleep, but found myself woken by the bump of Culter pulling into a gas station.

  When I raised my head and looked at Culter, he said, “Hey. Just stopping to get some gas.”

  “Okay,” I croaked.

  After he’d jumped out at the pump, I stuffed my feet in my boots and gritted my teeth through the freezing space that separated his truck from the pump and gas station. After using their facilities, I browsed through snack options. But as I grabbed a bag of cheesy chips, the thought that Culter probably didn’t want me to coat his truck in cheese powder occurred to me. I settled for a drink and a beef stick, as there was very little chance I’d make a mess with that. On the way to the counter, I noticed a rack of ski caps, and I grabbed one at random.

  The cashier rang me up, fiddled in his cash register, and then held out some cash to me.

  I stared at him. “Isn’t this backwards?” I asked, gesturing between us and looking down at the money in his hand.

  The older man smiled, showing a very crooked front tooth. “Your boyfriend left money to pay for your purchases. I’m just giving you the change.”

  I glanced over to Culter’s truck and Culter on his way out to his truck, and then back to the cashier. For a second, I considered correcting his assumption, but what was the point?

  “Cool, okay,” I said as I pulled on the ski hat. Taking the money, water and beef stick, I nodded to the cashier and headed back to the truck.

  Jumping in, I nodded at Culter before opening up my beef stick and taking a bite. “Do I get to keep the change?” I teased.

  “If you want to.” He shrugged.

  “Nah.” I handed him back the bills, and then held out my beef stick. “Want some? You bought it.”

  To my surprise, he leaned in and took a big bite of beef, before turning back to start his truck.

  “Hat looks nice,” he said, glancing up to my head.

  “That’s good, because I’m planning on moving into it and not coming out until summer.”

  Just after we maneuvered back onto the freeway, Culter smiled over at me. “Can I have another bite?”

  “Sure, you can finish it.” I held the remainder of the dried meat out to him.

  “Feed it to me.”

  I laughed. “What are you, a baby?”

  “I need my hands for driving. Tricky road.” He said it so serious, like he actually couldn’t drive and eat a beef stick at the same time. The land around us didn’t even have any snow clinging to it—it stretched out in an arid, icy field.

  I wasn’t feeding him the beef stick, it was just too weird. Sighing, I said, “I rescind my beef stick acceptance. If you can’t feed it to yourself, I’ll just have to finish it.”

  A dimple peeked out, though his lips weren’t smiling. “Fine, keep it.”

  “Do you guys play football in the snow?” I asked.

  “What?” He looked over, confusion clear on his face.

  “Your practice tomorrow?”

  “Oh, yeah. That would be basketball.”

  My brow furrowed. “Oh, I thought you played football.” According to Josh, which it should be stated is a highly biased source, Culter was the best football player in the entire world, bar none.

  Culter nodded. “I did play, and I will at Bulvin, but football ended in October.”

  “You’re going to Bulvin? I did not know that.”

  “I am. Aren’t you? Mom said you were accepted there,” he said.

  Leaning my head back against the headrest, I peered up at the ceiling of his truck. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.” The words came out more raw than I intended them to. They were supposed to be a trite statement, but it was so true, it felt ultra-personal.

  “It’ll be okay,” Culter said, as if he was an authority, as if he knew anything about it.

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” I turned back to my window, watching as the high desert rolled by outside.

  Silence fell between us again during the long hours that took us into Colorado, and even through our late lunch. In the truck, with Culter’s okay, I changed the music a few times, feeling like I should at least help him out with something to keep him awake. I knew that I kind of owed him some decent conversation since he’d been driving for two days and had paid for everything, but I wasn’t up to it.

  Thankfully, Culter didn’t seem to mind my silence. He looked completely relaxed and content.

  Snow rose around our road well before the sun set. When the sky completely darkened, we drove through long stretches of darkness before finding small, lit towns.

  I looked over into the darkness where Culter sat quiet. “You drove all this way in one night?”

  Even though I asked the question to Culter, I wasn’t really asking him, more just stating how crazy that must have been.

  “I didn’t know they were leaving.
I was at my Dad’s and got my mom’s message after they flew out to you. I sort of—” he paused, “I packed up a bag and drove out there.”

  “Why didn’t you fly?”

  “There weren’t any available flights for a while. Also, I’d rather drive and have my truck,” he said, like that was logical, which it totally wasn’t.

  “Well, I appreciate that you did.” I curled up my legs, wrapping my arms around them. “It was an awesome thing you did for Josh and Jen, and I couldn’t be there for them this week.”

  “I didn’t just go out there for Jen and Josh, Cassie, I wanted to be there for you too. I know we fought a lot when we were younger, but I still wanted to be there for you,” he said it like it should be obvious, but it didn’t make any sense.

  A car drove by, illuminating his face for a second, before he faded away.

  “It’s weird. You’re like this whole different person than I remember.”

  “What do you remember?”

  I hesitated, because I was pretty sure that I shouldn’t go there. I liked this friendly truce he and I were forming, and the last thing I wanted was to have drama between us, since we were about to share a house and all.

  “It’s not important,” I said.

  “Tell me. I promise you won’t make me cry.” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Cassie . . .” drawing out my name.

  “Fine.” I sighed. “I remember you as mean and rude. Then there were the pranks, like Movieworld—”

  “You’re actually still mad about Movieworld?” his voice was full of teasing, as if that wasn’t a very serious offense against me.

  “Not mad, exactly—”

  “Cassie, you live in L.A. You had an annual pass. How many times have you been to Movieworld?”

  “That’s so not the point—”

  “How many times did you go to Movieworld, with Josh, that summer?” he interrupted again.

  “Whatever. That wasn’t the only thing. And, you and I were always fighting.”

  “Just about your dad.”

  “Because you hated him,” I said.

  “Hate him,” he corrected.

  “You’re serious? Are you still taking out your puberty hormones on him?” No one said anything to me about them still having issues; I was so out of the loop.