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Beside Your Heart

Page 3

by Mary Whitney


  When he finished talking and moved away, I tried not to look too dazed. “Thanks. I think I got it. Jonathan Edwards. ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ He sounds like a great guy.”

  His eyes danced a little. “Yes, I’m rather chuffed that all of these prudes left England before I was born.”

  “Right.” I smiled at his charm. “Thanks for sending us all the Puritans. You know by now that they’re alive and well in America.”

  Mrs. Anderson called the class to order, so we both had to turn our attention to her. Still, I glanced over at Lisa, who gave me a very suspicious look. Shit. Now she knew, too.

  After school, I walked home, trying to clear my brain of Adam by studying the houses along the way that I already knew far too well. My house was smaller and more modest than most in Bellaire. My parents had bought it while my father still worked at the district attorney’s office. Then, three years ago, my father had taken a job with a big firm and made considerably more money, but we’d decided to stay in the house. Well, three of us had wanted to stay. My father had decided to have an affair with a younger attorney at his firm and move to Chicago.

  It only took a few minutes before the expected call from Lisa arrived. She knew I was home alone, so she wasted no time. “Okay. Now tell me what is going on.”

  “Well, hello to you, too, Lisa. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. Are you crushing on Adam? Because if you are, that is a really, really bad idea.”

  “I think I know that.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Okay.” I sighed. “Yes. A little bit.”

  “Nicki…”

  Rapid-fire, I blurted out my excuses and pleas. “He’s so nice to me. It catches me off-guard. I know that he’s just taking pity on me, but I can’t help it. Please don’t make a big deal of it. I’ll get over it quick.” Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie.

  “Well, I don’t think he’s paying attention to you out of pity, but I’m not sure what his story is. He has a girlfriend. He’s so hot, though, maybe he’s used to dating multiple girls. Anyway, my personal opinion is that he’s bad news. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “Thanks, Lisa. I would prefer not to get hurt, too.” I sat straighter in my chair as if that would strengthen my resolve. “That’s why I’ll be over him tomorrow.”

  Chapter 4

  I DID EVERYTHING I COULD to get Adam out of my head. It was easiest first thing in the morning when I had to witness him and Meredith draped all over each other. The irritation I felt seeing them together so early kept my mind off him most of the day.

  Every day she had her arm on him, staking her claim. The sight annoyed me, but we’d exchange hellos, and I’d get out of there quickly. I had to admit I took a little comfort in the fact I’d never walked up to them making out again. It was stupid of me, though, because I knew they were up to that and more elsewhere.

  English was the problem. Adam always seemed happy to see me and wanted to talk. He was funny and interesting. Then his hair would fall into his eyes, and I would just get sucked in. The worst part was that occasionally I found myself mentioning Lauren. Then I just wanted to talk more because he usually responded when no one else would talk with me about her.

  I was under Lisa’s watchful eye, though. I could feel her eyes boring into me if I talked more than five minutes with him. I would turn to look at her, only to get a disapproving scowl. I hated it because she was right. I didn’t need to be talking to that boy. I’d frown in acknowledgment that I was violating her rules, and then I’d go back to my book.

  Other than that, I might bump into him at the lockers between classes, but there wasn’t really any time to talk, and I left quickly after school. Except for the moments I looked at him and wanted to sigh, all in all, I thought I was doing okay.

  I also didn’t see Adam at all the first weekend of school. On Fridays, if there wasn’t a party, Tom would usually host a movie night at his house. His parents were professors at Rice, and they were cool with us invading their home as long as we weren’t too rowdy. The movies were usually old or very arty. And afterward, Tom would lead the crew to the twenty-four-hour diner. My theory was that he had seen the movie Diner one too many times and was trying to recreate it. It was an easy place to hang out, though. Parents didn’t care because there wasn’t any alcohol, and we liked it because it was open all night. As for Adam, he had a girlfriend who was a cheerleader. There was football and all of that crap, so he wouldn’t be hanging out with the misfits on Fridays. I assumed that would be the norm.

  When Tom called out Adam’s name from across the diner the following Friday, however, I was surprised. As he walked over to us, I checked my watch and saw it was late enough for the football game to be over. Where was Meredith, though?

  There were five of us at a giant booth: Tom, Rachel, Lisa, Ben, and me. Ben was a quiet math geek who had been mooning over Lisa since seventh grade. I liked him a lot because he was thoughtful and occasionally let out a really funny zinger. Lisa was sweet to him, but I think she was a little embarrassed because he really was a huge nerd. So, she had her own secret crush, but at least hers was interested in her.

  Lisa and I sat at either end of the booth. If Adam was going to sit down, it would be by one of us. I swallowed hard when it was clear he was veering toward me.

  “May I?” he asked with a smile.

  “Sure.” I looked over to see a very disapproving Lisa.

  “So, Adam, how was the game?” Tom asked.

  “Tedious. American football is not my sport.” He grimaced as he said it, so I believed him. We had something in common. I thought football was boring as hell, too.

  “Well, it’s not like you’re there for the game anyway.” Rachel smirked. “Where’s Meredith?”

  “At home. She was knackered.”

  I focused on my cup of cold coffee, which had become the most fascinating object in the world to me. Meredith as a subject of conversation was not one I wanted to engage in. I felt incredibly awkward, especially with Lisa’s eyes on me.

  The waitress came by to see if Adam wanted anything, and he immediately asked me. I sputtered out a “No, thank you,” and thought to myself that I should really leave. It was too soon after he’d arrived, though. It would look rude and weird.

  While Ben and Tom started a debate over which one of them had a crappier car, Adam turned to me. “How was the movie?”

  “Awesome. We watched Heathers.”

  “Maybe I’ll join everyone next time.”

  That was interesting. I had to ask, “Have you given up on football?” Oops. That sounded terrible. He might think I meant he had given up on Meredith.

  “I’d like to.” He took a breath. “Meredith and I just had a row about Homecoming. I really don’t want to go.”

  “That one is kind of important to her crowd. You might want to reconsider.” I couldn’t believe I had just helped Meredith out. She owed me for life now. If her boyfriend didn’t take her to Homecoming, she might drown herself in the Gulf of Mexico. I looked over at Lisa, who actually looked pleased.

  I glanced back at Adam, who was smiling at me. “I’ll think about it.”

  His smile was warm, but his eyes were calculating. I decided to go back to staring at my coffee cup. Tom then asked Adam something about English driving, which created a lengthy discussion about traffic rules, and I was officially off the hook.

  I put up with the conversation for an hour, but I really wanted to go home. I’d gone far beyond my limit of being casual and normal around Adam, and my mind had started to wander into all the wrong places. I hadn’t been that close to a guy I liked for months. When I caught myself glancing down at the crotch of his jeans, I knew I had to leave. I looked pleadingly at Lisa and raised my eyebrows toward the door.

  She nodded, saying, “I think it’s time to head out.”

  Everyone agreed, and we started to get up. Ben turned to Lisa. “Can I
give you a ride home?”

  “Oh, Nicki and I came with Tom and Rachel.”

  “It’s okay, Lisa,” I said. “Go with him. Y’all live close to one another.” It was a geographic exaggeration, but I didn’t want her to lose out on a good make-out session just to make sure I wasn’t a third wheel.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  As I got out of the booth, Adam asked me, “Where do you live?”

  “Close to school.”

  “I do as well. Can I give you a lift?”

  Lisa had to be watching me, and I knew what the right answer was. Instead of giving the right answer, though, I said, “Sure.” I didn’t look at Lisa, but I saw Tom smile.

  We said our goodbyes, and Adam guided me to his black Honda. My stomach did flip-flops. This had been a very bad idea. Lisa was right. This was not good for me.

  Adam opened up my door, and I grasped for a way out. “You don’t even know where I live. It could be really out of your way in BFE.”

  “BFE? Where is that?”

  “It’s just a more polite way of saying Bum Fuck Egypt.”

  “Of saying what?” He laughed.

  “Oh, uh, Bum Fuck Egypt. It’s kind of an American saying for the middle of nowhere.”

  Closing his eyes for a moment, he shook his head and grinned. “Bum. Fuck. Egypt. So you fuck someone in the bum in Egypt and that means the middle of nowhere?”

  “In the bum?”

  “Bum. It’s another word for arse.”

  “I never really thought of it as being someone’s ass before.” I giggled. “You might be right, though. I thought it was more like you were a bum and fuck was short for fucking, as in ‘fucking Egypt.’ Does that make sense?”

  “The whole thing doesn’t make sense, but it’s funny.” He leaned against the car door with the same look in his eye as when we’d talked about sexual frustration in class that other day. “You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an American girl say fuck.”

  I was in an eye-lock with him, biting my tongue. I bet Meredith liked to have sex all the time, but she’d never say fuck. “It’s not very ladylike,” I said.

  “But you’re not bothered.”

  “Well, I try not to say it.”

  “Of course, but you don’t seem to bother much about what people think of you.”

  I looked down, wondering if that was true, and the scar on my arm caught my eye. It was a perfect example. With all that I’d gone through, I didn’t fucking care. I shrugged. “Unless they’re my friends or family, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He rested his chin on the door as he studied my face. I felt like I was being appraised again. With him being British and all, I wondered if he thought I should be more proper. Maybe that’s why he liked Meredith. A moment passed, and his voice brightened again. “You just said you lived by the school. So do I. Your home can’t be that far away.”

  “Probably not.” Giving in, I got into the car. “I live on Pine.”

  “And I live on Pocahontas. Not far at all.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Pocahontas said with a British accent before,” I said with a giggle.

  “I believe my father chose the house because of the street. It’s sort of a joke in our family.” He smiled and shut my door.

  After he got in the car, I gave him the driving directions. I quickly looked at the clock on the dashboard and figured that I only had to deal with ten minutes of this self-inflicted torture. Why did I agree to this?

  Thankfully, it had only taken nine minutes when we arrived at my house. Adam had kept the conversation going the whole ride, asking me about growing up in Bellaire. With my hand on the door handle for a quick escape, I said, “Thanks very much for the ride. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “Oh. I’ll walk you to your door.”

  Please not that. “Thanks, but I’m okay.” I tried to make it light. “I’m a big girl.”

  He laughed as he opened his door. “No, you’re not. You’re rather petite, actually. I’m walking you up.”

  I had opened my door, but he was there to shut it right behind me. “This is much better service than I get from Tom.”

  “It sounds like he has several passengers to deal with.”

  “He usually does.”

  Silence prevailed until we arrived at my porch, when I turned to him. “Thanks, Adam. I’ll see you on Monday.” I gave half a smile. Awkwardness killed the other half.

  He then took a step backward. “Yes. Monday. Have a good weekend.”

  As he walked away, I let myself in, closed the door, and shook my head. Letting him drive me home had been a very, very bad idea.

  Even though it was close to one o’clock when I walked inside, Mom was awake and reading on the cushy old sofa. Still recovering from the accident, she kept odd hours. She patted the couch. “Hi, darling, did you have a good time? Come sit by me.”

  Just a few months ago, I would have grunted at her and gone straight to bed. Now I found it comforting just to be around her, but I still didn’t have much to say. After kicking my shoes off, I curled my legs underneath me as I sat near her.

  “Yeah, Mom. It was good to be out.”

  “It was nice to see Rachel and Lisa again when they came to pick you up. Did they have a fun summer?”

  “I guess so. We haven’t really been comparing notes about our summers, if you know what I mean.”

  In a low voice, she said my name like it was a command. “Nicki.”

  Sometimes my sarcasm about the accident worked with Mom, and sometimes it didn’t. Usually, it didn’t. I never joked about Lauren’s actual death, just about all the crap around it. Lauren would have laughed, too, because so much of it was worth at least a little ridicule.

  “Sorry, Mom. I should go to bed, and so should you. I love you.” I gave her a hug, and she grabbed me. Her hugs had changed. Sometimes now I wasn’t sure if she was going to let go.

  After saying our goodnights, I headed upstairs to my room. My walls were completely covered in posters, newspapers, random photos, drawings—pretty much anything that caught my eye. You couldn’t see any paint except for the ceiling, which was purple. Mom only tolerated it because I kept such a neat room. The good grades let me get away with a lot, too.

  A bathroom connected my room and Lauren’s. Mom called it a Jack and Jill bathroom. Lauren had always corrected her, “No, Mom. Jill and Jill.”

  Even with as much time as I could spend in a bathroom, I hadn’t opened the door to Lauren’s room since she’d died. But I should have been able to open it and go in because nothing was in there. It was no longer the room of a thirteen-year-old girl; it was just an empty, freshly painted room now. Grandma Stuart, Mom’s mom, had seen to it that things were cleared out right after the accident.

  I also should have been able to go in because it was still Lauren’s room. I might have felt closer to her there. Yet it wasn’t like I’d decided that I wouldn’t go in there. I just ignored the door like it was a wall.

  Trying to get my mind off Adam kept me occupied as I waited to hear Mom’s crying. She wouldn’t talk about Lauren except when forced to, and she kept those conversations short. When I heard her cry, it reminded me that someone else missed my sister, too. I couldn’t talk with her, but at least I knew someone else shared what I felt.

  Both Mom and Dad had wanted Lauren buried in a cemetery even though she’d been cremated. At the time, I’d objected, but as usual, I was overruled. I knew that Lauren absolutely would not have wanted that. She would have wanted her ashes to be scattered in the Gulf, not a fancy headstone in a cemetery full of creepy strangers.

  It was stupid of me, but it was only the first time when Mom had asked me to go to the grave with her that I’d realized why she’d wanted her buried. Standing on a beach wouldn’t have made her feel close to Lauren; sitting at a graveside with Lauren’s name on a tombstone would. After that one visit to her grave, I
said no every time she asked me to go again. It was too much watching her sit and stare at the stone.

  Chapter 5

  I SPENT THE REST OF THE WEEKEND at home and tried my best not to think of Adam. Lisa called to check on me and also give a mild lecture on how he was sure to be trouble. I could do nothing but agree with her; I knew I was just going to get hurt.

  Monday morning confirmed it. There was Meredith once again at Adam’s locker, talking with him while holding onto his front belt loop. We did our same exchange of “Excuse me” and “Hello,” and the week continued. Every day in English, Adam and I would talk to each other a bit—usually about the reading, but often we strayed onto other topics like movies or music. Lisa watched me the whole time. Wasn’t he noticing that?

  Occasionally, I would surreptitiously look over to Adam writing or doodling. He had very fine handwriting, masculine but crisp. He also doodled a lot, usually cartoons with such realistic-looking people, I could identify some of the politicians—his drawings of Bill Clinton were hilarious. They were so different than the average high schooler’s doodles that I asked him about it once.

  I pointed to the sketch of a man in a suit with goofy eyeglasses. “That’s John Major, right?”

  His head snapped up. “You know who John Major is?”

  “He’s like the British prime minister, right?” I shrugged.

  “Yes, but it’s just…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. If I’m being honest, Americans seem quite ethnocentric. Most don’t seem to know much about the UK, especially our politics. It’s just a surprise.” He glanced down at his drawing and muttered, “And you’re a gir—”

  “Excuse me?” I leaned back in disgust. “Are you saying because I’m a girl I’m not smart enough to know anything?”

  “No. Not at all,” he said, his eyes widening. He had that look like he’d made a huge social faux pas. “It’s just that the only person I’ve been able to talk to at all here about home is Tom. He has an interest in it. One day he wants to try his hand at theater in London. The girls I’ve met here, though, don’t seem that keen on things outside America.”

 

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