She rolled her eyes and huffed before tugging free of my hold. “Well, with an offer like that, how can I possibly refuse?”
Before we had a chance to finish the conversation, Mrs. Turner saw us out of class and came out of her room to shoo us along.
Alyssa shot me a glare and I knew it wasn’t over.
After school, I couldn’t find Alyssa anywhere. She wasn’t waiting in our usual place. Around me, other kids rushed toward the oval.
I grabbed one of the tiny eighth graders as they raced past. “What’s happening?”
“There’s a catfight on the oval. Some chick dragged another down there by her hair.” He practically leapt with joy as he pulled from my hold and kept running toward the bottom of the school.
Although I couldn’t say how I knew, I was certain Alyssa was involved. It was the only explanation I had for why she’d failed to meet me. I raced toward the back of the school with everyone else, hoping she could hold her own until I got there.
When I reached the oval, the fight was all but over. Alyssa had Darcy’s ponytail curled in her fist and was dragging her around the grassy area. Along Darcy’s cheek was a scratch that could only have come from Alyssa.
I approached the pair with caution, trying to catch Alyssa’s eye.
“Call off your dog, Declan!” Darcy shouted at me.
Alyssa gave a primal cry and yanked Darcy’s hair. “Say that again, bitch.”
“Lys,” I said, drawing her attention to me. “Is she really worth getting in trouble over?”
“You should have heard her going on about the Valentine’s card she pretended you got her, Dec. She’s a fucking scrag!” Alyssa punctuated her sentence with a tug on Darcy’s hair.
“But she’s really sorry for her stupidity, isn’t she?” I bent over to talk to Darcy, trying to warn her with my tone that the only way she was getting out of Alyssa’s hold would be if she cooperated with me.
She rolled her eyes and didn’t say anything.
Alyssa pulled her hair again. “He asked you a question.”
“Let go of me, you cow!”
“You’re really sorry, aren’t you?” I gave the idiot another chance to apologise.
“Fuck you!”
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen.”
She growled and pulled against Alyssa’s hold, which only managed to pull her hair more.
“I’m going to tell you how this is going to go, okay? You can either agree, or I can leave you here with Lys.”
Darcy growled at me like the dog she is. Throwing my hands up in the air, I walked away.
“Fine. Fine!”
I moved back toward the pair. “What’s going to happen is that Lys will let you go, you’ll get it through your thick head that Lys and I are together and happy, and you’ll leave us alone from now on. Okay?”
“Fine!” Darcy cried. Once the words left her mouth, Alyssa let go of her hair and gave her a shove.
“Alyssa Dawson, my office. Now,” Mrs. Turner snapped before turning and heading for the English block.
Neither Alyssa nor I had seen the head of the English department approach the oval, but it was clear she’d seen the fight or at least enough of it to present a damning case.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed before Alyssa spun on her heels and followed the teacher.
I stalked behind the pair of them, keeping just enough distance that I didn’t draw attention to myself.
“Mr. Reede, I’m sure your parents will be expecting you soon,” Mrs. Turner said when she spun to open the door for Alyssa. “Unlike Miss Dawson’s, I won’t be calling yours to escort you home.”
Knowing there was little point hanging around the school unless I wanted to get in trouble myself, I headed straight to our picnic table and waited for Alyssa to meet me.
For at least two hours, I sat on the bench, paced the length of the park, and generally loitered, while keeping an eye out for her. When she never showed, I headed straight to her house. It was already dark by then, and I knew Mum was probably having kittens, but I needed to find out what had happened. I needed to know that Alyssa was okay.
When I knocked on her door, Josh answered it.
“Huh, I guess I lost my bet. I didn’t think you’d be by tonight,” he said by way of greeting.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I wanted to check that Lys was all right.”
“Well, Lys doesn’t want to see you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Just tell her I’m here, will you?”
“Can’t, man. She’s grounded and not allowed to speak to you.”
I leaned against the doorframe. “You just said she didn’t want to, now you’re saying not allowed. Which is it?”
“A bit of both. Mum and Dad aren’t overly impressed with her little fight today and think you two need some space for a while.”
“I don’t want space. I want to see Alyssa.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound very apologetic as he shoved me off the doorframe and then slammed the door in my face.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I knocked on the door again. After no one answered, I knocked again.
The door swung open, but this time Curtis, Alyssa’s dad, filled the frame. “Go home, son.”
“I just want to speak to Alyssa.”
“She made it pretty clear to us that she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Please?”
“You can see her tomorrow. She’s grounded for her little stunt, but I’m sure we can give her a little leeway if you drop by for a few hours.”
“I can’t. I have a race tomorrow.”
“Can’t help you then, son.”
I grunted in frustration.
He chuckled. “Maybe come by for dinner.”
I said a cursory goodbye and let him shut the door before walking around to the outside of Alyssa’s bedroom. I tapped against her window.
“Lys, are you there?” I whisper-shouted.
I heard a bump and a scrape from inside. She was definitely in her room. All I had to do was convince her to come to the window.
“Please, Lys?”
She drew back the curtains, but didn’t open the window. She pressed a note against the glass which just read, Go away.
I shook my head. “Not until you talk to me.”
She rolled her eyes but opened the window. “What do you want?”
“I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Besides being grounded and suspended, you mean.”
A chuckle escaped my lips before I had the good sense to stop it.
“Ugh,” she groaned before moving to slide the window closed again.
“Wait, Lys, why don’t you want to talk to me?”
“Why do you think?”
“I really don’t know.” I pressed my face against the window screen. I wished it wasn’t there. I probably could have climbed into her room and convinced her not to be mad at me with my lips.
“If you hadn’t been stupid enough to fall for Darcy’s stupid trick, I wouldn’t be grounded right now.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you to fight her.”
“You just don’t get it.”
I frowned. She was so unreasonable sometimes, and it just made no sense. “No, I really don’t.”
She rubbed her temples as if talking to me was exhausting her. “This could ruin my chances to get into the uni courses I want to do.”
“I don’t think the school will let it get that far, will they?”
“They might not have a choice. Darcy’s father threatened to press charges unless the school dealt with the matter.”
“He can’t do that. Can he?”
“It doesn’t matter if he can or not. The school decided to suspend me. That sort of shit follows you around, Dec. And it’s your fault.”
“My fault?” I snapped. “How the fuck do you figure that? I didn’t tell you to fight her.”
“What other choice did I have?”
�
�You could have ignored her.”
“Says the guy who threatened to bash Blake just for asking me to sign his yearbook.”
“That was different.”
“How?” Alyssa crossed her arms over her chest. I knew I was skating on thin ice, but I had no clue why. “How is it different?”
“Fuck! It just is.”
“I don’t want to talk about this now. Come back tomorrow when I’ve had time to calm down.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got a race. You know that.”
“One day, Dec, you’re going to have to choose between the damn karts and me.”
I frowned as Dad’s warnings came back to the surface. She would cost me my dream. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the thoughts back down. Lys is different. She knows how much this means to me. “It’s not a kart race, it’s at Queensland Raceway. In Dean’s VK. My first proper race.”
Because Dean lived at Ipswich, he maintained the car but I was free to use it for the race season. She knew how big a deal it was to me; a few days earlier she’d been bouncing with excitement for me.
“Same difference.”
I frowned. “No. It’s really not.”
“Yes. It really is. Either way, you’re picking a pile of metal and gears over me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Well, it sure feels like it. Come back tomorrow, Dec, or don’t bother coming back at all.” She slid the window shut, yanked the curtains closed, and ignored my attempts to coerce her back to talk some more.
When I arrived home, Mum was waiting by the door. “Where on earth have you been?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I pushed straight past her.
“Declan Anthony Reede, if you take one more step before explaining where you were, you will be grounded until you’re twenty-five.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to listen. The only thing I wanted to do was lock myself in my room and play my music until my ears threatened to bleed. It was the only way to stop thinking—which was the only way to stop hurting.
Behind me, Mum continued her tirade, but I didn’t listen. When I reached my bedroom, I slammed the door shut behind me and shifted my bed to brace the door so Mum couldn’t follow me.
When she shouted at me to get out and speak to her, I just turned my music up louder.
The next morning, I woke and got ready for a day on the track. I’d spent the night planning it out. If I was ready for the track when I went to see Alyssa, I might be able to balance both tasks.
I walked into the kitchen for some breakfast.
“I don’t know what you’re dressed up for,” Mum said. Her tone was still sharp. She was obviously still upset about the previous evening.
I frowned at her. She knew the importance of the race. “I have the first championship race today.”
“You were given the car on the proviso that you did well at school and acted responsibly.”
“And?”
“And your behaviour yesterday wasn’t responsible.”
“Fuck. It’s not like I made Darcy that Valentine, or forced Alyssa to fight her.”
“Language! And what are you talking about?”
“The fight. Lys calling it off. Everything going to shit. Isn’t that what you mean?”
“I’m talking about the disrespect you showed me. I could almost have accepted you turning up here as late as you did without letting me know you weren’t coming home, but the rest of it?” She assessed me for a moment before sighing and sitting at the table beside me. When she spoke again, her tone was softer. “It sounds like there is more you need to tell me though.”
She waved her hand for me to tell her more.
We sat at the dining table and I told her about everything with Alyssa and Darcy, and the stupid Valentine that caused all the trouble. In the end, she agreed that there were enough extenuating circumstances to allow me to race, but that I was on my last warning. By the time we’d finished our chat, there wasn’t enough time to see Alyssa before I left for Queensland Raceway.
I only hoped that Alyssa would understand.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE END OF IDIOCY
THERE WAS NOTHING worse than seeing Alyssa dating someone else.
After I’d apparently proven to her that I didn’t care for her at all, that I’d rather have a race car than a girlfriend, she’d refused to take me back.
It killed me because I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it. Ben had just started dating Alyssa’s friend, Jade—they’d got together over a fucking Valentine of all things, and the only other person I wanted to talk to was exactly the person I wanted to talk about. My chest ached each time I saw her, but I couldn’t do a damned thing about it. For the first two weeks, she’d refused to talk to me at all.
Eventually, she’d grown civil toward me, but that was it. I was granted precious few words. “Hello,” “Goodbye,” and the occasional, “How are you going?” but that was it. After two torturous months of living in limbo, waiting for the day she’d finally talk to me like we used to again, I found out that she’d accepted Blake’s offer of a date.
After that, the two of them paraded around the school holding hands and I swear she’d kiss him every fucking time she saw me. Each time, my throat would clamp shut and my eyes would sting.
To pay Alyssa back for dating Blake-the-asshole, I even tried my luck with Darcy. It lasted a week. All she wanted to do was make out and there was nothing enjoyable about kissing her. It was all kinds of wrong, and not at all like it felt with Alyssa. Plus, I missed the conversations I’d shared with my best friend between the snogging sessions.
Instead of worrying about it when everything went to crap with Darcy, I threw myself into racing. I spent every weekend at the kart track or at Queensland Raceway. I even convinced Dad to take me to Willowbank for the drags on a few Saturday nights. He seemed happier after the breakup, telling me that I didn’t need Alyssa in my life, not if she wasn’t going to support me in pursuing my dreams.
By June, I heard through Josh that Blake and Alyssa had broken up.
Not that I cared.
Or asked about her at all.
After their breakup, Alyssa started to hang around with Jade again. Which meant she was hanging out with Ben, and therefore me, again. Whenever the four of us were together, Alyssa’s gaze would slide to look at me before shifting away the instant she was caught. A heaviness rested on her brow, so she walked around the school with an almost constant frown.
The air between us was awkward, stilted in a way it had never been before. Being in her proximity made my skin feel too tight and my heart ache like it was three sizes too big for my chest.
After three weeks of the same stilted, awkwardness, I couldn’t cope anymore. I found someone else to sit with at lunch each day and watched Alyssa from a distance. When I got home, I just couldn’t sit still at all. I had energy to burn so Mum sent me out of the house. Each evening, I found a new direction to walk.
When I came home from school on the last Friday of school before the June holidays, Mum shooed me from the house as usual even though it was my birthday.
Without even thinking about where I was going, I headed to the park where I’d shared so many happy memories with Alyssa. We’d spent every birthday together for as long as I could remember. When I realised where I was, I dropped my head as the loss of the time with my best friend echoed keenly through my body. It wasn’t the physical stuff I missed—although I did long for that too—it was the familiarity and the comfort she offered simply by being at my side. Shuffling forward, I didn’t even notice Alyssa sitting at our table until I was practically on top of her.
“Hey,” I said with a nod as I debated whether to simply keep walking. It would be easier to pretend I hadn’t planned on sitting there and reliving the way things had been before we’d made the leap to boyfriend/girlfriend.
“Hey, Dec,” she said as she slid over to make room for
me to sit. Her voice was filled with sorrow and a heaviness I wanted to soothe away. I just didn’t know how.
When I studied her face in the dusk, I saw tears tracking slowly down her cheeks.
“Happy birthday,” she added.
I climbed onto the table beside her. “What’s up?”
She shook her head and swiped away her tears. “Nothing.”
“C’mon, Lys, I know you. Something’s up.”
She hung her head, letting her hair fall in curtains around her face.
“It’s nothing,” she said, but her voice was filled with fresh tears.
Without thinking, I moved closer to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “I know it’s not nothing.”
She leaned into my hold before clutching at my shirt and pressing her face to my chest. “I miss you, Dec. I miss everything about you. I miss this. I miss us.”
I closed my eyes and held her tightly, both arms wrapped around her body. Her words echoed my own thoughts almost perfectly. My chin rested on the top of her head, just like always. The movement was so familiar, so comfortable.
“Me too,” I croaked out as best as I could.
“I’m sorry. I was an idiot. Can we try all of this again?”
I reached my finger underneath her chin, lifting her head so that I could claim her mouth.
“Of course,” I murmured before moving in to kiss her.
She pulled away at the last second. “Shit. No. I don’t mean that. Last time we tried that, everything went wrong. I just meant friends. Can’t we be friends again? I don’t like not having you around.”
Her words shot through me like an arrow and I dropped my arms away from her. Turning away so she couldn’t see the impact of her rebuff, I nodded. “Sure thing, Lys. I’ve got to get home though.”
I jumped off the table, and didn’t miss a stride before heading back to my house. It was a damn good thing the sun was setting so early lately and the sky was already darkening—it meant she couldn’t see the way my cheeks burned.
“Dec, wait.”
Closing my eyes, knowing without doubt I was powerless to resist her call, I stopped. I heard her footfalls behind me, and then she grabbed my arm and spun me around.
Declan Reede: The Untold Story (Complete Series) Page 5
