“I don’t want to hurt your car,” I muttered awkwardly, trying to scooch some wrinkled parts of the blanket smooth beneath me whilst making sure my skirt didn’t ride up and show off too much leg.
“Trust me, this car’s seen worse.”
“Worse as in…” I let the thought trail off.
“Let’s just say, my bad boy days put the hood to work a time or two.”
“Ohhhhhh,” I mouthed quietly.
“Sorry.” He crammed a wad of cotton candy into his mouth, as if that would keep him from saying anything else damning.
“I know your reputation,” I said quickly. “I’m not judging.”
He glanced over, a cock-eyed smile spreading his lips. “You are absolutely judging. That’s a square’s moral imperative.”
“You and the square stuff,” I huffed. “You know, though, if I did want to judge you, I’d have every right. You totally deserve it.”
“I do.” He agreed and picked up his soda. Tilting it towards me, he offered me some. “Care for a sip of root beer?”
“Jerk,” I shot back, though I couldn’t help smiling. “I told you the square stuff was ruined. Think of something fresh.”
“I can’t go against your nature, Tarryn. I mean, it would be doing you a disservice. I’m not that kind of guy.” Drake placed a hand against his chest, trying to look sincere.
“Well, if we don’t want to go against our nature here,” I took a handful of popcorn. “Then tell me why you’re trying so hard to be the good guy. I understand the teacher stuff now. I get how terrible that must have been. Were you really so different beforehand though? If Lane hadn’t come along, who would you be right now?”
He sighed, leaning back against the windshield, a fluff of candy forgotten in his hand. “That’s a good question. It’s not like I’ve had the best example of a loving home life. Somehow though, I was able to stay sort of optimistic. I’d had sex before Lane, but it wasn’t this…”
“Mindless activity with whatever girl would have you?” I finished for him, brow furrowed. I pushed the popcorn away gently and picked up my soda. I realized it wasn’t mine after the first sip. It was Drake’s root beer.
He hesitated, expression strained. “Pretty much. I’m trying here, Tarryn.”
“I know you are.”
Silence fell like snow over us, cold and uncomfortable if you aren’t dressed properly. He was the one that spoke again to thaw the wintery-air between us. “I was different before Lane, in a lot of ways. I mean, I’d fucked a few times,” he shook his head gently, glancing at me. “I’d already had sex a few times,” he repeated in slightly gentler words. “I wanted to love someone and for them to love me. I think I really craved what I didn’t get at home—all the shit other families do. Dinners that don’t involve tablets and phone calls and standing on ceremony. Birthdays that were more than ‘another year to prove yourself, son. I’ve added to your trust fund again this year’. You know, I’ve never seen my parents hug each other, let along kiss or dance in the kitchen or act affectionate in any goddamn way.”
I thought about my parents, about their silliness and inside jokes and how Dad had kissed Mom when she’d ruined Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. They’d laughed, we’d ordered Chinese, and all had been right in the world. Except for the turkey, which was blackened beyond the point of being edible.
What would it be like to not have that reliability at home? My mother was home every evening. She talked to me about my life. She really cared. She was a…nosey crazy mess sometimes, but she was my nosey crazy mess. “That must be hard,” I said softly, trailing my fingers across the black and white pattern between us, finding his hand and grazing the very edge of his tanned skin. He glanced down, but his demeanor didn’t soften.
“I guess it’s only hard if you’re used to something different. If you were happy at one point, and things were good, and then things change.” He did take my hand now, and he tugged at it. I took that as a sign to lean back against the windshield and join him instead of sitting up. The movie was playing in front of us, but it was just background noise to our conversation. It didn’t matter, not one iota. “And that’s what happened in the end. A teacher, older and wiser and softer in so many ways, came along and showed me what it was like to be part of a relationship.”
I started to say something, because it irked me so much. The whole paradigm of a teacher building a relationship with a student. But he cut me off.
“I don’t want to hear any more about how we were wrong. She was a goddamn angel. I’m lucky as hell to have known her, even for a short time.”
“But she… I mean… Drake, it was statutory rape.”
“People our age used to be married and popping out kids.”
“Good lord. That was a different era. Just because it was done back then, didn’t make it any better. A twelve-year-old girl married off to a forty-year-old man. Sex even if she didn’t want it. Several kids before her sweet sixteen. That crap is awful.” I stared up at the sky, unable to look at him. “You don’t want to hear it, but you can’t seem to recognize the truth. She was a predator.”
He sat up, swinging his legs off the car and pulling the blanket with him, which knocked over our drinks and spilled the popcorn. The buttery golden pieces sprayed out against the pattern beneath us. Spilled words under silver stars.
“You’ll never get it, Tarryn.” He was facing away from me. The car next to us looked empty, but it wasn’t. Not if the sneaker-clad foot popping up into view from the backseat meant anything.
“I want to.” I made my way off the hood and walked around to him. When I was in front of him, I reached down and pushed his legs apart. I moved to stand between, looking up at him with what I knew would be the wideset of puppy dog gazes. “Drake, what happened to you turned you into the bully. It turned you into the predator. It made you…close yourself off.”
“Lane helped me open up. You’re wrong.”
“I’m not talking about when you were with her. Call it Stockholm syndrome, call it whatever. You felt in love with her. Maybe she felt in love with you. But were you really? Or was it that she showed you the affection you’d never had. If you showed a starving man moldy bread and tainted water, they’d think it was a feast. Wouldn’t they?”
His eyes were damp, his body language stiff and defensive.
“She was a teacher,” I pressed. “You were her student. She was supposed to protect you, not take advantage.”
“She didn’t—” he started, but I stopped him with a finger pressed against his lips.
“She did, Drake. God, she did.”
He didn’t fight me this time. I stood up on tiptoes. I was just tall enough to press my forehead against his. “I don’t know how to handle this shit. I spent so much time burying it and acting like I wasn’t a victim. I’m not a goddamn victim.”
“You don’t have to be a victim. But you do have to face the truth. You have to face it so you can really move forward. So you can find out what real love is with somebody else.” I didn’t know what I was saying, why I was saying it, or who I was saying it to. Which Drake was hearing my words? The one with the walls up who refused to recognize that being abused made him an abuser? The cocky one with nothing to lose and all the money in the world? “She was a teacher. Lane was a teacher. And it wasn’t right.”
I was saying it to the boy with the golden hair and the ocean eyes and the smile that made the butterflies riot in my stomach.
“Drake?”
“Hmm?” he didn’t open his mouth, breathing out the sound between pursed lips.
“I really like you. I shouldn’t. You challenged me from the second you met me. You treated me like a disposal conquest. You tricked me, manipulated me, made my parents think you were the best damn thing in the world. I should hate you.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “So why do I like you?”
“People always secretly like the most unlovable things.” He tilted his head away, pressing his soft mouth against
my forehead instead. “Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.”
My heart thumped. He’d just reminded me why my soul felt so connected to his. Why he wasn’t just the bully. “To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable.”
“Gilbert K. Chesterton,” Drake’s lips brushed my skin as he spoke, his warm breath filling me. “A hundred books, more if you count his contributions, and so few people have heard of him. He was insightful…”
“You’re not unlovable or unpardonable, Drake. Have faith in that, even if it’s unbelievable.”
“It’s too hard.”
“I’m here.” I reached up and took his face in my hands, pulling his mouth down to meet my own. I wanted his lips against mine, not wasting precious touching against my forehead. “I can help. I want to help.”
“After what I did to you, you know I don’t deserve it.”
“Everyone deserves another chance.” I kissed him fully on the mouth once more and he didn’t waver at all. He kissed me back, our motions in sync, both hearts willing.
“He doesn’t.” A voice startled us apart. I didn’t see where the speaker was, not at first. It was too dim in the parking lot, the movie reaching a loud climax in the background.
“Who is it?” Drake asked, his voice sharp as knives.
“Seriously? You don’t recognize my voice?” The speaker sounded wounded and angry, the threat of violence in her words. Because it was a girl. That much was obvious. “Christ, Castleton. We were just fucking minutes ago.”
A pain shot through my chest, though I knew what she said was categorically impossible. Drake had been with me all evening. I realized, of course, that she meant it as an implication and not in a real sense.
“Tabs?” Drake questioned, stepping away from me slightly and putting himself between me and the petite shadow that was appearing from behind the adjacent pickup truck. “What are you doing here.
When she came into view, she was holding up a cell phone. “You know, my dad spent a lot of money on this phone for my birthday. We couldn’t really afford it. It’s neat though. The night recording is really bright.” She glanced down, her index pressing the screen. As Drake and I stood stock-still, my version of my voice poured from her speakers. Loud and clear, despite all the interference from the surrounding movie and people.
“I wondered why Angeles left school. Less than a full year of teaching.” Tabitha shrugged. “Should have realized it was the great Castleton cock.”
I pushed around Drake. “You can’t record someone’s private conversation. That’s shitty.” My voice was cracking, shock coursing through me.
“What’s shit,” she spat out, “is being treated like a non-person by him.” She pointed a finger at Drake. “He deserves this.” She waved the phone. “He deserves for everyone to know that he fucked a teacher. No, he loved a fucking teacher.”
I was so glad we hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy.
And I felt so sick.
I’d decided I wasn’t this kind of person. Sasha had supported me.
But somehow I still felt like I’d become what I hated. A bully. I felt like I’d entrapped Drake, even though that wasn’t rational thinking. But I had prompted him to talk about his situation out here in public. I’d exposed his past in an environment where anyone could hear it. Anyone.
“What the hell are you even doing here, Tabs?” Drake’s voice was steady, not betraying whatever he was feeling in that moment.
“You’re the only one who can have a Friday date?” The small girl with the pixie crossed her arms, phone still held like a security blanket.
“Seems like some kind of coincidence that we’d both be here for our dates, Tabs.”
“Stop calling me Tabs. I’m not on your booty call list anymore. I’m over you, remember?”
I stared at her… she really didn’t seem like a girl over anything. Especially not the boy stood in front of her.
“I read your letter.” Drake took another step forward, his shoulders squared. He wouldn’t hurt a girl though. But my mind kept racing back to Aiden, to the brawl in the gym.
“And I meant every word.” She stumbled over her words, stepping backwards as Drake advanced.
“So why are you spying on us then? What’s with the phone and recording our conversation? You’re lying to yourself, Tabs.” Venom was creeping into Drake’s words. He took a deep, steadying breath and when he spoke again, he sounded like he was trying, desperately, to regain his composure. “I’m sorry for how I treated you, Tabitha. I used you. I won’t treat another girl like that. I promise.”
Tabitha’s eyes were wide, tears filling them so quickly that there was very little warning that they were about to slip down her face in steady dual streams. “I am over you. I am. I meant every word in that letter.”
“I know, you said that. Look, I’m—”
“You changed for her.” Tabitha’s voice caught on her words, tripping and terminating too soon. The salty droplets slipped down her cheeks, fierce and freely. Her eyes moved to me, becoming slits, her mouth pulling into a taut line. “What do you have?” She seethed. “What do you have that I don’t?”
“Nothing,” I stuttered out. “I swear. I’m not anything special.” I stayed where I was. I didn’t want to get any closer to the duo. This wasn’t my fight.
“Bullshit. Bull fucking shit. He’s taking you out on a real date. He’s not calling you for midnight fucks and then leaving you like you’re worthless. He promised to treat me better. He promised me.” Her voice cracked on the last. “I was fine. I was fine until I saw you two and I saw how he was acting. And then I got close and I heard…” She turned back to Drake. “You never opened up to me. Never. What’s wrong with me, Drake? Why not me? What’s wrong with me…” She turned away from us, phone gripped tightly in hand, the video of Drake’s confession freeze-framed across the screen. She didn’t stalk away immediately. She stayed long enough to finish saying her peace. “I guess only a damn nerd or an illegal fuck gets you going, Castleton. You won’t be so popular now, goddammit. You’re done.” Without looking back, she disappeared into the shadows of the drive-in.
Drake stood next to me, frozen. I didn’t know what to do or say.
Even if it wasn’t my fault… God, it felt like it was.
15.
D R A K E
Tarryn touched my back hesitantly. I cringed away from her, feeling like every nerve was exposed to the world, being beaten raw and bloody by the breeze that had kicked up in Tabitha’s wake.
Fuck. What the fuck can I do? I’ve got to get that phone.
I’ll pay her off. I’ll give her enough money to make it worthwhile.
She won’t take money.
Not with how much she hates me.
I realized the last with unwavering, unarguable certainty.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tarryn whispered behind me. I nodded sharply, turning abruptly and finding her looking worried and scared and… lost. She was hugging herself tightly, biting her lower lip. Usually that turned me on, the lip thing, but right now it hurt my insides more. Yet another thing I’d done to pain her, something new to add to the unpleasant list of Drake memories. I’d treated Tabitha like shit and it had come back to bite me in the ass.
I walked Tarryn to the passenger side, opening her door and holding it for her. She hesitated before sitting down, her mouth opening to say something, but then closing abruptly. She lifted her hand and cupped my face.
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, reaching up and pressing my fingers against hers, then gently pulling her hand down. “Let’s just go.” I nudged her gently and she gave in after a second longer of staring at me.
As I walked back around the car to the driver’s side, I saw Tabitha huddled with a group of kids from school. Her phone was out, held in midair in such a fashion that the semi-circle of onlookers could watch the alternative to the drive-in movie. It
was a two-for-one special today. Action and adventure on the main screen, sordid teen drama on the small.
“We’re in high school,” Tarryn spoke after a few miles, and I didn’t know where she was going with the obvious fact until she continued, “won’t… um… won’t having sex with a teacher just heighten your god-like status?”
A smile quirked my mouth, even though I spiritually I felt absolutely no inclination towards the happy expression. Tarryn didn’t know all the ins and outs of what this secret getting out meant. What it would mean to my family’s reputation, not just my own. The quirk died, died like a quark in the middle of a universe of fucking nothing. The electric charge, desperately wanting to become a hadron, sparking and fading and becoming absolutely nothing after all.
I thought back to the letters. My father was a bastard, but he did what he could to take care of Lane. The baby, not Lane. But he hadn’t just run her off into the night like I’d thought. He hadn’t just dumped a pile of hush money on her head and never thought of her again. My actions were a stone in a pool of perfectly-calm water. Castleton water. A large lake that had been cultivated and cared for through hard work and over generations. It was liquid blood and sweat, a Castleton concoction that made River Valley our kingdom.
There were worse things in our history—mergers gone bad, dirty deals and people written off the family tree for bad marriages. But my screw-ups were the most recent. And the more current mistakes, the things that made the River Valley Record’s front page, were the things that mattered now. They’d fade away eventually, maybe one of my idiot cousins would do something worse, but I had to deal with the present.
And the present was—my affair with Lane was about to become widespread public knowledge.
I didn’t blame Tarryn. It felt good to talk about Lane, to speak the truth and get shit off my chest, but I should have been smarter. Tarryn didn’t bring out the smart in me. I was stupid around her. I didn’t think about what I was saying, where I was saying it. All I wanted to do was prove to her that I wasn’t a shit person.
Brat: A High School Bully Romance (The King of Castleton High Book 2) Page 11
