by Allen, Jacob
I handed her the three boxes, having to carefully pull them out, once she handed me the signed receipt back. I tried not to look at the tip amount while I was in front of her.
“Adam must be a hungry boy, huh?” I said with a chuckle, a bit of a weak attempt at humor.
“Oh, no, he’s not here right now,” Amy said. “He’s out with the boys. This is for later. Well, Clark and I will have some now, but the rest Adam will have later.”
On a Sunday night, with his boys, huh? I guess that’s not surprising. No schoolwork yet and no jobs. His Corvette isn’t here, after all.
“Anyways, you have a great day, OK? I’ll let Adam know you came by. He’ll be happy to hear you.”
“I, sure, OK, great, thanks!”
I stammered words out as I turned around, utterly confused by what I’d just heard. Part of me strongly believed that Amy was just being polite, and that Adam would barely acknowledge his mother when she told him that. Part of me also believed he was going to use that information to humiliate and shame me later.
Part of me, though, also wondered why Amy had said what she had. That was too polite and too sweet to not have been real. Was she serious? Did Adam really feel happy?
Or was that just his mother wishing he were happy?
I sure couldn’t figure it out. I just got in my car, drove back, and closed out the last shift before my senior year started.
At least his mother had left me with a hundred-dollar tip on a forty dollar order—and quite possibly a tip that would prove more valuable than any dollar amount.
4
Adam
The first day of school had a particular way of sucking the last three years.
Today was going to be no different. I knew that from the minute I finished my junior year. The good news was, this was the last goddamn one I ever had to deal with.
As I drove to class, my stepfather having already gotten to the campus about an hour earlier, I dreaded having to play nice when I saw him. Just once, I wanted to give him a middle finger when I walked onto the school grounds in the morning. Just once, I wanted to announce to the school that Principal Collins was full of shit and not the pious, good man he so claimed to be.
But I still wanted to go somewhere half-decent for school. And so long as my stepfather had the ability to fuck me over, I had to play nice.
Since I couldn’t take it out on him, I’d have to take it out on everyone else at the school.
I parked my car at the parking spot closest to the front entrance. It wasn’t my spot, but what the fuck was parking spot number 21, the first for students, supposed to do, cry to my stepdad? If I had real balls, I would have taken the teachers’ parking spots, but such shenanigans had to have built up. To blow my fun all on the first day was a fucking waste of time.
I looked at my schedule one more time on the phone. Of the seven classes, it went AP French, AP Calculus, Honors English, PE—a nice way to treat myself senior year—AP Chemistry, and AP Psychology. Sometimes, I surprised even myself with how much bullshit my stepdad and mother would pull to get me into those classes. Heaven knows I knew I wasn’t smart enough for that shit. Someone like Emily was, which made it even worse having to be in classes with her.
At least, I didn’t think we wouldn’t have too much work. She took AP Spanish, a higher Calculus class, AP English, and something that wasn’t psychology. She was too smart to have taken PE, and while she might have wound up in my chemistry class, I knew that I’d had my Mom suggest that someone like her wind up in a class like physics. I just didn’t want her in any of my classes, that’s all.
I took a deep breath, got out of the car, stuck my chin high, and walked forward. My stepfather, all eighty years old of him, in that stupid ass bowtie and suit, nodded and smiled to me.
“Good morning, Mr. Collins,” he said.
Oh, good fucking grief, how pompous and pretentious could an asshole be?
But I just walked right by him, giving the curtest of nods as I walked up two flights of stairs to our row of lockers.
Immediately, the hallway cleared. No surprise, and kind of disappointing, honestly. To have everything given to you as the leader of the class was just so… boring. I needed someone to push back.
“Still feeling Saturday, boss?”
Someone who’s the opposite of Kevin, ideally.
“You don’t remember shit from that party, do you?” I said, not turning to face Kevin. “I didn’t have a goddamn thing to drink.”
“You didn’t?” Kevin said in surprise.
“You think I want to be responsible if some dipshit gets in trouble? Or if the cops show up, don’t you think it’s a goddamn good idea of the host is sober so everyone else looks guilty as fuck?”
Left unsaid, and something that I barely admitted to myself, was that it let me more easily keep an eye on someone. It let me make sure that someone didn’t wind up in trouble or hurt by anyone else.
That someone was for me and me alone to have and control.
“Touche, man, you always do make a ton of sense.”
“I know I do,” I said. “Come on, grab Nick and bring him over here.”
I then sat down in front of the lockers, pressing my back against them. It sucked for whoever’s locker I blocked, but too bad. I needed something to lean against, and the lockers were that.
Kevin scurried off like the good little boy that he was, finding Nick a few sections of lockers down and bringing him over to me. As he did, I watched the rest of the students come in. Some of the girls smiled at me. Most of the guys looked straight ahead. A couple tried to fist bump me, which I ignored.
There was power in being alone. I didn’t drop down and get entangled with the bullshit of high school. I could just do whatever I wanted to do, stay above the drama, and rule over my little Providence Prep kingdom. For the most part.
“Adam,” Nick said as he sat down. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing right now,” I said. “Asshole Collins decided he was going to continue his little polite charade.”
“Ugh, the old man does like his traditions,” Kevin said.
Nick just shrugged.
“I think we need to teach him a lesson,” I said. “But it can’t trace back to me, at least not obviously. We need to teach Asshole Collins that we run this school, not him.”
“I think we do a pretty good job of that with the house parties,” Nick said.
“Easy for him to turn a blind eye to that,” I said, words that pained me a little more than I would have expected. “Not so easy for him when it’s at his school.”
“Hmm,” Kevin said, and I already knew that whatever idea he had coming to him was going to be really fucking stupid. Kevin was… I’d grant him he could be witty. I would not grant him much else. “What if we brought animals in? Like let loose some horses or something?”
I rolled my eyes. How cliché could Kevin fucking be?
“Is your idea to also bring some orangutans in?” I said. “So that it’s like my stepfather is looking in the mirror?”
“Yeah! Exactly!” Kevin said, laughing.
“That’s retarded, your dumbass,” I said.
Kevin laughed a little longer, trying not to show that the words had affected him so much, but there was no getting around how dumb his plan was.
“No, actually,” I said, smirking. “I have an idea. An even better idea.”
“What?” Nick said.
I normally shared my plans with the Broad Street Boys, if not how I felt. God knows I didn’t do that shit, that shit got you hurt.
But this one? I wanted to hold close to the vest.
“You’ll see.”
And then the bell rang. One more fucking year of this shit.
And then Asshole Collins will be a distant memory.
* * *
AP French, AP Calculus, and Honors English were exactly how I thought they would be. Boring, stupid, and things that I already knew.
Our AP French teacher
began with “this will be the only sentence I say in English all year. Everything we say will be in French.” I knew enough, though, that I didn’t have to pay attention. A few weeks in France had done the trick. Some crazy cat lady speaking to us in French would never teach me as well as my weeks in France had.
The teacher in AP Calculus at least told interesting stories, but I mostly spent my time doodling in the back. Similar to French, I either knew the shit already or picked up on it very quickly. At this point in my academic career, I cared much more about doing the minimum and getting the fuck out than I did in striving for excellence.
Honors English, in theory, would have been interesting if not for the fact that Kevin’s pursuer, Jackie, was in it. Jackie had never had a thing for me, and I certainly had never had a thing for her, but that she liked to stay close to me as a means of getting close to Kevin drove me up the fucking wall. More than once, I’d told Kevin to just take her out and fuck her to stop her—and, in turn, Emily—from constantly popping up in my life, but the pussy was too scared about morals or some shit.
And then I got to PE, my last class before my lunch period, which I confirmed I shared with Kevin and Nick.
In the locker room, I had my own little section and quickly changed into a sleeveless tank top and gym shorts. I had a body to show off, and I didn’t mind showing it off. I especially hoped that some of the girls I hadn’t slept with yet were there.
I walked out. Roll call began. I raised my hand. Roll call nearly concluded.
“Ah, shit,” the football coach and gym teacher, Paul Ott, said. “Is there an… Em…”
Shit. No way. No.
“Zane?”
“Here!”
I turned to see her standing in the doorway, hurrying as she put her hair in a ponytail.
“Miss Zane, come on now dear, we haven’t got all day.”
I couldn’t help but stare at her as she walked in. No matter how much I tried to push her away, no matter how much I told her I was bad news and to stay far away, the sight of Emily was always the sight of a very hot woman. If not for our history, I dare say that she would have been one of the first girls that I tried to sleep with when I came of sexual age.
For that matter, though, the hell was she doing in PE? She was supposed to be with Samantha and taking a dozen AP classes in six time slots. Was she really wasting her time taking a course where we’d play more kickball than exercise?
She finally took notice of me and her body stiffened. She stood on the other end of the line, next to some kid whose last name was Yount or something. She kept leaning back to stare at me, and I did the same for her. It sure seemed like we couldn’t avoid each other, no matter how much we tried.
“Alright, folks, well, this is advanced PE, and, uhh, shit, I just realized we don’t have the hockey sticks to play indoors,” Coach Ott said, murmuring some shit about how he was losing his mind every day. “So, sunny day, anyone want to play kickball?”
Most of my classmates enthusiastically said yes. I just rolled my eyes. As long as I stayed in one piece, I’d be fine.
“Let’s go then!”
Everyone headed for the doors, walking toward the football stadium. I thought of leaving some sort of mark on the field for Nick, knowing how much it would piss him and his teammates off, but I didn’t have the time or really the desire to care. Emily kept a safe distance away from me, which was just as well.
We took our positions and found ourselves on opposite teams. As the most athletic player on my team, I played third base, while Emily, whom I had forgotten played soccer, led off her team.
“Don’t bunt it too hard,” I taunted from third base. “I would hate to have it hit my face.”
Emily ignored me, her eyes straight ahead on the pitcher. The ball rolled toward her, and I crept forward in preparation for the bunt.
And then she drilled the ball so hard I reflexively ducked, thinking it was about to hit me square in the face. Only by the time the ball had passed did I put my hands in the air.
“The fuck?” I muttered as the left fielder, some slow girl, ran to the ball.
I went to third base as Emily rounded first and then made it clear she was heading from second to third. The ball came my way and I prepared to catch it and tag Emily out.
And then I felt her step on my foot, followed by a loud cry.
I looked down to see Emily writhing on the ground, grabbing her ankle. Shit.
“Hey, come on,” I said, letting the ball bounce by me as I put my hand up. “Get up, you’re fine. Walk it off.”
Emily groaned and shook still, in obvious pain. I looked to the side as a few other students approached, but my glares kept them at a distance. The only person I couldn’t keep away was Coach Ott, but he was some old geezer who posed no threat to me.
“Emily, come on, up,” I said, my hand still forward.
Finally, she sat up and looked up at me. I had my hand still out. She scowled, stood up on her own, and hobbled away.
“Get some ice and elevate that shit,” I growled. “You know, if you give a shit about your health like I do.”
“Yes, because you’re such a good guy, Adam,” Emily growled.
I decided to ignore her. Fuck her. I tried to help her, help her when she was hurt, and he’d responded by slapping my hand away and all but declaring she didn’t need me?
OK, fine.
But I was going to confront her later about this. I was not going to let her forget that I had offered to help, only for her to be the bully in rejecting me.
The rest of the kickball game went off without a hitch. My team won, not surprisingly, by about six runs. I would have scored more, but I just half-assed my effort after the fourth inning. By that point, we had the win in hand, and frankly, I wanted to see what happened if I let the game get closer and closer.
With ten minutes before the bell, Coach Ott blew his whistle.
“Alright, you kids, head to the locker room and clean up before your next class,” he said. “Last thing I need is some teachers yelling at me because you all smell like grass and dirt. Not like the old goddamn days.”
I rolled my eyes—him and my stepfather would make great golfing buddies, I bet. I let everyone else go ahead of me; I was in no particular rush to get dressed or showered. I had lunch next, and it would have been an impressive feat to have shown up late to that.
I got all the way to the outside of both the boy’s and the girl’s locker rooms when I had an idea.
“Alright, everyone except Emily Zane out!” I shouted as I entered into the girl’s room. “You heard me, let’s go, let’s go!”
I had a point to make with Emily, and I wasn’t about to waste it on the small chance that we shared a classroom together. There was not going to be a better point to have a private discussion with Emily and to be alone with her—if she had to wear a towel instead of clothes right now, so be it.
Girls hurried past me, a few of them shooting me seductive smiles. I ignored them all and found Emily sitting on a bench. She had on a towel, but I could see that she had her bra on underneath and jeans.
“Really,” I said, amused. “You’re afraid of me seeing you in your bra?”
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” she said loudly. “You could get kicked out for being in this place!”
“I could,” I said. “But I won’t. You know who my stepdad is.”
She scowled, stood up, and headed for her locker.
“If you’re going to try and rape me,” she said. “I suggest you don’t. I will break your balls and bite your dick off, and I will take vigilance into my own hands.”
“And why the fuck would you do that to someone who tried to help you?”
I crossed my arms in smug satisfaction as Emily paused before her locker, dropping her backpack onto the bench just by it. Her eyes bowed as she took a quick sigh.
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, her tone trying to hide the fact that she seemed anything but. “However, I
am a grown woman who can handle her own injuries herself.”
“But I know you don’t want to handle them by yourself,” I said. “I know you want me to help you.”
She stared right at me. I took a step forward. I put my forearm above her head, using my height to push her into the locker. I smelled her and had to pull my hand back to avoid touching her.
Because, goddamn, was it tempting to have her. To take her. To claim her as mine. To be the first one inside of her.
“You like this, don’t you?” I said as I noticed her reaction to me—it was hard to describe, other than it being a particular vibe that I felt.
“You’re so fucking arrogant and narcissistic,” she said. “You really think—”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Because I know how you feel, Emily. You know that despite me pushing you away, despite me telling you to not fucking come to my parties… you can’t help it. You want me.”
“Seems like the only person coming on to the other is you to me,” she said.
I paused, taken aback. She was right. She was absolutely right. She had almost never come to me on her own volition. I had always set us up to hang out.
I was the one doing this.
The fuck?
“I came here to make a point,” I growled.
“And that is what? That you want to make me feel threatened by physical force?”
“Yes, because I have hit you so much,” I said sarcastically, knowing that I could safely and legally say I had never touched her since we broke up just before high school started. “I want to hear you say thank you. Not ‘I appreciate it.’ Say ‘thank you.’”
“Maybe if you leave me.”
I smirked. I loved seeing Emily like this. This—this was the thrill I was looking for. Not for some kid to cower before me or some easy girl to go down on me. But for someone to stand up to me and challenge me.
“Do it, Emily,” I said. “I know you want to. Do it. Fucking do it.”
“I swear—”
“Adam Collins!”
I made no show of being flustered by the fact that the school’s athletic director, a woman by the name of Joy Reddish, came in there and literally grabbed me by the shoulder.
