by Silva Hart
I only realize I must have made noise when the lady in front of me turns back to give me a pinched-face glare. At this, Lexi buries a giggle into my shoulder and I have to chuckle myself. I feel relaxed and at peace. Lexi has a way of making me feel better no matter what’s going on. Leaning back, I settle in for the rest of the movie as Lexi once again snuggles up against my arm.
“You’re so, so amazing,” she murmurs into my ear. She sprinkles my earlobe and the side of my face with soft kisses. “And you smell good,” she says as her kisses move to my neck.
After the movie (spoiler: the girl dies), I drive back to Lexi’s house.
If only I could allow myself to get used to this. But I know good and well that the fairy tale happily ever after with the likes of Lexi Moore doesn’t happen to the likes of me. One look inside the dark, musty room I call home, and the good doctor will dive back into the endless ocean of men available to her and surface with a better selection.
Tuesday morning, Anna slumps through the door with the late bell. She looks terrible. Like binged-from-Friday-night-to-Tuesday-morning-on-anything-she-could-get-her-hands-on-and-didn’t-sleep kind of terrible.
At the release bell, I duck around the corner before Lexi can find me and maneuver through the throng to Anna’s side. “Hey.”
The pure misery in her bloodshot eyes twists my heart. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but I can’t help her. The only thing I can do is to be there for her.
“Come on,” I say and take her hand. She follows unresisting, her hand lying like a dead thing in my grasp as I head out to the school baseball dugout. As soon as we get there, she curls into a ball in the corner.
“Hey,” I say again.
She looks up and holds out two fingers spread open for me to place a cigarette in, which, of course, I do. I light it for her. She inhales and her head drops back as she exhales. As if she’s been holding her breath all morning and this is the most necessary and greatest exhale of her life.
She stares up at the cracked concrete ceiling. “I can’t, Jett.”
What is she talking about?
“I can’t do this anymore,” she says.
I smoke and stare at the ground, struggling against the fear that trickles through me. If she’s talking about killing herself, I have no idea what I’m going to do.
“I hate it here so much.”
“It’s only been a few weeks.” Those aren’t the words that are going to help her. I know they’re not. But I don’t know what the words are that will. Or if those words even exist.
She turns to me and leans forward with such an intensity emanating from her bloodshot eyes that I have to consciously hold my ground against it. “You know how sometimes you take a bite of something and it’s so awful that swallowing it would be worse than the act of spitting it out in front of people?”
I nod.
“Or when you start watching a movie or reading a book, and you can tell right away it’s not for you?”
I nod again.
“And like with people too. Sometimes you have nothing in common and will never be friends no matter how much you talk or how long you hang out.”
My jaw clenches.
She scoots closer and puts her hand on my knee. “I wasn’t talking about you. I’m giving examples of how you know some things. That’s like me. Here.” She waves her hand in a sweeping gesture. “It’s all wrong. And it will never be right for me.”
I take a deep drag. “So what are you going to do?” I chew on the inside of my cheek, willing her not to say what I think she’s going to.
She runs a hand through her tousled hair. “The only thing I can, I guess.”
I hold my breath, unsure what she means. If I mess up … if I say the wrong thing right now … will I be responsible for whatever comes next?
“I have to get back to California.”
I exhale. Okay that’s not great, but it’s better than suicide. “How?”
“Take the bus as far as I can then walk and hitch, I guess. I have to get back there. It’s where I belong.”
“Are you going to tell your mom what you’re doing?”
“I’ve been going back and forth on that. It’s not like she’d care. It’ll probably take her a few days to realize I’m gone. I might leave her a note. I don’t know.”
“Do you have any money?”
“Some.”
I pull my last ten dollars out of my pocket and give it to her. She takes it, so I know she doesn’t have enough. “Where are you going to stay?”
“I’ll figure that out on the way, or something will probably come up after I get there.”
How can she be so unconcerned about the details of her plan? What if she ends up on the streets, homeless without any money? What is she going to do? You hear horror stories about the things that happen to girls in that kind of situation.
“Will you drive me to the bus station tonight?”
“Tonight?”
She squeezes my knee. “Please?”
This is sudden. “What time?”
“There’s a six-oh-five I want to catch.”
I nod, looking down at the dust blowing around my feet in the October breeze. I was never going to make this place right for her.
“Thanks,” she says, giving me a chaste kiss on the cheek before leaving the dugout.
I stay and smoke another cigarette, not really caring about classes. How did Anna arrive only a couple of weeks ago and spin me up so completely? Now, just as quickly, she’s leaving. And I have no control over it.
I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried being there for her. I’ve tried distracting her. This is something I won’t win no matter how hard I fight.
After school, I pace the floor at One-Eyed Mike’s. There are three hours before Anna has to be at the bus station. I change and do an intense workout until my gloves are concrete blocks hanging from my arms and I need to sit before my legs give out.
It’s still too early to pick up Anna, but maybe she could use a hand. With this thought, I shower and head to her house.
When I arrive, she pulls me into the house with her eyes lit up like a candle-covered birthday cake. She looks like a different person. “You’re not going to believe what happened.”
Her suitcase is open on her bed, only half-packed, and we need to be there in an hour. Dresser drawers hang open. Clothes and toiletries are everywhere.
“What?” My heart flip-flops inside my chest. She’s not packed yet, so she must have decided to stay.
“My best friend Lindsey called and told me Connor just broke up with Emily and is heartbroken over having lost me.”
I bet he is.
“So I called him, and he said he misses me and wishes we hadn’t broken up. He wants me to come back and move in with him. He said he loves me. And I definitely love him. I love him so, so much.” She stops her rush of breathless excitement to gaze up at me with that shining, angelic face as if expecting me to break into a joyful jig or something.
I shrug. If she wants to go back to a cheating scumbag, I’m not going to celebrate with her. She doesn’t seem to notice my reticence.
“He said he kicked her out of his apartment and everything. They didn’t last long at all.” Her voice holds triumph.
“You still taking the six-oh-five?”
“Yeah. He’s wiring me money. It’ll be waiting for me at the first stop. After that, I can ride the bus the whole way and won’t have to hitch.” She digs into her pocket, pulls out the crumpled ten, and presses it into my front pocket. “So I won’t be needing this.”
“Do you need help with anything?” I ask, eyeing the ruined room.
“Oh my God.” Her hands flutter to her face. “I’ve been so caught up with all of that, I completely forgot about finishing this. How much time do I have?”
The clock on her bedside table reads 5:23.
“Do you have your ticket yet?”
“No.”
“Then I’d say you got abou
t two minutes. It takes thirty minutes to get there.”
She runs around the room gathering up things and flinging them into her suitcase. She unsuccessfully tries to stuff her pillow in as well then throws it back on the bed.
“Aren’t you going to need that?”
“Nah. Connor has one for me. I probably don’t need a bunch of personal care stuff either, ‘cause he has all that too.”
“How long till you get there?”
“Little over two days.”
“Do you have money for food?”
“Connor will probably include some for that.”
I have a bad feeling. How can she so blindly trust that someone who’s lied to her will follow through? What if this is his sick way of hurting her more than he already has? I chew on the inside of my cheek.
Chapter 26
It takes both of us to close the straining case. I hope she doesn’t open it before she arrives because there is no way she’s ever getting it closed again by herself. She takes a last, sweeping look around the disheveled room then nods. I pick up the heavy case and lug it down the steps.
“You leaving a note?” I ask.
“Oh, thank you. I would have totally forgotten about that.”
She scribbles a message on a piece of paper and leaves it on the kitchen table.
During the thirty-minute drive to the bus station, she’s downright chatty for the first time since I’ve met her. A torrent of words rushes out of her mouth. All about California and how great it will be to get back there and what she’ll do and where she’ll eat. What a great guy Connor is and how happy they’ll be together. She’s a different Anna, a manically bubbly Anna. It makes me realize how little I know her. I think back on how consistent Lexi has been.
We park and she goes to open the door. I put a hand on her arm. She turns back. What do I want to say? “Can I get your number?”
She gives the ghost of a smile, leans toward me, and cups my cheeks in her hands. “You are so sweet, Jett.” Then she turns and gets out of the car.
That’s it? That’s all I get? After being there for her ever since she arrived? My jaw clenches and unclenches as I heave her bag out of the trunk and carry it into the station. Anna practically dances to the window and purchases a ticket. They check her bag.
She skips back to me, her face glowing. “Can I have a cigarette?”
I pull out my pack. There’s one left. I hand it to her, and she takes it. “Thanks, Jett. For everything.” She stares up at me. “Promise me something?”
I nod. Why I still care anything about this girl after she keeps telling me she’s in love with someone else, I couldn’t begin to explain.
“Promise me you’ll let yourself fall in love, Jett. It’s the only thing worth living for.” She clasps my hand. “Promise?”
Is this the part where I tell her I love her and have since the moment I laid eyes on her? Is that what this has been? Probably not.
I do know that she doesn’t love me, wouldn’t be able to love me. She loves someone else. She’s made that abundantly clear. Love is a happy feeling, right? And if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been feeling a hell of a lot happier when I’ve been with Lexi lately than when I’ve been with Anna.
“You once told me you don’t know what love is. But, trust me, you’ll definitely know it when it happens. It’s the greatest thing in the world. You just have to be open to it. You have to be willing to let it happen. You have to trust.” She’s staring up at me imploringly. “Let it happen, Jett. Don’t fight it like you do everything else, okay?”
I shrug and nod at the same time. I mean, it’s bound to happen at some point in my life. Right? Or maybe it only happens to certain people. I never really thought about love before Anna started talking about it so much.
She doesn’t even give me a goodbye kiss. I watch as she gets on the bus with no time to spare. The doors close behind her, and the bus pulls away. She’s gone. Just like that. And I’ll never see her or hear from her again.
I walk back to the Mustang. Frustration, sadness, betrayal, humiliation, and anger battle inside me. Why couldn’t she at least have given me her number? How long until the memory of her fades, and I no longer wonder if she made it across the country safely?
I reach for my smokes before remembering she took my last one. On my way to One-Eyed Mike’s, I pull into a Quickie Mart. As I’m walking to the door, a figure with long, blonde hair emerges.
“Jett,” Lexi says with delight and flashes a beautiful smile.
I grab her and hold her in a bear hug, forming her now familiar body to mine and breathing in her now familiar scent. She wraps her arms around my body under my black, leather jacket. For once, she doesn’t ask me a bunch of questions. We simply stand there bathed in the glow of the neon sign and hold each other. It’s exactly what I need.
Wednesday morning, in homeroom, my mind probes the thought of where Ana might be, wondering if she’s okay, like an errant tongue probing a toothache. She wouldn’t give me her number before she left. There’s nothing I can do about it. She was never going to like it here. She was never going to forget about her boyfriend and fall madly in love with me. She’s gone. I don’t have to think about her anymore. It’s almost a relief to know I’ll probably never see her again.
Lexi catches up with me in the hall. “I have some free time this weekend. What do you want to do?” she coos, tracing a finger along my jaw.
I shrug.
“There’s an art fair at the park, and the weather’s supposed to be nice.”
Right. That sounds like exactly how I want to spend my weekend.
“Oh, remember we have the talent show Saturday night.”
How could I forget? Dair mentions Mia every time I see him.
“Maybe we could go to the races.”
“What kind of races?”
“Horse races.”
I’ve never been to horse races. “That doesn’t sound bad.”
“Really? There’s actually some going on tonight. Want to go?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Great! I bet you’ll love it,” she smiles up at me with a lottery-winning smile before turning into her class. God, how do I make this girl who has everything so happy? I still don’t get it, even after everything she told me. Why me?
I pick Lexi up at seven. She looks stunning in jeans that hug her curves, black riding boots, a soft black sweater, and a turquoise and gray blanket scarf. Sliding into the Mustang with an athlete’s grace, she leans over and kisses me with her soft, full lips.
Breaking away, she grins up at me, the turquoise in the scarf deepening the color of her eyes. “Notice anything different?”
My eyes sweep over her.
“I’ll give you another hint.” She kisses me again, more insistently.
I’m confused.
“I’m not wearing lip-gloss, silly. I saw you wiping it off with your hand every time, so I figured you didn’t like it that much. Now, maybe you’ll want to kiss me more.” There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Maybe,” I say, crooking a finger under her chin and pulling her lips to mine. Funny she would notice a little thing like that. But I have to say, it is much nicer.
We get to the track and stare at the boards. There’s a complicated layout of columns and numbers that must mean something, but all I can do is start reading down through the list of horse names.
“Hot to Trot. We have to bet on that one,” I grin.
Lexi laughs. “Let’s do it.”
She goes to a terminal and I watch as she maneuvers through the screens like a pro, placing a show bet for that one as well as for Breaking Good, the race favorite. She feeds money into the machine and out pop two tickets. Grabbing them, she says, “Daddy always taught me to bet on the race favorite. It makes money about fifty percent of the time.”
The first race starts in fifteen minutes, so I follow Lexi out the door to the track.
“It’s not as crowded as I thou
ght it would be,” I say. Or as glamorous either. We’re mostly surrounded by overweight, middle-aged women in tracksuits and balding men in sweaters and khakis.
“Where do you want to sit?”
“How close can we get?”
She walks to the fence. I’m surprised at how close we’re allowed to stand next to the track. We’re along the homestretch and can see men scurrying to get horses lined up and in the gates.
“There’s Hot to Trot third in from the center. Breaking Good is right next to him.”
The bell rings in no time, the gates burst open, and the horses leap forward.
“Hot to Trot,” Lexi screams with her cheerleader lungs.
I laugh and join in. We both scream our heads off for a horse that can’t even hear us, having a blast making complete fools of ourselves. As they round the last corner, I’m impressed with the pure power of the horses charging toward us. The ground and fence tremble as they thunder past. Grit blows against my face. The experience is exhilarating. “Wow, that was amazing.”
Lexi reaches up and kisses me. “You’re amazing.”
I smile down at her. “Did we win?”
“I couldn’t tell. Let’s go in and find out.”
She feeds the tickets into the terminal. “Hot to Trot came in sixth.”
“Maybe they should have called him Hot to Gallop instead, so he stood a chance.”
Lexi laughs. “But, hey, we made forty-two bucks off Breaking Good.”
Forty-two bucks just like that within a few minutes. “I can see how people could get addicted to this.”
“Yeah, it’s fun. So, there’s thirty minutes between races. Who are we betting on next?”
“Well the track favorite, of course.”
“Of course. Who else?”
“Sir Roderick Theodore Mandrake III.”
“Wow, yeah. He has to do something fabulous with a name like that.” She feeds the money in, and we go back to the fence with our tickets in hand.
As we’re waiting, she wraps her arms around herself. Her breath blows white in the frigid air. “You want to watch from inside?”
