Cross My Heart (30 page)

So why
, all of a sudden,
does it feel like something is missing?
Something I didn’t even realize
was
missing.
Parker is right.
It’s as if I have
all the educatio
n, but not the experience.
I have a life, but I’m not
living
.
There
’s
no excitement,
nothing
unpredictable about my life and the cho
ices I’ve
made.
Until
he
came along.

When I arrive
at lunch a
n
incredible wave of guilt washes
over me
.
Not only because I let a guy I barely kno
w sneak up to my third floor attic after everyone was asleep, but because I liked it . . . and would do it again if I knew there was no way I could get in trouble.
H
ere I am
, sitting beside my cute and incredibly
sweet boyfriend (over-protectiveness and
jealousy asi
de) who
always put
s
me first, knowing I
spent one of the most amazing times of my life with another guy. And then not being able to tell Savannah or Ashley
? A few weeks
ago
I was
open and honest
; now on
e of the mo
st important parts
of me
is locked up,
vaulted. I have
secrets.

“
God
,
Jaden, you look awful,” says
Savannah.

Leave it to my best friend to
employ brutal honesty
to prove
a point
.
“Thanks,” I mutter
, opening my lunch bag and pulling
out my sandwich. I glance
out the windo
w . . . just to see if Parker is there . . . and eating. He i
s.
A
quick
surge of pleasur
e
warms me from head to toe
.

“Jaden,” Savannah says. She waves
her hand back and forth to get my attention. “Earth to Jaden.”

I snap back to reality. She thro
w
s
me a look—a strange
look,
a subtle warning. I’m starin
g,
and it
’
s obvious
. Or maybe I’m
reading too deeply into
it;
the world, it seems, is becoming much harder to inte
rpret. Skewed in part
by the
massive dilemma that is Parker Whalen
.

I
clear
my throat. “Yeah?”

“What’s wrong with you today? You look tired . . . or sick or something.”

“I am,” I say
. “I mean . . . I’m not sick, but I’m tired. I did
n’t sleep well last night
. I tossed and turned. . . .”
I can’t
even
finish the sentence.
You’re such a liar
, a tiny voice
si
ng
s. Like my conscience i
sn’t already in overdrive.

“You’re not still worrying abo
ut Harvard
,
are you?” Blake asks
, draping his arm around me
, planting
a
soft,
wet kiss on my temple
.

Savannah
eyes
me
carefully
.
She has
to know
. It must be
some best f
riend sixth sense or something.
I refuse
to meet her gaze.

“
I’m not. I mean, I’m not trying to
let it consume me,” I clarify
.
I
t’s definitely better to let them thin
k I’m losing sleep over Harvard,
not that I’m sneaking
random
guys up to my attic.

“Well, y
ou look awful,” Ashley confirms
.

“I used
concealer
.”

“N
o, it’s not just that,” she goes
on. “It’s
y
our eyes. They’re not even here. L
ike you’re really preoccupied or something.”

“Okay
,
Ash
ley,” Savannah mutters
. “
This wa
s not a segue for you to remind
everyone
you
’
re taking
that
college-level psycho
logy class online this semester. A
nd
by the way,
three
months
of
Intro to Psych doesn
’
t give you th
e right to go around analyzing the rest of us
.
”
Her
blue
eyes roll
dramatically.

“I wasn’t ana
lyzing anyone,” Ashley retorts
. “And you should c
onsider taking that class. Y
ou might
learn
something.”

Savannah lifts
her hand
, stopping her. “I told you
:
no
college.
Thirteen years of school is enough, thank you.”

In an instant
the conversation shifts, and it’s not
about me or the bags under my eyes, or being stress
ed out about Harvard . . . it’
s like any othe
r day. That is, until
the final bell ri
ng
s
.

I s
hould’ve known something
was happening the moment I pushed through the double doors and stepped
onto the sidewalk. People stand
outside;
some st
op
mid-parking lot. S
miling
. L
aughing. Some wander
a
round
as if in a daze,
shieldi
ng their eyes
. It ta
k
es me a minute, as I head
toward my car,
to get it. But then
I see
—
beyond a thin stretch of wispy clouds—
a
reflection of light i
n my window
:
a hazy orb hanging
low, floating mid-air. I turn and gaze
at the bright blue sky
, squinting. It’
s like
surfacing for air
after giving up hope,
after resigning to drown
,
suffocating. My shadow spread
s
like a canopy
across the p
avement. Instinctively, I tuck
my
hair behind my ears, and watch
it replicate the motion. After months of darkness and clouds, and rain and cold a
nd winter . . . this is what I’ve been dreaming of. The breeze i
s
still chilly, but the clouds a
re fin
ally dissolv
ing: the sun is out . . . and it shines
,
brilliant
.

*
  
*
  
*

To go
t
o a restaurant, my family needs
a formal, operatio
nal mission plan.
W
e’
re heading to a steakhouse in a town
about twenty minutes away. We’
re meeting Phillip,
who’
s picking up Becky
Summerlin
(who is apparently returning his calls now)
from her par
ent
s’
house. Daniel and Sarah a
re in her car, with Joshua in the backseat. Mom insisted I bring Blake along, if only to make things m
ore comfortable for Becky, so the two of us
are in my car, and she and Dad a
re in his truck. Four vehicles to get one family to
dinner
. Sometimes I wonder
why my mom never invested in a minivan.

I ease
into the road behind Daniel and Sarah, fo
llowing them down the street.
I c
heck
my rearview mirror.

“I’m glad you called,
” Blake
says
. “I haven’t seen ever
yone in a while.”

“I
know. It’s just that, with school
, and the weddin
g . . . things have been really
busy. T
his is the first time we’ve
done anythin
g in like, a month,” I explain
. “And we pr
obably wouldn’t be,” I continue
, flipping on my left turn signal, “if Mom wasn’t so adamant about us
officially
meeting Phillip’s new girlfriend.”

He grabs
the
handle above
the passenger window. I glance over at him
, fingers gripping the steering wheel
. I hate when he does
that. Ho
lding the handle, I mean. It’s like he’s implying I’m
a terrible driver
; that, in addition to
his seat
belt, he need
s
something to hold on to. It
reminds
me of driving with my dad.

When I was practicing for my driver’s test, I could always see him out of the corner of my eye, mash
ing
brakes that didn’t exist—like I wasn’t stopping fast enough or something. It was annoying. Though Mom assured me that Dad treated Daniel and Phillip the same way, it was decided early on that, if
at
all possible, she or Daniel would ride with me
.

“Why are
they going this way?” I wonder aloud as I continue
to follow Daniel and Sarah. “We should’ve stayed straight.”

We turn
down a side street full of oak trees and little bungalow-style houses. Daniel
press
es
hi
s brakes and pulls
over, parking at the curb
. “What is he doing?” I mutter
, pulling in behind him. Leaves and branches an
d other street debris crunch
beneath my tires
, the
car gliding to a stop. I shift to park and roll
down the windo
w. Daniel cli
mbs
out of the
car
. “What are we doing?” I ask
him.

Dad pulls
over beside us.

“What’s going on?” Mom asks
through the open window.

“Just pa
rk for a minute,” Daniel replies
.

I roll my window back up and unbuckle
my seat
belt. “It looks like
we’re stopping here,” I inform
Blake. “At least temporarily.”

We
climb
out of the
car, shut the door, then cross the street, where Daniel i
s
waiting on t
he sidewalk. Sarah and Joshua a
re
right behind us.

“What’s going on?” Dad asks
Daniel.

“
Sarah and I thought you guys might want to take a look at our new house.”

“What?” Mom cries. Her hands fly
to her mouth. “When did this happen?”

“We closed on it last week,”
Sarah says
. “We didn’t want to tell anyone just in case it fell through.”

For the first time I notice we’
re standing in front of a little bungalow with a contract pending sign in the yard. “I can’t bel
ieve you didn’t tell us!” I say
, taking in the huge trees, the tiny front yard, the cracked sidewalk, and the house—Daniel and Sarah’s house.

“It was
hard, believe me,” she confesses
.

Dad and Daniel walk
towar
d the front porch; Blake grabs my hand as we follow, squeezing it lightly. It’
s cooler than mine, and damp somehow.

“I made sure we got
an inspection,” Daniel is
telling Dad. “There’s a lot of work to do. It’s a definite fixer-upper, but structurally, everything is great. I figured it wouldn’t take too long to renovate, even if Sarah and I did
most of
the work ourselves.