Downcast (11 page)

Haley frowned. "Are you sure you are well enough for class?"

"I'm totally fine," I snapped back in a panic, trying to shake off his hand and book it down the hall.

"This isn't like you, Stephanie."

"How do you know? I mean really? You don't even know me."

Steel fingers closed around my wrist and pulled me toward him.

"Then let me get to know you," he said. "Give me a chance."

I looked frantically around the now-empty hall.

"Class," I said desperately. "Late. Detention."

My brain was officially fried.

"After school?" Haley asked, his grip on my hand tightening slightly. “Come home with me. We can talk there.”

I was wrong.
Now
my brain was officially fried.

"I can't," I gasped. "Mom. She's waiting. She'll be waiting. I can't. I'm sorry."

Haley closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His expression seemed still, but I suddenly saw tiny, tense lines that pain drew on his face.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

"You," he replied, opening his eyes and looking down at me with unmistakable tenderness. "You're everything that's wrong in my world and everything that could be right."

He kissed my fingers and let go of my hand as he said, "Go to class. I'll see you later."

“Wait, aren’t you going to class?”

“Hmmm, no. I think I’ll spend some time in the library instead. But,” he added, bending his head down so that his lips brushed my ears. “I’ll be thinking of you the whole time.”

I stood alone in the ugly green hallway, watching as he walked away from me.

Was Helen right? Did Haley really like me, or had Hell just frozen over?

BY THE END
of the day, I had a wicked headache.

My hair weighed a thousand pounds on my head, and my eyes ached like I had been straining to see things at a distance…or, maybe just trying to see things that weren’t there…or had never been there? I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and just think. Or sleep. Sleep would have been fine at that point, too.

As I trudged to my locker, I caught sight of Haley and Zack. They were glaring at each other with clenched fists and tense shoulders.

Instinctively, I ducked behind the open door of an empty classroom.

"I'm tired of waiting!" Haley snapped, his low, raspy voice scraping over the words.

"You can't rush things now, of all times," Zack argued back.

"I'm so close. I've waited so long!"

"I know, but you know the rules."

"Damn the rules!" Haley growled. "This was not my choice."

"There's nothing you can do about it, bro," Zack said with a long-suffering sigh.

"You’re not being very helpful. You could do something."

"Me? Oh no. No. My role here is purely supervisory."

"That's not what you said when you made this deal. You said you wanted to help me, that you were on my side."

"Dude, I've got football practice. I'm busy. I can't just drop that to chase down dead ends."

"Football?"

"Yeah. I'm the quarterback, remember?"

"You're my
brother
." That word had an odd, terrible depth to it. The sound of Haley’s voice reverberated in my chest as he spoke those two syllables. It was as if he had dropped two iron weights onto each other.

"Quarterback, dude."

"Brother.”

There was a pause.

"Fine," Zack grumbled. "Fine, I’ll see what I can do."

"Of course you will."

"Maybe a little appreciation, bro?"

"If I get what I want, you'll have my
undying
gratitude, brother."

It was Zack's turn to chuckle.

"Well," he said. "That's something, coming from you, I suppose. I’ll give it a try. No promises, though."

I heard two lockers slam shut, and Zack added, "After football practice."

Haley snorted, and I listened to their retreating footsteps.

Thinking it was safe, I darted out from my hiding place and proceeded to stuff my bag full of the books I would need for homework that weekend.

“Are you going to be able to carry all that?”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, jumping and spinning around at the sound of Haley’s voice. The weight of my bag added momentum to my spin and carried me in a graceless three-sixty. Dropping the bag to the ground, I turned back to face Haley, ears burning and eyes narrowed.

“You really need to stop sneaking up on me like that,” I scolded him. “It’s bad for my heart. One of these days, I’ll have a heart attack and die, and it will be all your fault.”

Haley’s face twisted comically for a moment before he burst out laughing. “You’re absolutely right. On all counts.”

He grinned at me mischievously, and I couldn’t help but smile back a little bit.

“So,” he said. “What are your plans for the weekend?”

A lifetime of looking for potential mockery in everything had me automatically hyper-analyzing his question before answering. Was this a prelude to a request for a date? Or help with homework? Or just making conversation? Or, was it a set-up for leading me on and getting my hopes up for the fun of it? From what I had seen of him so far, Haley didn’t seem like the type to do that. But, once ingrained, paranoia was a hard habit to shake.

“Oh, the usual,” I replied as nonchalantly as I could. “Work. Homework. Nothing that exciting. What about you?”

Deflection was always a good defensive technique.

“Well, I’ve got homework, too,” Haley said. “But, I was hoping to get some time in for my painting.”

“Painting? You’re an artist?”

“Yeah,” he said with a small, embarrassed smile. “I’m actually not very good at it, but I enjoy it.”

“Why do you think you’re not very good?”

“Because, I’m not. Trust me. I absolutely fail at capturing things the way I want, the way I see them.”

“How do you see them?” My questions were no longer about protecting me from his inquisitiveness. They were now genuinely about this unexpected side of the tall boy with the shadowy eyes standing in front of me.

“I see everything in incredible detail,” he replied. “The texture of concrete, the way people stir the air around them when they move. It’s like I can see layers of colors and more edges and angles to everything. Painting just doesn’t show that as precisely as I want. I’ve tried watercolor, oil, acrylic, pastels, everything.”

“Maybe you should try photography,” I suggested.

“Photography?”

“Yeah, I mean, with digital photography and Photoshop and everything, you should totally be able to get the effects you want. You know, capturing stuff exactly as it is, but distorting it so that you show it exactly as you see it.”

Haley nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of photography. Honestly, I was going to try sculpture next.”

“Sculpture?” I laughed. “You mean like with a hammer and chisel?”

“Why not?“ he replied, smiling. “There are statues that look incredibly realistic, like the person was frozen mid-step.”

“Okay, Leonardo. Whatever. You know how long it would take you to learn how to make a statue like that?”

“I don’t.”

“Neither do I, but it would probably be a really long time. It might not even turn out all that good, and boom, you’ve just wasted two tons of marble or whatever.”

Haley laughed, and I relished the smoky sound of it.

“You don’t think I could do sculpture?” he asked, a smirk on his lips.

“Honestly? I think it would probably be an epic fail.”

“An epic fail involving two tons of marble.”

“Exactly. At least if you suck at photography, too, you can eBay your camera.”

“Wow, you really have no faith in my artistic abilities, do you?” he chuckled.

I shrugged, fighting a small smirk of my own. “Call me a realist. Maybe even a pessimist.”

“Oh, the irony that I’m the optimist, then,” he said, smiling at me.

It was too easy to get lost in that smile, especially when his eyes added their own invitation.

“Do you have any talents I can denigrate?” he murmured.

“Nope,” I answered smugly. “I don’t really have any hobbies other than gardening, but I’m wicked good at that. It’s how I got my job at the store.”

“Oh? What store?”

“The Whole Foods off Wiscasset Road.”

“Ah. What do you do there?”

“I’m the goddess of the Floral Department.”

Haley’s eyes widened for a moment as if I had said something shocking. He then laughed again, shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

“Nothing is funny,” he replied as his laughter died down. “It’s just that you are perfect, and it’s completely frustrating.”

It was my turn to do the wide-eyed shocked thing.

“Hey, Steph!” Morris called from the end of the hall. “Just FYI, your mom is waiting outside.”

Well, that was a mood killer.

“Gotta go,” I said abruptly, grabbing my bag and slamming my locker shut.

“Wait!” Haley exclaimed reaching out to grasp my arm, but I was beyond his reach.

“Have a good weekend,” I muttered, dreading the lecture that would be coming from Mom about texting her if I was going to be late coming out of the building.

“I’ll see you,” he said, his voice soft but carrying perfectly to my ears.

***

Shocker of all shockers, Mom didn’t say a word about me being late. She simply drove us home, and I was happy to just lean back and close my eyes, thinking very hard about how not to think obsessively about my week.

"Are you alright, Stephanie?" Mom asked as we pulled into our driveway, her voice sharp with worry.

I dragged my eyes open and threw on a painfully cheerful smile for her.

"Yup," I replied. "Just relaxing."

"Is school that stressful for you?"

"No," I reassured her quickly. "Nope, it's just nice to go home at the end of the day."

"You could take your GED and stay home," Mom reminded me for the fifty-millionth time since I had turned sixteen. "You wouldn't have to be around all those other children all day long."

"I'm learning a lot more through my teachers than I would with just a GED," I countered.

"Well, I mean, we can always get you books from the library."

"But, if I want to go to college, I'll have a better shot with a full high school education."

Mom frowned. "I'm not sure you're ready for college. Those places are dangerous. Remember how we talked about how there’s all kinds of drinking and drugs, and young women are attacked all the time? You agreed with me that most college kids are out of control. Besides, college classes are stressful, and you know your health goes downhill when you are stressed. Why don't you take one of those online courses first? I can help you pick something appropriate this summer."

I bit my lip to keep myself from responding. Hard. Otherwise I would have ended up in some kind of hypoallergenic isolation chamber with only Barney the dinosaur to keep me company.

Then I saw it. My opportunity.

"Did you ever go to college?" I asked trying to sound innocent.

Mom frowned and slipped a side-glance at me.

"I...," she began, hesitating and looking at me again. "I did not."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It...it wasn't necessary."

"What do you mean? Did your parents not want you to go? Or did you just not want to go?"

"Stephanie, what are all these questions about?" There was a hot snap to her voice I'd never heard before.

She turned off the car and walked toward the house, probably assuming this conversation was over. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t, though, and I was going to let her know, too. I was ready for a fight, every nerve in my body buzzing with the righteous rage I had buried for so long.

"If you didn't go to college," I asked, following her into the house. "How did you meet my father?"

"Stephanie!"

"It's a fair question, Mom."

"Stephanie, I've told you. We do not talk about your father." Mom scrunched up her face tight, distorting her features like a funhouse mirror.

"Yeah, but you never told me why not."

"Because we don't." Her movements grew stiff and jerky, and I could see the whites of her knuckles as she clenched her hands into fists.

"I can only imagine a couple of reasons why you wouldn't want to talk about him."

"Stephanie, stop this instant!"

I summoned the logic and reasoning of my Inner Helen and let Mom have it. "Did he knock you up with me when you were a teenager then leave you? Or, did you marry him then divorce him? Did you even know him? Was he a one night stand?"

My mom's face went white, and she was so incandescent with anger that her eyes practically glowed.

"Or, was he a nice guy?" I went on recklessly. "Did he love you? Were you the one to leave him? Does he even know I exist? Is he even still alive?"

"Stephanie," she warned me in a low, menacing voice.

"What's his name?" I hissed back. "I turn eighteen tomorrow, and I don't even know my father's name!"

"This is not appropriate for a child to ask, Stephanie!"

"I'm not a child any more. I haven't been for a long time. And tomorrow? Tomorrow, I'll be a legal adult."

"You are still my child, Stephanie. You will
always
be my child. Nothing will ever change that."

I jerked back a little. The sound of her voice as she sliced up the word "always" announced that she was balanced on the knife’s edge between patience and rage. Okay, maybe it was time to de-escalate somewhat, but I was still going to make her talk
to
me for once, not just talk
at
me.

"I'll always be your daughter," I agreed in what I hoped was a much more reasonable tone of voice. "But I'm growing up. I want to be an adult, out in the world."

Mom looked stricken, but I held onto my courage and kept going.

"I want to go to college, to live on campus like other students. I want to meet someone special, fall in love, get married and have kids. I want to have a career. I don't know exactly what I want to do yet, but that's what college is for. That's what meeting other people is for. You'll always be my mom, but soon, I am going to leave home. I am going to live my life."