Easy (29 page)

Ralph eyed the two
of us. “Who’s next?”

Gail stepped
forward, trembling visibly. While Ralph murmured subtle tips—something he
hadn’t done for anyone else—Lucas went easy on her. Our booklet said that having
the confidence to fight back was a critical part of self-defense training, and
I knew they were giving her that. The more punches and kicks she landed, the
louder we cheered her on, and the harder she fought. When she returned to the
group and accepted our emphatic praise, there were tears on her face and she
was still wobbly—but she wore a mile-wide smile.

I went last,
against Don. My adrenaline spiked the moment I stepped onto the mat, and I
wondered if the tiny shockwaves running through me were visible to everyone,
like Gail’s unsteady hands had been as she held her small body in defense mode.
I knew Lucas and Erin were watching me closely; they were the only ones who
knew exactly what had brought me there.

The entire thing
was over in a minute, maybe two.

Don circled me
once, mumbling
hey, baby
comments—part of the scenario. I kept my eyes
on him, my whole body taut, waiting. Suddenly, he swerved toward me and tried
to grab my arm. I did a wrist block, then screwed up a snap kick and ended up
in a front bear hug. I wasn’t sure if it was in my head or actually shouted—because
everything seemed slow-motion and muted, like we were under water—but I heard
Erin’s voice yell, “
NUTSACK!
”

I brought my knee
straight up, tearing from Don’s grasp when he grunted and released me. Running
to the door, I heard Erin’s cheerleader-voice rising over everyone else’s. She
bounded across the room to hug me when I reached the safety zone, and over her
shoulder, I watched Lucas’s expression. He’d removed his headgear and combed
his sweaty hair back, so I could clearly see his face, and the familiar
barely-there smile.

***

Lucas:  You did well this morning.

Me:  Yeah?

Lucas:  Yeah

Me:  Thanks

Lucas:  Coffee sunday? Pick you up around 3?

Me:  Sure :)

***

Saturday night’s performance
demanded my full attention, distracting me until I was in my room. Erin hadn’t
returned from yet another sorority gathering, but was due back soon. The entire
dorm was wide awake, studying for—or freaking out about—finals, enjoying the
last full weekend before break, or well past ready to go home. The voices in
the hall alternated between pre-finals tension and pre-holiday excitement.

A deep-toned bass
line seeped through the wall opposite my bed, and my fingers moved with it.
Occasionally, the fact that I played the bass would come up with strangers, who
typically imagined an electric instrument and a garage band. Lucas looked more
suited to that part than I did—dark hair falling into his eyes, small silver
ring following the full curve of his bottom lip, not to mention the tattoos and
lean, defined muscle that would look so hot onstage, peeking from a thin
t-shirt. Or no t-shirt.

Oh, God. Never. Getting. To. Sleep.

My phone beeped and displayed a message from Erin.

Erin:  Talking to Chaz. May be late. You ok?

Me:  I’m good. YOU ok?

Erin:  Confused. Maybe I’d feel better if I just kicked him.

Me:  NUTSACK!!!!!!!!!

Erin:  Exactly.

***

“Those people are crazy.” Knees
pulled to my chest, I cuddled close to Lucas as he sketched a couple of kayaks out
on the lake. “It’s got to be even colder out there on the water than it is
sitting here.”

He smiled and
reached behind me to pull my coat’s hood up over the wool and cashmere scarf
and hat I was wearing. “You think this is cold?” He crooked an eyebrow at me.

I scowled and
touched my gloved fingers to my nose, which had the anesthetized feeling that
comes from a shot at the dentist, right before they drill a tooth. “My nose is
numb! How dare you scoff at my sensitivity to ice-age temperatures. And I
thought you were from the coast. Isn’t it warmer there?”

Chuckling, he
stuck his pencil above his ear, under his cap, closed the sketchpad and laid it
on the bench. “Yeah, it’s definitely warmer on the coast, but that’s not where
I grew up. I’m not sure you could survive a winter in Alexandria if you’re this
much of a candy-ass.”

I gasped in
pretend outrage, punching him in the shoulder while he feigned being unable to
block the blow.

“Ow, jeez—I take
it back! You’re tough as nails.” He turned and slid his arm around me, rewarding
me with that full smile. “Total badass.”

Between his
proximity in the physical sense, and his embrace in the emotional sense, I
hummed happily and cuddled closer, closing my eyes. “I throw a mean
hammer-fist,” I mumbled into his hoodie. His leather jacket lay folded on the
bench next to the sketchbook. He’d insisted it wasn’t cold enough to need it,
except on the motorcycle.

He echoed my hum,
tipping my head back with an ungloved, curiously unfrozen finger. “You do. I’m
actually a little scared of you.”

Our faces were
inches apart, his breath mingling with mine in one evaporative cloud between
us. “I don’t want you to be scared of me.” The words I couldn’t bring myself to
add swirled through my mind:
talk to me, talk to me
. Barring that, I
wanted him to kiss me so I wouldn’t feel the guilt escalate, threatening to
spill out in one irrevocable confession. As if I’d made that request aloud, he
lowered his head and kissed me softly.

Chapter 24

Most people would take off as soon
as they handed in the last final. Erin was leaving on Saturday, but I was
staying because my favorite middle school student had invited me to his concert
Monday night—he’d made first chair, and wanted to show off. We were required to
vacate the dorms for winter break by Tuesday, so I would be going home that
day, whether I wanted to or not.

Maggie, Erin and I
met in the library to study for our last astronomy exam of the semester. Around
2 am, Maggie flopped face-down onto her open textbook with a dramatic sigh. “Uuuuugh…
If we don’t take a break from this shit, my
brain
is going to be a black
hole.”

Erin said nothing,
and when I looked at her, she was checking her phone, scrolling through a text,
and then replying. She hit send and noticed I was looking at her.

“Huh?” Her brown eyes
were a little wide. “Um, Chaz was just letting me know the guys are taking
turns keeping an eye on Buck. Making sure he doesn’t leave the house.”

“I thought we
weren’t talking to Chaz,” Maggie mumbled sleepily—eyes closed, cheek pressed to
the page we were reviewing.

Erin’s eyes landed
anywhere but mine, and I knew she’d abandoned that plan. I decided to let her fidget
a little longer before I let her off the hook. I’d always liked Chaz and could
only fault him so much. I wouldn’t want to believe my best friend was a
monster, either.

Checking my phone,
I reread the texts I’d sent Lucas earlier, and his replies.

Me:  Econ final: PWNED

Lucas:  All because of me, right?

Me:  No, because of that Landon guy.

Lucas:  ;)

Me:  My brain hurts. I have three more exams.

Lucas:  One more for me, friday. Then work. See you saturday.

“Mindi’s last final is tomorrow.” Erin doodled a design around an equation in her notebook.

“I heard her dad is sitting in the hall during all of her finals,” Maggie said.

I’d heard the same rumor. “I can’t blame him, if that’s true.”

We watched Erin, who knew the truth between fact and campus gossip. She nodded. “He is. And she’s
not coming back, except to testify. She’s transferring to some small community college
back home.” The regret in her eyes was bottomless. “Her mom said she’s still
having nightmares every night. I can’t believe I just left her there.”

Maggie sat up. “Hey. We left a
lot
of people there. It wasn’t our fault, Erin.”

“I know, but—”

“She’s right.” I made Erin look at me. “Put the fault where it goes. On
him
.”

***

I finally told my parents about
Buck. I hadn’t talked to them since before Thanksgiving. Due to something left
out of order in the pantry, Mom figured out that I’d been home, and called me.
I guess she wanted to make sure a stranger hadn’t broken into the house and un-alphabetized
her grains and condiments, so I had to fess up.

“But… you told me you were going to Erin’s?”

Instead of telling
her that she’d come to that conclusion by herself—that I’d only mentioned Erin
once, that she’d never bothered to verify what I was
actually
doing over
Thanksgiving break—I lied. It was easier for both of us that way.

“Coming home was a
last-minute decision. No big deal.”

She started
jabbering about the things we needed to do over the break—I was due for a
dental appointment, and my truck’s registration would expire in January. “Do
you need an appointment with Kevin, or have you found a stylist there?” she
asked.

Instead of
answering her question, I blurted it all out—Buck’s assault in the parking lot,
Lucas saving me, Buck raping another girl, the charges we were pressing, the
upcoming criminal case. There was no stopping it, once it started.

At first I thought
she hadn’t heard me, and I gripped my phone, thinking
I’m not repeating all
of that, if she’s too damned busy decorating for her party to listen to me for
ten seconds
.

And then she
choked out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She knew why, I
think. I didn’t need to say it. They hadn’t been the best parents; they hadn’t
been the worst, either.

I sighed. “I’m
telling you now
.
”

She was silent for
another strained moment, but I heard her moving through the house. They were hosting
their annual catered holiday party on Saturday, and I knew how control-freak
and anal Mom was about the house being perfect for that. Growing up, I’d
learned to make myself scarce during the entire week leading up to that party.

“I’m calling Marty
right now to tell him I’m not coming in tomorrow.” Marty was Mom’s boss at her
software consulting firm. “I can be there by eleven.” I recognized the sound of
her dragging her wheeled suitcase out from the closet under the stairs.

I gaped into the
phone for a moment before sputtering to life. “No—no, Mom, I’m fine. I’ll be
home in less than a week.”

Her voice shook
when she answered, shocking me further. “I’m so sorry, Jacqueline.” She said my
name as though she was trying to find some way to touch me through the phone.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
My God
, I thought,
she’s crying?
My mother wasn’t a crier. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when you came
home. You needed me and I wasn’t here.”

Alone in my room,
I sat on my bed, dazed. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s not like you knew.” She’d known
about my breakup with Kennedy… but I was ready to let that go, too. “You raised
me to be strong, right? I’m good.” I realized as I said it that it was true.

“Can I—can I set
up an appointment for you, with my therapist? Or one of her partners, if you’d
rather?”

I’d forgotten Mom’s
occasional therapy sessions. She’d been diagnosed with an eating disorder when
I was really young. I didn’t even know what it was—bulimia, anorexia? We’d
never really talked about it.

“Sure. That would
be good.”

She sighed, and I thought I heard relief. I’d given her something to do.

***

After we finished several cartons
of Chinese takeout and a conversation about how we chose our respective majors,
Lucas fished his iPod from his front pocket and handed me the earbuds. “I want
you to hear this band I just found. You might like them.” We were sitting on
the floor with our backs to my bed. Once I was plugged in, he pushed play,
watching me as I listened.

His eyes locked
with mine as the music swelled in my ears. I couldn’t hear anything outside of
it, couldn’t see anything but his eyes on me. He leaned closer and I inhaled the
soothing scent of him. Cupping my face in his hand, he moved his mouth to mine,
kissing me at a leisurely pace that somehow matched the rhythm of the song. He
tasted like the wintergreen Tic Tacs he’d been sucking on.

Handing me the
iPod, he picked me up, deposited me on the bed and lay next to me, drawing me into
his arms and kissing me until the first song bled into the next, and the next. When
he pulled back to trace a finger over the edge of my ear, I removed an earbud
and handed it to him. We lay side-by-side on my narrow dorm bed—the length of
which only just accommodated the length of his body comfortably—listening
together, immersed. He opened a new playlist, and I knew that the song he chose
was something for me—beyond a band he wanted to share, or something for us to
discuss musically.

My heart reached
for him as we listened, staring at each other, and I felt the threads of
connection between us—fragile filaments, so easily snapped. Like the poem
etched into his side, we were each curving to fit inside the other, and this
melting and reshaping could be deeper, more resilient. I wondered if he felt
it, and when I listened to the lyrics of this song that he chose, I thought
maybe he did.
Now don't laugh ’cause I just might be… the soft curve in your
hardline
.

The hallway
outside my door was mostly silent, finally, after a day of people packing up
and moving out that had begun early. We talked—recent history only—and Lucas
relayed the story of how Francis came to be his roommate. “He showed up at the
door one night, demanding to be let in. Napped on the sofa for an hour, then
demanded to be let out. It turned into a nightly ritual, with him staying
longer and longer, until at some point I realized he’d moved in. He’s basically
the most brazen squatter ever.”