Four Doors Down (5 page)

I
’m standing outside the Jackson’s front door on Sunday morning and praying that no one is home. Or at least if someone is here, let it be Mr. or Mrs. Jackson. Basically, I don’t want Ryan to answer the door. I’m carrying a huge casserole dish—yes that’s right, a casserole dish—which my mother has insisted has to be returned to them at this very minute and cannot possibly wait until she sees Ryan’s mom tomorrow.

I’m sure she’s just punishing me; she’d never make me come over here otherwise. She knows Ryan and I don’t get along. In fact, I’m certain that’s what she’s doing. I know I made a racket coming in Friday night and I don’t think she bought for a second that the reason for me throwing up all day yesterday was food poisoning. Basically, she knows I was wasted but can’t prove it so this is her way of punishing me. I really can’t handle this today. Who knew it was possible to have a two-day hangover?

I try the doorbell one last time and start to turn to walk away when it swings open. Ryan is standing there. Shirtless. It looks like he just got out of the pool ‘cause he’s wearing board shorts that are hanging dangerously low and there’s little drops of water dripping down his chest.

Because I’m still feeling lousy, my reactions aren’t the same as normal, and it takes me a good few seconds to tear my eyes away from his torso. He has serious abs going on and the V! He has
the
V!
Wow. Ryan got ripped!

I look up and he’s smirking at me, clearly not missing the fact I’ve just been ogling him.

“Hi,” I mumble.

“Hey,” he replies, raising an eyebrow at me. We’re both aware how rare an occurrence this is. I haven’t been to his house in at least five years.

“So my mom wanted me to bring this over,” I tell him, holding up the dish in my hand. “Apparently it’s absolutely essential your mom gets it back today and she couldn’t bring it herself.”

He nods. “Sure.” Then he turns and walks into the house, leaving the door open behind him.
What? Wait! Now I have to actually enter the house? Why can’t he just take it from me?

I sulkily make my way inside and follow him to the kitchen. I place the casserole dish on the counter and turn to see him watching me cockily. Thankfully he’s thrown a t-shirt on. Oh God, this is the real reason I didn’t want to see him; I owe him an apology. He knows it, and I know it.

“So, um, thanks for driving me home on Friday night. I’d have been pretty screwed without you.”

He nods his head, not speaking.
Right, he’s really going to milk this.

“And um, look, I don’t remember everything I said to you in the car, or at the party, but I’m sure it wasn’t all nice, so I’m sorry. It was really rude of me, especially since you were doing me a favor.” I glance over at him and he’s still not speaking, just watching me, a small smile playing on his lips.
He’s enjoying this!

“Look, if it’s any consolation, I still feel awful today and I was throwing up all day yesterday.”

“Yeah, it kinda looks like you haven’t showered since Friday.”

I glare at him even though he’s right. I know I look terrible. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

He grins at me and shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. We all do dumb shit when we’re drunk.”

Oh, right. That was actually easier than I thought it would be.

There’s one more question I have to ask him and I really, really wish I didn’t. “So, I remember you finding me with Charlie in that room,” I say awkwardly staring at the ground. “Did anyone else from school see us?”

I’ve been hardcore worrying about that since I woke up yesterday morning. Even though we were dressed, I’m pretty sure we looked like we were about two minutes away from doing a live sex show, and I’m mortified at the thought of someone seeing me. It’s bad enough Ryan did, but if any of the girls from school that were there did, I’m pretty sure they’ll waste no time spreading that particular piece of gossip and make it their mission to humiliate me.

I look up at Ryan and he’s shaking his head. “No, just me.” I can’t read the expression on his face.

I clear my throat. “Did you take any pictures?” I ask. Various pictures and videos of half-naked girls in different states of undress with guys have done the rounds at our school before. Hell, I bet it’s even the guys they’re hooking up with passing it around. I might be being paranoid, but I’ve had visions of a video of us practically dry humping, which let’s face it,
is
what we were doing, doing the rounds on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, you name it.

Ryan’s face darkens and his jaw visibly tenses with anger. “No, I didn’t take any fucking pictures! God, you really don’t think much of me, do you?”

I sigh with relief; I really was worried about that. It’s not as if I’m exactly ashamed, but I do not need the whole school laughing and gossiping about me. “Sorry,” I tell him. “Again. I was just worried, you know? I always remember Kylie Santos.”

He nods slightly at this, but he still looks pissed at me.

Kylie Santos was a girl from my elementary school. When we got to high school, she got involved with an older guy who basically told her he was single, used her for sex and then ditched her. His psycho on-off girlfriend, Fran Cunningham, found out when she came across a couple of topless pictures of Kylie on his phone that Kylie didn’t even know he’d taken. Then Fran and her minions plastered them all down the main hallway at school, using some special glue which made it harder for the teachers to take down. Later that day they’d also sent a video to most of the school of Kylie giving him a blow job. It had been shocking and humiliating and I remember being so upset for Kylie. She was a nice girl and didn’t deserve that. Sam and I had come across her by the principal’s office and she’d been absolutely heartbroken. I’ve never felt so bad for someone in my life and that was when she told us who had done it.

When Sam and I were walking home minutes later, we’d walked past Fran and her group and her spineless boyfriend, Harry Campbell, who had told Kylie so many lies. We weren’t going to say anything, Fran Cunningham was a renowned bitch who most people bowed down to, but we’d heard her calling someone a slut just as we walked past and I snapped. I marched up to her, in the middle of a large group of popular kids and told her exactly what I thought of her and her pathetic boyfriend. She reacted as you’d imagine and had started screaming in my face and had even lunged for me. At that point, Ryan of all people (he must have been standing nearby), stepped in front of her to block her from getting to me and Jake dragged me away. I’d spent the entire evening panicking about what she was going to do to me the next day, worried she was going to try and attack me again but for some reason she did nothing except give me dirty looks until she graduated later that year. Kylie never came back to school but I’ve always remembered it and I’ve had visions since Friday night of similar pictures of me with Charlie adorning the school walls.

“Anyway, thanks for all your help on Friday,” I tell Ryan and turn to leave.

He sighs loudly. “Hey, do you want a drink? My mom made lemonade this morning.”

Mrs. Jackson is one of those supermoms who makes everything fresh and from scratch. I know she used to make really good lemonade. I’m about to refuse, but he’s already pouring two glasses. I’m pretty certain he’s pissed at me over the pictures comment and I don’t want to annoy him further. He actually did help me out big time on Friday. I shrug and take a seat at the breakfast bar. I look around the room, trying to figure out something to say.

“So, I’m sorry if I ruined your chance with Zara the other night, with you giving me a ride.”

“Zara?” he asks.

“Didn’t you hook up with her?”

He smiles. “No, idiot. That was Jake. That’s the reason I was there because Jake didn’t want to show up on his own.”

Oh.

“Right, sorry. I just thought…” I mumble and vaguely remember a rumor at school about Jessica Murphy being into him and realize I probably did get it wrong.

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“Never said I did,” I shoot back, looking over at him. He’s watching me again. I don’t think I know him at all, not anymore. Well, I did think he was an arrogant player who used girls when he felt like it. Just because for once in his life he was nice to me rather than trying to annoy me doesn’t mean I should revise my whole opinion on him.

“And at least now you know what that guy’s like. I mean, ditching you when you’re in that state all alone at a party.”

“You mean Charlie?” I ask. “Oh, that was just a misunderstanding, he called me yesterday. He thought Sam was still there and I was gonna get a ride with her.”

Ryan just looks at me raising an eyebrow.

“So, yeah, we’re fine. Totally good. Just a misunderstanding, but thanks for helping me out.”

He’s looking at me like he’s about to say something, probably about Charlie, and I narrow my eyes. He has no right to have an opinion of Charlie or anything else to do with my life.

“This Charlie thing is serious, then?” That is none of his business. I’m saved from answering when his phone starts to ring next to me on the table and I pass it over to him.

He shakes his head. “Leave it.”

I shrug and glance around the room. This is kind of awkward. It’s not like we have anything to say to each other and I should probably go.

“When did you meet him?”

“Over the summer.”

“You were in Europe for the whole summer.”

I look back at him in surprise. It’s not a secret I spent the summer in Europe, but I didn’t think it would hit his radar. “It was when I got back. Just before school started,” I concede. He raises an eyebrow like he’s expecting more of an explanation. “He’s friends with Chris, Sam’s boyfriend,” I explain. “Sam is this girl that goes to our school, she has dark blonde hair and pale skin, she drives a—”

“Yes, I know who Sam is, Becca!” he snaps, cutting me off while I smirk at him. “We’ve only been in the same homeroom since we were twelve,” I grin at his annoyance. I know full well that he knows who Sam is, but it’s fun to annoy him. He rolls his eyes at me. “You are so shitty,” he tells me but can’t help smirking back at me. Suddenly his expression turns serious, but I’m distracted by his phone ringing; it’s his mom again. He dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “Listen, about what happened at school on Friday, with Kevin Wilson…”

“Ryan, don’t—” I start.

“No, Becca. Seriously, I would never want you to think I’d be cool with anyone grabbing you like that,” he tells me, staring at me intently. I search his face to see where the joke is or when he’ll start laughing at me, but he looks serious as hell.

I shrug. “Forget it. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine, Becca.”

“He came to find me on Friday afternoon, tried to apologize,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah?” Ryan asks, not looking the least bit surprised. “What did you say?”

“Told him to get lost.”

Ryan grins. “Of course you did.” I can’t help but grin back at him.

His phone starts ringing again. When I glance down, it’s his mom again. She must really want to speak to him. “Answer it,” I say pushing it towards him.

He rolls his eyes but picks up the phone.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, but his expression changes as he tunes into what she’s saying. Shock crosses his face and…is that panic?

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right there,” he says and quickly hangs up.

“Is everything okay?” I ask as he stands hurriedly and starts looking around. He stops in the middle of what he’s doing, turning to me and suddenly looking lost.

“No. My granny… She’s…she’s had a stroke. Shit.”

My mouth falls open and a wave of sympathy for his whole family overwhelms me. I spent countless hours with his granny when I was little and even after Ryan and I fell out, she’d still come over to my house with Ryan’s mom from time to time. I really hope she’s okay.

He stands there for a minute looking completely helpless but then quickly recovers and grabs his wallet and phone. He shoves some keys at me.

“I gotta go to the hospital. Can you lock up?” he says rushing out the house and leaving me alone in their kitchen, hoping that everything will be okay. I’m unable to get the look of panic and worry that crossed his face when he was on the phone out of my mind for the rest of the day.

I
’m in English class on Friday afternoon, yawning and waiting for the bell to ring, when I look up and see Ryan walk in. I do a double take. I wasn’t expecting to see him today. I’d known the news about his granny wasn’t good when Jake found me mid-week to tell me that she was in a coma and the whole family had been at the hospital since Sunday. I wasn’t quite sure why he was telling me, probably because I was with Ryan when he first found out, but he went quiet when the rest of his friends appeared like it was a secret and he didn’t want them to know. Then my mom told me at breakfast this morning that she had died last night. Ryan’s mom had called her earlier, and from what I could tell, the whole family was devastated. I knew they were all very close.

I watch as he makes his way to his desk. His eyes are downcast and he avoids the greetings that meet his arrival. His shoulders are slumped and he looks exhausted.