Getting Schooled (The Wright Brothers Book 1) (17 page)

I mean… there was a pretty good chance I was
definitely
already too attached, but he didn’t need to know that.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked, leaning toward me.

I let out a loud sigh. “
That
was the bestie-twin test. She said you passed!”

“I thought you said she was “nice” bestie-twin?”

“She
is
,” I laughed. “Just not during the test. Or when you piss her off. Or she doesn’t like you.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “So you two are just alike then?”

“No, no. She really is “nicer” than me. Devyn is generally bubbly, she’s a little more talkative with people she doesn’t know. She has a sweet spirit.”

“Where?”

I gasped, then playfully slapped him on the arm through his sweater. “You’ll see
that
side now that she’s checked you out. She was harder on you because of Grayson.”

“He passed?”

I almost choked on my drink as I lifted it to take a sip. “God no.  She hated him from the moment she laid eyes on him.”

Jason scowled. “So why do I
get grilled harder because of him?”

“Because she’s worried about me. Worried
for
me. But don’t sweat it, seriously. She was a fan of yours before I was, and today just sealed that in.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You should,” I grinned. “You’ll see.”

“Uh huh. You wanna get closer to the stage? I think Dani’s about to go on.”

“Hell yes, I do.”

We headed up front with the growing crowd, Jason leading the way. With those broad shoulders, the crowd parted easily for him and then he pulled me in front of him, tucking his arms around me and resting his chin on my head.

I clapped and cheered with everybody else when Dani came on stage, looking beautiful with her cinnamon-colored locs and deep brown skin. She talked to the intimate crowd a little bit while her band did their last sound adjustments and stuff. And then the music started, and she began to sing, in that raspy-sexy, sensual voice of hers.

Ain’t no easy ways to be in love,

Sometimes you play the fool.

It’s love and war, push and pull,

And you try to play it cool.

When it’s right, it’s right,

when it ain’t, it’s not

There’s no one perfect rule.

You can play the game, and win or lose,

Sometimes you get schooled.

Jason pulled me a little tighter against him, brushing my hair aside to kiss my neck. We stayed like that, swaying together to the music until Dani took a break, and we headed back to the table.

I groaned a little as I spotted Devyn’s ex-boyfriend, Malcolm, seated at the table with her, speaking way too close into her ear. Malcolm wasn’t necessarily a bad guy, but I wouldn’t call him good either… at least not for Devyn.

I tried to fix my face into something that at least resembled a smile, but a few feet away from the table, my efforts got wiped away. I’d glanced up, and to my right, not looking for or at anything in particular, when my eyes fell on Grayson and Olivia.

Hmph. Trash sticking together.

I looked away almost as soon as my brain registered those words, hoping not to invite conversation—or confrontation. But that was obviously too much like right, because the next thing I knew, they were making their way over.

“So I see I was right about you and GI Joe,” Grayson sneered, with Olivia peeking cautiously around his shoulder.

I couldn’t even get my mouth open to respond before Jason’s hand on my shoulder halted me, and he stepped between me and Grayson, folding his arms. “Listen, man… I’m trying to have a good time with my girl. Everybody has moved on, let’s just leave it that. No problem. And trust me… you don’t want that to change.”

Grayson’s face wrinkled into a scowl. “Man, who are you supposed to b—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish that sentence before Jason grabbed him by the collar, snatching him forward. It was such a subtle move that barely anybody in the semi dark club looked up.

“Nigga are you deaf?” Jason asked, his voice low, and edged in danger. “
This ain’t a problem you want.
Find something else to do.” Jason shoved him backwards, out of our space, and then turned back to me as Grayson and Olivia… went and found something else to do, I assumed.

When we got back to the table, I wasn’t even thinking about Devyn and Mal. I snuggled close to Jason in the corner of the booth, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“Don’t sweat that shit, aiight?” he asked, tipping his head to look me in the eyes. “Not letting them mess up our vibe.”

I smiled, and shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

And… we didn’t.

Instead of thinking about old news, I focused on the current happiness in my life. Malcolm left the table, Devyn warmed right up to Jason, and before long, we were laughing, talking, and having a good time.

As it started approaching ten at night, we left. Jason and I had classes in the morning, and Devyn had an early shift at the county hospital – one of her last, since she’d gotten the job at University Hospital, and would be starting in a few weeks.

Jason and I held hands as we walked downtown, heading back to his car. He was telling me about this internship he’d applied for with a major car manufacturer, when the sickening crunch of metal on metal wedged in my ears, turning my insides to jello. I stopped walking and whipped around, my eyes bulging when I saw two cars smashed together, in the intersection Jason and I had just crossed. Nausea swept my stomach, and I clamped my mouth closed, trying to hold myself together.

“Reese? Reese, you aiight?” Jason’s voice made me turn away from the jumble of metal, as other people began to gather in the intersection. In the distance, I heard sirens, moving closer. It wasn’t until Jason squeezed my hand that I actually blinked. “You okay, princess?”

No.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to smile even though my mouth felt like it was full of sawdust. He pulled me along, and I followed, though I felt like I was in a haze. In the car, he lifted his eyebrows in surprise when I told him I didn’t want to go home, that I’d rather stay over with him. Still, he obliged.

We swung by my place first, so I could get my car, and get what I needed for an overnight stay. Back at his house, I showered and climbed straight into his bed. I snuggled deep under the covers with my fingers tracing the edges of the engraved nameplate on my necklace while I watched him put the finishing touches on a paper that was due in my mother’s class tomorrow.

“Hey princess,” he called, and I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Can you tell me if something sounds right to you?”

I nodded, then sat up a little further. “Yeah, sure.”

“Aiight. So…
There’s no point in this work where the reader is allowed to be comfortable – and that feels purposeful. Givens draws you out of your comfort zone with elegant prose, and then plunges you into grief right along with the unnamed main character as she navigates the impact of her sister’s drug addiction on her own life.

Tee, the sister, gets a name. By leaving herself unidentified, the narrator leaves us with a sense that she’s distancing herself from the story, even though she clearly plays a part. But I don’t believe this is the only reason she allows herself to remain unnamed. Through various points in the story, it is clear that the narrator isn’t simply relaying the message.

She’s in the room.

The night Tee sneaks out of the bungalow and runs into the Street Kings, the night the father sneaks into the bed, Tee’s suicide attempt. The details are too vivid, the picture painted a little too clearly, for these to be secondhand accounts. There’s a level of guilt hanging in every one of these words, begging the question of if the narrator’s role in Tee’s ruin is more than she lets on. Maybe she leaves herself unnamed because she doesn’t feel she deserves one in Tee’s story.”

I was completely enthralled.

For those moments while he was reading out loud from his paper, I was wrapped up, remembering the very first of his words I’d read. This was no different – insightful commentary that was leaps and bounds better than a good three-quarters of the class. I knew because I’d read most of their first drafts.

“That sounds really good,” I said, sitting up. I was in one of his army tee shirts that I’d commandeered as my own after my shower, and I tucked it between my legs, concealing my nudity underneath. “Only a few people mentioned the narrator feeling guilty, which is actually a huge theme through this story, that not many seem to easily pick up on. So, I can tell you now that you’ll definitely get points for that. Mama will be impressed.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “She’s not going to think you coached me on that, is she?”

“
Hell
no. My mother knows me well enough to know I’d be turned
right
off by needing to coach you through this. You’ve been one of the strongest students from jump. She’ll recognize your work when she sees it.”

He nodded, then looked back at his laptop and let out a breath. “Yeah… I’ve got some stuff in here about the jealousy between the sisters, the abuse, the beating, all of that. How it led to Tee’s addiction. A speculation that the narrator may have indulged in a little “white horse” herself, based on some of those erratic passages. I think I covered everything I need to.”

“I think so too,” I agreed. “Your draft was really good, and it sounds like you’ve made it even better, so… I don’t think you have anything to worry about. But, you obviously are.”

He grinned, swiping a hand over his head. “Yeah, I am. This paper is weighted heavier than all the others this semester, and after that low B on the first one, I need this shit to hit hard.”

“And it will,” I laughed. “Don’t stress it. And don’t tell
anybody
I told you this, but… at the end of the semester, she offers a chance to improve the grade on your lowest-scored assignment. You’ll get a chance to pull it up – if you even need it.”

“Yo, are you serious?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yes. Why would I make something like that up?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I have to ask with you. You know you like to sneak-attack. As a matter of fact… Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you today? You haven’t made any slick comments, no insults, nothing. What’s up?”

My hands went up to my necklace. “Just… a weird feeling, after this morning. Thinking my necklace was gone really messed with my head.”

And then that accident,
I thought, but didn’t say out loud. I didn’t want to be dramatic, and still being shaken up about the necklace was bad enough. Jason closed his laptop and then came to the bed, leaning to give me a soft kiss against the lips.

“Well lets go to sleep them. Maybe tomorrow’ll be better.”

I nodded, then flopped back on the pillows as he left the room to get into the shower. I was half-asleep when he came back to bed, sliding under the covers with me and pulling me close. The warm comfort of his arms made it easy to drift off, into a deep sleep. But I was drawn from it suddenly, violently, by a loud, booming, rumble of thunder.

I sat up, realizing that my forehead was soaked in cold sweat. I extricated myself from Jason’s hold around my waist, trying not to wake him. As soon as my feet hit the cold hardwood floor, unwelcome memories rushed to my mind. The screech of tires, screaming, the helpless limbo as the car spun out of control, and then, the sickening crunch of crushed metal and shattered glass.

I sucked in a breath, trying to bring the air back to my lungs, but it didn’t feel like it was working. A flash of lightning, another monstrous peal of thunder brought back the merciless squeal of the wiper blades on the windshield, trying valiantly to keep the window clear. My father, cursing. Not because I’d called him to come and get me, because of the weather. Because of the storm that had cropped up out of nowhere.

I made my way out of Jason’s bedroom on shaky legs, still struggling to breathe. It seemed like the harder I tried, the more my lungs constricted, the more nausea ripped through me. I looked around, frowning at my unfamiliar surroundings, and sank to my knees as my heart thumped erratically in my chest. Another roar of thunder, and I covered my ears, trying not to scream as heavy rain beat down on the house.

My eyes closed, but immediately wrenched them back open, shaking my head. I was back in that seat, back in that concrete drain, screaming for help, not for me, for him, and—

“Reese?!” I flinched as a hand came down on my shoulder, but didn’t look up. Suddenly Jason’s arms were around me, enveloping me in warmth. “You’re having a panic attack. You’re okay. Just breathe. Breathe, princess, breathe,” he murmured in my ear, over and over, as his hands made soothing circles on my back.

I don’t know how long he stayed with me like that, but eventually, I came back down. My breathing leveled, heart stopped racing, nausea dissipated. Little by little, I was able to calm down.

“Talk to me about what’s going on with you,” he insisted, but I shook my head.