Hurricane Kiss (10 page)

“Do you want to get suspended?” the coach yelled. “Both of you?”

River shook his head.

“No,
sir
,” Coach Briggs said.

“No,
sir
,” River said, the slightest edge to his voice, as he wiped blood off his mouth with the back of his hand and then spat on the ground.

The coach stared at Aidan, waiting.

“No, sir.”

“Then get control of yourselves and go back to the picnic.” He pointed the way as if they didn't know. Aidan followed River up the hill as Coach Briggs stood there watching them.

“You OK?” Ryan said to me.

I nodded, tears streaming out of my eyes.

“You want me to take you back or drive you home?”

“No, I'm fine, really.”

Coach Briggs glared at us and finally turned dismissively, following River and Aidan toward the field. I walked back holding the Frisbee, feeling stupid and responsible. The high of being in the play was gone now. I did something I shouldn't have, and I got caught. If it wasn't for me, there wouldn't have been a fight. And now River and Aidan would pay for it.

All I wanted was to be alone to think about what had just happened. Guilty, confused feelings swirled inside me. For being responsible for the fight? For kissing River? For feeling something deep and unstoppable that I never felt when Aidan kissed me? For my heart coming alive in a way it never had before? If only I knew what that flood of feelings meant. And whether they were wrong. Or right.

Aidan was sitting off by himself, leaning against a tree. Blood was still trickling from his nose, but he didn't seem to notice or care. All the guilt and unease rose up in me again when I looked at him. I handed him a wad of tissues from my pocket.

“Put pressure on it while I look for ice,” I said.

He grabbed them away from me without a word.

We stayed until nine when the picnic was over. Someone from the band was fooling around and played Taps on the trumpet. It made me think of funerals. The whole night ended badly, and most of it was my fault.

Almost at the same time, everyone headed to the parking lot. As we approached Aidan's car, Lexie's high-pitched laugh pierced the quiet. “River and Lexie hooked up,” I heard Sari say to Scott. “I think he was asking her about the tradition.”

“So?”

“So?” she repeated. “So she's a slut.”

Scott laughed. “So? Some guys like sluts.”

I stopped. Aidan was so busy nursing his anger he didn't notice, or pretended not to. So River used the line about the kiss on everyone, the innocent newcomer pretending he had just heard about the tradition. I was an idiot to fall for it.

I caught up with Aidan and grabbed his arm. “I'm sorry about tonight, really.” He glanced at me coldly.

“How would you feel if you saw my tongue down Lexie's throat?”

“He was fooling around and then—”

“—Fooling around? It didn't look like that to me.”

We got into his car, the click, click of the seat belts locking us into separateness. River's bike roared to life nearby. Lexie was snaked around him, smiling like she was taking home the winner of the hot guy contest. River sped up next to us, and then abruptly changed lanes cutting us off. Aidan slammed the brakes. “Asshole.”

River stuck out an arm and held up his middle finger before he floored the gas.

“You'll get yours,” Aidan muttered.

River sits up on the stage and glances over at me, narrowing his eyes, like he's trying to read my thoughts. “I was thinking about the one-act plays,” I say, and then look away. “We practiced them over and over in here.” He doesn't answer. “That seems like years ago.”

RIVER

It seems like years ago to me too. I try to fight it, to forget, but it all comes back to me in here. I lie back on the stage trying to find a position that doesn't hurt, working to block out the pounding of the storm.

I had early practice the day of the picnic, so I didn't have to help set it up. When I got home Jillian was pulling into her driveway. I walked over and leaned into the driver's side window, pretending I wasn't drawn by her perfume.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She pushed her hair away from her blue eyes and stared up at me.

“Tell me about the full-moon picnic.”

“What about it?”

“Why do they have it?”

“For fun?”

“What do you do—‘for fun'?” I said, miming her.

“The band gives a concert, and sometimes kids in their own bands play. Then there's stupid stuff like three-legged races.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm in drama and we're doing a one-act play.”

“I was in drama in my other school.”

“Why don't you join now?” she asked.

“I don't have much free time.”

“It only meets twice a week.”

“Maybe, I don't know.”

“But you're coming to the picnic?” she asked.

“You think I'd pass up a free meal?”

“No, you're always starving, right?” She pulled into the driveway before I could answer.

Ever since Ryan had told me about the tradition, I was obsessed with the idea of kissing her, which was insane since she was my next-door neighbor. Plus she was seeing someone else, not that I cared. But I didn't make any decisions right then. I thought I'd see how things went.

But after everyone ate and started to play games, I saw that some dork pitched the Frisbee into the outfield, and that was an opening for me. I made an end run to get it before she did, which wasn't hard. She was alone, searching in the dark with the light from her phone when I caught her off guard. I knew she was quiet, shy, so I moved in before she could think about what was happening. I had her in my arms, and I started living out my fantasy. She was so hot, it hurt.

Christ, don't go there. It doesn't matter anymore. I glance over at her. The shorts. The same ones she had on the day after the fight with Aidan, the afternoon I visited her up in the lair after school.

I was pretty busted up. Black and blue, split lip. Nothing broken or Briggs would have strangled Aidan. I probably got Jillian in trouble with him. I had reason to feel guilty, not that I did, but that was what I wanted her to think and it gave me my excuse. But it was more than that. I just needed to get close to her again, to share the same space. Whatever, I don't know. All I did know was that I couldn't stop thinking about her and I had to know if she felt it too.

Briggs had something to do, which rarely happened, so we got out of practice. I got home early and waited until she pulled into the driveway. Don't overthink it, I told myself.

Ethan answered the door. I liked him. He was into music like I was, so we hung out together sometimes. But he knew I wasn't there to see him. I guess news of the fight spread quickly.

“She's upstairs, in the lair,” he said, mockingly.

“The lair?”

“Her hideout, above her bedroom.”

I went upstairs and headed toward the room with the pink and orange colors. I saw a ladder leading up to the attic and realized what he was talking about.

“Knock, knock,” I said after climbing halfway up.

“River,” she said, surprised. I liked it when she said my name. I felt like she was staking a claim on me. She was sitting in the corner on the carpet, the open science book in her lap.

“Permission to enter?”

She smiled and nodded.

I walked the rest of the way up and slammed my goddamn head on the pitched roof.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” she said, crawling over to me on her knees. “Are you all right? Everyone does that—I should have warned you.”

I rubbed my head, pretending not to see the low-cut tank top and shorts with a drawstring tie. One pull on the string and … I felt a jolt. She was so damn close again, I …

Focus. On her face. Fragile. Delicate skin, intense eyes, and that hair, so much of it, half up, half over her shoulders, like she just got out of bed. I turned and acted interested in the lair. It looked like a tree house. The windows were nearly as high as the tops of the old trees on the front lawn. Wood-paneled walls. Grass-green carpet. All I could think about was what I wanted to do in that tight space hidden away from everybody. “Your secret hideaway?”

She shrugged. “You like it?”

“Yeah.” I looked at the sleeping bag. “You sleep up here?”

“Sometimes.”

I leaned over it. It had her lemony, flower smell. “Smells like you.”

“What?” I pretended not to see her blush. What was I starting? Christ, I was out of control, pathetic. If I didn't switch gears I'd be …

“Listen,” I said finally. “I came to—”

“—What?”

“Apologize. I'm sorry … about the picnic … and everything.”

“It was my fault. You were playing me with that line about the tradition. I shouldn't have kissed you …”

“That's the part I'm not sorry about,” I said, my heart amping up. I stared at her too long. Her face got pinker, and she was biting her lip.

Go home, asshole. You're a walking hard-on. It's insane to start this. She's your next-door neighbor. You don't do that if you have a brain.

“Then what?”

“I hope I didn't mess things up for you—with your boyfriend. I didn't mean to get you in trouble.”

“I thought you were the one who would get in trouble.”

“It was no big deal,” I said.

“It didn't look that way.”

“I've gotten my ass kicked before.”

“I thought Briggs would suspend both of you.”

“No way. He needs me.”

“I'm sorry you got hurt, River, really.” She studied my face. “You're turning yellow.”

“Chicken shit?”

She smirked. “As in bruised.” She reached out and gently traced the side of my jaw with her fingertips, and then grimaced. That's all it took. The lightest touch and I felt the charge everywhere. It happened whenever I was around her. Without thinking, I reached out to grab her hand, but I caught myself. “I better go—”

“—It's OK, I—”

Instead, I ran my hand along the edge of her sleeping bag, and then I stood up fast, smacking my head again like a total genius, forgetting the roof. “Jesus.”

“Oh God, River, I'm so sorry, I should have warned you again.” She laughed. “This is a dangerous place.”

It's you
, I wanted to say. But I didn't. I needed to get out of there fast.

The memories flood back to me now. It's this protected room … the storm outside …

“Let's get out of here,” I say, breathing harder. “It's airless.” I reach into my pocket. Four more Advil. I throw them into the back of my throat. Anything to dull the pain.

Late afternoon and the storm is ripping into us. Every part of me is on alert. Will the damn roof crash in? Will the windows burst? The gym is the biggest open space, the place that looks most secure, and with the water leaking down from the corridors, probably our best bet for now. We go back there and drop onto our mats, staring out at the gray light filtering in through the windows.

“I've never felt this cut off in my life,” Jillian says.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Try being locked up.”

Chapter 19

JILLIAN

I stare up at the basketball hoops. What if Aidan were here instead of River? A troubling feeling spreads over me. I push it out of my mind.

Aidan sat behind me in math. It wasn't destiny that put us together, it was the alphabet. Our last names both start with M.

The real reason he started liking me, I think, was because once or twice he needed the answer on a test and after he slid his foot forward and nudged mine, I moved my paper to the side of my desk. It wasn't like he was studying to be a brain surgeon. He had to keep his grades up to stay on the basketball team, so why not?

“Thanks,” he whispered to me one day after class. “You saved my ass.” We started eating lunch together after that.

“I cannot believe you're going out with Aidan Michael,” Sari said, like he was a rock star. “He barely looks at anybody.”

“We're not going out. We're just friends.”

“I wish he was my friend.”

“I'll introduce you.”

But Aidan wasn't interested in Sari. One Friday as we were leaving school, he did ask me out.

“Let me take you out for dinner,” he said. “It's the least I can do after you saved me from failing.”

“Everyone thinks we're already going out,” I said, “so why disappoint them?” Even though Aidan was cute, really cute, I was one of the few girls who went to the games to watch basketball, not Aidan. That was probably why he started liking me.

“I could tell you were head over heels in love with me,” he said, pushing against me playfully. I rolled my eyes.

Instead of jeans and my generic white T-shirt, I actually dressed for the date: black leggings, high-heeled sandals, and a black off-the-shoulder top. I can't take credit for the outfit. Sari came over and picked it out.

It didn't feel like me. But going out on a date didn't feel like me either.

We went to a movie and then stopped for ice-cream cones. We ate them in the car with the air on, but it wasn't cold enough to keep them from melting.

“Shit,” Aidan said, as a blob of chocolate ice cream landed on his shirt. I tried to wipe it away with my napkin, basically rubbing the stain in. “You're always taking care of me,” he said. “That's what I first noticed about you.”

“You mean the test stuff?”

“Not everyone would do that,” he said. “If we got caught, both of us would have gotten detention or worse.”

“It wasn't a big deal. Anyway, I have more time to study than you do.”

“I don't care about studying,” he said.

“What do you care about?”

“Basketball.”

“And?”

He looked at me blankly. “And nothing. I want to play professionally. That's the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. What about you?”

What did I care about? Nothing in my mind was as clear-cut. I liked working on the school paper. I liked writing articles. But a career? A direction? I had no burning ambitions. By the time you were a sophomore, you were supposed to have a clue. In just a few years, you had to major in something. Maybe I was destined to spend my life in loserdom, never knowing what kind of work would make me happy or which direction I would take.

“What I care about most at this point in time is ice cream,” I said. “Chocolate, but also pistachio. And definitely in cones, sugar cones, not waffle.” We both laughed. “There is one other thing, seriously.”

“What?”

“Rainbow sprinkles.”

“You should get your PhD in frozen desserts,” Aidan said.

“Cold comfort,” I said.

He drove me home and parked at the curb. The air was heavy with the syrupy scent of jasmine. We sat in the surround-sound silence, with only the steady chirp of crickets reminding us that we weren't alone in the darkness. I tried to think of something to say, but the harder I tried, the blanker my brain became. Finally, as if it took him that long to get up the nerve, he leaned over to me, his face inches from mine.

“You look so hot,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”

Did he think he had to ask? “OK,” I laughed. Saying it felt lame.

I leaned toward him, which seemed like the thing to do. Like showing him my test paper. His lips tasted like chocolate ice cream. The kiss reminded me of when I was ten and I kissed a boy who liked me at a birthday party. What I remembered most was metal touching metal as our braces hit.

“Sweet,” Aidan said, leaning away. He kissed me again, faster. We both laughed because I probably tasted like chocolate too. He looked at me as though he wasn't sure what his next move should be. I didn't know either, so I opened the car door and slid out.

“Good night, thanks.” I took baby steps in my backless heels as I walked toward the house, trying not to turn my ankle. Sari had the same shoes, only she had more practice walking in them. She called them her “sex” pumps.

Had she gone that far?

I didn't think so …

RIVER

A tall window bursts, sending a blizzard of glass shards spraying the floor, covering it like gravel. We jerk to attention, covering our heads with our arms. More explosions, like artillery fire, followed by what sounds like a tree toppling over and slamming the building. I jump up and run toward the window, scattering glass around me. The sky is so dark I can't see anything. “It's like a bombing raid.” I go back to the mat and reach for the orange bottle.

Last pill. I drop it into the back of my throat. Another bandwidth of sanity, but then what? Worse panic, the shakes? I know what that's like.

She stares at me. I freak her out. Better. She'll keep her distance.

“How long do hurricanes last?” she asks.

“You won't be locked up with me forever, don't worry.”

“That's not what I meant, River. Why are you like that?”

“I'm not like anything,” I say, suddenly pissed off. I manage to get up, the pain shooting through me whenever I move now. I head down the hallway. I'm trapped inside my head and out. There's no way out of this. No escaping my life, or who I am. I'm scared too, only I'm not sure of what. And it won't get better. Why should it?

“Come back,” she shouts.

I need to wall her out. Us together, here. Another day or two and life will start over again—if we don't drown. Me alone. Blinders on. No attempts to fill the emptiness. It's who I am now. Everything I've been through ruined me. My body, my brain. I have nothing to give her, nothing to give anybody. A few more days … I can hold onto that. I'm good at waiting now. I walk down the corridor past the display cases with the trophies and the cheerleader pictures.

Lexie.

I wasn't looking for a girlfriend. I left LA, and I left Carla. I called her every few days for a month after getting to Houston, but then life interfered. The calls got further apart. So did the texts. When I found out from a friend that she started seeing someone else, I didn't care. She was fun and hot, but something wasn't there.

When we moved I was getting used to a new school and a new world, and football took up so much of my life that there wasn't much time for anything else.

But the picnic changed everything.

Lexie was the head of the cheerleaders. She seemed to turn up everywhere I went. She was hard to miss—long dark hair and a nearly perfect body from a lifetime of gymnastics. She knew how to walk and how to dress, everything either tight or loose in all the right spots. She liked me, I knew it, but I pretended not to notice at first. Maybe on some frequency I picked up something from her that made me wary. Anyway, football seems to put you out there for girls, and sometimes you pay more attention to your dick than your brain.

After the fight with Aidan, she ran up to me with ice and a first-aid kit. She cleaned my face and bandaged my jaw, hovering over me. No one else was around. No one else seemed to care, and I felt like crap. When it was time to leave, she told me about the party.

“Come out with me, we'll have fun,” she said. “Don't go home alone and feel sorry for yourself.” She smiled and looked into my eyes. “I'll take care of you.”

I didn't feel like going home anyway, and I wanted to be with someone. Getting the crap kicked out of you does that, and she was hot enough, so why not?

We got on my bike, and if I had any doubts about where things were going, they disappeared as soon as she wrapped herself around me. Beers, an empty upstairs bedroom, and by the end of the party, I was her new boyfriend. We were this power couple to her. It was easier to go along with it than not, which says something about where my head was.

I couldn't claim to be a victim. I got what I wanted too. But there's a big difference between sex and love, and I was definitely in it for the former. Lexie didn't see the divide though. She wanted to do the boyfriend-girlfriend thing 24/7. If I even talked to other girls she had jealous fits that led to make-up sex, even in school. I should have drawn the line at the locker room.

That was a mistake that I paid for. One of many.

I keep walking in the dark. The kitchen. Food, water. Staying alive, that's my focus. If there was other food stored away somewhere, I hadn't found it yet. When the damn hurricane ends, it's not like we can fling open the doors and run free. The outside is already a disaster area. Power lines will be on the ground, floodwater and filth everywhere. That's if we get out. It might take days before someone finds us, if anyone cares enough to look.

There's power left on my phone, and I use the flashlight sparingly to find the cabinet handles, drawers, and the refrigerator. I find sliced cheese and crackers and head back to the gym.

“Eat,” I say, putting it in front of her.

“Do you think we'll see our parents or our friends again?”

Friends? What are those? “Just eat.”

“Why are you so mad at me?”

I stare back at her and don't answer.

JILLIAN

Why is he like that? What did I do? It gets later, but neither of us turns to go to sleep. I'm too wired to close my eyes.

“Do you think the showers work—the ones in the locker room?”

He gets to his feet. “One way to find out.”

We make our way to the girls' locker room. No memories there for him. I go into a shower stall and try the water. “They're working,” I yell out. I never imagined the thought of showering would make me ecstatic. There are half a dozen shower stalls, and River goes into another one. “Hell, yes!” he yells, as the water pours down.

The cold water makes me feel alive again. There's even soap in the dispensers, so I wash my hair and then my clothes, putting them on soaking wet.

Showering, eating, sleeping, surviving. Life is stripped down to the essentials now.

“Man,” River says, coming out of the shower stall, his T-shirt bandages soaking, his wet hair glistening. “I feel human again.” He steps closer, and I reach out and touch his shoulder.

“How does it feel now?”

He steps back. “Doesn't matter … you still hungry?”

Denial. That's one way to cope.
I nod.

“Me too. Let's go back to the kitchen. A thousand kids go here, there has to be stuff we missed.”

We search together this time, but it's hard to tell what's there in the dark. The refrigerator is getting warm. We use our noses like dogs to sniff out what's inside containers. Milk that's turning bad. Cartons of cottage cheese that still smell OK. There's a storage closet, but it's locked. We grab what we can and walk down the dark corridor, devouring crackers like they're prime ribs and scooping out cottage cheese with plastic spoons.

My eyes dart across the room when I hear a scratching sound and make out movement. “Looks like we have company,” I say. River flicks on his flashlight and swivels around suddenly.

A mouse scampers across a shelf on the wall. He laughs, relieved, shaking his head. “Let's go into the principal's office. There's a couch in there.”

“It's probably locked.”

“The lock was broken,” River says. “I bet it still is.”

He's right. We step through the doorway and I stop. There's a light on over the principal's desk. How can that be? I step closer and realize it's a battery-operated picture light over a poster.

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”

Norman Vincent Peale

I plunk down on one side of the couch and River stretches out on the other, leaning his head back on the cushion.

“Can I tell you something?”

“What?” he says, guardedly.

“When you were … away, I … missed you.”

I'm not sure how to go on. He wasn't a boyfriend or even really a close friend, but still … I liked knowing he was next door, that I'd run into him. I felt a connection, aside from being neighbors. He was easygoing and fun to be around. Before, anyway.

He looks back at me, and for the briefest moment he becomes the River with the pale green flirty eyes and the private smile again. Then his face hardens.

“Then you were the only one who did.”

“What about your dad?”

“He didn't lose sleep over it.”

“How can you say that?”

He shifts and throws a leg over the back of the couch. “Aside from his job, football was his life, like everyone in this place. When I didn't play anymore, I didn't exist.”

RIVER

I shouldn't have started. But once I start I can't shut up. Talking doesn't change anything, but something about the way she's listening …

“There was so much I hated about football,” I say, putting it into words for the first time. “The endless practice, the expectations, to fight, to do better, never to coast, the vise that the game puts on your life. And the bullshit cheering from everyone like you were some kind of …”

“God?” she asked.

“Yeah, until you weren't, a game later or a week later, or whenever you screwed up and lost or broke your neck. But you know what the worst was?”