Playing for the Other Team (12 page)

“Great,” Jasper said stiffly. “That’s just great.”

“I take it things between you two didn’t end well?”

“No,” Jasper forced out. He looked pissed off now, and I wasn’t sure whether it was directed toward Christopher for his meddling or toward me for not dropping the topic.

“Can you tell me about it?” I asked.

“No,” he repeated, reached out, and crumpled up his drawing. I’d never, ever seen him do that before.

“Jasper—” I started, but when I reached out to grab his hand, he pulled away and stood.

“I’m going to the restroom,” he informed me coolly. Then he crossed the room to Miss Fisher and was rewarded with a hall pass seconds later.

And I felt like an ass. As I watched Jasper leave, I chewed my lip and tried to regret pushing him for information. But I couldn’t feel bad about trying to figure out what was going on with him, especially if people like Christopher were going to get me caught up in it. Even if Jasper got mad at me for it. Which he had.

This was just 100 percent not my day.

Ten minutes later, there was movement by the door, and I lifted my head, expecting Jasper to be back. Instead it was Rayna Cunningham who entered the room, showed Miss Fisher her hall pass, and then came right over to where I was sitting.

“Where’s Jasper?” she demanded to know, in a tone that wasn’t especially polite.

“Restroom.” I stared dully at the tabletop.

“Ah.” She stood there for a moment, shifting as though unsure of what to do, and then she crossed her arms. “You know, he’s a good guy. A really good guy. And he doesn’t deserve—”

“I got that speech from Missy, thanks,” I interrupted her. It was rude, for sure, but I was pretty certain I was on the verge of running around screaming, tearing my hair out, and throwing food at people, and it wouldn’t have taken much more of this to push me over that edge.

“Okay, then,” Rayna said flippantly. “Just checking. You know, since I’m his best friend and he’s never even mentioned you to me, I figured he must have had a very good reason for it, such as you being yet another lousy boyfriend I would never approve of.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not it, so why don’t you check your facts before going off on me like that,” I suggested rather unkindly.

“I’m trying to. Volunteered at the main office to take this note from his mom to him because I wanted to make sure he was okay.” She looked pointedly at Jasper’s empty chair. “Where the hell is he?”

“I told you—” I started but then realized that she had a point—Jasper had been gone for quite some time. “Goddamn it.” I pushed back my chair and stood. “I’ll go check on him.”

“I’m perfectly capable.” Rayna tried to stop me.

“Oh yeah? Far as I know, they frown on girls marching into the guys’ bathrooms around here.”

“I don’t like you,” she informed me darkly as we walked down the hallway together, me with a fresh hall pass from Miss Fisher, Rayna still wearing her glare and wielding the sealed note for Jasper. “And if you screw over my best friend, I will hurt you.”

The only reply I could think of was “Missy’s got dibs.”

When we reached the closest bathroom, Rayna leaned against the wall outside of it and gave me an expectant look. I rolled my eyes at her just because I could, grabbed the note before she could protest, and pushed my way through the door. At first, the sad-looking tiled space appeared empty, but when I crouched to double-check, I could see Jasper sitting on the floor in the farthest stall. His shoes made him easy to identify.

Just sitting. That couldn’t be good.

I approached slowly, making sure he heard me coming so I wouldn’t scare him, and then spent a good minute trying to think of what to say.

“Hey,” I said eventually. “Are you okay?”

I heard him breathing, and the little raspy sound that went along with it told me he’d been crying.

“Hey, sunshine,” he muttered in a scratchy voice. “Not really keen on a conversation right now.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I dropped down on my knees outside the door. Even though the door was between us, it felt weird to be theoretically towering over him.

“Tell me what he said,” Jasper requested after a moment of silence.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I pressed the palm of one hand against the door. For some reason, I was loath to tell Jasper about Christopher’s freaky possessive streak “And does it really matter?”

There was a short pause. “Yeah,” Jasper said then. “Yeah, it fucking matters.”

“Why?”

“Because I know how much of an asshole he is.” The words were dripping with venom when Jasper spat them out.

I took a moment to try and figure out how to react to this. But because I didn’t know what the problem was, this felt like walking blindfolded into a minefield no matter what. I prayed he wouldn’t shut down again if I dug deeper.

“Why did you date him?” I asked gently. “You must have liked him at some point, right?”

There was a terrifying moment of silence. Then he sighed. “He wasn’t like that at first. He was pretty sweet. And he didn’t cheat on me, and the sex was good, so…” Jasper trailed off.

“So?” I asked carefully.

“So I put up with his bullshit for way too long because I was just thankful I had
someone
.”

“What bullshit?” I asked, and when there was no answer, I was anxious enough to dig my nails into the palms of my hands. Then the lock on the door turned, and it swung open.

“I can’t do this if I’m not looking at you,” Jasper said, sounding resigned. I knee-walked forward, which was not a great idea on those tiles, and joined him in the stall.

His hair was mussed, and his eyes were quite red, his lips puffy from crying. He gave me a rueful smile when he caught me looking.

“I thought I was done crying about this shit,” he said. “Tried really hard to leave it behind and move on.”

I reached out for his fingers, laced them with mine, and squeezed lightly. “Tell me,” I pleaded.

“As I said, he was nice at first. I was hoping I could finally have a good, decent relationship, so I didn’t mind when he got a little too jealous, and that he got mad about these really stupid little things sometimes. By the end he was…he was calling me a whore for talking to any of my friends and punishing me if I didn’t answer my phone on the third ring.” Jasper exhaled a raspy breath, like he was relieved to have gotten that out. My grip on him tightened. Purple Hair—Christopher—had been so lucky I hadn’t been aware of that when he had talked to me. With the mood I’d been in, and knowing what he’d done to Jasper, I might have beaten him to a pulp. “And I trusted him with some things I shouldn’t have. Stuff that he really turned against me when we finally broke up, threatened to tell any future boyfriend I might have.”

“So is that what I am?”

“Dunno,” Jasper muttered. “You still want me?”

This time it was him who tightened his grip before I could reply. At the rate we were going, someone’s bones were going to be pulverized by the end of this talk.

“Tell me what he said,” he requested again, his voice steadier now. “I need to know.”

“It wasn’t much,” I tried to calm Jasper. “He just…kept insisting that you were his.”

Jasper flinched. I tried to read his eyes, but he turned them away. “And?” he asked stiffly.

“And that was basically it. He kept shoving me and telling me to keep my hands off you, and I stood there thinking how he sounded like a delusional idiot.”

That got a tiny smile out of him. It dropped again quickly, however. “Miss Fisher’s gonna kill me,” he groused.

“Maybe not. She thinks you’re…” I turned and grabbed the note, which had landed on the floor a foot away. “Rayna came in to give you this, and I wanted to check on you, so I said I’d deliver it.”

“Rayna, huh?” He studied the piece of paper for a moment before slicing through the tape that held it closed. He scanned the words and then burst into honest-to-God laughter. It was so unexpected that I just sat there and stared at him for a good while.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“It’s from my mom.” He raised his hands to put air quotation marks around the last word. “I’m guessing Missy got one of her friends to call in and pretend it was her.”

“Why?”

He handed me the note without a word but still grinning widely. It was such a relief to see that expression that I wanted to hug whoever was responsible for putting it there.

Don’t forget to take your pills.

Does Bryson have a dentist appointment after school today? Please advise.

Love, Mom

“Why would I have a…what?” I turned to Jasper, slightly amused yet confused.

“My sister communicates in code sometimes,” he told me with an impressively straight face. “‘Don’t forget to take your pills’ is Missy-speak for ‘Chill, I got this.’”

“And my dentist appointment?”

“Is her asking if you need to have your teeth rearranged.” Jasper gave me a fond look and a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll let her know I like them as they are.”

I laughed, suppressed a bout of mild hysteria, and leaned my head on his shoulder. “Your sister is a nut,” I said.

“Yeah, she is.”

“But I can’t blame her for being protective of you,” I added. “Especially after meeting that knucklehead you call your ex. He needs a dentist appointment.”

Jasper chuckled. “She called his house once, pretending to be another student’s mom. Accused him of all sorts of shenanigans. She’s let the air out of his tires a couple of times too. I’ve never asked her to do that stuff, but I can’t really stop her either. She’s exceptionally stubborn.”

I was getting the feeling we’d been in there way too long, so I reluctantly pulled away from Jasper and climbed to my feet.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I can be too. If I’m gonna be your boyfriend, she’s gonna have to get used to me.”

“Boyfriend?” Jasper asked as he allowed me to help him up. “So that’s still on the table, huh?”

“No,” I said. “That would imply we’re still considering it. But we’re past that. Sorry if you missed it, but it’s a done deal.”

Jasper snorted as we made our way to the door. I felt vaguely guilty when I realized that Rayna was no longer around. She probably hadn’t wanted to get into trouble for loitering.

The bell rang. Doors flew open. I grimaced, because now Jasper and I would have to fight our way against the stream of students, back to the art room to pick up our stuff.

“So, boyfriend,” Jasper muttered into my ear. “Want to hold hands in the hallway?”

Chapter Ten

Coming Out With Grace And Style

Some chucklefuck in the administration office had decided that Thursday after classes was a great time for all graduating seniors to have a meeting in the gym. So instead of being able to process everything that had happened at school that day, I got to sit in the bleachers with the rest of my class, being stared at and whispered about yet again. It got particularly uncomfortable when, just after I’d sat down, Trip spotted me and deliberately turned away from me, walking in an exaggerated arc to keep his distance before he decided on a seat. I probably should have expected that.

His hurtful behavior was almost negated by Jasper, who gave me a beaming smile when he saw me and grabbed my hand as soon as he had taken a seat next to me. He was followed closely by Elle, who looked upset but put on a good front as she took the spot on my right. Rayna plopped down on Jasper’s other side, and finally, oddly, Nova Phillips approached with a wry little smile and put her arm around Elle, whispering something into her ear that I assumed was meant to be comforting.

I had to admit, I felt really good to have people who would still sit next to me without making a big deal out of it. It gave me strength to have their support, to know I wasn’t alone in this ridiculous mess.

It took Mr. Barron, the school’s vice principal, several minutes to quiet down the crowd of disgruntled students who would rather have been enjoying the weather than sitting in a crummy gym. Even with a microphone, he had to work hard to make himself heard, but eventually, even the biggest idiots seemed to realize that the sooner we all shut up, the sooner we would get out of the place.

“Today is the deadline for the cap-and-gown order,” was the first thing he announced. “So if you have not yet gotten in your measurements, you need to do that before you leave today.” He pointed at Miss Fisher, who was standing off to the side, waving a tape measure. “There are also a few dress code rules I’d like to go over with you.”

Everyone groaned. The school dress code was universally loathed, for obvious reasons. Mr. Barron prattled on, talking about
special occasions call for special rules
and
the dignity of the graduation gown
and several minutes’ worth of similar nonsense that was basically just one big excuse for pushing yet more rules on us. Then he went into the details.

“Skirts and dresses worn underneath the gown must cover the knee. Pants worn underneath the gown may not have frayed hems and must be in a neutral color. Girls may not wear heels with a height exceeding two inches.”

That got the first powerful reaction of the meeting. The girls were pissed.

“That’s ridiculous,” Elle complained. “That’s never been a rule for graduation. Who decided on that? And why?”

“Fascists.” Nova, I noticed when I looked over at her, appeared positively ready to murder someone. “I don’t own heels that are less than four inches. There’s no
point
in two-inch heels. What the hell?”

“What’s wrong with three-inch heels?” another girl sitting in the row behind me demanded to know loudly. “Does the extra inch somehow turn us from saints into sluts?”

“And why’s that their business anyway?” Nova added.

But it was Trip’s loud voice that stood out the most when he exclaimed, “Lucky the rule is only for girls, Bry, so you can wear whatever heels you like.”

“Gee, someone’s feeling threatened in their precious masculinity,” Elle quipped, though there was a bitter tone to it.

Trip heard her. His head whipped around, and he glared in our general direction. “Bitch.” The word sounded venomous, but there was a flicker of regret in his eyes.