Shattered Castles 1 : Castles on the Sand (14 page)

Madison:
Well, okay. I have work.

John:
I won't keep you. Love you, sis!

Madison:
Bye.

O
n my walk home, someone says “pssst” from down in the ditch. I pause and look and see that it's JP. Quickly, I jump down.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He glances around.  “Listen, I've got, like, maybe an hour before I'm supposed to be home. Your mom in?”

“No.”

“What do you say?”

With him right here, in front of me, I want more than anything to feel his arms around me and his lips on mine, but I can't help but remember the letdown that comes afterwards, when he won't so much as look at me in public.

“You okay?” he asks.

I remember Kailie's advice again. Do it if I feel like it. I remember Carson saying that he'd treat me much better. While I'm still not sold on Carson and his arrogance, the thought of a guy who treated me like he was proud to be with me does appeal.

“Earth to Madison?”

“Sorry...”

He stands up and puts his arms around me. I can't help but melt as he kisses my lips. Pick your letdown, I think, letdown from feeling used versus letdown from letting the chance go by? My brother's advice is useless here. What I want is to have both the time with JP and no letdown afterwards. As it is, I have to choose the lesser of two evils, if I can figure out what that is.

F
ifteen minutes later I'm lying on my bed with him, gasping for breath as he kisses me, his hands pulling my shirt up, inch by inch. “I missed you,” he whispers. “Let me be with you. You are so hot. Madison.”

Do I want to sleep with him? I feel like the answer should be no, but I don't entirely know why. The letdown would be worse, or would it? Would it establish a connection between us that would endure even when he couldn't acknowledge me in public?

Think about what happened to Kailie with Ben, says the little voice in my mind.

But, I reason, she slept with him the first time they ever hooked up.

“Madison?” All kissing has stopped and JP just stares down at me.

“Sorry... got distracted...”

He blinks, and I realize I've dealt him a grave insult. “Well, I gotta get home soon, but that was a nice way to kill some time.”

“No, I didn't mean... some crazy stuff's happened. I have a lot on my mind.”

He gets up, puts on his shirt, shoes, and jacket.

“JP, stop.” I sit up.

“It's fine,” he says, in a way that sounds perfectly sincere. “I just need to go.” The entire encounter was probably less than ten minutes.

I think I should say something, ask him for something, but I can't formulate what that would be. Instead I just watch him leave and the usual sense of letdown, coupled with a big dose of guilt for insulting him, wells up inside me.

T
he next morning as I get ready for school, I have to cover a bruise on my neck with concealer, a new experience for me. I can't help but stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, moving to see between the clay fish magnets that Mom's decorated it with. Here I am, me, Madison Lukas, who has barely ever kissed anyone and has been with a guy for less than ten minutes in the last twenty-four hours, covering up love bites.

Don't sweat it, I think. You've got nothing to be ashamed of.

But the sight of myself makes me want to look away.

You are
not
easy, I think. You're a virgin. You've only ever kissed one guy.

How long, I wonder, will I keep that first claim?

I can't help but remember Tatiana's “booty call” accusation. Is that all I am?

And why does this bother me? Is it because I can't let go of the romantic notion of having a boyfriend? Is it because I'm starting to think Carson might be a better option? He's every bit as good looking. I imagine him walking down the hall with his arm around me, smiling down like I'm beautiful and he can't take his eyes off me.

T
his image surfaces up in my mind again the next morning when Kailie and I step onto campus just as the MAV is unloading. Carson catches my stare and pauses, before climbing the rest of the way down from his seat. Everyone else piles out without a glance in my direction and heads for the school building. Alex is with them again. That is so weird.

“Yeah, leaving now,” says Kailie. She flips her hair over her shoulder and strides off as Carson makes his way towards me.

I stay where I am, marveling at how he's making it obvious, to anyone who's watching, that he wants to talk to me. “I'm sorry,” is the first thing he says, “about yesterday. Seems like I keep screwing up with you.”

Since I don't know what to say, I shrug.

“I'm bad at this,” he says.

“It's not like I'm an expert either.”

“What do I need to do? I'll beg.”

I shake my head and look down. “No, don't do that.”

“You look beautiful today.”

“You really mean that?”

“Why else would I say it?”

JP and a couple of his friends walk by, and although he doesn't stop or even slow down, I do catch him glancing in my direction, and my confusion deepens. If we're not together, am I not supposed to talk to other guys?

“Go out with me,” says Carson. “I know we never talk, so let's do that. Get to know each other. Spend some time.”

“No,” should just roll off my tongue, but it doesn't.

He stares intently at me. “Think it over?”

“Um... sure. I guess. I'll think it over.”

A smile spreads across his face. “Okay. I'll see you around then.”

“See you.” I turn away and head for the school. Once I'm up the stairs and through the doors of the building, I nearly run right into Kailie, who screams, “You are a
psycho!”
at Ryan. More emotional tension. Just what I need right now.

An imposing figure ghosts past in my peripheral vision, and then Alex is there, jabbing a finger at Kailie's chest.
“Don't
use that word,” he says. He stares her down so that she backs up into a row of lockers. “You don't even know what it means.”

She looks up at him, bug-eyed.

“Alex,” I say.

He glances at me, shoots another glare at Kailie, and then strides off around the corner. His loser friends all follow.

“Oh. My. G-”

“Probably not a good idea to pick fights with any of those guys,” I say.

“What is his problem?”

“He's Alex. What more do you need to know?”

“Since when does he talk?” says someone else in the crowd. I don't see who it is. Everyone is staring after him, amazed at the sound of his voice.

W
hile I'm at work that day, I get a text from Carson that reads:
Hi. You can call me anytime, you know.

I know I should be doing my homework, but I find myself searching for
The Book of Mormon
online instead. What pops up is a page full of links to: “The Truth About Mormons” and “Secrets of the LDS Church Revealed”.

I feel my pulse edge up a notch as I click on first one link, then another. Slowly the picture emerges. The LDS Church was founded by a guy named Joseph Smith in the 1800's after he claimed to have a revelation from God, and
The Book of Mormon
was a holy book he claimed he’d translated from some gold plates found in upstate New York with the help of two magic “seer stones.” This golden book, he claimed to have then given to an angel for safekeeping, thus removing any evidence of its existence altogether. How convenient.

After he started his church, he took his followers to Ohio, then farther west to Missouri and Illinois, where he started preaching polygamy and married multiple women, and did things like set up a city militia and run for president. He also had the members of his religious movement give all their money to the church to build expensive temples, each of which was abandoned soon after it was built as the fledgling Church kept getting driven out of each new location by the locals.

Joseph Smith was shot to death in his late thirties, and Brigham Young, with his many wives in tow, took the rest of the Church members to Utah on a cross-prairie trek that killed hundreds.

Now I get why JP called my brother a “cultist”. I close that tab in the browser and get up to reshelve some books.

J
P finds me again on Friday, when I'm on my way to work. Again he waits in the ditch and says “Pssst,” when I walk by. I stop and jump down. The letdown from the last time we hooked up hasn't left me completely. Ghostly fingers of disappointment cloud my vision as I look at my sort-of boyfriend and think of kissing him.

“How late do you work?” he asks.

“Till five-thirty.”

“All right, well, if I'm free, I'll try to meet you then.”

“Sure.”

“Everything all right?”

I force a nod. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

I try to nod again, but shrug instead.

“Listen, are things moving too fast, physically?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“You a virgin?”

The question comes as a shock. “Yeah.” I should think that was obvious.

“Oh. I didn't know.”

“Are you?”

“No... That mean you want to keep things from going... farther?”

I definitely don’t want to “go farther”, but I can tell from his expression that this is the wrong thing to say. My instinct is to say what he wants to hear, but when I open my mouth, that isn’t what comes out. “I don’t know,” I hedge. “I don’t really feel ready for that.”

His expression reveals nothing. “I'll see you later.”

“See you.” Smile, I think. Act happy. My face won't obey my mind's command, though.

And then JP is gone, so it doesn't matter anyway.

W
hen work is over and JP isn't there waiting on my way home, I feel a slight letdown, but also some relief. I head home, eat dinner, and go to bed at eight, I'm so tired. It occurs to me that I always feel tired. I never caught up all the way from the almost nonstop nighttime visits I've had lately. It feels good to snuggle down in my bed and pass out.

A
knock on my window wakes me up. I groan. It comes again and I find I don't want to wake up enough to tell the person to go away. Instead, I let myself start to drift off to sleep again.

“Madison?” Kailie's voice.

Go away, I think. I don't want to get up and go out into the cold.

“Madison? You in there?” She raps on the window with her knuckles, then my cellphone rings.

I roll over and answer it. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“I don't feel very well.”

“Whatever. I want to head down to the beach.”

“Mmm, not tonight. Sorry. I am so tired.”

“Well who's gonna drive, then?”

“I don't even have a license.”

“Well fine. Next time you want to come over and whine about your problems, forget about it.” She hangs up.

Guilt overwhelms me. I sit up and peer out the window only to see my friend retreating towards her car. I could call out to her, or I could go back to sleep. Sleep comes a lot more easily than I would have thought. Apparently I'm not too upset after all.

A
fter work the next day, I think over what I want to do if Kailie comes by again, wanting to party. Do I want to go sit by a fire on the beach and get my clothes all smokey? No, I think. I don't. But JP might be there, says a little voice in my head. You could get a chance to talk to him.

But of all the beach parties I've been to, and it's been dozens, he's only ever been at one of them. I think of Kailie going to search for Ben time after time and, more often than not, coming home disappointed. That, I decide, is not going to be me.

So when the knock comes on my window several hours later, I wake up, flip the latch and say, “No parties.”

“Why not?” Kailie leans in and scowls at me.

“I don't want to go. We can get burritos, though, if you want?”

“Why, so you can whine at me about your problems?”

“No. It's too cold to be out. We can get burritos and come back here.”

She shakes her head. “Ben might be at this one.”

“Then let him miss out on seeing you. Maybe he'll call.”

“That's the stupidest idea ever. You obviously don't get how this works.”

And you do? I think. I hold my tongue.

“Well, I don't want to eat a gazillion calories and just hang out here,” she says.

“Okay. Maybe some other time.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“Sorry, I just don't want to go out in the cold.”

“Whatever.” She pulls her head back and slams the window shut.