The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition (7 page)

              There were times when Kelly felt trapped and pulled in directions that she wasn’t certain she wanted to be pulled in.  So many people were being dragged along in Aimee’s net that it was difficult to tell who was there out of fear or out of friendship. 

              She didn’t even know why she was friends with Aimee anymore, but she also didn’t know how she could get out of this particular friendship. 

              Kelly would suggest harmless pranks – hiding notes for example – but Aimee took things to destructive levels.  It was extremely difficult to be friends with somebody who was obsessed over popularity and a particular male.

              “Why can’t you just date someone else?  Will is cute.  Kyle needs a girlfriend.”  Kelly tried to suggest other alternatives to David Carver.

              Kelly also had to pretend to miss Aimee’s eye roll.  “Kyle is off-limits and Will is an idiot.  He’s also David’s best friend.”  Aimee went on for several minutes waxing poetic about David’s many virtues. 

              She wanted to point out that Will had suggested that Kelly feel around about his chances.  “But Will’s a great guy.”

              “His father owns the tractor supply place,” Aimee said dismissively.

              “But he owns it…” Kelly tried to point out. 

              “It’s a tractor place.  They sell tractors.  Will’s going to go into the family business after college.”

              Kelly barely refrained from rolling her eyes. While Aimee was dismissive of tractors Kelly recognized that it was a significant business surrounded by people who would always need tractors to deal with the soybean fields.  Aimee saw tractors and Kelly saw job security.   

              Peeking around the corner, Kelly silently observed Brady and Savannah working on their homework at the dining room table.  She had no clue why her parents insisted on having a dining room table; they never ate at it except for holidays or the other rare occasion that a non-immediate family member came over for dinner.  Most of their meals were at the kitchen table or in the living room if there was something going on and not everybody was present. 

              She liked Savannah.  If she’d been facing Brady’s latest girlfriend then she would have already been invited to join them.  Kelly enjoyed it when she could do her homework with Brady and his girlfriends; it meant that she could get the help she needed for some of her classes.  She hated how Aimee would manipulate David into helping her with the assignments she needed help with.  If she heard Aimee reference ‘that deal we made freshmen year’ one more time she’d probably scream. 

              Honestly, Kelly liked most of Brady’s ex-girlfriends.  Except Wendy who threatened to kick Ms. Peaches.  And the ones who would get annoyed when she’d ask them if they could help her with homework. 

              It helped that they had most likely already taken the class. 

              It was homework.  It wasn’t a date. 

              Only Savannah did invite her to join them on occasion.  Like at the movies when something big was being released.  Kelly didn’t always tag along; she knew they needed time to themselves.  But there were times when Kelly wondered if Savannah saw her as the little sister that Savannah never had. 

              It was nice. 

              It was easier than dealing with Aimee’s growing fixation with David. 

              “What do you need, Kelly?” Brady asked, not turning around to look at his sister. 

              “I need something explained about
The Crucible
,” she answered him. 

              “Well, come on in and stop lurking in the doorway,” he responded.

              Taking a moment to reopen her notes and textbook, Kelly pulled out her study guide and found the question that was troubling her.  “Arthur Miller wrote this play because he was accused of being a communist during the Red Scare after World War Two.  Which character or characters would most likely be Arthur Miller?  Which character or characters would most likely represent Senator Joseph McCarthy?”  Looking up at Brady and Savannah, “McCarthy would most likely be Abigail Williams and the other girls who were claiming that their fellow townspeople were performing witchcraft.”

              Savannah smiled, looking impressed.  “That doesn’t sound like you are having a problem.”  

              Looking at her brother’s girlfriend, “I’m having trouble with the Arthur Miller comparison.  I get that John Proctor is the obvious choice, but wouldn’t Elizabeth Proctor and the other innocent accused be more accurate.  Proctor wasn’t as innocent as he wanted to seem, but his wife was innocent.  She was only accused because Abigail wanted her out of the picture.” 

              “Again, what is the problem?”

              Blinking, “I’m over thinking it, aren’t I?” Kelly whispered. 

              “Yes,” Savannah answered, “but sometimes over thinking things is a good thing.  In this case it just means that you understood your teacher’s question a bit better than she intended.  When Mrs. Lindsey asks that question in class you need to answer it exactly like you just did.  It’ll give you brownie points with her that might help when she’s grading the short answer question portion of her test.”

              “Or when she’s assigning the groups for The Trial of Abigail Williams project she always assigns,” Brady added.  “She’s more likely to put you in a better group.” 

              “Thank you,” Kelly smiled while starting to stack her things up to return to her room. 

              “You don’t have to leave,” Savannah intervened.  “You might need more help.”

              Shaking her head, “Thanks, but no thanks,” Kelly responded.  “This was the last question.  I had David Carver help me at lunch with my Algebra Two assignment.”  Continuing to stack her papers up, Kelly gave them a faint smile before leaving the room. 

              As much as she was thankful towards David’s forced help, she really wished for something, or someone, more along the lines of the relationship Brady and Savannah shared. 

              Remaining seated, Savannah continued chatting with one of her Bible Study friends as Brady went over to grab her some of the cookies that Pastor Samuel’s wife had baked.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see him talking to one of the juniors from their high school; she thought the other girl’s name was Hannah. 

              It was interesting watching other people reacting to her good-looking boyfriend.  Sometimes it wasn’t possible to bring him along to the Wednesday night classes, but he’d been willing enough to go to Sunday morning service with her.  Every single time she’d catch Hannah Stanfield peeking glances over at Brady before shaking her head. 

              Letting out a chuckle, she’d remembered the times she first blushed when he looked her way.  “I’m sorry, what?” Savannah asked, shaking her head to clear out the thoughts circling. 

              Letting out a laugh, her friend stated, “I’d be distracted too if I had him on my arm.”  Chuckling some more, “And it looks like that Theatre Geek agrees.  If you aren’t careful, Hannah might steal your man.”

              “We aren’t that serious,” Savannah responded, looking back over at Brady and Hannah. 
But I wonder
… she thought.

              It wasn’t until later, when Brady was driving her home, that Savannah had a thought.  “We haven’t taken a picture together.  We’ve been dating for weeks now and not a single photo.”

              “Then we’ll have to fix that,” he grinned.  Grabbing her phone, he opened up the camera and moved in next to her.  With a quick smile he snapped the picture before returning her phone. 

              But what caught Savannah’s attention was that he didn’t ask for her to send him a copy.  She didn’t even feel the urge to post it anywhere or make it her profile photo. 

              “Hey, I was having a conversation at the snack table with one of the theatre girls.  Do you think it’s possible that Mrs. Samuel bought her cookies from the bakery instead of making them herself?”

              Turning to look at him, “What brought that on?”

              Brady turned to face Savannah as he started making his points.  “Hannah was looking at the cookies and noticed that they weren’t quite like how homemade cookies tend to turn out.  No slightly burnt bottoms or irregular sizes.  She pointed out that there were also four different kinds and it would take a couple of days for her to bake all of the cookies needed for all of the Bible Study classes.” 

              All she could do was blink in response.  “How would she know?” Savannah finally asked. 

              “You know, I don’t know.” 

              Savannah Blake stared at the picture of her boyfriend, Brady Johnson, and herself.  It had only been a few days since it was taken, but something was not quite right about it.  She had trouble making sense of it because Brady was the perfect gentleman.  He opened doors, including the car door – he would make her wait to be certain that he had not parked her next to a puddle.  He asked her opinion about everything. 

              Actually, that was a bit annoying!  Sometimes a nice surprise would be better than having to discuss everything before they did it. 

              Her parents adored him – probably since he had brought her mother flowers before their first date.  Some nights they would have study nights and he would barely touch her; her parents had no problem with him being in Savannah’s room with the door closed. 

              Savannah knew what the problem was – the urge to do anything other than hold hands was gone!  She liked knowing that she always had a date to places, that she could call on him if she needed help with anything (as long as he was not at work), and that everybody liked him. 

              However, it did not change the fact that she no longer felt any urge to kiss him, that any of the chemistry they felt early in their relationship was gone. 

              Too bad she was thinking about all of this while watching his baseball practice. 

              There were a few things that Brady did not want to think about during practice, but certain things were intertwined more than he cared to admit. 

              He could see his sister, Kelly – a junior – talking with his girlfriend, Savannah, in the bleachers while the team warmed down.  Kelly had only been sitting there for a few minutes, knowing how long it would take practice to last; he refused to think about where she had been before then. 

              His girlfriend, however, had been there for most of practice.  She watched practice at least once a week and it was usually the day after one of her track meets when they didn’t have practice.  He would then take her home and they would either do homework or watch T.V.

              They had a routine and had only been dating for three months.  Half of the time this routine meant spending time with his younger sister.   

              Savannah didn’t mind how often Kelly wanted to tag along with her older brother; he remembered her there among the crowd that had gathered on the day that Brady had pushed Kelly out of the way of that speeding car.

              He had been lucky to only break his arm, if a broken arm on a baseball player during baseball season could ever be considered lucky.  It still ached whenever there was going to be a heavy storm or when he played a little too hard during a game.

              Everybody there that day knew that Kelly would not have survived the impact with the car.  None of it changed the fact – and this is where the story varied from person to person – that Kelly was in her brother’s arms when his right arm hit the curb and it cracked.