It had been a long time since I’d been inside a middle-school auditorium.
The orchestra kids were all roughly Caleb’s size, although he would have been at the small end of the scale. The boys were humorously insufferable, swaggering around in their black tuxedos, leaning over auditorium seats to flirt with the girls – all in floor-length, matching purple dresses.
‘Miss Wallace!’ A blond, tuxedoed kid called out from within the group, waving eagerly until he noticed me. His dark eyes went wide. Jacqueline returned his wave, but he looked destroyed to see the love of his life sitting next to a guy. I couldn’t very well blame him.
‘I take it this is one of the ones crushing on you,’ I said, biting my lip, keeping my expression even. If Jacqueline liked this kid, I didn’t want to demean him by laughing at his mopey response to the reality that Miss Wallace was taken. Had been taken. Would be taken again in a few hours, if I had anything to say about it.
‘What? They all crush on me. I’m a hot college girl, remember?’ She laughed.
I angled a bit closer and told her just how hot she was, and I asked her to stay with me again tonight.
‘I was afraid you weren’t going to ask,’ she said. Silly girl.
Harrison was a brave kid, giving my girl a dozen roses after the concert. He was self-conscious as hell, blushing to match the flowers as he thrust them at her, but I admired his gallantry in the face of that fear.
Thanking him, she lifted the bouquet to her face and inhaled blissfully. She told him that he’d made her proud tonight and he stood straighter, swelling up like a puffer fish.
Beaming, he said, ‘It’s all ’cause of you, though,’ which made her smile.
‘You did the work, and put in the practice.’
I’d made similar statements to grateful students who thought they only passed econ because of me.
‘You sounded great, man. I wish I could play an instrument,’ I added.
The kid’s eyes sized me up, and I fought the juvenile impulse to tell him he didn’t really want a piece of this. ‘Thanks,’ he said, giving me an inquisitive look. ‘Did that hurt? On your lip?’
I shrugged. ‘Not too much. I said a few choice four-letter words, though.’
‘Cool,’ he grinned.
Jacqueline knew how to pick favourites.
So did I.
We packed her truck with everything she was taking home for winter break and she turned in her dorm key. She was spending her last night in town with me.
‘I don’t want to go home. But if I don’t go, they’ll drive down to get me.’ Wearing one of my T-shirts, she stood brushing her teeth at my bathroom sink. She rinsed her mouth and watched me in the mirror. ‘What happened yesterday was the last straw for Mom. She wasn’t this upset when I fell out of the tree.’
My arms slipped round her. ‘I’ll be here, waiting for you. I promise. Come back early, if you want, and stay here with me until the dorms open. But go, give her a chance.’
She looked straight at me in the mirror, tearing up, knowing the card I was playing, no matter how furtively. ‘And you’ll give your father a chance, too?’
Sneaky, Jacqueline.
I grimaced, staring into her eyes in our reflection. ‘Yes. I will.’
She sighed, pouting. ‘Now that you’ve bullied me into leaving you, may I have my proper send-off?’
My brow arched and I moved my hands to the hem of that T-shirt, murmuring, ‘Hell, yes.’ I watched myself in the mirror – pulling the shirt up and over her head, cupping her lovely breasts in my hands, thumbs teasing the nipples. One hand slipped down to cover her abdomen, sliding into her panties, straight past the lace. Her mouth fell open as I stroked her, and her head fell back on my shoulder, but she didn’t shut her eyes. So beautiful. I loved watching her respond to my touch. I would never get enough of this.
She reached a hand behind her hips, fingers closing round me. I growled, pushing into her hand while I pressed her body closer with mine. I leaned to kiss her neck, closing my eyes and breathing her in. ‘Ready for bed, then?’
‘Bed, sofa, kitchen table, whatever you have in mind …’ she answered, and I groaned.
When I regained enough equilibrium to open my eyes, they’d darkened to the leaden grey-blue of a rainy day sky, contrasting with her deep, summer blue. My bathroom mirror had become the hottest interactive video ever. ‘All right, then,’ I said, sliding my fingers into her. ‘Let’s just start right here, baby.’
‘Mmm …’ she said, her eyes drifting closed.
She lay in the circle of my arms, both of us exhausted. Bathroom sink, check. Desk chair, check. Sofa, double check. I visualized waking with her in this bed in a few hours, though, and decided she had one more send-off in store.
Still awake, her eyes were on mine. Hmm.
‘What’d you think of Harrison?’ she asked.
‘He seems like a good kid.’
‘He is.’ Her eyes followed her fingertips as they caressed beneath my jaw.
I dragged her closer and asked what this was about. ‘Are you leaving me for Harrison, Jacqueline?’
I expected her to roll her eyes and laugh, but instead, she gazed steadily at me. ‘If Harrison had been in that parking lot that night, instead of you, do you think he’d have wanted to help me?’
The parking lot. With Buck.
‘If someone had told him to watch out for me,’ she pressed, ‘do you think they would ever, ever blame him, if he’d not been able to stop what would have happened that night?’
My lungs constricted. ‘I know what you’re trying to say –’
She wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily, though she trembled in my arms. ‘No, Lucas. You’re hearing it, but you don’t know it. There’s no way your father actually expected that of you. There’s no way he even remembers saying that to you. He blames himself, and you blame yourself, but neither of you is to blame.’ Her eyes were full, but they wouldn’t let me go.
I held her like I was falling off the face of the earth, and I couldn’t breathe – no gravity, no oxygen. ‘I’ll never forget how she sounded that night. How can I not blame myself?’ My eyes glassed with tears while hers spilled over.
Her right hand was still on my face. Pressed between us, her left hand gripped mine, grounding me. Her tears flowed into the pillow as she made me see the boy I’d been. I’d never asked my father if he blamed me; I’d assumed that he did. But Jacqueline was right about him – he was stuck in perpetual grief, blaming himself when no one else did. And I had followed his example.
‘What have you told me, over and over? It wasn’t your fault,’ she said.
She said I needed to talk to someone who’d help me forgive myself. I only wanted to talk to her – but I couldn’t ask that of her. Cindy had suggested therapy a hundred times, swearing it helped her grieve the loss of her best friend, but I’d become adept at insisting I was fine.