If I Tell

CHAPTER five



The car pulled up beside me. I picked up my pace until I was on the verge of breaking into a run.

“Hey. Slow down. You’re going to freeze to death,” a voice yelled.

“Get lost,” I snapped without looking up. Great. To top off my night, I’d be killed on the side of the road by a serial killer or something. I tried to remember if there’d been any reports of killers in the news.

“Hello? I’m trying to save you from freezing to death.”

I recognized the voice.

“Jackson?” I stopped walking and peered into the driver’s seat of the car. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a regular knight,” he said. “Come on, get in.” He put the car in park.

I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered, but I didn’t move.

Jackson stuck his head out the open window and peered at my feet. “You don’t have shoes on. Come on. Get in the car.”

“Congratulations,” I told him. “You win the award as the most observant person on the planet.”

My feet stayed firmly on the ground even though my mouth was flapping in the cold Washington wind. We hadn’t had any snow in a while, and it was a pretty warm year, but the air was still cold.

He swore softly under his breath and then opened his car door, shot out to the road, and stood in front of me.

He put a hand gently on my back. “I’ll take you home, okay?” He pushed, but I dug my toes into the cement, resisting him, and shook my head back and forth.

“You’re not a very agreeable drunk,” he said. “You’re shoeless and freezing, so come on. Let’s go.” He guided me toward the passenger door. The warmth in the car tempted me. He opened the door for me and I scooted inside, wisely keeping my mouth shut, and stayed put.

He went around and slid inside the driver’s door. When he got in, he pulled off his hoodie and handed it to me.

“Here,” he said as he started the engine. “You look frozen.”

I took the hoodie, hugging it close for warmth but not putting it on. It smelled clean. Not like Nathan and his cheap cologne. I hugged it tighter.

“I’m not drunk,” I told Jackson and sneaked a look sideways at him. “Well, not anymore.” My foggy brain felt sluggish but coherent.

He twirled his earring. “Your boyfriend is an idiot for letting you run around in the cold like this. And you must be drunk. I haven’t heard you talk this much since I’ve known you.”

I lowered my head, not bothering to inform him that Nathan was so not my boyfriend.

“You two have a fight?” he asked.

I shrugged, my teeth shivering from the cold. He reached down and blasted the heat, and I fought the urge to spill my guts. Babble to him about what I’d done. And why.

“How’d you find me?” I asked instead of answering.

Jackson shoulder-checked, but the road was empty, so he pulled the car out onto the road and drove on. “I saw you sneaking out the back door in your bare feet. And stumbling a little. So I followed you.”

I leaned my head back and snuggled with his hoodie. I wanted to cry, but I knew that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I pushed my teeth into my bottom lip and blinked quickly. “I didn’t even know you were there,” I mumbled.

“I just got off work and heard about the party so thought I’d pop by before I went home.” He pointed to the floor in front of me.

I looked down. My black-and-white-checked running shoes were tucked at the back of the floor mat.

“How’d you know they were mine?”

“Lacey saw me searching the shoes and told me the sneakers were yours. I’m not Sherlock.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled and slid on the shoes, grateful he’d at least spared me the wrath of my grandma for losing my “ridiculously priced running shoes.”

“So. Where do you live?”

I gave him my address and sank back against the seat, wishing I could disappear inside it.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” Jackson said.

“I don’t.” I hiccuped, and a semi-hysterical laugh slipped out. “Well, not usually.” I chewed my bottom lip.

He made a sound in his throat like he was clearing it. After a minute he spoke. “You’re a little young, aren’t you? For a party like Marnie’s?”

“I go there all the time. I have friends.” I swallowed tears again. Some friends. “How did you even know about Marnie’s? You’re young too.” Anger raised my voice an octave.

“Me?” He grinned. “I have ways of finding things out. Besides, I’m eighteen, almost nineteen. That’s the legal drinking age in Canada.”

“We’re not in Canada.” I glared at him. “Did you go to Marnie’s to deal?” I sucked in my breath. Way to play it cool, Jaz. My inhibitions about speaking my mind had apparently vanished. Luckily, instead of pulling over and pushing me out the door, he laughed. The high-pitched sound hooted from his lungs like an off-key horn.

“Ouch,” he said. “You heard about my illustrious past. Afraid it’s true, though. I have a record and everything.”

I frowned. Was it still true? Did he mean he was there to deal drugs? “Is Marnie your girlfriend or something?” My brain was putting words in my mouth. And spitting them out loud.

I shuddered at a flash of her bedroom. Her bed. I closed my eyes, hating myself, and projected my disgust at Jackson. “She’s old. And she seems slutty. But I guess that appeals to a boy like you.”

He grabbed at his heart. “Whoa. What’s that supposed to mean? A boy like me?”

I stared out at the darkness in front of us. The liquor swirling through my blood made me an ass. Marnie had never done anything to me. Neither had he.

“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry,” I mumbled as an afterthought. He didn’t deserve my anger. It wasn’t him I was mad at.

He chuckled, though. “She’s not my type.”

Yeah. True enough. I’d seen his type at the coffee shop. Blond. Giggly.

“Anyhow,” he said. “You should talk. Nathan’s not your type.”

“Nathan is not my boyfriend,” I clarified and blushed, wondering if Jackson knew I’d been in a bedroom with Nathan. I turned my head away and made a face at my reflection in the window. I couldn’t wait to get home to shower and scrape every smell and memory from my skin.

“That right?” Jackson asked.

His eyebrows shot up and I imagined his awful thoughts about me and wanted to cry with shame.

“Did something happen?” he asked, his voice low. He sounded dangerous. “I mean, did Nathan do something…Is that why you left without your shoes?”

I leaned my head against the seat. “No. It’s not what you think.”

I’d set myself up by drinking so much and letting Nathan kiss me. I’d led him on. Given him the wrong idea. I’d acted like an irresponsible idiot.

“You sure?”

Jackson sounded as if it actually mattered. I turned my head and fixed my gaze on the blackness outside the passenger window. “Why would you even care?”

I saw him glance at me in the reflection of my window and stared the other way, afraid he was making fun of me. “I thought we were kind of friends,” he said. “Work buddies and all. Why wouldn’t I care? You’re sweet.”

I thought about what I’d done with Nathan. “I am not sweet,” I told him.

“Uh. A little prickly sometimes, but I sense marshmallow underneath,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

Jackson took me literally and stopped talking. We drove quietly for a while, and the stillness and dark soothed me. I almost felt like I was dreaming.

“Your grandma going to kill you?” Jackson finally asked.

“No. I mean, not since you saved my shoes and all. She doesn’t wait up for me.”

He nodded. “She’s cool? About you going to parties?”

“Like I said, I don’t usually drink, so she doesn’t mind.” I snorted softly. “I don’t have a lot of friends at school, so she’s happy I have a social life. She trusts me.”

He stayed quiet.

“I know how hard it can be,” he said, shattering the silence again. His voice was deep but almost gentle. “Growing up without your parents.”

I rubbed my charm between my fingers and snuck a sideways glance at him. “What do you mean?”

“Just that I get it. I mean, I heard. That you never knew your dad.”

I bristled at the mention of the Sperminator. “Really? You want to talk about him? He’s not a dad. He’s some stupid a*shole who supplied sperm. How do you even know about ‘my dad’?” Liquor brought words to the surface that I usually kept buried deep inside. Another reason to never drink again. I clenched my teeth hard to keep my mouth shut.

“The same way you know things about me. My illustrious past. People talk. Anyhow, I understand more than you think. ”

I sniffled. What did Jackson know about how it felt?

“I never knew my dad,” he said softly. “But from what I heard, he was an a*shole, so I’m okay with it, but still. It sucks. And you have the whole race thing to deal with too.”

I held my breath, not quite believing he was going there. People never went there.

“Are there any other people in your life? Black people, I mean. Like grandparents or aunts or uncles or something?” Jackson asked.

My laugh was bitter. “That whole side of my family doesn’t even acknowledge I exist so…um, no,” I snapped.

He stayed quiet for a minute. “It’s hard. Being the only one.”

“There are other black people in town. That’s how I got there, after all.”

“I know that. I meant in the family. And you’re the only biracial girl at Westwind. So you’re kind of alone there too.”

I snorted. “Thanks for noticing.”

He glanced over and raised his eyebrows before looking back to the road. I lifted a finger to my mouth and started chewing on a hangnail.

“I notice things. I like to think I look a little deeper.”

I glanced at his profile, envious of his thin nose. I’d always hated my wider nose, sure God gave it to me to remind me I was partially black. I tried to imagine his life for a moment, but I was too wrapped up in my own misery.

“I hate when people make snap judgments. Hate it.”

Something inside me cracked a little. The darkness around us hugged me like a blanket, making me feel secure and more intimate with him.

“I don’t give a crap who someone’s parents are or what they do for a living,” he added, and the blanket of darkness tugged at me.

“My life is a mess,” I blurted out, surprising myself.

I looked over to see if he’d laugh or mock me. He just nodded.

“In high school, my mom was the blond princess, and my dad was the football star. A total cliché except that he was black. Back then it mattered even more than it does now. My mom, the rebel. Anyhow, they didn’t go out for very long before she got pregnant. Grandpa told me my dad, I mean the Sperminator, didn’t want her to have the baby. Me.”

Grandpa had never sugarcoated his words. He was a strong believer in truth. He tried to make up for the fact that my father had never wanted me born by loving me more, but he’d always told me the truth about my birth.

“My father’s family moved away before I was born. They didn’t want to ruin the Sperminator’s chance at playing college football. They never contacted me. They pretend I don’t exist. I’ve never spoken with any of them.”

Jackson nodded and glanced at me. I didn’t see pity in his eyes before his gaze went back to the road. It was something else. And because he wasn’t feeling sorry for me and because I was filled with liquor, I kept talking.

“My grandparents raised me. My mom lived with us too, but we were more like sisters. Anyhow. We all did fine. I mean, my grandparents were great, but obviously they didn’t know anything about being black. I looked the part but didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. Well, until Simon came along.”

“Simon?” Jackson asked.

I lowered my head, studying my shoes. “Simon has been my mom’s boyfriend for about five years. He’s black. We used to be kind of close.”

“Used to be?”

I ripped off the skin from my hangnail with my teeth and it hurt, but in a different way than the pain inside me.

“It changed. My mom is pregnant, and Simon…” I thought about Lacey. An image of her kissing Simon flashed in my mind. Her arms wrapped around his. His mouth all over hers. I leaned my head back against the seat. “It’s nothing.” I closed my eyes tight to chase away the image. “We don’t get along anymore.”

“Did something happen? With you and Simon?”

“Oh, my God, no!” My eyes flew open, and I shivered.

“Sorry,” he said softly. “You just looked really…freaked.”

“It was nothing like that. Never mind. It was just…a stupid fight,” I lied. “It doesn’t matter.” I turned my head and stared at the blackness outside. There were a few cars on the street, and the streetlights shone bright, but it seemed like most of the population of Tadita was home in bed.

“Okay.” Jackson didn’t sound convinced, but he reached for his radio dial and turned up the volume. “You’re the boss,” he said. “More rock. Less talk.”

He flipped channels until a Neil Diamond song blasted over the speakers. “A classic.” Jackson whistled along with the melody for a minute and then belted out the chorus, his voice surprisingly good. “Sweet Caroline,” he sang.

“Dun dun dun.” I couldn’t resist adding that and then giggled.

Jackson glanced sideways. “You making fun of my voice?” he asked in mock anger.

“No.” I signaled at the radio. “My grandpa loved this song. I mean, I love it too,” I admitted.

“You know this is some hokey-ass music. But wait, didn’t I hear you playing Neil Diamond when you were busking?”

“I wasn’t busking.” A smile curled my lip up.

Jackson made a sound that could have been a laugh. “That’s what you claim.” He turned the volume down so we could hear each other better. “I think you should seriously quit busking and join a band. Although finding a band that plays Neil Diamond may be tough.” He smiled. “You take lessons?”

I glanced down at my lap. “No. My grandpa taught me. He died. My grandpa, I mean. He was the greatest guitar player I knew.”

I looked up and Jackson nodded, his eyes still on the road. He pulled the car to a stop at a stop sign. “I think it’s cool. That you carry your guitar around and jam when the mood strikes you. Like at school and at the park.”

“Most people think it’s weird. Think I’m weird.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not most people.”

“Apparently not.” I glanced at the four-way stop. There were no cars, but he didn’t pull forward yet. “I can’t believe you like Neil Diamond,” I said.

“I can’t believe you like him.” He grinned. “Like I said, people really aren’t always what they seem, right?”

True enough.

Jackson reached over and touched my hand for a second and then pulled back. “You know, I’m still pretty new around here. I mean, I don’t have a lot of people to talk to. So, if you ever want to talk more, I’m game.”

I laughed. “I don’t normally talk very much.”

“Maybe you just never had the right person to talk to.”

A car honked behind us, and we both glanced back, surprised to see someone had pulled up behind us.

“Chill,” Jackson said to the driver behind him as if he could hear. He looked at me and laughed. “What’s with the face?”

“No face,” I said. He was easy to talk to, but I’d also consumed more alcohol this one night than the rest of my life combined. “It’s just that I haven’t got a lot of friends. Especially male ones.”

“No? Well, their loss. How about a rain check?” he pulled away from the stop sign. “You ever want to talk, there’s no expiration date. Just let me know. Cool?”

Knowing I’d never take him up on it, I nodded. “Sure.”

Jackson turned his car down my street then, and when I pointed to my house, he pulled in front. He shifted the car into park and idled.

I undid my seat belt and reached for the door. Before I opened it, I swallowed hard and let out a big breath. “Um. Thanks. For getting my shoes. And for the ride. You saved me in more ways than one.” I handed his hoodie back to him.

“Take it,” he told me. “It’s cold outside.”

“No. It’s okay.”

“I insist. And please keep being weird and playing Neil Diamond on your guitar.”

He smiled, and I hugged the hoodie tight and then tugged on the door handle. “You know, you’re not really the bad boy everyone says you are.”

He laughed again, and it sounded like a horn. Weird, but somehow the geeky laugh made me like him a little more.

“Don’t be so sure,” he said. “But I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grinned.

I pulled his hoodie close to fight off the cold and inhaled the hoodie’s smell. Boy smell. I liked it.

“You really did go to juvie for drug dealing?” I asked.

He lifted a shoulder. He didn’t look proud or sorry. Accepting maybe. “Some rumors are true, I guess.”

“I guess.” I slammed the door behind me and wanted to climb back inside his car almost immediately. Mistakes seemed easier to forgive in there. I wondered if he was in danger of going back to juvie. I didn’t want him to leave.

Instead of opening the car door to ask him or beg him to stop, I headed up the driveway. Back to real life.

Where mistakes mattered.