“What?” He was mumbling something under his breath. “I’m on my way.”
Twenty minutes later he was pulling up in front of my house and I was still fuming. I got out the car and waited with my arms crossed as he approached me, still wearing his clothes from practice.
“I knew she was gonna do something stupid. I should’ve never let her get in your car.”
“That’s not the point, AJ. I just need to know if she’s telling the truth!”
“No! I told you I haven’t done anything with her since Sophomore year!” He insisted. Guilty or innocent, I would’ve expected him to say the exact same thing he just had, which was why this conversation wasn’t really getting us anywhere. “After the dance, I hit McDonald’s and came straight home! The only reason I waited to call you was because I figured you’d be getting home late,” he explained.
“I don’t know who to believe.”
“Really? You don’t know if you can believe me or the crazy girl who’s trying to run you off?” He rolled his eyes and turned his back on me. “You’re not even being reasonable.”
“Whatever, AJ. And what about these pictures she told me about?”
“What pictures?”
“Pictures of you and her…..together,” I hinted.
AJ lowered his head, understanding what I was referring to. “There were pictures, but they’re long gone. I burned them when I broke it off with her.” He finally turned back around to face me, assessing my reaction.
I’d half expected him to deny it, but he was straight forward and honest with me as he had been about everything else up until now. That made me question whether Leila had made the whole story up. I looked into AJ’s eyes as he stared intently into mine, unwavering. He was telling the truth; I would’ve bet my life on it. There were definitely pictures, but Leila’s rendition of Homecoming night never happened. I searched for a way to tell him that I’d made a mistake accusing him, but I was at a loss for words.
As we stood there staring at one another, my mom pulled up to the house. She didn’t seem to notice that AJ and I were extremely tense as she waved before pulling the car into the driveway. His expression softened a bit as he began to speak again. “Sam, I have nothing to hide. Anything you wanna know, just ask me and you can trust that I’ll tell you the truth.” He touched the side of my face. “Even if she had been telling the truth, I would’ve told you before and we could’ve moved on.” He paused for a moment. “But I don’t think anything like this’ll come up again. I’m going to handle Leila.”
I moved closer to hug him, feeling bad for letting Leila get inside my head and making me doubt him. I made up my mind not to let that happen again……
*****
The next day, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Deanna made sure to call me the night before to make sure I didn’t still have any suspicions about Leila’s story. She assured me that if it was true, AJ would’ve told Karl, and Karl being the hopeless blabbermouth that he is, would’ve told her. That actually eased my mind even more, because I was beginning to trust Deanna too. She reminded me of Leslie in the sense that she’s easy to talk to and genuine.
Surprisingly, Leila behaved herself. At lunch, she sat quietly beside Trevor and didn’t even so much as look at AJ. I wasn’t sure what he did or said to her, but it worked. Served her right. She was proving to be more of a pain than I imagined, but maybe this was the end of her games.
At the end of the day, AJ was waiting for me outside the school doors to walk me to my car. He seemed excited about something which peaked my interest.
“Got any plans for tomorrow?” He asked.
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Remember, no school because of that district meeting or something.”