Cross My Heart (41 page)

Parker stands
, unm
oving
,
silent. And for a moment
:
a
flicker of weakening in his eyes
, as if he’
s about to give in
.
B
ut then
i
t vanishes
—almost
as quickly as it appeared
.

“It’s better this way. Trust me.”

“For who?” I challenge.

He doesn’t respond.

“Look me in the eye,
tell me you don’t love me,
and I
’
m gone.
”
My teeth clench, grinding,
jaw smarting from the pressure.

“I don’t love you
.
I don’t have
any feelings for you.” He speaks
the words calmly and quie
tly, doing just as I
asked
. “I’m not one of your
projects, and I don’t need you or your food or your
sympathy.”

Tears sti
ng
the corners of
my eyes.
I grapple for a breath that will satisfy, chest heaving, desperate for air.
“Fine, Parker.
Consider it a clean break. You can run away knowing you didn’t leave anything behind. Good luck with that.”

It
’
s
easy
to slip into the
routine of being grounded. It’
s calming, actually—not pushing forward
,
h
urrying to the next thing. I have
enough to worry about with school, our English project, and Daniel and Sarah’s wedding and hous
e renovations. The future looms on the horizon, but it’s so vast and distant I can
barely wrap my mind around it.
And that’s fine, because I do
n
’t
want
to
think about it. I do
n’t want to make any decisions or commitments—not
to anyone. And so for now, I’m
taking things the best way I kno
w how:
day by day.

Blake
and Parker
and I a
re
the
topic: discussed between periods
,
a
nalyzed over ham and cheese sandwiches and
sodas
at lunch. Rumors swirl
surrounding Blake and Parker’s altercation in the parking lot. Blake ran Parker off after o
ne blow. T
here wasn’t even a fight, because Parker clearly had the
upper hand. Blake i
s g
oing to press charges. Parker i
s going to jail. . . .
All depending on who you want to believe. Blake and I aren’t speaking. Parker and I aren’t speaking. It’s all my fault. Those rumors a
re true.

The day after the fight, P
arker enters
our English class, his head high, t
he faintest trace of a bruise along
the bridge of his nose
. The typical morning din hushes
,
an awkward, inte
nse silence filling the room as
conversation cease
s,
everyone watching. I can
feel my cheeks growing w
armer with every passing second
,
my pulse quickening
as he mak
e
s his way to his seat. I force
myself not to look at him, focu
sing instead on Ms.
Tugwell
,
her lecture, and taking the neatest, most comprehensive notes on
O. Henry’s use of irony ever.

I do
n’t spot Blake until lunch time. Our eyes me
et briefly as he crosses
the cafeteria
. The cut underneath his eye
is
taped
,
jaw
and ego
bruised.
I si
t with my ba
ck to the cafeteria window
so I wo
n’t be temp
ted to peek at Parker—
if
he’
s even t
here—
but
in the end it doesn’t matter . . . because he i
sn’t.

There’
s
something else, though
.
S
omething hovering
over me: t
hick and burdensome and
altogether
consuming.
Parker’s
S
ecret
. A
nd my promise to keep it.
That, a
nd the fact our final project i
s due very, very soon.

Parker and I
finished our research an
d divided the tasks; all that’s left i
s to write our papers and pre
sent our oral repor
t. I assume
, si
nce I’m
working on my half,
he’
s working on his
.
Still, it’
s hard—knowing
I ca
n’t bo
unce ideas around with him like
before. I would’ve liked to hand him my essays
for proofreading, because I know that has to be something he’
s impeccable at—finding the flaws and helping to correct them. I would’ve liked to practice my speech in
front of him. Because when it co
me
s down to it,
his is the only opinion that matters
.

It does
n
’t help that every time I pull
out my
notes on Ethan and Mattie, he’s the first person I think
of. Every tim
e I walk into my closet I
see those stairs
out of the corne
r of my eye, and my mind
wander
s. When I sit on my bed, I remember
him s
itting there, too.
Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, I see straight to the third floor.
When I pass the library, I think
of our table.
When I look
in the mirror above my d
resser, my eyes
automatically
shift
to the postcard of the Hamilton street where Parker and I ate, strolled, and shopped.
He’s
everywhere
.

But mostly, he’s inside: in the changes in me.

I’ve
overstepped so many boundaries already: climbing onto his motorcycle that night, not suppressing my feelings for him even though I had a boyfriend, letting him sneak into my h
ouse, skipping school with him.

Looking back, it’
s easy
to
see when
I began
to slip away
,
the path I took
to lose myself
.
Or maybe
. . . . Maybe I’m not
lost at all.

I do
n’t
feel
lost. If anything I feel
. . . found.

That’s when I realize
:
I got
it wrong. All wrong. This en
tire time? I
t wasn’t meant for me to change Parker, but for him to change
me
.

*
  
*
  
*

“Jaden, do you have a
minute?” Ms.
Stevens asks. I reach for my purse, ready to leave for the day. I want to tell her no. I want to go home. I want this day to be over.

“Sure,” I reply, following. She shuts her office door behind us. It clicks softly, muffling the shouts and squeals and locker doors banging against one another. The leather cushion squishes as I sit down in the chair in front of her desk. I remove my elastic, smooth my hair, then put it up in a ponytail again.

M
s
.
Stevens sits down, opens a manila folder, and adjusts her small, stylish glasses. “There are a few things I’ve been wanting to discuss with you, actually. In fact, I’m not really sure what to address first.” She glances over her notes.

I suppress a sigh.
I knew this was coming.

“First, I think we should talk about your recent lapse in attendance.”

“It’s okay. I skipped school. You can say it,” I reply.

She hesitates before continuing. “It’s not like you. I was surprised to hear you didn’t have a note, that’s all.”

I shrug.

“You realize you no longer have perfect attendance.”

“Yes.”

“You also realize an unexcused absence is an automatic five demerits. That means a letter goes home.”

“I know.”

“So your parents are aware you skipped school?” she asks, eyeing me curiously.

“If they didn’t know I probably wouldn’t be grounded right now,” I point out.

M
s
.
Stevens clears her throat. “It was brought to the attention of the administration that you skipped school with Parker Whalen, only Parker brought a signed note the following day.”

The blood driving through my veins seems to stop flowing. My hands grow cold.

Parker. I can tell her
.
I can tell her what I know. What I saw. It’s what she’s here for. She could pick up the phone. Make a few calls. Everything would be okay. This isn’t something I have to keep inside. I can help.

I open my mouth to speak, t
hen close it again, biting my lower lip. Finally: “I don’t know Parker very well,” I lie, eyeing the floor.

“The student body seems to think you do,” she insists.

“S
ince when have you
known freshmen to get anything right? And when were people
not
talking about Parker Whalen?” I answer calmly.

“Okay. So you’re fine with the absence and demerits?”

I smile. “Not if I can put in
an
appeal.”

She lets out a tiny laugh. “You’ve already confessed.”

“Well, in
that case
,
I’m fine with it
.”

“All right. Moving on. This probably isn’t anything to be concerned about, knowing you’re grounded, but Mrs. Davis called and said you wouldn’t be able to continue your work with the annual walk for the food bank.”

“No. I had to step out. Apparently being grounded means I’m not allowed to save the world until summer.”

M
s
.
Stevens smiles, scribbles something on her sheet, then clears her throat, serious again. “There’s another issue I thought you should be aware of.”

“Wow. This is getting better and better,” I mutter.

“I’m not used to us having these conversations,” she confesses.

I grab the leather armrests and sit up straighter. “Okay . . . what next?”

“It’s about your chemistry c
lass. Are you having trouble?”

“No,” I reply, genuinely surprised. This is a question I’m
not
expecting. “Not even.”

“Okay, because I talked to your teacher. There was apparently a quiz you made a C on, and a test where you scored a very low B.”

I stifle a laugh. “I hardly call that ‘having trouble,’” I say, surprised at how Parker-like I sound. I know about the B and the C. I stuffed both the test and the quiz in my notebook without a second thought. The truth? The class is AP, and the material hard. With everything going on in my life, the best I can offer anyone at the moment is average.

“No, you’ve done very well,” she says. “It’s just that this brings your A in chemistry down to a B.”

“Okay.”

“That brings your
overall GPA
down
. Daniel Cho is now in the running for Salutatorian. It’s only by a few points, but I’m not sure if you can bring the average up in time. I planned to meet with him next week.”

“Great.” I take in a lungful of stagnant, office air. I’m suffocating
,
that river rising
,
drowning me from the inside out. “You know I didn’t get into Harvard, right?” I ask. “Is that on your list, too?” I’m not trying to sound snarky, but. . . .

She glances at her papers, creasing her brow. “It wasn’t on here, specifically, no. I was going to ask if you’d heard anything.”

“I heard,” I state.

“I’m very sorry. I know you were hoping for good news.”

“
C’est
la vie.”

“That’s life . . . right,” M
s
.
Stevens says, offering a sympathetic smile. “So what about your back-ups?”

Already she moves on. No point wasting time being miserable over a rejection from the college of my dreams. “What about them? I got accepted everywhere else,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders.

She pulls open one of her desk d
rawers
. P
ens roll inside
,
paper
clips rattle against each other. “Have you planned any campus visits?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I have a girl I want you to call and set something up with. She’s an admissions rep at NSU. You know they have a terrific medical school.” She scribbles the number on a little yellow Post-it note. “Her name is Reagan, and she’ll be able to tell you anything you want to know.” She reaches across her desk, handing it to me. I study the string of digits.

“Sure, okay.”

“Y
ou have a few weeks left, Jaden,
” Ms.
Stevens says, the office chair bleating as she leans back. “It’s not time to pack up yet.”

“I know.”

“You’ve worked hard to get where you are. I’d hate to see you blow it in the final days.”

I stand and gather my things. “I think it’s safe to say I’ve already blown it
,” I tell her, throwing my
bag over my shoulder.

She rolls her chair back. “I wouldn’t go that far,” she replies,
ris
ing.

“Skipping class, demerits, not getting into my dream school . . . come on.”

“Let’s just chalk it up to a case of senioritis. It happens to everyone.”

“Not to me.”

“It’s not over,” she reminds me. “So maybe you didn’t get into Harvard. You were accepted by a half a dozen other terrific colleges. Yes, you skipped school. What student hasn’t? And yes, you have a few demerits
on your record. You know,
I went back and checked your file. The last demerit you had was your freshman year. Yo
u had one—for chewing gum on
campus
.
And
I
’
ll bet it happened after school hours.
”

I raise an eyebrow.

“
And you were in the parking lot.
”

It
was
pretty unfair.
I sigh.

“My point is,” she continues, “you are a great student and person, Jaden
. You’re going to figure this
out.”

I force a smile, only making it halfway. “Thanks.”

“Make an appointment for you and your parents to visit NSU. Talk to Reagan, and let me know how it goes.”

By the time I reach the hallway it’s empty; the only car left in the student parking lot is a white Civic. Mine. Alone.

Tears blur my vision as I
move toward it
. I work to keep them from spilling onto my cheeks, stopping several times to wipe my nose against my sleeve as I fumble with the keys.

Don’t cry, Jaden. Do not cry.

The warm afternoon infiltrates the small space, and
the air is heavy and stale
. I
suck
in a huge breath, but it’s more stifling than refreshing, and my throat constricts, like someone is strangling me from behind.

Don’t cry. Don’t. . . .

But I can
’
t hold back anymore. I can
’
t do this.
A piercing hea
dache throbs behind my eyes.
I
lean back into the seat,
covering my face with my hands
,
frustrated and angr
y and sad and embarrassed. E
mbarrassed for being called into my gu
idance counselor’s office. E
mbarrassed because half the school is gossiping about me because I skipped school with a guy I liked, who I tho
ught could maybe like me, too. Embarrassed because
I
made a C on an AP C
hemistry quiz, and now I won’t be
Salutatorian and Danny Cho
is going to take my place.
Angry because I
’
m
a terrible person for being upset over Danny Cho, because Danny is a really nice guy and totally deserves the honor.
Angry because
I
didn’t get into Harvard, that
I’m about to graduate, and I still don’t kno
w where I’m going to college. Sad because
my
brother is getting married and tak
ing Sarah and Joshua with him. Sad because
I
hurt Blake
,
because
I hurt myself.
Sad because
I love Parker, and he doesn’t love me back.
Sad because
Parker hurts, and there’s a good possi
bility that his dad beats him. Angry because I
want to help h
im but don’t know how
. B
ecause h
e doesn’t
want
to be helped.
Because I
promised
.
Frustrated because e
veryone expects so much more from me and I can’t deliver. . . .