Reckoning (16 page)

As soon as he says the name Alex, it clicks, and I draw in a quick breath as a sudden image of a skinny, gawky kid with pants that were always too short, choppy blonde hair and a gap-toothed grin enters my mind.
Alex Laurent
: the annoying kid who was always looking at me, glancing self-consciously away every time I caught him. My hands rise up to my mouth. “Oh, my God,” I say on a long exhale. “
You’re
Alex Laurent?”

The grin on Rick’s face spreads wider. “Yep. That’s me. I knew you’d remember eventually.”

“No way!” I can’t believe the kid I’d known in seventh grade - the one with the dorky smile and perpetual bed head, the one with the socks that never matched and one shoelace always untied, the one who’d always made me wonder what was wrong with me since he was always looking - was the same boy standing in front of me now. It was like they were two different people.

“I look a little different now. Thank God. A few years, a decent haircut and better clothes and you hardly recognize me, right?”

I shake my head in dismay. “I just can’t believe that
you’re
Alex Laurent. You’d think the last name would have clued me in, but I just never even thought about it.” I pause, overwhelmed by his revelation, when a sudden thought hits me. “Wait a minute…I don’t remember seeing you at Crestview last year. Or the year before.”

“You wouldn’t have. I wasn’t at Crestview until this year.”

“Really?”

Rick nods. “After seventh grade, my dad got transferred to California. We only moved back last year.”

“Oh,” I say, unable to come up with anything more substantive as my brain continues to grapple with his earth-shattering revelation.

“I didn’t want to move back at first, because I really liked California. But it’s turned out to be better than I thought, for a lot of reasons. After Kelver, I figured I’d probably lost contact with you forever. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you last fall.”

“”When did you see me?” I ask, hoping it had at least been a good hair day.

“Believe it or not, it had to do with drama club again. I was helping my friend Ty carry in some stuff to the theatre. We dropped it off backstage and I saw you and Rachel kind of clowning around back there.”

I think back to the only time I’ve been backstage at Crestview’s auditorium. It had been in October. Rachel had had a starring role in the drama club’s fall production of
Guys & Dolls
. I’d hung out with her before rehearsal one afternoon, and we’d been playing around with the costumes, putting on hats and scarves and whatever else we could find, dancing ridiculously to some song on her iPod. I drop my head into my heads, overcome with embarrassment. Of all the times he could have seen me that had to be one of them?

“Oh, God,” I murmur, flushed with embarrassment. “I was acting like such an idiot. I can’t believe you actually saw that.”

“I thought it was great! I loved watching you. I’d never seen you so…animated and relaxed before. It was just so…natural. No offense, but you were kind of uptight back in middle school.”

Uptight?
I open my mouth to respond in protest, but shake my head. Now is not the time. Instead, I say, “You should have approached me. Said hi.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “I didn’t want to interrupt, and I had to go, anyway. And I wanted to make sure it was really you, and not just someone who looked like you.”

“Wow,” I say. “This is just really unbelievable.”

Rick nods. “I wanted to ask you out, but things got really busy with school and I figured you probably had a boyfriend or something. I asked around, but nobody seemed to know. You still really keep to yourself, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I do.” I’m still amazed that Rick is Alex…or Alex is Rick. “I remember you used to make me really mad. I always felt like you were staring at me because you thought I was some kind of freak or something.”

Rick shakes his head and laughs. “Um, yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I was trying to figure you out. I liked you, but you were such a mystery. And whenever I would look at you, I would just get this feeling…I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. There’s just something different about you. And I always wanted to get to know you.”

“How come you never said anything, or talked to me?”

He looks away, tearing another leaf from the tree. “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t very good at talking to girls back then. And you always seemed kind of…unapproachable.”

I grudgingly admit to myself that he is probably right. Miss Congeniality is not an award I am ever likely to receive. But I just wish I would have known.
And if you had,
I ask myself,
how would you have handled it? Would you have run away, scared and confused? Would you have taken the time to get to know him? Would you have been angry and offended, unsure how to handle the attention?
Looking at him now, it’s impossible to answer the question. The entire situation begins to feel surreal, as if this is just another imaginary encounter in my head. I shift on the bench, wondering if I’m going to wake up at any moment, the hard seat beneath me just a part of my dream. Unsure where to take the conversation from here, I simply state exactly what I’m feeling. “I’m surprised you even noticed me.”

“Well…you’re really pretty. And different. Why wouldn’t I?”

He thinks I’m pretty?
I search my mind for something to say, now totally convinced I must be dreaming. Dropping my head down, I subtly pinch the underside of my arm.

“Anyway,” Rick continues, “I was determined I wouldn’t let the chance slip by me again, so I asked you to the party.”

“I’m glad you did,” I murmur. Trying to stay focused, I think about Rachel and the comments she had made earlier. Although she had her opinions about this evening, I also had mine. Deciding I may as well jump in the deep end now and find out just how cold the water is before getting too carried away, I plunge in feet first. “But don’t you have a girlfriend?”

Rick shakes his head. “No. I have a lot of friends who are girls, but no
girlfriend.
Not right now, anyway
.
” He glances at me quickly, before looking away.

I look at him in surprise, the water not nearly as frigid as I thought it would be. A tiny bloom of happiness starts to unfurl inside me. “But what about Prin…that girl with the dark hair I always see you with?”

He thinks for a moment before answering. “Brooke?”

“I don’t know her name, but she’s always…like…got her arm around you and stuff. So I just assumed…”

“Not even. We’re just, like, really good friends. She lives next door. Honestly, there’s nothing romantic there.”

“Seriously? I’m surprised.”

“Really?” He pauses, his brows drawn together in thought. “Yeah, I guess I can see how you might get the wrong idea. She’s a real touchy-feely kind of person. Especially with her friends. But we’ve never been more than that. We just don’t see each other that way. It’d be like dating my sister.” He grimaces, one lip turning up at the corner.

The bloom opens wider in my chest. “Good to know,” I say.

“What about you? Boyfriends…long list of admirers?”

I laugh. “Hardly!” Shaking my head, I add, “No. No boyfriend.”

He smiles. “Good to know.”

We both laugh and, for the first time all evening I start to relax. The tension that has been gnawing at my stomach begins to ease. Maybe this won’t be as hard as I thought. We actually have a history, vague as it is. Rick takes a seat next to me and suddenly we’re talking. And it isn’t that God-when-will-this-be-over strained small talk that leaves you longing for escape, or any of those boring one-sided monologues about cars or video games or football that seem to go on and on while I pretend to be interested. It’s real, genuine conversation. Exchanging thoughts and ideas, asking questions, learning about the other person. Just how I’ve always imagined, or hoped, it would be.

We talk about what we’ve been doing since middle school and what our interests are. I’m surprised to learn how much we have in common - like a love of sunrises, if, that is, he can manage to get out of bed; warm weather; evenings at the movie theatre; Japanese animé; big plates of French fries; awesome music playlists. And our mutual hatred of long airplane rides and research papers, and those ridiculous television commercials for prescription meds.

“If you experience hallucinations,” Rick says, his tone a perfect parody of the commercial voice-over, “swelling of the gums or throat, your brain begins bleeding out of your ears or your eyes spontaneously combust, contact your doctor immediately as these may be a sign of serious side effects. Yeah. I want some of
that
.”

I’m laughing so hard tears are streaming from my eyes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed myself so much. Or when I’ve felt so at ease with someone other than Rachel. I know a lot of has to do with Rick’s laid-back charm, not to mention his zany sense of humor. He can probably make just about anybody feel comfortable. He has that relaxed and easy-going quality – the embodiment of the whole Life Is Good theme. I watch him and think about his earlier words and how relaxed he seems to be talking with me. Apparently he’s gotten over his inability to talk to girls.

I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I feel happy and…normal. Like maybe, for the first time, I don’t have to be on constant alert, guarding my words and actions. And everything else – the unexplainable, mystifying, incomprehensible – belongs to another life. Another Kat. And I can just be…me.

I ease back into the seat, tucking one leg beneath me, enjoying the warm night air, the sound of Rick’s voice, the smell of grass and trees and summer. I love the fact that he can talk about himself so easily. For someone like me, who’s spent her entire life carefully guarding her secrets, it is a novelty. Rare and wondrous. Before long, I’ve learned that his birthday is September 19, and that he has one sister, Megan, currently attending college in California. His parents divorced two years ago. His dad remarried last year and his step-mom is nice, but distant. He hasn’t seen his mom in over a year since she had gone off on a wilderness retreat in Canada and then decided to stay, moving in with the instructor. He wants to be a sports therapist and has already signed up for AP Biology and Physics for his senior year, and is hoping to do volunteer work at one of the local sports therapy offices in town over the summer. And he loves snowboarding, chocolate, cookie-dough ice cream and old Marvel comic books. Important, personal things. Simple things. The things that make him the person he is.

“So what about you?” he asks, shifting on the bench to look at me directly. “I should let you talk for a change. You’re probably sick of listening to me. Here I said I always wanted to get to know you, and now I never shut up.”

“That’s OK,” I protest. “I don’t mind. I like listening to you.”

“Thanks. I don’t usually talk this much, but you’re a good listener.”

I shrug one shoulder, not sure what to say.

“So what’s your favorite ice-cream flavor?” he asks.

“Well, I’m not so much into ice-cream, but I could devour a bowl of potato chips any day. It’s a salt thing.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe we can go out for a scoop of vanilla-potato chip-crunch sometime.”

“That’s disgusting!”

He laughs and agrees. “But seriously, tell me about you.”

I look across the park. “Not much to know about me.”

“I don’t believe that. I think there’s a ton to know. You just don’t share it very much, do you?”

“No. I’m not a big talker.”

“That’s cool. I like that. Most girls I know won’t shut up for even two minutes. It’s like you know their whole story, and everyone else’s, before you’ve even introduced yourself. If you can actually stand to listen to it for that long.”

I can’t help but laugh, picturing some girl blathering on and on while Rick’s eyes slowly glaze over.

“There’s just so much drama,” he continues. “With everything. School. Friends. Family. Hair. It’s never ending.” His shoulders clench in a mock shudder. “But you don’t seem to be a part of all that. You never did.”

“No. Who needs it? I just try to stay out of it all.” My life is already a paranormal soap opera, without the added element of teenage drama queen. Combining the two might result in my head exploding.

“So what do you like to do? I noticed you’re not part of drama club anymore.”

“It’s not really my thing. I only did it before because my parents made me.”

“Do you still draw? I remember you always used to carry around a notebook and pencils.”

“Yeah, I still draw all the time. And I read, and listen to music a lot. And I go for runs or long walks.”

I watch the light from an airplane, distant and miniscule, move slowly across the black expanse of sky before disappearing behind a thin veil of clouds.

“I’m really glad we could get together tonight, Kat. This has been great.”

“Yeah, it has. When I found out Rachel couldn’t come, I almost decided to stay home.”

“Well, that would have sucked. Then I still would’ve been waiting for the chance to talk to you.”

“You could have talked to me any time. I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

‘Yeah, well…” he shrugs, biting the corner of his bottom lip. “Sometimes you just gotta wait for the right moment, you know?” His brown eyes look into mine, and he smiles. “Anyway,” he continues, looking away and scuffing the grass with his shoe, “I always thought there was a lot to learn about you; a lot going on in your head. Even though you keep most of it to yourself. But just sitting here talking tonight proved I was right. I hope I get the chance to learn a lot more. I’d really like to know everything about you.”

As thrilling as it is to hear those words, I instinctively tense. Because there are some things he can’t ever know.

“So, when’s your birthday?” he asks, surprising me with the question.

“Believe it or not, today.”

“No way! You’re kidding, right? That’s totally awesome. Happy birthday!”

“Thanks.” My phone buzzes with a new text message and I reach for my bag. Seeing who it’s from, I smile. “Rachel. Checking up on me. She was totally convinced I’d have a great time tonight.”