Secret Girlfriend (18 page)

When I’d thought things were worse than anything, I hadn’t
really taken this into consideration.

“I don’t think I can, Tom. Luke’s mad because he thinks I
did something. In a way I did, but not really.” I glanced at Rachel wondering
if I could
osmosize
all her years with little
sisters. “And, he’s right to be mad, even if he might not be mad for the right
reason.”

Tom’s brows came down and he nodded. When he stopped, he met
my eyes and said, “That makes
no
sense.”

“I know, buddy. But it’s the best I can do.”

Tom sat there looking uncomfortable. I knew the little
peacekeeper well enough to understand he was sorting through ideas to try to
fix things. Just like me, he came up empty.

“I think I should go check on Luke,” he said.

I nodded and thought,
I
should, too.
But I couldn’t seem to work myself up for heartbreak number
two that day.

Chapter
26

When Dad and I couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping on those
narrow Red Cross cots any longer, we drove down to the overflowing edge of the
river. Dad pulled the car into the shade next to the Johnson’s pickup truck and
threw it into park. The engine sputtered in the heat before shutting down.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He’d been amazingly good about not asking the hard
questions. I could tell he wanted to. I could see him trying not to make up for
six-years
almost-absence with a fast takeover of my
life with questions I didn’t even want to ask myself.

Like, what could have driven me and Luke from a three-inch
cot-canyon to opposite sides of the gym? Yeah, even if he asked, what could I
say? That the perfect guy had done everything to get my attention, rescued me
from potential death and destruction, and finally lost patience with me when I
kissed his mortal enemy? Yeah. Not so much.

I’d like to say I didn’t know where Luke stayed while I laid
next to his empty cot each night, but that would totally be a lie. I was aware
of him every second. It was as if that kiss connected us, tied me to him in a
way I could never have anticipated.

I finally replied as we walked over the hopefully stable
bridge. “Not really.”

We trudged down the
sloshy
mud
lane to the house, both of us slowing before we made the final corner.

Dad rested a hand on my shoulder. He’d touched me more this
week than in the last six years. “Whatever we find, it’s going to be okay.”

He sounded so sure. If there was ever a time I needed to not
think, to just let someone take the reins and allow me be a thoughtless
teenager, it was then. Thank God my dad had finally come home.

With a hard shove, he pushed the front door open, the
ankle-deep mud collected in the foyer slowing the process. He squeezed through
and I followed, not squeezing as much, but still having to turn sideways.

The thick mud soaked through my sneakers and clung to my
ankles as I slogged over to where he stood making slow, surveying circles.

“Amy-girl?”
He glanced over his
shoulder to look at me. My shadow caught him across the face camouflaging his
expression. “You brought this all in here?”

The heavy furniture I couldn’t get up the stairs surrounded
us. The water had made it about an inch up the first step, but everything above
that was dry and whole. Dad pointed to the oversized chair on the landing above
us.

“How did you get that up there?” I could hear the awe in his
voice.

“Luke.”

I studied mom’s chair holding court over the lesser
furniture below and
teared
up. Luke couldn’t have
given me a greater gift, but that was Luke. He was always giving you stuff
whether you realized it or not.

It was odd, my dad had only been back a few days, but he
knew
how hard that one word was. He
wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into his side. We stood in the foyer
looking at the mess where only sterile tidiness had been before. With a deep
breath my dad shrugged.

“I’ll go get a shovel.”

# # #

The week of clean up went really, really, really slowly.
Digging dirt out of your house isn’t how any girl expects to spend what was
supposed to be the first week of school. But, my dad and I kept at
it—reclaiming the first floor inch by inch.

I’d brought home some of my paintings and escaped into them
when my arms weren’t too tired to lift. They were quiet. They didn’t ask
questions.

“That’s…” My dad’s voice trailed off before he could even
form the next word. When I faced him, I couldn’t help but notice his eyes. The
joy and pain reflected out as if he had no option but to bleed emotions through
those soul-windows. He shook his head, forcing his gaze to move to me. “I had
no idea.”

I glanced back at the painting of my mom. The one I’d been
working on for three years. During the evacuation, I’d gone to the art room and
gently wrapped it in canvas to lug it home. I’d realized, standing there
studying it one more time, that it was done. Part of the perfection was the
fuzziness. There were still those perfect places in the curve of her neck, the
angle of her stance, the sun-kissed wheat of her hair. But the fuzziness was
what made it complete.

This was my mom. She was gone and my memory would shift and
grow for the rest of my life, in and out of focus as thoughts of her washed
over me and receded.

“It’s okay, right?
To bring it home?”
It suddenly dawned on me my father had walked into the back room looking for me
and run directly into what he’d been hiding from for the last six years.

He slid an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his
side, his gaze locked again on the painting. “It’s more than okay. I think,
once the house is fixed, we should hang it in the living room. So she’s there
with us.”

He stepped away from the painting and drew me down on the
lawn chairs we were using for furniture, his hand wrapped around mine.

“Amy-girl, you look just like her.” His eyes welled up, but
his gaze never left my face. “I’m so ashamed that I let my pain hurt you so
much, but every time I looked at you I felt so lost. In trying to ignore losing
your mom, I lost you too. Only, that was my own fault.”

For someone who hadn’t cried much since she was eleven, I
sure was making up for time. My dad pulled me into a full hug, his long arms
wrapping around me, holding me tight, not letting me go.
Just
letting me cry it out.

“This is one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me.” He
said when he let me go. “Not only getting you back, but knowing how you see
your mom and that she really
is
still here with us in
so many ways.”

We stood there together for a
moment,
both of us in our own minds till my dad gave me one last squeeze and headed
toward the kitchen. It wasn’t that I no longer cared, or that the sadness had
gone away, but I’d learned that nothing brought back the past and that the
present was more precious than grudges or walls.

I lifted a fresh canvas onto my easel. There was a new
moment that burned in my memory. It twisted my heart so badly it left it
limp
like a soggy rag doll. The paint spread over the canvas
one agonizing brush stroke at a time, the urgency not flowing from my fingers
quickly enough.
Pushing me to save the moment before it died
inside me.

Chapter
27

School finally started a couple days later and things began
to return to normal, as if half the town hadn’t almost lost everything and been
living in the gym.

As if I hadn’t fallen for Luke Parker, kissed him, and lost
him all in twenty-four hours.

Rachel and Jared walked beside me (ok, behind me and
oblivious to my presence) toward the senior hall when my heart—the one I
thought was broken—stopped. At the Crossroads, the place where the junior and
senior halls intersected, the varsity soccer players managed to look like they
were lounging while still upright. It wasn’t the general milling about that caught
my attention, but the dynamics… the very odd dynamics.

I’d expected uncomfortable. I mean, what could have happened
after Coach named Chris and Luke
co
-captains?
Granted, Chris kept his spot and Luke was given left-midfield. Coach had said if
the team was going to split between them, then the two of them would have to
figure out how to hold them together.

The first day of school could mean nothing short of
hostility between the two captains. Chris leaned against the locker glaring at
Luke. Okay, nothing new there. But it was the reason for the glaring that had
me feeling like breakfast wasn’t going to stay where I’d put it. Luke paid only
half his attention to the notebooks he shoved into his locker, the other half
of his attention on Cheryl. The social climbing floozy did everything but climb
into his locker to gain his full attention.

Behind me, Rachel and Jared stopped, their whispers dropping
away as they watched me watch Luke. Chris’s gaze swung my direction as if he
knew I was there, as if for once he was more aware of me than anything else.
The look he gave me almost finished me off. It wasn’t anger at Luke I saw, but
pity. Pity for me because Luke wanted so little to do with me that he’d flirt
with a girl I knew he didn’t even respect. It was so blatantly horrible that
even Chris felt bad.

The hall blurred when Luke turned his head, pushing that
floppy brown hair out of his eyes and met my gaze over Cheryl.

Or didn’t meet my gaze.

He looked right through me before closing the locker with a
tight snick and walking away, Cheryl at his side.

Invisible again.

Every ounce of me wanted to chase them down and make a jerk
of myself in front of the entire school. I wanted to pull each strand of
pom-pom hair out of her head. I’d make another chance with Luke no matter what.
I’d
earn
another chance with him.

They turned the corner and all I could think was
at least that was over
. I knew how
things were going to go—and it certainly couldn’t get worse than that.

# # #

Third period English was going to be hell. Too many of the
major players in the farcical tragedy that had become my life were present. In
the center of the room, Luke sat at a desk he barely fit in and watched the
doorway until I entered.

That new inner spunk I found when I started seeing what a
user Chris was, leapt out again, pushing me to turn between the desks an aisle
early. Luke flipped through his notebook, ignoring the first-day-still-empty
pages as I attempted to sashay toward him. I only tripped over one backpack.
That was pretty suave for me.

I ran my hand along the edge of his desk, willing him to
look up at me.
Begging him silently to give me some type of
sign.
His crooked grin tightened into a straight line. Jaw locked.
Eyes straight ahead.

I fought the tears stinging my eyes. English class was so
not the place to openly weep, no matter how desperately I wanted him back. He
was mine for one night, and now I was the thing he hated most in Ridge View.

Settling into a seat at the far side of the room, I stared
through the window wishing I was out there. The
pavement
under my feet, the wind brushing my bangs off my face, sweat
pushing
everything else from my mind.

That was where we’d end up sitting anyway once seats were
assigned, so it made sense to just grab them now. Plus, it was one of the few
advantages to being a “W”. Whalen typically meant I was picked last for
everything, but it did let me sit next to the window. That would be the window
I could see Cheryl’s reflection in behind me.
Cheryl who was
now leaning against Luke’s desk and giggling.

Did she have Amy-Likes-Him radar or something?

OMG.
My head swiveled their way
against my will. It was worse than I thought. I’d fallen for the next It-boy.
Another one.
The room was filled with girls throwing
covetous glances toward Cheryl.
And why not?
He was
hot (how’d I miss that in the beginning?), kind, funny, smart… stubborn,
control-freak.

But I wanted him to be
my
control-freak.

“Stop staring.”

That was the other good thing about being a W. Rachel Wells.
If we’d had different last names, who knows if we would have
been such brilliant friends.

“I’m not staring.” At her raised eyebrow I continued my
pitiful defense. “I’m merely watching the goings-on and social interactions of
our peers in a moment of educational respite.”

“Yeah.
No matter how you say it,
you’re staring.” She glanced their way as Cheryl leaned in to whisper something
in Luke’s ear. “She’s making the push now before
he
caves and forgives you.”

I forced my gaze back toward Rachel behind me. This was what
a best friend was for. To tell you exactly what you wanted to hear when the
truth wouldn’t do any good.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “Watch her. She’s paying as much
attention to you as to him.”

I glanced at them again, only to catch Cheryl’s eye before
she shifted toward Luke, pushing her barely-school-code cut T-shirt toward him.
Granted, Luke’s eyes never dropped to what she was offering, but that didn’t
stop me from wanting to rip her hair out.
Again.
Strand by strand. And then strangle her with it.

I was leaving the violent stuff for if she actually touched
him.

Mrs.
Lestor
strolled into the
room—which is just wrong for a woman in her fifties, especially since
she
didn’t trip over any backpacks—and
called for everyone to get in a seat.

With a last set of eye batting, Cheryl made her way to her
desk. She lowered herself into that chair like it was a throne and she was the
All High Exalted Princess of
Teenagerdom
.

Class dragged. I mean, I may be an art geek, but I’m no
nerd. Class always drags, but it was horrible. I could feel Luke
not
looking at me. The force of his
presence, his anger, drew my attention to him again and again. A squad of
singing chipmunks in matching tutus could have pranced through the classroom
and I wouldn’t have noticed.

When the bell finally rang, I sucked in a breath. My hands
shook, but I needed to do something, some type of move forward. I couldn’t
stand the waiting any longer. If I didn’t say something to him soon, it would
just grow and grow and grow into this suffocating non-presence thing that would
mean never being able to look at him without drowning in the pit where my heart
used to be.

The bad side of being a W is that the windows are the
farthest point from the doors. This—getting to Luke—was a bigger emergency than
evacuating for a fire. Why did people have to
move so slowly?

Pushing through the door, I stumbled to a halt. It was as if
they were there for my viewing pleasure. Remember that threat about the violent
stuff coming if that cheer-dealer touched my want-him-back man? Yeah, well,
Cheryl’s hand was on Luke’s arm, drawing him down toward her.

Red wasn’t what I saw. I’m not sure what rage was in my
book, but it was more a fuzzy-wavy thing than a color.

Someone bumped me from behind and I stumbled forward almost
into them. Neither noticed me. Not a surprise. I glanced down at my hands and
wondered if I was fading again. Fading to something even Luke Parker couldn’t
see. Is that the way the Fates worked? I get my dad back and lose the first
person I’d ever felt this burn for?

The moment had come and it was either grab it or let it slip
by and never know if there was a chance under all that mess I’d created.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Not even a squeak.
Luke stood, his back rigid in front of me making me wonder if he knew I hovered
behind him, if he could feel the pain of it all flowing off me.

Cheryl just kept chirping along on the other side of Luke.
Didn’t he know I was there, pleading for forgiveness with everything inside me?
Words kept staying outside my reach so I cleared my throat.

If I hadn’t seen his hand curl into a fist, I would have
thought he hadn’t heard me.

“Luke?” I tried to ignore the crack splitting my voice
through his name.

His head cocked to the side, as if listening to someone call
him from a distance.
As if deciding.
And then, as
those mama-made manners kicked in, I watched one shoulder hitch up before he
turned, his green-eyed gaze drilling into me.

If there was ever a time I feared I might publicly toss my
cookies, this was it.

“Congrats on your spot.”
When he
didn’t turn away, didn’t say anything, I kept pushing wanting the
comfortableness between us back. “Coach says you and Chris will be
unstoppable.”

As quick as that, he shut down. I must be a complete idiot
to have said the C-word. It ended any chance I might have had.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he pushed past Cheryl and walked
away, her tailing him as if they were together.

Maybe they were.

“It was a good try.” Rachel stood beside me, my forgotten
books on top of her own. “Honest mistake.”

“Stupid mistake.
He’ll never
forgive me.” The tears were coming again. “And why should he? I cheated on
him.”

Rachel’s face shifted to anger, her cheeks getting pink over
the splatter of freckles. “You did
not
cheat on him. He knew you were doing something with Chris. He made a run at
you, but he can’t expect Chris to accept that. If he’s not going to let you
explain, screw him.”

Um.
Wow.

Rachel never got angry like that.
Especially
over a boy.
Usually soft and mushy was her main approach to anything
male.

“But I was kissing him.” Good Lord I sounded desperate.

“You were trying to not let him kiss you. If that ass of a
transfer boy can’t see that, then you’re better off without him.”

I slid my books off hers, taking that moment to study the
flush racing up her neck to cover her ears.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

For one of the first times I could remember in our
friendship, Rachel couldn’t meet my eye. Her gaze dropped and slid away toward
the top of the stairs we hovered over.

“Nothing.
I just don’t think that
he should be treating you like this. It isn’t as if he wasn’t the one who
pushed, pushed, pushed. We—you can’t be everything all the time to him. He
needs to let you get things in order and chill and not push things you don’t
want to do or know or stuff.”

Her voice trailed off, the last couple words almost lost in
the loud scuffle of the hall.

I took her arm and pulled her toward the abandoned lockers
lining the between-bell-chaos.

Waiting for a lull, I lowered my voice and asked, “Is Jared
pushing you to do something you don’t want to?”

I’d kill him. No, I’d let Justin kill him. He’d do it
better. Maybe I’d help.

“No! Nothing like that is going on with us. We just started
dating. It’s good.” She smiled again, a real one, and I knew that wasn’t the
issue. “It’s good,” she said again.

“Then what?”

“I just don’t want you letting some guy create this whole
judging
thing you don’t deserve.
Just don’t do it.”
Rachel reached out as if to take my hand,
hers shaking a bit. “Promise me.”

Oh. Wow. I could see it a bit. How a girl could come to
worry about nothing but The Guy. I so was not going to become
that
girl. No matter how hard it was to
ignore how Luke looked
walking
away with Cheryl at his
side.

“I won’t.” When her frown didn’t lighten, I promised. “Don’t
worry. I’m not going to change from one type of person to another overnight.”

I glanced down the hall one last time before Luke turned the
corner and wondered how to not become
that
girl while trying to win him back.

“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out.” Rachel squeezed my arm
where her hand still held on, reading my mind as usual.