Spiral (31 page)

“I’m sorry,” I grunt, breathing hard. I make the mistake of looking up at her and find she is watching me with a new intensity in her eyes.

“Don’t be,” she says. I know she’s asking for more. I can see it in her narrowed eyes and her parted lips. For once, I do exactly what my body tells me to do and tell my brain to shut up.

My primal side takes over; it’s been dormant for too long and has no more patience for reason or hesitation. I rush forward and kiss her again, lifting her. She curls her legs around my waist as I carry her to the bed and lay her down. My mouth finds its way back to hers with ease, then the curve between her neck and her shoulder, and she writhes beneath me, which only encourages the frenzy. All logic engulfed, my hands explore her body, pulling off her dress and then my shirt with pure visceral strength.

She suddenly looks frightened. My chest tightens and I pause, brought to my senses briefly.

“Wait – have you ever done this before?” I pant.

Her wide, innocent eyes dart between my face and my zipper. “No. Have you?”

I hesitate to tell her the truth, but I think I’ve already given myself away. I nod. “Are you sure you want to?”

She swallows hard and nods rapidly. “Yes.” But she doesn’t look ready at all. She looks terrified.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” I murmur, sitting back on my heels. She’s been making one bad decision after the next; the last thing I want to do is be another bad decision, especially with something as big as her virginity.

“I trust you,” she whispers, sitting up. She swallows hard. “You’re the only person I trust; I want you to be my first. I’ll only get that once, and this is the last time I can ever be with you. It’s just for tonight.”

I’ve heard her say that before. Before I can argue, she kisses me hard and slides her hands down my chest, tapping my primal side back into the ring.

I
smell her hair, and I know she’s still here. That, and the weight of her head on my chest. Yellow light peeks in through the blinds above my bed and bathes over me, but her skin on mine is the only warmth I can feel. The emptiness and anxiety I woke up with every other morning is replaced by relief and contentment.

It’s the knocking on my door that jerks me out of the happy haze and back to reality.

“Jack, honey?”

Mom
!

Cherie leaps to attention and looks at me, horrified. Panicked and still groggy, I rush to find my clothes and pull myself together. I can feel the blood leaving my face.

The door’s handle jiggles. “Jack, are you awake?”

“One second!” I hop on one foot, pulling on a pair of gym shorts. My bruised hand is throbbing and stiff and practically useless. Memories of last night pour through my mind and distract me from the naked girl in my room who flits past me.

I look up and see Cherie pulling her dress over her head as she makes a mad dash to the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” I hiss.

“To hide in the shower!” she mouths then rushes inside. I hear the shower curtain scrunch and swish, and pretty soon, it’s as if I’m the only person in the room.

I take a deep breath to calm myself, slowly reaching for the doorknob. I can’t think straight; my heart is racing and adrenaline has all of my limbs trembling. Hiding my swollen hand in the pocket of my shorts, I glance over my shoulder to look at the bathroom and pray she won’t be discovered.

When I swing the door open, I try to look sleepy and annoyed. “What is it?”

Her face is all frowns and furrowed brows. “Hi, honey. I’m sorry to bother you so early, but Cherie never came home last night, and I’m worried sick. Have you heard from her?”

Just the sound of my mom saying her name within the confines of these walls, mere feet from where Cherie hides, makes my heart pound. “Cherie? No idea.”

“She didn’t text you or talk to you or anything?”

I try to give her the
Seriously?
stare, complete with a head tilt and a frown. “Does it look like we talk, Mom?” Inside, my guilty conscience wants to shine a bright spotlight on me and scream,
We did way more than talk!
“She hates my guts, remember?”

My mom nods and sighs, hugging herself with her arms. “Yeah, I know, I guess I was just hoping…”

She pushes past me and walks into my room.

“Mom?” I call urgently. “Mom, I kind of want to go back to sleep.”

But she’s oblivious and broken. She plants herself on the bed and leans over, her hands clasped and her elbows propped on her knees. My mom is sitting where I just had sex. I want to puke. Why does she have to sit right there? I glance into the bathroom nervously, and my heart bursts back into panic mode.

Suddenly, my mom sniffles, and I snap to attention. Are those tears in her eyes?

“Mom?”

“I just don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like I have no control,” she whimpers. A tear streams down her cheek, and she sobs delicately. “I – I try to give her space, you know? I know I’m not her mom, and it’s been so hard for her to adjust. . .but she’s out every night, and now she doesn’t even come home! I don’t want to punish her because it will only push her away, but . . .”

I feel my insides cave. “Mom, you can’t worry about what she’s doing. She’s almost old enough to do whatever she wants anyway.”

“But she’s mine now, Jack!” my mom exclaims. “I’m responsible!”

“Correction: Jim is. She’s his, not yours.” I know these words can get me in serious trouble with the girl behind my shower curtain, but right now I don’t care. I’ve seen my mom cry enough in her life over selfish people, and it’s not fair.

My mom waves me off. “Come, now, Jack, you know what I mean. Besides, Jim is never really around to help Cherie or be a dad to her.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “Story of our lives, Mom.” I look her dead in the eye. “How do you solve the problem with the twins when they don’t listen?”

She shrugs, wiping a tear away. “I don’t think that much about it. I mean, I’m more careful with them than with you and Brenton and Britney, but I still feel like their mother in a way. Cherie hardly knows me; it’s only been a month!”

I’m about to level with her and remind her to be firm and take a stand, but I hesitate. Cherie can hear everything I’m saying. For once, I try not to be the guy with the answers.

“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe you should try talking to Jim or something? I doubt Cherie is doing anything terrible.”

Suddenly, one of the twins is screaming across the pool at my mother. “Eva! Eva, you’re not going to believe what your son did now!”

My heart skips a beat. I jerk around and look across the pool. Chloe meets my gaze and waves, her grin wide and evil.

“You are so dead!” she laughs proudly.

My mom stands up and groans. “What did you do, Jack? Can you just tell me so I don’t have to go over there?”

“I, um – I have no idea,” I stammer, looking over my shoulder at the bathroom.

Suddenly, Jim is yelling out to us, too, and he emerges from the kitchen onto the patio. “Jack, get in here!”

Now I’m panicking. I feel my hands shaking all over again. Did one of the twins spy on me and Cherie last night? Did they see her come into my room? Did they sit outside my door and listen in?

I suddenly hear the sounds of last night echoing in the back of my mind, especially Cherie’s voice gasping my name. I swallow hard. The twins could’ve easily heard us.

I follow my mom toward the kitchen. Jim glares at me and pushes a newspaper into my mother’s arms.

“What the hell is this about?” he shouts.

I peer over my mother’s shoulder and feel myself shatter inside. The newspaper is emblazoned with the headline:
Cherie Belle on the Road to Destruction: Boys, Benders, and Club Brawls
!” The headline screams from beneath a picture of her looking drunk, her dress riding up on her body.

Inside my arms.

The caption below it reads, “
Bonnie and Clyde 2.0: Jack Hansen, 17, gets intimate with Belle, 16, moments before he assaults her other suitor
.”

“Jack…?” I can hear the desperation in my mother’s voice to believe anything other than what she sees.

“It’s not how it looks, Mom – ” I try to say. My face is hot and my knees are quaking. I feel like I’m going to vomit. Assault? Bonnie and Clyde – what does that mean? Am I an outlaw for getting into a fight?

Claudia narrows her eyes and double takes between me and outside. I grow pale and look back, wondering if she sees Cherie, but there’s no one out there. She still looks confused. “What – ”

Chloe cuts her off, grinning haughtily. “It’s exactly what it looks like. He started the fight; it’s all over the gossip sites.” She holds up her phone as a noisy, dark video plays. You can see blurry bodies colliding while Cherie screams my name.

“How…?” my voice trails off, and I’m speechless.

“Apparently Jack and Cherie are quite the item,” Chloe snickers. I glower at her.

Jim senses my brewing temper and shields both of his daughters behind him. “Jack, what were you thinking? How could you take Cherie to these places and encourage her to drink when the whole world is watching her right now?”

I try to be patient. “I didn’t encourage her to drink. I didn’t even know she’d be there. This is all one big – ”

My mom turns on me before I can even explain anything. “Forget Cherie – what are YOU doing in these places? You’re not allowed to drink – Jack, are you drinking and – and fighting?! Why are you fighting again? Oh my God – I knew it was a mistake to bring you out here!” And she’s lost to me, muttering to herself and staring at the newspaper in her hand as if somehow the story will magically change.

“Stop reading it, it isn’t the truth!” I try to take it from her.

“Oh my God, your hand – look at your hand!” she nearly shrieks, dropping the newspaper and grabbing my wrist. I scrunch my eyes against the pain.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What did you do?” she whimpers, releasing me and covering her face.

“I got in a fight, Mom, that’s all.” I hide it gingerly in my pocket.

“That’s
all?
You assaulted someone – what were you thinking? Jack, you promised me no more of this!”

I am all thumbs when it comes to defending myself in the presence of her irrational side. “Mom, you don’t understand – I had to do something! This guy was all over Cherie – she needed help!”

Jim folds his arms over his chest. “Jack, this is very serious. You should never have brought Cherie into that kind of environment. She is fragile right now.”

“Stop saying that!” I finally explode. “It wasn’t me – I didn’t bring her there, she was there with her friends when I showed up with my own friends. This is not my fault; if anything, I protected her out there!”

“Why were you going there at all?” my mom cries. “You’re not old enough to be in those clubs!”

“Everyone does it out here, Mom,” I groan.

Jim holds up his hand to quiet my mother. “Hold on, Eva. Jack, who are these friends Cherie was with?”

I’m relieved someone is listening to me at last. “Danika and some other celebrity girl. Danika’s been taking her to this club all week – she’s the one you should be questioning. I just happened to see Cherie there, and she got attacked by some guy, so I stepped in.”

“Yeah, right!” Chloe squawks. “That’s not what it says on
Dirterazzi.com
!”

The photographer, Derek, flashes through my mind, and I see red. “Shut up, Chloe!” I don’t know what it says on the blogs, but I know they are probably telling more of the full story than I am.

She pulls up a report on her phone and reads, “The rumors of Cherie Belle and Caz Farrell just may be pushing Jack Hansen over the edge. Cherie and her rumored on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jack Hansen, were involved in a major brawl at Fly nightclub, and it all started with a little dance off – ”

“Chloe!” I shout, trying to swipe the phone from her hand.

She dodges my grasp and races to the other side of the kitchen’s island. I chase her, but she stays just out of my reach on the opposite end. She continues to read, “This is the first time Hansen has been seen publicly with Belle since late December. As we’ve previously reported, Cherie’s been spotted several nights this week at Fly, often with Caz Farrell. Clearly, Belle is having her cake and eating it, too.”

Claudia watches my face fall and says softly, “Chloe...”

She ignores her sister and continues reading. “Onlookers believe Hansen and Belle were engaged in a heated dance-off with different partners minutes before the brawl broke out. Our photographer at the scene claims Hansen was already incited when underage Cherie took body shots off of her companions, assistant Danika Shields, 21, and fellow Kidz star, Amber Stiles, 20, before an audience of cheering fans. The couple had an argument, and Hansen disappeared, only to return with a sexy brunette at his side.”