Uninvited: An Unloved Ones Prequel #2 (The Unloved Ones Prequels)

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My grip on the steering wheel is turning my knuckles white.

“You’re doing fine, Jackie,” my boyfriend Todd assures me. But his face is tense too.

He has a beautiful face, with pouting lips and bright green eyes. He’s one of those people who doesn’t even have to try to look attractive. He wakes up that way.

“Look ahead,” he says quickly, when he notices me looking at him. “Keep your eyes forward.”

I nod. This is my first time driving on a real road with other cars. I don’t feel ready for this, but Todd pressured me into it.

As I’m approaching the intersection, the stoplight turns yellow. I panic.

“What do I do?” I gasp.

“It’s yellow,” Todd says, which is no help at all.

I take my foot off the gas and it hovers above the brake. Do I stop? Is there time to go through? The car slows as we pass the crosswalk, and the light turns red.

“What are you doing?” Todd yells, and I slam my foot on the brake, thinking I was supposed to stop after all. We are thrown forward into our seatbelts as his Honda Civic skids to a stop—in the middle of the intersection.

Cars pull forward around us and start honking. I hear a man’s voice yelling obscenities. We are blocking traffic, and a black truck has pulled up to my window, its grill staring me in the face and growling as the owner revs the engine.

“Move!” Todd screams, and I reach to the clutch and switch it to reverse. I look in the rear view mirror, and there’s already a car behind me that pulled up after I stopped.

Todd slams his hand against the glove compartment. “Not backwards! Forward! What are you waiting for? Go, go!”

My hand is shaking as I switch the car back to Drive, and I press the gas pedal to clear the intersection. Cars are still honking behind us as we drive down the block. The smell of exhaust fills the air. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to recover from the feeling that we’re about to be killed.

“Pull over,” Todd says through his teeth.

“Todd,” I say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Pull. Over.”

I flip the turn signal and turn the car into an empty parking lot outside a closed nightclub. Todd snaps out of his seatbelt and slams the door behind him when he gets out of the car. I fumble with my belt, and then open the door, stepping out and aside so he can get into the driver’s seat. My heart is beating like crazy as I round the front of the car, and hop into the passenger seat and buckle up.

Todd is silent as he adjusts the mirrors. I flip down the passenger mirror to adjust my hair, but it's exactly how I left it. I wear it pulled back into a tight bun. People tease that it makes me look like a businesswoman instead of a teenager, but they don’t understand: you have to dress for the job you want. Even if you’re sixteen, and it’s still ten years away. I turn back to Todd and see that he’s upset.

I can understand why. I made a mistake, and in his car. He’s been very nice to let me use it to learn to drive, since my mom didn’t have time to teach me. She works late hours, and doesn’t have the energy to teach me at night.

“I don’t think I can teach you,” he says, and starts the car. “I don’t know why this is so hard for you when grades and stuff is so easy. You’ve got a four-point-oh grade point average, but you can’t figure out a stoplight.” He shakes his head. “You’re going to have to sign up for one of those driving schools or something.” We pull out of the parking lot, and he turns back toward my house. He’s able to drive with one hand on the wheel.

“I’m sorry,” I say as we easily pass through the same intersection that gave me so much trouble. “I didn’t know what to do. It turned red and I got scared.”

“Sometimes,” Todd says, “sometimes it’s safer to go through the red.”

I’m quiet, trying to digest this bit of education, as we travel through a residential neighborhood, now the only car on the road. We’ve got the heater on, and the windshield wipers squeak away the melting drops of snow from the trees above. We live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a quiet suburb of comfortable, two-story homes. It’s February, and the sky is overcast, sending pale light over the bare trees and snow-covered lawns of the neighborhood.

“It’ll be okay,” Todd says after a few blocks of silence. His voice is softer now. “You won’t turn sixteen for a few weeks anyway. You’ve still got time to learn. And who knows? You might figure it out. You figure everything else out.” He glances over at me and smiles, and I feel a weight lifting from my chest. I reach out to take his free hand, and he squeezes my hand in his. Everything feels better now.

I don’t know what I’d do without Todd. I lean toward him, not actually able to put my head on his shoulder because of the divider, but getting as close as I can otherwise.

“I’ll tell you what,” Todd says. “If you get your license, I’ll throw you a huge party for your birthday to celebrate.” He thinks about this for a moment and chuckles. “And if you
don’t
pass your driving test, I’ll
still
throw you a party.”

I laugh, and hold his hand tighter. “You mean it?”

He stops at the end of the street and looks at me with his intense green eyes. “Of course, Jackie. You’re my girl.”

He smiles, and it’s in that moment that I know I love Todd. Not just
like
but
love
. He turns back forward and we continue down the road, and I feel a rosy glow inside my chest despite the cold, because I know:

He’s the one for me, and we’ll always be together.

TWO MONTHS LATER

Todd has his arm around her waist. They’re both laughing, and he leans over to whisper something in her ear. She acts like she’s shocked by what he’s saying, but she doesn’t move away. She turns toward him, and they start to kiss.

I turn away. I’m outside the house, watching through the window as the music from the party rumbles into the street.

Two months ago, this was supposed to be my birthday party. Now it just exists, with or without me.

I make my way around the house. I’ve worn a pink top with a matching pleated skirt, and my hair tied back in a ponytail, as I’m trying to be more casual tonight. Still, I made sure not a single stray hair was out of place. I want to look perfect tonight.

I knock on the door, and a boy I don’t recognize answers with a beer in his hand. I smile and reach out my hand. “Hi, I’m Jacqueline.”

He looks at my outstretched hand for a moment, and then he shouts, “Todd, your stalker’s here.”

I frown.

He moves away from the door, and I walk inside. It smells like beer and cigarettes, and the music is turned out so loud that it hurts my ears. Only half the lights are on in the house, and there are small groups of people on couches and leaning against the wall. No one returns a glance when I nod in their direction, and I make my way to the kitchen where I saw Todd a moment ago.

He’s there with Becka. He’s lifted her onto the counter and she has her legs wrapped around his waist. My eyes narrow and I stand in the doorway, waiting for them to notice me.

I don’t get what he sees in her. She has to be the sloppiest, laziest person I’ve ever met—and I don’t even know her that well. Becka has ratty black hair that looks like something you’d pull out of a clogged sink. She dresses in faded black shirts and pants that never look quite clean. And her makeup is so thick that I’m surprised she can even make facial expressions.

Plus, her name is Becka. Who would choose that as their nickname? You might as well drop out and apply at Dairy Queen already.

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting. But it might be easier not to hate her if she wasn’t the exact opposite of me. And if she wasn’t wrapping her legs around the love of my life.

I cough.

Becka looks up and sees me. She doesn’t even try to hide what she was doing like any decent person might. “Oh hey, Jackie,” she says, her tone mocking. “I didn’t know you were invited.”

Todd turns and sees me. He backs up and puts Becka’s legs on the floor. “She wasn’t. Jackie, what are you doing here?”

I smile even though I’m shaken. “I thought—I mean, it’s my birthday. I thought this was my party.”

“Jackie,” Todd says slowly, “we broke up. I’m not throwing you a party. We haven’t even talked in, like, six weeks.”

“But I—you—you never said you
weren’t
throwing me a party. The last time we talked about it…”

Becka laughs. “What a freak.” She turns to me. “Time to move on, sister. You dated for—what? Three weeks?”

“Six months,” I say, but it’s barely a whisper.

Those six months were the happiest of my life. And it wasn’t like we hadn’t known each other beforehand. We’ve been going to the same school since Kindergarten. I’ve
always
been his. That’s what people don’t understand. We’re meant for each other.

Todd comes up to me. He’s annoyed but not angry. “How did you even get here?”

“I walked.” I feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I blink them back. I refuse to be anything but perfect tonight.

“Aw, Jackie,” Todd says. He takes a step closer. “It’s more than a mile.”

I reach for his hand. “I’d walk to the ends of the earth for you,” I say in a gasp. He recoils, and Becka jumps off the counter.

“Watch it,” she says. “He’s
my
boyfriend, not yours.”

Todd raises his hand. “I can handle it.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Becka taunts from behind him. “Why don’t you go home and do some homework?”

“It’s already done,” I mumble. I turn to Todd. “Can’t we just talk?”

“
Jackie
,” he says, his tone a mix of reproach and regret, “You should go.”

My lip quivers. I can’t say anything. I can’t even blink for fear that it will send tears down my cheeks.