Junk Miles (28 page)

“
Overdo it, Blixen?” she barked.

I spit and grimaced at the sour taste in my mouth. Saxon yanked a container of orange TicTacs out of his pocket and shook a few into his hand. He held them up to my lips, and I ate them awkwardly, trying not to lick his smoky-smelling palm.

“
Thanks,” I groaned.

“
Maclean, it’s all good here,” Coach Dunn said roughly. When she looked at his face, her voice softened. “She’ll be fine.”

“
Should I walk her to the nurse?” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked so worried, it shot through my heart like a shard of glass.

“
No!” I shook my head. “I just overdid it. I think I was a little dehydrated. Maybe I’ll just sit on the bench for a few?”

Coach Dunn nodded, and Saxon narrowed his eyes at me, then pointed two fingers at his eyes and flipped them in my direction. “I’ll be watching. You get back on that track, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the nurse no matter what anyone says.” He gave Coach Dunn a grudging nod and jogged back to his waiting team.

Coach Dunn put a hand on my shoulder.

“
Maybe if I feel better, I’ll just do a couple of slow laps?” I looked up into her tanned face, desperate for her to tell me I didn’t have to sit on this bench with only my guilt-heavy thoughts to keep me company.

She shook her head. “That’s just junk miles, Blixen. A waste of your time and your energy. You’ll ruin your pace, you’ll wear down your strength. If you’re going to run, run with purpose, at full health.”

“
Junk miles?” I mulled the word over as I watched Coach pace back to the track and listened to the swish of her track suit. That’s exactly what I felt like I was doing, and not just on the track. I was just logging in slow, useless miles, not sure where I was going or why I was even running.

I watched Saxon tear across the field, his feet so quick and sure, and my stomach heaved again. What was I doing? He was a good person. And I was using him. My clammy hands shook, and I wished as hard as I could for the irritating shriek of the bell that would end this period. I wished for the end of this miserable day. I wished for a solution, a trip back in time, a way to make the right decision without ruining everything for everyone I cared about.

I stared at the food during lunch. No matter what I looked at in the cafeteria, it made my stomach churn like a washing machine. Saxon kept adding things to my tray with determination, but I lifted them back off and shook my head.

“
You look like you’re about to pass out. Let me take you to the nurse.” He slid his hand under my hair and around the back of my neck, and his fingers kneaded the space between my neck and shoulder.

“
I have a big project due in graphic design, and I can’t get the shadowing right on this new program. I have to go in.” I swallowed hard and picked up a banana and a carton of milk.

Saxon chewed on the side of his lip. “You doin’ this project with Jake?” He worked way too hard at keeping the words even.

I paid for my lunch and kept a good yard in front of him. “No, not with Jake. Not that it should make a difference to you.” I collapsed into the orange plastic chair and attempted to choke down some food. The milk was watery and lukewarm, and the urge to vomit took over again. The banana was soft and bruised, overly sweet and squishy. It was like the world was conspiring to keep me puking all day long.

“
No difference to me?” He folded a spork in half and twisted its plastic neck violently. “What’s going on between you and me, exactly?”

I stood up and swayed like I was on a boat. “I gotta go.”

I hit a solid wall of Saxon. “Where?”

“
Tech. I told you. I’ve got a project.” My empty stomach and crushing headache made my reflexes sluggish. I tried to duck and weave, but he was way quicker.

“
You aren’t riding there.” It was an absolute command.

I had a foggy thought that Saxon should join the army. I had a second, clearer thought that he’d either become the youngest general ever or go completely AWOL.

I looked up into the swirled gold of his eyes and at the tight pinch of his mouth. I pressed one hand against his arm to turn him, and breathed easier when the current of air that wafted towards me didn’t smell so deliciously like Saxon. “I appreciate it. I do. But you don’t have any business telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“
This isn’t a pissing contest, Blix. You look like shit. Seriously.” He glanced at the lunch monitors, busy with a head-on double-tray goulash collision. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you.”

I would have said no just to avoid the question he’d asked and I’d dodged, but I did feel kind of shaky, and my pathetic lunch hadn’t made up for all I’d chucked in gym. We walked silently to the lot, avoiding the office and the two hall monitors busy grading papers. The silence deepened in the car until it felt like we were avalanched in it.

He didn’t even look up when we pulled in at Tech. It was like his steering wheel suddenly held all the secrets of the universe and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“
Pop the trunk?” As small as I tried to curl my voice, it was still deafening.

“
I’m coming to pick you up. We’ve got a date, remember?” He felt around for his cigarette pack, then drummed his fingers hard on the dashboard.

I put my hand on his cheek. “Saxon?”

I couldn’t translate what I saw in his eyes.

“
Yeah?”

“
I’ll have to get ready, you know. Get dressed. Do my hair. We can’t just leave from school. And I want to double-check with my mom. I didn’t remind her about it, and I never mentioned Folly at all.”

He nodded, popped the trunk, and crooked his finger. I leaned into him and pressed his lips flat against mine, then pulled back. “I’m still gonna pick you up. Maybe we should just stay in tonight? Movies on the couch at your place? I’ll keep a foot of space between us at all times, scout’s honor. Or we could go back to my place, and I promise you’ll rest the whole time. Or at least you’ll be lying down the whole time.” He tried to deliver a crooked grin, but it just looked like a smile that had come unhinged.

“
We’re going out. I’m dressing up. You can drive me home. I feel fine.” I ran my fingers through his thick hair and laid a quick kiss on the smooth patch of forehead I exposed.

“
I’ll see you after school.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but I slammed the door and walked my bike to the rack before he got the chance.

Once I was inside the low, dark halls of VoTech, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. There was still fifteen minutes until the end of lunch, and I didn’t think my stomach could take the smell of any more cafeteria food. My throat burned, so I headed for the water fountain, and once I drank enough for three camels, I hit the bathroom. I was about to leave the stall when a cluster of girls barged in, laughing and chatting. I felt like it would be way too much effort to face them, so I peeked out the crack in the stall door to wait them out.

And I saw Nikki.

She was holding her hand out to take an eyeliner from one of her friends, and she put even more on under her eyes.

“
So, how are things going with Jake?” I recognized the voice of the girl with the biggest bag of makeup I’d ever seen as Krista, the girl I’d snapped at when she felt it necessary to share how wonderful Jake and Nikki’s being together was with me.

Nikki stopped ringing her eyes and put a hip half on the sink. “You know, just before New Year’s, I thought this was going to be amazing, you know? But he’s not like he was that summer we hooked up. I mean, he was so fun. Now he’s like all about work, and he’s so serious. You know he won’t even drink? Like not even one beer.”

“
You know how they do that.” Krista fluffed her hair, which was really nicely dyed with lots of bright red highlights. “It’s like, one week they can drink anyone else under the table, and the next week, they’re all AA and telling everyone about the evils of drinking. But Jake could never hold his liquor, remember? Wasn’t he, like, totally drunk when you guys slept together that summer?”

“
We were
all
really drunk.” Nikki giggled and applied a perfect coat of lipstick. “And he doesn’t hang out with anyone in our old crew. We went to a field party, and he kept looking at his watch, like some old man. It wasn’t even on the right time. It was like, six hours off. And I was like, ‘Why don’t you just use your cellphone like a normal person?’ Weird.”

The watch! Jake was wearing the watch I gave him, and it was still set to Paris time. I felt dizzy again, but this time it was a dizzy so completely twined with hope and happiness, I didn’t care if I passed out on the grimy tan tiles of the bathroom floor!

Krista looked at Nikki in the mirror. “But he’s so hot. Like, amazingly hot.”

Nikki’s pretty green eyes sparkled, and she blushed a pink so gorgeous it would have been a bestseller if it was a blush color. “I
know
. I thought I had no chance when that new girl sank her claws into him. But they’re done. Like done. He gets so pissed if she even comes up.”

I bit my bottom lip and eased back from the crack in case they felt my eyes on them.

“
She’s a freak.” Krista lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows and batted her mascara-caked lashes for emphasis. “I talked to her, like, one time and she bit my head off. Bitch much?”

“
Whatever she did to Jake, I hope she rots for it.” Nikki gave the mirror a glare so gorgeously malicious, I was positive she could see me through the stall door and was just waiting for me to come out so she could rip out chunks of my hair and tear the earrings out of my lobes. The hair on my neck stood up, but the look left her face when she popped her lips and checked her cell phone. “C’mon, K, we need to get back to lunch so I can see Jake before class.”

I didn’t breathe until the door shut again, and then the breath rode on the back of a sob. I could pretend that Nikki was an evil bitch all I wanted, but I’d be dead wrong. When I crept out of the stall and looked at myself in the mirror, it was impossible for me to meet my own eyes in my reflection. Nikki slid in where she saw an opportunity. That opportunity would have never existed if I hadn’t been such a life-wrecker.

The bell rang, and I ducked back into the stall to wipe my eyes off in peace while the bathroom clogged with more girls applying cosmetics, elbowing for mirror room, and chatting at ear-splitting decibels about school, life, love.

By the time I’d waited for the last girl to clear out, I was a minute or two late to class, but Mr. Giles waved me to my seat with an understanding nod when I murmured something vague about my time of the month.

I sat across from Jake and kept my eyes glued on my paper. He did, too. When the bell rang I packed up slowly and he rushed into the hall, away from me. It was our new pattern. I exited the classroom and tried hard to ignore Nikki’s giggles and squeals, knowing she got louder when I was around in an attempt to lay total claim to her territory.

“
She should just piss on his leg,” I muttered under my breath to myself. Unlike at Frankford, I didn’t have many friends other than Jake at VoTech, and it made my walk through the halls long and lonely.

During our last period Matt, the big guy I’d borrowed many things from solely to drive Jake crazy, turned to me and said, “Hey, I bet you’re going to the Folly concert tonight at The Grange, right? Don’t you design all their shirts?”

Jake looked up at us and glowered.

“
I do make their shirts. And yeah, I am. Going. Are you?”

“
Sure am.” He leaned his chair back and almost tipped it. He flushed when he let all four legs drop, and Jake smiled meanly.

I glared at Jake. “I think it will be really fun. So I guess I’ll see you there?”

“
Brenna!” Our teacher, Ms. Flynn, waved me to the front of the room.

The boys looked down sheepishly as I went up to the teacher’s desk, ready for a lecture about keeping on task.

“
I love this design,” she said, pointing to my project specs on her desk, not even mentioning my chattiness. “Your project is amazing, but the shading is off. I’d like to enter this in the county wide Young Business Leaders Design Competition. Jake Kelly seems to have the best handle on the program. Have him take a look and show you how to clean up the shading. And can you ask Matt to come up and bring his portfolio? Thank you.”

Before I could protest or make up some stupid excuse, she was looking back at her grade book intently. I went back to my seat and delivered my message to Matt. He left, and I cleared my throat.

“
Um, so, Ms. Flynn said my shading is off on my project.”

Jake stared at me, his mouth a hard line. “Okay?”

This was so completely wrong. This whole scenario was all wrong.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard to keep from breaking down like a huge toddler. “She said you get the program. She wanted me to ask you to help me.”

“
Oh.” Jake put both hands behind his neck and took a long breath in, then released it in a whoosh. “Of course. Um, pull your chair over.”

I pulled it over, very careful to avoid his chair, his portfolio, his leg, his arm, him.

Jake opened the program, and I was still functioning on high alert. But, weird as we were together, I loved my work in class, and soon I couldn’t worry about not bumping his arm or touching his hand, because I had needed his help on this project for a week, but hadn’t had the guts to ask him. Now that he was explaining it, I was excited to make everything that had to do with my design better. If the entire world was screwed up and it was all my fault, the least I could do was rock my project and work out every single kink on paper.