Just Like Fate (16 page)

“Really?” he asks, raising his eyebrows like he’s shocked
by the observation. I can’t help but wonder who Joel sees in
the mirror every day.

He laughs out loud, and it makes me feel like the sun is
shining on my insides. We’re to his car, and he walks with me
to the passenger side, then leans against me so I’m resting on
the door. The metal is cold, but his body is like a blanket. He
looks at me seriously.

“I’m excited to go to the show for sure,” he says, his dark
eyes burrowing into me. “They’re amazing live. But mostly?
I’m excited to go with you.”

My breath catches a little—this
is
Joel we’re talking about.
“I’m excited to go with you, too,” I say earnestly. He bends
down and grazes my lips with his own, then steps away and
moves around the car to the driver’s side.

“Come over after school?” he asks, unlocking the car. We
both get in and I shiver in my seat. “I’ve got some old live
shows to play for you.” I nod automatically; hanging out after
school has become our thing.

“Sounds great,” I say, glancing down at my phone. A text
from Simone just came through—a text with a lot of sad face
emoticons in it.

“Okay if I call Simone?” I ask Joel. “She’s really bummed
about this whole being grounded thing. I think she needs me
to talk her off the ledge. I mean she’s talking about joining a
club
just so she won’t have to go straight home from school—
it’s a serious situation. But I’ll try not to be too long.”

Joel puts the car in reverse and gives me one of those
unpredictable smiles; my arms get goose bumps. “I get it; no
worries,” he says. “Take your time, Linus.”

As he turns to look behind us while he backs the car out of
the space, I can’t deny that I cringe a little. My nickname’s not
right coming from him. Then again, I think as he shifts to drive
and navigates us out of the lot,at least he feels comfortable enough
with me to call me by a nickname in the first place. So there’s that.

After school, I step from the biting cold into the enveloping
warmth of Joel’s house, and he immediately wraps his arms
around me in the entryway.

“I made you hot chocolate,” he says into my hair.
“You did not,” I say, pulling back, surprised. He nods,
then kisses me—a lingering peck. I’m not afraid that anyone
will see us: I know his parents are working.

“That’s really sweet,” I say, thinking that it really is. And
also wondering if he made hot chocolate for Lauren.
“I took the mugs up to my room,” he says, “and I’ve got
the first DVD cued up. I can’t wait to play it for you. I figured
we could watch one each day so we’re primed for next week.”
I laugh as he takes my hand. We walk upstairs and both
settle onto floor pillows. Joel presses play on the DVD and I
take a sip from the mug in front of me—I have to say that he
did a pretty decent job. We listen to the first song in silence:
It’s one of EF’s early radio hits, “Shooting Stars,” and seeing
them play it onstage is a whole different experience. I can’t
wait to see them for real.
I shift on my pillow, thinking that it’s lumpy. Then I
remember thinking the same thing yesterday and the day
before—I realize that I’ve sat in the same spot every time I’ve
been here. Is this
my
pillow? Do we have his and her pillows
already? I wonder whether we’re on relationship autopilot—
until the song switches and Joel switches things up, too. He
pulls me to my feet.
“Dance with me,” he says. The song is one of the slowest,
most sentimental songs in the Freakshow arsenal. It’s called
“Flannel.” “Did you know he wrote this for his childhood
sweetheart?” Joel asks as he pulls me close. We sway to the
music, draped around each other like fabric ourselves.
“Really?” I murmur into his broad shoulder. “That’s so
sweet.”
“She broke his heart eventually,” he says. Then, after a
beat, “I feel like I might suffer the same fate with you.”
I pull back, eyes wide. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know; I just feel like . . . maybe I’m the heavy.”
“The heavy?” I ask, glancing at him again but then resting
my cheek on his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you ever heard that?” he asks. “In a relationship, there’s always someone who likes the other person more.
They are heavier . . . because they’re carrying stronger feelings
around all the time. I’m the heavy.”
“I think a heavy is actually someone who’s protection for
someone else—like a bouncer or something.”
“Whatever, it’s what I call it,” he says. “It’s what Lauren
and I used to call it.”
The mention of Lauren makes me take a step back; my
arms fall to my sides. I’m still not completely comfortable with
Joel’s explanation of why she was at his house on Halloween,
and I don’t want even the idea of her here now. I’m jealous;
I’m jealous of her ghost in our relationship.
“I didn’t mean to bring her up,” Joel says, sensing my hostility.
“It’s okay,” I say, stepping toward him again.
I can be better
than Lauren
, I think. Joel hates jealousy, so I won’t show him
my feelings.
“What I was trying to say was that I feel like I like you
more than you like me,” Joel says, looking into my eyes, strong
and steady. “And that worries me a little, because I think I’m
falling in love with you.”
I’ve never heard those words from a boyfriend before,
and the jolt of them is like lighting. I want to say it back, but I
kiss him instead. Hard. So hard that he hesitates for the tiniest moment—maybe for being caught off guard—before he
matches my intensity. I don’t realize how close we are to the
open door to Joel’s room until he reaches out with his leg and
kicks it shut.
Slam!
The song changes to a faster, pounding
beat—“Magnets for Fate”—and it fuels my fire.
Joel grabs the hem of my sweater and pulls it up over my
head; I let him do it because there’s a tank top underneath and
I’ve lost a layer or two with him before. But then he pulls me
down onto the bed: not our usual make-out spot.
Joel kisses me on my mouth, my neck, and the top of my
chest where skin’s visible above my tank top. I close my eyes
and lose myself in the moment and the music. He pushes up
the bottom of my shirt so my stomach’s showing; with his
warm palm on my ribs, he kisses to the right of my belly button, then his mouth is on my jaw and my ear and my lips again.
We kiss more recklessly than usual, and when I feel his fingers
working the top button of my jeans, I don’t think about it at
all.
There’s a girl somewhere inside me, telling me that I don’t
really want to do this right now. But there’s duct tape over her
lips. I’m not listening, because I feel young and powerful and
possessed by the song and the kisses and somehow I don’t
care that I can’t hear what she’s saying.
Lots of people have done it
, I think when Joel pauses and
raises his eyebrows in question just before it happens.
He and
Lauren have done it.
I’m not sure who I am when I nod.
Yes.
But then, when he’s lying flat on top of me, when his face
is smashed into the pillow, when he’s breathing hard and
whispering how much he loves me, he really does, tears slide
down my cheeks into my hair. I wipe them away before he
sees, knowing it would make him feel bad.
Would it?
When he goes to get water from downstairs, I fake a call
from home and claim to be in trouble for missing dinner. He
doesn’t even question it, even though it’s barely five o’clock.
Then I practically run out the front door, regret already
creeping through my veins. I know it; I know it before I even
get home. I let Joel take too much—and as I think about it, I
don’t even know why. I’m not in love with Joel Ryder. In this
moment, I’m not ever sure I know the real him at all.
Back in my own room, the one with my own playlist, the
duct tape’s off and the girl in my head is screaming
No!
at me.
I want to scream, too, but I’m too busy crying instead. I pace
in front of my dresser, wishing I had a time machine. I want
a jump-back button on my life. I want to blast myself back
twenty minutes and say “stop.” I want to gather up my things
and go, sure of myself and who I am. I want my virginity back.
I want my
me
back.
I pause and turn to my reflection in the mirror above my
dresser. My face is red and blotchy, and there’s a mark low on
my neck from where Joel was kissing me. But when I get to my
eyes, I don’t recognize the girl I see in the mirror.
I can’t look at her anymore, so I turn out the light.

I haven’t spoken to my brother since seeing him on campus,
and as I walk through the halls at school, I’m convinced I’ve
been transported to bizarro-land. People are staring at me,
covering their mouths to whisper as I pass. “You’ve got to be
kidding,” I murmur, trying to pretend not to notice. I have to
try pretty damn hard.

I slide into my seat for homeroom and stare at a blank
notebook page. That’s when I can hear the conversations
around me. Aaron and Tricia broke up in dramatic fashion
over the weekend.

Aaron stays silent behind me, but Tricia is noticeably
absent. I wonder how bad their split was.
“I heard it was because of the new girl.”
My breath catches, but I try not to react to the comment.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the new girl they could be talking
about; there’s no way I’m involved in this. Whether it was him
or his friends who liked me, I told Aaron that I had a boyfriend. The girl behind me whispers something that I can’t
hear, and then there’s a giggle.
Freaking hell.
I gnaw on my thumbnail as my heart pounds. Mr. Powell
finally takes attendance and then squeaks his marker across
the board. It’s like a hundred sets of eyes are watching me—
and all I want is for the fire alarm to go off so I can make a
grand escape.
I turn to look out the window as some of the last of the
orange and yellow leaves fall from the trees to the frosty school
lawn. I remember when the colors first started changing in
September. Gram and I went for a drive in the country, something she said she’d never get tired of doing. We stopped to
buy a half gallon of cider from a vendor on the side of the
road and then went home to start a fire—even though it wasn’t
cold. Gram said it was all about the atmosphere. Gram was the
atmosphere.
The trickle of a tear running down my cheek startles me,
and I sniffle hard and wipe it away. It seems like all of my happy
memories with her have been drowned out by my guilty ones,
but this is nice. It’s nice to remember how beautiful my life
once was.
“Miss Cabot? Is there a problem?” Mr. Powell calls.
“What?” I ask, glancing over. The room is watching me,
pencils poised as if they’ve been taking notes while I was
staring out the window, daydreaming. “Sorry,” I say. I reach
quickly to grab a pen from my backpack as whispers start
again behind me.
“Told you,” the same voice who blamed me for the breakup
says. I shoot a look at the girl, and she makes a face as if disgusted that I would dare acknowledge that she’s gossiping about
me. Without meaning to, my eyes find Aaron’s and he mouths,
“Sorry,” like I should know what he’s talking about.
I spin back around, my cheeks burning from a shame I
don’t even deserve, and count down the minutes to lunch.
What could that idiot have possibly said to make the entire
school think I was involved in his breakup? Who are these
people?
I start copying down the new bell schedule from the board
and hope that Tricia doesn’t come wandering in. Because
right now her being absent seems to be the only thing keeping
this day from getting completely out of control.
To which the universe answers by letting her walk in the
door.

After class ends, I’m halfway down the hall when someone
grabs my elbow. I turn, afraid that I’m about to be harassed
right here in front of everyone.
“Sorry,” Aaron says, his smile broadening when I meet his

eyes. I yank my arm from his grip, glancing around cautiously
as the stares of other students zero in on us. “I just wanted to
talk to you for second.”

“Caroline,” he calls quickly. “The rumors . . . they’re not
my fault. I don’t want you to think—”
“No offense, Aaron,” I say, lowering my voice as I move
back toward him. “But I don’t even know you. And I’m not
really looking to. So can we just agree to stay away from each
other or something?” Okay, that might have sounded a bit
harsh. He winces as if to prove the point.
“Trish and I broke up,” he says. “And I know it’s not right
to—”
I groan. He’s just not getting it. I’m not interested in
Aaron, and it has nothing to do with whether or not he has a
girlfriend. With another explanation seeming pointless, I slip
away, keeping my head down to block out the prying eyes, the
whispers.
I walk straight to the girls’ bathroom, where I can escape
for at least a few minutes. It’s like there’s a pressure building,
and I don’t know how to stop it. I go to stand at the white porcelain sink and check my reflection. I stare, willing myself not
to look away. But even now, even after all this time, I still can’t
meet my own eyes. I’m starting to wonder if I ever will.
“Well, don’t you look just lost?”
I spin around and see Tricia standing in the doorway, her
hair pulled back into a high bun. Next to her is another girl—
short and stocky and wearing a pair of tan work boots. My
heart nearly leaps from my chest.
“Look, I—”
Tricia holds up her hand as if telling me to save it, then
she starts in my direction, stopping at the sink next to me as if
she’s just in here to wash her hands. Her friend continues to
eye me from the doorway. I get the sick sense that she’s blocking it. I let my backpack fall to my feet and turn to Tricia.
“I didn’t steal your boyfriend,” I say, trying to sound braver
than I feel. “So if that’s what everyone’s saying, it’s not true.”
Tricia arches an eyebrow at her reflection as she pumps
some soap into her palm. She runs her hands under the water
as if she isn’t intimating me practically into tears.
“Aaron said you were cute,” she says. “Actually, the word
he used was
adorable
.” She looks sideways at me. “You are,
aren’t you?”
I have no idea what she wants me to say, but I’m starting to
get pissed. “Look, I’m sorry that he said that—the feeling isn’t
mutual. But I don’t want to be involved in your—”
“Caroline,” she says abruptly. “That’s your name, right?
Well, it’s too late for your lies. Aaron and I are over, and I think
we both know why.”
I widen my eyes. “No. I don’t actually.”
She scoffs. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I haven’t seen the two of you talking? I haven’t liked you from the
first second you walked through those doors,
Caroline
.” She
leans toward me, lowering her voice. “And I don’t need a reason to hate you. I just do. So maybe you should run back to
whatever hick town you came from.”
I scowl, offended that she’s trash talking my town. Angry that
she thinks it’s okay to just hate and threaten me for no reason.
Who does that? I put my hand on my hip and stare her down.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a complete bitch?” I ask.
I don’t have time to react before Tricia’s wet hand is
knotted in my hair, her fist trying to find my face. I scream,
grabbing for her hair, but the bun prevents me from getting
any leverage. We crash back into the tiled wall, and it knocks
the air out of my lungs. In that moment of vulnerability, Tricia’s knuckles connect with my cheek—sending me sideways
toward the toilets.
I try to fight back, even have the consciousness to attempt
some of the shots that Chris taught me. But when I feel a heavy
boot kick the back of my knee, I go down. And then all that’s
left to do is curl up and cover my head.