Kate Christie (24 page)

Ten minutes after I arrived, the front door slammed and we heard the sound of Duncan’s toenails on the floor as he trotted through the living room. I felt my shoulders tense as Jess appeared in the doorway.

“Hey you guys,” she started. Then she saw me and stopped, biting her lip. “Cam.”

I stood up. Duncan was at my side in an instant, and I rubbed his back obligingly. “Thanks for the lemonade,” I said, nodding at Sidney and Claire.

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Sidney looked from me to Jess. “Just leave your glass,” she said. “We’ll see you kids later.” Claire started to say something, but Sidney quieted her with a glance.

I brushed past Jess, heading for the front door. After a second, she followed.

“Do you want to come up?” she asked once we were outside.

The late afternoon sun angled through the trees, dappling the street and the front lawn, while the house cast its enormous shadow over us. This really was it. By the end of the day, Jess might well decide she didn’t want to be my friend, after all.

“If you want me to.”

She shot me a quick look but didn’t say anything as we made our way up to her apartment. I watched her walk up the stairs ahead of me, leg muscles rippling beneath her shorts. Why did she have to be so damned hot, I thought, scowling. Her tan was darker after a week in the sun, while my face was now overrun with freckles. Holly had thought it hysterical that people in L.A.

saw me in my baseball cap and baggy shorts and mistook me for the younger brother she didn’t have.

Jess waved me into her apartment and locked the door behind us. We stood in the hallway between the closet and her Sabatini poster, watching each other. Sunlight from the kitchen window lit the apartment. Jess looked so good to me in her shorts and white T-shirt, her shoulders straight, eyes questioning, and I realized it had been more than two weeks since I’d last seen her.

In the kitchen, I pulled out a chair and dropped onto it as she kicked off her sandals and padded barefoot to the fridge.

“Want a soda? Or a beer?” she asked, hand on the door.

I shook my head, slouching down in the chair. “Nah, I’m okay.”

I still loved her, more than ever somehow. The realization elated and depressed me at the same time. There were those extremes again, the same old roller coaster. But did I want to take the ride? Did I have a choice?

She leaned against the unopened refrigerator door, facing me. “So.”

“So.” Deliberately I tipped my chair back. It always bugged 176 Kate Christie

her when I did that. Whether she was concerned for my safety or the longevity of the chair she never said.

Her eyes flickered, and she crossed her arms across her chest.

“I think we should talk.”

My pulse quickened, and I let the chair dip to the floor. “I think you’re right.”

Sunlight wavered in the apartment as trade winds brushed through the branches of the trees in the backyard. I knew this room so well, the color of the walls, the framed Picasso poster over the table, the shape of the light fixture overhead. I knew Jess too, the twist of her ponytail at the back of her head, the line of muscle in her arms and legs. But only these physical impressions, I reminded myself. Only outwardly.

“Did you get my message when I called from the gym?” she asked.

“Not until today. Phone mail must have been down again.”

Nodding, she glanced out the partially open window into the backyard. Birds were singing as the sun slowly angled toward the horizon. It was only five thirty. We would have another couple hours of daylight yet.

“I guess I owe you an explanation,” she said finally, expelling a short breath. “The thing is, you were right. Something was going on.” She hesitated. “You know that tournament a couple of weeks ago? The one in San Francisco?”

I nodded.

“You called me the day I left but I didn’t pick up,” she said.

“I was here, but I didn’t want to talk to you because—well, I thought you were dating that girl, Alicia, and you hadn’t told me.” Her eyes were slightly defiant as she regarded me.

“Alicia? How did you know—” I stopped, realizing how that sounded. “Where did you hear that?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said, “Julie saw you at the coffee shop on Main with her and I saw you outside the cafeteria together. Then when I got home from San Francisco, I ran into Cory Miller at the gym and he said you took her to the dance.”

Everything clicked into place—Jess must have been the woman Alicia had seen at the cafeteria shooting daggers at us.

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But why would she be upset at seeing us together? I didn’t think she was the possessive friend type. I felt a glimmer of hope.

“You thought I was dating this woman and that’s why you were avoiding me?” I clarified. She nodded. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

She shrugged and focused on the poster of the Picasso dove, red and orange flowers trailing through its feathers. “I’m asking now. Are you, Cam? Going out with her?”

“No, I’m not. She has a crush on someone else on the soccer team. I went to the dance with her, Holly and Becca. It wasn’t a date.”

Jess was watching me now, eyes shadowed. “Cory saw you, though. He said you were dancing together, like, together.”

“We were. I had a good time. But why do you care?” I knew I was pushing, but I wanted to hear her say it. I was tired of feeling like the lecherous lesbian looking for a convert. “It’s not like you and I are anything more than friends. Right?”

As my words hung in the air, she blinked and looked out across the backyard again. “Right,” she said. “You don’t owe me anything. You can date whoever you want.”

Abruptly she pushed away from the fridge and headed down the hallway, stepping into her sandals on the way. She was reaching for her keys when I caught her.

I moved between her and the door. “Where are you going?”

She stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Jess.” My hands on her shoulders, I pressed down until she looked up at me. I could see tears in her eyes threatening to spill over, and felt my own throat tighten. “Don’t run away,” I said, my voice as gentle as I could make it. “You don’t have to leave.”

Shrugging my hands off, she took a step back. “Stop it, Cam.”

“Stop what?” I took a step toward her, slid my arms around her waist, felt her shiver against me. God, I’d wanted to do this for so long. “Don’t you know how I feel about you?”

“No.” Suddenly she pushed me away, shoving me hard against the door. “I don’t want this.”

The doorknob had nearly impaled me, but I ignored the 17 Kate Christie

pain. “You don’t want me to love you? Well, too bad, because I already do.”

I stared at her, hardly able to believe I’d finally told her. Now what?

The object of my affection seemed less than overjoyed by my pronouncement. A tear spilled over and trickled down her cheek.

She swiped at it and gazed down at her feet again.

“No, you don’t,” she said bleakly. “You don’t even know me.”I’d been prepared for her to cringe away in disgust, to pat my arm patronizingly, even to—yeah, right—leap toward me in joy.

But I wasn’t prepared for her to tell me that I didn’t know her.

I touched her arm, more hesitant this time. “What do you mean?”

She walked away without answering. After a moment, I followed her back down the hall and into the living room, increasingly confused as she sat down on the couch and curled her feet under her body, wrapped her arms around herself, rested her chin on her arms. Unsure what else to do, I dropped down on the opposite end of the couch and waited.

She gazed at me, her eyes dark and sad. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Of course not. You can’t convince me I don’t love you.”

Despite my bravado, though, every time I said it out loud and she didn’t respond, I felt a little less sure of myself. My family is hardly demonstrative. We rarely hug, let alone freely verbalize our deepest feelings.

Sighing, she plucked at a couch cushion. “Fine. Then I’m going to tell you something, and it might change your mind.”

As if that would happen. Unless… she hadn’t killed anyone, had she? Tortured any innocent animals? Of course she hadn’t. I knew her well enough to be sure of that much.

“When I was a senior in high school,” she said slowly, brow furrowed, “I was—well, I was raped. I told my mom but she accused me of lying. That’s why I don’t have a relationship with her.” She stared down at the cushion, avoiding my eyes.

Raped?
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Jess. I had no idea.”

I reached for her hand, crushing her fingers between mine Beautiful Game 17

as a rush of feelings swirled through my mind. Shock that someone could have hurt her, rage at the faceless man, anger with her mother. How could a parent do such a thing? It turned my stomach. And yet, suddenly everything clicked into place: why Jess flinched whenever anyone came too close; why she had constructed massive emotional walls to retreat behind at the first sign of trouble. The mystery that was Jess dissolved, leaving before me a scared, hurt girl in place of what I’d believed to be a strong, resolute woman.

But maybe she was both of those people simultaneously, I thought—strong and frightened, brave and uncertain, stoic and vulnerable. And all at once, I loved her even more for this complexity that had been there all along, hidden just beneath the surface.

Then something else occurred to me. “Wait, is this why you thought I couldn’t love you? Because some asshole—are you serious?”

She pulled her hand away and nodded, hugging herself again.

My throat tightened and I moved toward her, shifting on the couch until our legs were touching.

“Jess,” I said, brushing back a curl that had escaped from her ponytail, “what happened in the past could never change the way I feel about you. I love you.” She looked at me, eyes nearly black, and I half-smiled. “You’re stuck with me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t you see?” she asked, her voice raw. “I’m damaged, Cam. I won’t ever be the same. I can never undo what he did.

After it happened I drove all the way to the ocean and I walked down to the water and I thought about walking in, just being done with everything. That’s what my dad did. But I didn’t want to be like him, so I stayed on the beach all night and in the morning, I asked Barbara, my art teacher, for help. I stayed with her until I came here. She asked, but I never told her what happened. I never told anyone. I just wanted to forget it. Only I can’t. I wish I could make it go away, but I can’t.”

I leaned back beside her, unsure what I should feel. Anger, horror, relief? Thank God she hadn’t killed herself, I thought, 10 Kate Christie

rage at the unknown man and her pathetic mother bubbling up again inside me. I’m not particularly violent, but at that moment I found myself fantasizing about hurting another person. If I ever met the man who had preyed upon her, I vowed to myself, I would kill him.

“Was it someone you knew?” I asked, my face flushing with the heat of suppressed rage.

“Yeah, it was.” She blinked. “You’re disgusted, aren’t you?”

“Disgusted? No way.” I caught her hand in mine again and gave it a squeeze. “I was just thinking about what I’d do to the bastard if I ever got my hands on him.”

She winced a little, and I took a deep breath. The last thing she needed right now was the threat of more violence.

“I’m sorry,” I added. “I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just…”

I trailed off. What could I say that wouldn’t make matters worse?

Shifting again on the couch, I moved closer, tugging her toward me. She resisted at first, but when I didn’t let go, she seemed almost to fall into me, hiding her face in my neck.

“It’s okay,” I said softly, my lips against her hair. “I’ve got you.” And I held her gently, there on the couch in her third-story apartment while the seconds ticked past and the light faded beyond the windows.

After a little while, she murmured, “So you love me, huh?”

“I do.” I was glad I couldn’t see her face. What would she say now that her revelation had failed to send me packing?

“Good,” she said, breath warm against my chin.

“Good?” I repeated.

“I think so. I mean, I knew I liked you and I thought you felt the same way, especially after the party at Mel’s. I wanted to go home with you that night, I really did. I just wasn’t ready.”

That meant I hadn’t imagined the Kiss Me look she’d given me at Mel’s. Funny—the party seemed like a million years ago.

“Are you ready now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I was terrified of telling you. I thought it would change the way you felt about me, the way you look at me.”

“You don’t have to worry.” I leaned away so I could see her face. “Something like that could never change the way I feel Beautiful Game 11

about you. I don’t think you’re damaged. I think you’re beautiful and resilient and amazing, even more so now that I know how strong you really are. Okay?”

“Okay.” She leaned her forehead against my chin. “Would it be all right if you just held me?”

“Of course. Come here.”

We stretched out side by side on the couch and I wrapped my arms around her. Half on top of me, she slipped one arm around my waist and rested her face against my shoulder. Outside the streetlamps flicked on one by one, while in my arms Jess cried, softly at first, then harder until her entire body shook with gut-wrenching sobs. Her tears soaked my T-shirt and slid down my neck, and I held her tighter, stroking her hair and whispering soothing words, wishing I could take her pain and sorrow into me and dilute it somehow, relieve her of the burden of what had happened to her before we’d ever met. But I was as powerless as anyone else to change the past.

Powerless—that was exactly what the man who had raped her wanted. To rob her of choice, to inflict physical and emotional pain, to erode her confidence in herself and the people around her. How could you trust strangers when someone you knew could do such a thing?