So Much to Learn (8 page)

"Not behind
door number 2," I commented to Haley as I moved to Jack's door.
"Let's check behind door number 3. I opened the door and clocked
Jack sitting on his bed plugged into his MP3 player and scanning
some papers. He glanced up as I walked in and smiled warmly.
Removing the ear phones from his ears he opened his mouth,
obviously about to greet me, but careful to make sure I was hidden
from Haley's view, I desperately pressed a finger against my lips
and shook my head to tell him to be quiet. Without waiting to see
what his reaction was, I walked out of the room and closed the
door.

"Nope, not in
there either," I said cheerily to Haley as I quickly marched over
to the bathroom door. I rapped on it a couple of times and called,
"Jack? You in there?" Not receiving any response, for obvious
reasons, I turned back to Haley and shrugged.

"I guess he's
not in. Do you want to leave a message?"

She blushed a
light pink, probably never doing that awful blotchy bright red
blush the rest of us deal with, and shook her head. "No that's
alright. Thank you, Natalia, I'll see you later."

I hoped to God
she meant that figuratively, and wasn't threatening to come back.
As she closed the front door Jack emerged from his room and gave me
a look.

"Well that was
very high school of you," he commented, crossing to the kitchen and
pouring himself a glass of juice.

Dropping onto
the couch, I stuck my tongue out at him. "Is that all the thanks I
get for saving you from a fate worse than death, otherwise known as
an afternoon spent in the company of the amazing clinging
limpet?"

He took a gulp
of his drink and shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know what
you've got against her, I really don't," he said, but, seeing me
about to start on my well rehearsed diatribe about Haley, he held
up a hand to forestall me. "But I don't want to get into it now.
Have you had lunch yet?"

I was slightly
thrown by the abrupt change of topic and simply shook my head in
answer as I forced myself to let go of the negative thoughts Haley
had given me.

"I haven't had
time either, so how about we go and grab some?" Jack asked,
finishing his juice and running the glass under the tap.

"Go and grab
some lunch? Jack Whitby, are you asking me out?" I asked
coquettishly, batting my eyelashes at him.

"I hadn't
thought about it like that," he said easily, refusing to rise to my
bait.

"Ah well," I
sighed theatrically as I hauled myself off the couch, "I guess I
only broke up with my boyfriend a couple of days ago, going on a
date with someone else so soon could be misconstrued."

"Perhaps," he
replied, clearly not really listening as he cast around for his
wallet.

"Are you going
to take me somewhere romantic?" I teased, taking advantage of the
fact he obviously wasn't paying attention. "Somewhere we can play
footsies under the table and nudge meatballs towards each other
with our noses?"

"Considering
how likely it is that we'll be seen by people we know, no," he
answered, still absentmindedly, finally locating his wallet and
slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans. "Are you ready?"

Feeling a
little bit put out at his obvious lack of interest I brushed past
him into my room where I grabbed my phone, wallet and lip balm out
of my uni bag and threw them into a smaller 'going out' bag.
Running a brush through my hair I re-emerged and presented myself
before Jack.

"Private
Davenport reporting for the lunch mission, sir," I said, saluting
him facetiously.

He rolled his
eyes and held the door open for me. "At ease, soldier. But keep
your eyes peeled for citizen Haley, the last thing we need is
hostile relations with our neighbouring nation."

"Too late," I
muttered, beginning to descend the stairs.

Chapter
6

"Soggy fish and
chips in newspaper, you sure know how to treat a girl," I told Jack
as I kicked my shoes off and rested my feet up on the dashboard of
his Ute. I reached into the greasy newspaper resting on my lap and
pulled out an oily chip which I proceeded to eat with relish.

"Yeah, I'm all
class." Jack reached over and plucked a piece of battered fish out
of the warm depths of the package.

We gazed out of
the windscreen at the deserted beach and lashing ocean waves
beyond. The feeble sunshine from earlier that day had long since
departed, leaving us with low grey skies emitting a soft drizzle.
Perhaps not ideal beach weather, but it ensured there was no-one
about as we sat at the lookout eating lunch.

Munching away
happily and wiping our greasy hands on our trousers we whiled away
15 minutes or so in companionable silence. Once the fish and chips
were finished, I wound down the window and threw the scrunched up
newspaper into a nearby bin with perfect precision. It sailed in
cleanly and I gave a little cheer.

I turned to
Jack. "High five!" I laughed and he obligingly slapped his palm
against mine.

"Nice shot,
Jordan."

We descended
once more into a drowsy silence, listening to the gentle patter of
drizzle as it hit the roof of the Ute, watching the scraggly grass
surrounding the lookout and banks of the beach wave back and forth
in the light wind. The dreary scene out of the windows succeeded in
making the warm interior of the battered old Ute seem particularly
cosy and comforting.

Caught up in
the fuzzy moment I lifted my eyes up to Jack's face and smiled at
him fondly. If I was expecting a smile in return I was sadly
mistaken, however, as he was looking out of the front windscreen
with a completely blank expression and so completely missed my
glance. Seeing him looking so far off I suddenly had a strong
desire to pull him back from whatever internal thoughts he was
focussing so heavily upon.

It frightened
me sometimes how serious he could get in the quiet moments. It had
been six years since he'd lost his mother and his younger brother
and sister in the horror crash which had left our small town
reeling, and everyone, but my family, thought he had moved on.
Personally I don't know how anyone could think that. How do you
move on from something like that? However, as much as I respected
his right to continual grieving it simply wasn't healthy the way
Jack cut himself off from those around him and sometimes, when he
was looking as he did at that moment, I sometimes got scared that
one day he wouldn't come back at all.

"Jack?" I said
quietly, not wanting to startle him, but determined to get his
attention. "Want to know something weird?"

For a moment I
thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he seemed to return to
himself and he turned to me with a small smile. "Always," he
replied, the tiniest hint of amusement creeping into his voice.

Glad to have
succeeded in pulling him away from his, no doubt melancholy,
thoughts, I allowed myself to say something I'd been working up to
since the beginning of the year. "I missed you."

He seemed to
focus more fully upon me and his brows creased in confusion.
"When?" He asked. "We live together, when would you possibly have
had time to miss me?"

"Not now, you
idiot," I laughed. "When you went away to uni without me. I missed
you like crazy for two years. You and Matt both."

Which, all
things considered, was a bit of an understatement. I had thought I
was going to go mad without Matt and Jack around back then. It had
been like a rug had been pulled out from underneath me. Everything
changed. When I woke up in the morning and went to sleep at night
the house was quiet, no thunderings up and down the stairs or doors
slamming. There was no racing to school with Jack and I hauling
Matt along. No recess or lunch meetings where we would swap our
food around because, as a basic rule, mum had decided the lunches
we had packed weren't acceptable and replaced our packets of chips
with soy burgers or, once, a can of whipped cream. And, although
not particularly fond memories, no more afternoons when the three
of us would hide underneath the house when Jack's dad came round
demanding his son return home.

Going from
living in a chaotic, bustling, bursting at the seams house to one
in which you could hear the clocks ticking was a very disconcerting
experience. I got used to it, of course, I'm not saying I drew
myself into a ball of misery for two years, but it wasn’t the same.
Mostly I spent less time at home, finding solace in the continued
anarchy present at Simone's house and, when the hole the boys left
felt too gaping, I would catch the bus up to their flat.

I should have
known better than to think that Jack wouldn't have noticed how
despondent I felt at being left behind. He shifted slightly in his
seat and then sent me one long look which told me, without doubt,
that he knew I had missed them. That look made me feel as if he had
taken up residence inside my head and had therefore known what I
was going to say before I'd even said it. It was disconcerting,
but, I realised with a start, I had done the same to him only
seconds before. Hadn't I known what was going on inside his head
and wanted to pull him away from it?

"Missed us?" He
said quietly. "And yet weren't you the girl who cheered as we drove
away saying, if I remember correctly, 'hooray for the banishment of
the terrible twosome'?"

I rolled my
eyes, as much as I should have known that he knew I missed them I
should also have known that he wouldn't let me get away with too
much sentimentality. "A blind monkey would’ve been able to tell
that that was just me masking my feelings. You knew I was just
putting up a front," I accused him.

He shrugged. “Maybe, but I suppose a blind monkey wouldn't
have missed that we, that
I
, missed you too." There was
something in his voice that told me that, despite having ‘blind
monkey’ in the sentence, he was being very serious and I felt my
cheeks beginning to heat up.

I couldn't
believe I was getting embarrassed again, seriously, it was
ridiculous! I didn't need to be awkward around Jack. He was Jack!
To cover my embarrassment I laughed lightly and shook my head.

"Sorry buddy,
but that doesn't count," I told him sternly. "You can't say that
you missed me too practically right after I say it. It makes it
seem insincere. There has to be a time delay otherwise it doesn't
count."

"Who says?"
Jack asked.

"Everyone, it's
a well known rule."

He nodded
gravely. "I'll wait a while then."

Well, that
hadn't been quite what I’d had in mind, still, I had definitely
brought him out of his shell for a while there. Silence descended
once more, but I felt that I still had Jack's attention and the cab
felt smaller for it.

After another
ten minutes or so, Jack straightened up and turned the keys in the
ignition. "We should get back," He said simply and I nodded in
agreement.

We drove the
fifteen minutes it took to get back to the flat in silence, but,
after Jack had expertly manoeuvred the Ute into the parking space
next to my car and I was just about to hop out, he reached out and
caught my hand in his.

I looked at him
in surprise, but didn't move, inwardly I was relishing in the heavy
warmth of his palm on the back of my hand.

"Tally," he
said quietly in a tone that made me feel as if it was the whole of
me being cupped in his palm as opposed to just my hand. "Lesson
number 3. Make sure he's in your head before he's in your
pants."

Which,
considering my earlier musings about his ability to see inside my
mind, was more than enough to send shivers down my spine.

"OK," I said,
my voice sounding more like a croak than my usual, confident,
speech.

"And be sure to
let me know when I can safely tell you I missed you," he added
before getting out of the car and beginning to stride towards our
building.

~*~

It was Saturday
morning.

I couldn't
believe it had only been three days since I had walked in on Brad
and Allison. My world felt so different. Not as normal or safe, but
certainly more interesting.

As bright early
morning sun shone merrily through my gauzy curtains, I sat up in
bed, hugged my knees and looked around. My room was painted a
cheery yellow which matched the large sunflower my mum had
embroidered onto my plain white quilt cover. The sun made the wood
of my bedside table and bookshelf glow a deep honey colour and
revealed the collages of photos I had put up around the walls. I
had worked hard to make the room a safe harbour from the storms
raging on outside its four walls and, usually, the upbeat vibe of
the room kept my demons at bay. Not this morning though.

As much as I
loved my room I had woken up with only one thought pulsing
constantly through my brain. It was not in my happy, sunny room
that I wanted to be. Yellow was not the colour I wanted to see on
opening my eyes. Instead I longed to see a deep, masculine, navy
blue. The exact colour of Jack's room.

I groaned and
banged my head against my knees. It was not good. My stomach was
tight, my head was buzzing, my heart was pounding and all because I
had dreamt that it wasn't my bed I had gone to the night before,
but Jack's. And that was only dreaming. What if I did actually
pluck up the courage of Wednesday night again and 'go all the way'
with Jack? I'd be a wreck! Hardly conducive, I would imagine, of an
unforgettable night of passion.

Taking several
deep breaths I forced the butterflies to recede and gradually began
to feel like I had some control over my body. I was just nervous, I
told myself firmly. Nothing more. So why was it then that the
tingles in my belly had felt nothing like nerves, but more
like…excitement?