The Crushes (20 page)

The elevator dinged and the doors opened on the first floor. An older couple peered inside at Raven and Blake still pressed into the corner of the elevator.

Blake pushed off the wall and hurried through the lobby, leaving Raven still warring with the pleasure and guilt mixing in her gut.

Rule 7:
Be adventurous and daring! See life as an adventure!

Rule 26:
Do not feel you have to tell your friends who you are crushing on!

Drew was taking Kelly on their first official date, but Kelly had insisted they do something privately. What if they went out to a restaurant, just the two of them, and someone saw them?

It would be suicide. Kelly didn’t want anyone to know about her and Drew. At least not yet. Eventually it’d come out. And she was so
not
looking forward to that day.

Kelly had left the date plans up to Drew because he was good at plans and final decision-making. Kelly liked to go with the flow. Whatever he wanted was fine with her.

“Who wants to drive?” Kelly asked when he showed up at her house around six.

“We’re taking your car,” he said. “Todd is borrowing my truck.”

Kelly frowned. “For what?”

“Birthday stuff.”

“What are you guys getting for my birthday party that needs to be hauled in a truck?”

He grinned. “Tables and stuff, but don’t concern yourself with birthday plans. Tonight is you and me and dinner.”

“Speaking of which,”—she lowered her voice—“did you tell my brother…you know…”

“About us? No. He thinks I’m taking you out shopping tonight for streamers.” He shrugged. “I already bought a whole bag of pink ones, if that’s all right with you.”

Kelly couldn’t help but smile. Drew knew her so well. “Pink is good.”

“Give me two seconds to go talk to Todd and then we’ll go.” He disappeared down the hallway, and Kelly went into the kitchen, where her mom was doing dishes.

“Going out tonight?” Mrs. Waters asked.

Kelly nodded excitedly. “With Drew.”

Her mother turned around. “With Drew?”

“Yeah. But don’t tell Todd! Please.”

“You have my word.” She pushed her long strawberry blond bangs behind her ear. “What happened with Drew and Sydney?”

Kelly’s animated expression fell. “Syd broke up with Drew over a week ago.”

“But does she know you and Drew…”

“No.” The guilt came back full force. Kelly bit her lower lip. “At least not yet.”

“Well,” Mrs. Waters set a hand on her hip, “just be careful. And smart. Okay?”

Kelly nodded just as Drew came into the kitchen. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” Kelly said, following him out the door.

Drew drove Kelly’s car because he knew where they were going and didn’t want to tell Kelly until they arrived. About ten minutes after leaving home, Drew pulled into Eagle Park.

“This is perfect,” Kelly said, clapping her hands together. “A picnic in the woods?”

“Not quite.” He smiled and got out, grabbing the shopping bags from the back seat. He’d picked a few things up earlier, though he hadn’t let Kelly look at the goodies.

Drew went to the concession stand near the lake’s edge and Kelly went over to the shore while she waited. The lake was placid today. It almost looked like glass, reflecting the surrounding woods in a near perfect upside-down picture.

When Drew came up to Kelly’s side, he had a key in his hand.

“What are those for?” she asked.

“We’re taking out a canoe.”

He went to the row of canoes locked to a railing. He undid the lock on a blue canoe and shoved it into the water. “Get in.”

“A canoe? A picnic on the lake?”

“Is that okay?” He took off his glasses and slipped them over the collar of his T-shirt. “We could do something else…”

“No! I love it.”

With Drew’s help, Kelly climbed into the wobbly canoe and slowly made her way to the front. Drew got in the back end and pushed the canoe into deeper water with the oar.

They glided over the glassy surface. Kelly grabbed her own oar and pushed it through the water.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Let’s go around the bend.” He steered and Kelly kept paddling, switching sides every few minutes. Twenty yards off the shore, her arms felt the burn of rowing. Adam would be proud.

A few swans swam off to the left side of the canoe. A motorized boat trolled the lake in the distance, a few fishing lines extending out from the boat’s side into the water.

Drew and Kelly rounded the bend in the lake where the land jutted out like a thumb. Once they were on the other side, Eagle Park disappeared from view and they had total privacy.

“This is so nice,” Kelly said, resting her oar on her lap. “I’ve never been out here on a canoe.”

“You haven’t?”

She shook her head. “Never even thought about it.”

Overhead, smoky clouds blew in, covering the blue sky. A breeze kicked up, disrupting the placid lake and tossing wispy strands of hair around Kelly’s face.

Drew paddled until they were about thirty yards away from the lake’s edge and still hidden by the mass of land behind them. He set his oar in the back of the canoe and stood up.

Kelly shrieked as the boat rocked. “Drew!” She clutched to the canoe’s sides.

He laughed. “It’s all right.” He sat down on the middle seat right behind Kelly. “See, we’re not going overboard.”

She set her oar down and turned to face Drew.

“I do not want to go in the water.”

“Yeah, but then I could be a hero and rescue you.”

Kelly grinned. “Well, when you put it that way…”

He set the shopping bags between them. “I brought all your favorites. Something chocolately. Something salty. And something healthy. You know, so you can choose.”

“Yeah, because I’m really going to turn down the chocolate for the…”—she looked in the bag—“for the grapes.”

She pulled out the bag of peanut butter M&M’s. “Oh my god, I haven’t had these in forever.”

Drew twisted open a bottle of water. “Remember when we were little we’d suck all the chocolate off till they were only balls of peanut butter?”

Kelly laughed. “Yes! And then we’d eat several mushy balls of peanut butter at one time.”

He nodded, then scooted off the bench of the canoe and sat on the cool fiberglass bottom. “Come here.”

She did the same, turning again so that they sat shoulder to shoulder, their backs leaning against the middle bench. Water lapped at the sides of the canoe, pushing it through the lake, farther out from shore.

Drew wove his arm around Kelly, his thumb rubbing circles over her bare shoulder. Goose bumps popped, racing from his fingertips clear down to her forearm.

With his other hand, he touched her cheek, brushed hair from her eyes. “You look so pretty right now.”

She grinned. “Thanks.”

He kissed her, softly and slowly, using only lips on lips, his fingers on her flesh. And then his tongue grazed hers.

A misty rain fell from the smoky clouds as the breeze shifted again. It wetted Kelly’s face, cooling her cheeks where the blood pooled from Drew’s touch.

Kelly could have sat there with him on the bottom of the canoe in the middle of the lake for forever, but all good things must come to an end, right?

And their good time ended when Drew’s cell rang.

“It’s Sydney,” he said, after seeing the screen. “Should I answer it?”

Kelly ran her teeth over her lip. “I don’t know.” She paused, then, “Yes, answer it. But I’m not here.”

He flipped the phone open and hit the
SEND
button. “Hello?”

He eyed Kelly, his arm still around her as he listened to Sydney on the other end.

“No,” he said. “I’m at Todd’s.”

Kelly’s heart sunk. It felt so bad going behind her friend’s back so she could be with Drew. If she didn’t like him so much, she’d call the whole thing off. But she’d go insane if she had him for only a short week and had to give him up.

“That’s because we just got back,” Drew said. “We were shopping for stuff for the birthday party.” He sighed after hearing Sydney’s reply. “I don’t know why you even care. We’re not together, Sydney, in case you’ve forgotten. I shouldn’t have to tell you where I’m at or what I’m doing.”

He looked at Kelly and rolled his eyes, then, “I’m hanging up, Syd. Good-bye.” He flipped the phone closed and hung his head back.

“What?” Kelly asked.

“She caught me lying about being at your house with your brother.”

Butterflies, and not the good ones, slashed through Kelly’s stomach. “What did she say?”

“Apparently, she went over to your house and your brother told her me and you left together an hour ago.”

Kelly winced. “This is not good.”

“It’s all right, Kel. We don’t have to answer to Sydney.”

“But she’s my best friend!” Kelly rubbed her forehead. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Do you want to stop seeing each other?” Drew grabbed a lock of her hair and twirled it around his finger. She shivered.

“No.”

“Then we’ll figure it out, okay?” He squeezed her shoulder and kissed her quickly.

The misty rain fell harder.

“We should probably go in.” Drew got up and navigated his way to the back of the canoe. Kelly got onto the front bench.

“I love you, Kels,” he said softly.

The worse thing about it was, Kelly desperately loved him, too, and if she had to make a choice between Sydney and Drew? Who would she choose?

Deep down, she knew she’d already chosen.

Rule 12:
Be agreeable and easy to get along with!

Sydney quietly opened her bedroom door and stuck her head into the hallway. Her mother and father’s voices were soft murmurs in the kitchen. They were talking divorce. Sydney knew because she’d overheard the word late last night when she’d gotten out of bed to use the bathroom.

Now her parents were probably talking terms or maybe other options.

At this point, Sydney didn’t care and maybe that was worse than being upset.

Back in her room, she grabbed her keys and her bag. She had to be at work in fifteen minutes. She seriously considered sneaking out her bedroom window to avoid her parents, but she didn’t want them thinking she’d run away like her mother had.

Groaning to herself, she headed down the hallway, her pace quick, her head down. She hoped to slip past the kitchen without being noticed. Unfortunately, as soon as
she entered the kitchen, both her parents stopped talking and looked up.

“Sydney?” her mother said.

Sydney hesitated between the kitchen and the living room. That stupid fish clock on the wall ticked, filling the awkward silence. Sydney hadn’t said more than ten words to her mother since she arrived, and she didn’t plan to say more than twenty total.

“What?” She quirked a brow.

Sydney looked from her mother to her dad. Her mom was put together like always, as if at any moment she’d get a call for another business meeting and have to leave town. Her black hair was pulled into a chignon. Pearls adorned her ears and wrapped around her neck. She wore a black suit and pointy heels.

Sydney’s father, on the other hand, looked like he’d just climbed out of bed. His dark brown hair stuck up around the crown. Stubble covered his chin. There were dark bags beneath his eyes.

“Do you have any free time tonight or tomorrow so we can talk?” her mom asked.

Why had her mother even come back? Guilt? Money?

Sydney tightened her grip on the car keys, the points of the key digging into her flesh. Did she have free time after work? “No,” she answered and marched out the door.

The hospital seemed unusually cold today. Sydney zipped up her hoodie and shoved her hands in her pockets
as she waited for the elevator to make its slow crawl up to the third floor. You’d think for a hospital, it’d move a little faster, but Sydney would bet that if she raced to take the stairs, she’d get to the third floor before the elevator even cleared the second.

She just didn’t feel like stair climbing today.

The doors dinged open on the second floor and Sydney stepped back into the corner to make room for any new passengers. Except there was only one person waiting and it was Quin.

“Hey,” he said, stepping inside. “How are you?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Not good. Today isn’t a good day.”

“Is it your mom?”

“Yes.”

They got out on the third floor and hung there by the elevator banks. Quin leaned against the wall, his white Oxford shirt blending in with the equally unappealing white walls. Now that Sydney knew what Quin was like outside of work, she hated seeing him inside the hospital. He had to shield himself here, cover his tattoos, and tie back his hair. She hated that he had to edit himself like that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Sydney shook her head. She felt more comfortable talking about how she felt with Quin, but she just didn’t have the energy right now.

“I just kinda want to get my work done today and have some time alone, if that’s okay with you.”

“Whatever you need, and when you want to talk or hang out or whatever, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks. Really. I appreciate it.”

They parted, Quin going to West One and Sydney to West Two. She stopped at the nurses’ station to get a to-do list from Jannie.

“Just visit each room and see if the kids want anything,” Jannie said.

It sounded good to Sydney. She certainly didn’t feel like dressing in a dragon costume today. In the first couple of rooms, the kids wanted movies and Sydney fetched those. In the fourth room, with the nurse’s permission, Sydney gave the boy some microwave popcorn along with his movie.

In the last room she visited, she said hello to the little girl lying in bed, her tiny frame drowning in the starched white blankets. She’d been there for over a week and her parents had yet to visit. There were no balloons in her room, no flowers.

Sydney didn’t know the specifics of the little girl’s hospitalization, but Sydney did know the little girl wasn’t doing well.

“Hey, Haley,” Sydney said as she entered the room. Cartoons played from the TV. The machines behind the girl’s bed beeped. The IV dripped steadily at her bedside.

“Hi, Sydney!” Haley grinned wide. “I was wondering when you worked again.”

Sydney pulled up one of the guest chairs and sat down. “How are you?”

“I’m good. It’s a nice day out.”

Sydney glanced over her shoulder out the window. The sky was overcast and rain fell in sheets. “A nice day?”

“I like the rain,” Haley said, dialing down the volume on the TV. “The rain is pretty.”

Sydney looked out the window, trying to see what Haley saw. It was so dark and dreary, how could it be pretty?

“You don’t see it?” Haley asked.

“Not really.”

“People see things differently,” she mused. “That’s okay.”

Sydney turned back around.

Haley was about ten years old, with acorn brown hair and hazel eyes. Freckles peppered her nose and chubby cheeks. There was always a smile on her face, no matter how many times the nurses had to poke her or check her blood pressure or hand over foul-tasting medicine.

“How do you stay so upbeat when you’re stuck in a hospital?” Sydney heard herself ask. She quickly regretted it. She was talking to a child, a sick child, and she was bringing up the girl’s illness. Quin had told her over and over again that it was their job to try to make the kids forget why they were here. And Sydney had just broken that rule.

Of course, she was breaking a lot of rules lately. Certainly there wasn’t a rule in the Crush Code that said to break up with the boy you were supposed to love.

Haley glanced at Sydney, unfazed by the blunt question.

“You can’t let the bad things get to you,” she said. “Bad things must happen to you in life. The bad things teach us how to appreciate the good things. Well. That’s what my grandpa used to tell me before he died.” She widened her smile, her eyes focusing again on Sydney. “My grandpa
always said,” she added, “there can be no rainbow without rain.”

Sydney laughed and somehow the conversation veered from chocolate to knock-knock jokes to weird dreams.

And when Sydney left Haley’s room an hour later, her day didn’t seem so bad anymore.