Things I’ll Never Say (21 page)

Marco asked me if I wanted a Blizzard or some chicken strips, but I said that I didn't.

“At least get off your bike.”

I shook my head. “I shouldn't have said I'd meet you.”

“Really? What's wrong with me?”

“Nothing, I guess. Except you're older and my mom doesn't want me going out with older boys.”

He just laughed. “Since when do you pay any attention to her? Alan's fifteen, and you make him take off his shirt so you can play some kind of game. Wolfie's sixteen, and he said —”

I yelled at him, “They told you that? They talked to you about me? Well, I don't care what Wolfie said. I'm sorry I promised to meet you. That's all I came to say. I'm going home now.”

Then Marco called me a name.

I rode like the wind! I know that's a cliché, and I know my English teacher would mark me down for it, but it was how fast I was. Then I just sat outside the house on my bike until my heart stopped beating a thousand miles an hour.

When I finally went inside (I didn't cry; I wasn't going to cry!), Mom was sitting on the couch drinking tea out of a big blue cup.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked. “You look really hot. You're not sick, are you?”

I shook my head. “I'm okay. I just rode fast.”

“Do you want to watch TV with me?”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, if you want. Can we make popcorn? I'll just go to the bathroom and come right back.”

I didn't go to any bathroom. I went into my bedroom, got Dad's picture, found a pair of scissors, and cut it into ribbons. And then slivers. And then confetti.

When I was just about finished, my phone rang, but I let it go to voice mail. I told my mom I'd be right back, and when I say something like that, I totally mean it.

Back in my old life, Jason was the craziest thing in it.

Okay.
Almost
the craziest thing. The real true craziest thing? I try not to talk about it. Or her. Ever.

Today, Jason is waiting in the parking lot of my new school in my new town where Dad and I moved to remake our lives after my mother did what she did — a story I never repeat, to anyone. I even changed my first name so nobody would put two and two together and say, “You're
her
daughter?”

When I come outside, slinging my new red backpack over my shoulder (the backpack's woven with hemp because I cart around so many books these days — not schoolbooks, just stuff I like to read), he's slouching casually against his car, arms crossed, looking unbelievably hot with that sandy-blond windblown hair. Girls glance at him as they pass, putting extra swing in their hips.

His eyes meet mine.

Sweat breaks out in a thin line over my upper lip. My heart beats so fast, I feel like I'm running uphill.

I start to walk the other way, quickly, but he jogs after me.

“Beth,” he calls. “Hey, Beth!”

I keep walking until he grabs my arm and spins me around.

“Why are you ignoring me?” His green eyes are eager, too eager, like he's about to burst with some secret. I know that look well, from back when he was my boyfriend.

“My name's not Beth,” I say. “It's Joy.”

“Beth, Joy, whatever. I don't care what you call yourself; I know who you are,” he says.

My throat aches with unshed tears.

“C'mon, it's
me.
Jason. Just . . . could you say hi or something?”

Passing girls give us curious looks. I know what they're thinking:
Why her?
I'm the nothing new girl, barely noticeable. I've made a couple of friends, but I'm not insane like I was in my old life. Get this. I'm making As and Bs now. When I'm not studying, I spend all my time reading novels. Or practicing piano.
Piano.
I never knew I'd find music so liberating.

I've started running in the mornings before school, too, even though the air is growing crisp and soon snow will fall. Now my lungs hurt because of the altitude, not because I'm inhaling.

I'm nothing like the way I was at home.

Actually, this is home now. And I like it. I like the new me. I like the quiet and the solitude. I like being a good girl. I like the
freedom
in all of that.

My friend Angie catches my eye.
Everything all right
? she mouths.

I nod and she waves before heading left to walk home. Usually, we walk home together, talking and laughing. Carefree, the way I always wanted to be, before.

I suppose I don't deserve to feel so free. But I do.

I look at our feet — my torn Chuck Taylors, Jason's brand-new Nikes. He's standing extra close, closer than a boy who's supposed to be a stranger stands. His clean-boy smell, with hints of the expensive shampoo and gel he uses, threatens to overwhelm me with longing.

So I don't protest when he pulls me into a hug, his arms circling my waist and his lips pressed against my hair. God, I missed him.

“You never said good-bye,” he whispers.

I melt a little then, enough to pull back and look up at him. He's tan and ripped — obviously he's been spending time in the gym — but I focus in on the white line across the bridge of his nose. That scar is part of the life I left behind. He got that broken nose defending me from some creep. It's a reminder of everything I lost. Jason. My mom. The two people who knew all the bad things I did and . . . well . . . they loved me anyway.

Crap. It's true.
They loved me anyway.

But I had to save myself. And it's true; I didn't say good-bye. Dad and I just packed up and left one day without telling anyone. Honestly? It was a good feeling.

“I'm sorry,” I say. And I am. Sort of. I'd do it again, though. They loved me — but they were the reason I'd done all those bad things in the first place.

He tucks a strand of dark hair behind my ear. “You cut your hair,” he says. “I like it. It's sexy. A different look.”

“Why are you here?” I ask.

He leans in then, his lips tickling my ear as he whispers, “I know where your mother is.”

My heart lurches. The question pops out before I can help myself: “Where is she?” I follow this with a quick “Who sent you?” Is this a trap?

“Nobody,” he says, and then when he realizes I don't believe him, he says, “Your mom. She's the one who sent me.”

For a beat, we're both silent.

That's never happened before. When Jason and I were together, one of us was always talking. Maybe it was the loose lips of stoners, or maybe we were never truly comfortable enough with each other to be quiet together.

Finally I break the silence. Awkward, feeling my way through this blind. “What makes you think I want to see her?”

To get away from what happened, Dad and I moved from Albuquerque to this small town in the mountains. We left a fancy brand-new two-story house. Now we live in a little adobe that was probably built when the Spanish were colonizing New Mexico. I exchanged a big-city high school for a tiny-ass high school where everybody's known one another since they were in diapers. Except me. But that's okay. I don't mind being the new girl as long as nobody pays too much attention to me.

“Why
wouldn't
you want to see her — after everything she did for you?” Jason asks. “For us?”

When people here ask about my mom, I just say, “She's not with us anymore.” And that's true, even if they take away a different meaning from the truth. But I let the misunderstanding ride because it's easier that way, easier if they think she's dead.

I mean, what would they say if I told them the real story? That I dragged my mom into drug dealing? That now she's on the FBI's Most Wanted list?

The truth is, this is the nightmare I've been dreading. Dad and I have never talked about it — what we'll do if Mom manages to find us. Of course, Dad doesn't know the whole story. He doesn't know what I know. That
I'm
the reason she's on the run. That everything she did, she did for me.

Jason pulls out his cell phone and shows me a picture of my mom. Her hair's been chopped off and dyed blond, but it's her, all right.

“She wants to see you,” he says.

I hesitate. The last time I saw my mom, she was cooking spaghetti; the next day she was gone, forever labeled “cop killer.” You should have seen the headlines.

“Have you changed that much?” Jason asks. “That you don't want to see your own
mom
?”

“You don't know what it was like,” I say. “Growing up with my mom. The constant
pressure.
”

As far back as I remember, Mom was always
hovering.
She wanted to be in on everything I ever freaking did.

“C'mon, Beth,” he says. “I was there. I went through it all with you. With your mom.”

It's true, he did. He was there when Mom asked us what we thought we were doing. When she took half our stash, said she could relieve us of the responsibility, she'd take care of it. When she got us in even deeper. When she stalked out of the house to deal with the man in the brown car parked on the curb, watching our house. The man she later murdered.

She said she knew from the first what I was keeping in my closet. “You can't keep secrets from me, Beth, honey,” she said. “I gave birth to you. I watched you grow up. I
know
you.”

These days, the only thing I keep in the closet is my collection of old movies. Yeah, along with reading and playing the piano, I now have a serious addiction to Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.
Those
were the days.

But Mom? She liked dealing. She said it made her feel alive.

Nine months ago, three things happened, all on the same day: a police officer named Richard “Loop” Lopez was murdered; the police showed up at our front door, saying my mother had killed him in front of Beto's Taco Truck on Central Avenue in front of eight witnesses; and Mom disappeared. On the run.

The irony? Her disappearance was bankrolled by yours truly. At least in part. When I went to look, the money I'd been saving in a shoe box under my bed was gone. Mom took every cent I ever made dealing and left.

There were lots of speculations about why she did it. Were Mom and Officer Lopez having an affair? Was my dad involved in a case that somehow had something to do with Officer Lopez? They couldn't find any connection between Mom and this cop.

But I knew why she'd done it.

I knew exactly why.

She did it for me. For us. To get us all out of trouble. The only problem is that she made it worse. At least for herself.

But she did give me this one gift, at least. Dad and I were able to move on, get out, start a new life.

“She's your
mom
, Beth,” Jason says now. Then, “She
saved
us.”

But I'm not Beth Baxter anymore. I'm Joy. And Joy doesn't have a mom.

Jason sees that my mind is wandering. “Beth. Beth. Beth!” he says, trying to get my attention. “She just wants to see how you're doing in this new life she gave you.”

I look at him, and I know that the look I'm giving him is a look from the old days. A withering glare. The kind Beth would have given him.

“I'm Joy,” I say. I feel a ridiculous need to insist on this. To protect myself. Not Beth. The new me. Joy. “And my mom didn't
give
me — or you —
anything.
She did it to save herself. Not just us.”

“We don't have to go if you don't want,” Jason says. “We can just go for a ride.” He touches my cheek with one finger. “I missed you.”

We walk back to Jason's car.

The sun is shining and the air is crisp, the smell of piñon trees in the air. I breathe in deep. I love that smell. The smell of my new life.

And then I look sideways at the boy next to me and the world loses its bright shine for just a second.

As we reach the car, one of my classmates, whose name escapes me — even though he plays basketball, is the track team's star runner, and always makes interesting comments in history class — notices us. “S'up, Joy?” he calls. He looks Jason up and down. “Y'all right?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I say. It's a small town, which is why everybody is noticing Jason. I'm counting on that to keep me safe. Just in case.

Jason shoots me a jealous look.

“I'm not your girlfriend anymore,” I say, defending myself.

“You never broke up with me,” he says. “So technically you are.”

He's driving a nice car, way nicer than he ever had when we were together. It makes me suspicious.

“Who's paying for your ride?” I ask.

He grins. “My daddy,” he jokes.

“Jason,” I say, my voice low, “I left all that behind. I don't live that life anymore. If you're still —”

“Relax, babe,” he says.

The feeling I get as I sink into the fine leather seat is mirrored in my heart. Trapped.

I remember that feeling well. I used to be fun — always up for a good time. Except it began to seem like I had to be that way. I could never say, “No, thanks, I'd rather stay home and read a book.” That's a privilege I have now. And believe me, I read a lot of books.