Wake (45 page)

Willa passes me another note. It’s directions for Wednesday. It is sort of comforting to think that Willa is going to spend time with Elwood because she has to. She spends time with me because she
wants

to. Hard to believe, I know, but I’m glad nonetheless.

I slide another note her way: Bring pepper spray to work.

You worry too much.

I prefer to believe that paranoia is just a healthy understanding of the nature of the universe, thank you very much.

*

I spend the bulk of my afternoon with my cell o. It’s still a far cry from the marathon practice sessions I used to do regularly before I got sick, but it’s progress. I play a little Mozart at Dad’s request. Dad likes music ‘with character,’ as he calls it. I practice until my knuckles bleed and show up to dinner with Band-

Aids all over my hands.

“Oh, honey, take more breaks next time,” Mom says when she sees all the bandages. I agree to make her feel better, and when supper is over I retire to my room for a nap. It’s more tiring than it looks to play cell o for three hours straight.

*

I wake up feeling utterly content, even before I open my eyes. I smile and sigh, and then I realize that my pillow is breathing. I open my eyes to find my cheek resting against the curve between Willa’s ribs and hip. When did she get here? My arm has made its way around her waist, holding her close. She has her iPod in her right hand and the other resting against my back.

“Are you awake for real this time?” she asks.

Oh God. What does that mean? I look up at her where she leans against the headboard and blink the sleep away from my eyes.

“Was I awake before?”

“When you roll ed over to put your head there you very distinctly said ‘pizza.’” She chuckles while my face goes red. She hasn’t told me to move yet. Should I?

“Do you need anything? Water?” Sometimes it’s bloody inconvenient how well she knows my needs—

like when I would rather let those needs go hang just to keep her close.

“It can wait.”

“Don’t suffer,” she says, and slips away from me. I resist the urge to grab the hem of her shirt and pul her back to me, but this bed feels empty when she’s gone. I pick up her iPod in her absence and select her playlists. What else has Miss Enigmatic been listening to this week?

I stare at the little screen, perplexed. Her playlists are all titled with guy’s names: Greg, Chris, Luke, Jem, Cody, Joey, Brian, and Frank. The one titled ‘Mom’ stands out. Frank is obviously her brother. I know who Luke and Chris are, but not why they have playlists named after them. And Cody? Cody the twit who asked Willa to the grad dance? Joey is Joey Moore, the guitar-playing kid she sits with at lunch.

I’m not sure who Brian and Greg could be. At the bottom of the list she has a file labeled
St. John’s.
I open it and find a cluster of three more playlists: Steve, Candice, and Darryn.

I go back to the main list and select the playlist she has named after me. A lot of the track titles I recognize from our bedtime music exchanges. Some I don’t know. Few of them are happy songs, though. Just for comparison’s sake, I look at Chris and Luke’s playlists. The songs in Chris’s are all over the map, but Luke has a lot of top forties.

Willa comes back with a cup of water and I return to the main playlist page.

“The hell, Kirk?” I hold up the iPod and she accepts it curiously.

“What? I organize my songs by who they remind me of.”

“Who’s Greg?”

“My dad.”

“Why do you have a playlist named after Cody?”

“He made quite an impression.” God damn it. Willa pokes my lip. “Don’t pout.” I gently bite her finger, holding it between my teeth while she tries to pull away. It makes her smile.

“Quit trying to eat me and drink your water.”

I let her go and thank her for the drink. Willa settles in while I sip it. She lies down next to me this time instead of sitting against the headboard.

“How was your first shift?” I set the glass aside and roll back to her. Willa shrugs.

“The job is pretty straightforward. Mrs. Elwood is nice. Chris is…”

“Chris.”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t say anything about the hand I rest across her stomach.

“Did you come over here right after?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t awake to greet you.”

“It’s alright. I like watching you sleep.”

I sit up on my elbow so I can see her face better. “Did I really say ‘pizza’?”

“Yeah. You must have heard me giggle, too, because you followed that up with ‘Olives. Don’t let that fucker have any.’” She giggles again and I lower myself down from my elbow, lying much closer to her this time.

“I must have been talking about Eric. He hates olives.”

“Is that so?”

I give Willa a squeeze. “Thanks for coming over. You really do cheer me up.”

Willa knits her fingers with the ones I have wrapped around her side. “I had a motive, you know.”

“Hmmm?”

Please let it be a good one
.

“I’m a little embarrassed about how I freaked out on Sunday. It wasn’t you—something my brother said made me think, and I psyched myself out. I shouldn’t have taken it all out on you.”

I give her hand a friendly squeeze. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I shouted at you. And about the phone message. And hanging up on you. And the smoking.

Fucking-A, why the hell are you still friends with me?”

That makes me snort. “You have a certain charm, believe it or not. That, and you feed me.”

“Seriously, though, I am sorry for all that.”

“Apology accepted.”

Willa rubs her thumb along my palm, careful of the bandages. She doesn’t ask what happened but wants to know if it hurts.

“Not much. It’s just small cuts.”

“You have beautiful fingers,” she says. Her voice is far away, like she’s talking to herself.

“Did you mean it when you said you liked me?”

“Yeah.” The corner of her mouth twitches up in an approximation of a smile. “I guess I do.”

“I guess I like you too.” I give her another squeeze. “Do you want to maybe…?”

“What?”

“I dunno. Date?”

“You mean, do the couple thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, call each other boyfriend/girlfriend and stuff?”

“The two generally go hand in hand, yes.” I wonder too late if that was a bad choice of phrase.

Willa wrinkles her nose. “How about we agree just to see each other?”

It’s difficult not to let my disappointment show. I try to appreciate her reluctance, but the result is still the same. Her acceptance comes twinned with rejection, and as good as the former feels, the latter stings in sensitive spots.

“That’s all you want right now?”

“Yeah.” Willa sighs with what sounds like regret.

“Don’t promise me anything.”

“I don’t want to promise you nothing, either.” She turns her head to look at me. “I do like you. I’m just not good at this stuff.”

I tighten my fingers around her side. “We’ll go slow, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want and what I can stand aren’t always the same thing.”

I have no idea what she means by that, and I have a feeling she wouldn’t explain even if I asked.

“So…seeing each other?”

“Agreed.”

I lean over to kiss her and Willa dips her head to the side, giving me easier access to her mouth. It feels good to know that she enjoys kissing me. She even wraps an arm around my side, mirroring the way I hold her. I move in to deepen the kiss and she pulls away.

“Too much.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” She gives me another peck on the lips and then rolls away to sit up. “I should go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She straightens her shirt around her torso and picks up her bag. I get out of bed to walk her to the door and she grimaces like she finds this painful.

“You’re not running away, are you?”

“Only a little,” she says quietly. Willa reaches for the doorknob and I grab her arm.

“So stay.”

“It’s almost nine. It’s a school night.”

“You’re rationalizing.”

“And it’s working.”

I fold her into a hug and she sighs softly. She won’t give up on leaving, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let her go without a proper goodbye.

“I’ll walk you out.”

*

Elise yell s, “Bye Willa!” as we cross the front room. Mom calls out a similar farewell from the kitchen.

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” I open the door for her as she shrugs into her jacket.

“Yeah, school.” Willa grabs me by the front of my shirt as she steps through the door and tows me out with her. The door is barely closed behind us before she pushes me up against the wall and kisses me.

And it is an entirely different kind of kiss from the one she pulled away from upstairs—it’s rough and deep enough to drown in. Her hands are everywhere, grabbing at my sides and shoulders like she can’t get close enough. I understand the feeling perfectly and pull her just as close. God, she feels good.

Willa pulls away just a suddenly as she jumped me. “I’m sorry,” she breathes.

“For what?” I would be embarrassed by my breathless state, but I can’t find the will to care just now.

Willa wipes her lips on the back of her hand. “That I’m so fucked up.” She turns around and dashes down the front steps. I watch her drive away while I col ect my breath. She waves from the end of the driveway.

Holy shit.

I turn to go back inside with a smile on my face. When I open the front door, a flashbulb promptly blinds me.

“Ha!” Elise cheers, and pulls the Polaroid out of the dispenser. “Your face was perfect.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Elise makes kissy noises at me and fans herself with the Polaroid. God damn it. Elise turns on her heel and skips down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Mom! Guess what Jem just did!”

Hell no.

I race after Elise and clamp a hand over her big fat mouth. My other arm locks around her waist, holding her while she struggles.

“What?” Mom asks.

“Nothing!”

She comes to the kitchen door to investigate the scuffling sounds and finds me holding Elise hostage.

Great. I hardly look innocent now.

“What’s going on?”

Elise tries to say, “He kissed Willa,” but the words are unintelligible from behind my hand.

“Let her go, Jem.”

No sooner have I released Elise than the words explode from her mouth.

“When?”

“On the porch, just now.”

“With Willa?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I can hear you, you know,” I snap at them. Mom and Elise both look up like they’re surprised to find me here.

“I didn’t know you were dating,” Mom says. A smile slowly creeps onto her face. She likes Willa, probably because she hardly knows her.

“We’re not. It’s complicated.”

“These things have a way of working themselves out.” Mom pats my cheek. “It’s about time good things started coming your way.”

Elise smugly inspects her newly developed Polaroid. I try to snatch it from her and she shoves it down her bra. God damn it.

Tuesday I pack up my homework and a magazine for the long wait at the clinic. Part of me wishes that Willa was volunteering tonight so there would be a chance that we’d run into each other. Or better yet, that she would choose to visit and keep me company during the session.

I wonder what she’s doing tonight…

Elise flings my door open without knocking and says, “Does this top work with these shoes?” Ugh, why couldn’t she have picked Eric to single out as her pseudo-sister?

“I don’t know. They’re both…nice?”

“I’ll wear my purple sweater instead.” She turns to go and I call her back.

“Where are you going?”

“To the movies with some friends.” Her answer makes me suspicious. Why didn’t she just say Carey and the other kids she sits at lunch with?

“Who?”

“Kipp and Nina and one of their friends.”

“Like a double date?”

“No, their friend is a girl.”

“You’re sure he doesn’t still think you’re a lesbian, right?”

Elise rolls her eyes at me.

“You should quit chasing him, Lise,” I tell her seriously. “You know it’s not a good situation—he’s dating someone else
and
leaving Smiths Falls in a few months for college. You’re setting yourself up for pain.”

“I’m not ‘chasing him’ anymore,” Elise says indignantly. “We’re friends. That’s it.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

She smiles and nods. “Yeah. A lot can happen when you’re away at college.” She winks. She isn’t ‘just friends’ with him, she’s biding her time.

“I think you’re going to be stuck standing around waiting until he’s married to this chick with the 2.5

kids and the picket fence.”

“A lot can happen in a few years—to both of us.” I hate it when her bad ideas are logically sound.

“Be careful.”

“I will .” She drums a quick beat on my doorframe and spins away with a little hop. “Besides, you know how good I am at bouncing back.”

That she is, quite unfortunately—it gives her zero motivation to stop dropping her own heart off high places. The day will come, though, when she falls too hard to bounce. I’m dreading it.

Wednesday I go out onto the porch to wait for Willa after school. It’s a gorgeous day out. The sun is shining and it’s so warm that I probably won’t need my sweater the whole time we’re out. Slung over my shoulder is a messenger bag full of Willa’s suggestions: two Jel -O cups, a spoon, and enough medication to tide me over for at least six hours. When she told me that last one I was excited that she wanted so much time with me today.

Willa’s car rumbles up the driveway at three-thirty sharp. She’s got the windows roll ed down and a smile on her face.

“Is it as good as St. John’s?” I ask her as I climb into the passenger seat. Willa leans out her window and pretends to consider the sun.

“It’s a tie.” She waves to Mom in the front window and backs out of the driveway.