Wreckless (17 page)

“You want to skip this?”

I looked at Tanner's house, knowing his parents would blame the team for pranking again and make him get up early on Sunday to clean it. There was some justice in ruining his morning after he’d ruined my night.

I knew he'd never suspect it was me…even if that popped into his head for a second, he'd laugh and dismiss it because he didn't think I had it in me.

And that’s what really ticked me off. I was tired of being underestimated, and I was going to do this even if I was the only one walking the halls of Greenville High School on Monday morning who knew.

“Heck, no. Let's do this.” I headed for the closest tree, gave the toilet paper a little tail and tossed it, waiting for that streamer of white to wrap itself around the branch and blow in the breeze.

Only to completely miss every branch.

Jake looked at the toilet paper rolling to a halt on the ground and started laughing.

“Shut up.” I picked it up and threw it again, trying to get it in far enough to hit a branch without the roll getting stuck.

It slapped one branch and snagged before hitting several more on the way down.

“Nice.” Jake actually sounded appreciative. Who knew a guy's level for being impressed could be so low?

I chased it across the lawn and grabbed it.

“Don't forget to give it some more slack again.”

Wow, there really was an art to this.

He unrolled his and went to the tree behind us. I heard it bounce through the branches and land with a
thud
.

“Two minutes, Bridget.”

I rushed through, getting in as many throws as possible. Going right under the tree and tossing my shrinking roll overhand when I had to.

I stood back, proud of my work and wishing for the second time that night that I had my phone.

“Jake.” I waved him over. “Take a picture.”

He shook his head, snagging my hand and pulling me toward the road.

“No, seriously. Take a picture.”

“Bridget, pictures get you arrested. Come on.”

“Oh.”

I was really,
really
bad at this law-breaking thing, apparently. Thank goodness vandalism was now behind me.

Jake ran, closing his gait up a little so I could sprint beside him. We jumped in the truck and drove off, me watching out our rear window for lights.

“Wow! We did it!” I turned around and glanced back again. “I can't believe we did. And they'll
never
guess it was us.”

I threw my arms around Jake, hugging him as he laughed and tried to shift around me.

“Thank you so much. Thank you for picking me up and being a complete jerk and making me do all this.”

“And getting you naked.”

“Um, yeah. I'm still not sure about thanking you for that.”

We headed away from town, just driving. The night stretched out before us. I glanced at the clock again. Just past two.

“I can still take you home. I mean, technically it's the morning.”

“This is definitely not the morning.” I laughed. I couldn't believe it. Two a.m. and there I was driving around town with a hot guy from a rival school.

This was
so
not me. No, this was so not the me that I’d to become, the me who kept a lid on things, who kept life measured and safe, who kept the worry out of everyone's eyes.

But this me—the me in the truck with the hot boy who was hoping she didn’t hear police sirens at any moment—she was feeling pretty darn happy.

“Unless you want to. You can totally take me home if you're not up to staying out.” This new Bridget was also learning that a little turnabout was fair play.

“Oh, darlin’, I'm up for whatever you've got.” He turned toward Fairview, heading back the way we'd just come.

I stretched out on the bench again, my bare feet out the window as I listened to the low sound of the country station and some guy singing about the girl he'd been too stupid to hold on to and a road trip with his dog.

We pulled up to the same pasture gate where we'd started our night. Jake jumped out and I went to slide over to move the truck.

“I don't think so.” He pushed me back in and drove us through. “It was bad enough letting you move it once, sober. There's no way coming down from that happy little buzz am I letting you behind my wheel again.”

I’d never, no matter how old I got, understand boys and their trucks.

“You let me drive it last time. It's just through the gate.”

“No. I let you move it through the gate. And, as I just pointed out, you were sober.”

He hopped out and shut the gate behind us. We drove right to the trees again and Jake turned the truck off.

“Here's your night out.”

He slid out and motioned for me to edge past the gear and follow him into the night. He led me around to the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate. There was a pile of sleeping bags in the back.

“We're sleeping out here?”

“What did you think, I was going to sneak you into my room?” He laughed.

I mumbled that I was betting he'd snuck girls into his room before.

As usual, he just gave me that grin and a wicked look that could mean anything and started laying out sleeping bags. He stretched two open out on the bed and then laid two out side by side.

Not exactly the way girls talked about camping with their boyfriends. There was a distinct lack of zipping the bags together.

Another good reminder.

He reached down and hauled me into the back, pulling the tailgate shut behind me like a door, and settled onto the bag on the driver's side. I sat on the tailgate and watched him get comfortable, hands crossed behind his head, one leg propped up.

“You plan on sitting there watching me sleep for the next…” He checked the time. “…two and a half hours?”

He patted the other sleeping bag and waited to see if I'd cave.

But I was onto him now. He wanted things both ways. He wanted to be able to push and tease me, but he wanted the line clear. He wasn't interested.

And I was. I kicked my shoes off and stepped over his midnight blue bags and slid into mine. The night was cooling, and I was glad to have the extra layer around me. I balled up my sweater under my head and studied all the stars making pinpricks in the sky.

Jake turned on his side and propped his head up on his arm, looking me over. “Your rebel night is almost over.”

It was—and it wasn’t.

I knew I wasn’t going to be lighting anyone’s truck on fire anytime soon, but I also knew I wouldn’t be going to school Monday and ignoring this weekend—ignoring the betrayals.

Would I be creating a reality show-worthy scene in the hall, tracking them down to sob and scream and beg to know why? No. But Leah wasn’t getting her best friend back and Tanner wasn’t getting a “Hey, don’t worry about it.”

They could deal with their own life-trash. I wasn’t going to sweep it up for them.

“You’re too brave to let them mess with you.”

I started to shake my head, but he interrupted before I even got going.

“Yes, Bridget. You are. You were before, too. You just needed to test yourself a little. And,” he said, giving me that grin again, “look at what you did tonight. Not very many people could squeeze every high school rebellion into a weekend, let alone a few hours. You’re like a rebel overachiever.”

“Thanks.” That's really all that mattered. That I'd done it. And that Jake had helped me.

“Don't thank me.” He fell back onto his back. “It wasn't a favor to you.”

“Yes. It was.”

“No. It wasn't. I needed to get out of there. I had…stuff going on. But I couldn't just leave you. At first I was just teasing you. I didn't think you had anything in you. But then...”

He turned on his side, focusing on me again. “Are you going to tell me what tonight was really about?”

I wanted to say no, that I didn't know what he was talking about. But leave it to Jake to see straight through me.

“What do you mean?”

“At first I thought you were just pissed at that jackass, but you haven't been thinking about him for most of the night, have you?”

“It's hard to think when you keep pushing me into crazyland.”

Jake slid toward me, hovering over me. “That's not it. You weren't running from him. You were running from all those damn rules you created. All the don't-notice-me and don't-get-in-trouble and don't-rock-the-boat rules.”

I was looking past him at those pinpricks in the endless sky and trying not to hear what he was saying.

“But darlin’…” He laid a hand on my stomach, pulling my attention back to him even as my gaze refused to leave the stars. “No one buys a dress like that if somewhere, in the very back of her mind, she doesn't want to wear it.”

For some reason I thought he'd understand. I
needed
him to understand.

“Rules keep people safe.”

“Everyone gets a little heartache in their life. That's part of it all.”

“No, I mean…
safe
.”

I felt him stiffen beside me. His hand on my stomach fisting. “Did he…hit you?”

I wrapped my hand around his fist and rolled on my side to face him. “No. No, really. He never hit me or anything. He's just an idiot.”

Jake kept looking at me as if he could tell if I was lying.

“No one's ever hurt me. I promise.”

My heart turned over. He didn't want me, he didn't want to be involved with me, but he cared. It was nice to know that after tonight there'd be one person out there who cared. Who had my best interest at the bottom of all his teasing.

I was so used to people avoiding the topic at all costs that I couldn't believe he'd ask straight out like that.

Of course, the only reason he was asking was because he didn't know. As soon as he did, he'd be avoiding the subject, wrapping me in bubble wrap, and thinking of me as that
Poor Larson Girl,
too.

“It's not a secret.” Nothing in my life was a secret. The only secrets were the ones being kept from me.

“If it's not a secret…” He paused, thinking. Probably considering if he wanted to ask. If he wanted to know—to get involved. “If it’s not a secret, then you won't mind sharing.”

His hand loosened in mine and I slid my fingers through his, knowing I'd have to have something to hold on to for the next few minutes.

I tried to figure out where to start. I'd never had to talk about it before. The upside of a small town. Everyone knows your business…of course, that's the downside, too.

I thought about putting it off. Jake being Jake probably wouldn’t have let me. He’d think he was asking about something small, something normal. And just like he had all night, he’d push.

I felt the words slipping up my throat, pushing to get out and knew once I started, I’d say it all. For the first time, I’d say it all.

“My sister Christy was three and a half years older than me. The extra half a year always seemed important to both of us. It made her just that much older. Christy was everything I'd ever wanted to be. She was beautiful and fun and smart and popular and kind. She was everything good.”

So much good in one person.

When I was little, I’d wanted to be just like her. To be honest, when I was thirteen, I had still wanted to be just like her. Even now, there were very few things about her that stood out as something I'd pass on.

“Christy met this guy the summer after her junior year. Not someone from our town. He went to one of the state colleges and was working the summer at the Jaspers’ farm. Some vet internship or something.”

I closed my eyes, blocking out the stars. I could see the guy leaning on the rail of our front porch, talking to my parents. Smiling at me.

“He'd come to the house to pick her up and charmed us all. When they left, she was just so…golden.” I couldn't think of another word. Everything about her seemed to glow. Her light hair and her early summer tan and the smile and excitement.

The fact that our mama and daddy were letting her go out with a college boy—even if he was only a freshman—had been such a big deal. The idea of someone new. I remembered her saying that. Telling me, “You'll understand one day. This town’s so small, you'll be dying for someone new.”

I glanced at Jake and smiled. He was my someone new. Even if it was only for tonight.

“When she came in that night, I heard my mom call her name like she always did.
Christy
? You know, just to make sure she was home safe and sound and before curfew. Only there was no answer.”

I tried to scrub the picture from my mind. I'd been trying to get it out for years now, but it wasn't going anywhere.

“Mama called her again, and when Christy didn't answer she got out of bed to see what was going on.” I could feel the tears on my cheeks. I hadn't cried over this in almost a year. Of course, I hadn't had to talk about it in even longer. “My mama, she starts screaming. Screaming for my dad, screaming Christy's name, just screaming. When I got to the front hall, Christy was lying on the floor.”

Jake's arms came around me and pulled me into him. I let my head rest on his shoulder and focused on the way his body shook.

“You can stop.”

I wasn't sure if he was giving me permission or asking me not to keep going, but now that I'd started, I couldn't stop. It was like trying to throw a ball in the air and tell it to stay up there while you did something else.

“He'd beaten every inch of her we could see. Her face was so swollen she couldn't open either eye. Later we found out he'd raped her twice, drove her home, dumped her on the front porch, and taken off. When the cops went to get him, he'd already made a run for it.”

My breath was coming shallow pants like I'd been in a fight. Jake’s arms tightened around me and after a moment I realized I wasn’t the only one shaking.

“We did everything. Therapy for the whole family to handle it and know what to do. My parents tried a trip to get us away. My parents tried unconditional love, tough love, space, crowding her. The bruises faded, but only on the outside.”

I closed my eyes and pictured my beautiful sister glowing like I always remembered her.

“Christy said she couldn't take people looking at her. She'd turned her mirror to face the wall. She just pulled into herself. Even as she got better...”