Six
“I’ll look forward to your call,” I mumbled under my breath as I stopped at the only traffic light in town. I shook my head and listened to my left turn signal click—click, click, click, click. I swore even my car mocked me. The clicks seemed faster than usual. Today they were unusually taunting.
A faint groan slipped through my lips.
I pulled away from the diner trying to let Gabe’s words roll off my shoulders—in one ear and out the other, you know? And it shouldn’t have been too hard. Dad always complained that Bailey and I had an incredible knack for tuning out and ignoring things, so why did it suddenly feel impossible to ignore just six, simple words?
Of course I knew. It was because Gabe said them. I only wished I could understand why that meant anything. And what was with that spark? What was it about that guy?
A chill got the best of me.
Back home and far enough away from everything that had happened back at the diner, I spent the rest of the day avoiding any thought of Gabe, the Raddick Initiative, or my upcoming volunteer hours with the program.
I dedicated the better part of the afternoon working on an English essay and avoiding my sister, and thankfully, my father, too. I’d noticed that Dad was spending most of his free time working. That kept him out of the house and down at his office most evenings. Sundays were certainly no exception. As for Bailey, it was always hard to nail down exactly where she’d be.
And that’s basically how the rest of the weekend played out. Monday morning rolled around and it was time for school, so I stuck to my everyday routine and got ready.
The drive to school was an interesting one because this time I had Bailey in tow, and she was only one more distraction that I didn’t need while behind the wheel. Since hitting Gabe on Saturday morning, I’d suddenly become the most paranoid driver on the planet. I paid extra special attention to the road as I turned off Main Street and drove by the park gates off of Highway 6.
“You’ve been quiet this morning,” Bailey said, observing me from the passenger’s seat. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t need to know that I’d been thinking of Gabe as we passed the park, and she most certainly didn’t need to know about the spark.
The less Bailey knew, the better.
“Nothing.”
“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Try again.”
“I’m allowed to be quiet.” I barely darted a look at her before focusing my attention right back to the road. “It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, my infallible twintuition says otherwise,” she said. “You’re gripping the steering wheel; your knuckles are white. Your voice is shaking, your forehead’s sweating, and I’ve never seen your cheeks that shade of pink. Something’s different.”
“Nothing’s different.”
“And I’m going to go ahead and say it’s a guy.” She squinted at me. “You’ve met someone.” When I didn’t respond, not even with the slightest look, glance, or indication that she might be right, she sat straighter and readjusted her seatbelt. “Oh my God, you’re not denying it. You are so in love.”
“Will you let it go already?”
“Who is he?” she asked, and her jaw dropped. “I heard you were working with Fletcher Wilson. Is it him? You and Fletcher?”
She faced the windshield for a moment, trying to picture the idea of that match-up. When she shook her head and cringed, I couldn’t help but do the same.
“It’s not Fletcher,” I promised. “No way.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said, putting her hand over her heart. “Then who is it?”
“Let me stop you right there.” I slowed down as I approached the backed up traffic just outside school. I flipped my turn signal and waited to turn into the parking lot, and then I finally cleared the turn. “There isn’t a guy. I’m not in love, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then why did you bring it up?”
“I didn’t bring it up,” I said, parking the car in my assigned spot. “You did.”
“Because… you’re like… you’re like the freakin’ Queen of Solitude, Mandy,” she said. “And somebody has done something to bust up that ice-cold exterior of yours. Someone’s gotten to you, whether you like to hear it or not. It’s all over your face; it’s in your movement.”
“What?”
“You’re usually calm and relaxed,” she said. “You’re chill, at ease. And you act like that because you’re always getting your way—you’re alone, and you like that. But when someone gets too close, your whole body goes berserk. You get all tense.”
“What are you talking about, Bailey?”
“You parked the car two minutes ago, and you’re still gripping the freakin’ steering wheel like we’re going to blow up if you let go! You’re on edge.”
“I’m not on edge,” I said, finally peeling my hands away from the steering wheel and throwing my seatbelt off. “I’m simply trying to be a better driver, that’s all. A group that I’m involved with is about to host an awareness fundraiser about the consequences of unsafe driving habits, and I’m just trying to practice what we preach.”
“Well, that’s a load of bull,” she said, finally getting out of the car. She reached in and found her purse and back pack, and without another word, she turned on her heel and headed for the school entrance. I didn’t bust my butt trying to keep up with her, but I didn’t need to. She was waiting just outside the door by the time I caught up.
“I know you think no one knows you as well as you know yourself, but that’s where you’re wrong. You walk around acting like you’ve got it all figured out, but you’re just as lost as the rest of us. Get the stick out of your butt, and quit pretending to be someone you’re not. You’re human. You’re allowed to feel things, Mandy.” I rolled my eyes, hoping she’d see my impatience, but she ignored me. “Not everyone is going to hurt you like Mom did. Not everyone is going to break promises like Dad. Having friends, that’s okay. A boyfriend? That’s fine, too. You can’t push everyone away forever just because you got hurt once. Those stupid rules you made up, that’s all they are—stupid.”
I looked down at my feet and she quickly stomped my toe with the point of her heel.
“Holy crap, Bailey. What the heck?”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” she said, pointing a finger in my face. I held her gaze, but I wanted nothing more than to break down and cry right then and there. I didn’t think my oncoming tears had anything to do with my crushed toes. “This is the last time I’m going to say this to you, okay? What you’re doing, the way you treat people, it’s not normal. You need to stop this act before it gets out of control,” she said, shrugging. “Because one of these days, someone’s going to come along, someone who deserves your time and attention, someone who might really care about you, and you’re going to be too far gone to even see what’s right in front of your face. You’re going to miss out on true love, Mandy. And I’m not going to feel sorry for you when you do.”
And then she turned and walked away.
I looked back down to my feet again, and then I shook my head.
“Love,” I whispered, and I almost choked on the word.
No one finds the love of their life when they’re eighteen. Even if it was possible, didn’t she know that young love was always destined to end in tragedy? Hadn’t she read Romeo & Juliet?
What could my sister ever know about falling in love? She wasn’t in any kind of position to give me advice. Sure, Bailey knew a lot about a lot, but when it came to love and my ability to find it… she was most certainly wrong.
I—do—not—fall—in—love, and I never would, especially at eighteen. But my biggest fear was that maybe I had the potential to develop a crush, and that thought frightened me to the depths of my very soul. But...if that potential could exist, and if there was even a slight possibility that I could feel something like that, did that mean that spark I felt at the diner had been real? Did that mean Gabe had
become the game-changer?
I didn’t know.
But I did know one thing, and that one simple truth brought me to tears yet again: as far as Gabriel Raddick was concerned, my heart was in serious trouble.
I followed my sister into the building and watched as she turned down the right-hand corridor to meet with her two best friends. The three of them had a standing tradition: get to school fifteen minutes before the first bell, catch up on anything they might have missed since they’d last seen each other, and then break off for the day, knowing they’d have to wait until lunch to reconvene for more juicy gossip on the happenings around the school.
I definitely wouldn’t have pegged my sister and her friends as the school’s mean girls; that wouldn’t have been a fair assessment. Sure, they were a close-knit group with zero room for new friends or outside-infiltration. They were beautiful, materialistic, and popular, but they rarely treated anyone poorly. People liked them, and some even worshiped the ground they walked on. But the gossip they shared with one another stayed amongst their group. There was something sacred about their bond; what happened in their group, stayed in their group. For that, I was very thankful. No doubt Bailey was filling them in on her suspicions about my (non-existent) love life. I could deal with a few people thinking whatever they wanted to think, but I couldn’t deal with the pressure of the larger rumor mill at our school. So for Bailey and her friends’ silence, I at least had one thing to be thankful for going into the day.
I started my mornings in the news room.
“Mandy,” Georgia said, sliding her chair out from under her desk. I looked up to our editor, and she looked down at me with a disappointed glance. “I never heard back from you this weekend. You got my e-mail, right?”
Georgia St. James was a senior and the editor of the school’s popular newspaper, the Sugar Creek High Herald. It was under her reign last year that the program was spared from taking the ax. The administration had nearly scrapped the whole program in order to clear some room in the budget, but Georgia swooped in with a two-year proposal and led the rally against the shutdown. In her first year as editor, only sixteen years old and a junior in high school, she came in and cut the journalism costs by 60 percent. Of course, that took us down to producing a bi-weekly paper. With a new edition only coming out once every two weeks, she was a stickler for getting the best articles from the best reporters.
She called upon my help a lot because she knew she could count on me to do the job quickly and efficiently. Despite our mutual admiration for one another’s work efforts on the paper, we rarely exchanged a word outside the classroom. She had her group of friends, and I managed just fine on my own.
See, those rules I’d created for myself weren’t stupid, no matter what my sister thought. I needed them. I needed the security. It was when people were reckless enough to break the rules that chaos ensued, and I had no room left in my life for chaos. So the three most important rules remained:
#3: Cut out Mom.
#2: Keep everyone at arm’s length.