Chapter 7 – Rhett #2
I smile politely and watch as Jael’s eyes move to mine nervously.
I can see the plea behind them, don’t make a scene, Rhett, and for now, I’ll honor her silent request, but running into these two around town for the next month while she’s working, yeah, I’m not going to be able to tolerate it silently for much longer.
“Great to see you two are back together. Just like old times, huh?” I say sarcastically, though Owen must not catch my tone because he just nods and keeps on grinning.
I knew that would piss Jael off, and Owen would be too dense to realize it, and boy does the fire lick behind Jael’s green eyes when she glares back at me.
I can’t help but feel satisfied to see she hasn’t completely lost her personality since she skipped town and broke my heart.
“Yeah man, who would have thought that Jael and I would be single again ten years later. Feels like fate.”
Alright, slow down there, buddy.
“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I grit out while internally cringing and forcing myself from saying anything worse and making a scene.
“Next order! The attendee calls out, saving me from one of the worst conversations of my life.
“Well, enjoy your date,” I call over my shoulder as I order two hot dogs, and some sodas then head off to my section without another glance their way.
Jael stopped being your problem when she left town.
Don’t get sucked back into the memories.
She. Left. You.
I find our section and spot Penelope already sitting, half-slouched in her seat, thumbs flying across her phone as she scrolls through her social media. The roar of the crowd might as well be white noise to her because she isn’t paying any attention to the game.
“Hot dog. And a drink,” I say, handing them over.
Her eyes flick up just long enough to beam at me. “Oh my gosh, thank you Rhett.” Then she’s back to her screen, tearing into the hot dog without ever breaking scroll.
I stay on my feet, trying to match the crowd’s energy, cheering when they cheer, clapping when they clap. Maybe if I make enough noise, it’ll drown out the mess in my head from that encounter.
But it doesn’t.
It keeps circling back to Jael. To Jael and Owen. Together. On a date. Like the last decade never happened. Like all the wreckage between us could just be brushed aside and forgotten. Like the real reason she never came back to town wasn’t him.
It shouldn’t matter. Hell, it doesn’t matter but it somehow still hurts.
Because I’m standing here stewing about it while Penelope, my supposed date, barely notices I exist. And normally, that wouldn’t bother me at all.
We have an expiration date anyway. But tonight, it just reminds me how achingly lonely I am.
She’s more interested in liking every post her friends make than watching the damn game.
Just biding her time until she can ditch this town for good.
Just like Jael once did.
That thought lands hard, twisting in my gut, the ache rising sharp and familiar. Yeah, I knew Jael was going to leave after we graduated high school, but at one time I thought she’d be back to visit me.
I shove that pathetic thought down, but it clings like a burr.
Penelope polishes off the hot dog, wipes her hands on a napkin, then slides closer, looping an arm around my waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Her voice turns lighter, playful, almost flirty.
It’s the routine that we always follow. Do something together since we’re both lonely, then find a quick exit to hook up and get out of here before we can go back to our sad, lonely existences.
“You ready to go yet?” she asks, her long lashes fluttering as she tilts her head up at me. “This game is boring as hell.”
Boring. I used to find these high school games entertaining. Coming here, to show support to the town who gave this guy from the wrong part of town a chance once he owned his own plumbing business and have been supporting me ever since.
But now, knowing she’s back in town and at this same stadium makes it feel suffocating to stand here.
I glance back at the crowd, my eyes scanning for Jael and Owen like I’m some kind of detective searching for the answers to the crime.
The stands are packed, people still standing and cheering, and I can’t see them.
My jaw tightens as I picture them somewhere else now laughing, catching up, him feeding her some smooth line to get in her head. In her pants.
She’s not your problem anymore, Rhett. I chant it in my head like a war cry.
She stopped being that the moment she ignored all my warnings, broke my heart, and walked away.
◆◆◆
Rhett: If you’re not out here and inside my truck in the next sixty seconds, I’m leaving your ass at school, and you can walk yourself back to the trailer park.
Once again, I’m parked out front of the high school, waiting on Jael.
Late. Again.
It’s starting to feel like some bad cliché—me stuck here in my truck, engine ticking, expensive gas I can hardly afford burning, while the rest of the lot empties out one car at a time.
Everyone else gets to go home. I’m just the idiot still sitting here.
Waiting on a girl. Except the sad part is that she isn’t even my girlfriend.
I lean back, pressing my head against the seat, thumb hovering over my phone before I finally sigh and hit send.
And right then, the double doors to our school slam open.
Jael comes flying out, flustered and breathless, clutching her books to her chest like they’re the only thing keeping her upright.
“Sorry, Rhett! I got caught up talking to Mr. Alston about our biology exam,” she says as she slides into the passenger seat, fumbling with the seatbelt like it’s a race to get it clicked in.
I roll my eyes—extra dramatically, just to make sure she notices how much she’s inconvenienced me—then shake my head like she’s a massive disappointment. This whole favor to my mom with driving Jael now that I have my license, is starting to be more like a pain in my ass than anything.
Without a word, I put the truck in drive and ease out of the parking spot.
“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it,” she snaps, her tone full of attitude for someone who she’s come to depend on. She could take the bus home if she wanted to, and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.
Well, maybe that isn’t entirely true. The kids who ride the bus to our trailer park are some of the roughest and I wouldn’t feel great knowing Jael would be sitting with them.
She drops her books onto the seat beside her and starts shuffling through a chaotic mess of paper quizzes and tests, looking like she’s on a scavenger hunt with no map. Then her phone lights up on top of the pile with a ping loud enough to annoy me all over again.
I sigh loudly and steal a glance at it. The screen flashes with a photo of her kissing a familiar blonde guy on the cheek and nope, now I’m pissed.
“Ugh, Owen, Jael? Really?” I say, as I turn out of the school’s parking lot and onto the main road that runs through our small-town.
She glances at the phone, and her face instantly softens, breaking into a big, goofy grin as she swipes up to read the text that just came through. She types back a reply, her fingers moving quickly over the screen, all while wearing that ridiculous smile like nothing else in the world matters.
When she’s done, she powers the phone off and sets it on the seat beside her like it’s no big deal, like she hasn’t just rubbed salt in a wound I’ve been trying to forget even existed and she’s completely unaware of.
“He’s like a young Brad Pitt,” she says, sighing dreamily.
“He looks nothing like him. Except maybe the version of him in Fight Club where his face is all fucked up.”
She smacks my arm. “Even if his face was fucked up, he’d still be hot.”
“Are you sure you really feel that way or are you just like every other girl in our high school who’s attracted to guys who treat them like shit?”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t answer. Sure, Owen might be objectively attractive, but the way some of the girls at my school fan over him? Frankly, I don’t get it. His personality is shit and even worse, he treats the girls he dates like they’re dirt.
“So, what is this, are you two dating now?”
She grins. “It’s new, but I think so.”
“How do you think you’re dating someone?”
“He asked me to come to his game Friday night and wear his jersey number. That counts as dating, right?”
I roll my eyes hard and groan.
Sounds like he wants to mark his territory but not take her on a proper date, but I decide to keep those thoughts to myself because I’m not Jael’s father or her brother, and she’s not my problem outside of the scope of me giving her a ride to and from school.
“It sounds like something Jael, but I’m not sure what that something is. If he’s on the field playing, and you’re in the stands, that's not taking you on a date.”
“Ugh, you’re so negative. Don’t burst my bubble. He’s dreamy, and I’ve had a crush on him since I moved here in eighth grade. Oh my gosh, what if he asks me to prom?” she cries, clutching her chest as she smiles over at me with those way too big green eyes.
I scowl in response. “Look, it’s not my place to say anything, but just know that Owen’s a player.
He's never really been the type to stick with one girl at a time. Just because he’s texting you and you’re going to be wearing his jersey to the game, doesn’t mean there might not be other girls that he’s invited to wear his jersey in the crowd too. ”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waves me off as she flips open one of her folders, “I’ve heard the rumors, Rhett. I’m not dumb.”
I nod my head slowly, still staring at the road as I turn down our trailer park’s street.
Well, she’s been warned. Whatever she decides to do with that information is on her now.
Owen is the star quarterback of our high school’s football team, and while I wouldn’t call him talented—at least not by my standards—that kind of notoriety in a small town like ours still gets you far with the girls. His charm, or whatever passes for it, seems to work on everyone.
I remember the last girl he was rumored to be dating from our class—Della—and how I’d overheard him bragging in the locker room about some of the vile things she’d let him do to her the weekend before. He said it loud enough for everyone to hear, like he was proud of it and wanted to embarrass her.
I know I don’t have any right to try to protect Jael from him. Lessons like that are something she’ll have to learn on her own. But something about her innocence and the way her parents mostly ignore her existence has always unnerved me.
She’s been raised in a rough, broken home, nothing like the cushy life that Owen has, and her parents have never been attentive to her needs.
I’ve seen it firsthand over the past four years that we’ve been neighbors.
That lack of care has left her with a kind of na?veté, an unguarded way of trusting people she shouldn’t and searching for safety in the wrong places.
It’s like watching someone walk into traffic without even noticing the oncoming cars. I don’t want to see her taken advantage of, but I can’t stop her either. All I can do is hope she knows what she’s doing, or that she figures it out before it’s too late.
I pull in front of her parent’s trailer, noting the way that the side paneling is pealing, chipping and even falling off in one large section right outside where I know her bedroom is located. Fucking Meredith and Lawrence. Her parents really need to pull their shit together.
I make a mental note to come over this weekend and fix it along with the screen on the window to their kitchen. It’s a safety issue, and if her dad’s too drunk to handle it, at least I’ll sleep better knowing it’s fixed.
"Thanks for the ride!" Jael calls out without another glance in my direction as she jumps out of the truck with hardly a wave goodbye.
I sit in my truck. Watching every step that she takes up the broken sidewalk until I’m sure she’s safely inside her trailer. Except when she’s away from me she doesn’t feel safe.
I shake my head, backing out of the driveway and trying to bury that thought.
Just like I’ve done for years.
◆◆◆
I force a breath out and finally look at Penelope, whose hand on my bicep is starting to feel more like a weight and not the gentle touch of a woman I once enjoyed spending time with.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice low and resigned, eyes taking a final scan around the packed football stadium and turning up empty. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”