Chapter Fourteen Keely #2
Matilda had gasped and snapped shut the footrest of her recliner, so swiftly Keely had feared the old woman would fall.
“Not at all! I’m better than ever.” To Keely’s shock, Matilda’s mouth had spread in a slow smile, one of the first Keely had seen from her.
“Especially since that handsome young man stocked me up so nicely.”
“Handsome. . . young. . . man.” Keely’s lungs had deflated. She didn’t need to ask—she knew exactly who was responsible—but the question still slipped through. The name, the one that had been occupying his very own bullet on her checklist: “Max?”
Everywhere she went, his name followed her. He was a ghost she couldn’t banish, a shadow she couldn’t shake.
Matilda had nodded fiercely. “Take a look for yourself.”
In disbelief, Keely had walked to the pantry.
Multiple varieties of trail mix, pudding, and applesauce cups, two loaves of bread, a sleeve of English muffins.
Two packages of iced oatmeal cookies. There were several boxes of Raisin Bran, plus single-serve packets of Benefiber, and children’s water bottles next to an easy-grip opening tool. She should’ve thought of that.
No question about Matilda’s bowel health. But what about her emotional health? Did Max even know what she liked?
Keely had looked in the fruit bowl on the counter, but it was empty. Her brows furrowed. “What about your apples? Will he cut them for you every week?”
Matilda’s response had been downright giddy. “Check the crisper.”
Keely pulled open the fridge and had to bite her tongue to keep a nasty curse from slipping out. Everything was here: the prebiotic yogurts, low-sugar protein shakes to help keep some weight on in the right places, individual cartons of milk with a long shelf life.
And in the crisping drawer, pre-sliced apples. Enough bags to last well past the semester. They’d go bad before Matilda ate them all.
Keely shut the fridge but held white-knuckled onto the handles. “Your prescriptions,” Keely had called. “Who’s going to fill up your pill organizer?”
That had seemed to stump her. “I hadn’t. . . oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm.”
So Max wasn’t amazingly wonderful at everything. He wasn’t Midas after all.
Keely wiped the smugness from her face before she went into the living room. “I’m happy to keep coming on Saturdays and—”
“My nurse!” Matilda had interjected. “My nurse already comes once a week for physical therapy. I’ll ask her to do it while she’s here. Save you a trip.” She opened the footstool on her recliner again and it snapped into place.
“I really don’t mind.” Keely tried her winning smile again, but she did not feel like a winner.
And when Matilda held firm, kindly demanding Keely leave her key on the counter on the way out, she was pretty sure this was the first time in her life she could be considered a sore loser.
She had to do something to even the playing field, to weasel into Max’s mind and life the way he had hers.
But Keely didn’t want to intentionally put herself in his path, give him more ammunition to throw at her.
Seeing him once a week at the shelter was bad enough, and now that he’d started showing up in the other areas of Keely’s life—the elementary school, ruining things with Matilda—nowhere was safe.
Even hours later, after she’d brainstormed for the fundraiser to uphold her promise to Zoey, she couldn’t go two minutes without his face popping into her mind. Where was he now? Was he plotting some new ingenious way to crawl under her skin like a bug?
She literally locked herself in her apartment alone, but she was half convinced he would somehow set off the smoke detectors so the sprinkler system would ruin her fastidious outline for her essay—this newest version was so, so passionate!
What did he know about passion, anyway? And was his essay really that great? He probably used the wrong they’re/there/their.
Her blood boiled again as she remembered Matilda’s absolute glee. Why had he done that?
Weren’t they supposed to be in a truce? It didn’t look like it from where she sat, striking through the section on her essay that listed volunteering with the elderly.
Max wasn’t her only distraction. Her phone kept buzzing, and she peeked into the group chat around eight, when her empty stomach started stabbing her with a knife, demanding food.
Sam
Party tonight?
Maya
Where?
Sam
Off campus. Wait a sec
I’ll drop the address
Jeremy
Ohhh that’s over by the football
houses. Those parties get CRAZY
Maya
That’s THIS party?! It’s gonna
be full of athletes since it’s
a campus-wide bye week
Sam
That’s weird. Why? Keel,
do you know?
Maya
Midterms. They want us
all to be studying.
Jeremy
IJBOL. Studying. Funny
Jeremy
Count me in tho. I heard Max
Simmons will be there
Maya
No wonder you want to go
LOL. Cookout after??
Sam
@Keely your read receipts
are on. Stop ignoring us
Keely cursed under her breath and scrambled to type back:
Keely
Not ignoring! Thesis-ing. Trying
to get ahead before midterms.
Probably out for the party
though. Maybe next time!!
With Zoey back home for the weekend, there was nothing to distract Keely from her intrusive thoughts, no noise to drown out the feeling that there wasn’t enough time, that if she didn’t get everything just right she wouldn’t get the scholarship.
And if she didn’t get the scholarship, if she didn’t have an ironclad plan when she went home for spring break in a few weeks, her parents would press and poke on the carefully laid house of cards that was her future until the entire thing came tumbling down.
Her last semester of undergrad wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Everything had started going off course when she shrank Max’s uniform.
It was supposed to make him too embarrassed to compete.
But instead, she’d been the one who couldn’t meet his eyes.
It was her who’d been frazzled and fumbling, flipped upside down in an undercurrent she couldn’t find her way out of.
She scrolled back through the group chat.
Max Simmons will be there.
Max was going to a party, while she was stuck here, in her bedroom, working on her application. It should make her feel better—if she hadn’t already known she was the more diligent candidate, this left no doubt.
But why should he get to have all the fun? This was her senior year, too. What was it they said? “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em? ”
Not that she wanted to join Max Simmons anywhere. Gross.
Keely sat up straighter as an idea took shape in her head. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If Max wanted to keep playing dirty, why couldn’t she? And where better to do so than at a party where his guard would be down?
She might even get a chance to grill him on his stupid essay. And if nothing else, she could find new ways to get under his skin, the same way he’d burrowed under hers. See who he hung out with, what his weaknesses were.
Better yet, she’d get momentary relief from the stress of this semester. She’d recharge her social battery, let down her hair for one single night, and leave her essay and textbooks at home. She could always come at it with fresh eyes tomorrow.
Hopefully it would help.
She needed it to help.
Decision made, she typed out a message in the chat. Then she went to her closet.