Chapter 7 #2
“Great, William, keep jerking me around,” James grumbled as he gazed at me.
“Will, leave him alone,” I muttered.
“Well, look—”
James’s husky, mellow voice made me jump. I looked down at the book, hoping Will would stop provoking him, but he didn’t.
“Do you copy and paste your messages, Jamie?”
James hinted at a chuckle; this time I looked up to meet his deep gaze.
“Maybe.”
I hate you.
What had just gotten into me? I had to tell Will. Sure, we weren’t together, but I felt guilty, and it still showed a major lack of respect.
I nervously and abruptly shut my book.
“Now that we’re done with chemistry, Hunter can leave, can’t he?”
“Hey, I can hear you,” spat James, his eyes glued to the screen. “Besides, I haven’t started chemistry.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take a clear baggie out of his pocket.
“James.”
Will’s rebuke didn’t seem to have any effect on him.
“Chill, nobody wants to be with you two. I have a party to think about.” Will and I rolled our eyes.
I put my notes into my backpack while William picked up the books scattered on the bed and reorganized them on the desk.
My gaze was entirely focused on James while he did that.
I saw him take off his hoodie and throw it onto the bed.
Then he adjusted the chain falling on his sculpted chest and stared at me. I felt my breath become fragmented.
Why was my body my enemy? I didn’t want him around, I just wanted him to go away, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off him. I started staring at the black wall next to me.
“Do you think I should paint it all white?”
“Well, you shouldn’t change it if you like it.” William came back on the bed and leaned in toward my face.
Our tongues locked in a sweeter kiss than usual.
The flavor of the fruit he’d just eaten mingled with the mint of my chewing gum.
I opened my eyes for a split second, just to see if James had left us alone.
I managed to catch a glimpse of the last fraction of a second that his gaze remained locked with mine, then he turned around and left the room.
A smile escaped my lips when Will put his hand on my stomach so lightly that it made me shiver.
“Do you like that?”
“What?” I whispered between sucking.
“How I do it, June?”
I didn’t know if he was talking about how he kissed or the frequent changes of pace he put me through, but right then I couldn’t answer with a clear head. I liked Will.
“Yeah, so much.”
When our mouths moved away from each other, I gazed at him intently.
His golden curls gave him an angelic look, and his pearly eyes looked like rare, precious jewels.
He had soft lips and a mysterious air that would make any girl fall in love with him.
Everything about him would’ve been perfect if only I didn’t know anything else was out there.
Not more, not better, but just different.
It was so different from how I felt around James. I stared at the door.
I’d made out with Will so often, and I liked it so much, so why were my thoughts going there?
“Wanna eat something?”
Will’s suggestion made me forget any hesitations I had.
“Why not.”
Noise coming from downstairs caught our attention.
“Oh no. James invited half the school.”
William looked out the window and pointed at the backyard.
“So the party he was talking about is here?”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t even know about any party.
“He invites people over without your permission? What a great friend,” I remarked sharply. Will’s facial expression changed at that point.
“Speaking of friends, what happened with Amelia?”
“Amelia has too many secrets,” I declared.
“I’d say her family has too many secrets.”
William’s correction made me furrow my brow.
“Her family? I thought it was something between James, Brian, and Amelia.”
“I don’t know much about it.” Will clumsily ran one of his hands through his hair, and I understood that he wasn’t comfortable with all these questions.
“Wanna go downstairs?” I suggested, hoping he’d remember that I was starving.
But he went back to staring at the backyard as it filled up with people.
“Where?”
“Um, I don’t know, in the kitchen? Then we can go to the pool if you want.” I shrugged it off.
“I don’t want to,” he murmured, looking down at the pavement with anguish.
Why didn’t I count to ten before talking?
“Sorry, Will. I forgot that you hate chlorine.”
He sat down on the bed and let out such a deep sigh that it made me feel out of breath.
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
I hinted at a smile, trying to meet his eyes.
“You know something? I think we should talk about it, June.”
A deeper-than-usual wrinkle appeared on his forehead.
Even though it wasn’t the first time Will had opened up to me, for a moment I wondered if I really was good enough for him and if I really deserved his trust. I was afraid that what I’d done with James would undermine the trust Will had given me.
But maybe the two things had nothing to do with each other.
Wanting to be there for Will didn’t depend on how often we made out or the fact that we went out together because even if we weren’t dating, I would probably feel the same way.
Above all else, I wanted to be his friend and be close to him.
“Are you afraid of water?” I ventured, while a more pronounced scowl appeared on his face.
“What? No. No,” he rushed to say before biting his upper lip, leaving me waiting. “It’s the damn smell. It still makes me nauseated, June.”
“Chlorine?”
“Chlorine.”
I let him take his time even though I was feeling stressed.
“We can stay here if you want. We don’t have to talk.” I tried to reassure him.
“The way I feel is wrong, June.”
I furrowed my brows.
“And even when I think about that afternoon, I know that I should feel some way, but—”
“There isn’t an emotions manual, Will. No matter what your mood is, if you feel it, it means it’s right for you.”
I was floored by how out of sorts he was in the silence of that room, and squeezed his hand.
“James and I are really different,” he declared, staring into the void.
“I’d say that’s a good thing,” I quipped. His lips curved up for a brief moment, then his smile was eclipsed by a remorseful expression.
“But I’ve done really awful things,” he added.
Fear tingled on the nape of my neck, and Will seemed to have recovered his voice.
“I’ve talked about them so rarely that, in fact, I’ve probably never told anyone.”
“What are you talking about? You’re really starting to worry me.”
“We swam six hours a week in middle school.” He started off calmly.
“Okay . . . that’s a lot.”
“The others always skipped it. James preferred boxing, Jackson played soccer, and I was the only one who liked swimming, so much so that I never missed a lesson. Plus the pool was close to home so I’d ride my bike there, and—”
His calm tone froze for a second, just the right amount of time for me to hear his fragmented breathing.
“Two years ago we agreed to go see a boxing match right after my swim lesson. James was so excited. He got tickets months before.”
I frowned. I didn’t understand what he was getting at.
“James was supposed to wait outside for me, but I hadn’t left. The lesson had finished fifteen minutes before, so instead of waiting for me, he, impatient as usual, came in.”
“I’m listening, Will.”
“We learned our lesson,” he repeated, like a chant.
With his chin trembling, he lowered his gaze to the tip of his shoes.
“Sorry. I thought it would be easier.”
“It’s okay, Will.”
I surrounded his shoulders in a hug, but it wasn’t reciprocated.
“I’d be lying if I said that I remember it well. Because I don’t. I really don’t.”
I nodded, barely moving away from him. I wanted to give him a way to speak freely, but William seemed stuck.
“What, Will? What do you not remember well?”
He squeezed both of his hands on his knees, as if that was enough to hide his hands’ trembling.
“It was a nasty accident. There was blood everywhere.”
“What? Jesus Christ, did someone do something to you?”
His eyes blinked one too many times. Each blink moistened his face with tears.
“I don’t know how James found out.”
His story was so confusing that it was hard to put the pieces together.
“That he was there.”
“Who?”
“The swim coach.”
I rubbed my forehead; I couldn’t help it. Following his story was harder than I’d thought.
“I remember that it was a really rough time for me. They’d just diagnosed me, and I didn’t know who I could trust. I thought kids my age would tease me, so I ended up talking about it with him more than once.
I trusted him. At some point, James came, and there was blood everywhere . . . on the ground, on his hands.”
“What does James have to do with it?” I breathed, speechless.
But William didn’t pay any attention to me. He was following an imaginary sequence.
“He used the wrench. The one from the toolbox he found on the ground. They were doing work on the pool.”
The wrench.
A light bulb went off in my head. Poppy had told me something about that. She maintained that James had almost killed a guy with it.
“Did James beat the swimming coach with a wrench?”
“Yeah.”
I put both my hands on my face. So it was all true.
“I’m not James.”
I saw his eyes turn a darker gray, and I felt a pressure on my chest that made it hard to breathe. I tried several times to take in oxygen but I couldn’t.
“Will, why did James do something like that?”
But William shook his head no.
“Aside from that, did you tell your parents?”
Wearily, he nodded. I noticed that he was crushing his knuckles between his knees until they turned white.
“What happened to the guy? Did he press charges against James for assault?” Will slowly leaned his head back.
I grazed his shoulder with my fingertips. My touch was as light as a feather, trying to caress his fragility.
“No, June.”
“Why not? It seems so absurd that . . . he ended up in the hospital, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“And is that how it ended?”