Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Like hell I’m going to avoid the break room. It’s for everyone, and if Cadence fucking Caine thinks she’s gonna dump a crusty Yoplait on my head to keep me out forever, she’s got another thing coming.
I also kind of jog across campus to get to the break room first so she can be the one who gets there second.
I’ve started to sit near her, too. I could be the bigger person and invite her to sit with me, Coach Dean, Lori the chemistry teacher, Lena the language arts teacher and Denae.
I could, but in the words of my fearless leader and personal friend, fuck her.
Leah isn’t wrong.
If someone wants to extend an olive branch and try to show a grown ass adult all the ways in which they are terrible, let them. But that person is not me.
“Hey there, Miss Riley,” Lori says, coming into the breakroom in her bright orange skirt.
“Hi Miss Lori,” I greet from my position in front of the communal microwave.
With her nylon lunch bag in her clutches, she moves between the tables to her usual spot and takes a seat. Her blouse, covered in illustrations of beakers and microscopes, is so Miss Frizzle, and I love it. After my freezer meal is done reheating, I sit next to her at our table.
“I love your top,” I say, using the tines of my black, plastic fork to point toward her top. She pinches the fabric, lifting it away from herself.
“It’s so soft. I know it doesn’t look soft, but it’s very soft,” she beams before getting to work mixing up her mixed greens and salmon salad.
Coach McAllister comes in, and Jake’s words about how Coach agrees with and enjoyed the article I wrote flow through my mind. I pat the seat next to me and smile, which earns me a look of confusion. Slowly, Coach comes my way, taking a seat with his white and red Igloo lunch box.
“Hi,” I greet as he slides into his seat. “Thank you, by the way, for understanding the purpose of my newspaper article.”
Coach Dean freezes, his plastic container of rice and curry in one hand, his thermos of sweet tea in the other. “Okay,” he says, drawing the word out. “Wait–what?”
Lena, who slipped into the break room when I was fawning over Lori’s top, takes a seat at our table just as Cadence enters. Only, I don’t even get to enjoy the moment because Lena pokes me in the arm, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Hey, Miss Riley, I just wanted to tell you that… I thought that article you wrote was brave.”
Printing state-mandated high school education in a newspaper is not brave, but I’ll take any compliment I can get these days. Apparently. “Thanks,” I reply, but her eyes shine as she scoots her chair nearer to me.
“Two years ago we had a… scare,” she says, choosing that last word carefully. “My daughter was a junior and–anyway. Learning that the pull-out method doesn’t work is important. And I hear you’ve been fielding some hate for that article so I just wanted to say… I think the article was important, and you were right to publish it.”
“Thank you,” I say again, this time pointing my little black plastic fork at Dean. “You two,” I wave my fork between them. “Great minds.”
In my pocket, my phone vibrates and while everyone is quiet from eating, I take it out, my heart racing. My parents don’t text. I blocked Michael’s phone number ever since he showed up at my house like a creep.
It’s gotta be…
Jake
Hey. It’s Jake.
I can’t help but laugh out loud at his text. Dean eyes me while Lori and Lena listen to something Denae is saying, talking with her hands. Without prying eyes, I feel comfortable writing back.
You text me already, I know it’s you. You don’t have to announce it’s you.
I didn’t assume you programmed me in.
Had to make sure I didn’t hit ignore. I never respond to strange numbers.
Smart
Yes I am, thank you very much
Is that why you texted? To tell me how smart I am
I texted to see if I could give you a call tonight
I’m sorry, the way to plan a phone call with me is to put in the request by horse carrier
I snicker at teasing him about texting to ask me if he can call. Though as his dots appear and disappear, I start to think maybe he didn’t get my joke.
I was just teasing you Jake. You don’t have to ask ahead if you can call me. Just… call me.
A moment later, my phone vibrates violently in my hand. Jake calling….
“Hello?” I answer, whispering, my hand cupped over the receiver like that’s gonna do anything but make me sound worse. I get up, and slip into the hall for privacy .
“You said call,” he deadpans.
“I meant like, when you wanna talk at night, you can just call,” I whisper as a flock of students drifts by.
“Does 8 work tonight?” he asks, his voice rough but soft, like he’s working to keep his natural volume down.
I can’t help but smile. “Eight sounds good.”
It takes every ounce of grown up Riley in me not to text Leah and tell her that Jake and I have a phone date for later.
“C’mon, you guys know this routine. You’ve worked on it for weeks. And I gotta say, without baskets or any lifts, it’s not that complicated. Timing on steps should be figured out by now,” I tell the girls, who are all doubled over, gripping their knees and gasping for breath post-halftime practice.
One of the cheerleaders whispers to another, and both of them laugh. I’m not sure why my first instinct is to find Jo Jo among the faces, and I know I should probably stop doing that. If the other girls think I play favorites?—
“Your mom’s looking at you, Jolene,” a voice squeaks from the masses, causing the rest of the girls to erupt in private snickers, cupping hands to ears, whispering and watching.
Well, I guess I had that fear about twenty seconds too late.
Jo Jo’s eyes lift to mine, panicked and confused, then fall to her feet. I have half a mind to announce to these hellions that Jo Jo’s mom has passed away, and making a joke about her mom is not cool. But that isn’t going to make anything better for Jo Jo now, so instead, I bring my whistle to my lips and blow.
“You guys wanna spend practice tearing each other down and being assholes? Cool. Do that. Do that and run. Because you guys know this routine, yet you’re out here half-assing it and teasing a teammate instead of working hard. That tells me you guys want to run. So run. Run until practice is over.” I fold my arms over my chest, my face expressionless. “Suicides. Now.”
Cadence eyes me from her spot in the corner of the gym, a smug look on her stupid, pretty face. “I can tell you were their coach last year,” I shout to her in a moment of heated anger. Teenagers are kind of assholes no matter what, but having a coach in that mindset could not have helped.
“It’s not my fault they don’t know your shitty routine,” she hisses, freshmen heads volleying between us, on top of the unfolding drama.
Her comment makes me smile. “This is your routine from your first year. In my first year here I wasn’t given the authority from Layla to choreograph.”
A resounding “ohh” echoes through the girls, one saying, “Burn on Miss Caine.” Splitting my attention between Cadence and my girls, I take a few steps to get closer to her, so my next words are private. Just for us.
“You can dump yogurt on my head and be a cuntbag all you want, but the truth is, you’re a bully who never grew out of being a bully and honestly, I’m embarrassed for you. I feel bad for the freshman squad every year, that they sign up to cheer and get you, a petty, small-minded, bully. Have you ever stopped to think that you didn’t get promoted because you’re an actual turd?”
She snorts, stepping back, her expression wavering between amused and offended, and I think she could be in disbelief. The thing is, people like Cadence rarely get called on their bullshit. But they need to. And fuck her anyway. “Maybe I didn’t get the job because you’re friends with Leah Mitchell,” she says, raising her hand to her mouth, jutting her tongue between her pointer and middle finger.
“Mature,” I reply, smiling so the girls think we’ve worked it out. I place a hand on Cadence’s shoulder and am surprised when it doesn’t immediately catch fire. “If Leah hired me because we’re friends, I’d probably have been assigned to a better free period, I’d be able to choreograph all the levels of halftime dance, and I’d probably be able to get you fired. But unfortunately, you’re off-base over on jealousy island.” I look back to my girls, who are on their fifth set of suicides, called out by the team captain. “Gotta go. Because we’re gonna do our halftime dance and nail it, despite the bad choreography.”
I walk away without looking back, and my team nails their next dry run of the halftime show. And at the end of practice, when I’m walking out to my car, one of the freshman cheerleaders catches up with me.
“I’m really excited to be on your team next year. You’re like, such a good coach. I love that you don’t let Miss Caine be all, like, mean to you and stuff.”
I wrinkle my nose. “If you let someone be mean to you, they’ll learn they can.” I can be proud that I embody that sentiment, even when it feels like it’s to my own detriment.
She waves me off, getting into a small SUV with oxidizing paint, a tired woman behind the wheel. Just as I’m about to toss my duffle in my backseat, Jo Jo approaches me.
“Hey, Miss Riley,” she offers, slightly out of breath from her efforts to catch me before I go.
“Hey, Jo Jo,” I greet, slamming my backseat door closed. “Good job today at practice. I’m sorry that comment was made.”
She waves it off, like she didn’t internalize it. Then again, hard physical effort after stress and trauma does help the brain let go a little. I know after everything with Michael went down, I took a ten mile run, and my brain really did stop its incessant circling. I hope this is the case for her, and she’s not just hiding her pain from that comment.
“I’m fine. I just wanted to say thanks for moving me up. I mean, I know I’ve been on JV for a while now but… I don’t know if I ever said thank you for it.” She smiles, ear to ear, and while I feel kind of shitty about my run in with Cadence, her happiness is mildly contagious.
I smile, too. Then my eyes dart around the remaining vehicles in the parking lot, searching for that faded black truck. But nothing. “You got a ride, right?”
She tips her head toward the old Mustang behind us. “Rawley Colt said he’d drive me.”
Jake flashes through my mind, and I can’t help but want to please him, even in this situation. “Your dad knows a boy is picking you up and driving you home?”
She chews her lip, color flooding her cheeks.
“Jo Jo,” I warn as she steps closer to me, almost bouncing as she says, “I know, I know.”
“What if he asks me?” I ask but as soon as the five words leave my mouth, I realize they make no sense. Not to Jo Jo, at least. Quickly and as best as I can, I cover my tracks. “He confronted me about the piercing. Told me if I was gonna take you anywhere again, I needed his permission. We exchanged numbers,” I admit, the back of my neck hot with this unfamiliar territory of telling the truth in pieces.
“Lene!” a voice shouts.
“I’ll tell him,” she says, as a teenage boy with brown hair pops his head out of his rolled down window. Jo Jo walks backward, giving me a nervous smile. “Have a good night, Miss Riley,” she says, before slipping into his car.
I don’t want to think about if she’s going to tell him or not, but unfortunately, I have zero opportunity to overthink and ruminate, because my phone rings.
After putting my seatbelt on and surveying the caller ID, I answer.
“Hello… mom, and dad,” I say, not even trying to muster phony enthusiasm.
“Riley,” my father says, his tone shrill and icy. I throw the car into reverse and find my way out of the parking lot, heading home. “Where are you?”
The green digital light on my dashboard flashes 5:02 pm. “Leaving practice, you know, I’m coaching cheerleading after school, remember?”
Remembering requires giving a shit in the first place, and if I’ve learned a single thing about my parents in the last six months, it's that they don’t really care. They obsess over people thinking they care, with the illusion that care is given, but actually giving a good god damn? No.
Not my parents.
“That’s right. Well, your mother and I wanted to talk to you about what happened this weekend.”
Michael flashes through my mind, rose petals covering my porch. After Jake left, I scooped them up and put them in my compost bin so I would not have to see a single trace of his unannounced and uninvited visit.
“What happened this weekend?” I press, gaslighting them by playing dumb. I know gaslighting is wrong, but after Cadence and her bullshit, I’m finding myself a touch grouchy.
Dad sighs and mom gets on the line. “Riley, Michael told us he came to see you...” She pauses before adding, “...with three dozen red roses.”
I say nothing as I flick on my blinker, my house already in sight. I love living so close to the school, and on beautiful fall evenings like this, I wonder why I ever bother driving. I should walk.
“Okay,” I deadpan.
“Ry, you two have been pals your entire lives. You’re really gonna call things off because of an argument? Brian and Linda are beside themselves. They want a reconciliation, and so do we,” mom says, her tone rigid, as if they’ve finally come to a conclusion and I must accept it.
I don’t.
“Well,” I sigh, pulling into my driveway. “Want in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.” I park my car and hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I get out and grab my duffle bag and purse.
“Riley! That’s a terrible thing to say,” my mom scolds.
Dad sighs as I slip the key into the lock, wiggling the handle until my front door pops open. I set my things down, shutting the door with my foot before twisting the deadbolt. “Guys, I just walked in. I’m hungry. I need a shower. I just—I don’t want to do this tonight.”
“Do what?” mom barks, her tone brimming with righteous indignation.
“This!” I shout, spinning; my voice echoing around my tiny home. “Fighting about this! This shouldn’t be a fight! I’m your daughter. Your only child. A child who was always honest and hardworking, who grew into an honest and hardworking adult. Who has never betrayed your trust, or let you down, or anything! So no, I don’t want to sit through the speech about how I need to change my tune about Michael. Newsflash , it’s never going to fucking happen, okay? In fact, the only thing that should change is you two. You two desperately need to open your eyes and change before I stop taking your calls.”
I’m panting, sweat sliding between my shoulder blades, my mind reeling. I never raise my voice to my parents, or at least, I never used to. Except raising my volume seems to be the only way they listen, but even now, I have no idea.
A beat passes before my dad adds, “Michael loves you, Riley.”
“Oh my god,” I breathe, shaking my head as tears well in my eyes. “Oh my god,” I repeat. “Do you guys hear yourselves?” I hang up, without goodbye, without warning. They call me back again, but I silence the call, and then my phone and my house are both silent.
A hot shower and homemade soup lost its appeal after the conversation with my parents. In fact, all food lost its appeal and all of the energy in my body is gone, sucked into the emotional void of having a late-in-life unsupportive parental unit. Emotional stress is exhausting, and after pulling myself out of the bathtub, I wrap up in my bathrobe and sink into bed. My phone and TV remote are right next to me, but I lie there, staring out into the dark backyard, my tiny orange tree the focus of the oncoming moonlight.
How can something seem so simple to one person and yet it becomes a complicated, layered issue to my parents? There should be no complications. Growing up, there are a few universal truths, regardless of where you were raised or what your childhood was like. You have to pay taxes, death is inevitable, Coke is superior to Pepsi, and men who hurt women are bad.
Yet that last fact has somehow turned into an arguable point, a perspective or opinion versus an undeniable truth .
This isn’t like arguing over politics. This isn’t some far fetched problem we’re debating in theory.
This is my life, and what has happened to me, and they have become people I don’t even recognize. And for what? For social standing? Appearances?
Whenever I think too much about my parents and everything that’s gone down, I become physically restless. I can’t stay in one spot because the wrongness of it all wracks my joints, pulses through my muscles, streams through my veins.
Rolling onto my side, I pull my eyes closed and exhale, willing sleep to find me and take me, because staying awake only to think about all of this stuff is worse than that dream where you walk into your college final late, and naked.
From behind me, a soft vibration is partially absorbed by my comforter. Reaching back, I grab my phone and bring it to my face, blinking a few times to see the name on the screen.
Jake.
I forgot we planned a call tonight. He pre-planned the call, actually. Hours ago I was so excited for this call. I hate that my parents, whom I moved away from intentionally, are invading my new life so much.
“Hey,” I answer, my voice soft as I roll onto my back, blinking up at my popcorn ceiling.
“Hey,” he greets, his voice low and deep, igniting a tightness in my core. “How are you?”
I consider my options before answering. Do I tell Jake that I feel like absolute shit and tell him why? Or do I preserve this hot little bubble of carnal passion he and I seem to exist in when we’re around one another? Bringing real Riley into the bubble will surely pop it, and if Jake Turner is my only source of happiness and pleasure, I don’t want to ruin that.
I let out a sigh. “I’m okay. Long day. How are you?”
The line is quiet for a few beats, then a few more. “ Jake?” I question softly after I don’t hear him breathing. Did he hang up? Is he on mute accidentally? I glance at my phone to make sure I didn’t hang up, but the call is still active.
“You’re upset,” he says finally, decidedly. “What’s wrong?”
My eyes burn with new, unshed tears. “How can you know that?” I ask, my voice a shaky whisper.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know, but… you are upset. Something’s wrong. I feel it,” he comments, gravely and deep.
I turn onto my side and focus on the orange tree in the yard, putting my phone on the bed next to me with Jake on speakerphone. He knows something is wrong, and while it should feel presumptuous and strange to have him assert it, it doesn’t. In the way I want to feel like his to use inexplicably and totally, it seems he equally understands me in return. It’s certainly uncommon for two people who’ve only met a few months ago, but it’s real.
“Just… had a bad phone call with my parents,” I tell him, feeling very much my age afterward. “Sounds pretty dumb to you, right? I mean, I’m a grown adult with my own job and home.”
“So what?” he says. “Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings.” Bumps lift on my arms from the delicacy with which he delivers such simple words. “Talk to me about it.”
A small wind makes the orange tree rustle in the darkness, and I keep my eyes on it to prevent tears from slipping. “You really wanna talk about my parents?” I feel so embarrassed that our first phone call is helping me through a semi-meltdown.
“I want to talk to you, Riley. And tonight you’re upset because of your parents, so it seems right that we talk about that. But if you aren’t comfortable, I understand.”
I have no right to be comfortable with him, but I am. Comfortable enough to let him touch me, see me naked, beg him to enter my body—talking comes just as easily as giving myself over to him, so I embrace it.
“I just feel bad, like we should be talking about... I don’t know,” I say, sitting up in bed, still looking out the window.
“Our favorite colors and favorite foods?” he laughs.
I laugh a little too. “I mean, yeah, I guess so. Not… major trauma.”
Our laughter fades into silence. “Talk to me,” he finally says, those three words wrapping me like a hug I’ve been dying to feel for months.
He already knows about Michael. He already knows Michael wants me back, and that it’s complicated. What’s a little more Riley Rivers drama at this point?
“I had a bad phone call with my parents tonight,” I start, quickly adding, “regarding my ex-boyfriend, Michael.”
“Roses douche,” he states.
“Yes, roses douche.”
“What did he do to lose you?” he asks, and the way he worded that question causes my heart to thump heavily, making me woozy for a moment. He didn’t ask what happened between us, or why we broke up. He asked what Michael did to lose me, as if I’m a prized possession that no man would want to lose. I know I’m not, but I adore the way he speaks to me.
“He… Honestly, tonight wasn’t about Michael. And it’s never really even been about him. It’s more about choosing appearances over me.” I take a breath, and launch into it as Jake waits silently on the line. “I’ve been a good daughter, Jake. I’ve done all the things that parents want from their children, year after year. The only time I’ve ever asked for them to truly stand up for me and have my back, they asked me to reconsider my feelings, they asked me to rethink things that I was upset about and even challenged the validity of them.” I let out a heavy sigh that has been wrapped around my heart way too long. “Believing and supporting me throws a wrench in the way their life looks to all their country club friends, and appearances, I have just learned, are more important to them than reality.”
There’s some rustling on the line, and I envision Jake in that huge bed in his room, covers up to his waist, broad, muscled chest bare in the faint moonlight. My groin aches, empty and starved, just imagining him looking all sexy in bed while counseling me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “that’s really shitty. At the end of life, people never say they wish they cared more about what people thought of them. They always say they wish they’d lived more for themselves, and worried less about what people thought. They’re making a mistake with you, Riley, and I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
The oranges on the tree grow blurry from his soft, kind words. “You’re a good parent,” I whisper.
He laughs softly and I can’t help but envision him stroking his hand through his dark hair, bicep muscle flexed. “It doesn’t feel that way,” he admits.
“It’s the age,” I tell him, glad to steer away from my woes for a moment. “Trust me, I’ve been teaching high schoolers for a few years now. They’re all kind of assholes to their parents.”
He sighs. “Still not used to it. Even when Jo Jo was in 8th grade, she was still such a sweetheart. It’s like they walk through those doors into the high school and a flip is switched, I swear. ”
“I’m sorry. I mean, I know what being on the other side of that wrath is like, just from my students, and I’m sorry.” I chew the inside of my cheek a moment, nervous to press but also aware of the bonding that could come from him asking, so I press. “Did you ever ask Jo Jo about why she wanted to cheer this year?”
“Ah,” Jake says, “I haven’t. Not yet.”
“You should,” I tell him.
“I will,” he confirms, then, his voice softer, he says, “I’m sorry about your bummer night, Riley."
Inside my stomach, nerves and twinges of new desire flutter. “This phone call made it better.”
“Good,” he says, his rough voice melting over my body, making my nipples hard.
We talk for a few more minutes. I ask him about Turner Saddlery, then his booth at the market, and find out that his parents are alive but live thousands of miles away, and he’s an only child. He tells me that he grew up in Bluebell, and never plans to leave, and when I tell him I’m from Willowdale, he asks me if I know a cop friend of his named Christian, and after we run the roster of mutuals, I yawn and he tells me he doesn’t want me tired. We end the call with a simple and soft “goodnight” that feels like a French kiss and long hug.
When I close my eyes to fall asleep, my parents are the last thing on my mind.