Chapter 7 #2
I tried to run away with stolen money and so she called the cops before sending me here.
She’s doing the same with him. He punched his assistant coach and got suspended from the team, and so he’s here, teaching a bunch of schoolgirls that he doesn’t like.
“She’s punishing you, isn’t she?” I conclude while he watches me intently. “But that’s so crazy. You just made a mistake. You were upset over the breakup and you punched him but –”
The muscle on his cheek starts ticking and I stop.
Oh shit.
I just spilled the beans, didn’t I? I spilled that I know.
I know the real story about his fake injury.
And I did that even though my sister told me not to open my big mouth.
Damn it.
“So you know,” he says softly, dangerously, and I swallow.
“I’m not gonna say anything,” I say, lowering my voice because for the first time I realize how quiet the space is around us. How public.
We’re in a library.
Of course, the space is quiet and public.
There are students sitting up front, studying. Thank God we’re in the back, surrounded by thick, dusty volumes.
“How?” he asks.
“M-my sister. I called her and forced her into telling me.”
“But you’re not supposed to be making any calls.”
Again, he’s speaking in very soft tones, low tones, but I flinch, nonetheless.
“Well, I break rules, don’t I?” His face remains blank at my declaration and his eyes remain watching and for some reason, I keep explaining.
“So that’s what I did and called her. But only because you guys broke up and I was –”
“Worried,” he speaks over me.
I jerk out a nod. “Yes, and she told me everything.”
“She did.”
“Yeah, and now I know your secret.”
And that’s when it hits me.
This is his secret.
The fact that his injury is fake and that he isn’t recovering. He’s here because he got kicked off his team for punching someone.
I’m his secret keeper.
I’ve been his secret keeper since I was ten and he asked me not to tell his mom about the juice carton and I breathe out what I wanted to say back then. “I won’t tell anyone. Ever. Your secret, I mean.”
“And what’d she tell you? What’s my secret?” he asks, his arms still folded, but there’s nothing casual about him now.
Not a single thing.
Not the way he’s staring at me with dark eyes and not the way his shoulders have become rigid. Even his biceps are in permanent bunched-up mode.
“That you guys had a big fight the night before and you were upset. And you went into practice all drunk,” I begin on a whisper, staring back at him, seeing how much tighter he gets with my every word.
“And you took it out on the first guy you saw. Y-your assistant coach, Ben. You beat him so badly that they had to suspend you for the rest of the season and send you to anger management therapy. And… and they told a lie to cover it all up.”
For a moment after I’m done, he only stares at me. He stares and stares and I feel like he’ll never say anything.
But then, he does.
He says a clenched-out word. “Impressive.”
And strangely, his one clipped reply makes me speak up, makes all the words gush out of my mouth.
“But you’re not like that. You’re not angry.
You’re calm and disciplined and level-headed.
You always have been. The reason you got angry was because you were upset.
You were upset over the breakup. You were hurting.
Because you loved Sarah. You still do. That’s the reason you’re angry.
It’s because you’re in pain. And you took it out on the first person you saw. ”
I don’t know what I was expecting after I finished my hurried, impassioned speech. Maybe I was expecting him to dismiss it or to make a joke or a sarcastic comment.
But I wasn’t expecting him to move.
I didn’t know that my words had the power to make him lean away from the shelf and unfold his arms. I didn’t know that my words would expose his flayed knuckles when he lowers his strong arms.
They aren’t as swollen and wounded as they looked last week, but there’s still some redness there, still some bruising.
But I don’t get the time to study them more because he’s walking toward me, advancing, and his eyes have this intense look in them. So intense that it pushes my body. It pushes me to move back.
Back and back as he grows closer and closer, his footsteps thudding on the cement floor.
As soon as my spine hits the bookcase, he reaches me, trapping me effectively.
Between the wooden bookcase with large, thick books and his body that has a broad, muscular chest and a tapering, sleek waist. Not to mention powerful thighs, encased in a pair of jeans.
“You’re right,” he says, dipping his face toward me. “I am angry. And upset and fucked in the head. And I did take it out on him and I liked it. I would’ve killed him if they hadn’t pulled me off. So yeah, I’m fucking furious and I’m furious all the time.”
I swallow, hugging the book tighter, feeling the pain in his guttural words. “I’m so sorry.”
But he completely ignores it and keeps going. “But I can’t go around punching people, can I? I can’t go around breaking things as much as I want to.”
“No, you can’t.”
He leans even closer then.
In fact, he raises his arm and grabs the shelf just above my head. I swear, I feel the mountain-like bookcase wobble at his grip.
“So that’s why I was at the bar that night,” he whispers, his chain shifting against his V-neck t-shirt.
“The bar?”
He nods. “I was looking for a distraction.”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying and when I do get it, I hug the book so tight that the binding hurts my chest and my arms.
“The girl you were kissing,” I whisper. “You were looking for someone to…”
Have sex with.
That’s what he means, doesn’t he? He was looking for a one-night stand.
Someone to dull the pain, and I have to breathe slowly to let it digest.
To let the fact digest that the guy I’m in love with, my sister’s ex-boyfriend, was looking for a girl to fuck.
“Yeah.” His dark eyes squint for a second as he agrees with me. “I was looking for someone and I would’ve found her. But then you showed up.”
I bite my lip. “I…”
“All messy hair and flushed cheeks.” His gaze roves over my face before dropping to my mouth. “And darkly painted lips, and ruined everything.”
I wince at his harsh tone.
But I don’t think he notices because he keeps looking at them, my lips, and I have a feeling that he’s thinking about them painted. He’s thinking about the lipstick I wore and I can’t stop myself from whispering, “I-it’s called Teenage Decay.”
He raises his eyes and does that lip-lick thingy that he did back at the soccer field. Where his tongue peeks out and takes a slight swipe of his plump lower lip and where I have to go ahead and do the same.
Because it’s still so unbelievable to me. That sexy move of his.
“Teenage Decay,” he repeats on a whisper, and I feel the bookcase wobble at my spine again as he grips it harder. “It suits you. Or at least, I think it does. Because that’s the problem, see. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
He tips his chin at me, studying me like I’m a puzzle or something.
“You. I don’t know a thing about you. Until now, I didn’t know you played soccer.
I didn’t know you had a talent for lame poetry.
I didn’t know anything. About you. The girl who knows so much about me.
You do, don’t you? To draw all the conclusions about me. About my hurt.”
Oh, he has no idea.
He has no idea all the things that I know about him, and I don’t want to give him any idea either. So I try to act casual and shrug even though it comes out awkward.
“Uh, yeah. We lived in the same house. For years. A-and as I said before, you were busy with soccer and other things.”
“Well, again lucky for you. I’m not busy now, am I?”
I look to the side. “I don’t understand.”
And as if in response to me averting my eyes, he raises his other arm as well, grabbing the same shelf by the side of my head, making a prison out of his limbs and chest. So I never look away from him again.
“Who taught you to play soccer like that?”
“Like what?”
From the corner of my eyes, I see his biceps bunch. “So magnificently.”
“What?”
His jaw clamps as he keeps staring at me. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a talent like that.”
I press my back into the bookcase and crane my neck up. “B-but you said all those things and –”
The bookcase shifts again and if he keeps putting pressure on it like this, all the books will fall out.
And dig a hole on the floor and I’ll fall.
I’ll fall and keep falling.
Falling and falling. For him.
He frowns. “I said them because they were true. Talent alone doesn’t mean anything. You have to hone it, make it better, channel it. I could teach you.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I could.”
I don’t even have the time to bask in his compliment, bask in the fact that he used the word magnificently.
My favorite player said that I play magnificently.
Because then he says, “On one condition.”
“What condition?”
He shifts closer then, bending his body even more.
With his arms raised and placed by my sides, it looks like he’s doing a pull-up and his silver chain is swinging in a mesmerizing way.
He tips his razor-sharp jaw at me. “Just tell me if it’s your thing.”
“What’s my thing?”
“Stealing.” Before I can respond to that, he goes on. “Because that’s mine, isn’t it? That t-shirt you’re wearing.”
I freeze.
I practically freeze and combust all at the same time as I become aware – very uncomfortably aware – of what I’m wearing right now.
His old t-shirt.
The one that I stole after he left for California.
And he can see it, the whole world can see it because I don’t have my chunky sweater on like I usually do.
Because ever since he humiliated me on the soccer field a day ago, I’ve been feeling so warm and heated that I haven’t been wearing it. I even put up my hair and tied it into a top knot so as to let my neck breathe.
“I… I don’t…”