Chapter 5 February 2003 #2
Light pierced through the canopy of limbs and leaves, and a feeling hit me that scared the heck out of me.
Rage. Rage toward God for letting this happen.
A deep, bitter anger at Kent for thinking any of this was okay.
I glared up at the sky, wanting nothing more than to drag God himself down to earth and beat him up.
Punch him in the face. Knee him in the nuts or something.
He’d given me Kent Fox on a silver platter and then he’d just taken him away.
“Please, fix this. I ain’t never had a bad word to say about you. I’ve been a good person. Why are you taking him away?” I smashed my palms against my cheeks, shoving away the tears staining my face. “Please, don’t take him away from me.”
***
After reciting my weekly verse to Sister Thorpe, I practically leapt out of my chair, making my way out of the classroom, through the narrow hallway, toward my supposed best friend. By learning my verses, I’d earned myself an extra twenty-minute break, as had Kent.
He was in the school’s cafeteria, which had clearly just been the home’s dining room before Brother Blankenship repurposed it.
Like the rest of the school, nothing about the room was inviting.
There was an old picnic table sitting near the door leading out back, and a soda machine that hadn’t worked the entire time I’d been there.
On the wall, there was a framed photograph of Brother Blankenship standing next to a cardboard cutout of George W.
Bush, but aside from that, it was empty.
Kent was alone at the picnic table when I approached.
He had a book in his hand, and he was munching on a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
I paused in the doorway, second-guessing my plan.
I was about to break his heart. His big, beautiful heart that was supposed to be beating for me.
I shouldn’t have taken joy in the fact that I was about to ruin a relationship he’d been so happy to start, but I couldn’t help it.
A smile crept up in the corners of my mouth.
Mid-morning sunlight filtered through the French doors, pouring around him from behind.
It almost looked like he was glowing. Like he was an angel sent down to make this world a better, brighter place.
Because that’s what Kent did. He made everything better.
Before I met him, I’d been sad and lonely all the time.
He came into my life like a tornado, ripping and ravaging what I knew as fact and replacing it with undeniable proof.
There was no shame in how I felt for him.
It wasn’t wrong—it wasn’t a sin—it was just the truth.
I didn’t know if he caught sight of me in his peripheral vision, or if he simply felt my gaze tearing through him, but Kent lifted his eyes and found me leaning against the doorframe; arms crossed, barely breathing. He took a gulp of air, and a rush of color flooded his cheeks.
“Hey, Two-liter,” he said. His voice was shaky, still startled by my unannounced presence.
I smiled and gave him a quick nod. “Hey, Half-pint.”
Without invitation, I moved on him, stalking my way across the small room and taking the seat right next to him.
I knew we were safe for a while. The only other person who’d been attempting to memorize their verses was Kyle, and the kid had the brainpower of a dang five-year-old.
I scooted my chair right beside him and leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder.
“You okay?” he said.
I peered up expecting to see a smile, but Kent had a sullen look on his face that I couldn’t quite read.
I could have spent hours trying to rationalize that look away in my mind.
Days could be dedicated to understanding its meaning.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have days to do so, just twenty minutes before our extra break was over and then we’d be back in that classroom, surrounded by unfriendly faces and a girl I hated with every fiber of my being.
She was trying to take what was mine. That wasn’t going to happen.
I realized he was still staring at me, questions coursing through his eyes, and it dawned on me that he was still waiting for an answer.
I shook my head.
“What’s wrong?” he squeezed my hand, the way he used to before she came into the picture.
“Just missing you, I guess.”
He smiled, but I couldn’t tell if it was genuine.
He’d been so distant lately. It was almost like he didn’t understand why I might be sad after he’d taken our time together and made it theirs.
Why going from having him at my side every day—eclipsing everything and everyone—to spending scarce moments in empty church hallways might have broken my heart.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“You can ask me anything. You know that.”
I didn’t, actually. I didn’t know that at all.
Two months before, I’d thought I did, but things had changed.
Our bond had shifted. He was hers now, and I had to watch it all unfold in our tiny classroom.
He held her hand in front of me like I was nothing to him. Like I’d been nothing to him all along.
“If you knew someone was trying to hurt me, you’d want to protect me, wouldn’t you?”
His eyes narrowed into small slits and he clenched his fist. “Is someone picking on you? Who is it? Tommy?”
“It’s just a hypothetical question. No one’s trying to hurt me. But if they were, you’d try to help, right?”
“Of course, I would.”
“What if it was somebody that I was close to. Someone I was supposed to trust.”
“Just spit it out Two-liter. Who’s trying to hurt you?”
I took a deep breath to steady myself. I knew this could go one of two ways. This was Kate. His girlfriend. As much as the title pained me to say, it was true.
“I think Kate’s cheating on you.”
He stared at me. Every nerve in my body was shouting out warning signals of don’t-don’t-don’t, but I couldn’t listen to them. Not at that moment. Not with this silver bullet locked and loaded on a wolf with terrific taste in men and treachery in her heart.
“Why do you think she’s cheating on me?” His face was steady, not a single bit of emotion on it. I couldn’t read him like I used to, and that scared the heck out of me. Still, I knew I had to do this. If I wanted Kate out of the picture, this was my only chance.
“I heard her talking to someone in the bathroom earlier. She was telling him she wanted to take him somewhere …” I swallowed down the anger rising up in me like bile.
“Somewhere private to do stuff with him.” I winced as the words left me, and I couldn’t stand to see Kent’s face anymore, so I stared down at my hands. “Sex stuff, Kent.”
“Sex stuff?”
I nodded. “Said she wanted to ride him like a bucking bronco, whatever the heck that means.”
“Did she now?” Kent gripped the arms of his chair, tapping his fingers against the metal. “And who is this mystery man?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. Didn’t stay long enough to find out.”
“So, you were in the bathroom when she said this?”
“Yeah.”
“The single bathroom; one toilet, a shower, and a sink. That’s the bathroom you heard her say it in?”
Dang. Dang, dang, dang. Gosh, this was a terrible idea.
In my fit of madness, I’d forgotten that our school was still just a converted three-bedroom house.
There wasn’t a single school-like thing about it.
Not the bedrooms-turned-classrooms. Not the kitchen-slash-dining-room-turned-break-room.
Definitely not the small bathroom. None of it.
“I was hiding in the shower,” I attempted, reaching into his bag of chips and stealing a Dorito. “You know I’ve been worried about the math test at the end of my workbook. I just wanted some time to hype myself up for it before Sister Thorpe—”
“And you hid in the shower?” he interrupted. “Then Kate came in with a mystery man and started detailing the dirty stuff she wanted to do to him?”
“Pretty much.”
“In the shower without a shower curtain. That’s where you were hiding? Were you just lying down real low or were you wearing your cloak of invisibility?”
“Please don’t mention Harry Potter. You know witchcraft makes me nervous. And there’s something about J.K. Rowling that doesn’t sit right, either. She’s an odd duck.”
“Dammit, Grayson. Stop.” He jerked his shoulder away, breaking the connection the side of my face had with him. “What the hell is your problem? You’re acting like she’s abusive toward me or something. All this extra stuff you’re doing, it’s creepy.”
It felt like he’d slapped me in the face. “You think I’m creepy?”
He sighed, reaching over and squeezing my knee.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just a lot.
Between trying to find time to split between you and Kate, and all the hours we spend at church, it’s like I’m burning the candle at both ends.
I’m exhausted, and now you’re making up some story because you’re jealous that I have someone that’s not you to talk to.
I can’t keep doing it, Gray. I’m tired.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“I’m so fucking tired of feeling tired. I’m trying to fix it, but you’re just …
” He shook his head, stopping himself before he said something he couldn’t take back.
“Fix what?” I asked, taking a step forward. “What are you trying to fix? What the heck does that even mean? We ain’t broken, Half-pint.”