15. There’s Nothing Holding Me Back #3
He notices the look on my face and spins the phone around to show me the app.
I loose a breath, but what I see does little to clarify my confusion. “Why were you looking me up in the student directory?”
Every incoming Freshman at Winterborn Prep had to fill out a questionnaire in some misguided attempt to create a “community.” The staff frequently updates your profile with any new achievements or adjustments in ranking, allowing the more academically gifted students to stalk rival GPAs and other stats.
Yet, most classmates honestly treat it like a dating profile.
Between the fact that Blythe made clear back in middle school that my academic achievements amount to nothing in my house and that I’m not allowed to date until I turn sixteen, I rarely use the app, and it’s only to reach out to other students for group projects.
As far as the profile is concerned, I haven’t updated anything since I was forced to create the account.
Hell, even when I made it, I put in the least amount of thought humanly possible.
Sure, the answers are true, but only in the loosest sense.
I admit as much, earning me another laugh from the goofball walking behind me.
Jase is apparently tickled pink by my responses, particularly my favorite pastimes claiming I love “becoming one with nature,” since we only officially met each other when nature came into my bedroom and tried pecking out my eyes.
Also, you couldn’t get me to go camping even if you paid me.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think ‘hiding from my stepmom by fleeing the house’ and ‘counting down the days until graduation’ were the answers they were looking for,” I say, stepping back to give him a light shove. “And you still didn’t answer my question.”
Jase shrugs. “After our little Hitchcock introduction, you piqued my interest, but you’re not on social media.”
At this, I grin. “Oh, I’m on social media. Just not under the name everyone calls me.”
This definitely earns his attention, but not in a good way, if his expression is anything to go by. “Do you not like your name?”
“I like the anonymity online, and…kind of. I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like the name Ali. It’s just that ninety percent of the time when I hear it, it’s from my stepmom, and she’s usually pissed off about something.”
Jase, assuming I’m using a variation of my full name, searches for the possibilities, but he doesn’t seem sold on any. Apparently, I don’t look like an Alex or Al or Ria or Andi, and his face scrunches up at the mere mention of “Lexi.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I ask.
“It’s a ‘hot’ girl’s name,” he says, so matter-of-factly.
Can you say ouch? I know my shortcomings, but he didn’t have to point it out like that, did he?
I try to not look offended, but I don’t think I do a very convincing job as I mumble, “Gee, thanks.”
“I don’t mean it like that, you goof.” Jase steps up beside me and playfully ruffles a hand through my hair. “It’s not a matter of whether or not she’s attractive. It’s that she acts like she’s hot shit. All of the Lexis I’ve met are…” He mouths the final word, but I understand him just fine.
“Not all Lexis are ‘bitchy,’” I argue.
“No,” he concedes, “just most .”
I roll my eyes, but Jase isn’t ready to forfeit the conversation. Now, he’s more convinced than ever that I may secretly be a Lexi. So, of course, I neither confirm nor deny it.
He drums his fingers against his chin. “Or maybe…you’re more like me than I thought.”
“Meaning what ?”
“Maybe you’re a middle-namer…” Jase tries to come up with every variation of Elizabeth as he can, but I’m not listening anymore. Not with the remark he just oh-so-casually threw out there.
“Is Jase really not your first name?” I blurt.
We’ve been going to the same schools for how many years, and everyone has always called him Jase.
He sighs, like the admission physically hurts.
“I’m actually Michael Jason Rivers Jr., but even as a kid, I hated the name.
Whenever my mom would call out for ‘Mike’ or ‘Michael,’ my dad and I were never sure who she was talking to, and I hate ‘Mikey’ and ‘Junior’ even more than I do ‘Lexi.’ The only time I’m ever called Michael is when I do something wrong. ”
“Well, I’ll be calling you that permanently if you tell anyone what I’m about to show you,” I say, nodding over to our right.
Even through the dense brush, I can see the river.
We’ve long passed the country club, having trudged all the way up the incline so that we’re almost level with the top of the waterfall.
Batting through the thicket, we step out on a rocky hillside, and I order Jase to follow exactly where I place my feet.
He says something, but the rushing water drowns it out as I creep closer and closer to the waterfall’s edge. Unless you’re standing directly at the entrance, it’s almost impossible to see that there’s a cave hidden just behind the falls, and I relish slipping inside the entrance.
Granted, it’s not a full-blown cave but rather more of a rock shelter about eight feet high.
Apart from the enclosed entrance, there’s no external wall, leaving a solid, rushing sheet of river water as the only barrier to the outside.
Sunlight still bathes the space, but it’s substantially darker, making it virtually impossible to see from the outside. It’s the perfect hiding place.
The constant, cold sheet of river water also shields this little hidey hole from the sweltering heat and humidity. Plus, I’ve equipped it with a few additional perks.
Heading to the deepest corner, I fish out the camping gear from behind a section of rock that I may have taken out of my basement.
Figured someone could still get use out of it.
My dad bought a boatload of things a couple of years ago for when he went with his buddies out into the wilderness for a weekend, only to return, vowing he’d never do it again.
Everything’s been collecting dust since.
Well, except for the few survival protective containers meant to store actual food that now house candy.
With some in hand, I take a seat on a dry slab of rock just outside the “splash zone” but close enough that tiny flecks of water can still pepper my bare feet when I extend my legs. Jase, on the other hand, isn’t so quick to join me.
No, he’s too busy gawking, exploring every nook and cranny. “Who else knows about this place?”
I shrug. “If anyone does, we’ve never crossed paths. And nobody’s pilfered my Skittles collection yet, so…”
I’ve evidently jinxed it, because Jase does just that, taking the bag from my hands to pour himself a few.
“And how, pray tell,” he says, finally sitting beside me, “did you come across this?”
“My mom,” I admit. “She actually found it with some friends during her Senior Year of high school. I couldn’t have been more than five when she told me about it, so I was too young to make the climb, but she still promised to take me here when I was old enough.”
That obviously didn’t happen, but I never forgot.
“The summer after my dad married Blythe, my brother and sister both had programs for football and ballet, so I found myself alone most of the time. And since I had a feeling my new stepmom didn’t like me very much, I didn’t want to be home.
I’ve been coming here at least a few times a week every summer since then.
It may not be Italy,” I concede, “but it’s not too bad of an alternative, all things considered. ”
He smiles, but something else flickers in his expression. “Still bummed about not going on the trip?”
“If I had to choose again between being here or seeing the Trevi Fountain while Sienna tried to drown me in it, I think I made the right call.” I knock my knee with his. “And the company’s not too bad either.”
Jase chuckles, the action bringing his dimples to the surface. “‘Not too bad?’ Awww, shucks, Birdie. You’re gonna make me blush.”
I snatch back my Skittles, giving him a playful shove, but freeze when his hand captures mine.
Jase interlocks our fingers, and though the humor fades from his expression, his smile stays right where it is. The look is equal parts comforting and heartstopping, because he’s never stared at me like this before. I’m only left to reel further at the two simple words he all but whispers.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” I’m surprised and relieved that my voice comes out as steady as it does, but I still clearly sound confused.
He runs the padding of his thumb gently over the back of my hand, his gaze not leaving mine. “For trusting me enough to be a part of this.”
The fact he understands what this means to me, the fact he knows this isn’t just another teenage hiding place to come drink beer and hook up…
“My mom had this Celtic love knot on a silver necklace that her grandmother gave her, and after she passed away, I started wearing it. Anytime someone in my family saw it, they’d get uncomfortable and weirded out, but I didn’t care,” I say.
“I had it on everywhere I went and always hung it up on this picture frame beside my bed every night. And then one morning I woke up and it was gone. Everyone just told me I must have misplaced it and that it would eventually turn up, but it never did. I knew I hadn’t lost it, and I went through all of my mom’s belongings in the basement, hoping whoever took the necklace put it away down there, but I still couldn’t find it.
“And after Blythe entered the picture, everything else around the house that belonged to my mom slowly got removed and shoved into another box in the basement. By the time everything was said and done, there wasn’t a single trace of evidence that my mom had ever stepped foot in the house, any memory snuffed out.
It felt like losing her a second time,” I admit, drawing the symbol of the love knot with the tip of my shoe across the section of the ground that has a fine layer of dirt.
“But being here, I feel closer to her again, like it’s a beach and it’s only her footprints in the sand.
As long as no one else knows, they can’t trample in and wipe away her memory. ”
Whenever the subject of my mother comes up, everyone’s quick to change the topic, as if the very mention of her will not only tear off the bandages but also reopen the wound. Hell, I’m not even sure if it healed in the first place—not for any of us. But it’s the cardinal rule in my house.
Avoidance.
At first, nobody wanted to risk upsetting someone else by bringing her up, but after so long, it just became expected of us to have moved on. But we never really got a chance to truly mourn her.
So, it comes as no surprise that I anticipate Jase acting like everyone else would. I wait for the awkward silence, followed by fidgeting and an attempt at small talk about something stupid like the weather.
But an arm falls over my shoulder, pulling me up against the side of Jase’s chest. “What was your favorite thing about her?”
The back of my eyes burn, but I don’t fend it off. I don’t need to hide. And the realization may as well be an invisible five-hundred-pound weight lifting off my chest.
“No matter how busy everyone was, no matter how many things she had on her plate, she somehow always made time for each of us.” Even as the first tear falls, I laugh. “Do you remember the field trip in kindergarten when our class went to the zoo?”
Jase nods.
“Yeah, well, I had never been to one, and I couldn’t wait to go, but I came down with a fever earlier that week.
By the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling better and kept pleading with my parents to go, but my temperature was still a little too high.
It pretty much broke my little four-year-old heart.
When my mom pulled up to the front of the school the following Monday, Vanessa and I got out of the car, but my mom called me back over.
“I felt fine, but she still put a hand to my forehead and told me to get back in the car. I remember her calling the school and telling them I was still under the weather, but instead of returning to our house, she turned onto the highway. At first, I was terrified she was taking me to the doctor, only to find her pulling into the parking lot of the zoo a half hour later.”
“And that’s where you got Hubert.” Jase chuckles in understanding, the warmth of his breath rustling my hair. “It was the name of the lead penguin at the exhibit.”
“My mom and I spent the entire day there seeing every last animal they had, but he was my favorite. Hence, the beginning of my plushy collection.” Only a few tears escape my lashes, but there’s a comfort in it.
A cleansing. And damn it, it feels good being able to talk openly about her without feeling like I’m walking on paper-thin ice.
“Adults tend to forget what it’s like being a kid, knowing that our ‘silly’ problems don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but my mom always treated them like they did.
Even when she couldn’t give Vanessa or Derek or me what we needed, she always did her hardest to find us the best substitute.
And that’s what this place feels like. I may not be allowed to have ‘normal’ teenage experiences, like going out with friends on Friday night to watch the football game or joining everybody and getting drunk on the beach, but at least there’s one thing I have that no one else does. It makes things…less lonely somehow.”
I don’t know what I expect him to say or what could possibly be going through his mind, but the look he gives me certainly isn’t it. I can practically hear the gears turning in his head as he studies my face.
“What?”
The warmth in Jase’s smile doesn’t peter, but a dash of mischief makes its way in there too. “What are your plans for the Fourth?”