I never once fall asleep.
My father doesn't come home.
Fourteen
"Heyyyy," Taryn says, stretching the end of the word into a fade, as if somehow by saying the word slowly, hanging the y, makes me feel less like shit about my dead mom.
"Just drive to school," I say, pursing my lips and dipping my head to climb into her car. I stuff my backpack between my knees and pull my seatbelt on. I sense her still staring at me, so I huff and twist to the side to glare back at her. Her mouth makes the same straight line as mine, and we mirror each other for a breath before she finally turns back to her steering wheel, shifts her car, and pulls away from my curb.
Wes asked me if I wanted him to tell TK, Taryn, and Levi. In a moment of weakness while he sat with me in my room Sunday afternoon, I told him yes. I regret that now. I'm the girl with the fuck-up drunk, genius coach father, and dead mom. I'm ripe to get picked for a reality show; I can tell my story in a broken voice for the editors to play sappy music behind to get the audience to vote for me, to root me on. I bet I'd win with this story.
There is no audience in real life though. But there is someone rooting for me. He's the reason I came to school today. Maybe the only reason I keep going. He makes me believe there's a corner somewhere, that I'm going to turn it-and that I deserve more.
Taryn doesn't ask if I'm going to the library this time. She pulls into the spot near the gym and we both get out. The door is closed, and I hold my breath when we step up on the curb, listening for some sign of life inside. I hear the faint clanking of weights falling back in place, but that's all. No voices.
My father's in there. I see his car. He couldn't bother to make it home this weekend, but he managed to show up for his precious baseball team.
"You ready?" Taryn asks, her hand on the door handle, her eyes full of sympathy.
"Nope," I respond. I nod for her to go ahead and open the door anyhow, because I'm not ready for a lot of things that happen to me, yet somehow, I survive them.
My father is sitting at the desk near the front, his feet up on the desk as he works on lacing someone's glove. I look at him just long enough to see there's a smile on his face.
"Seriously," I mutter under my breath.
Kyle's spotting Wes, and I move over to the dumbbells, picking out the ones my father wrote on the paper for me. I watch Wes lift what looks to be about two hundred and seventy-five pounds from his chest easily, Kyle's fingers doing nothing more than tapping the bar lightly at the top to count each rep. When he finishes, he leans his head to the side, finding me. His smile is lopsided, or maybe it's just the way he's laying on the bench. If we were alone, I would lie down next to him and be content looking at him in silence.
With my small weights in my hands, I begin my workout, moving my arm slowly across my body first then punching back behind me. I notice Wes and Kyle move to another station behind me. They're both giving me space, but they're guarding me too.
"So, it's pretty weird that those two are getting along, huh?" Taryn says, folding her legs up as she sits on the stack of mats next to me. TK is busy working out with someone, so she's decided to follow me around this morning-or maybe it's her turn to watch over me. I look at her, waiting for her to bust into talk about my mom and questions if I'm all right, but she doesn't.
"Yeah, a little," I say, switching the weight from my right hand to my left to repeat the same set of ten.
"TK said it was weird that you went to Kyle's … " she trails off, looking down at her lap, her mouth too slow to stop the flow of thoughts from escaping. I let the barbell fall down to my side and tilt my head.
"What does that mean? I'm friends with Kyle," I say.
"Yeah, I know. That's what I told him, he just … " she stops, scrunching her face. I hate it when she gets like this-it's borderline gossipy. Only this time it's about me.
"He just what, Taryn?" I speak a little louder, and I notice it catches Wes's attention. I smile at him with tight lips, but I'm a horrible bluffer. His eyes narrow and his mouth pulls in on one side. I look back to Taryn. "He just what?" I say quieter.
She leans her head to the side and breathes out, almost frustrated with me.
"Wes mentioned it. To TK. That's all. When he told him about what you were going through, the last thing he said was ‘when she found out, she went to Kyle-not me.'"
I hold her stare.
I did go to Kyle-out of habit, more than anything. I also went there in search of destruction, and an escape-also out of habit. I didn't go there because I thought Kyle could save me. I went there because he would enable me, like he usually does. Only this time, I kind of think he would have stopped me if Wes hadn't come. Because Kyle is really, honestly, a true friend. But he isn't my heart. That's someone else.
"I'm not going to make it to my morning classes," I say to Taryn, turning away before she can ask me any questions. I put the weights back on the rack near the wall and catch Wes's gaze in the reflection in the mirror. I tilt my head to the side, urging him to walk out into the hallway by the door. He says something to Kyle and steps over the bench, tossing the small towel from his neck to the floor.
My father's eyes catch me as I walk along the far side of the room toward the door, purposely taking this long route so I don't have to come near him. He watches as I step into the hallway. I know this from my sideways glances. I refuse to fully engage him.
I'm alone in the small alcove for a few seconds before Wes joins me in the darkened hallway.
"What's up?" he asks, his hands in his pockets, his body guarded. I'm a fragile thing right now in his mind, and I don't like that either.
"Do you have your wallet and keys?" I ask.
"They're in my bag, in the locker room," he says, brow lowered and suspicion painting his expression.
"Go get your things. Meet me at your truck," I say.
He stares into me for a few seconds, his face still, and his eyes studying mine with question.
"Okay," he blinks.
I slip through the door and walk to his truck, leaning on the passenger side, my teeth gripping at my thumbnail while I wait anxiously for Wes to finally appear through the opposite door of the boy's locker room. He walks toward me, but his eyes keep falling to the pavement in front of him, then they scan the parking lot around us. He never looks directly at me, not even when he unlocks the door on my side and holds it open for me to climb in.
He moves to the driver's side after tossing his backpack in the rear of the truck and turns the engine on to let the heat fill the cab. It's only chilly here in the mornings. He holds his hands in front of the vent for a few seconds, then looks toward my own hands that are fidgeting in my lap.
"What's up?" he asks.
I swallow, because I'm afraid of the dozens of tiny next-steps lying before me. I know the moment I take this first one, there won't really be any turning back-the row of dominoes will fall. But I'm ready to push them.
"I need you to take me home," I say.
His eyes come up at that, locking on mine for few seconds while he catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
"You forget something?" he asks, his hand moving to the gearshift, but not moving it yet. I watch his arm, the twitch of his muscles, the indecision and reservations he has. Those are about me.
"There's something I need to do. And I need you there." My eyes find his as I speak, and he holds me hostage again as seconds stretch into the feeling of long minutes. He nods slowly and turns his attention to the wheel, shifting and pulling us out of the parking lot.
"My dad's going to be pissed that I ditched class. TK got his ass handed to him when Taryn talked him into it the other day," Wes says. I laugh lightly, thinking back to the good boy who sat on Kyle's sofa nursing sips of a beer at the first party he came to. He is so good-all that is good. I will test him; this-what he's about to see-will test him.
I need him.
"Just tell him I made you do it," I smirk at him, my stomach sinking the closer we get to my house.
"Oh, I will. I plan on totally selling you out," he chuckles. I smile, knowing he wouldn't even if his own life depended on it. This is why he's the one I need. I feel selfish for it, but I think maybe it's my only chance.
We pull into my driveway, and I slip out of the passenger side before he has an opportunity to move to my side to open it for me. I leave my bag in his truck, so he does the same. I lift the garage door and open the small toolbox with the spare key inside, unlocking the back door to let us inside.
"That seems terribly unsafe," Wes says.
I look over my shoulder as we walk through the kitchen and down the hallway toward my room. "What could anyone possibly want from this house?" I laugh out.