A Boy Like You (Like Us Book 1)(54)

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.