“Because I saw his fucking love-struck face, Brenna,” Saxon said. “I saw the two of you. Why am I even bothering? Seriously, get the hell out of my car.” He elbowed his door open, got out, and slammed it so hard the whole car shook.
I pushed my door open and followed him into the school. “I’m not apologizing about how I feel,” I said to his retreating back. “And I’m not pretending, either. Not with you. Not for one second. That’s the only good thing about whatever we’re doing, and it’s great!” My words rang out and bounced around in the cold air.
“What’s that?” He turned to look at me closely. His black eyes bored into me.
“I feel no pressure to lie with you. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this honest before. Or this much of a bitch,” I added. I closed the space between us and looked right into his bright, black eyes. “You’ve given me the freedom to just do what I want without caring.”
“Great.” Saxon shut his eyes, and I watched his dark lashes tangle together at the corners. He shook his head. “I’ve unleashed a hot sociopathic bitch.”
“You have.” I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him gently. “Thanks for that.”
Then I left Saxon and hit the track, running hard. Too hard. I was worn out less than halfway through practice. I had to dredge into my reserves and push harder. When it was all over, I was so exhausted I slept on the ride home. Saxon didn’t talk to me. He played his Celtic music loud, but it didn’t wake me up.
“Invite me in,” he said when we were in my driveway and he’d shaken me awake.
Mom would be home soon. I tossed him a quick smile. “No thanks. I got my orgasm.”
“I’m good for multiples,” he promised, his fingertips creeping up my thigh.
“Pop the trunk,” I returned, twisting his hand away.
Surprisingly, he did.
“Should I pick you up tomorrow?”
I wanted to say ‘no,’ but I was taken a little aback by how nicely he had asked. “Okay. Meet me at the end of the road?”
He shook his head. “Not quite a full-fledged rebel yet.”
“Nope.” I kissed him quickly. “Bye.”
I know he wanted to say more, or do more, but I wasn’t interested. Saxon was helping me unlock a part of myself that I had never known lurked evilly beneath the surface. I had a hard time caring about anyone but myself, and I had no patience for anything that irritated me in any way.
Breaking up with Jake had set an entire chain of events in motion. I was changing. I could feel myself stretching out and breaking through, and the new me was coming out with a harder shell, twice as fierce as the old me.
My mind felt lost and my head pounded. I felt hot and uncomfortably achy. I was falling apart, and I didn’t know what to do to stop it.
I went inside my dark, cool house, flipped the heat on and headed to the bathroom, where I took a long shower, the hot water pouring over me in relaxing streams. I was falling asleep under the warm rush, so I got out and toweled off. I pulled on my pajamas and climbed into my bed. I hadn’t eaten dinner, seen my mother or done my homework, but my body was so tired, I just fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Friday came, the last thing I wanted to do was go out anywhere, but Saxon had been persistently nice and Jake had been doing every single thing he could to throw his relationship with Nikki in my face. There was such buzzing nastiness between the two of us, it was starting to erase even the best memories, the ones I kept nestled close to my heart and only took out to sob over late at night.
But every once in a while, I’d catch Jake’s eyes on me, just for one fleeting instant, and something so strong and amazing it was electric would shock between us and melt all the anger for a little while. Once Jake broke his pencil in half while we stared at each other, not saying a word, not sure what we were feeling. As if she could sense it, Nikki attached herself to him like a burr and didn’t let go for the rest of the afternoon.
“C’mon, Blix.” Saxon wove his arm under my backpack and around my waist in the hall. “Zombies and sushi. They make sense together somehow, right?”
“Alright.” I tried not to sigh, because I’d done enough to upset him this week, even if I hadn’t meant it. Saxon had a worse reputation than he deserved, and it made me feel like a lowdown creep to put any blame on his shoulders. What Devon and Kelsie said may have been somewhat right, but it was a skewed picture. No one knew Saxon the way I did. No one knew how good and kind he could be like I did.
“It’s zombies.And sushi.” He squeezed me harder than was friendly. “The face your making kind of communicates root canal.”
I hip-checked him gently. “I’ve never even had a cavity, so there’s no way my face is saying root canal.”
“You’re a freak of nature.” He leaned in and kissed my neck, and it felt good and foreign at the same time.
“Hey guys,” Kelsie said, her voice falsely bright. She cleared her throat and tucked a piece of her dark, shiny bob behind her ear. “So, Folly is having a show. Kind of unexpected. They got space at The Grange, so they’re playing tonight, and we’re trying to get the word out.” She tugged a flyer out of her pin-covered leather satchel. “Think you can make it?” She studied the grimy dirt whirls on the linoleum while Saxon scanned the flyer.
“If we do raw fish, but nix brain-eating mutants, we’ll make it. Sound like a plan?” He ruffled my hair as I studied the neon green flyer. “I know the idea of any monster that eats brains hurts the brainiac deep inside you, so don’t act like this isn’t an awesome favor on my part.”
I managed a quaky smile and nodded my agreement, he kissed my forehead, saluted Kelsie, and headed back down the hall, whistling. It was the whistle that tore at my heart.
Kelsie gave me a long look, licked her lips, twisted her silver rings on her fingers, and finally asked, “Okay, what’s up? What is it, Bren? Don’t you dare even utter the word ‘nothing,’ because I’m not an idiot. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. You’re even paler than normal, which I didn’t even think was humanly possible. Spill.”
I opened my mouth and shook my head. Nothing came out. She tugged on my wrist and pulled me through the doorway into the cluttered chaos of the craft room. She set my mangled project in front of me, and it all started to feel like a pattern; I would pour my heart out to Kelsie while I bungled through another art mess, and she would listen, nodding at all the right times, clicking her tongue with concern, and producing some artistic masterpiece while she did.
“I feel so completely confused.” I jabbed my finger on the bent corner of my new copper plate and winced. “I know that it’s all my fault, this whole thing with Jake and Saxon, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. The thing is, I’m really happy to be able to have Saxon around. He’s important to me. But I don’t think I can be his girlfriend. Something feels off, and I don’t know why. Because he’s not a jerk. I know you and Devon think he’s awful, but I swear he’s been really nice to me. So why aren’t I happy to just stay with him? Isn’t that what I wanted? Isn’t that why I kissed him in Paris and broke up with Jake?”
Kelsie wove her thread with quick, nimble fingers. “Are you asking me? Because I don’t have the answer to that one, Bren. All I know is that you’re smart. If you broke it off with Jake you must have had a reason. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Right?”
I groaned and bent the wire tool I was using to make designs in the copper. My head felt soupy, foggy, totally unfocused. “I don’t deserve Jake. He’s with this girl Nikki now, and I think he’s, like, beenwith her.” I hadn’t told Kelsie about the condom wrapper picture or the many, many sessions of tonsil hockey I witnessed. Her eyes went so wide, it looked like her eyeballs might pop out and roll across the floor. I took a deep breath and was comforted by the mingling smells of chalk, paint, and clay. “Maybe what they have is real. I mean, he’s still with her. It’s never been like that before with him. I mean, other than with me. It was always one night stands. But they’re all over each other.”