Aftershocks (10 page)

I remembered what Connor had told me earlier in the day about how his parents were divorced and wondered if his mother was even in the picture.

“That’s sad,” I said, suddenly feeling bad for Connor and Jordan. I was fortunate to have two loving parents who were there whenever I needed them. Not everyone was that lucky.

“Connor seems so mature. And cute. Is there any potential there?” my mom asked, taking us to a lighter place with a hopeful look on her face. She thought I might have a date.

“No, we’re just friends,” I said, as watched her face fal slightly. “He’s actualy dating Alexis.” I had a hard time saying her name without making a face.

“Realy?” She sounded surprised. “And, you’re hanging out with her boyfriend. Did you two make up or something?”

My mom knew the main reason why Alexis and I were no longer friends, but I’d kept most of the finer details to myself. I could tel she was surprised at the idea that Alexis and I might have rekindled our friendship.

“Uh, not hardly,” I said. “But I’m sure she won’t care.” My mom raised her eyebrows at me. “Fine, she realy doesn’t know, but I don’t realy care. She was a real bitch to me on Monday with no reason.”

“Abby,” she warned, and I knew she wasn’t a fan of my language.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to curse.”

“It’s not the cursing I mind,” she said, giving me a pointed look. “I’m concerned that you’re spending time with someone else’s boyfriend. Just be careful.”

“Mom, you know what she did to Wyatt,” I said, my heart constricting as I thought back to the year before.

My mother had chastised me for fighting with Alexis so much. She said we’d been friends for too long to let a few boys come between us. Then she found out what Alexis had done to Wyatt and her feelings had suddenly changed. She loved Wyatt like a son, and Alexis had hurt him. That was enough for her alegiance to permanently change.

“Abby, revenge isn’t something I would ever encourage you to get involved in. You know how much I care for Wyatt, and I know she was responsible for some of what happened, but going after her boyfriend is wrong.”

“Mom!” I was shocked by her insinuation that I would hook up with Connor to spite Alexis. “I’m not trying to go after her boyfriend.

He’s just my friend. I’m alowed to have guy friends other than Wyatt. Geez.”

I knew it was different with Wyatt. My mother never batted an eye when we were alone together. She didn’t even care that he spent the first two months he lived with us going to sleep in his room and then crawling into bed with me in the middle of the night, usualy after waking up from one of the nightmares that had plagued him back then. But, of course, Wyatt wasn’t looking to get into my pants, so my parents didn’t have the same fears they did with other guys.

“I’m not chalenging your right to have guy friends. I’m just teling you to be careful. You’re a beautiful girl. Connor would be lucky to date you.”

I roled my eyes at her. She was such a mother. I wasn’t convinced that the rest of the world shared her opinion – especialy when I stood next to Alexis.

“Okay, I’m going to order dinner,” she said, hoisting herself off my bed. She looked exhausted. “Have fun tonight.”

After she left, I turned my attention back to my closet. I had on jeans and my camel balet flats, but no top. I stood in front of my closet and stared. I didn’t want to look too over-dressed or too casual. I stared some more, wondering why I was so concerned with what I looked like even though I knew why. I just didn’t want to admit it – even to myself.

I finaly opted for a long sleeve white t-shirt and my tan corduroy jacket. I touched up my make-up and puled my light brown hair out of the knot I’d put it in when Connor and I had been playing footbal. My hair hung down my back in long, loose curls. Overal, I thought I looked pretty good. I’d just have to be careful not to stand too close to Alexis and I’d be fine.

When the doorbel rang a few minutes later, I ran downstairs.

“Hi!” I said, opening the door with a flourish to reveal Connor standing on my porch in jeans, a white long sleeve t-shirt with a maroon short sleeve tee over it and a Texas Longhorns basebal hat on his head. He looked hot. I wanted to tel him that was my favorite look on a guy but was afraid it would sound flirty, so I held back. “Come in.”

I knew my mom would want to say hi to him before we left, so I didn’t even try to leave without teling her.

“You look great,” Connor said, puling me into a hug. Apparently he wasn’t above flirting.

You smell great.
I inhaled the boy scent emanating from his shirt. He smeled yummy.

“Mom, Connor’s here,” I caled into the house, not sure exactly where she was.

“Coming,” she caled from the vicinity of the kitchen.

As we waited, Connor perused the pictures of our family on the hal table. “Is this your boyfriend?” he asked gesturing to a picture of me and Aaron, giving me a look that asked if this was something else I hadn’t told him.

I laughed out loud. “No, that’s my brother. Gross.”

Connor gave me a funny look. “He’s black,” he said, as if I hadn’t noticed that my brother and I didn’t share the same skin tone.

“What?” I asked, my tone ful of fake incredulity, as I heard my mom come into the halway. I turned to face her. “Mom, did you know that Aaron is black?!”

My mom played right along with me. “Yes dear, we did, but we were afraid to tel you. Are you okay with it?”

We both turned around to face Connor, smiling, and saw his face was beet red. I laughed out loud. “If I had a dolar for every time someone asked that question,” I said, but Connor didn’t look amused.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not racist. I promise.”

“Wel that’s good,” my mom said. “We’re not racists either. Now we’l be sure to get along.”

When Connor didn’t seem to be laughing at our jokes, I realized we needed to quit. My mom must have realized it too.

“Connor,” she said. “We know you’re not a racist. It’s okay. People do double-takes al the time when they meet our family for the first time. We’re used to it. Aaron’s adopted.”

“And this is my gay step-brother,” I said, fueling the fire as I gestured to a picture of me and Wyatt. I’d started caling him my step-brother when he’d moved in the year before. “We’re a very diverse family.”

Connor gave me a look that said I should have shared this information with him before he came over, but I just shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal that he hadn’t known.

“I didn’t mean to judge. I’m sorry,” he said.

“He says he’s sorry a lot. You get used to it,” I told my mom and felt Connor elbow me. At least he was responding to my jokes now.

“How’s Jordan?” my mom asked then, slipping into nurse-mode. Connor looked relieved that we’d moved on from our diversity lesson for the time being.

“He’s good, Mrs. Lucas,” Connor said, suddenly realizing where he’d met her before. “We go back to the doctor in a few weeks, but he’l be fine.”

“Good,” she said, smiling warmly. “If you boys ever need anything, please let me know.”

“I wil,” he said, and for the first time since he’d come inside our house, he visibly relaxed.

My mom left us in the halway and returned to the kitchen. Connor took another glance at the pictures, noticing ones of me and Aaron at Christmas when we were little, one of our whole family at Aaron’s graduation from high school and one of Aaron, me, Wyatt and my dad after Aaron’s game against Kentucky the year before, and no doubt realized his error in thinking Aaron was my boyfriend.

“So,” he said, moving his gaze away from the pictures to look at me. “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure, let’s go watch some footbal,” I said, pumping my arm into the air, feigning excitement.

“That’s the spirit,” he said, putting his hand on the doorknob.

Connor opened the door for me and let me walk in front of him to the driveway. He pressed the button on his remote to unlock the doors to his rental car.

“Get ready to have some fun,” he said, as I climbed into the car. I could tel he stil felt embarrassed.

“Yeah, footbal rocks!” I said in mock excitement, trying to ease the tension. He laughed at me and shook his head. Mission accomplished.

We were quiet for a few minutes, as I tried to figure out what else to say. I was grateful for the Bright Eyes album playing in the background. It gave me something to focus on other than the silence. As we were puling into the school parking lot, Connor finaly spoke up.

“I told Alexis that we were going to the game together. I didn’t want her to be surprised when she saw us.”

“How’d she take it?”

“She wasn’t thriled with the idea, but I assured her we were just friends and she didn’t have anything to worry about. She was okay after that. She thought it was nice that I wouldn’t have to go alone.”

I couldn’t tel if he was lying or not. I couldn’t imagine Alexis would be okay with us hanging out, but I wasn’t about to argue with him.

“That’s good. I would hate to be the catalyst for a fight between you guys.”

Yeah, in reality I might not hate that so much.

“Nah, she’s fine,” he said, a little too casualy, and I wondered if they
had
gotten into an argument.

Once we arrived at the game, we bought our tickets and found seats quickly. Connor made sure to wave to Alexis as we walked past the cheerleaders, so she would know he was there. She blew him a kiss and glared at me when he wasn’t paying attention. Yeah, she definitely wasn’t okay with me hanging out with her boyfriend. I smiled widely just to piss her off.

So, I have to confess, the game was kind of confusing. Al I realy understood was when we scored. I stil just cheered with everyone else, but at least this time I knew that we’d scored six points at each touchdown, so I guess that was progress. I felt bad that I didn’t retain more knowledge, since Connor had spent so much time reviewing the game with me, but most of the time I had trouble just figuring out where the bal was. Halfway through the first half, I gave up and just cheered when everyone else cheered.

At halftime Alexis made her way up to our seats to say hi while the band and dancers performed on the field. She sat on Connor’s lap, her back to me, and wrapped her arms around his neck as she kissed him. He seemed excited to see her. They talked for a few minutes, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, since she was whispering in his ear. He was grinning at whatever she was saying. Every now and then he would say something back. I didn’t want to even try to guess what had him grinning that much, so I focused on the action on the field.

After a few minutes of secret talk with Connor, Alexis directed her attention to me. “Abby, what do you think?” she asked, and I was honestly shocked that she was addressing me directly with a non-hostile comment. It was a monumental occasion, and I wondered how much Connor had to do with her change of attitude.

I turned my head to face her. I knew she wanted to know what I had thought about the cheerleaders. I couldn’t tel her that I hadn’t looked at them once during the first half, so I just lied.

“You guys were great,” I said, adding a little of fake enthusiasm to my tone which she seemed to buy.

“Thanks! Are you coming to the party later?” she asked. “It’s at Rich’s house, so you know it wil be great.”

Yeah, I really don’t want to be fake friends with you, but thanks so much for trying.

“I don’t think so,” I said, as sweetly as I could through clenched teeth.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, and I could hear the fake disappointment in her tone. I knew she was only putting on a good show in front of Connor. She didn’t want me there anymore than I wanted to be there. “I guess it’l just be us, then.” She looked back at Connor.

“Yeah, I can’t convince Abby to go,” he said, looking over at me. He seemed visibly frustrated that I wasn’t going to be social that night.

“Wel, work on that during the second half, okay? Alright, gotta go,” she said, and I had to commend her for her acting skils. It seemed she’d lost the battle when it came to keeping Connor away from me, so now she was going to play nice. She giggled as she kissed Connor once more, hopped off his lap and bounced back down to the sideline, and al I could think was how much I did not trust that girl.

He looked over at me. “I’m not going to be able to convince you to go, am I?”

I shook my head. “Nope, I’m definitely not in the mood for a party.” I left out the ‘with your friends’ that I desperately wanted to add since I figured it would be bitchy, and I’d have to explain why I’d said it which I wasn’t ready to do.

“That’s too bad,” he said, putting his arm around me, puling me into a half-hug.

The second half of the game was a bit more exciting. Both teams scored several times, and it looked like we were going to win. Then Jack threw an interception. It was his second one of the game which was incredibly unprecedented. He was usualy realy consistent.

Maybe he was out of sync without his best receiver to pass to. Jack had a hard time adjusting his game after Wyatt had quit the team. It seemed he stil hadn’t found his rhythm.

The first time Jack threw an interception the other team hadn’t scored, but this time they did, and the game was tied with two minutes to go. Luckily, our team ended up puling out the win at the last second. Jack threw a long pass to Cameron that hung in the air for a few seconds before landing right in his hands. He took off for the end zone and scored as he was tackled. Connor and I jumped up and down with the crowd as soon as the referee made the touchdown sign, and Connor surprised me by puling me into a hug, lifting me off my feet.

“That was awesome!” he said, as he hugged me.

“So cool,” I said, as he set me back down on my feet and smiled at me.

“You love it, don’t you? Admit it. I got you excited about footbal.” He was gloating as he did a little victory dance.

You got me excited about something, that’s for sure.

“I love it,” I said, grinning back at him. I poked him in the stomach while he danced around like an idiot, feeling his taught stomach beneath my fingers.