Against All Odds (11 page)

I manage to gather my courage enough to open the gym doors and walk inside.

The heavy doors slam shut behind me as Nathan turns to look at me. A look of pain, and maybe annoyance comes across his face and I want to turn around and run out of there as fast as I can. But I walk toward him anyway.

“Hey,” I say slowly.

“Hey,” he says, not looking at me as he goes for an easy lay up.

I pause, unsure of what to say next. He continues to pretend I’m not there, circling back around the court and shooting a three pointer that sails through the net effortlessly.

“So where have you been?” I say, somehow managing to find my voice.

He shrugs and grabs the ball off the floor. “Around.”

“Okay,” I say, a little uncertain. “Is everything all right?”

He doesn’t look at me and starts dribbling the ball quickly up and down the court without answering. He’s running really fast, and as he passes me and goes to slam the ball through the hoop, a feeling of unease washes over me. Something about his presence puts me on edge. He’s not the same kid he’s been with me over the past few weeks. Instead, he reminds me of the kid I saw that first night in the gym. That kid who didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything except for himself. And that scares me.

“Nathan,” I say slowly, “tell me what’s going on.”

He sighs loudly before finally turning to look at me. And when he does a look of sympathy comes over his eyes for a second. But then, just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone. And the same cocky exterior surrounds him once again.

“Look, “ he says harshly, “we need to stop.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Stop what exactly?”

“This,” he says, waving his hands back and forth between the two of us.

“Whatever the fuck this is.”

“I didn’t know it was anything,” I lie.

He rolls his eyes as if letting me know I’m full of shit. “Oh you know,” he snaps,

“you know exactly what you’re doing and I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t agree to this.”

Suddenly, I feel myself getting really annoyed. I mean, what is his problem? So we’ve gone a little out of the guidelines of our agreement. He’s been fine with it. Now suddenly he has an issue.

“What is your problem?”

“My problem,” he says, frustrated, “is you. “

“Wow.”

“I want to stop this whole game or whatever it is we’re playing here. I’m seventeen, Shell. I don’t need to be worrying about you. Wondering why you don’t fucking sleep at night or why your dad treats you the way he does. Or hoping you’re okay every second of the day. I’m not ready for any of that, especially not with someone who lives a room away from me. You clearly want more than I’m willing to give you.”

The words send a shockwave through my heart. I didn’t realize until that exact moment just how attached to this kid I really am. I’ve spent every waking moment of every day lately trying to remind myself that I’m in control of my emotions, trying to tell myself that I’ll be okay with whatever this was ending. But suddenly, in this moment, I realize that I don’t want anyone else. I want Nathan. But he doesn’t want me, not even a little.

I want to say something, anything, but I can’t. I can’t find the words to express how I feel. I feel like there are no words that can. So instead, I gather up my pride, turn around, and head toward the gym doors.

“Shell,” he calls out just before I reach the doors. And for a split second I feel hope come over me. For a split second I think he might take it all back and say he’s completely and totally crazy and that he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

But when I turn around all he says is, “I invited Ava to the party for your dad’s new client.”

Before he can see my reaction I swing my body back around and push open the doors to the gym, slamming them shut behind me. I feel my heart jump out of my chest and tears start to sting the inside of my eyelids. I slide my body down on the floor and place my head in my hands.

“Are you alright?” the voice says, startling me as I feel my body jump halfway off the floor.

I look up and see Matt Russo standing above me with a concerned expression on his face. And then something comes over me. A mixture of pain and hurt and anger all at the same time. And then I do something completely and totally crazy, something completely and totally out of the ordinary for me. Something kind of brave. I ask Matt Russo to go to my dad’s dinner party with me.

And the even crazier thing is that he says yes.

Chapter Eight

I haven’t spoken to Nathan since that day in the gym.

Okay, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve pretty much been avoiding him. I’ve stayed at Angelina’s house for the past few nights, not that I’ve been sleeping much. It’s not really my fault though. I’m trying my best to tell myself that it doesn’t matter, that I don’t really care about him, that seeing him won’t hurt. But if I’m being at all honest, I know it will. I’m really mad at myself.

I’ve never opened up to anyone the way I have with Nathan. Not just sexually, but emotionally too. How could I be so stupid? How could I let myself get so wrapped up in a situation that I know has been completely and totally fucked from the start? I just want to forget him now. I want to forget that I ever even knew him. Which would be easy if he didn’t, I don’t know, live in the same house as me. How can you forget someone if every time you turn a corner they’re standing right there?

“Just breath,” Angelina tells me softly, rubbing her hand up and down my back.

It’s the night of my dad’s huge dinner party and I’m in the middle of having a nervous breakdown in Angelina’s bedroom. This is partly because I’m going to be seeing Nathan for the first time since our fight. And to make matters worse I’ll have to see him with Ava. Plus, I have no idea how to act around Matt. I mean, I haven’t exactly had very many conversations with the kid.

I back up and slowly place my body on Angelina’s bed, sighing loudly and feeling like I’m about to cry for the hundredth time in the past few days. Why can’t I stop crying? Why? Even when my mom died I was able to control it better than this. I was able to keep it behind closed doors. It’s like I have no control over my emotions right now and I hate it.

“You need to relax,” Angelina says, a little more sternly than I think she realizes.

I turn my eyes toward her and wipe one of the stray tears that slip down the side of my cheek. She snaps my hand away and grabs a tissue off her nightstand, gently blotting my wet face.

“Can you stop? You’re going to ruin your make-up,” she tells me.

“Who cares,” I announce, sounding defeated.

Angelina sighs and rubs the side of her head as if she’s about to have a panic attack. “Vic, you have got to stop this. You’ve done nothing the past few days but mope around my house crying. I mean my mom’s even starting to worry about you.”

I look down, ashamed. “I can’t help it. I know I shouldn’t be this upset but I just…I don’t think I can face him. I feel way too humiliated. “

Angelina stands, pulling me up after her. She stops us in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of her bedroom door. “What do you have to be humiliated about? He’s one boy out of a million. And you look fucking hot Vic.”

I look at myself in the mirror carefully. My hair is curled in loose ringlets all over my face and my make-up is flawless thanks to Angelina and her mom spending hours fussing over me. I’m wearing a white dress that falls just above my knees. The neckline is lose and falls just above my breast line, revealing just enough to leave a little mystery.

The dress, along with the black high heels that are now wrapped nicely around my feet, were a surprise from Angelina and her mom. If it had been up to me I would have worn jeans and a sweatshirt to this thing.

I had asked Matt spur of the moment, out of my anger at Nathan, and now I’m not actually all that happy about having to spend an evening with him. Which makes no sense since I had been crushing on him forever. But somehow Matt doesn’t seem that interesting anymore after Nathan. Actually, no one does for that matter.

But looking at myself now, really looking at myself , I realize Angelina’s right. I do look really good. I’m finally starting to have confidence in who I am and no one has the right to take that away from me. This doesn’t have to change just because Nathan doesn’t want me.

I allow myself a small smile and turn to look at her. “Thanks,” I say softly, as I pull her close to me. “For everything.”

I feel her smile into my shoulder and then gently mumble, “For the record, it’s his loss, Vic.”

***

The second I step into the house, my dad’s all over me. And not in a good way.

“Now Victoria, don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Now Victoria, whatever you do, don’t bring up your dislike of rap music. Now Victoria, you just eat whatever they put in front of you. I don’t want to hear any complaints out of you Victoria. And just try not to embarrass me.”

My head is spinning as I sit at the dining room table taking in everything he’s saying. It’s like he thinks I’m going to totally and completely ruin his chances of landing this client. I know better than to argue. Instead I just sit there and keep quiet.

Missy, to her credit, keeps quiet too during my dad’s little lecture. It’s not until he goes to see who’s knocking at the front door that she finally speaks.

“Victoria, you look really nice,” she says, and sounds like she really means it.

I give her a shrug and a small smile. I’m about to tell her that I try my best when my eyes suddenly land on something in the corner of the room. It’s my mom’s chest, sitting there against the wall, in the same place it’s always been.

“I thought that was going in the trash,” I say, trying to be casual.

Missy follows my glance over to the chest in the corner of the room and rolls her eyes. “It was. Nathan developed some unhealthy obsession with it.”

“He did?” I ask, curious in spite of myself.

Missy nods and looks at it sadly, like she can’t believe it’s still sitting here. “He freaked out when I tried to get rid of it. But whatever. I mean, if he likes it that much I figure let him have it, right?”

And I almost lose it right then and there. I almost start crying my eyes out. And I would have, I really would have, except for the fact that my dad walks back into the room at that exact moment. And he has Matt with him.

Now I know I said Matt was the last thing on my mind, and he totally was, but I have to admit he looks really good tonight. He’s wearing khaki pants with a solid blue button down shirt tucked into them. His hair is still wet from the shower and as he moves closer to me I can’t help but notice how amazing he smells.

“Wow,” Matt says, looking me up and down, “you look amazing.”

I feel myself blush in spite of myself. “Thank you.”

“So, where’s Nathan?” Matt asks, glancing around the room.

Ugh, of course he would want to know where Nathan is. I swear if boys aren’t thinking about girls they’re thinking about sports.

My dad shrugs. “He had to go pick up Ava. I gave him the address. He’s going to meet us there a little later.”

I’m instantly annoyed. My dad made this huge show about making sure I was on time to the house, saying we all had to go together as a family to make a good impression. He called me like six times today, which I might add is the most I’ve heard from him in days. But somehow Nathan gets away with not being here. And apparently he’s also getting away with somehow showing up to this thing late, probably so he can have sex with Ava first. Wonderful.

The only thing that I have going for me is that my father seems to completely and totally love Matt. I guess I’ve had so much going on that I forgot that he knows Matt from being on the basketball team with Nathan.

The entire drive to the party I feel like I’m invisible. All my dad wants to do is ask Matt about his scoring, if he wants to play college ball, and if he feels like Nathan has turned things around. This, of course, launches a whole conversation about how amazing Nathan is. Blah, blah, blah. It’s enough to make me feel sick. At least to my dad’s credit he doesn’t criticize or insult me. Of course, to do that would require he actually acknowledge me.

When we pull up to the house where the dinner party is I can tell right away that this event isn’t what my dad thought it was going to be. This isn’t a dinner party. It’s a PARTY PARTY.

The music is so loud you can hear it halfway down the driveway. There are people everywhere outside, drinking, dancing, and laughing. It seems more like a party the popular kids would throw on a Friday night than a dinner party my dad would be taking us too. If my dad is surprised by this development he doesn’t act like it. Instead, he just drives slowly through the hoards of people toward the front of the house.

“I thought you said this was a quiet dinner party darling,” Missy says so softly that I almost can’t hear her.

My dad flinches in the driver’s seat. “Well, you know how these Hollywood types are. Even a little dinner party is a big affair to them. I totally expected this.”

Sure he did.

Our car slowly creeps to the top of the driveway and my dad kills the engine. We all just sit there for a minute, not quite sure what to do. I’m about to ask my dad if he wants us to get out first when the door to the back seat swings open and I’m being pulled out of the car.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I recognize D-MONEY right away. I mean any teenage girl who watches T.V.

sees his face plastered all over every channel, not to mention in magazines and on the radio. He’s one of the biggest rappers on the planet and he’s standing two feet away from me, not looking very pleased.

“I…uh…I,” I begin to stutter.

“Darrell,” my dad says from next to me. “This is my daughter Victoria.”

Darrell, who I can only assume is “D-money,” laughs and takes a swig out of the bottle of vodka in his hand.

“Oh, you’re here with Richard,” he says. “Well, why the fuck didn’t you say so?”

I look at my dad nervously who just sits there smiling. Then before I can answer D-money has his arm around my neck and is pulling me toward the front door of his mansion.