Arrows (10 page)

Over the years, the dam had become a canvas for angst-ridden teens. Foam streaked the edges of the bank. I felt like spray-painting my own thoughts on the concrete, thinking
Jen is a bitch
would fit in perfectly between
Love sucks
and the anarchy symbol.

Her words stuck to me like paint.

I really thought you were going to do it this time. You know, go to New York.

No one understood love. If they did, they’d realize Danny and I had to stay together. Yes, I loved New York, and I loved dancing, but the desire to stay with him was always stronger. So strong I didn’t understand it. Sometimes nothing I felt made sense.

But he was stupid, my boyfriend, inviting her to a party. I squeezed the locket around my neck, the one he’d given me, and pulled. The chain wasn’t hard to break, a moment of the metal digging into my neck. I threw the necklace as hard as I could into the river, the gold reflecting the sun.

A second later, I ran into the water, skimming the river bottom. I lost my balance and fell forward, catching myself on a sharp rock. Blood oozed from the cut. Stupid. Stupid. I cried out and sucked the end of my finger.

“Are you okay?”

Aaryn stood on the bank, the sun highlighting every detail of him. His olive-toned skin. Black hair and short sideburns that angled an inch below each earlobe.

“No.” A chill raced up my arm. “I lost my necklace.” And then I grimaced, feeling embarrassed. My shoulders sagged.

“I think it landed over here.” He stepped in ahead of me, dipped into the current and held out my necklace, water rolling down his hand. “Found it.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Water sloshed as I fumbled to take it and the locket nearly fell again, but his reflexes were good. He cupped my hand from underneath. We stood like that for a few seconds, his palm supporting mine, slippery with river but warm to the touch. Up close he had blue eyes, and there was a slight crease at each corner when he smiled. A dark freckle, one spot, marked the right corner.

His hand fell away.

“I can’t believe you found it,” I said. The river churned around our feet. Downstream the tan water turned blinding white as the sun hit it. “How are you, by the way? Danny told me about the lake. That must have been so scary.”

Aaryn trudged to the bank. “I’m fine.” He stared at the long grass, which was matted by our footsteps. “Totally fine.”

“I’m glad you’re both okay.”

He held out his hand. I took it, and he drew me up the hill a couple of steps.

“Hey, did Danny come over last night? On your anniversary?”

“Oh, it got to be too late.” I waved my hand. “I was writing a report, so it worked out fine.”

“Sorry,” Aaryn said. “He…should have stopped by.”

My eyebrow raised. “
You’re
sorry?” I shook my head and tried to make my laugh sound real. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I just feel bad that he was with me when he could have been with you. Should have been.”

“Why did you lie to me?” My voice came out in a rush.

“Lie to you?”

“You said you invited Jen to the party.”

“Oh.” He shifted from one foot to the other.

“Danny was the one who invited her, wasn’t he?”

“I honestly don’t know. I found them together. You just seemed so upset, and then you said it was your anniversary the next day, and—I don’t know.”

“So you thought lying would make me feel better?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

Pine trees grew along the riverbank, hundreds of them. I was tired of seeing the same kind of trees. Aaryn reached for the necklace in my hand. The chain itself hadn’t broken, though the clasp was stuck wide open. He gestured for me to turn around.

“Why’d you throw your locket into the river?” he asked. I bowed away from the sound of his voice in my ear.

He fastened it around my neck, fingertips brushing my skin. I had ripped it off on impulse, the way I’d done too many things in the past year, making a fool of myself. I could add Aaryn to the list of people who’d gotten to see the real Karma, the dance prodigy who couldn’t help spinning out of control if the circumstance allowed. I was a lot like the necklace. Flying through the air, not knowing where I’d land.

“It’s complicated. And stupid.”

“I can handle complicated.”

I hugged myself and shook my head, blinded for a second by the sun. “I better get going. Danny is probably wondering where I am.” A panicky feeling rose in my stomach as I imagined asking him about the party. He wasn’t a morning person. Maybe I shouldn’t.

“Can I walk with you?”

“It’s a free country.” A cliché I hated.

“Free country?” He turned on his foot with one eyebrow up.

“Yeah. You know.” I shrugged. His face tipped a little, waiting for my answer. “Uh, America?”

“Oh.” He chuckled loudly, then cleared his throat. “Right. ‘Free country.’ ” He made air quotes.

We walked toward the parking lot in silence, not the kind of silence that pressed against my chest but a safe, expanding silence. We were practically strangers—the word
strange
fit him pretty well at times—but being with him didn’t feel awkward.

“I shouldn’t have lied,” he said. He shook his head. “You deserve better than that.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Seriously, I’m over it.”

At my car, we looked at each other for a while, and for a second I wished he’d hug me, the way little kids are supposed to say sorry, which had to be the most stupid thing on top of all the other stupid things.

“Bye, Karma.”

When he was gone I called Peyton.

—

We decided an emergency Auntie Night was a must. I drove to Shining Waters after dropping off Danny’s burger—he hadn’t felt good enough to eat it—and Peyton came outside to get Nell; she was wearing yoga pants and one of Nick’s baggy T-shirts. Her hair was a mess. She hugged me. “I can’t believe Jen said all that.” Nell was really happy to see her, clutching the shirt, hands all over her face. “Talk about passive-aggressive,” she mumbled, because Nell was gripping her bottom lip.

“I’m so sick of being lied to and explained to and ditched.” I grabbed my three bags and slammed the car door. “I tried talking to Danny, but he didn’t feel good.”

“Oh, whatever. You deserve to know what’s going on. What the hell? What is going on? How weird is it that Aaryn would lie for him? How weird is it that Danny would go anywhere with
her
?”

It felt so good to have Peyton on my side. Also, judging by the look on her face, frightening.

“I don’t want Juliette to hear any of this,” I said. I held my phone.

“Okay.”

The morning had been awful, with Jen being such a bitch and Danny barely thanking me for the food. Me feeling weird about Aaryn. But I was safe again. I was loved.

We sat on the porch steps as I scrolled for his contact.

“Put it on speaker,” Peyton whispered, then snuggled Nell to see if she was in a noisy mood. Danny didn’t answer his cell phone. I hesitated, then called him at home.

My response to his mother’s answer felt all too familiar.

“Oh, he’s not home?”

“He went somewhere with Dmitri a little while after you left.” Judy was the type of mother who hadn’t taught her sons not to spit in public or lie. Yet when they needed her she had the ferocity of a mother bear. “He’s been busy.” Her voice had a tinny sound through the phone.

Peyton rolled her eyes and shook her head.

I angled the phone close to my mouth. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He didn’t tell me.” She clucked her tongue. “Oh, honey, is something wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I really need to talk to him.”

She paused. “He’s not gonna get away with avoiding you. We can’t let him.”

Mother Bear had taken my side. I smiled and shifted on the step, giving Peyton a satisfied nod. “Did he tell you I’m going to apply for the dance program at Southern Miss? We’ll still be able to see each other every weekend.”

“Hmm. Danny loves you girls.”

Peyton may have rolled her eyes again, but I pretended not to notice. “Hopefully I’ll get that scholarship. Danny said he would help me with my performance, but—”

The sound of a cellophane bag being torn open rustled loudly in the background. “You’ve got savings, don’tcha?”

I sat up, the step hard beneath me. “A little.”

“What about your mom? Doesn’t she have some sort of college fund set up for you girls?”

It seemed like an odd question coming from a mother who didn’t have anything like that set aside for her children.

“I have to pay my own way.” Was she really on my side? “Hopefully Danny can help out with money this summer,” I added. Peyton nudged me, grinning.

“He’ll be eighteen in May. It would be hard for him to keep up with his football training if he had to get a full-time job. Are you thinking you’re going to file for child support?”

“Oh! I didn’t mean that. No. I meant he could get something part-time, you know, just to help with some of the bills, help us save.” I swallowed and focused on the group of birds clustered in the tree across the yard. They were eating some kind of seed from the pods.

Judy bark-laughed. “He has to save up for
his own
college, ya know.”

“But he already got that scholarship.”

“A one-thousand-dollar scholarship? Really, honey, you think that’s going to cover college?”

My heart pounded. One thousand dollars? That was all? Peyton’s mouth hitched open. I stood and clicked off speaker as I tromped down the stairs. The phone against my cheek felt sticky. “I thought…He made it sound like it was a big scholarship.” I slid my hand across the hood of my car for support. Birds chirped from the trees. “It’s only a thousand dollars?”

“Better than nothing.”

“Oh.” I inhaled sharply. Mama Bear’s tone was scaring me. “Then it makes even more sense for him to get a job. He could start looking for a job now, maybe find something that’s a couple of hours a week.” I could hardly believe myself. I could almost picture her nostrils splayed, a fake smile on her face. Mama Bear probably wanted to paw me dead.

“Well, I’ll tell him you called.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care, okay?”

I closed my eyes as she disconnected.

I had to confront Danny.

—

“We should make a list.” Peyton rolled onto her stomach, picking through trail mix for the chocolate. It was late. She was lying on one end of the sectional, me on the other. Our heads met in the middle. The TV was the only light in the room. “A list of pros and cons. If the pros side is longer than the cons, you should stay together. If not—”

I felt nauseated. Nell had fallen asleep hours ago, and Juliette had gone to bed. I rubbed my stomach.

“Have you ever made a list like that for Nick?”

“No. But I have for other guys.”

Why did it feel so horrible, so awful, like she was more in love than me? Why did my stomach hurt?

“I don’t think I want to break up with him.”

“Let’s make a list.”

She clicked the lamp on and found a piece of scrap paper. She pushed that and a pen across the cushion.

After sighing, I started the list, pros first.

Nice

Cute

Close to his family

A good dad

Good kisser

Good friend

Hard worker

Likes having fun

I stopped. “This is too easy.”

“You haven’t gotten to the cons side yet.”

I added five more things to the pros side and drew a line down the middle of the page. All right. Cons.

And my eyes filled with tears. The words burned as I wrote. I worked my way down in slow, careful letters.

Avoids me

Peyton crawled over and put her arm around me. The bullet points felt a little like real bullets.

Asks other girls to parties

I shook my head and wrote again.

Cheated on me

I added,
once.
I squirmed away from Peyton, feeling feverish, feeling, I don’t know, crazy. “I don’t want to break up with him.”

“Don’t you want to be happy? I hate seeing you like this.”

“Yes. I’m happy with Danny.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes.”

Peyton just looked at me then. I grabbed the remote and flipped channels until I found a reality show—stupid drama to make mine seem small. I scribbled the cons side of the list until the pen caught in the middle and ripped the paper, leaving a stripe of ink on my knee.

Day 17

Karma was at the game a week later.

She trudged to an open spot on the sidelines, baby carrier on one arm, two bags and a blanket on the other. After a long process of shedding her things, she tightened a gray sweater around her waist and rocked the carrier with one foot. Scanned the field. Danny shocked us both by running up for a kiss right before kickoff. His jersey blocked my view. A white number 30.