Bittersweet Hope (12 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The next morning at breakfast,
Anna piled my plate full of ham, grits and hash browns. Pure heaven. I speared a chunk of the ham with my fork and stuffed it into my mouth.

Anna bustled around to Caleb’s seat, even though he wasn’t in the kitchen yet, and filled his plate. I couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked in her hot pink apron and frosted blonde updo. 

“Good Morning.”

The sound of Caleb’s voice almost made me choke. We hadn’t talked much last night after he kissed me. Anna had come home a few minutes later, and she’d stayed around all night. We didn’t have a chance to mention it. During supper I had felt like one
huge ball of nerves and hormones and nausea.

I hurried to
chew the food that was in my mouth, washing it down with a gulp of orange juice so big I could have gone swimming in it.

“Good morning sweetheart.” Anna said, planting a kiss on the top of his head. “Here’s your breakfast.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Caleb smiled at his mother and I nearly fell out of my chair. Good God, he was gorgeous. He chose that moment to look in my direction.

“Good morning, Audrey.” He said easily. He reached for the pitcher of juice and poured some into his glass.

I cleared my throat. “Good morning, Caleb. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks. You?”

The singing on the other end of the kitchen stopped. Anna walked over to the table, hand on hip as she stared at us.

“Since when are you two so…formal?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Formal?” Caleb asked. His eyes widened, making him appear innocent. I stifled a grunt and concentrated on my juice.

“Good morning, Caleb, how are you? Fine, Audrey, how are you?” Anna repeated us in a mocking tone. “What gives, you two?” She looked back and forth between us.

“Nothing.” Caleb said. He went back to his breakfast, and Anna’s eyes settled on me.

“Yeah, nothing.” I repeated, my eyes trained on my own plate.

“Mmm hmmm.” Anna watched us for a second, the two of us eating like we’d never seen food before. “Okay.” She finally said. She turned and went back over to the sink where she’d been filling it with water to clean the dishes.

Caleb wiped his hand on a napkin. Talk about inhaling food. I hurried to finish the rest of mine.

“Ready?”

I forced myself to swallow, even though I hadn’t completely finished chewing. “Yes.” I was anxious to be alone with him. To kiss him, to feel him close to me again.

“Okay. Let’s go.” He took three steps and was across the kitchen to Anna. Leaning over, he kissed her cheek. “Bye, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Bye, Audrey.” Anna waved and bubbles were flung across the floor. She giggled. “Oops.”

“Bye, Anna. See you later.”

I rushed out of the house and toward Caleb’s truck. He was beside my door, holding it open for me. I hoped Anna wasn’t watching out the window or something.

I scrunched up my nose when I saw the can of dip in his hand. “Ew.”

Confusion, then amusement, danced in his eyes. “What?” He said as he closed the door for me. I waited until he walked around and was seated behind the steering wheel.

“That’s totally disgusting. Like, swimming in sewer water disgusting.”

He laughed loudly. “Are you serious?”

“It’s pretty gross.”

Caleb stared at me, his dimpled cheeks making him look
even cuter, if that were possible.

“What, because we kissed now you think you can give me ad
vice?” He winked to show he was being playful.

I felt the scarlet blush spread across my cheeks.
Watch it, Audrey. Soon he’s going to think you permanently look like a tomato
. I couldn’t help it though. Everything about Caleb made me nervous.

The ride to school was quiet. Caleb’s fingers had inched over towards mine once we left the driveway, his index finger holding onto mine on the short ride. I ached to feel his kiss again, but where? There was no chance for privacy.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Caleb got out and came over to open my door again. Once I was out, we fell into step beside each other, heading for the building.

“I have baseball practice this afternoon, so I won’t be able to leave school until around five or so.”

I didn’t want to show my disappointment. “Okay. I can catch the bus.”

“Or you could come to the field and watch. Nobody would mind. Lots of the guys have their girls come and watch them practice.”

My heart ballooned in my chest. Their girls?

Caleb seemed to realize what he’d implied as he watched my face. “I mean, I was just saying that it would be okay if you were there, that it wouldn’t be trouble or anything. You wouldn’t be the only one, is what I meant to say.” He cleared his throat.

I hesitated. If I said no, would he look at it as a rejection? If I said yes, would it be admitting that I liked him? Of course he knew I liked him, though. That kiss had said more than that.

“Sure.” I said. Maybe I could meet more people that way, too. I was starting to realize that I didn’t want to be invisible, after all.

Caleb nodded. “Good deal. So, I’ll meet you after your last class and you can walk out with me, is that cool? Who do you have fourth block?”

“Mrs. Reynolds.”

A hand grabbed at me from behind and jerked me backwards. “What the—“I cried out in alarm. I suddenly felt paralyzed in terror, because I couldn’t think of but one person who would grab me like that.

“So. Is this who you’re screwing now?” I looked up and saw Zach sneering at me.

Caleb stepped forward immediately. “Hey. Who the hell are you?”

I wrestled my arm away from the big buffoon holding me. “Zach! What are you doing here? And just who do you thin
k you are grabbing me like that!”

I moved closer to Caleb, who reached out and intertwined his fingers with mine. When my eyes met Zach’s I almost second guessed myself. The anger in them seemed to snap out at me, causing friction in the air. My gut told me to push Caleb away, to protect him. Zach looked like he was about to go crazy.

I found my voice somehow. “What are you doing here?” I repeated.

“I came to talk to you again, to try and get you to change your mind about
going out with me. But I see you’ve already moved on to someone else. I guess you’re a little whore, just like your mama. You remember what happened to your mama, don’t you Audrey?”

My breath stuck in my throat, gasps barel
y able to come out. How dare he?

“It doesn’t seem to me like she wants to talk to you. So I suggest you go back to
whatever rock you crawled out from under and leave her alone.” Caleb spoke up, his voice hard and firm.

“I think you ought to mind your own business, mama’s boy.” Zach shot back.

Anger radiated within me.  This could get out of hand quickly. It wasn’t as if I didn’t think Caleb could take care of himself, if the fight were equal. But I knew Zach, and he wasn’t the kind to exactly play fair. I had to stop it before something happened that couldn’t be taken back.

“Look Zach, why would you think you could change my mind? We were never a couple. We never even went out! You asked me out, I accepted, and then everything went crazy and I changed schools. Sorry. Get over it.”

It was almost as if you could see steam coming out of his ears when he heard my words. “Oh, that’s how it’s going to be? Fine. Screw you, you little bitch.” He turned and walked to his beat up looking black mustang. He was still staring at us, his dark eyes slicing into me, as he sped out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

Embarrassment clouded my vision when I realized how many kids were standing around watching our little exchange. “Oh, God.” I whispered, melting into Caleb’s chest. He swiftly put his arm around me and ushered me around the side of the building, away from the hundreds of sets of eyes boring into me.

“Audrey. Who was that idiot?” Caleb looked over my head, as if he were making sure Zach had left.

“Zach Cochran. He went to my old school.”

“And you…”

I paused, trying to think of what he meant. Then Zach’s words seared into my memory.

“Is this who you’re screwing now?” He’d asked. Oh, God. Caleb thought…son of a bitch.

“No! Nothing ever happened between us. I never even went out with him, you heard me say that. He’d asked me out, but it was right before my mama died and the social worker came and threw me in foster care. I don’t know why he would say something like that.”

I forced myself to look into Caleb’s eyes. In them I read confusion, then understanding. He had no reason to think I was telling the truth. I could only hope he knew enough about me not to question that I was.

“I believe you. You could tell that guy is bad news anyway.” He stepped back a bit. “Why would you ever even want to go out with somebody like that?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I guess…he was dangerous. You can tell that, right? It felt like the only power I had, the only thing I could do to hurt my mother, and I wanted to hurt her so badly.”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force myself to meet his eyes then, after admitting that I’d wanted to make Mama feel pain by going out with someone who could get me into trouble.

Caleb put one finger under my chin and lifted it, making me look into his face. “Hey. It’s okay. I get it.”

My mouth parted involuntarily as he leaned down and kissed me, his lips soft and warm. It was just a soft kiss, sweet and airy, with the slightest promise of more to come later. It was perfect.

“Come on.” He said, his voice quiet. He held my hand and we walked into school together.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

I stepped out of the lunch line with my fingers gripping my tray again. Only this time, my knees were wobbling a little bit, too. All morning my insides had been clenched together, petrified that Zach would show up again.

Sierra was nowhere to be found. I figured I should probably tell her about the run-in with Zach, but she didn’t need anything else on her plate. She seemed to be doing so well, better than I’d ever seen her, and I wasn’t willing to screw that up by worrying her over something that didn’t even really matter. I hoped.

I stepped aside and waited for some of the kids behind me to pay for their lunches and leave the line. After about six of them, Sierra appeared at the register. When she saw me, she walked over.

“Hey. Why aren’t you sitting down?” She balanced her tray on the palm of one hand and used the other to take a sip of her sweet tea. I pursed my lips, wondering what her reaction would be to what I was about to suggest.

“Well…what if we sat at a different table today?”

When I hadn’t been sweating bullets in my morning classes, I’d been daydreaming. About Caleb. I’d gone from one extreme to the other, from fear to weightless bliss. He still might not even realize we were in the same lunch period, but he was about to, because I was going to put the B in bold and go sit with him. Besides, if I didn’t and he looked up and saw me, what would he think? That I didn’t want to see him right now? That I didn’t want to introduce him to my sister? No. It was time for a new Audrey. It was time to do this, ready or not. I felt something with Caleb that I never had before. Comfort, trust, desire. Okay, so I felt a lot of things. But if he could make me feel all those things in just a couple of weeks? Who was I to deny it?

Sierra narrowed her eyes and looked across the crowded room. “Sit somewhere else? Like where?”

I glanced toward Caleb’s ta
ble. The same people from the week before surrounded him. Today he wasn’t talking to any of them, though. Today he was watching me.

It took a genuine effort to hold myself upright when our eyes met.
One step, then the other, Audrey. One step, then the other.
If I took it slow, maybe I could make it over to the table without falling flat on my face.

I nudged my shoulder in his direction. “Like over there. With him.”

Sierra followed my eyes. When she saw where I was looking, she tilted her head to the side. “Your foster brother?”

I blanched and straightened my back. “He is NOT my brother.”

My sister raised her eyebrows and looked from me to Caleb. It only took her a second to clue in. “Ohhh…”

I sighed. “Look, we just, we’re becoming friends, that’s all.” Friends who kiss.

Sierra nodded. “Whatever you say, Aud.”

I stared at her. That was it? No argument? Who was this and what had she done with my real sister? I knew she was different since going to the Morton’s. Maybe two weeks was enough time to have an impact on anybody. Sadie crossed my mind. I hadn’t been able to see her all morning. I was desperate to talk to her, to try and figure out why she was being the way she was. But right now it was the last thing I wanted to think about. I shook my head and forced my youngest sister out of my mind.