Bound Together (4 page)

“Why’d you come here
?

“I like you,
Zoey
,” he continued kissing my neck.

“You don’t even know me, Jordan.” I pushed him back for a second. “Besides, I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.” He looked at me for a second before falling
in
towards me
again. “Jordan, did you hear me?”

“Yeah. That’s cool
—
I just thought we could still,
ya
know?” He trailed his fingers up my thigh.

The clock on his dash said 11:27
.
“My dad will be home from work
soon
.”

He
glanced at the clock
and smirked
. “I promise it’ll be quick.”

“
Hmm. As tempting as that s
ounds
—
I’m
gonna
pass
.
T
hanks though.” I pulled the handle, opening the door and the cool night air seemed to have some effect at bringing him back to his senses.

“Have fun
on your trip
,
Zoey
!
” he called as I swung the door shut.

I climbed the stairs to m
y
room, and s
ince I was still up, I figured I might as well
wait up for my dad to get home. B
ut then I remembered it was Friday and he always went out for a drink with the guys after work on Fridays.
I wasn’t tired yet, so I sat down at my laptop.
I
logged in
to Facebook and scrolled through the pictures of people having fun, the updated posts about weekend plans.

I typed
Matt
Parker
’s name
into the search bar and hit enter. I didn’t even know why I
was
searching for him. His picture came up. He was in his white football uniform, holding a ball at his
waist, a big smile on his face with his blonde hair and deep blue eyes.
He had the small town, All
Am
erican hero look down to a tee, h
is
perfect
boy features that were hard not to notice, especially in a high school filled with acne
-
ridden, greasy
-
haired boys.
I’m glad your life’s so fucking perfect
, I thought. I closed my laptop
.

Chapter Four

Matt

Okay, so I screwed up. During our pre
-
game warm
-
up, I’d tackled Dave Cook.
Dave was third
string;
barely
good enough to be on the team, and t
oday the third
string guys were mimicking the offense of the team we’d be playing tonight.
We were running a
practice play and I saw my
opportunity
, and I took it.
I ran full speed towards hi
m and slammed his
ass
into the ground
right in front of where the cheerleaders were warming up. Chelsey’s mouth had fallen open
in a perfect O
.

That earned me a lecture from Coach
—
Dave was a teammate, I was the captain, I had to set a good example
, whatever
. Instead telling Coach that Dave had slept with my girlfriend, I
apologized
said I didn’t mean to hit him that hard. But damn it felt good.

“
Roid
rage
?” Justin had asked when I
’d
jogged back to the huddle.

Now at
Brandon Sullivan’s
party I was reliving that tackle in my mind as I watched
Dave
place his hand on C
helsey
’s lower back and
flirt
with her
right
in front of me. We’d won the game against Westfield, so
at least
Coach was happy with me again.

It was funny how when someone’s parents were out of town, it didn’t matter if you were friends with them at school
or not
, everyone was here. I saw
Zoey
’s
friend Morgan, and I scanned the room looking for her, but she didn’t seem to be here.
Chelsey walked over to where I was standing in the kitchen.

She walked her manicured fingers up my chest. “Hey,
Matt
y
,” she said
,
drawing out my name. “I saw what you did for me on the field today.”

“I didn’t do that for you.” I looked straight ahead, over her head.

“
You wanted to fight Dave for my honor, and I think that’s sweet.”
She pulled her lip gloss from her purse and ran the tube across her already shiny lips.

I hate
d
that stuff,
I’d get
all sticky
when we kissed
and smell
like watermelon
for hours afterward
. I hated watermelon.
She wasn’t
listening to me at all. “
Chels
—
I broke up with you, remember?”

She looked up meeting my eyes for the first time.
“Why did you break up with me?”
She pouted, pushing her lips
out
, looking ridiculous.

I couldn’t even explain it to myself, let alone to her. Sure, the captain of the football team was supposed to date the captain of the chee
rleading squad. But
I don’t know, I couldn’t pretend to be that perfect guy anymore. Little by little
he
was slipping away from me
.
I was cracking. She was still looking up at me, waiting for me to answer. “I just needed some space
.
” 

“Well, if you ever get lonely.
”
She
plac
ed
her hand against my chest.
I was glad I’d
b
ench
ed
today. Let her feel what she wasn’t going to have.

I turned and walked away
. I sat down on a
couch
and
rubbed my temples. The annoying hip hop song blaring from the speakers was
giving me a headache. T
wo sophomore girls I vaguely
recognized from school
came and sat on either side of me
.
“Hi,
Matt
,” the blonde said. “I’m Lindsay. And this is
Sara
.” She nodded towards the brunette girl on my other side.

“Enjoying the party?” I asked. They each scooted in toward me.

“I
t’s okay,” Lindsay said. She started playing with my hair, rubbing her hand down the back of my neck.

Sara
ran her hand up my arm under the sleeve of my T
-
shirt.
It sent a shiver through me,
and
coupled with the way her friend was tickling my neck
it should have felt pretty nice, so w
hy couldn’t I loosen up and
enjoy the attention? I
took a deep breath and
looked around the room.
Everything was happening around me while I floated
above it all,
disconnected. The glazed over looks on my teammates faces, the group in the kitchen taking body shots of
Bree
Hohman’s
stomach.
They all seemed so damn happy and suddenly I couldn’t take it anymore.
I had to get out of there.

I got up and extracted myself from their hands.
“I’ve
gotta
go.”
Man, I was stupid
. I
headed o
ut to my truck
without saying
good
bye
to anyone
.
I didn’t want anyone trying to talk me out of leaving or making me feel weird for leaving now, just when the horny underclassmen were ready to undress me.

I drove in silence, not even wanting the sound of the radio invading my space.

My parents were asleep when I got home. I grabbed a cold slice of pizza from the fridge and headed back to my room. I passed the picture of John in the hall every
day, but for some reason tonight I stopped in front of it and roughly swallowed down the bite of pizza.

I looked at his face and wondered why he couldn’t have smiled in the picture. He was in his blue dress Marine uniform, his white cap
pulled low
with a serious expression on his face. If you knew John, you would
’ve
underst
oo
d how out of place
that
expression looked on his face. He was always smiling, flashing his dazzling white teeth at friends and strangers alike.

I ran my hand over my newly buzzed hair. I told myself I’d shaved
it
off
so
I wouldn’t have to style it, but I knew the real reason was so that I’d
look more like him. I ran my han
d across my head again and again, feeling the prickly hair against my palm. When I glanced in the mirror, or walked past a
window
, it was like he was back here with me, if only for the briefest of moments.

My parents never talked about him anymore. I felt
like
I couldn’t even say his name around th
em, and I hated them for that –f
or taking that
last bit of him
away from me. I
went
to my room and thre
w the uneaten pizza into the trash can under my desk.
I sat down at my desk and flipped open my notebook. It opened to the list I’d made with
Zoey
today. I turned the page over and started writing.

I’m going to
Paris

With a girl named
Zoey

I don’t know what
to think about my life anymore

Football. Parties. Pract
ice. Parents. It all feels fake

My jaw hurts from smiling

I want to feel
again,
I want to live

But instead I turn my head the other way

I crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it into the trash. I reste
d my head in my hands and brushed repeatedly over my hair
. I
t was becoming a habit
.

John’s death left a huge hole inside me.  And the almost daily headaches made it hard to forget. I never used to get them before. There were two distinct parts to my life
—
me before his death and the me he left behind after. They felt like two separate people. He’d died from a gunshot wound to the head, and I knew it was twisted, but whenever my head started throbbing, I thought about how it must have felt for him to die. No one knew about the headaches, and to all outside spectators I was still Matt, maintaining a reputable B average, captain of the four and one football team and boyfriend to the most popular girl in school
, well until yesterday
.

I was careful not to do anything that
would cause my parents to worry.
I knew my mom couldn’t handle anything more
,
so I played the role expected of me, the son she needed me to be. I couldn’t fall apart, that was her job. And for the last four months, I
tried to be
the perfect boyfriend too, but now I couldn’t keep up the effort, especially with Chelsey
—
that girl was seriously high maintenance. She started off as a good distraction, but then it became just another act I had to keep up
with
and it all became too much. My headaches had gotten more i
ntense and I couldn’t pretend with her anymore
.

It had taken everything in me to maintain the picture
-
perfect status I’d worked so hard to achieve. On the outside, yo
u’d never know that I barely kne
w how to live in a world where my brother
didn’t exist
.

John hadn’t lived at home for the last two years of his life. First, he’d tried college, but flunked out after realizing getting trashed and inflicting pregnancy scares weren’t on the curriculum at all. Then he’d joined the Marines and was sent to Afghanistan. I’d only seen him a dozen or so times in these past two years, so why did it like part of me was gone? A part I’d never get back.