Crushed (12 page)

Sundays are for homework, and today is Sunday.

I’d rather be sitting outside, enjoying the sun. Maybe seeing if we can get enough guys together for a game of soccer or something. But no. I’m going to lock myself away, in the massive Harker School Library. 

I leave the sun behind me, and step into the cavernous main floor. 

It’s quiet, just like a library should be.

A huge circular desk dominates the middle of the room. I stop and swipe my ID before walking through the sensors to the rest of the library. There aren’t any books on the first floor; just rows of computers, study carrels, and meeting rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. These lovely fishbowls have no blinds, so don’t even try getting it on in there. 

I pick a desk in the third row and sink into the hard wooden chair. From my backpack, I remove my pile of books, the folder with my college applications, and my laptop. 

Most colleges accept electronic applications, but Harker encourages us to do the paper ones. They say it will make us stand out. Don’t know why, but whatever. 

I pull the top application — Bowdoin — and start filling in the easy stuff, my name, birthdate, schools attended. I have ten of these to do, and I may die of boredom.

Hushed voices come from the next row over. I’m half-listening until Ellie says, “I’m going to finish up here. Go ahead and get started without me.”

Libby, I think, answers, “You sure?”

“Go,” Ellie says forcefully. “I work better alone, anyway.

Libby mutters something unintelligible. 

“Okay. See you in a little bit.”

For some reason, my heart’s racing. Like seriously beating so hard, you’d think I just finished the hundred meters in record time. I rub my clammy hands on my jeans and slowly count to fifty. I don’t want to seem overeager. 

Not that I am. It’s just that every time we hang out, Brady’s normally with us. 

I should say ‘hi’ to her. But then what? Make small talk about the library? Ask about the weather?

On forty-six, I stand and walk to the end of my row. Ellie’s back is to me. Her hair is pulled off her neck in a messy knot thingy.
Forty-eight
. I inch closer to her.
Forty-nine. Fifty.

 “Ellie?” My toes curl in my shoes, and I tighten my grasp on my iPod. I try looking nonchalant. Like a friend.

When she doesn’t turn around, I lean against her carrel’s partition. My stomach brushes her arm, and she jumps.

“Fletch!” she says, fumbling with her earphones. “You scared me.”

I point at her earphones. “Sorry. I should have realized you couldn’t hear me.” 

Ellie pushes her chair back and spins around to face me. Her head is waist level, which normally is a great place for a girl’s head to be, but this is Ellie, and I’m not supposed to think about her like that.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

Thinking pervy thoughts.
I smirk. “Studying. Like you.”

“Smart ass.” She rolls her eyes. “ I come here every Sunday, and I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Brady’s taken over my room.” It’s a little weird looking down at her when her head is directly across from my crotch, so I say, “Do you want move to a meeting room with me? We could talk in there.”

“Sure.” She starts placing her things into her bag, and I head back to my desk. I don’t bother to put any of it away, just gather it up in my arms and walk toward the meeting rooms. They’re all empty, so I take the one nearest me and dump my stuff on the table.

Ellie’s right behind me, but she’s neater, stacking her things in organized piles.

“Are you always such a neat freak?” I joke.

“Yes. I even fold and organize my underwear by color,” she retorts.

The memory of glimpsing her panties on two different occasions fills my head with all kinds of inappropriate Ellie-thoughts. But I can’t help it. She did flash me after all and didn’t seem to mind, either. And damn if Ellie Jacobs isn’t hot.

Like me, she’s working on her college applications. My hand darts across the table and grabs one up. Ellie’s neat handwriting fills the tiny boxes.

“Elizabeth? Your name’s Elizabeth?” 

The revelation seems significant, like learning a secret. 

“Yes. Elizabeth Rose.” She hesitates before asking, “Where’d you get your name?” 

“Fletch? It’s my middle name — Fletcher. My mom’s maiden name.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Will, William, like my dad. But he’s Will, so I’m Fletch.” I’m grinning like a fool. 

“William Fletcher Colson. I like it.” She pushes on my lips with her finger and wiggles her nose at me. God help me for being just a little turned on. 

Her eyes glint in a way that sends heat rushing to my crotch. “We should study,” she says lightly. 

“We should.” Her hand is still against my lips, and when I speak, it’s like I’m kissing her finger.

With one more press of her fingertip on my lips, she moves away from me, sits down, and starts to put her headphones back on.

“Hey, Elle,” I say.

She raises eyebrows. “Elle? Not Ellie?”

“Does it bother you?” I ask, thinking maybe I overstepped. 

She considers my question for a long moment. “No. It’s okay.”

I smile. “So, Elle, how would you like to come with my friends and me to my parents’ place in Napa next weekend? For my birthday.” I hastily add, “Brady’s going to invite Sarah.”

“It’s your birthday? How did I not know this?”

Funny, but all those times we’ve hung out with her, Brady and I never asked Ellie about herself, and she’s never asked personal questions about us – other than my favorite ice cream. It’s like our lives away from school aren’t real. Like they don’t matter.

Suddenly, I want to ask her a million questions. I want to know everything about her.

“Yeah, Saturday.”

Ellie pops one of her headphones in. “Sounds fun, but if this is just a ploy for presents, you’re going to be sad.”

I toss a pencil at her. It strikes her chest. “Smart ass.”

“Yeah, but you like me this way.” She tucks the pencil behind her ear. 

“Speaking of birthdays, when’s yours?” I ask.

“March first. I was born during the worst snow storm ever, according to my dad.”

She grew up somewhere with snow. Interesting. “Where do you live?”

“Here.” She absentmindedly gnaws on her finger. For being a neat freak, her nails are a mess.

“You know what I mean. Where do you go during breaks?”

She looks up at the ceiling and raps her fingers against the table. “Hmmm…I’m trying to decide if I should answer that. It may remove some of my mystique.” Her deep brown eyes rest on me. 

“Tell me.” I’m surprised by the pleading in my voice.

“Michigan. I’m from the great state of Michigan.”

Huh. Not my first guess. I was thinking old school East Coast like Brady.

“So…next Saturday, Sarah, Libby, and I are going to your parent’s home in Napa?” I notice she’s added Libby to the list, but don’t mention it. What’s one more guest? “I thought they lived in San Francisco.” 

“They do. Napa is our country house.”

She sucks on her cheek, which makes her mouth pucker. “Fancy.”

Talking to Ellie is easy. Like breathing. I’m not worrying about saying the wrong thing or if she has ulterior motives. 

“How come we never hung out before this year?” I ask

A slow smile dances across her lips. She keeps her eyes trained on the application she’s resumed working on. “Probably because you never tried to seduce me?”

16

It’s still early, maybe three-thirty, when Ellie and I decide we need a break. We leave our bags in the meeting room with the intention of coming back after we secure food.

Since the dining hall is closed until five, our choices are go to her place or mine. Ellie’s is closer, but she says, “You have better stuff. Sarah only orders health food – like rice cakes and edamame. Plus, it’s gorgeous out and a walk will do us good.”

We’re talking about nothing — the weather, classes, the likelihood of Brady and Sarah becoming a couple — as we approach The Beach. It’s crowded, at least half the school is out enjoying the sun. 

Ellie’s telling me a story about how she once fell into a toilet, and I’m laughing, really laughing because Ellie can make the most boring story sound hilarious. 

Then I see Calista. With Alex. On The Beach. Sharing a blanket. Their heads touching. Lounging there, in full view of my room, like they want me to see.

I can’t look away. 

I need to look away.

We’ve stopped walking. 

“Are you okay?” Ellie steps in front of me and turns so that she’s somewhat blocking the view.

The way she stares at me, like she can see straight inside my thoughts, unnerves me. “I’m…”

She finishes for me. “Not okay. You’re not. I can tell.”

I’m shaking, trying to hold in everything building inside me. The anger, the hurt, all of it. 

Why does this hurt so much?

Ellie places her hand in mine. Her fingers rub the back of my hand. It’s not sexual or anything. Just nice.

 “Let’s go for a walk,” she says, leading me away from The Beach. My fingers instinctively wrap around hers, and she gives them a little squeeze. “Away from here.”

“Where are we going?”

A warm breeze drifts up and over the hill. It plays with Ellie’s dark hair, sending loose strands across her face. With her free hand, Ellie tucks them behind her ear, only to have a gust loosen them again.

“Just follow me, Fletch.” 

And so I do, away from The Beach and Calista and Alex, toward a dirt path. With each step, my heartbeat slows, and the anger lessens.

We walk in silence through the redwood forest. The sun doesn’t reach this low, and the undergrowth still drips with water. Even though the fog lingers here, I’m neither cold nor damp. Just numb. 

Halfway to the faculty lot, Ellie veers left, stepping off the path and through the large ferns covering the floor of the forest. 

“Where are we going?” I ask again.

She drops my hand and holds up her finger, telling me to wait. This isn’t a beaten path, but from the crush of the plants, it isn’t unknown either. Ellie forges on, her thin frame dwarfed by the towering redwood trees.

Suddenly, she’s running. 

“Hurry, Fletch,” she calls, racing ahead.

Around us, the forest is alive: the groan of the trees, a crack of a branch, the rustle of the wind. 

I wait, not sure what game she’s playing, and Ellie sprints back toward me. She slaps my arm. “You’re it.”

Before I can tag her back, she darts away, running between the trees faster than I can keep up. My feet stumble over the hidden obstacles beneath the lush plants. 

Disoriented, I turn in a circle searching for her, but the massive trees obscure all traces of my prey. Which way were we walking? The trees blend into one another. 

“Ellie?” 

Her voice drifts through the underbrush, beckoning me, guiding me toward her. “Chase me, Fletch. You have to catch me.”

I take off, sprinting toward the sound of her voice. The residual fog clings to me and shrouds the world in gray.

Ellie reappears, weaving back and forth between the trees. Suddenly, the fog breaks, and she stands in a small clearing, her arms spread wide, the sun streaming over her. The fog lingers at the edges, as if held back by magic. 

She licks her lips, her head tilted toward the sky. 

“I come here when I need to feel better.” She saunters over to a fallen redwood and traces the rough bark with her fingertips. “These trees have seen so much life. We’re just a blip, you know?” She climbs up on the fallen giant. “Sometimes, it’s like I’m just moving through life in a fog, doing the motions. Do you ever feel like that?” 

Every day. My eyes wander to the trees soaring over us. Seated beneath them, my insignificance is magnified. “Mostly, I’m confused.”

“About what?” She pats the spot next to her and waits while I climb up. We sit shoulder to shoulder. Ellie’s tall, maybe five eight or nine. 

I hesitate. She doesn’t need to be burdened with my drama. “Nothing.”

“Fletch.” Her soft, gravelly voice draws out my name. She rubs slow circles across my back, warming the spots she touches. “You can talk to me. I’m trustworthy, I swear.”

Ellie treats her friends like they are the most important people in her life. They trust her, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. 

“What do you want, Ellie? What?”

She snatches her hand away. “Did I do something?”

“No.” I remain facing forward, even though she’s staring at my profile.

“Then tell me what’s wrong. I know something upset you on The Beach. What was it?”

She has no idea about Calista and Alex. Or if she does, she’s good at hiding it.

Tears – tears! – sit in the corners of my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand before turning toward her. “College. Expectations. Calista. All of it.” 

“Are you worried about making the wrong decision? I get like that sometimes, trying to sort out all the college crap.”

I notice she didn’t latch onto the mention of Calista.

“I need to get into Princeton, or my dad will be pissed.”

She wraps her arm around me and lays her head on my shoulder. “You’re smart, you’ll get in.”

“Probably.” 

Ellie adjusts herself so that our legs touch at the hip, down the thigh, and to the knee. We touch in more places than we ever have before.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

My heartbeat thunders in my ears. Is it okay to talk to her about Calista? I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.

“Over the summer, Calista and I hooked up.”

Ellie doesn’t say anything, doesn’t act surprised, so I continue. “By hooked up, I mean we slept together. A lot.”

“Oh.” She shifts a little next to me, and our knees no longer touch. “I kinda guessed as much. Is she mad at you?”

“Mad? No. I don’t think so.” I pick at the rough bark beneath my leg. “I told her I loved her.”

Ellie draws a sharp breath. “What did she say?”

“She said she didn’t want a boyfriend. She doesn’t like me like that.”