If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (160 page)

“Hey chill out, Aidan,” Amanda says, glaring at him.

Aidan rolls his eyes at her and laughs before getting up from the table. The phrase “three’s a crowd” has never seemed to apply to Chris, Aidan, and me, but with Amanda added to the mix, a better saying would be “four’s a disaster.” She just hasn’t gelled in, and it sucks because she’s my best friend. She and my other best friend being together has really thrown my life out of balance.

“I’ll go talk to him,” I tell them, unable to muster up anything other than the artificial grin I’ve had plastered on since this whole thing started with them.

I think about how a few weeks can change things. Since when am I the one to go coddle Aidan? He’s at the table across from us, flirting with one of the junior cheerleaders.

“Can we talk a minute?”

He looks at me in annoyance. “I’ll be right back, Jada.” He follows me out.

“Kayla,” she calls after him.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Look, I’m not thrilled about Chris and Amanda any more than you are,” I say, and he grimaces.

“You’re the one who had the bright idea to set them up.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think they’d actually do this… I was just trying to stop my best friend from becoming one of your wham-bam-thank-you-ma’ams,” I say defensively.

“Amanda’s not an angel. You act as if she’s a virgin or something, like she’s not aware of my reputation. If you would have just let nature take its course, we wouldn’t be having this issue. She’s got Chris wrapped around her bipolar little finger! And what the hell is with him not inviting us to see him play?
She
invites us like we’re the pity friends!” he says angrily.

“I’m not happy about it either, and yeah, my feelings were hurt a little bit, but I know Chris isn’t embarrassed of us. I think he just would have been embarrassed by us being there.”

He looks at me as if I’m crazy.

“I think he wanted to do something on his own,” I say, and Aidan crosses his arms as if nothing I’m saying is getting through to him. I sigh in frustration. “Okay, you’re right. He was an ass to not invite us, but are you going to act like a mad little girl for the rest of our senior year? This could be our last year together for a long time. Don’t let your ego ruin it.” I walk off and leave him where he’s standing.

Even with everything that happened earlier today with Chris and his new girlfriend—gosh, that sounds weird—today is still going down as an awesome day. I woke up for the first time in a long time without a strange guy, or one I didn’t like, in the house with Evie and me, which was unusual, but I didn’t question it. And for the first time since I was a freshman, I received a B-plus on a math quiz, even getting a “Keep up the good work” from Ms. Gregory.

I can’t help glancing at my quiz every so often to make sure it was real. It isn’t an A, but for math, a B-plus is a big accomplishment. I didn’t manage a grade that good even the one time I tried to cheat or when I worked with a partner. The first person I want to share the news with is Mr. Scott... Will. When he told me I could call him that, I felt like I was on cloud nine. Our three-time-a-week tutoring sessions have paid off. Not only that, but they’re something I’ve begun to look forward to. Something about him makes me feel warm inside. He makes me feel as though I can do anything, be anything I want. Even though he’s tutoring me on a subject I hate—well, used to hate—I can’t help looking forward to them more than most things.

“Hi, Lisa,” Will says when I arrive. Today he’s wearing a grey sweater that brings out his eyes, not that they need any help being the center of attention. The sleeves are pulled up to his elbows, showing a gold watch.

“Hi. I like your watch,” I tell him as I sit in my regular place.

“Thanks. I bought it last week. It was on sale.” I notice that his cheeks turn a bit pink.

“I have something to show you,” I say, trying to contain my excitement.

His eyebrows rise slightly, and his lips turn upward. I pull out the quiz I haven’t been able to stop looking at today. I put it on the desk and slide it over to him. When he looks at it, he lets out a big laugh with a wide, glorious smile, and I feel my heart skip a beat. It’s been doing that lot when I’m around him lately.

“Lisa, that’s great!” he says, his excitement matching my own.

I laugh at how excited we both are. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He smiles warmly at me. “It has been an absolute pleasure.”

I fight the urge to close my eyes and replay his words and wrap myself up in his tone. Then I think of what he’s just said. It sounds so final. This can’t be it, right?

“We’re still going to see each other, right?” I say, then I realize how that sounds. “I mean, you’re still going to tutor me?” I feel my own cheeks heat up.

“Of course, I think there’s a lot more math for you to still get before the end of the year,” he says with a chuckle.

I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. “I got you something to kind of say thanks.”

He smiles, seeming surprised. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I ignore him and pull out a book of positive affirmations. I bet he knows most of them.

His eyes widen. “Thank you.”

I wonder if he gets it or if he thinks it’s stupid.

“Do you like it?” I ask, feeling self-conscious about it now that it’s in his hand.

He chuckles, low and rich. “It’s perfect.” He smiles at it then glances at me. “Thank you.”

He opens it and reads the first page. I think of the inscription, which I’m a little embarrassed about it. I didn’t expect him to read it while I was here.

“‘To the man whose words can awaken part of you that has long been forgotten where you remember that you can be great.’” The words roll off his tongue quietly.

They sound so much better after he’s said them. He says each word as if he’s savoring it, and when he looks at me, I can’t meet his eyes. I don’t dare.

“Do you like to write?” he asks, and it catches me off guard.

“I used to.” I watch him as he carefully puts the book in his desk.

“Why don’t you like it anymore?” he asks.

I shrug. “There isn’t a high demand for poets.”

He nods in understanding. “That shouldn’t stop you from doing what you love though.”

He leans on his elbows, his gaze directly on me. His stare is intense, and I know he doesn’t mean it to be, but I can’t help but feel intimidated when someone with eyes like his stares directly into mine.

“My mom says it’s a ridiculous hobby,” I say, taking out my paper from math—anything to release my gaze from his. I think if I look for too long, there’ll be no coming back.

“Don’t tell Chris, but there are times when parents can be very wrong,” he says playfully.

I laugh. If anyone’s mother was wrong, it’d be mine. I don’t tell him that her words are just an excuse. With how horrible it would be to fail at something that my heart and soul was wrapped around, I’d chosen to just keep it a secret. A secret never gets lost. There’s no measure of success for it. You just have to keep it. That’s the only thing you have to do right, and besides Chris and my mom, it’s a secret I’ve never shared. But things you love should never be a secret. You should be able to share them with the world regardless of what people think. But what’s worse than failing is being stuck with Evie and having no chance of escape because I chose to be a starving artist.

I don’t tell him that. Instead I smile and pull out my homework. Then my mind drifts back to something he said when we first started working with one another. “You, you knew my dad, right?”

I see him swallow, from his nerves or the awkwardness of my question, I’m not sure. But if he does know, I know he’ll make whatever the truth about my dad is easy, just as he did the big bad math problems.

“I did,” he says.

I focus on the notes on my scratch paper. “What was he like?”

The question sounds forbidden. He’s a man I haven’t brought up or spoken about since my mom said, “He’s an asshole who you never give the satisfaction of thinking about.” That was when I was six.

Will leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. I expect him to let out a deep frustrated sigh, but he doesn’t. “The man I knew, when I did, was a good man.”

I feel myself frown. I try to imagine a good man leaving his wife and two-year-old daughter, for him to never come back, to never wonder about me as if I were a forgotten sock in the washing machine at a Laundromat.

“Time has a way of changing people,” he says quietly. The comfort in his tone tries to soften the blow, but it doesn’t. “He loved you both, but sometimes life can suck out the person you are and leave a shell behind.”

I nod. I guess it’d be easier to be mad at the shell rather than the man. I look at Will, his eyes warm and full of understanding. His presence is comforting, easing me from my thoughts.

I wish I could hate my dad, but I don’t. I hate myself more for not hating him, for wanting to know him. How could he leave me if he loved me, if he thought about me ever? I smile, letting him know I’m fine. Shaking my absentee father from my thoughts has become a lot easier. He only infiltrates them every once in a while. I won’t let him defile this place though. Here, I am happy.

My homework tonight is only one sheet. It’s a sort of new concept, but like everything else, he makes it easy. The concept goes down smoothly, and his words stick in my memory like candy. I hang on to each one.

Everything he says is interesting. I’d wondered if that would wear off, but it doesn’t, and I’ve become nervous that I’m paying too much attention, that I’m too interested in him. I’ve never listened to a teacher the way I do with him, I’ve never felt the wonderful anxiousness that I do around him, and I realize that this is bad. Do I have a crush on Mr. Scott? I shake the thought from my head. I can’t. It would be wrong, not to mention weird. Not only is he my best friend’s dad, but he’s married. I don’t crush on married men, especially married men who are twice my age…

If only he looked it, but he doesn’t. If only he had gray hair or was balding or smelled like Bengay. Isn’t that what dads are supposed to look like? No one’s father should be as hot as Will is. They shouldn’t have the magnetism he does, and everything that distinguishes him from boys my age is exactly that—distinguished.

His full unkempt beard is just long enough to be sexy but not look like a caveman’s. His body’s fully grown and matured, not still in transition, and his voice… I think aside from his eyes, his voice is what does it the most. It’s the icing on the cake. It doesn’t matter how he looks with the tone that comes out of his mouth. He should be one of the guys who narrates movies, the sensual kind.

Oh my GOD, what is wrong with me?!
This is something else, something weird but great at the same time. I drop my pencil, and he hands it to me, and I get butterflies when our fingers touch. I realize absolutely, without a doubt, I have a crush on my best friend’s dad. I’m suddenly distracted, unable to concentrate. The comfortableness I’d felt earlier has vanished from the room, and I feel tense and awkward.

“Lisa, are you okay?” he asks, concern filling the eyes I so badly want to swim in.

Oh no. No no no no no.

“I-I’m not feeling well.”

“Do you want me to get you some water or something?”

“Yeah, but I think I need to go home. If that’s okay,” I say, rubbing my head. I stuff my papers in my book bag, avoiding looking at him.

“Let me help you,” he says, noticing my frenzied movements.

When he nears me, I feel my skin warm. Our arms brush, and I let out a small sigh.

“I’ve got it, Lisa,” he says, putting my textbooks, pencils, and papers in my bag. He hands it to me, and I keep my eyes on his chest. I don’t look up at him.

“Thank you.” I quickly make my way out of the room. Before I do, I look back at him.

He looks puzzled.

“Thanks again, Mr. Scott,” I say quickly before getting through the door in what has to be record time. I don’t think I should keep calling him Will. I need everything I can to remind me that he is off-limits, and calling him Mr. Scott helps just a bit to remind me he is my best friend’s married father.

I’ve never been so thankful Evie called off tonight and I have her car. I head to Amanda’s house, hoping she’s free. Because if there is any time I need my girl best friend, it’s now.