Junk Miles (12 page)

“
You two are so adorable,” Lylee said in a voice that was slightly condescending.

“
Mom is a really great teacher.” My voice sounded defensive to my own ears. “She got me into art when I was really young.”

Lylee just smiled. I was always respectful to adults, always. But Saxon’s mother brought out something snappy in me. I found myself glaring at her a little, and I had to glance away before I embarrassed myself and Mom with my bad manners. Lylee chuckled when I did, like she knew just what I was thinking, and I felt my dislike curl up and out.

Saxon kept his eyes on me, but I stuck to Mom like glue. Her good mood was easy to catch, and I caught it hard. We went to the big white museum with the famous tube stairway, and she dragged me from painting to sculpture to installation piece like a kid in a candy store.

Art had been a huge part of our life growing up. I credit Mom’s love of art with my own interest in color and design. When I was just a baby, she’d sit me on her lap with art history books, and we’d look at the colors and the pictures. I counted stars in Van Gogh’s sky, learned my ABCs with Cezanne’s fruits and Monet’s flowers, and drew colors out of Raphael’s cloaks and wings and Titian’s lady’s dresses. Mom and I were gaga over the Warhols and Duchamps I’d only seen in books, and now, there they were, right in front of our faces. After a few hours, the professors went to have a meeting in a little antechamber that had been set up for them, and the kids who had come along were allowed some free time.

I was staring at the colors in a Modigliani when I smelled the sexy, smoky scent of Saxon next to me.

“
Nice painting.” He nodded to the Modigliani with his chin like he was giving his approval.

“
I like it,” I muttered back and walked away.

He followed.

“
There’s a roof here. We can go on it. You can see Paris for miles.” He caught my sleeve between two fingers and turned me towards him.

“
I don’t really feel like going to the roof alone with you.” I moved on to look at some Expressionist paintings I didn’t know well.

He followed.

“
Is this about me calling you a coward?” He maneuvered so he was in my way no matter which direction I tried to take. “Because I meant it, but I also didn’t mean it. If that makes any sense.”

“
As much sense as you ever make.” I stopped trying to move around him and looked right into his eyes. “Look, I’m not in Paris to spend my time wrapped up with you.”

“
That’s not how you felt last night.” His voice was a little angrier now that I hadn’t gone along with him unquestioningly.

“
I did. You can’t seem to hear it when I say ‘no.’” I plopped down on a bench and turned my back to him.

“
You didn’t say ‘no’!” he snarled back. I whipped my head up and looked at his face. “You can say whatever you want.” He calmed his voice down. “The truth is, you feel something.”

“
Fine. You win. Let’s go to the roof.” I was ready to fight with him for real, but I wasn’t willing to do it front of dozens of milling patrons of fine art. I didn’t know what had come over me. Maybe it was my lack of decent sleep. Maybe it was all the confusion that had been bubbling in the back of my head all day, threatening to boil over every second that I didn’t clamp a lid on it. Maybe it was just that I was confused and unsure and overwhelmed, and I had no clear answer to the problem I never wanted to face. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something had flipped like a switch, and I felt like I couldn’t even anticipate my own next move.

All of the uncertainties from the past few weeks were swirling through me, and Saxon had managed to stir the proverbial shit. Now I was feeling so unlike myself, I didn’t know who I was exactly. I wasn’t usually edgy. I wasn’t usually angry. I wasn’t usually melancholy. But I felt all those things, and confused and excited and unsure at the same time.

Holy shit. Maybe I was having a long overdue mental breakdown.

Once we stepped onto the roof, I tried to use the benefit of the biting wind to clear my mind, but it was no use. I felt tipsy and dizzy, and the only good thing was that I was feeling it with no one but Saxon as a witness. The roof was probably more popular when the weather wasn’t in the low fifties with a stinging wind.

He lit a cigarette and looked at me to see if I’d say anything. I didn’t.

“
Pretty up here.” He looked at me wolfishly.

“
Yeah.” I sighed, tired of all the beating-around-the-bush and mind games. So I said what I thinking, the way I knew Saxon wanted to but didn’t have the guts to. “You are really good looking. And attractive in a lot of other ways. I don‘t like to admit that I feel that way about you, but I do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Thanks?”

“
No thanks needed. I’m just tired of games.” And then I said the words that had been alive in me since September, hibernating somewhere every happy second I spent in Jake’s arms. I said the words that might crush every good thing I had. I said them because I couldn’t feel right caring about Jake so much, but living some private Saxon fantasy in my head. I said it out of desperation and out of hope. I said it hoping the whole thing would blow up in my face, and at the same time hoping it would work out better than I had ever imagined. I said, “Let’s do this.”

“
Do what?” His black eyes were alive with tiny gold flames, and I knew that his question had more to do with wanting to hear my answer than actually needing to know.

And then I made a proposition to Saxon that I wasn’t sure I could live with. But I honestly felt like I had no choice. Or maybe I honestly felt like it was my only choice.

I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close to me, the aggressive jerk to his system bringing a surprised smile to his mouth through the cloud of cigarette smoke that curled around his head. “Let’s see what there is between us, if anything. Just you and me, just between us. And if we just go with it, maybe it will relieve some of this tension. Okay?”

“
How far are you willing to go?” Saxon asked, the cigarette now dropped and smoking from the cool ground of the roof.

“
As far as I want to, but no farther. No cowardice.”

He looked at me and shook his head, not able to process what I proposed. It broke my heart to do it, but I lifted my hand and pulled my posey ring off. I dropped it in my pocket and looked up at him. Images of Jake flashed painfully through my head, but I pushed them back.

“
I’m no one’s girl but my own.” I forced the words out, my voice shaky. “Just me. Just Brenna. And I’ll do what I want.”

He reached up and grabbed my shoulders. “You want to kiss me.”

“
Are you sure it’s not just your wishful thinking?” I shot back.

Because a kiss was real. That went beyond words or even gestures. A kiss was a kiss, and it couldn’t be taken back.

“
Ask yourself,” he threw back. “If you’re not too much of a coward.”

So I pulled him again by the lapels of his coat, and I was satisfied that I shocked him silent this time. I reached my face up and kissed him, my lips firm and hot on his. He was taken aback by it, almost pulled his head back, but I kissed harder, then opened my mouth a little. He relaxed and pressed into me. I balled my hands at his coat and screwed my eyes shut and kissed him hard. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up, closer to him, and kissed deeper.

Finally I pulled away, breathing hard.

I had broken everything. I had smashed what I had with Jake.

I felt like throwing up. I felt like punching Saxon in the face. I didn’t feel like kissing him again.

“
Was it good for you?” I asked, my voice as nasty as I felt.

“
Brenna.” Saxon’s voice was a ragged edge, but he didn’t say anything else.

“
So now we’ll do whatever I want whenever I want. Seduce me, Saxon. Do your worst! How long have you been telling me that you wanted me out of your system?” I yelled into the cold air over Paris. “Let’s do it, then! I‘ll get you out of my system, you get me out of yours! And I bet it will be so damn cool and fun!” I was gasping for air.

“
Brenna.” He went to put his arms around me again. His voice was calming, and I could see in his eyes that I was freaking him out a little. Good. I was freaking myself out a little.

What had I done?

“
Get the hell away from me.” I put both hands on his chest and pushed hard. He stumbled back. “I don’t want to see you. And it has nothing to do with Jake. I fucked that up, didn’t I? Now go! Go!”

Saxon looked like he was thinking about what he should do next. But he couldn’t come up with anything. So he left, looking over his shoulder at me as he went.

I had beat him at his own game. I gripped the railing around the roof hard. I had beat him, and I felt like curling into a ball and putting the covers over my head and just not coming out. What was I supposed to tell Jake? What was I going to do now?

I stuck my head into the wind, leaned over the railing and drew the air deep in and blew it back out. From the pit of my stomach, I screamed loud and long until the poisonous feeling that was pouring through me left, and I felt empty.

If anyone thought it was weird that some random girl was hanging over a railing screaming her head off, no one stopped me or checked on me. Saxon didn’t come back.

Coward!

I felt like I shrank and grew in those few minutes. My heart, at least what my heart was, shriveled a little and hardened. And my ego and anger grew. It grew so much that it even encompassed Jake. I tried to hold onto it as hard as I could, because I knew I would need it that night, when we talked.

If we talked.

I took my camera out and hung over the railing, pointed it down and focused on the street. My own hair got caught in the frame, and I thought that was a good thing. It was a little piece of me falling down farther than was safe. I snapped the picture.

I went back into the museum and found a wild, colorful Fauve painting that was so bright it looked furious. I snapped a picture, not caring if I was supposed to or not.

Mom found me, was worried, and I hugged her hard, breathing in the smell of her perfume on her bright green sweater, but I didn’t explain anything. I ate a sandwich in the cafeteria with her and had an apple after. I took a butter knife from our serving set and plunged it into the fruit, then snapped a picture.

“
Bren?” Mom eyed the oozing fruit. “Are you okay? You’ve been a little quiet.”

I felt like I was buzzing, like there was some kind of electrical current running through me, like I was filled with neon.

“
Did you ever want something that wasn’t good for you?” I asked forcefully. “Like did you ever want a piece of chocolate cake when you were on a diet?”

“
I don’t diet, sweetie.” Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “You are gorgeous. I knew moving back to America was going to be bad for your self-image.”

“
It’s not that, Mom,” I assured her. “I’m just saying, did you ever indulge in something you shouldn’t have and then you ruined something else you had that was good?”

She looked at me for a long time. “When you were a little girl,” she began, “you had a really beautiful picture book. Your grandfather gave it to you. It had this really scary story about a witch and two children in it. You loved it.”

“
The one where the witch had red eyes and it looked like her hair was a thorn bush?” In my mind’s eye, I could see the image as clear as if it were hanging in front of me on the museum wall.

“
That’s the one.” Mom took a sip of her coffee and eyed me a little sadly. “It was your favorite thing in the world. Then you got a set of markers.”

“
Uh-oh.” I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

“
Yep.” She laughed. “You loved those markers as much as you loved the book. Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention one day and you went a little crazy. I was so upset with you! I felt like you ruined that book, and that was before you could just get online and order a new one. I had never seen that book before, and I’ve never seen it since.”

“
Was I upset?” I palmed the pierced, juicing apple in my hand.

“
No.” She shook her head. “That was the thing. You loved the book even more. I guess you somehow made it your own. Anyway, not only did you have me read the story the way it was, you had your own story added in. So I would read the page and then you would read me your version.” She leaned her cheek on her hand, her eyes far away. “It was so creative and wonderful. I wound up realizing how artistic it really was, and since you didn’t mind, I didn’t.”

“
Do we still have that book?” I wanted to see this amazing mess I made as a kid.

“
Probably in a tote in the attic. It’s one of my favorite art pieces from your youth. It was like you were doing early found art.” She preened. “Anyway, I have no idea what’s wrong, but whenever you’ve decided to indulge, you always make something wonderful come out of it.” She took my hand across the table, now slightly sticky from the sweet, oozing apple juice. “Brenna, we women need to learn to stop denying ourselves. Indulge.” She squeezed hard.

“
Thanks, Mom.” Though I was pretty sure if she knew the details of my problem, she wouldn’t have been so pro-indulging.

We went back to the museum and looked around some more. I didn’t see Saxon, and I really, really didn’t care. I heard some of the other kids, kids a little older than me, talking about going dancing.