Louder Than Words (Fall For Me) (12 page)

CHAPTER 33

The next morning a new/different
(obviously) camp director came by our tent-site with another group of campers,
planning to cross the bridge. I missed all the commotion and everything, as I
hadn’t slept too well last night. Not
totally
just because I’m not Miss Camper or one to sleep on the cold hard ground. No
(of course), also there were all those convoluted thoughts of Mason swarming around
in my brain.

So annoying!!

Anyway, I didn’t sleep well.
Or at all.
Until it was almost sunrise.
Then I slept like a log. And missed the big scene when the new camp director
learned about
our
camp
director—you know, the one that died.

But apparently the guy took it
hard. Which is completely understandable. Completely.
Of
course.
(Though, I was
so
glad I missed it.) Then, finally, the guy used his walkie-talkie thing to order
a bus to come and get us. Then we headed home. Exhausted.

But even after that horrible
experience, I still had to do my homework for Monday, which included writing a
very bad poem. (Well, the assignment wasn’t to write a
bad
poem. The assignment was just to write a poem. It just turned
out really bad because hey, that’s my style. I guess.)

I didn’t actually really care too
terribly much about the poem though, until Monday in class when I had to turn
the stupid thing in. Then I was rather mortified.
For two
reasons.
One, our teacher was randomly reading some of the poems aloud
to the class. Two, Mason showed up in our class for some reason. (Turned out he
got transferred to the class for scheduling purposes, but whatever. I was
horrified. Horrified he might hear my horrible [awful] poem.) Especially
because—gasp!
!
—
IT WAS ABOUT HIM!!!!!

Of course our teacher wasn’t
announcing our names as she read the random poems. But still, I was sitting
there dying. ‘Cause Mason would definitely know
the poem was
written by me
if he heard it. ‘Cause like I said—it was about
him!!! (Eeeek!)

I sat in my seat praying, praying,
PRAYING
Mrs. Frisk wouldn’t read my
poem. But then—of course—she did. Because that is just so obviously
my luck. Obviously. I mean,
come on
,
Mason showed up in my class (the only one he’s ever, ever been in with
me—ever) the very day I turned in a poem about him.

My luck bit. Big time.

I sat holding my breath, watching
Mason. I don’t think he even realized I was in the class. Not yet. Not until
Mrs. Frisk started reading my poem.
And at first not even
then.

So there I was: squirming as Mrs.
Frisk read my guts aloud to the class. Thinking:
How totally insane is this? Mason to actually be in my class on the
very first day that Mrs. Frisk decides to read something of mine. Of course she
doesn’t say whose poem it is. At least there’s that. And Mason’s not really
listening. He’s drawing a guitar on his folder. So, there’s that too. If he
just keeps not listening…

But when Mrs. Frisk got to the part
about the hospital—about me opening my eyes and seeing Mason’s—Mason
stiffened and immediately stopped drawing. His eyes narrowed, and his lips
parted slightly, and it was like a light bulb blinked on in his brain—
this is about
me and
Summer, back in middle school
.

He cocked his head and sat there
motionless, listening intently as Mrs. Frisk read on and on.

His name was never mentioned, but
of course he knew every detail. Every loving sweet thing he’d ever done … and
I’d written them down!!!

There they were being read to the
class.

Mason glanced back at me when the
torture was finally over. His big dark eyes were like glistening question
marks.

My heart pounding, I b
rought my hands to my flaming
cheeks
,
refusing to meet his gaze. Well, that’s not exactly true.
For a minute my eyes were locked on his, knocking the breath out of me. My
heart completely stopped. But then I jerked my gaze away and started searching
through my backpack.
For absolutely nothing.
I just
couldn’t take his heated stare. It seemed to be saying,
Why
are you writing mushy poems about me? Am I your brother or not?

That was the question. But I truly
didn’t have the answer.

All I knew was, I’d spent the whole
bus ride home from camp yesterday thinking about Mason. Daydreaming about him.
That’s why I wrote the poem. But I wasn’t exactly sure what the whole thing
meant.

I was confused. Just like always,
when it came to
Mason
.

CHAPTER 34

After third period, a hand gently
clasped my shoulder. Startled, I whipped around,
then
my breath caught in my throat.
Because there was Mason, with
his dark eyes on me.
My heart exploded. Without a word, he pulled me
into the janitor’s closet.

What
the—???

Still without speaking, he pinned
me against the wall, making heat rip through my body and my pulse skyrocket to
the moon. I mean
,
the last time he pinned me like this
was at that party—the one where he had kissed me blind. The memory made
shivers flutter through my stomach.

He curled his fingers around mine.

“I liked the poem,” he said
huskily.

I groaned, my face sizzling with
humiliation. But even at that—as I was dying of embarrassment; still, the
way his eyes were glued to me—all hungry and
I-want-you-so bad
-like—had me on fire.
For
a totally different reason.
So the opposite of
embarrassment.

His hot, unyielding stare made my heart
pound wild and my knees go weak. I swear. I was about to topple over or pass
out or something embarrassing like that (almost as embarrassing as having a
poem you wrote about a boy being read in front of the whole class—with that
very boy sitting right there
in
the class all stunned and wide-eyed).

But my sudden shivers and spazzing
heart didn’t only have to do with Mason’s glistening, hungry stare. It also had
to do with his words and the husky way he said them. And the fact his rough,
heated hands still held mine captive against the wall. Okay, it had to do with
the entire moment.
Everything about it.
It was hot.

Just like Mason.

Trembling, I tried ignoring being
so close to him … and ignoring his yummy, tantalizing Mason-scent … and
ignoring my stupid sudden longing to feel his hot mouth crash against mine again,
and feel his large, fervent hands tangle in my hair … ignore all that stuff.
Because that stuff was stupid.

Instead I focused on my
humiliation. Grrr!

So, my tortured moan was completely
about that—not about b
eing so close to him that it made me ache for his talented mouth
—but
about my
poem
. “You weren’t supposed
to hear it,” I growled.

His lips quirked slightly, like he
knew that. “I’m glad I did.”

Still trying to squirm away from
him, I groaned again. “It’s embarrassing. I want to die.”

“Summer,” he said calmly, “I liked
it.”

He said it like,
Why
are you being such a dope? It was a great poem—I liked hearing
how much you love me. And hearing about it in a class full of people was
entertaining. Write more. Entertain me more. School is boring, but your young,
immature love is hilarious.

Okay, maybe he didn’t mean all
that.

Or any of it.

But maybe he did.

After all, I saw him out in the
school parking lot this morning with some blond.
A gorgeous,
go-go dancer, stripper-type lady.
(Okay, maybe she wasn’t a stripper, or
even a dancer, but she
looked
like
she could be one. And she looked about twenty. I swear. And they’d been kissing
as I walked by. And he didn’t even notice me. And that’s the way he had always
been—since we were like, fourteen. When he was with girls he liked he
didn’t notice me.)

I gritted my teeth. “It didn’t mean
anything.”

“Yes it did,” Mason murmured
softly. “It meant everything.”

I set my jaw. “Mason! It was just a
dumb assignment. It meant absolutely
nothing
.
I swear.”

Mason narrowed his eyes, pulling
away a little so he could peer at me. “Summer, why are you being like this?”

His dark eyes tried searching mine.
But all I could think about was
him and that girl—no
“woman.”
I refused to meet his gaze—half because I was mad (and
embarrassed that I was, since I had
absolutely
no right to be) and the other half of me was just plain old embarrassed.

Mason’s voice came out as a husky
whisper, “Don’t tell me it meant nothing.” His warm hands cupped my chin,
making me look up at him—like I couldn’t lie to his face.

Belligerent (and shaking) I stared
straight into his eyes. “It was nothing Mason. I swear.”

His brow lowered. A tiny little
growl escaped from him, yet he drew my face closer. His eyes squinted. Like he
was trying to figure me out. Like he was asking again,
‘
Summer
, why are you being like this?’

But he didn’t say a word.

He drew out a breath and pushed away
from the wall, finally letting me free. He ran a hand over his face, his
gaze remaining steady on me
, like I
was a puzzle he would never, ever get. And it bugged him. Made him mad.

When he finally spoke, he sounded
frustrated. “Summer, you draw weird pictures of me, you stare at me … and you
write poems about me. Why’s it so hard? Why can’t you just admit you’re into
me?”

Heat washed through me.

Wincing, I looked away.

There were so many reasons I didn’t
know where to begin—well except with blondie this morning out in the
parking lot, with her long legs and short skirt, and his trail of hot kisses
down her neck. There was definitely that. And all of his other “women.” All of
them just like her—Parking-Lot-Stripper-Chick.

Yeah. There was definitely that.
Definitely.

But the next reason that came to
mind was just as definite. And it hit me harder. It was: Because I had enough
ex-boyfriends. I couldn’t add Mason to that list. I just couldn’t. I needed
him. I couldn’t lose him. And that’s what I found happens when you have a
relationship with a guy. You break up and you lose whatever you had before. Only
what I had with Mason was dear to me. Dear to my heart. Okay? Get it? It was
special
to me. It was the only special
relationship I’d ever had with a boy. And I only still had it because Mason and
I had never given-in to a romantic relationship.
One that
involved kissing and all that mushy stuff.
As much as I was dying to do
that stuff with him, I couldn’t risk the aftermath of our break up. No way. I
just realized that now—but no way.

I swallowed, still shaken by his
full-on call-out—why I couldn’t admit I was into him. Finally, I whispered
huskily, “Because I’m not.”

Mason banged his fist against the
wall. Not so much that he seemed mad. It was more like he didn’t believe me.
And he was frustrated that I didn’t just jump into his arms like all of his
other blond gaga-struck fan-girls. (The hundreds and thousands of them that he
randomly made-out with, then never talked to again.)

His eyes lingered on me a moment. Then
he did his usual. He left me.

CHAPTER 35

On shaky legs, I finally left the
janitor’s closet.

Everything felt surreal. Everything
that just happened.

My chest aching, I wrapped his arms
around my waist, worried I’d blown it with Mason. That I should have just come
clean and confessed: yes, I was into him. I’d
always
been into him. It seemed like he’d always really known that
anyway. Deep down. But he’d never, ever called me out on it before. Ever. So
the moment had been huge—meaningful—and I’d blown it.

I trailed into my next class and
crumbled into my seat just as the bell rang. Then I spent the whole period,
shaking and wondering if I should maybe text Mason and confess. Did I dare? The
thought both excited and terrified me.

But before I made any decision
one way
or the other, I was called down to the office. When
I got there, I blinked. There was Mom, sitting with Principal Gardner.

It turned out she wanted to take me
out of Jefferson High and have me go live with my aunt in Connecticut for a
while, so I could go to school with my cousin Dara—an
all-girl
school.

My breath hitched and I screeched
out, “Why???”

Though I already knew why—she
told me why. It was about the picture that had been sent out to the whole
school. “It’s just the last straw,” Mom said. “Dirty pictures of you on cell
phones, boys calling all hours of the night, phone hang-ups, flirty, inappropriate,
anonymous
notes left everywhere. And
now mothers calling me—crying that their daughter’s
boyfriend
wrote smoldering poems about
you that were read to your English class
. Enough!!”

She stood, like we were finished
here. “There is too much drama going on with you at this school.”

CHAPTER 36

I slogged out to the school parking
lot with Mom, figuring I’d fight with her at home. Get everything straightened
out there—once she had time to cool down. I figured Sabrina’s mom must
have just called her this morning, and it triggered off what she’d already been
considering doing—sending me off to my cousin’s all-girl school.
Bleck
. She threatened it all the time.
Constantly lately.
Then when she heard about the cell phone
picture fiasco … well, it wasn’t pretty.

But there was no way I was going to
spend the rest of my senior year at an all-girl school.

I was shaking big time about it,
though. ‘Cause Mom seemed determined. Still, when we rounded the corner of the
student parking lot, it wasn’t thoughts of the all-girl that made my stomach
shrivel. It was
Mason
.

He was there.
In
the parking lot.

Oh
my gosh
.
My heart fell.

“Hello Mason,” Mom said brightly,
trying to ignore the blond-haired bimbo in his arms, while also ignoring his
motorcycle they’d been pressed up against. She stared directly into his shocked
face, keeping her eyes off his surroundings, because they only made her worry.

Mason’s eyes flickered to me then
stayed. Without even seeming to notice the long-legged blond in his arms, he
let her go, like dropped her. His eyes squinted as I stared at the
girl—the exact same one he was with this morning.
In
this very spot.

He never actually flaunted
them—(his trail of girls)—in my face. In fact, he always seemed
kind of ashamed of them and tried to hide them from me. But it wasn’t usually
like this—after he had pulled me into a closet, trying to coax me to say
I was “into” him. Usually it just seemed he didn’t want to hurt me.

But now it was different. Now it
seemed he wanted the girl to disappear.
Or me to have amnesia.
Or both.

He winced.

 
“Hey,” he said to my mom, sounding confused.
And curious.
His eyes kept darting from me to Mom then back
to me again. “What’s going on?” He furrowed his brow at my mom. “What are you
doing here?”

Mom sighed. “Summer’s been having a
lot of drama lately—more than usual. We’re going to have her go to an
all-girl private school with her cousin, Dara, for a while.”

Mason’s brow rose. “Dara …” he
tilted his head, squinting his eyes like he couldn’t believe it, “… in
Connecticut
?!
”

He sounded alarmed at the thought.
Dara lived five hours away.

Mason wet his lips, eyeing me.
“You’re going away?”

I just glared at him, not saying
anything. After all, he couldn’t be too terribly broken up or upset about the
news. He seemed to call his blond bimbo the minute he left the closet with
me—had her drive out to visit him in between classes.

Apparently, he had it bad for her….
Yet he’d just been trying to coax me to say I was “into” him.

I couldn’t believe he could be so
cruel to me. He was totally,
totally
living up to his bad-boy reputation as a “player.” I just never believed he’d
ever “play”
me
.

Mason narrowed me a look. Seeming
hurt.
Apparently about my leaving.
His voice was soft
and bewildered, “You weren’t even going to tell me?”

He had no right to be hurt. Absolutely
none. He’d just pinned me in a closet, then rushed out and started mackin’ with
his gorgeous blond
cover-girl
.
I
was the
only
one that could be hurt here. And I was. I was massacred. My heart was bleeding
all over the ground.

For a moment, I was even glad I was
going away. I’d seen way too much of Mason lately.
Mason and
his strange mind-games—acting like he loved me, then immediately mackin’
with a sexy model/stripper/sugar-momma.

Instead of answering him, my eyes
cut to his blond girlfriend, the one sitting possessively on his motorcycle. I
hoped my scathing gaze made the statement I wanted. Made it absolutely
clear—I didn’t need to tell him anything.
’Cause it
didn’t matter.
He had his life. I had mine. And the two didn’t connect.

Yeah, I was back to guarding my
heart.