Pick-me-up (13 page)

The phone lit up in her hand.

New message from Tim: “Kate, oh Kate,
where4ru?”

She didn’t want to laugh, but the message
reminded her of his great dramatics during the Romeo & Juliet
movie.

She choked down the familiarity and the
instant trust he expected.

“What do u want?” she wrote.

New message from Tim: “You”

She blushed, but did not respond.

New message from Tim: “Where r u?”

She stayed simple in reply. “Out.”

New message from Tim: “W/o me?”

She didn’t reply.

New message from Tim: “What’s his name?”

How was she supposed to interpret this
question? Did he really think there could be someone else?
Katelyn’s mind raced through the past two days. Did she do anything
to make him think she didn’t like him, or that she liked someone
else? The last night he was over at her house, there was one
awkward moment. She had stopped the make out session in her
bedroom. They had moved further toward having sex and she had
stopped him as he tried to push her pants down over her hips.
Katelyn knew they would eventually have sex, but so far he
respected her when she wanted to stop.

Katelyn thought about anything that would
make him suspect another guy. Ryan! Her cousin Ryan had posted a
couple messages on her wall a couple days ago teasing her about
being grounded. Tim wouldn’t know Ryan was her cousin.

Another thought came to her. He was jealous.
Katelyn never had anyone jealous over her before. Oh, she knew
firsthand the feelings of jealousy, of wishing she was in someone
else’s life, home, family, town, and so many other things.

The phone sounded with a new call. The screen
lit up with his name. She let the downloaded ring tone play a few
more seconds and decided to pick up.

“Hey,” she said softly. The stoners around
the fire had glanced at her with the disruption, but quickly tuned
her out, just as they had the other sounds of laughter and talk
surrounding them on the hillside.

It was momentarily quiet on the other end.
“Where are you?” he finally asked.

She was still mad and decided to play out her
only card. If he wanted to know where she was, he’d have to answer
some questions, too. “No, Tim, where are you? Where have you been
and why didn’t you call?”

“Something came up. A friend needed me,” he
said coolly. “Look, I didn’t get home until about half an hour
ago.” He paused and she didn’t fill in the silence. She was too
busy trying to sort out missing details from his story. She
couldn’t decide what bothered her most—that he hadn’t said what
friend or their gender, or that the friend took priority over
her.

“Home? Where were you?” she asked
impatiently.

“Northrup, we had to go to Des Moines and
things just got out of control, you know how it is. We stayed over
at one of Christian’s friend’s apartment.” She quickly picked up on
the male friend reference in his story and felt momentary relief.
At least he wasn’t with another girl.

The silence must have told him that she
needed more of an explanation because he continued, “Hey, I miss
you. Where you at? I want to see you.”

Just then, Collin’s group burst into some
loud insults followed by bellowing male laughter.

“Who’s with you?” Tim’s voice lost all its
soft pleading tone. Instead he demanded. “Who is that?” he said
impatiently.

Katelyn instantly wanted to calm him, wanted
to get back to the point where he missed her and they could patch
up the mess the few days of distance had caused. “No one. I mean,
it’s some guys from school. It’s a school party out in the
country,” she tried to explain, but she was stumbling in a sudden
anxious feeling.

“What? I’m out of the picture one day and
you’re already with another guy? Or should I say ‘guys’? How many
guys are there?”

“No,” she cried in frustration. “It’s not
like that.”

He interrupted her and she tried multiple
times to break in as he continued. “What’s it like, Kate? Are you
there with guys or not? Are you not with me? Will you not tell me
where you’re at? You didn’t answer my first calls. Why not? Were
you busy? Am I interrupting?”

“Stop it!” she yelled at the phone, and the
stoners all looked her way along with a few other people nearby.
She was grateful for the darkness because she felt her face flush
with embarrassment on top of her anger. She looked down at the
phone in her hand and heard a slew of swearing and accusations. She
hung up.

Katelyn had stood up during his rant and now
she turned around and walked out into the darkness. Tears
threatened, but she pushed them back. She was so shocked at his
reaction that her body shook with tremors. About 50 feet away from
the fire and the group of teens in multiple stages of drunkenness,
she stopped. She was breathing heavily. The phone rang again, but
she pushed ignore.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she
calmed slightly as she became more aware of the stillness around
her. She stood on a rutted dirt path edging a field yet to be
turned in preparation for spring planting. Last year’s crop stubble
jutted out in random patterns against the darker shadows of earth
floor. The wind was subtle but enough to rustle the weeds to brush
against her bare ankles. Without the fire, she felt the chill of
the air now and she shivered.

She wanted to go home, or at least get away,
but she heard Emily’s exaggerated laugh in the distance. Katelyn
knew she had little influence on when they would leave this party.
The night bugs had grown used to her presence and started up again
with their calls. She suddenly felt very alone.

The phone rang again. She once again pushed
ignore. He didn’t leave a message again.

Within a minute a message came: “Talk to
me”

She immediately replied: “Had enuf of ur
talking”

No reply came, and she wondered if that was
it, if that was all there was going to be. The first guy she really
liked, all those feelings they had, or at least that she had--It
only took one fight and it was done. She didn’t use the word, but
must have heard it somewhere: bewildered. She felt absolutely
bewildered.

But then the phone lit up again.

“I’m sorry. He won’t love u like I do.”

Time stopped. She reread it again, and again,
and one more time. It did say “love,” not “like.” He loved her? She
was pretty sure the rush of feelings she felt was love. In fact,
she had wanted to say it to him so many times in the past week, but
it was such a scary word. She didn’t know how he would react. What
if he didn’t?

But, now, his admission made her feelings
even stronger, affirming all the thoughts and feelings she had
toward him in their close moments or when he was away.

Their fight, and that’s what it was, was just
fueled by love. He needed to know she cared for him just as much as
he cared for her. It was all a misunderstanding.

And just like that, the world seemed to right
itself and she warmed throughout her body.

A smile took over her face. Nothing else
mattered.

She began her response: “so, u love me . .
.”

Chapter 14: Making
Up

The
next day, Saturday, Katelyn sat through two hours of watching Jenny
play the role of attentive mom during her visit. Finally, as a
reward for passing English, Katelyn’s mom let her leave the house.
Katelyn quickly texted Tim: “Meet me on the trail.”

The sun made the day warm, and Katelyn rolled
up her sleeves as she walked. Tim responded right as she left her
street: “On my way.”

Katelyn felt silly for overreacting to Tim
leaving with his friend, Christian. Really, Tim was only gone one
day and she couldn’t expect him to log on to see her posts. And, he
said he forgot his phone at home when he went to Des Moines. He
wanted to call her, he said, but her number was stored in his
phone. He didn’t have it memorized. She didn’t want to seem
obsessive, so she didn’t mention that she had his memorized.

Tim met her more than the halfway mark on the
trail. Katelyn saw him from a distance and instantly smiled. They
slowed as they reached each other and ended up standing face to
face in awkward silence. Katelyn bit her lip. Tim stuck his hands
in his pockets. The new prairie grass around them stood still
without a wind.

“So,” Katelyn started, “do you still love
me?”

Tim cocked his head and smiled at her. He
took the one step left between them and wrapped his arms around
her. Katelyn let herself sink into him, and they held their embrace
until he pulled his head back to look her in the face.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.” Tim lifted her chin
lightly with one hand and kissed her softly, then deeply.

Tim came back to her house, and they hung out
the rest of the afternoon and evening. Katelyn couldn’t believe it,
but her mom seemed to really like him, too. Her mom laughed along
with Kayla when he told tall tales about giant fish he had
caught.

Katelyn and Tim waited outside with the kids
while her mom went for McDonalds to get dinner. Two dogs across the
street rolled around on the ground together. Kayla laughed and
questioned, “What are they doing?”

“They must be happy it’s summer vacation,
too,” Katelyn had responded.

“Do dogs have vacations?” Kayla thought
aloud.

“Only on their secret holidays,” Tim started,
clearly baiting her into asking more questions.

“But how do dogs know when it’s a holiday?”
Kayla asked in puzzlement, trying to fit the concept into what she
knew about holidays like Christmas or Halloween.

“Well, you’ve seen dogs smelling each other’s
butts right?”

Kayla nodded and giggled.

“Sometimes they’re not just sniffing, but
leaving secret codes.”

Kayla interrupted, “What’s a code?”

Tim explained, “It’s a message or a sign that
only certain people can understand. Like a wink! Only some people
can see the one eye close.” And he winked at Kayla.

Kayla looked thoroughly amazed. “Kate’n
didn’t see it!” She said, pointing to his side of the face opposite
from Katelyn.

“Right!” Tim continued. “So dogs sometimes
leave a secret message. And do you know how they get to see
it?”

“How?” Kayla was at full attention.

“They have to catch their own tail!” He
waited a moment for effect and then spun around himself several
times demonstrating the futile attempt. Kayla followed suit and the
game continued. Even after dinner, while Katelyn and Tim were
huddled up on the couch in front of the TV, Kayla was still
fascinated by the story. She came to them with a drawing, proud of
the silly scribble,s which she said was a dog reading his tail.

Later that night, Katelyn said goodnight to
Tim in the kitchen with her mom listening closely in the next room.
But, they only parted for a few minutes. When Katelyn went to her
room, pretending to be tired in front of her mom, Tim had already
snuck in her window and was waiting for her. They stayed quiet in
the dark, holding each other and sharing whispered ideas. Finally,
they heard her mother close her own bedroom door.

They did it as quietly as they could.

Katelyn had heard Emily talk about her sexual
encounters, so she had a pretty good idea of what to expect.
Katelyn was a little scared, but Tim was gentle and kind. “Are you
sure you want to do this?” he asked as they lay naked in the dark.
Katelyn had simply kissed him in return in answer.

It did hurt, but only at first. He had been
so loving. He told her he loved her and he kissed her neck so
tenderly afterward as he held her. Eventually, he fell asleep and
Katelyn took pleasure in the closeness of him and of being able to
please him. Even though her door was locked, she worried. Finally,
when she had caught herself drifting off to sleep herself, she woke
him so he could leave in the darkness of night.

Screams of laughter pealed throughout the
game room of the restaurant. Sirens and bells sounded on top of
each other. Katelyn grabbed Colton, her five-year-old nephew,
around the waist and shook him in a bear hug. “Way to go, little
man!” she cheered after he finished the next level of the driving
simulator video game he was playing. Actually, he was sitting on
her lap turning the steering wheel while she worked the foot
pedals. Colton was good, probably from the practice he had on his
own video games at his apartment.

Katelyn looked around as they waited for the
next level to begin. Kayla was winding up to throw a ball up the
skeezball ramp. Kayla released and the ball hit the divider. Kayla
ran after it as it bounced back on the floor. Sierra, her other
niece, was pointing a toy gun at a screen, and Katelyn heard the
error noises for the missed shots. Katelyn’s oldest sister, Jodi,
stood behind her daughter offering advice.

“Press start, Katelyn! Let’s start,” Colton
bounced on her lap in excitement.

“Hold on, Colton,” she said patiently. “Take
a drink of your pop, okay.” He fell for her distraction, but she
knew it would only be momentary. Katelyn craned her head farther
and found her mark. Tim was with Jenny in what appeared to be a
high stakes game of video boxing. He was putting his whole body
into the jabbing of buttons and joystick motions. Jenny was
actually smiling. She looked younger, like a high school teenager
instead of a 19-year-old mother of two. Tim must have taken a
winning jab because he shot Jenny a “ha-ha” and looked up in
triumph.

“I’m still alive,” Jenny shot back and then
turned her attention to desperately hitting a button to revive her
character. Tim looked Katelyn’s way and locked in on her eyes. The
effect was like an electric current, and Katelyn felt like she must
be glowing. She smiled, and Tim smiled back, adding a slight
pursing of his lips in a mock kiss. Katelyn blushed at his slight
gesture, but she couldn’t help herself. She was bursting with new
feelings today, still unsure of how her and Tim’s relationship
would change because of the previous night. That one glance gave
her momentary relief.