Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) (17 page)

“Why the hell is he standing up?” Coach rubbed at his messy
hair and shouted at Amy. “Whalen, is there a reason my starting left wing is
maimed and doesn’t have an ice pack?”

Coach pointed at the chair Amy had been in and Chris
collapsed into it and lowered his head to the table. From beside him I could
see the pain etching lines around his eyes. I’d known he was hurt, but it
didn’t dawn on me until right then that it could have been serious.

Without thinking about it, I sat next to him and put my hand
on his shoulder…his bare shoulder. He turned his head on his arms to look at
me.

“You’re not okay, are you?” I said as quietly as I could.
Somehow I knew he wouldn’t want everyone to know.

“I’m screwed.” His hand came up and covered mine as he
raised his head. We were nearly nose-to-nose, but he still whispered. “You’re
not going to back out, right? On helping me with classes?
The
trial run?”

Oh my God. I could hear the panic in his voice.

“You’re going to be fine. That Early Acceptance is still in
the bag.” His hand tightened on mine. “I swear it. They’ll patch you up and
you’ll be okay.”

He was shaking his head before I finished. “Even if it gets
better, the wrong type of tear and I’m done. No college.”

I was sitting there, my hand trapped under his, watching his
dream die.

“Don’t be an ass.
All this drama for a
sprain.
You need to get over yourself.”

His lips lifted, just a bit, but I could still read the pain
in his eyes.

That’s when I realized, the smile, it was for me.
To make me feel better and not worry.

“Kent, you ready to go?” The assistant coach guy stood
behind him, a first aid kit and warm up sweatshirt flung over his arm.

Chris nodded and pulled the sweatshirt over his head. The
coach drew Chris’s arm over his shoulder and led him away at a hobbling snail’s
pace—if, you know, snails could hobble. Before he’d gotten too far, Chris
turned around and looked right at me.

“Don’t forget. You promised.”

It was still there, the panic. I would have done anything to
hush it. So I did.

“I didn’t,” I said. “But I will.”

Chapter
23

“Rachel?” My heart stopped when I heard his voice. “Can you
come get me?”

Chris sounded more messed up than he had at the field.
Somehow things had gotten worse. I hit pause on the movie I was not really
watching and sat up. Behind him there was a rumble of other voices.

I hadn’t been able to focus since he’d left. But, I didn’t
really have the right to call and see how he was. I was watching the clock to
make a covert call to Amy—you know, one of those
I was just calling to say hi calls
and hope she’d let me know if
they’d heard anything.

“Where are you?” I was already reaching for my keys.

“I’m at home.”

That stopped me. I’d assumed Chris was at the hospital or
back at the school or something. I couldn’t imagine what was so bad he wanted
me to get him at his house. Then I remembered he had the anti-parents.

The little part of my brain I was trying to ignore screamed
that maybe he just wanted to see me. The girl who realized she’d just been
someone else’s “flavor” knew that wasn’t it.

“On my way.”
I clicked the phone
shut without saying goodbye and jogged up the stairs. This might not go as
well.

“Mom?”
I knocked on her door and
pushed it the rest of the way open. “I have to go out.”

She laid the James Patterson novel down and looked at me.
That mom look.
Was she getting better at it?

“Why are you going out?”

I wish I could replicate that tone of voice when talking to
my sisters.

I glanced at the clock. “It’s Friday and technically it’s an
hour and a half till curfew, so you should be okay with it.”

“That wasn’t what I asked you.”

She’s lucky I loved her so much or here is where I would
have thrown one of those stereotypical teen-angst fits.

“Chris is hurt.”

She was off the bed before I could say anything else,
tugging jeans on over her pajama shorts.

“Where is he?”

Wow, my mom
loved
.
I’d always known that, but it was amazing to see that once she took you in, you
were in. I waved my hands trying to get her attention.

“Wait. He’s at home. He got hurt and they took him to the
emergency room. But something’s going on and he called me to come get him.” I
thought about the angry voices I’d heard in the background and what it probably
meant. “I think his dad is there.”

I hadn’t shared with her anything he’d told me. It just
seemed like there were some things that went no further than the two of us.
Okay, a lot of things.

But, no big surprise, my mom’s expression softened as she
started pulling her jeans back off.

“This might be a good time to discuss bumping my curfew till
one.” I batted my eyelashes. It worked on certain guys, so why the heck not.

“Tonight.
We’ll discuss a permanent
bump later.”

I stopped at the door and rushed back to her, throwing my
arms around her. “Thanks, Mom.”

I knew
she
knew
how important this was.

“Bring your phone.”

“Got it,” I yelled, as I rushed down the stairs and out the
door.

~*~

Two cars in the driveway.
Not good.

I slowed to a stop, wondering if I should text him or go
knock on the door when I saw him shuffling around the side of the house on
crutches. I reached across the passenger’s seat and pushed the door open before
he reached it.

He angled himself a couple directions, trying to get the
crutches out of the way and in with him, before tossing them aside. He shoved
the seat all the way back and collapsed into it, pulling the door shut behind
him. Then I was driving before anyone could open the front door and accuse me
of kidnapping.

I’m not sure I knew where I was going, but we were at the
bridge before a decision really needed to be made. The night was dark, the
trees’ shadows on black. I turned the car off and tossed the keys in the cup
holder.

No idea what I was supposed to say. No idea what had even
happened.

“He’s pissed.” Chris sounded defeated.
Like
he was giving up or something.
“He’s so pissed. He wasn’t even there,
but it must have been my fault.”

“He wasn’t there?”

Chris laughed—well, kind of. It didn’t really sound like a
laugh, but I’m not sure what else to call it.

“He was banned from the field last year when he almost hit a
ref.”

Wow. How’d I miss that? Better question, which flavor was I
paying so much attention to that I missed
that
?
Jared had been a harsh mirror today.

“My mom and dad were both in the waiting room when they let
me out of the ER.
Arguing.
Loud.”

I could imagine.

“Why weren’t they with you?”

He turned his head on the headrest, our eyes lined up with
just the space between the seats distancing them.

“They never made it that far. They were too busy shouting at
one another.”

My dad may be completely out of the picture—the jerk—but my
mom would never have been kept from me if I was hurt. She would have stormed
the hospital. She’d stormed other things to save me.

“That sucks.” What else was I supposed to say?

“He’s just such an ass.” He threw a hand over his eyes,
blocking everything out. “He’s screaming at her for God knows what. He’s
screaming at the doctors and nurses. He screamed at Coach Johnson for taking me
to the hospital. We get back to the house and he’s standing on the porch
talking on his cell to one of his girlfriends.
In front of
us.
And so he and mom started screaming at each other again.”

He was shaking his head. I could see him trying to push it
all away.

“God, Rachel, I don’t want to be him. I can’t be him.”

“You’re not.” I took his hand and pulled it down, off his
eyes. Stole his cover and held it between my own hands where it was so big and
so warm, even if he wasn’t feeling that way. “You’re not.”

I have no idea how it happened. I just wanted to make him
feel better. I wanted to be the one to be there for him.

I crawled over the emergency brake and onto his lap, holding
his hand the whole time and trying not to bump his braced knee.

“You’re not.” I kissed his forehead.
His
cheeks.
His nose.
His eyes.
I tasted the salt he didn’t want me to know was there. He wet his lips and my
eyes drifted down there.

“I swear it,” I promised him with everything in my heart.

I’m not sure who kissed who first, but his lips were on mine
and I would have killed the person who tried to take them away. I slid my hand
into his hair, afraid he’d leave me. Afraid he’d realize who he was kissing and
push me away.

But I’d never felt this…any of this, and I wasn’t letting
go. He was going to have to kick me out of his life at this point.

I could feel the heat of him coming from everywhere, surrounding
me. All I wanted was to be closer.
Just closer.

His hands slid under my shirt. They felt large and hot and
strong against my skin. His thumbs brushed the bottom of my bra before he
wrapped them around me and pulled me closer.
Closer.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I reached down and pulled
away long enough to yank my baby-tee over my head.

His eyes fell to where my bra was left trying to cover me.
I’d never had a guy see me like this, with just a scrap of white satin edged
with little blue flowers. His gaze was as hot as his hands.

And then his eyes shut. “Shit, Rachel.”

His hands dropped away. He pulled back, as far as he could
with me across his lap in the front seat of a compact Honda.

“Put your shirt back on.”

Oh my God. This is what happens. This is what happens when
the guy you’re falling for finally takes a good look at you compared to every
other girl he’s seen naked…number unknown.

I scrambled off his lap, pulling my T-shirt on as I went. I
lowered my head to the steering wheel, refusing to cry.
Afraid
that if I looked at him, if he said anything, I’d lose it.
We sat there,
at the bridge, for who knows how long before I snatched the keys up and drove
down the dirt road half blinded by humiliation.

I was almost to his house when he finally said something.

“Don’t take me home.”

Please tell me he wasn’t going to ask to come to my house.

“Take me to Mark’s.”

Ouch. There was no relief in that.
None.
He was asking me to dump him at the soccer party house. Mark’s parents would be
gone or oblivious to the insanity raging in their basement as usual.

Fine.
I’d take him there. I’d dump
his ass at that party and not look back. I would not—would
not
—lose myself in hysteria because of his rejection. He was in a
bad place, and he wouldn’t drag me down there with him, no matter how willing I
was to go.

I’d have followed him into that pit if he’d asked. But not
like this.

We were almost to Mark’s, when he finally spoke.

“Rachel, this isn’t about you. I’m not going to use you for
sex.” He still didn’t look at me. “I
won’t
use you.”

Each word was punctuated as if it were important; its own
sentence.

I pulled into the driveway and tried to figure out if I was
supposed to shut the car off or not. Holding on
hard
to the steering wheel, I said the one thing guaranteed to scare the crap out of
him.

To scare the crap out of both of us.

“It wouldn’t have been just sex.”

If seconds were drops of rain, I’d have had to build another
ark.

When the silence got too painful, I finally looked at him.
But his eyes were locked on the lights splashing from the house windows. And
distant, his gaze was distant like he was already gone.

He pushed the door open and left me there in the driveway as
he made his way toward the chaos of the RV team’s winning party. Hobbling, but still
going.

~*~

I almost didn’t go home. I almost went to Amy’s to have a
good cry. But now that her dad was around again, there was no way I could just
show up at this hour.

Plus, how humiliating could it get
?
Hi Amy.
The school slut wouldn’t sleep with
me when I threw myself at him, even after you reminded me how dangerous he was.
How was your night?

Yeah. Not so much.

Plus the whole
she’s-probably-out-with-her-Mr.-Perfect-boyfriend-anyway thing.

I sat in the car just staring at my house, wondering if I’d
ever be the same. If I’d ever be able to say, “It’s okay. I fell for the wrong
guy, but at least he didn’t take my virginity when he had the chance.”

My head was saying,
yes
.
My heart was saying,
absa
-
friggin
-never
.

I was still thinking about finding a hole to crawl into when
my phone started ringing. Only my mom would call to check on me while I was
in
our driveway.

But it wasn’t my phone. It was Chris’s. One of his parents
had finally figured out he was gone.
Took them long enough.

Even as I put the car in drive and backed out onto the
street, I knew it was more excuse to see him, to be near him and try to fix
things, than desire to give him his phone that had me driving down Franklin
Street. I had this hopeful feeling that after I’d left he’d realized what he’d
done and just hadn’t had the phone to call me from.

The party at Mark’s was still going strong when I got there.
It was early as far as this group cared. I followed the music around to the
back where a sliding glass door to a crowded basement was open.

Inside the most popular kids in
school,
and some I didn’t even know, were sitting around or dancing. The smell of beer
washed over me as I pushed my way into the crowd. The music blocked out the
giggling and chatter of the cheerleaders flirting up at the jocks I only
recognized by sight.

This was not my scene. Not my group. I was pretty sure Luke
or Ben weren’t going to stumble out of the kitchen and hand me a drink.

I inched my way through the heat to the kitchen, hoping I’d
spot that mop of uncontrollable blond hair soon. Some guy I didn’t know bumped
into me and handed me a beer with an apology as he grabbed my ass.

I really did
not
want to be there.

“Have you seen Chris?”

Ass-grabbing guy looked disappointed for a moment before he
was already peering over my shoulder for the next potentially
too-drunk-to-say-no girl. “Kent? Yeah, he was down the hall.”

I plowed down the hall through the hook-ups and
near-hook-ups, hoping I’d find him soon. If I could just get him out of
here…get him back to the bridge so we could talk. I never should have driven
away.

He wasn’t in the hall or any of the rooms along it. At the
end of the hall, a light shone from a half-closed door. I pushed through it,
expecting the party to have spilled into this last corner. Expecting to try to
set my world to rights and rescue Chris with it.

Only that isn’t what I found.

He was there all right. And the party had seeped into the
room. But it was a party of two.

He was sprawled on top of a mostly-naked brunette, his face
buried in her neck.
His mouth edging its way toward her
collarbone.
The floor was strewn with their clothes, each down to just
the minimum.

For a moment all I could do was stare at him, gorgeous still
as he broke my heart in those stupid boxer briefs that only I should have been
seeing.

And, for just a moment—just long enough to get me mad, get
me out, and get me home—I was irate. I was beyond irate. It wasn’t sex he
didn’t want. It was sex with me.