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At Katie McGarry’s unforgettable new novel,
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They stand together against the world…
Drix was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.
Elle knows she lives a life of privilege.
When they meet, their connection is immediate…but so are their problems. Fighting against a society that can’t imagine them together, Drix and Elle must push themselves and each other to get what they deserve and learn that sometimes, love can breach all barriers.
First Teen in Governor’s “Second Chance” Program Chosen; Pleads Guilty for Robbery and Attempted Assault
By: Jane Trident, Associated Press
The Lexington teen who was arrested for robbing a neighborhood convenience store at gunpoint and possessing an illegal firearm has pled guilty and is the first teen selected for Governor Monroe’s Second Chance Program.
The program, which is currently under heavy fire from critics, has promised to end the “school-to-prison pipeline.” This pipeline is defined by the American Civil Liberties Union as “policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”
In an effort to help slow the rising crime rate among teens and the number of these teens funneling into the adult prison system, Governor Monroe kept his campaign promise and has created the Second Chance Program. This program is focused on therapy, specialized educational programs geared toward the individual needs of the teens while incarcerated, and a leadership program that will help prepare the teens for when they return to their homes.
Critics point out that the money used for this program is needed to fund other programs in the state. One high-level source, who remained anonymous, stated that the people of Kentucky don’t want to see their tax dollars used on teens who can’t be helped, and instead prefer for their tax dollars to be used on students who are driven and want to succeed.
Many eyes will be on this program, and many feel that the Governor’s political future will be tied with the program’s success or failure.
HENDRIX
“Everyone says you have a blank slate.” My brother Axle sits beside me on the ground, arms resting on his bent knees, and he stares at the bonfire I built with my own two hands with only flint and sticks. It’s one of the many tricks I learned over the last three months. That and how to survive on my own in the middle of nowhere.
Trees and bears I can handle. It’s not knowing who I can trust, now that I’m home, that’s the problem. Axle knows this. It’s why he’s next to me as our friends and family walk around the backyard for the impromptu “Welcome Home” party I told Axle I didn’t want.
Someone in this yard is the reason why I spent a year away from home for a crime I didn’t commit.
My neck tenses, and I roll it in an attempt to release the anger. It took me close to eight months to find some Zen, and it has taken less than thirty minutes for some of the old underlying rage that followed me around like a black thunderhead to return.
Across from us, two girls I used to go to school with are roasting marshmallows. They’re waiting for me to talk to them. That’s who I was before: the smooth talker, the guy who made girls laugh and caused them to light up with a few specially chosen words. The right smile dropped at the right time, and panties would be shed. But I don’t feel up for conversation and I don’t feel like manipulating anyone anymore.
Crazy—I used to thrive when surrounded by people. The more, the better. But after being in juvenile detention for seven months and spending three in the wilderness taking part in an Outward Bound program for troubled teens, I’m more at ease by myself in front of a fire.
“They’ve all confirmed you’re walking out of all this with sealed records,” Axle continues.
He’s leaving out the part of how those records only remain sealed if I uphold my end of the plea deal—the agreement I made with the district attorney after I was arrested. I agreed to plead guilty, and the DA didn’t charge me as an adult and send me to hard-core prison. Considering we had no money for a lawyer to help prove my innocence, the deal sounded like the better of two bad options.
“You’re getting a massive second chance,” Axle says.
It was rotten luck that got me into this mess, but it happened at the right time. Our governor was searching for screwed-up teens to use for his pilot program. Someone high up in the world thought I stood a chance at turning my life around, but that second chance comes with a price. A price my brother is currently breaking down for me.
“This is a good thing. A blank slate. Not many people get one of those.”
Blank slate. That’s what I’m scared of. I may not have liked parts of the person I was before I was arrested, but at least I knew who I was. This blank slate, this chance to create someone new, scares me. This is a new type of pressure. At least I had a good excuse for being a delinquent before. Now, if I mess up, it’s because I’m truly broke.
The fire crackles then pops, and embers rise into the late May night. My younger sister laughs at the other end of the narrow yard near the aging shotgun house, and the sound is like an eight-eight beat with a high hat cymbal. It’s welcomed, and it’s the first time this feels like home.
She’s sixteen now, grown up faster than I’d prefer, and she’s one of the four people I love more than my own life. She’s also the only reason I’m still out here instead of holed up in my room. According to Axle, it was Holiday’s idea to set up the party.
Old Christmas lights are strung from one towering oak tree to the next, zigzagging green, red and blue across the yard. Most people brought their own chairs and a dish to share. My first meal as a free man and it’s hamburgers, hot dogs and potato salad. I don’t have the heart to tell her I would have given my left ball for a slice of thick crust pizza.
“She missed you,” Axle says, catching my train of sight.
“I missed her, too.” Those are my first words since we pulled in the driveway. I used to be the life of the party, but that was before, and as I said, I don’t know who I am anymore, so for now, I’m quiet.
“I missed you,” he says in such a low tone I barely catch it. “We weren’t the same without you.”
I take a deep breath because I’m not sure any of us will be the same again.
“Is that jerk still coming around?” I ask.
Axle watches Holiday as she punches my best friend, Dominic, in the shoulder. They’re both all smiles, and he places her in a fake headlock, but she easily slips away.
Then, because when one speaks of the devil, the devil appears, Holiday’s bastard ex-boyfriend shows up.
His black hair is in uneven waves, he’s wearing a Styx T-shirt like he has the right to claim anything related to rock `n’ roll, and he has a smile that makes me want to knock his teeth into his throat. According to the therapy I went through this past year, I shouldn’t enjoy my sense of satisfaction at his crooked nose and scar. Those features were courtesy of my fist from my life before. He deserved it then for how he treated my sister. I’m betting he deserves it now.
Holiday beams when Jeremy slinks up beside her and wraps his arms around her waist like he’s too familiar with parts of her I’m going to pretend he’s never touched. Even though the kid has a slight build, he looks sickly white, especially against Holiday’s healthy glow and brown tone.
My sister looks a lot like her mother, at least in the pictures I’ve seen of Holiday’s mother when she was younger. She was a black woman with dancing eyes and a smile that could light up the darkest night. Holiday’s skin is lighter than her mother’s, but other than that, she’s a spitting image.
Jeremy eases my sister away from Dominic, away from the lights, away from anything good in the world. I can still see them in the shadows, and I consider re-breaking his nose.
“I thought you said she broke up with him.”
“She did,” Axle says. “Six months ago. But then he came crawling back two months ago claiming he’s changed. She took him back last week, and I told her there were rules. I’m going to need you to remember the rules. If she breaks them, then we’ll have to stand firm.”
A twenty-six-year old roofer, attending night school to be an EMT, and me, a seventeen-year-old juvenile delinquent, are now raising a just-turned sixteen-year-old. That’s got to be the picture of dysfunction. “Is one of those rules he can’t be within a hundred feet of her? A restraining order?”
“She swears he’s changed.”
Changed. That’s what I’m supposed to be. In the forest, the therapist talked forgiveness. Does it mean I haven’t changed because I don’t forgive the guy who made my sister cry?
“Did he change?”
Axle’s lips flatten, and he tosses a stick into the flames. Within seconds it’s engulfed and will soon be ashes. Yeah. That answer is a kick in the gut.
“I say too much, I push her away and into his arms,” Axle says.
I’m the living proof of this. I got into it with Holiday over this jerk before I was arrested, and the entire situation exploded in my face.
“I keep quiet, it’s like I’m the one auctioning off her soul. No one handed me a playbook on raising a teenager when Holiday’s grandmother signed custody over to me. Holiday didn’t have rules before. In my house, she does. The rest of it I’m playing by ear. “
I glance at my older brother out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to explain that’s how he felt about me before I was arrested. Except, I wasn’t falling into the wrong person’s arms. I was the asshole parents hated.
“But you’re back,” Axle continues, “and you can help keep an eye on her. Moving her in full-time means I can finally set some boundaries. Rules. At least limit her time with him.”
“Think she’ll listen?” I ask. “To the rules?”
“She may not listen when it comes to Jeremy, but she listens to everything else.”
Translation—Holiday’s not me. “Are you laying down rules for me?”
Axle snorts. “Do you need them?”
Probably, but I only lift my fingers as a response.
“How about you don’t screw up again.”
“Got it.” At least I hope I do.
“What’s up, Axle. Drix.” A friend of mine from when I used to play gigs at local clubs offers Axle his hand and me a nod. The two of them exchange how are you’s and fine’s. I alternate between watching the flames of the fire licking up and glancing at them as they talk.
My older brother is now my court-appointed guardian. I did too many stupid things while living with Mom, and Dad’s not reliable. Axle is nine years older than me, has a decent job and inherited all the recessive responsible genes neither Mom nor Dad possessed.
Axle and I favor Dad. Dirty blond hair, dark eyes, and we both used to be hard-core metal boys. I guess we still are when it comes to music, but not so much with style anymore. He has the tats up and down his arms, and earrings in his ears. Earrings and tats were never my thing, and I used to wear my hair to my shoulders where Axle has always kept his shaved close to the scalp.
First thing that happened when I entered juvenile detention was a shaved head. While mine’s not shaved anymore, it is cut close on the sides, has some length on top and naturally sticks up like I styled it on purpose. As Holiday told me when I walked in, I got the good boy cut with the bad boy stride.
Our friend leaves with a fist bump to Axle and a pat on the back to me. Way to go, bro. You survived time on the inside and then time on the outside in a forest.
“It’s weird not hearing you jump into a conversation,” Axle says.
It’s weird not being in the thick of things. Not being the one telling the story, sharing the joke, or the one in the crowd laughing the loudest. I used to be the guy who drank to get drunk, threw a punch, then threw too many punches, and then dealt with the guilt in the morning.
Thanks to one year of group therapy, I’m different now. Seven months of that therapy was while I was living behind bars, then the other three months of therapy was in the wilderness. Three months of hiking, three months of paddling along forgotten rivers, three months of climbing up and down mountains, three months of being too damned exhausted to remember who I had been before they handed me a backpack that weighed fifty pounds and too damned exhausted to even contemplate if that was a bad or good thing.
As much as I hated parts of who I had become after I went to live with Mom at fifteen, there were parts of me I liked. Don’t mind so much losing the bad, but there’s an uncomfortable shifting inside me at the thought that I also lost the good.
“How does this play out?” Axle asks. “How do I make this better for you? Easier?”
Axle isn’t talking about the party; he’s talking about living here with him and Holiday. He’s talking about how I readjust to parts of my old life and adjust into the new life the plea bargain has created. He’s talking about the thing we never mention aloud after the night I was arrested.
That we both think someone we know and love is the one who really committed the crime.
We both think it was Holiday working with Dominic or Dominic on his own, but neither of them could have survived being behind bars. I’m tough. I could handle the fallout, and all that mattered to me was that my family believed I was innocent. They did, but the police didn’t, and they had a crap load of evidence that pointed in my direction. This is where Axle would say he’s thankful for plea bargains.
“It’ll be good to have you playing again,” Axle continues, desperate to find the easier. “No one can play the drums like you.”
The drums. For months, I’ve dreamed about playing the drums. Being away from my family and the drums was the equivalent of someone chopping off my arms. Part of the reason I didn’t want this party was because I wanted to come home, go straight to the garage, sit in silence on my stool behind my set, then play. Feel the beat in my blood, the rhythm in my heart, the music filling an empty soul. Just me, my drums and the comfort in knowing that at least one good thing about me didn’t change.
But the thought of playing the drums also causes my stomach to dip. If I play again, do I become the same asshole that I was before?
“When is the press conference?” I ask.
Part of my penance, part of the deal, is that the state needed ten troubled teens, and out of those ten, they needed a poster child to prove to the public their hard-earned tax dollars were going to stop the school-to-prison pipeline. In other words, the voters need proof that this program could prevent teens, who don’t do well in school and get expelled, from wandering in and out of juvenile detention, and after eighteen, beelining it straight to prison.
Last year, Axle had lost his mind when the DA had mentioned if I didn’t accept the deal and plead guilty they would charge me as an adult. My brother then begged me to agree to anything they were offering, including them owning me for my senior year of high school. Appearing whenever they want, saying whatever they want, all while I keep my nose clean. Can’t say terror didn’t seize me at the thought of being charged as an adult. I might be strong, but real prison has never been on my bucket list.
Axle pops his knuckles, and my stomach sinks. I’m not going to like his answer.
“The press conference is tomorrow.”
Bullet to the head. “Where?”
“May Fest in Louisville. I guess they already had a general press conference planned, and when they found out you’d be out in time…” He trails off.
Makes sense to go from one prison sentence to another.
“It won’t be bad. They said they’ll have what you need to say written out. Ten minutes. Twenty, tops. I thought we’d all go together. Spend some time on the midway, bring a change of clothes for you, get it done, and then we’ll head home.”
All in a neat package, to be done and repeated until I graduate from high school. That’s the deal, and it’s the deal I’ll see through. The only reason Axle agreed to take on custody of Holiday, getting her out of her crap situation, was because I agreed to come home and help him take on the burden. Financially, emotionally and whatever the hell else it requires to be a parent, since our biological parents can’t find their way out of a wet paper bag.
“Guess I should get a good night’s sleep then,” I say.
“You probably should.”
But neither of us move. Instead we keep staring at my fire. Both amazed I created this. Both scared of what the future is going to bring.
ELLISON
Fair midways are my happy place. Rides with merry, shrieking people are to my right, and to my left are the bells and lights of games.
Dad and Mom brought me to May Fest so I could be present for Dad’s press conference, and they allowed me a few hours this afternoon to explore. I should be in my zone, filled with so much joy I could combust, but I’m not. There are two guys who have been stalking me for the past five minutes, and they’re ruining my mood.
My cell buzzes in my hand, and I step away from the crowd and between two game booths to read the text. I’m hoping if I appear interested in my phone, the two boys will keep walking—away from me. I’m also expecting a text from my cousin Henry. He’s twenty-four to my seventeen, in the army, and should be home any day now. It’s been too long since he’s been in Kentucky, and I miss my best friend and older “brother.”
To my complete happiness, it is Henry: I’ll be in state tonight. Can you drive down to Grandma’s tomorrow?
I sigh because I’d rather he put aside his differences with Dad and come home to stay with us during his leave, but I won’t push him on this…for now. Some things are best done in person.
Me: I should be able to. I have nothing planned then. I’m at May Fest now. Dad has a press conference later this afternoon.
Henry: Sounds like hell.
Me: It’s not so bad.
Henry: Liar.
Really, the press conference will be boring. The fund-raisers and campaign events are often soul crushing, but admitting so will only add fuel to Henry’s current anger at my father, so I switch subjects.
Me: I have good news.
Henry: What?
Me: I’m a finalist for the internship!!!!
Henry: That’s awesome! Congrats, Elle!
I’m smiling like a fool at my cell. Since this past spring, the last semester of my junior year, I’ve been competing for a final spot in the interview process for a four year college internship with a computer software company. I found out an hour ago via email that I’m in the final round, and Henry’s the first person I’ve told. It feels good to finally share the joy.
Because I wasn’t sure that I would make it as far as I have in the application process, my parents are on the dark side of the moon with all of it. Mom and Dad have high expectations of me, and lately, they’ve been disappointed that I haven’t truly shone in any area of my life. I’m good at things, and they know this, but they want me to be first place for once instead of third.
So now I need to tell them, and I need to tell them soon, since I’m required to have a signed permission slip for the next phase of the interview process. My parents might not be thrilled that I’ve omitted some critical on-goings of my life, but I’m hoping they can see past what I’ve been withholding and instead focus on my win.
“You really are beautiful,” a guy with a red baseball cap says from my right. He stinks of too much aftershave and a hint of alcohol.
Fantastic. They followed, and my texting didn’t tip them off to leave me alone.
I drop my cell into my purse, grab my bottle of Pepsi out of the side pocket and start walking again, praying that I’ll lose this jerk and his friend in the crowd. Yet they somehow have the uncanny ability to twist and weave through the fair’s packed midway to remain at my side. I try to ignore them.
Last week in an email, Henry challenged me to be happy, because lately a lot of the fund-raisers for Dad were making me miserable. Nothing makes me happier than thrill park rides, games and, because I’m feeling rebellious, a real Pepsi. My health nut of a mother abhors all things in cans.
Somewhere between exiting off the Himalayan and purchasing my drink, these two guys, Idiot One and Idiot Two, obtained the wrong idea that I wanted their company.
I’m a big girl and can take care of myself. Much to my mother’s dismay, Henry taught me how to throw a punch and knee a groin. But I’m not stupid enough to think that doing either of those things is going to impress my parents. In fact, it would infuriate them to the point of implosion.
The two annoying guys are a bit older, walk with that I’m-in-college swagger, and have that sharp-edged jaw of a frat boy with a money-to-burn-and-wallet-wielding daddy. I know the type as Henry was friends with many of them during high school and his two years of college.
“Hang out with us,” Idiot One says. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’m not interested,” I respond, “and I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone.”
Idiot Two, the non-baseball cap wearing one, steps into my path. “But you really are beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes, kicking body beautiful.”
“I said no.”
“Have you considered you don’t know what you want? Come with us, and you won’t have to make a single decision. We’ll show you a whole new world. Listen to me, and I’ll make sure you have a great night, beautiful.”
Won’t have to make a single decision. Beautiful. He must believe there’s nothing in my skull beyond the beginnings of hair follicles.
My muscles tense, yet my perfectly practiced smile slips upon my face because Mom has told me to never let my anger leak out in public. I hate the word beautiful. Hate it. The word beautiful somehow gives the world permission to make wrongful assumptions about me, like that I don’t have a brain. Beautiful somehow gives men permission to say the phrase as a secret password in my direction, and I should therefore fall at their feet. Beautiful makes people believe they can say anything they want about or to me and that I shouldn’t be angry.
Nothing in the universe could be more wrong.
Disapproving of their existence, I force the smile higher and have a pretty good feeling that it’s starting to appear as nasty as my current thoughts. I then step out of the path of Idiot Two and over in the direction to my game of choice: Whack-A-Mole. There is a large snake calling my name, and I will be the victor.
Unfortunately, Idiot One and Idiot Two have never been taught kindergarten social cues, and they follow.
“You look familiar,” one of them says, and my internal warning system flares.
For most people, I’m a case of déjà vu. One of those big, white fancy furry cats that crosses their path more than once, and it causes their mind to glitch. I’m not nearly famous enough that people follow me on the streets, but I’m more of a mere shadow of a newspaper clipping memory: I’m the governor’s daughter.
Best course of action? Push them away. It would mortify my mother, but if, for some strange reason, she learns of this, I’ll claim it as an accident.
I glance over my shoulder as I loosen the cap on my Pepsi. “Really? Who do I remind you of?”
“I can’t remember. A movie star maybe?” Idiot One brightens like me responding means I agreed to strip naked in the backseat of his car and have sex. Me hooking up with them is somehow a reality in their pathetic lives. I’m half wondering what their success rate is, and if it is high, there should be a mandated course on how girls are to avoid guys like them.
“Which movie star?” I spin on my toes, “accidentally” lose my footing, fall forward and my much-anticipated Pepsi becomes a sacrificial lamb. Brown fluid drips down the shirts of both boys, because I’m just talented that way.
“Oh, my gosh.” Hand to my mouth, fake wide eyes. “I’m so sorry. You should go dry off. Get some napkins. There are a million sweat bees here, and if you don’t clean up, they’ll swarm.”
Death stare in my direction complete with splotched red face from Idiot Two. “You did that on purpose.”
Yes, I did, and it’s hard not to smile when the first sweat bee lands on his arm. Sting, buddy. Just do it. I’ll forever be grateful if you cause him pain.
“Come on.” Idiot One places a hand on Idiot Two. “Let’s go.”
My fingers flicker in a shoo motion, and I finally turn my back to them. They can either go clean themselves up or die of sweat bee stings. Either option works for me. Now, it’s time for me to be normal for a few minutes. Well, to be normal and win. I’m sure normal people are also highly competitive.
* * *
The red light in front of me flashes, bells ring, and I raise my arms in the air, savoring my victory. I even mimic the dance I performed in my limited and excruciatingly failed days as a cheerleader for Pee Wee football by slightly swinging my hips side to side.
I split my “v,” I dot my “I,”, I curl my “ctory”. Pee Wee football cheer taught me I not only lacked rhythm, but I lacked enthusiasm for my team when it was thirty degrees and raining. But in my defense, how many six-year-olds love cold rain?
The group next to me toss their padded mallets on to the game. Only one groans as if their loss was monumental. The rest laugh and good naturally tease each other. They’ve been fun to beat. For three games in a row, these two rugged guys and two girls have hung with me. Three times digging into their pockets to ante up, three times we’ve trash-talked the other in ways that are only done on fair midways, three times each one bites the dust.
Whack-A-Mole is not for the faint at heart. This game is for the serious, and only the serious win, and I’m a serious type of girl when it comes to carnival games and hard-earned stuffed animals. Someone’s got to play and win, and it’s going to be me.
For a few minutes I forgot I had to be perfect, and being just me felt great.
“Good game.” One girl of the group offers me her fist, and the multiple bracelets on her wrist clank. She’s my age, has curly black hair in tight rings, and friendly dark eyes. Her clothes, I love. Tight jeans, a tank that ends at her middriff and a jeweled chain around her flat, brown stomach that’s attached to her belly button ring. She has a daring grin and style. Both I admire.
I’m not the type to fist-bump, and by how long I’ve hesitated, the girl’s aware this is out of my territory. I finally do fist-bump her though, because I’m not only highly competitive, but I rarely back down from a challenge. For those reasons alone, it’s amazing my mother lets me out of the house. “Good game.”
Her grin widens, and I hold my breath as she tilts her head in that familiar déjà vu. I silently pray for her to shake it off, and when she does, turning so she can talk to her friends, I blow out a relieved breath.
Most of her group appears to be the same age as her, about the same age as me, except one guy who I’d hedge is in his twenties. By the way they all listen when he talks, it’s apparent he has their respect.
I watch them longer than I should because a part of me envies the way they all seem to belong to each other. Henry is twenty-four and loves me, but about the only thing we have in common is my parents, and he hasn’t talked to them in two years.
The carnie clears his throat, and I’m drawn back to the sounds of people laughing on rides and the scent of popcorn. I offer the pink-and-black striped medium snake I’ve already won to him and motion with my index finger that I’m on the hunt for the massive, big daddy snake that could wrap around my body a few times. To the victor goes the spoils.
The carnie doesn’t accept my medium snake and instead hands me a green-and-black striped small one. “You have to win four times in a row in order to get the big one.”
Four times. Good God. At five dollars a game, I could have bought five of these hardened toys, but that’s not the point. Winning is the actual prize.
I pull my cell out of the small purse I have crossed over my body. I ignore Andrew’s “Where are you?” texts and check the time. I’ve got an hour to make it back to the convention center, change and be ready for Dad’s press conference where it is my job to sit, smile and “look pretty.”
If I’m really careful, there won’t be time for my mother to berate me for taking off without Andrew. He’s a friend of the family a few years older than me, and my mother chose him to “babysit” me for the afternoon. She allowed me to go to the midway with the understanding I was to tag along with him. But I don’t like Andrew and Andrew doesn’t like me, so I turned right while he walked left and neither of us looked back to see if the other was following. Maybe Andrew will rat me out that I abandoned him. Maybe he won’t. Either way, I’m happy with my choices.
Any way I look at it, I have time for at least one more game. I flip my blond hair over my shoulder and give a tempting grin that’s meant to rub it in that I not only won, but won three times in a row. “You know you guys want to play again.”
You know you hate being beaten by me.
From the expressions of the guys, I pegged them correctly. The girls…I could totally become best friends with because they knowingly laugh at their expense.
“I’ll play.” It’s a small voice belonging to a child, and my smile falls. Long unruly ringlets over a chubby preschool face. She stands on her tiptoes to hand money to the carnie, and he accepts it without giving her a second glance. “I’m going to win this time. I have to. Daddy says it’s my last game.”
The aforementioned daddy hands another five dollars to the carnie worker and picks up a mallet next to his daughter’s spot. Ugh. Knife straight to the heart as he throws me a pleading glance. He wants her to win. He needs her to win. He wants me to help her win.
I totally hate being conned, but if I’m going to lose, it will be to a five-year-old.
“Are you going to play?” the carnie asks me because it’s his job to make money. I want to answer no, but because I was once five and my father did the same thing for me, I fork over my five dollars, then tilt my head in a princess-worthy stare over at the boys.
It takes four to play, and I need one of them to lose so this kid can win. They glance at each other, waiting to see which one is going to man up.
“Your ego can handle being beaten by a five-year-old,” I say.
A guy in their group that had been hanging back strides up. “I’ll play.”
For a second, there’s a flutter in my chest, the lightest touch of butterfly wings. I secretly wish this guy would chance a look in my direction, but he doesn’t. Instead he hands the carnie five dollars and claims the spot next to me.
Wow. I’m definitely okay with this.
He’s taller than me and he’s in worn blue jeans. His white T-shirt stretches against his broad shoulders, and he’s gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. The defined muscles in his arms flex as he switches the mallet from one hand to another, and I’ve stopped breathing. His blondish brown hair is shaved close on the sides, but the rest of his longer hair is in complete disarray. His freshly shaved face reminds me of a modern day version of James Dean, and everything about him works well. Very well.
I’m staring, I need to stop, and he’s also aware that I’m staring and haven’t stopped. He turns his head, our eyes meet, and those butterflies lift into the air. Warm brown eyes. That’s when I’m finally scared into having the courage to glance away. But I peek back and sort of smile to find he’s now looking at me like he can’t stop.
For the first time in my life, I like that someone is looking. Not someone—him. I like that he’s looking at me.
“We let her win,” I whisper.
He nods, and I lift my mallet. It’s tough to not get into position—to be poised and ready to strike. I love this game, I love winning, and losing to be nice is all fine and good, but I have to fight the instinct to go full throttle.
“You’re good at this,” he says.
“I play this game a lot. At every fair and festival I can. It’s my favorite. If there were an Olympic event for Whack-A-Mole, I would be a gold medalist several times over.”
If only that were enough to make my parents proud—or to make a living at when I graduate from college.
“Then I’m in the presence of Whack-A-Mole royalty?” The laughter in his eyes is genuine, and I watch him long enough to see if he knows who I am. Some people do. Some people don’t. I’ve learned to read the expression of recognition, and he has no clue who I am.
My body relaxes. “Totally.”
One corner of his mouth edges up, and I become tongue-tied. That is possibly the most endearing and gorgeous grin I’ve seen. He twirls the handle of the mallet around in his fingers, and I’m drawn by the way he makes the motion seem so seamless.
This incredible fantastic humming begins below my skin. To be brutally honest, I’m not sure what attraction is. My experience with boys has been limited, but whatever this is, I want to feel it again and on every level of my being.
The bell rings, my heart jumps, and I inhale when the worn plastic moles pop up from the holes. The instinct is to knock the hell out of them, but the tinkling laughter of the little girl farther down causes me to pull back. I hit one. Then another. I have to score something. She needs to think we at least tried.
The guy next to me hits a few moles, but in a rhythm. A crazy one. A catchy one. One that my foot taps along with. The bell rings, the little girl squeals and my hopes of winning the large snake die.
A chirp of my cell, and I immediately text back my mother: Still at the midway. Heading back now.
Mom: Hurry. I think we should curl your hair for the event.
My hair, my outfit. That’s what’s important to her. I squish my lips to the side. It took her an hour this morning to decide she wanted me to wear it straight. Then it took her another hour to decide what I should wear on the midway, in case I should be recognized. Then there was the painstaking additional hour to decide what I should wear to the press conference.
When I look up, disappointment weighs down my stomach. The boy—he’s gone. Not really gone, but gone from beside me. He’s rejoined his group, standing with them and belonging. I will him to glance one more time my way, but he doesn’t.
That’s okay. I’m just a girl on a midway, he’s just a boy on a midway, and not everything has to end like a daydream. Truth is, once he found out what my world is really like, he’d have taken off running.
But I have to admit, it would have been nice if he had at least asked for my name.
* * *
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