The Understorey

“Wow,” I said and dragged both my hands through my hair.



Her chest huffed with each winded breath. She rested the back of her head against the cold passenger window and attempted to straighten out her hair but I could tell she was thinking of something. She quickly sprang for me and grabbed the collar of my shirt. She crushed her lips into mine with the same severity as before, but this time I resisted.



“No,” I said grabbing her shoulders.



“Yes,” she said pushing herself against me.



“No Jules.”



“Please Elliott.”



“Jules!” I yelled.



Her eyes popped open, startled. She sank into her seat, licked her lips and wiped her mouth with her thumb and index finger, pulling at her bottom lip. She ran her fingers through her hair and bit her thumb, her elbow resting on the door staring out of the window. I could see her reflection in the frosted glass and her eyes began to wet with tears.



“I’m sorry,” was all I could muster up.



The tears flowed more steadily and she opened her door without a word. She scrambled quickly to retrieve her bag. I jumped out of the truck and followed her up the porch steps to the front door.



“What are you doing Jules?” I asked desperately.



“What does it look like I’m doing?” She bellowed, the tears still coming, “I’m going to bed.”



“What happened? I don’t understand,” I said, racking my brain for an answer to the question of how this had turned so badly, so quickly.



Her hands trembled as she searched in the dark for her keys in the front pocket of her bag. When she found them she slid the key in the door and turned it. She walked in and left me standing on the porch without a word, without a second glance.



The whole way home, I kept trying to guess what I had done that so terribly offended her. Jules was dramatic but she had never been unreasonable, so I had to have done something pretty awful. I parked my truck and turned off the lights. I slid out of my truck and bounded up the steps to the kitchen. When I walked in, my mother and father were at the kitchen table.



“What’s wrong son?” My mom asked immediately.



Either I plainly wore my emotions on my face or it was a mother’s intuition, or maybe it was a little of both but she could tell something was up.



“Nothing,” I said. “I’m going to bed. G’night.”



I tumbled into bed still wondering if it was the rejection but decided I needed some sleep and that maybe after a night’s rest Jules would come to her senses and talk to me.



The next morning, I ran to my truck once I was ready for school. I went to The Perry House and knocked on the door but no one answered. I went around back and Jules’ car wasn’t there. She’s already left for school? I raced down the road to Bluefield and saw flashing lights behind me.



Dang it! Danny! I said glancing in my rear view. Danny was my mom’s youngest brother.



“Danny, what do you want?” I asked impatiently.



“Nothin’ Elliott. Just want to know where the fire is?”



“I pissed off Jules somehow and she left for school without me,” I offered as an excuse.



He started chuckling and slapped me on the shoulder.



“Boy, you better get used to that. Women are funny like that,” he said.



He didn’t know Jules though. She wasn’t the type. We’d never had so much as a cross word since the day we got together, not seriously anyway.



“I think I really offended her though. It’s not just a girl thing,” I said, looking for advice, even from my ‘clueless about women Uncle Danny. How he married my lovely aunt Becky I will never know.



“Well, if you really did, then you should have a pretty good idea what happened that made her that way,” he said intelligently.



“I have an idea Danny.”



“Well, go fix it son but it’s better you get there in one piece. You hear me boy? Slow down!” He demanded in his best sheriff’s voice.



“Okay, I will. Thanks Danny.”



“Alright, bye Elliott.”



“Wait! Uncle Danny?”



“Yes Elliott?”



“Don’t mention this to my mom. Please?” I pleaded.



“Mention what?” He said with a wink while walking back to his cruiser.



I started back toward Bluefield, this time at a snail’s pace. When I finally got to school, the parking lots were pretty full. I drove around Lot A, where Jules’ car would be and saw it parked toward the front. I had to drive to the other side of campus to my lot and was almost late for my first class. I was going to have to wait until lunch to see her.



I paid little to no attention in Economics or Algebra. I only faintly remember Mr. Cook calling on me in Algebra and asking me if I’d forgotten to turn in my homework. He had counted one short and called out everybody’s names on the headings to take attendance and find out who skipped out. I apologized and handed it in. I sat back down and zoned out again. I was okay with having to teach myself the lesson later from my book.



After second period, I walked into the lunch room and Jules wasn’t there. Damn it Jules! What is going on? I sat down next to Jesse. I was still slightly bitter about Jesse’s date with Jules, not to mention his strange new behavior spilling out of the woodwork. I regretted his getting to know Jules more because, ironically, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be friends with him anymore.



“Where’s Julia?” He asked.



“I pissed her off. She’s avoiding me. The problem is that I don’t even know what I did,” I said.



His eyes lit up.



“Really?” Too interested.



“Yeah”



“Tell me what set it off.”



I sighed. Maybe he might help.



“Well, we were making out in my truck in front of her house.”



He sneered.



“Do you want to know or not?” I asked with little patience for his stupidity.



“Go on,” he said.



“And things got, well, sort of heavy pretty quickly and I stopped but she didn’t want to. I kind of yelled at her to stop and I think it hurt her feelings.”



“No kidding. You were making out with the girl and she wanted to keep going and you yelled at her to stop? And you think you offended her? Elliott, no offense, but you’re a moron.”



“Why’s that?” I asked defensively.



“Because, if a girl wants to keep going, that’s her problem, not yours.”



“You’re a jackass,” I said. “Don’t you get it? Jules isn’t some chick dude. Jules is the love of my life.”



“Please, Elliott. You don’t find the ‘love of your life’ in high school.”



“Maybe you won’t, but I did. Plus, what kind of attitude is that dude? You’re trying to tell me that if a girl wants to keep going in that moment that it’s her problem and not yours? You’re just as responsible for her as she is for herself Jesse. Grow up. Where are your morals dude?”



“Morals, schmorals,” he joked.



“I’m not kidding Jesse. If you’re not careful you’re going to make yourself miserable for the rest of your life. That’s the kind of blasé attitude that allows you to punish yourself in cruel ways.



“Think about it this way, you have sex with some girl you barely know and she gets pregnant. Say, you marry this girl and she’s turns out to be awful because you married someone you don’t know. You’ll be miserable and so will your kid, if she turns out to be a psycho. Say, you don’t marry that girl, you’ll still be miserable because you’ll have to share custody with a kid you feel belongs one hundred percent to you. That’s a torturous fate my friend and all for what? For sex with some girl who let you? It’s not just about her future, it’s also about yours. Is it worth it?”



“God, you’re a nerd.”



“Also,” I continued, “what if you do know the girl well and she is the girl you want to marry. Would you want to compromise her by messing it up with a stupid thing like sex? Dude, when you’re married you’ll have all the time in the world for that, a few years without it is not going to kill you. In fact, it makes you both that much stronger. I’ve got something with Jules that I don’t think even thirty year olds can find.”



“Okay, okay Elliott. You’ve made your point but I don’t think you’ve converted me to your celibate lifestyle there,” he said mockingly, brushing me off.



“Don’t insult me Jesse Thomas,” I said, standing up, raising my voice. “You think that just because I keep from doing that crap, it means that I’m naive. You can be innocent and simultaneously not be naive dude. I’m not stupid. Just because you have sex doesn’t make you older, smarter, or even more mature. In fact, it makes you just the opposite. You’re juvenile, stupid and below capacity.”



I stormed off with Jesse’s mouth gaping open. The whole cafeteria caught the end of our conversation and I felt eyes burn into the back of my neck as I headed out the double doors.



I heard Jesse yell loudly, “Jules broke up with him!”



I didn’t even bother correcting him, I was so ticked off. I went to the band room and practiced my drums.



I had joined percussion freshman year and worked my way up to varsity band last year. It was awesome because I didn’t have to play during the games and wear their ridiculous uniforms because I was the quarterback. Every now and then, I would join them when I had some down time during the games, but I wasn’t required to or anything. I had the best of both worlds.



People eventually started streaming into class after lunch. Taylor Williams and her little creepy crew came in. They all played flute. Her followers couldn’t even pick a different instrument. Taylor flitted to my side.



“I’m sorry to hear that you and the Jacobs girl broke up,” she said.



“Go away Taylor,” I said as I tapped my drumsticks over a snare drum.



“I’m still sorry to hear it Elliott,” she said, a cruddy grin on her face.



“Go away Taylor!” I yelled.



She sat back down in her seat and she and her little posse started whispering and laughing. Class began and it took my mind off things. Music always did that for me. There was something soothing about playing the drums.



After class, I rushed to Chemistry and sighed when I saw Jules sitting at our lab table. I plopped beside her and turned my stool her direction.



“Jules,” I said.



“We can’t talk about it just now Elliott,” she said.



I turned my head and saw twenty pairs of eyes focused in our direction. I fixed my stool and didn’t say another word until the end of class. She darted out as quickly as possible toward her car.



Over her shoulder she threw out, “I’ll meet you at your truck. Just let me get my car.”



I felt a little better that she sounded so reasonable. I sat on the hood of my truck waiting for her to come around. I saw Taylor and Marisa walking my direction and prayed they would walk right past me.



“Feelin’ lonely?” Taylor asked.



“Not at all,” I said. “Go away.”