I WAKE UP THIS MORNING with an avidity I’ve been a stranger to. I had become so used to getting out of bed and having to convince myself not to skip class. Today is different though. When I walk through the doors of Edmond Ridge High, I’m anxious just to be in the same building as him.
There’s something thrilling about this secret I now hold.
I purposely go out of my way to pass his classroom after first period. I walk by his door and catch a glimpse of him sitting at his desk. He wears his usual casual attire that most of the other coaches wear as well: athletic pants and an Edmond Ridge sport polo. I barely get a five-second fill before Kroy comes up behind me.
“You lost?”
“What?”
“Why are you on this side of the building? Isn’t your first hour with Mrs. Beasly?”
“Oh, I just . . . I had to drop off an assignment that I left at home last week,” I tell him.
We walk together to our next class, and suddenly the thrill dulls. I feel like a total fraud from the lies that are stacking up between us.
“So how was your weekend?”
“Good. I didn’t do very much. What about you?”
“Hung out with Kyle and—” He catches himself before saying her name, but if he was with Kyle, then I know he was with Linze too.
“You can say her name,” I tell him. “I know Kyle is one of your friends. It’s not like I expect you not to hang out with him because of what’s going on between me and Linz.”
“I don’t agree with her, just so you know.”
“I know,” I respond as we walk into class and take our seats.
The hour fades into the next while I focus on the lecture and take notes as another fifty minutes pass until I’m walking to English Lit. I don’t even realize my nerves until David looks at me when I step into his room. The air in my lungs ripples with uncertainty of how I should act, and I’m wracked with an unsettling fear that everyone can see right through us. So, I duck my head when he greets, “Miss Hale,” with nonchalance as I walk by.
Suddenly paranoid, I settle in my desk and pull out my notebooks. When I get the nerve to look his way, he’s already talking to another student. I shouldn’t stare, but I do, and the moment I feel the tingles creeping along my skin, I have to look away.
Oh my God, this is beyond awkward.
The bell rings, and Linze bounces through the door, announcing loudly in a singsong voice, “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Andrews.”
She doesn’t even look my way before taking her new seat in the front of the classroom. It’s an odd feeling to be a stranger to my best friend, but one thing life has taught me, is that it’s unpredictable and ever-changing.
He has us pull out our textbooks, and we follow along as he reads and discusses Shakespeare. I’m only able to digest about half of what he says, because I’m too deep in my thoughts, replaying our phone conversation that went into the early hours of this morning. There hasn’t been enough time between those words and these words he speaks now to draw the line between whatever I am to him outside of school and the student I am now. I’m stuck in the fog.
Every time our eyes catch, I fall further away from the girl I’m supposed to be and drift closer to the girl I was this weekend. He’s so confident in front of the class, and I wonder if he’s as affected by this as I am.
Before I know it, the bell rings, and I have no idea what was even discussed. The room fills with chatter and when he walks back to his desk, I shove my books into my bag, wondering if he’ll ask me to stay behind.
But I don’t have to wonder long when Mrs. Fritz, another English teacher, knocks on the already open door. “Mr. Andrews, do you have time to talk?”
She walks over to his desk, and I sling my backpack on to go about my normal routine of hiding away in the stacks of the library instead of going to lunch.
As I leave his room, I give a quick look over my shoulder and catch David staring at me before turning his attention to Mrs. Fritz.
Swim practice comes and goes, and I’m blow drying my hair when Taylor sidles up next to me. She leans forward, staring at herself in the mirror, and smears a hideous shade of red onto her lips.
I shut off the dryer and start pulling my hair into a knot on top of my head, and when she pops her mouth open after blending the lipstick, she zips her makeup bag, and talks into the mirror, saying, “It’s a shame Coach ended our morning swims.”
I scoff, shaking my head as I tuck a few loose strands of my hair behind my ears.
“Oh come on. Don’t pretend you haven’t drooled over his ripped body.”
“The guy is in his thirties,” I respond in feigned disgust.
“So?”
“So he’s old.”
“Like that’s a bad thing?” She turns to me and leans her hip against the sink as I toss my hair dryer and brush into my bag.
“You know, it’s a shame you can’t cover up that thing with some makeup.”
“What’s your problem, Taylor?”
“I’m only trying to help,” she says, lifting her hands up in defense. “People talk, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” I snap, grabbing my bag before hightailing it out of here and straight to my car. I put my seatbelt on and then close my eyes and toss my head back, wondering why society forces teenagers to the torture of high school. I swear it’s a cover for some twisted social experiment, like mice in a maze with big brother watching, wondering how we’ll adapt to the bullies and bitches.
I’m so sick of dealing with the pettiness.
My phone vibrates on the seat next to me.
David: Saw you storm out. What’s going on?
Me: Oh, you know, just another day filled with wholesome kiddie shit.
David: Care to ditch the sarcasm and tell me what happened?
Me: Not really.
David: What are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?
Me: Wasting my youth away.
David: Care to waste it away with me?
Me: Okay.
David: Head over in ten minutes. I’ll leave the garage open. Close it as soon as you pull in so no one sees your car.
Like a dirty secret.
Me: See you in a bit.
He then texts me his address so I know how to get to his place, and after driving in circles to pass the time, twenty minutes later, I’m walking into his house.
The moment David spots me, he strides in quick steps toward me, saying, “Come here,” before grabbing my face and kissing me on a caught breath. He’s urgent and tense, and I’m forced to grip his wrists to steady myself on my feet.
“You have no idea how hard it was for me to keep my distance from you today,” he says with his hands still holding me.
“Is this how this is going to be? Us avoiding each other until we can sneak away?”
“It’s not how I want it, but it’s how it has to be.”
With a deep sigh, I drop my head to his chest, and his hand comes to wrap around the back of my neck.
“What is it?”
“Why is it that the one good thing in my life has to be complicated?”
“Tell me what happened at the pool. Why did you run out so fast?” he asks, not wanting to focus on the difficulty of our situation.
“Taylor’s got a hard-on for you.”
His chest vibrates against my face with quiet laughter. “That’s what has you all pissy? A schoolgirl crush?”
“No.”
He lifts my head. “Then what is it?”
“She’s just a bitch and takes every opportunity to remind me of it.”
“She’s stressed,” he says, and I slant my eyes at his attempt to make excuses. “Her parents are divorcing, and it’s been hard on her.”
“You’re kidding, right? That girl isn’t a bitch because her parents are separating, she’s a bitch because it’s wired in her DNA. And why is she coming to you about this anyway?”
“Because I’m her coach.” He sends me a sly smirk before adding, “And apparently, because she has a—what did you call it? A hard-on for me?”
I laugh and playfully push him away. “I should have never stroked your ego by telling you that.”
“I didn’t need you telling me. Subtlety isn’t her strong suit.”
“Should I be worried about you being her shoulder to cry on?”
“Not a chance,” he tells me. “And she isn’t crying on my shoulder.”
“She’s gross.”
“Can we not talk about her?” he says, chuckling slightly, “Because you’re here, and the only hard-on we should be talking about is the one I’ve been struggling with all fucking day.”
I burst into laughter at his crude humor, and it feels so damn good. I’ve missed laughing. I’ve missed a lot of things I’m finding he’s capable of giving me.
He picks me up, and I sling my arms around his neck as he carries me over to the couch before laying me down on my back. I take my time running my hands up his solid arms of roped muscle as I get lost in his deep kisses. He moves with confidence, and when he drops more of his weight down on me, I grip his shoulders and savor the pressure.
Dipping his tongue into my mouth, he glides it along mine, and I swear he’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Without breaking our connection, he slips his hand down to the hem of my shirt, and the moment he tugs it up, my heart freezes. In a flash, my hand latches around his wrist, and I yank him away.
My reaction jars him, and he jerks his head up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just—”
The ringing of his cell phone saves me from trying to conjure up a lie. I don’t want him to know I’m the self-mutilating freak I am.
He reaches above my head to where his phone sits on the end table and looks at the screen. “I have to take this.”
When he gets off the couch and heads to his bedroom to answer the call, I breathe a sigh of relief and sit up. I don’t know how I would explain all the scars if he were to ever see them. But how the hell do I hide them when they are all over my stomach? It’s not like I can cut anywhere else when I spend every day in a swimsuit.
I wander through his house while I fret over what I’ve done to myself. But when I walk into his study and see a wall covered in plaques and certificates from the United States Army, my attention takes a shift. I walk over to his framed Honorable Discharge Certificate, where his dog tags hang from the corner. I reach out and touch them, running my finger over the raised stamping as I read his name, social, blood type, and his religion marked as Catholic.
“Here you are,” he says from behind me, causing me to startle. “What are you doing?”
I look around the room that’s filled with memories of his time in the military, time I know nothing about.
“What exactly was it that you did when you were in the Army?”
“I collected intel and negotiated with tribe leaders in order to find terrorists.”
He offers me his hand, and when I take it, he pulls me down to sit on his lap in his leather chair.
“So you were overseas a lot?”
“Nearly four years over three different tours.”
“That’s a lot of time away.”
“There wasn’t much here for me at the time,” he says.
I want to know what he means by that, but I also don’t want to push, remembering how quickly he closed down the last conversation we had about his past. So I err on the side of caution when I ask, “What was it like there?”
“Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I spent a lot of time with children.”
“Children?”
“I’d go into the villages with soccer balls and other toys. We would kick the ball back and forth, and I’d make them feel like I was a friend, someone who could be trusted so I could get information about their families in order to find our targets. I basically bribed them so I could manipulate them.” He takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine. “I knew I was putting them in danger. If ever their families were to find out the information those kids were giving me . . .”
“Did any of them get hurt?”
“Never stayed long enough to know, but I don’t doubt that some wound up killed because of me.” His hand clamps tighter around mine, but I still feel the jittering he’s trying to mask.
“And what about you? Did you ever get hurt?”
“I was at war for almost four years. You don’t come out of that unscathed.”
I look into his eyes, wishing to know everything they’ve seen. He’s lived years beyond me, has seen more, experienced more, loved more, and hurt more. I feel juvenile with my earlier complaints about petty high school rifts.
“You told me the other night that since your dad died, you’ve struggled to find the common ground you once had with your friends.” I nod, recalling that conversation. “I know what that feels like. When I returned, I realized how drastically the events I went through reshaped me. And now here I am, back home, and there isn’t a single familiar place I fit into anymore.”
Not allowing a single second to slip, my lips are back on his.
His fingers press into my soft skin, and in some morbid way, his pain comforts me. Maybe it’s the fact that he gets what no one else does. He understands what I feel because he feels it too. A shared ache that shakes us both to the core, letting me know that I’m not alone. He’s told me that I wasn’t time and again, but understanding it through him, I now believe it as truth instead of some guy simply attempting to pacify me.
I kiss him even more as we hold each other, licking wounds we don’t fully understand in the other, but understanding enough to know we need to tend to them. And in a world that we are both struggling to fit into, what if this is where we are supposed to be?
Right here.
Right in this very moment.
Because this is the place where our broken pieces have settled, connecting perfectly without any gaps.