Em
I reread my essay, wondering if Jake’s right about it being good enough to publish. I’m not sure I want to go public with this. It’s like carving out a piece of my soul and offering it on a plate to the world. What if I’m laughed at or sent more hate mail? It can’t be worse than what I’ve already experienced, though, and what if it helps someone else who’s going through what I went through?
A rustling makes my head snap up. I’m smiling, expecting it to be Jake coming back for his sweater, which he left behind and which I’m now wearing, but it isn’t. It’s Reid Walsh. Great.
He steps out from behind a tree. How long has he been there? Was he waiting for Jake to leave? Has he been spying on me?
“What are you doing here?” I ask. My spine prickles, and my hands go clammy. From up here in the tree house, I have the advantage of height. But I’m also trapped, and it’s not like I can pull up the ladder, either. Reid walks slowly toward the tree. Where’s the boiling oil when you need it?
Reid rests his hand on the first rung of the ladder, and my pulse leaps and flies. I tell myself I’m being silly, but the last time I felt like this, something bad happened, so this time I decide to listen to my gut. I scan the inside of the tree house, my gaze landing on the penknife lying on the floor. I’m being stupid, paranoid, but something tells me—urges me—to pick it up.
Reid starts climbing up the tree. That’s it. I move, darting toward the penknife. I hide it behind my back and as Reid heaves himself onto the ledge, I walk out to confront him. It’s better to be outside on the ledge than inside, where I’m even more trapped. Why am I even thinking this way? I wonder. Why am I so paranoid? The problem with having been a victim of assault once is that forever after you judge every other situation by those terms. You lose all sense of proportion. Maybe I’m reading into things. But then again, I’d rather be paranoid than assaulted again. Not that I think Reid’s capable . . . but yeah . . . once burned . . .
I watch Reid clamber to his feet, wondering if the platform can take his weight. He’s got six or seven inches on me and easily made it to college on a wrestling scholarship.
Reid glances inside through the open doorway. “You’ve fixed it up. It looks great. Remember how we used to come here all the time as kids?”
I raise my eyebrows. He’s smiling fondly at the memory. I guess he’s remembering the porn magazine. I wonder if I can dodge past him to the edge of the ledge and climb down. Would it look like running away? An angry voice inside my head tells me to stand my ground, but then I realize that I’m not twelve and it doesn’t matter. I can choose my battles.
I make for the ladder, happy to cede possession of the tree house to Reid for now.
Reid steps sideways, blocking me. “Where are you going?” he asks. It doesn’t seem to be a threat, more a genuine question, and it confuses me.
“I have to get back home,” I tell him. “My dad needs me.” I move once more to step around him, and this time he doesn’t block my way.
“How is he?” Reid asks.
I freeze and turn to study him. He’s not smirking, but why is he asking? “Why do you care?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’m just being nice.”
“Nice?” I ask, eyebrows leaping up my head.
“What?” he asks. “I can’t be nice?”
I shake my head at his weirdness. “Nice” is the last adjective on earth I’d use to describe Reid. Up there with the words “thoughtful,” “intelligent,” and “sensitive.” “Can you move? I want to go.”
Reid stays blocking the ladder.
“Are you dating him?”
I pull back to look at him, frowning. What is he talking about now?
“Is that why you . . . you broke up with Rob?” he stammers, his face starting to flush. “Because Jake came back? That’s what Rob thinks.”
“No,” I say impatiently. “I broke up with your brother because he’s a jerk and I should never have dated him in the first place.”
Reid grins. “Yeah, I know. Took you long enough to realize it.”
That makes me pause. Is he messing with me? I’m not staying around to find out.
I push past Reid, sit down on the ledge, and start climbing as fast as I can down the ladder, but I’m in such a hurry to get away that I forget the rusting nail and catch my palm on it. Yelping, I miss my footing and fall the last five feet, landing on my butt on the soft ground at the bottom of the tree.
“Shit. Are you okay?” Reid calls down to me.
He starts climbing down the tree, landing beside me and offering me his hand to get up. I don’t take it. Instead, I use the tree trunk to steady myself as I climb to my feet, rubbing my lower back, which is bruised from the fall. Without a word, I start walking away.
“Wait,” Reid says, chasing after me.
I whip around to face him. “What? What do you want, Reid?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says, holding up both hands in a defensive posture.
I shake my head again in confusion. “I don’t get it, Reid.”
Don’t get what?
“Why are you being nice—apologizing, and . . . I don’t know, trying to be my friend?”
He looks suddenly forlorn. “Aren’t we friends?”
“Er . . . no.” Is he crazy? Are all those steroids poking holes in his brain?
“But we used to be friends.”
“Reid, you and I have never been friends.” It’s like explaining two plus two to a six-year-old.
“That’s not true. We were always hanging out together.”
“We were on the same hockey team. If you call practice ‘hanging out together,’ then yes, we hung out a lot, but it wasn’t by choice.”
His face falls some more, and now I really am starting to wonder if this isn’t just a big joke. No one in their right mind would ever think Reid and I were friends, not unless they had a really warped idea of friendship.
“You were mean to me all the time,” I say. “You were always teasing me and laughing at me.”
He swallows. “I liked you.”
I stare up at him, at the sweat trickling down his temple and the nervous way he is licking his cracked lips. “What do you mean?”
“I always liked you,” he blurts, unable to meet my eye. “Like, liked you liked you.”
Is he joking? I can’t tell. The rash of acne on his chin flares even redder.
“I just . . . you know . . . didn’t know how to tell you.”
He lifts his gaze to meet mine—briefly. Oh my God. He’s serious.
I burst out laughing. I can’t help myself.
“Why are you laughing?” he asks.
“Reid,” I say, shaking my head in amazement. “You bullied me for years. You told me that Jake thought I was a liar. I believed you.”
“I was jealous of him,” he interrupts. “You never noticed me. It was like I didn’t exist. And then you start dating Rob and he treats you so badly and you don’t even care. And I’m right here. . . . I’ve always been here. And I tried to be nice to you and you never even looked at me.” He takes a step closer to me, swallowing dryly, and it’s only then that I figure out that what Reid is trying to tell me is that he liked me back then and that he still likes me.
The shock is so enormous that a meteor could crash down beside us and I wouldn’t notice.
Reid takes another step toward me, his expression pleading.
“I’m dating Jake,” I blurt, stepping backward, away from him.
Reid freezes. Color floods his face—and his cheeks turn a mottled red. He shrugs. “Whatever. Like I care.”
I raise my eyebrows. Confusion replaces the shock.
He makes a face. “You didn’t think—that like, just because I said I liked you back when we were kids, I still like you?” He snorts. “Because, yeah . . . that’s not what I was saying.”
I take another step backward. “Okay, Reid, well, I’m going to go.”
He looks like he might be about to say something else, but then he bites it back and gives me one of his trademark shrugs. “Fine.”
I start running through the woods, my ears ringing from his words, my mind doing a loop-the-loop as I try to place this new information over the top of my memories and recalibrate them all.