Oh yeah, must have been liquid courage.
He was the first to speak. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
I huffed out a laugh. “Nobody asked you to rescue me.”
“How drunk are you?”
I shrugged one shoulder. I’d had a few peach iced teas with vodka. Buzzed but not drunk, and now I felt stone-cold sober but I didn’t tell him any of this. I didn’t tell him about the party at the lake or about the boy I kissed. I didn’t tell him that the boy was cute but that his lips felt all wrong on mine. His touch didn’t send an electric current through my body. My pulse didn’t race. My heart didn’t beat wildly. His lips, his hands, they weren’t Jude’s.
And it had made me so angry that I couldn’t erase the memory of my first kiss by replacing it with something better. Because maybe there wasn’t anything better. Maybe Jude was the very best and nobody would ever compare.
I didn’t tell him that I saw his fuck buddy Kylie at the party either. She’d asked me about Jude and wanted to know where he was tonight. I told her I had no idea which was the truth. I also told her I didn’t care which was a lie.
But why did he always go for blondes? They were always tall and willowy too, with big boobs, the opposite of me in every way. Oh right. Guess that was the whole point.
“Jesus Christ, Rebel,” he said, sounding exasperated. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time. If you were trying to get my attention, there were easier ways to do it.”
“Like what? Give you a blow job?” I laughed like that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. My laughter bordered on manic and he waited until I pulled myself together before he spoke again. He wanted to make sure his words were heard.
“Like by doing something that didn’t almost get us both killed.” His voice was low and angry and maybe a little hurt, I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell anymore. “But yeah, another blow job would have worked. At least I’d get something out of it.”
“I wasn’t trying to get your attention. I don’t want your attention.”
“Yeah. I got that. You made that pretty clear for the past ten months.”
I still had my eyes closed when I felt him leaving, taking my battered heart with him. When I opened my eyes, I was alone on the roof under a sky full of stars with only the bitter taste of regret and my salty tears for company.
I watched the stars reeling in the sky and I tried to find the brightest one. But I couldn’t. All I could think about was how disappointed my mom would be in me right now.
I didn’t even care if Jude had opened my present or if he’d read my stupid letter because if he had, it hadn’t made one bit of difference. He was going to hang on to his hurt and anger the same way I’d held on to my guilt and fear. Nothing had changed. And I was starting to think it never would.
Instead of trying to climb down from the roof, I crawled through the attic window. Jude had left it open for me. Not to be kind but to save himself from having to rescue me again, no doubt.
The next morning I went to the climbing wall, a little bit hungover and a little bit sadder but I climbed anyway and told myself it would make me stronger and braver and I’d be able to reach for the stars on my own. Without him.
Patrick had given me the membership and the climbing shoes last Christmas after a talk we had. He asked me what would make me feel stronger and I thought it was an odd question, but a good one. I told him I wanted to learn how to climb. It had just struck me as something I wanted to get better at. Like a good life skill to have. And that was how it all started. It was my thing. Not exactly a secret. Brody knew about it. Christy knew about it. But I’d never told Jude because we didn’t talk anymore.
As I was leaving the climbing wall, I pulled my backpack straps over both shoulders about to run the three and a half miles home when Brody’s truck stopped right in front of me. Literally. He narrowly missed running me over. That was Brody for you. Resident bad boy and serial heartbreaker at your service.
“Need a ride, Sugar Lips?” He leaned across the front seat and gave me that signature Brody McCallister grin through the open window, his teeth so white against his suntanned skin.
I laughed. “Stop calling me that.” The nickname wasn’t meant to make me feel special. I’d heard him use it on plenty of girls. I tossed my backpack in the truck and climbed in, pulling the door closed. His truck smelled like horses and leather and black licorice from the Twizzlers he was eating. He was the only one I knew who liked black licorice. I’d given him a case of root beer and jumbo packs of Twizzlers for his eighteenth birthday in April. He’d given me a case of Dr. Pepper and a bag of donuts for my seventeenth birthday.
He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other one tapping out the beat of “Smack That” by Akon that was blasting from his speakers and even though it was hotter than Hades outside, his windows were rolled down and he refused to turn on the A/C. He always said he preferred to sweat than breathe artificial air. Brody couldn’t bear to be cooped up and he even had trouble being in a car with the windows rolled up.
“You missed the turn,” I said as he kept going straight down the two-lane highway instead of turning right. He ignored me and I leaned back in my seat,
