Faking Normal (23 page)

“Uh, Lex, forgive me if . . . I shouldn’t ask, but may I . . .” He hesitates, then says, “May I kiss you? Before you go off chasing the Captain,” he adds.

Now my heart’s at jackhammer speed.

“Before Heather starts chasing you?” I ask, and nod. Saying yes. Because he’s Bodee enough to give me the chance to decide.

And because there are few things I’d rather do more than kiss Bodee Lennox right now. To find out if what I feel when he kisses me is the same as how I feel when his hand is in mine. I can put the distance back between us, I tell myself, just as soon as we’re out of the tent.

“Um, I’ve never kissed anyone before,” he says.

“Well, just so you know, girls don’t usually taste like day-old pizza,” I say.

“Oh, and guys don’t always taste like bologna sandwiches.”

We both laugh a little, then tilt our chins until our lips meet. I lead, he follows. Which has never happened before. It doesn’t last long. And it’s definitely his first kiss.

But not many first kisses can be this sweet.

“We . . . we can’t do that again,” I say when we break apart.

“Of course not,” he says, and for the first time, I think Bodee is lying to me.

There is a pause as we stare at each other.

“See you at the house,” I say, and back out of the sleeping bag and crawl from the tent. I zip up the flap, leaving Bodee in his paradise.

Even though I’m familiar with the woods, I am not sure what direction the fort is from the tent until I reach the creek. Following along the bank, I cry a little and tell myself it’s just one kiss and I can’t be sorry. I
won’t
be sorry.

But the facts are simple.

I am broken and Bodee knows, because I haven’t hidden it from him.

I’m not sorry he knows.

I want him, but I can’t have him. Not because he’s not right for me, but because I can’t expose him to any more of my baggage. He deserves so much more.

And, anyway, he says there’s some other girl in his sights.

I will pursue the Captain and move on. And Bodee will too.

The girls are zipped in their bags—a pile of down in the middle of the fort. They don’t hear me climb the steps or pad across to the little table. Using gummy bears, I spell out
I’m sorry
on the floor by their overnight bags. If I hear from Heather before Monday morning, I’ll know Liz convinced
her that what happened with Collie was a fluke. If Heather’s still in a pissy mood, which usually lasts several days, I’ll ask Mom for a ride.

By the end of the weekend, Liz has checked on me and Hayden’s left ten messages on my phone. Before he can send the eleventh, I text him a thank-you for the flowers. This starts a conversation and a loosening of the vice grip around my heart toward him. Better to be more open to him or I’ll end up wanting to kiss Bodee every night.

U forgive me? Hayden texts.

Will u stop partying?

I’ll try, he responds.

See u on Monday.

By the front door, he says.

I don’t text him back, and he doesn’t text me.

When I ask Mom to drop us at school, she pats my shoulder and says, “You and Heather have a tiff?”

“Something like that,” I answer.

Heather’s car horn is more the sound of school than the bell. I miss it on this rainy Monday, the way I’d miss the Kool-Aid if Bodee’s hair wasn’t blackberry today.

“Drama girls. Bodee, don’t you let them get to you,” Mom says as she gathers a stack of picture books, her glasses, and a bottle of water.

“No, ma’am.”

In the car, Mom quizzes me about the campout and the flowers, something she would have done Saturday night or Sunday lunch if she and Dad hadn’t gone on an overnight event with their church group. I leave out some details: the desk mystery, the guys’ arrival, Heather’s anger, the, er,
sleeping
arrangements.

“Craig said while y’all were camping out, his boys played a terrible game against Saint X.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Shame to break their streak. Thought they might have a perfect year.”

“Too late for that,” I say. I’m not talking about football.

The circle drive at school is congested, so Bodee and I climb out across the street and walk.

“She talks a lot,” Bodee says.

“You think?” I joke. Mom never met a stranger.

“I like it,” he says. “I like
her.”

I know he’s remembering his mother. I want to take his hand, but Hayden appears. I have to remember Hayden, not Bodee. I’m not hurting Bodee.

“Walk you to homeroom?” Hayden asks.

“Um,” I say, hesitating. “Sure.” And decide not to go to my locker. No need to flaunt him in front of Bodee.

Heather is not in fourth period, and I’m sure she’s not spying on the Captain this time. No more need for that, according to her. The desk, blank, as it typically is on Monday, takes most of my worksheet time to complete. Even though Heather is convinced Hayden is Captain Lyric, I don’t have him in mind when I pencil in these words:

There’s a house in the trees

There’s a tent on the ground

These are the safe places

Where I lay myself down

Heather’s a no-show at lunch, and I wonder if she even made it to school today. Liz is sitting with a freshman from the Science Club, but she waves at me across the lunchroom.

Hayden is there, waiting to capitalize on the absence of my friends.

“Wanna eat outside? It’s not too cold today.” He points to a table outside the window, where a group of art students usually congregates.

“Sure.”

“You a fan of one-word answers?” he teases as he snags us both some pizza.

“Nah,” I reply, and get a laugh.

He chatters in a constant stream, mostly about football, until we walk to fifth period. Of course, he moves into Maggie’s seat behind me, and Maggie takes another desk across the
room. She gives me a discreet thumbs-up.

Which only reminds me of Bodee.

After school, Hayden offers us both a ride home, but I turn him down and wait for Bodee by the planter.

“Eventful day?” he asks, and slings his pack onto his back.

“Not really. For you?”

Rumbling thunder interrupts his answer. We both look at the sky. Lightning. Rain, the gully-washing kind, is less than a mile away. We’re going to get a bath before we make it home.

“No. Just long,” he says as the first drop of rain plops on my head.

“Which class do you have with your girl?”

The sky opens up and he says, “Fourth.”

While I’m reading and writing lyrics, Bodee’s checking out some girl. It’s okay.
It’s okay,
I tell myself. We kissed once, but I resolve to be happy. For him to be happy.

But the rain echoes my mood. A downpour of gray emotions. Bodee walks close to me, and I wish us back in the Malibu, to the time before I knew Bodee had his
sights
on someone else.

I don’t hear the truck slow down until it’s rolling along beside us at five miles an hour, kicking up a small puddle that sprays the sidewalk.

“Hey, hop in,” Craig yells across the front seat through the lowering window.

Bodee opens the truck door, which almost gets away from him in the wind, and I slide onto the bench next to Craig.
We’re already dripping. My jeans are plastered to my legs, and my hair is slicked back from my face.

“Thanks,” I say, and dry my hands on the cloth bench.

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Tanner,” Bodee echoes.

“No problem. I need to talk to Alexi anyway.”

Bodee’s thumb presses my thigh where Craig can’t see. Does he think being alone with any guy but him makes me nervous? Probably, since I know he likes Craig. His thumb stays glued to me until we’re in the driveway, and Craig makes it clear he’s waiting for Bodee to exit the truck. And leave he does, but he goes only as far as the front porch.

I slide over against the passenger door. “Please don’t start with me about the boys,” I say, anticipating a discussion about the campout. “I didn’t know they were coming.”

Craig swivels the dial on the radio until the only thing we hear is the rain on the cab roof. I look toward the porch; my breath fogs a small square on the window that I dot the center of with my nose.

“It’s not about the boys. They celebrate and commiserate too much, but they’re pretty good kids.”

“Oh.” This makes me nervous. Craig and I haven’t
talk-talked
in a long time. It always makes Kayla jealous when anyone else besides her gets face-to-face time with her man. Even her little sister.
Especially
her little sister.

“This is about the wedding.”

“What about it?” I snap.

“Talk to Kayla. Please!”

“Look, Craig, I love Kayla, but I’m not playing her games anymore. I know you love her, but she needs to grow up.”

“Maybe,” he concedes. “But Lex, she wants you to be in our wedding. That’s not really too much to ask, is it?”

Oh, yes. It definitely
is.

“She better get over it,” I say. “Mom and Dad have already said they’ll honor my decision.”

“Please, Lex. Even if you won’t do it for her, will you do it for me?”

“What did you say?”

“Will you do it for me? For your
best
buddy’s sake? Come on, say you will, Lex.”

I can’t look at him. He’ll see the knowledge in my eyes.

This phrase.
Will you do it for me?
I’ve heard it before. Years ago. In the den. And the
best buddy
is what seals my memory. Swiping my hand across the fog cloud on the glass, I stall and try to decide what to do.

Craig’s hand finds the back of my head. He touches my hair. My eyes stare at the glove box. And see nothing.

Oh God. I am still. Completely.

Slowly, he parts the dark strands until my hair is divided on my shoulders. What is he thinking while his eyes bore through the back of my head?

“Lex, my God, what’s
happened
to your neck?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

chapter 22

SCRAMBLING
away from Craig, I throw myself out of the cab and run. Rain thwacks at me, every drop an icy sting. As if God is playing paintball with crystal bullets.

But it’s remembering that sends me flying to Bodee.

Bodee meets me halfway to the porch. He umbrellas his shirt over me and doesn’t ask questions.

“I know
why,
Bodee. Why I didn’t stop him.” I gasp out the words.

“Fort,” he says.

I don’t have breath to say yes or no, but we race toward the woods like a pair of figure skaters who perform together so often that they move in perfect union. We have to slow down once we’re under the trees. The path is sloppy, and mud kicks up as we run slapdash toward the creek. Wet leaves
stick to my shoes, and I slide. Bodee keeps us upright; not that his traction is better than mine, but because it’s what he does. He planks the creek with the board, and tests his weight and balance against the slickness of the wood. Always checking, always careful. And protective. If I’d befriended Bodee years ago, maybe I would have found my voice. Maybe I’d be with him now as his girl, instead of his patient. He holds my hand as we cross the narrow ribbon of raging creek, and he doesn’t release it until we reach the fort’s ladder.

“What happened?” he asks, after we climb to the top.

There are gummy bears and ants on the table. I stare at them and squeeze the water from my hair.

“What happened?” he repeats. His hair is dripping blackberry rain.

“Craig begged me to change my mind about being in the wedding. And he said, ‘Will you do it for me?’”

Bodee watches my face. “And?”

“Oh God, it was years ago. I was probably six years old. Or seven. No, I must have been six because Craig started really hanging out with us after Granddad died. Anyway, Craig and Kayla were babysitting me. They did that on the nights Mom and Dad had meetings at church.”

“My mom went to that some,” Bodee says.

“I was already in bed after juice and my story. I always made Craig read ‘just
one
more.’ He had the best voices. That night he read
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,
and we were just to the part where Mrs. Frisby goes to the rosebush to
meet the rats. Have you read it?” I ask.

Bodee shakes his head.

“Anyway, I couldn’t fall asleep because Dad had a pot of those miniature roses in the den. And I got it in my head that
we
had a Nicodemus—that’s the head rat—living in Dad’s little rosebush. I had to check.”

As I pause at the stupidity of this idea from an adult perspective, Bodee helps me pull off my soaked hoodie and hangs it on a peg.

“But when I got to the den”—I cover my eyes as if this will stop the image from coming—“Kayla and Craig were on the couch. And Kayla was on top . . . I thought she was
hurting
him. You know? I was just six.”

I don’t say that Kayla came up off the couch naked when I screamed.

“What did she do?”

“They both scrambled for their clothes. Then she grabbed me and yelled that if I
told,
Mom and Dad would make Craig go away. He’d
never
read me stories or take me to Chuck E. Cheese’s or watch the Ewoks with me again. He’d go and never come back.”

“You really cared about him.”

“More than Kayla,” I admit. “I cried that Mom and Dad loved Craig and they were good and they didn’t make people go away. But she said
this
was different.”

“And it probably would have been. How old was Kayla?”

“She’s eight years older than me, so fourteen. Too young
for that,” I agree. “She pinned me in the chair, the ugly blue one in the corner, and I said Mom and Dad would probably get rid of her and keep Craig. She smacked me and I cried, but she didn’t care. She forced me to look at Craig and said, ‘You will never, ever,
ever
see him again if you tell Mom and Dad what you saw. When they ask you tomorrow about tonight, you say we read you a story and you went to sleep. And that’s
all.”