Falling Away Page 6

  “Look,” I said, grabbing the doorknob to the chem lab. “I’m sorry I’ve avoided you. I’m nervous, okay?” And that was true. I was practically squeezing the life out of the strap of Tate’s messenger bag. “Just give me a couple of days to get settled in. We can do dinner Wednesday night. Sound good?”

  Shane twisted her full lips to the side, looking displeased, but I couldn’t help it. Jax’s hateful words from the other night were still flowing through my mind, an ever-present whisper, and to make matters worse, I masturbated to him the very next day. Seriously?

  Right now a nice, long walk with Tate’s iPod sounded like heaven. It was really the only company I wanted.

  “All right.” Her mumbled answer took some weight off my shoulders. “Do you want a ride home? I get done at eleven. I’ll stick around,” she offered.

  “No.” I shook my head and smiled. “I’m actually enjoying the walks.” Looking forward to them was more like it.

  She gave me a playful sneer, her hazel eyes amused. “But it’s so hot. Really?”

  “I like the heat.”

  “Do you?” Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she backed up, walking away.

  I smiled. Yeah, I guess it was weird. At first I thought that living in Phoenix got me used to the high temperatures, but Shelburne Falls was a different kind of heat. The thickness of the air saturated everything with moisture. It was wet, and it made every pore on my skin sensitive and aware. I was constantly conscious of the way the hem of my coral-colored skirt brushed across my thighs and the heat pouring off my chest made my shirt stick to my skin. The back of my neck was already damp, and although I was glad that I wore a light white sleeveless blouse, I wished I had pulled my hair up instead of leaving it down. Brushing it over one shoulder to lie on my chest, I turned the knob and walked into the classroom.

  The smell hit me right away, causing me to stop. I hadn’t been in a classroom in this school in two years, and that smell took me back to bittersweet memories. The whole school smelled the same. Like basketballs and construction paper. I inhaled, suddenly feeling alone but at home. I had nothing I had the last time I was here. No boyfriend. No best friend. But it was here that I was last happy.

  “Hi, Ms. Penley,” I said right away, trying to appear less nervous than I was.

  “K.C.!” She smiled one of those smiles where you can see both rows of teeth. “It made my summer when I heard you’d be helping me out.”

  I nodded, looking around the nearly empty lab. A few other students—or possibly tutors, judging from the fact that they had files like mine—sat at tables around the room.

  It was weird to see Ms. Penley in here, since her literature and writing classes were always in a standard classroom. This room made my legs stiffen with fear, whereas Ms. Penley’s usual classroom made my toes curl with comfort. Chem lab was my least favorite place, because I hated science. Luckily I’d had Tate to get me through those classes.

  “Well.” I shrugged. “I just hope I can be of help.”

  She waved me off. “It’ll be fine,” she assured me. “I’ll be in the room, and there are three other tutors here as well. That’s why we’re in the lab. Lots of room.”

  I nodded, it finally making sense.

  She continued talking as she organized files on her desk. “You’ll be sitting at a table with four students. We’re going to spend the first half hour or so reviewing the basics: gathering and organizing their ideas, main idea and supporting details, and the revision process. Most of these students still need a lot of practice on forming a thesis statement. You already have their diagnostic assessments.” She stopped to look at me. “So when we break into groups, I want them to each share a sample paragraph and discuss how it could be made better. I simply want them to analyze their work today, and I want them to see how their work compares to others’.”

  That sounded easy enough. “Got it.”

  Scanning the room again, I noticed all the other tutors seated on their own, so I headed for an empty table and unloaded my bag. I glanced up at the clock next to the door and counted down three hours and fifty minutes until I could leave. I’d have two sessions, each lasting an hour and forty-five minutes with four students in each session. Some kids were here for more than just writing, so they’d rotate to physics, English, or whatever math class they needed. And as icing on the cake, we’d all get our fifteen-minute snack or Facebook break.

  One of the tutors—I think his name was Simon if I remembered him correctly from when we were in school together—smiled at me, and I nodded a greeting back.

  Students trailed in, most of them later than the eight fifteen start time, and I let my eyes wander as some took their seats. I recognized a few kids, but I didn’t know any of them. They had just been finishing their freshman year when I’d graduated.

  Did I look that young only two years ago? Did I wear that much makeup?

  As Ms. Penley began her lecture, showing examples over the classroom projector of what excellent papers looked like, I noticed that barely any of the kids paid attention.

  This must be hard for her. Some of the kids clearly just didn’t care. They covertly played on their phones under the table. They whispered to one another, ignoring Penley. They doodled in their notebooks.

  And I remembered that that was what I did in my science classes in high school. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I’d just gotten tired of struggling.

  So I stopped trying. I did enough but no more.

  Now I wished I tried more and wasn’t so afraid to put myself out there. Maybe if I had reached out for new experiences, I’d know what I wanted to do with my life. Now my options felt limited, because I’d held myself back in high school, and I was two years into college political science classes that I couldn’t just throw away.

  I wanted these students to know that their education gave them choices. It was a valuable time.

  Penley wrapped up her lesson and then directed the students to their tutors. I stayed where I was, leaning my elbows on the table and forcing a relaxed smile as one boy and three girls came to sit down.

  “Hi, I’m K.C.,” I greeted.

  The guy held up his pointer finger but didn’t make eye contact. “Jake.” And then he buried his face in his hands and let out a loud yawn.

  Jake might be on drugs.

  I looked across the table to the three girls. I knew one of them. The younger sister of a somewhat friend from high school whom I no longer kept in touch with. The other two were strangers, but all three of them looked at me as if I were the hair in their soup.

  That was one thing that didn’t make me nervous. I had no trouble standing up to women in my own generation.

  I kept staring at them, eyebrows raised in expectation.

  The dark-haired girl finally spoke up. “I’m Ana. This is Christa and Sydney.”

  Sydney I knew. Her sister was sweet. She looked like a little shit, though.

  She had long auburn hair, parted on the side and hanging in big, voluminous curls down her back and over her chest. Her stunning brown eyes brought out the red tint in her hair, and her makeup and nails were perfect.

  Ana’s beautiful Asian complexion glowed alabaster and her long, shiny black hair and dark eyes were flawless.

  Christa had short blond hair cut in a bob with a severe angle. Although the wallflower out of the group, I knew from knowing Tate that those were usually the ones to show their awesomeness later.

  All of the girls were dressed the same. Shorts and tank tops.

  I smiled calmly. “Nice to meet all of you.” I took out their diagnostic assessments—compositions they wrote at the end of the school year, including their outlines and rough drafts—and handed them their own papers. “So we’re supposed to each share a sample paragraph and discuss what improvements we could make. Who would like to go first?”

  No one budged. Jake sat next to me, looking as though he was ready to fall asleep. Ana looked away while Christa and Sydney smirked, challenging me.r />
  “Anyone?” I asked, a grin tickling my face. I remembered my classes when no one would volunteer. Now I knew what being a teacher felt like.

  I held up my hands. “I’ll read it if someone wants to give me their paper. This time.”

  Jake shoved his paper in my face, still not making eye contact.

  “Thank you, Jake.” Relief flooded me.

  I cleared my throat, reading out loud. “What do you do when you’re hungry? You might go through a drive-through or hit the store. For eight hundred and forty-two million people in the world, they can’t get food that easy.”

  I cleared my throat again, hearing the girls across from me snicker.

  “That was a good opening paragraph.” I nodded, keeping my voice light and looking at Jake even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Asking a question right off the bat is a solid way to grab the reader. And I like your voice.”

  “He’s barely talked since we sat down,” Sydney joked. “How can you like his voice?”

  “I meant the tone that comes through in his writing,” I explained as if she didn’t already know. “Expressions like ‘hit the store’ when most people would say ‘go to the store’ or ‘drive to the store.’ That’s his personal voice. It makes the writing sound natural.”

  I caught Jake out of the corner of my eye, looking at me. I turned to him, wanting to be as kind as possible. The truth was, he needed a lot of work. His word choice was boring, he used adjectives when he should’ve used adverbs, and the sentences flowed like mud.

  But I wasn’t going to lay all that on him today.

  “Two suggestions, though: The statistic you wrote wasn’t cited. Readers won’t know where you got that information and they won’t trust it if you don’t tell them the Web site, article, or text to which you’re referring.”

  “ ‘To which you’re referring,’ ” Sydney mimicked, and the paper crinkled in my hand.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked, calling her out.

  She rolled her eyes and whispered something to Christa.

  “Another thing,” I continued, trying to ignore her, “is that there is some passive language h-here,” I stuttered, noticing Christa laughing into her hand and Sydney stealing glances at me. “You might want to spice it up,” I tried to continue to Jake, “by saying—” And when all three of the girls laughed together, I stopped.

  “What’s going on?” I tried to keep my voice down.

  The girls brought their hands down and folded their lips between their teeth to stifle smiles. Christa sighed sympathetically. “I’m just not sure why we’re being tutored by someone that got arrested.”

  Son of a …

  I narrowed my eyes and sat up straight. How the hell did everyone know? My mother definitely didn’t tell anyone. And Principal Masters most certainly didn’t tell anyone. What the hell?

  “Everything okay here?” Penley stopped at our table as she circulated.

  My chest fell with a hard sigh. “You might want to say ‘For eight hundred and forty-two million people in the world,’ ” I continued to Jake, “ ‘the solution to hunger proves more difficult.’ Using words like ‘is,’ ‘was,’ and ‘am’ is weak, so we try to use other verbs to make it sound better. Do you understand?”

  Penley moved on to the next table, and I glared across the table to see that all the girls were concentrated on something out the window.

  Jake shrugged. “I guess. So I have to go back and rewrite the whole thing?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “Not today.”

  “Oh, my God!” Christa bounced off her chair and leaned across the counter underneath the window, peering out. “He’s got his shirt off!” she whisper-yelled to her friends.

  They scrambled out of their seats, Ana nearly falling in the process as they raced over to the window, giggling.

  I shook my head, slightly amused, to be honest. I kind of missed being boy-crazy.

  Sydney turned to her friends. “My sister says he’s even better without his pants on.”

  One of them bounced up and down, while the other whimpered.

  I wondered who they were talking about, and then I remembered Principal Masters saying something about the lacrosse team practicing every day.

  Walking to the windows, I stood next to the girls and looked outside.

  My shoulders sank, and I groaned. Fuuuuuuck. My heart suddenly felt as if it were too big for my rib cage as I watched a half-naked Jaxon Trent running around and rolling on the field as everyone horsed around with the water bottles.

  “Damn, he’s hot,” Ana whispered, smoothing her hair as if Jax could actually see her. I felt like yanking her by her collar and sitting her ass down. He wasn’t a piece of meat.

  But I swallowed that urge. Gazing out the window, I watched Jax and the rest of the team grab their Gatorades and collapse on the grassy field, the sweat on their chests shiny from the sun’s angry glare. His hair was wet, and he worked those long black shorts like a pro. I clamped my mouth shut before I whimpered.

  He sat there, smiling and talking to a teammate, and I loved how even from here I could see his heart-stopping blue eyes.

  He seemed oblivious that three teenage girls were gawking at him before he fell backward onto his back, resting.

  “Girls,” I choked out, my mouth as dry as jerky. “We’ve got work to do. You’re here for a reason. And I’m here to help.” I held out my arm, gesturing for them to come back to the table.

  But Sydney didn’t budge. “No, you’re here because you’re a fuckup, too,” she shot back. “We’re going to the bathroom.”

  And I watched as all three of them grabbed their purses and left. Scowling up at the clock, I gritted my teeth, noticing that I still had three whole hours left.

  Luckily session two passed more smoothly. After Jake and the girls left, I got a group of three male students, and I relaxed right away, noticing that boys were a hell of a lot easier. Men simply wanted to do whatever you wanted them to do so you’d shut up. There was no arguing, no cattiness, and no chitchat. Other than some minor flirting, the only problem was disinterest.

  It was going to be a long-ass summer.

  At noon, all the students filtered out of the room to enjoy the rest of their summer day, and I finally reached into my bag to check my phone.

  Four texts. No, five.

  Tate: Jax not happy! You blew out his speakers? LOL!

  Great. I’d given her hell about cutting Jared’s electricity to shut down one of his parties. I was never going to hear the end of this.

  Another from Tate. Heads up. Jared will be calling when he gets time. He needs to ask you something.

  Hmm … okay.

  Nik: Bored. Sooooo bored. Where are you?

  I giggled quietly, missing my friend. I was about to dial her but decided to check my other messages first.

  Mom: We need to meet for lunch this week. Call this evening.

  Lunch? I grabbed the bag, swinging it over my shoulder as I walked out of the room, staring at my phone. Why did my mother want to have lunch?

  When I got in trouble, she did nothing to help me. She had spoken to me only as much as she had to to let me know that I was not staying at home while I completed my community service. I’d felt alone and abandoned.

  Now dread sat in my stomach like a ton of bricks, and the last thing I wanted to do was call her.

  Checking the last message, I halted in the middle of the hallway.

  Liam: Jax jumped me last night. Keep your new boyfriend away from me, or I go to the cops!!

  Huh?

  I dropped my arm and just stood in the empty hallway, probably looking as confused as I felt. Holding up the phone, I read the text again.

  Jax jumped Liam?

  Why? And why was Liam complaining to me about it?

  Fisting the phone, I shook my head. Whatever. This was their problem. Not mine.

  If Jax wanted to act like a child, that was on him. If Liam wanted to have the police laugh in his face, s
ince they were obviously in the palm of Jax’s hand, then let him.

  Dumping the phone in my purse, I grabbed Tate’s iPod, tuning it to Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” and stormed down the stairs and down the corridor to the rear of the school. Exiting through the back was a shortcut to Tate’s house, and since I was already annoyed, I figured I might as well book back to the house and get changed for the one o’clock kickboxing class.

  Looking down the hall, though, I stopped, seeing bodies scurrying through a door. I yanked out my earbuds.

  “Hurry, hurry!” one of them whispered, but it was so loud I could still hear it yards away.

  And even with the blur of short shorts and tank tops, I still recognized the girls.

  Christa, Sydney, and Ana.

  “Hey, are you all all right?” I headed up to the closed door that Sydney had just disappeared through and saw the sign that read ATHLETICS.

  Ana and Christa had spun around and were now staring at me wide-eyed, the blush of getting caught red all over their faces.

  I smiled. “I’m not a teacher. Relax.”

  And they pinched their lips together, trying to hold back smiles while they snuck glances at each other.

  “Where’s Sydney?” I ventured, knowing damn well she’d gone through the door.

  The sign didn’t say that any specific gender was prohibited, but I did know that tutoring was over. The girls weren’t supposed to be roaming the school.

  “She’s—,” Christa started, but Ana nudged her with her elbow.

  “She’s …?” I pressed.

  When neither of them came clean, I turned to leave. “I think Ms. Penley is still here….”

  “She’s in the weight room,” Ana blurted out.

  I turned around, narrowing my eyes. “Doing what?”

  Both of the girls smirked, avoiding eye contact.

  “Jaxon Trent,” Christa deadpanned.

  I froze. The softness from my face hardened into steel. “Go to the parking lot,” I ordered. “I’ll send her out.” When they didn’t move, I lost my cool. “Now,” I ordered.

  They covered smiles with their hands and veered around my immobile body, heading back down the corridor.