Fat Chance Page 14

  "You are not a murderer," I say again. "And I still see a super-hero."

  This time, he is without argument; he simply pulls me close and presses his lips to my forehead. "Thank you," he whispers.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "Thanks, that looks great!" I exclaim, looking over the packages that have just been pushed across the counter to me. I've been saving up for these for months, matching white gold lockets for my sisters. We're having their birthday dinner tonight at Janet's house, and I've been terrified all week that the lockets wouldn't come back from engraving in time, but I finally got the call this morning.

  As an extra service for the late delivery, the lockets have been packaged in beautiful little jewel boxes, and they are gift-wrapped in sparkling silver paper with fluffy ribbon bunches on top. The ribbons on Renee's are varied shades of purple, while the ribbons are pink on Chelsea's gift. Both are lovely enough to make me sort of wish I wasn't giving them away.

  I'm almost trembling with excitement and nerves as I leave the jewelry store, rushing out of the mall to get to my car. If I'm going to be on time, I really should have been on the road already, but I suppose a few minutes late can't be helped.

  Driving to Janet's house, I play my typical soundtrack, jamming to a few new songs that I've added. With the music filling me, the drive seems to fly by and then I'm turning into Janet's driveway. Chelsea's car is in the driveway behind Janet's, so I pull in at the edge and head into the house, packages in hand.

  Walking through the living room, I call out to let everyone know that I'm here, and Janet calls back from the kitchen.

  "We're in here," she calls, turning as I walk in. "Hi, honey!"

  "Hey, mama," I say, pulling her in for a hug. She squeezes me, and then backs away with sparkling eyes.

  "Get a room, why don't you?" Chelsea teases from the table.

  "But leave the presents!" Renee shouts, laughing.

  "You two," Janet says, and then a gasp escapes her as she looks to the door. We all turn, and Rick is there, his arms full of two giant wrapped boxes. Janet is icing a cake, so I place my gifts on the kitchen table and hurry to help Rick.

  "They aren't pies," he whispers, when I reach out for one of the boxes. "Have you devoured your boyfriend yet?"

  "Had him for lunch today," I whisper back, smiling sweetly up at him. "He was large and rich and delicious. So I guess it's good you didn't bring pie; I'm not hungry."

  Growling, he shoves one of the boxes at me, pushing past me with the other. Pasting a smile on his face, he checks the tag on the box he carries, and walks to Renee. Setting it before her on the table, he throws one arm behind him and bends the other in front, dropping into a dramatic bow.

  "Renee," he says, and then turns to me. Silently, I hand him the other box, and he repeats the treatment with Chelsea. They've both fallen for him completely, smiling and gushing over the pretty wrapping paper. I have to admit, I can still see some charm in him, when he's like this.

  Still, I hope he gets the flu before my birthday rolls around in a few months; I'm pretty sure I don't need another painting done by a local elephant. And if he accuses me of being the elephant again, I'm pretty sure I'm going to punch him.

  The twins are opening Rick's gifts, so I grab a dining chair and sit with my gifts, waiting for them to finish. It's a lengthy process; if there's anything Rick can do well, it's buying gifts for the people he cares about. Soon, there is a pile of paper and empty boxes on the floor, as the giant wrapped gifts each held progressively smaller and smaller wrapped boxes. Finally down to a small envelope in each tiny box, each twin receives a gift card to the mall for two hundred dollars.

  "Oh wow, thanks, Rick!" they shout, rushing over to hug him, and a part of me hates this, this family scene that I am not welcome to be a part of. In this small way, he still has his victory; I feel like an outsider in the only real home I've ever had. He knows it too; he tosses me a happy wink as he is bombarded by kisses from Janet and the twins.

  "That was fun," Janet says. "You'll have to do mine like that one day!"

  "Okay, Cass," Rick laughs, eyeing my small gifts, sitting quietly beside each other in the center of the table. "Your turn."

  There's a challenge in his invitation, just a hint of a dare. "Can you beat that?" he asks, with his eyes. I smile because I know that I have.

  Pushing my gifts over to the twins, I sit back and count down with my fingers as Renee and Chelsea anxiously hover over the ribboned bows that top their gifts.

  "Three," I say, holding up three fingers. I pretend to notice a broken nail, and the twins pretend to die of suspense, dropping dramatically onto the table. The ruse is ruined though, by their giggles. They've always loved their birthday best.

  "Two," I count, dropping one finger out of the count, catching Rick with a vicious glare on his face. He is able to escape notice, because the twins are busy focusing on my fingers, and Janet is standing motherly behind him, with her hands on his shoulders.

  "One," I say, laughing as the twins each get a devious gleam in their eyes. "Okay, okay, go!" I shout, just before they give in and rip the ribbons from the tops of their gifts. There is a short explosion of paper, and they're screeching, holding up the lockets to show each other.

  They admire the birthstones on the faces of the lockets, and their names engraved in script on the back, and then they help each other put them on, striking silly modeling poses for me. After appropriate admiration, Janet gives them her gifts, photo books that have photos and letters to each of them that she has been building on since they were born. As they are now thirty, these are substantial and beautiful gifts, and both girls cry as they flip through the letters from their mother.

  Again, I feel out of place, and I look over to see how Rick is doing. We will never receive this kind of gift from our "mama," as we are not really her children. Generally, this doesn't bother me, because I'm so grateful to Janet for taking me in when I was a troubled youngster. Today, though, I do truly feel like an outsider, and it is obvious that Rick is feeling the same.

  "You know?" I ask, into the confusion. "I'll be right back; I think I left my phone in the car." Standing, I walk out the door before Janet can catch on to what I'm feeling. The sound of laughter from the twins follows me out the door, and it isn't until I reach my car that I realize Rick has followed me also.

  "Always out of place, aren't we?" he asks, in a rare moment of understanding. For a brief moment, I miss the easy friendship we once had, and I forget the way things are now.

  "I think it's our destiny," I answer, leaning against my car. It takes me a minute to realize that he didn't comment about my weight pressing down on the car, and I realize then how out of place he must be feeling. I came to this family after a string of family death sent me into the system, but Rick was truly a lost child, a boy no one wanted.

  "Maybe," he snorts, and walks back inside. Standing there, I can't help wondering how different things might have been for us, if the role of a big brother had been enough for him. I know that easy friendship we once had is in there, but he's still so angry, and now I think that his anger over what happened is really the heart of his animosity toward me. It isn't my body at all, I realize, remembering my encounter with Jackson, the day he asked me out. Like Rick, and like Jackson, any man tends to lash out when his pride is wounded.

  How could I not see it sooner?

  By the time he found himself dumped into Janet's hands, Rick had been in and out of multiple group homes for unruly boys; his mother and father had both signed off their rights to him, and he'd had his first incarceration at a teen detention center. He was a rough personality when we met, and I'm not really sure why we took to each other so well at first.

  Still, he took me under his wing; he was like a real brother to me for the first months, and we'd spend hours outside, just talking about what we'd been through.

  It wasn't until we were seventeen that things changed for us; Rick was approaching his eighteenth birthday, an
d he'd been saving up every penny he made at work for months. He was hoping to sign a rent-to-own contract on the house next door, and he asked me to move there with him.

  It was my refusal to change our relationship that set him off.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "Yeah, I'm okay," I lie, knowing that I'm not. Then I remember the things he's shared with me, and I know that I have to tell Drew the truth.

  "You know," I say, pressing pause on the TV remote. "Actually, I'm not."

  "Okay," he says sitting back and draping one arm over the back of the couch. He's still close enough, though, to twirl a lock of my hair around his fingers. "What's up?"

  "You know how I've told you about my family, and how I met them and stuff?" My hands are in my lap, tracing circles on the fabric of my jeans as I watch them. I can't look at him, knowing I'm about to ruin everything.

  "I remember. You didn't tell me much about your brother, though. Rick? That's his name, right?" he asks.

  "I didn't tell you about Rick, because there's a lot to tell," I explain, and I feel his fingers leave my hair. Maybe he's only sitting up to listen better, to give me his full focus. Maybe he's only trying to eliminate the distracted fog that comes over us when we're touching.

  Or maybe I'm going to tell him just how ugly everything has been, just how ugly I am, and when I've told him how Rick sees me, Drew will see me that way too.

  I look over, forcing myself to stare at him, to take in all the small details of him, because I've been thinking maybe I'm in love with him; because I'm thinking I'm about to stop being his pretty girl, and start being the image of what Rick has seen all these years. I read an article once that said you should never share your insecurities with your man, because it's like putting a neon sign on all the things he might not have noticed.

  Still, can I stay in this relationship, without telling him the truth? How can I not tell him this story, which has become such a big part of who I am?

  "Are you going to tell me?" he asks, one eyebrow arching high as he tilts his head. "I can see your fingers shaking; are you sure you want to tell me whatever it is?"

  I take a deep breath, struggling to keep my eyes from watering. Finally, I just have to start talking and see what happens.

  "When I first met Rick, I was already living with Janet and her husband, Jim. They were like family to me, and I'd been with them a while. Renee and Chelsea really took me in, and so I was afraid when I found out another kid was coming to live there, because I'd never really felt like I had a home before. I was young, I guess I sort of thought there wouldn't be room enough for me there, or that the state would move the new kid in and move me out."

  Drew has no idea what this feels like, because from what he's told me, he has generally had a happy family life. He doesn't pretend to understand; he doesn't issue cheap platitudes. He simply takes my hand, stilling me.

  "It's okay," he says, and I continue.

  "Janet sat me down one night, before Rick was brought into the house, and she told me that they were able to take in another foster because they'd finished the petition process to become my permanent guardians. I was leaving the state system, you know? I think she meant to make me feel secure, but when you've been moved all over the place, there's really no security in anything. Jim took me out to dinner too, and made a point to tell me I was going to stay with them, new kid or not." I paused to sip from the water bottle resting beside me, and struggled to go on.

  "So then Rick came, and for some reason, hanging out with him killed all the insecurity. He was accepted in the same way that I had been, but he'd just been through so much, and he'd lashed out at everyone. He'd been in so much trouble."

  "It happens like that, sometimes," Drew murmurs. "Teens in a mess who get so screwed up that no one wants them, and then they're just trying to drive everyone away, quick, before they can be abandoned anyway."

  "Exactly, and I think we understood that in each other," I answer, nodding to myself. "I hadn't been in trouble, but I hadn't really been open to any kind of attachment with anyone either. And looking back, I think that's why I got moved around so much, you know? Kind of like my caseworkers were trying to put me in a place that could open me up."

  "Maybe, but I can't think of many teenagers that would see it that way, though," he says. His dark hair is tousled, the little bits of gray sprinkled around. His eyes are not so full of grief anymore, though, and I think sharing his story with me helped to lighten his load.

  For me, the effect is reversed entirely. The more I talk, the more the anxiety clenches in my chest, the heavier I feel, the more afraid.

  "I didn't see it that way, no," I mutter. "Not then. But I could talk about it with Rick, because he was as hopeless as I was. Different kind of hopeless, you know, but all the same at the same time. He got me. And for a long time, we spent every waking second together. We were like best pals, and he was the big brother I'd never had."

  "Mmhmm," Drew murmurs, trying not to distract me.

  "He had a job, and he used to always bring home presents when he got paid, little trinkets that he'd pick up here and there for the twins and me. He'd bring things to Janet, too, and he and Jim were like father and son."

  "Like family," Drew says, and I nod again.

  "I'm not sure Rick ever really saw me as a sister, though," I say. "He'd tell me things that he didn't tell anyone else, like his plans for the future, what he wanted to save for, where he wanted to go. For me, I always saw it as just a good talk, you know? I saw him as a brother, and I loved that he showed interest in me."

  "And Rick?" Drew has stiffened beside me, and in response, I pull my hand from his. Turning to face him, I tell him everything, and it's the first time the words have ever been spoken.

  "He wanted more. He wanted me. When his eighteenth birthday was coming up close, he told me he'd saved enough money for the house next door, that he'd been preparing to do some kind of rent-to-own option, and that with Jim's permission, he'd signed a contract for the house and made a small down payment." I watch, briefly, as Drew's eyes darken, and I wonder what he thinks I'm going to tell him. Still, as they say, the show must go on.

  "He caught me, clearing part of the backyard for Janet's garden, and he waited in the shed for me to go after the rake. When I went in, he was there." Suddenly my mouth is painfully dry, and as I drink my water, Drew grows completely rigid beside me.

  "He caught me up and he kissed me, and he told me that he wanted the house for us. And I backed up," I laugh. "I was so surprised, Drew. I really didn't know he saw me like that, you know? And I told him I couldn't be living alone with my brother, and what would people think? You know?"

  "And what did he say?" Drew asks.

  "He said he wasn't really my brother, not by blood, and to hell with what anyone thinks. And he tried to kiss me again, and I slapped his face. He moved out the next weekend, early, and things have never been the same."

  "You know he was wrong to approach you like that," Drew says, reaching out for my hand again. I sigh and let him take it, rejoicing in the contact.

  "Now we're kind of, enemies, I guess. I've hardly ever seen him since then, without being attacked."

  "He puts his hands on you?" Drew’s hand goes to his waist instinctively, and I smile, wondering if he was after the cuffs or the gun. Either way, he's off duty, so of course he isn't wearing what I have come to call his "tool belt."

  "No, no," I say, as he moves to stand. His urge to defend me is sweet, but I need to reinforce to him that Rick is my problem. I want his support, but my battle with Rick is my own. Taking his arm, I hold him sitting next to me, and I rush to go on.

  "It's only words," I reassure him. "I didn't realize it fully until the other night, but Rick was really a boy no one wanted. I think he just expected something different from me, because we did find a sort of kinship, you know? But when I turned him down, I guess I let him down. He was a teenaged boy, rejected out of hand most of his life, and there I was, playing my part.
And he lashed back, I think."

  "He has no right!" Drew growls, and I can feel the muscles in his forearm, clenching and releasing as he struggles for control.

  "I know, and I see that now," I murmur. "I think I didn't back then, and I gave him power, so much power over me. I'd told him things I'd never told anyone, my insecurities, my fears. And he was so angry and so hurt, you know? He --"

  "He used it all. He took everything you told him, and he turned on you."

  "He did."

  "And does he still?" The hand I'm not holding is a tightly clenched fist beside his thigh, and his eyes burn into mine as he waits for me to answer.

  "Sometimes," I whisper, and he growls a little again.