The Space In Between Page 9

  “You know Johnny, Mom. You can’t pay him enough to show up, and there’s no one else that I really hang out with other than him.”

  “What about that Chris boy you told me about? Is he not going?”

  I knew I was going to regret telling my mom about Christian. What started out as me being open with her about how school was and what I was up to, especially when she wondered where I was going every morning at the crack of dawn, had quickly turned into her wanting a play by play, and other than the kiss, she now knows as much about Christian as I do. Which is now coming back to bite me.

  “We don’t really talk anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “He hangs out with Jonah, and you know how he feels about Johnny. We just weren’t meant to be friends, I guess. No big deal, but that means I’m on my own for this and dressed the way I am right now, I just don’t think I can go through with it.”

  “Do you remember when the company downsized and there was a bunch of agents on the chopping block? When I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and was living like any day the other shoe would drop?”

  “Yeah, of course I do. It only happened a couple years ago.”

  “Well, do you remember what you said to me back then when I snapped at you and you made me spill it?”

  I don’t even know why she bothers asking if I can remember at this point. It’s a miracle that I can remember that time at all with everything that’s happened since, but to remember something specific I might have said back then, she’s pretty much out of luck.

  “You know I don’t.”

  “You told me to stop letting what could happen win. To stop living in the worst case scenario, go back to work and show them why if they got rid of me it would be their loss, not mine.”

  I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything quite that witty, but I see the point she’s trying to make. I’m doing now what she did then.

  “So you think I should stop thinking about how bad it’s going to be and just suck it up and go?”

  “You got it.”

  “I didn’t really say all that, did I?”

  “Actually, Em, you did. Sometimes I wish your memory was better, because there’s a lot of things you’ve said to me over the years that I think if you could just bring them up easily in your head, would serve you well with what you’re facing in the future.”

  “Yeah, I’m a regular Aristotle over here.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Plato, but he works too.” She nudges me until I crack and we both laugh. “The point I’m trying to make is, you can do this, but only if you get past what might not happen so that you can live what will.”

  Nodding in understanding, I don’t object when her next move is to pull me into a hug. I don’t pull away or try and weasel my out of it because unlike some people, I actually like the moments like this where I can be as open and honest with my feelings as I want and she just gets it and knows the right thing to say to make it better.

  “Thanks Mom.”

  “Anytime, but now that we’ve managed to muddle our way through your issues, do you think you could do your fashion challenged mom a favor?”

  “You’re asking the girl dressed as a crazy prom queen for fashion advice? Really?”

  “Yes, I believe that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Fine, I’ll help, but considering how hot you look in that dress, I’m not really seeing the problem here.”

  “It’s not about the dress. It’s about what one wears with a dress like this.”

  “Please tell me you’re talking about shoes.” I plead, desperate to ignore the visual of her in her bra and panties that enters my mind when she asks.

  “What else would I be talking about?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. Come on, I think I still have those heels you bought me for Grandpas funeral.” I stand, slipping my hand in hers and pulling her from her room into mine, breaking away long enough to rifle through my closet, finding what I’m after and handing them over.

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “I know, but I’m also an advice giver. If you and Nick are getting serious enough to move from normal clothes to formalwear, you might want to look into going shopping for more shoes than just those broken down runners you own and the ugly black flats you insist on wearing to work. My feet are still growing, which means you won’t be able to raid my shoes for much longer.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “So where’s he taking you tonight?”

  “Dinner and dancing.”

  “That explains the dress then. Can I give you a little piece of advice before I go finish my costume and get out of your hair?”

  “Shoot.”

  “When he gets one look at you dressed like that, he’s going to start thinking with his other head, so if you’re gonna go all the way, make sure you’re protected.”

  Ducking out of dodge before she has the chance to catch me, laughing all the way down the hall straight into the safety of the bathroom and its locked door, I focus my attention to the blood packets on the counter and doing exactly what I told my mom I was going to do.

  Finish getting ready, but more importantly, getting this whole thing over with.

  Halloween dance, here I come.

  Chapter Ten

  Christian

  When I get my hands on Johnny Davenport, I’m gonna kill him.

  I may not have had the balls to tell Marissa I couldn’t go the dance with her, but showing up with someone and dancing with them a few times, does not an actual date make. I would do everything in my power to make sure she had a good time, but when I left tonight, I fully planned on doing it with Emery.

  The reason I’m even wearing this stupid suit that’s ripped and shredded in all of the right places. Why I took it one step further when I bought the used suit and put a tie through the same trauma.

  All for her.

  I honestly can’t believe I did such a good job with it.

  So if the costume turned out perfect, what the hell’s the problem?

  Well, that’s easy. The girl that should be here to see the effort I made and the one I need to pull aside and actually talk to, even though she’s been doing everything in her power to avoid me, is nowhere to be found.

  Emery is not here.

  Trust me, I’ve checked. I even bailed on the gym and went down every hall I could before I was hit up by a teacher and sent back. There was no sign of her.

  So all of this work was for nothing, which means Jonah was right all along. Johnny got one over on me. He played me for a chump.

  I tried to get past this girl and the way she makes me feel. When she came back to school after having those two days off, I’d kept my distance, and when she made no effort to approach me or talk after what happened at her spot, I’d accepted it even though I hated every second.

  For days I spent lunch alone, until Jonah had enough of it and harassed me until I was hanging with him and the other guys on the soccer team. The entire time pretending to give a crap about what they were talking about while missing Emery and the way it felt being in the music room with her creating something that mattered.

  I did everything humanly possible to put her and the way it felt being with her out of my head. Nothing worked.

  She’s everywhere. A constant presence that in gym class I can’t even seem to escape.

  When Coach Rodgers called a dodge ball day, I’d been happy. I could take all of this pent up crap and unleash it on the guys across from me. But of course, a girl came into the gym that from behind looked like Emery and just like that, I’d been bombarded with an attack of killer balls and out I went. Literally.

  They hit me so hard in the head, I actually blacked out.

  It’s pathetic.

  If she’s not into me and what happened between us was like what happened between her and Johnny last year, fine. Tell me that. Maybe if she did, I wouldn’t be standing here waiting on her like a gigantic chu
mp now.

  Maybe I might be able to move past her.

  Yeah right.

  To be honest, the way I am sickens me. This is not the first girl I’ve been into. It’s not even the first kiss I’ve ever had, yet the way I can’t seem to move past it, searching for her down empty corridors when I damn well know she won’t be there and unable to look away from her when we are in class together, proves different. It’s like I’m ten years old in the back of my dad’s cruiser with Michelle Jamieson all over again.

  God that kiss was all sorts of wrong.

  “What the hell are you wearing?”

  Shaking off the prepubescent memories, I turn and I’m met with the confused face of the only other friend I have in this stupid school.

  “A costume?”

  “Didn’t we plan on zombie football players? I mean, Marissa and April are dressed as matching cheerleaders.”

  “Because that’s such a stretch from the way they normally look.”

  “Wow. Since when did you switch spots with Carmichael?”

  Man, I can’t even escape her when I’m taking to Jonah.

  I’m royally screwed.

  “This has nothing to do with her.”

  “Sure it doesn’t.”

  “It—Doesn’t.” I grumble. “I’m just stating facts.”

  “Right, look. Ignoring the fact that I agree with you about it, when you said yes to this, you agreed to match her costume, same as I did with April and well, I held up my end of the bargain. You on the other hand, match the person taking the pictures.”

  I’m about to open my mouth and argue when it hits me. He just said the girl taking pictures. If he’s saying it like that, it means she’s here.

  “She’s here?”

  “Yep. Came in about ten minutes ago. Looks pretty hot too, for a torn up prom queen.”

  “Where?”

  Grabbing ahold of me, not even bothering to just tell me, he spins me around until my eyes lock on her.

  She’s standing near the stage with her back to me, but just like Johnny told me on the phone weeks ago, she’s dressed to match the outfit that I painstakingly put together.

  “He wasn’t fucking with me.”

  “Who wasn’t?”

  “Johnny.”

  “Okay, I’m not following. What did Johnny tell you?”

  “He told me to wear this. He said she was going to be coming dressed as a lunatic prom queen and that if I gave a shit about her, I’d do this.”

  “So Emery is the reason you’re dressed like this!”

  Nodding in confirmation, he laughs and it takes everything in me not to turn around and shove him. I don’t care how stupid I might look or that I’m going against what I agreed to do for my date when I said yes to her. All that matters is that Emery’s here and I can finally do what I should have done weeks ago.

  Make things right.

  She may have come here to take pictures, and I might be here because I’d stupidly said yes to someone when I knew damn well that no one but Emery would do, but I refuse to leave here tonight unless she’s leaving with me.

  No more hiding and no more games.

  Tonight, Emery is going to know how I really feel and there’s nothing anyone can do or say to stop me.

  Emery

  Zombies.

  From the second I walk into the gym, all I see are freaking zombies.

  Sure, they come in all different shapes and sizes, there being cheerleaders with half of their faces decayed, football players with visible bones showing and blood caked to their faces, along with a few actually looking like they’d survived the apocalypse, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still zombies.

  I knew The Walking Dead had become the new thing, but I would have thought there would be a few people here that would have chosen to go for something a little less gory.

  Or I don’t know, more original?

  Well, other than the one girl I saw trying to walk around wearing a pair of cloth Ariel fins. But she doesn’t count and you wanna know why?

  You guessed it.

  We’re living in a world where the Little Mermaid has apparently been cursed by the flesh eating virus.

  Since when are we corrupting Disney?

  No…wait. Don’t answer that.

  This is unbelievable. Someone needs to dig up Michael Jackson. My school is stealing his gimmick.

  Taking everyone in, some dancing, others in the corner obviously plotting world domination or maybe how they’re gonna seal the deal with their dates later, I’m wondering how long it will take for the synchronized dancing to start.

  Truth is, if that happens, I’m out of here. Jordan can take his own damn pictures.

  Whoops. I’m doing it again. Judging. Picking costumes and the people wearing them apart and making fun of it because it just all seems so ludicrous in my head.

  Basically, I’m doing the opposite of what I promised my mom I would do when I got here.

  So in an effort to right that wrong, I turn my attention away from the teacher chaperones that I’ve been snapping a few shots of and do another canvas of the room, managing to find the few that stand out from the rest of the herd.

  Crowd. I mean crowd.

  In just the time it takes me to do a quick run of the room, I’ve seen a ghost—who I might just be a little jealous of—someone dressed up like a planet of the apes reject and a couple of guys dressed up like rent-a-cops, but it’s none of them that I linger on.

  Freezing me in my spot is the guy who’s wearing a replica of the suit that just a couple of weeks ago I’d tried talking my best friend into buying.

  He might have his back to me, but I would recognize his frame anywhere. Maybe it’s because I spent time with my body wrapped up in it that I know it so well, but whatever the reason, I really wish that I didn’t.

  Christian’s here and he’s not alone.

  Jonah, the guy that’s been nothing short of a pain in my butt all week, pulling me aside in class and pretending to talk to me about absolute nonsense, is with him and with the smirk he’s wearing, aware of my staring.

  After trying valiantly for a week to get Johnny to change his mind and come to this thing and failing every time, I’d actually flirted with the idea of breaking my vow of silence with Christian and asking him. Willing to swallow the awkwardness that was still running rampant inside me after the night we kissed because the idea of coming here alone was infinitely worse.

  I’d almost gone through with it too, until Jonah let it slip that Christian was going with Marissa. I gave up on the idea quick after that and well, here we are. The guys together, and me completely alone and feeling as tortured as ever, trying to understand why he’s wearing the suit I specifically told my best friend to get and why no matter how hard I stare at him he doesn’t turn around and acknowledge it.

  Who am I kidding? I deserve it with the way I’ve been acting.

  Being here alone is the perfect punishment for running scared because for a split second in time, things may have gotten a little too real.

  God, Johnny. Why couldn’t you be more atypical? I could really use your help right about now.

  It might be wrong to use the guy that a year ago wasn’t shy about having a thing for me as a buffer, but I’m out of options. There’s no way with how close he is, that I can go the entire night avoiding Christian.

  Especially when it looks we stepped out of the same twisted calendar.

  My pink and grey dress, if you can even call it a dress after I pretty much ripped it to shreds, plays perfectly off the softer grey tone of his equally as destroyed suit. And if the back of his head is any indication, even our mussed up hair, mine matted together with the help of hair spray and gel, matches.

  It’s as if we were made for each other.

  Enough Emery. It’s a fluke, that’s all.

  Completely caught up in all things Christian, I nearly jump out of skin as a hand lands on my shoulder and squeezes. Squealing loudly before spi
nning around, ready to wail on whoever thought it was a bright idea to take a girl off guard, I come face to face with my best friend.

  “Holy shit!”

  “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

  “What—why—”

  “Now, that’s a first.”

  “What is?”

  “I made you speechless. I thought with the way you almost jumped out of your skin that you were gonna take my head off. This is a definite improvement.”

  He wouldn’t have been wrong, but I see what he’s doing and I’m not having any part of it. The guy that spent the last two weeks blowing me off every time I begged him to come is here.

  There’s no way I’m going to let him get away with that.

  “I thought dances weren’t your thing?”

  “They’re not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “My best friend is.”

  There are tons of things I can say about Johnny. Things that in the four years I’ve known him, I’ve actually come to like, but him saying anything sweet is definitely not one of them. As nice a guy as he is, befriending just about everyone in the school at some point, he’s never been so overtly sweet.

  Valentine’s Day debacle aside.

  He’s also never dressed up like this either.

  He’s in a suit, but where I would have expected it to match mine, it’s just a suit jacket paired with a dark pair of his jeans. I’ve gotta hand it to him. Showing up to a Halloween dance without a costume is probably the best costume of all.

  Definitely one worthy of a snapshot, which the second he catches the camera starting to rise, he raises his hand in a weak attempt to block.

  “No way, Ems. It’s bad enough that I’m here. You’re not gonna document it for the paper.”

  “It’s not for the paper, it’s for the yearbook.”

  “Same thing. It’s not happening.”

  Sensing movement and turning just slightly, following the form that a few seconds before I had basically been staring a hole into, Johnny follows my gaze and laughs once he sees what, or who I’m staring at.