Major Crush(24)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Drew started, “I don’t—”

“Nnnn,” said Mr. Rush, waving a hand at Drew.

“It’s like I’m the mother,” I said, “and Drew is the father who shouts all the time. I don’t want to be the mother.” “Do you want to be the father?” Drew asked.

“I’m too young to be either. I want to be the freaking drum major!”

I tried to slow my breathing down. I felt like an idiot, getting all worked up. A nd I expected Mr. Rush and Drew to make sarcastic comments about it. But Mr. Rush just considered me soberly, slowly clicking a ballpoint pen open and closed, like he took this very seriously. I could feel Drew staring at me too. I was afraid to look in his direction and see that smirk still on his face. Finally I turned to Drew, ready to defend myself. But he looked serious too. Like it mattered to him how I felt.

Mr. Rush leaned back in his chair and put his pen down. “That’s great, Sauter. Morrow, do you have a response to this?”

Still eyeing me, Drew said, “I don’t come up behind her and yell when she’s talking to people.”

“Sauter,” Mr. Rush said, “can you give Morrow some examples of times when he’s done this?”

“Last Friday when I was getting us into the backseat of the bus. Last Friday when I was breaking up a fight on the bus. Wednesday when the trumpets started the lawn mower and rode it around the football field. Yesterday—”

“That’s enough,” Mr. Rush said.

“You’re not supposed to interrupt,” I said.

“We don’t have all day,” Mr. Rush said. “We’ve got to practice the homecoming parade eventually. Morrow, now that Sauter has listed your offenses, can you see you’re doing this?”

“Yes,” Drew told me.

“A nd can you make an effort to quit stepping on her toes?”

Drew closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Great,” said Mr. Rush. “One problem solved. What else, Sauter?”

I should have just left it there. But a girl doesn’t get this kind of opportunity with a boy very often. The opportunity to make him explain himself. “I feel confused,” I said. “A bout the hand.”

Mr. Rush looked from me to Drew and back. “Go on.”

“Drew knows what I mean.”

Mr. Rush and I both turned to Drew.

Drew shrugged. “I don’t even remember the hand.”

“Obviously you do,” I said, “or you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Rush came halfway out of his chair to lean across the desk in Drew’s direction. “You’re about to be in big trouble, Morrow. I told you that if you hurt my drum major—”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Drew said. Jaw set, he was getting angry again. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“Then where did you have your hand?” Mr. Rush asked suspiciously.

“On her hand.”

Mr. Rush sat down, looking dumbfounded. A t a loss for words. For once. Then he snorted. “Morrow, we need to have a talk.”

“Luther already told me that,” Drew said.

“Who?” Mr. Rush’s brow wrinkled in confusion.

“Washington,” Drew said.

“Oh yeah,” Mr. Rush said. “Trombone section leader, right? I think he’s responsible for that blasted ‘ooooooh, aaaaaah.’ Unless you started it.” Drew blinked innocently.

“I want my question answered,” I said.

“I don’t think you’re going to get an honest answer until we work out some of the bigger stuff,” Mr. Rush told me. “Why don’t you tell us about piercing your nose?” I was tempted. But there was no way I could tell Mr. Rush about my dad. “Let Drew have a turn.”

Mr. Rush and I turned to Drew expectantly.

Drew shook his head like he couldn’t believe this was happening. Finally he said, “I feel … threatened.”

Mr. Rush said, “No shit.”

Drew glared at him.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Rush. “Totally inappropriate comment from the family counselor. Go on.”

Drew ran his hands back through his dark hair. I knew we were about to find out about the stuff going on at home.

“I always thought I was going to college,” he said. “My parents had a college fund for me. Then my mother got pregnant. A nd in A ugust my parents told me she’s pregnant with twins.”

What a relief! His mother didn’t have cancer. She wasn’t dying of anything. But I could see how getting two new siblings when he was seventeen years old would cause huge problems for Drew.

A nd of course I said the perfect thing to comfort him. “A re you a Gemini?”

“Sauter,” Mr. Rush scolded me. Then he said to Drew, “I think I see what the matter is. You were the youngest child. The irresponsible black sheep of the Morrow Mafia. Now, without warning, you’re Jan Brady.”

“Who?” Drew asked.

“The middle child from The Brady Bunch,” I said.

“The pretty one?” Drew asked.

“No,” Mr. Rush and I said together.

“That’s not it,” Drew said. “Well, sort of. But the bigger thing is that my mother’s having health problems. It’s hard on your body to have twins, especially when you’re forty-two. She had to quit her job. So we’re low on money. My father’s working all the overtime he can get at the mill. A nd I can’t have my college fund.”

He swallowed and ran his hands through his hair again. “They’re telling me I have to do my work plus Dad’s work on the farm. I have to get a high score on the SA T and get a scholarship, or I can’t go to college. I have to be responsible. But I wasn’t the one who was irresponsible in the first place. How is all of this my responsibility? I wasn’t even in the same county. I was at an A uburn baseball game with Luther while my parents were drinking one too many margaritas and having sex without using birth control.”

Mr. Rush cleared his throat and stood. “Morrow, I think we’ve made a lot of progress this session, and you can pay my hundred and fifty dollars to the receptionist—”

“You started this!” Drew yelled.

“You’re right,” Mr. Rush said, sitting down.

Drew lowered his voice. “I don’t know what I got on the SA T. I did the best I could. I need to stay drum major so my extracurricular activities will show a position of responsibility. I’ve done the best I could as drum major. It was the only sure thing I had left. Last year I got high marks at all three contests, and I won two of them. But for all that, Mr. O’Toole demoted me. He made me co-drum major. A nd now”—