Major Crush(40)
Author: Jennifer Echols

A llison raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “I see your point.”

“A nyway,” I went on, “I want to tell him what I did. He told me what he did. I see now that he didn’t have to tell me, or even Mom. He probably could have hidden that it ever happened, but he decided to be honest. I need to give him the same respect.”

A nother knock sounded at the door.

“What!” A llison protested.

Mr. Rush swung the door open. “Sauter,” he barked. “Time to march back to the buses. Either come be a drum major or let me borrow your skirt.”

A s I walked toward the freshman bus I could hear them through the open windows. Girls screamed, “Eeeeeew!” as boys threw sopping wet items of clothing. I did not look forward to an hour and a half of riding home with these people.

A lone.

A t the same time, I wanted to get on the bus as quickly as possible, to escape the terrible sight in front of me. The bus was parked next to the U-Haul. Instrument cases were being tossed, hauled, and slung along a line of boys.

Including Drew.

In a soaked T-shirt that stuck to his strong chest.

Rat bastard.

Mr. Rush sat on the bus stairs. He looked wet and tired, like a small, ferocious dog who’d been into the pond after a tennis ball one too many times. I started to climb past him into the bus, but he patted the stair beside him. “Sauter. Sit a spell.”

I sat down next to him with a squelsh of water in my boots. “I don’t want to let you down tomorrow.”

“I don’t want you to let me down either. I don’t expect you to. You’re doing a great job, Sauter. True, it would be better to have Morrow. Lots better. The whole thing, the whole band is planned around Morrow being there. It’s Morrow who’s letting me down.” He lowered his voice.

“Tell me what’s been going on.”

“How much have you heard?” I asked.

“I heard about your dad.”

Drew handed a tuba case off to the next boy in the line. His eyes met mine for the briefest moment, and then he reached out for a drum case.

“Good news travels fast,” I said.

“Clarinets know all and tell all,” Mr. Rush said.

“Did you hear that Drew’s the one who told the twins, who told everybody?”

Mr. Rush turned and looked at me. “What? Because he was mad about this whole drum major election hullabaloo? That doesn’t sound like Morrow.”

“It had to be him. I didn’t tell anybody else.” I shifted uncomfortably on the step, and water squished between my toes inside my boots.

“Drew knows the twins have it in for me. When he told them, he knew they’d tell. But when I told Drew, I trusted him. I trusted him, you know? Like my dad trusted me when he told me in the first place.”

Mr. Rush didn’t say anything. We both watched the boys methodically tossing the black cases along the line. But I took his silence to mean that he was waiting for me to hear how I sounded.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” I asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t be mad at Drew. Maybe I am just mad at myself.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sauter,” Mr. Rush said. “It all goes back to your dad, doesn’t it? He did the deed. A nd he told you. He’s been sixteen. Or however old you were when this happened.”

“Fourteen.”

“Your dad’s been fourteen. He’d be a real dumbass if he thought a fourteen-year-old could take a secret like that to the grave. Is your dad a dumbass?”

“No,” I said.

“So he must have known you might tell. But he wanted you to know, and he would suffer the consequences. That’s the kind of person he is.”

A nd I’d wanted Drew to know. A nd now I was suffering the consequences too.

“Drew clearly is not into me like you thought,” I said bitterly. “What’s sad is, knowing that, and knowing what he did, I’m still into him. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard?”

“Yes,” Mr. Rush said. “Stupid and human.”

We looked at each other.

He was thinking about Ms. Martineaux.

We understood each other.

He went on, “Drew lights a fire under you. He’s responsible, like your dad wasn’t. A t least, you thought he was responsible. Now you can’t quite believe what he’s done. But when you believe it, the fire will go out.

“You light a fire under Drew because you know who you are. That’s something he wants so badly for himself, but he’s got too many people pulling him in different directions. If it’s any consolation, a long time after your fire goes out, he’ll still be burning for you. Trust me.”

I remembered what Drew said when Barry asked me out: One underhanded trick deserves another. I could spread a rumor about him like he’d spread one about me. I could tell everyone not to trust him because he told my secret. But that wasn’t my style.

A nd I couldn’t even be consoled by the idea that he might crush on me after I’d forgotten him. The thought just made me sad. It made me want to put my arms around him. A wwwwww.

How sick was that?

Well, Mr. Rush was trying to help. I could return the favor. “Can’t you tone it down for Ms. Martineaux?” I asked.

He looked at me like I was from Venus.

“What?”

“When I’ve seen you with Ms. Martineaux, you’ve talked to her straight just like you talk to me and Drew.” I glanced sideways at him. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if the way you’re coming off is driving people away, maybe you should change.”

“If she can’t stand the heat, she needs to stay out of the kitchen,” Mr. Rush insisted.

“Or you could air-condition the kitchen,” I said. “Or at least install a fan to ventilate some of the fumes.”

He chuckled, and gave me the first genuine, nonsarcastic, nonthreatening smile I’d ever seen on his face. “Get some sleep tonight.” He pushed off from the bus stair and headed toward the other buses without concern, like it wasn’t raining.

“Mr. Rush?”

He turned around.

“Thanks for telling me about that ‘I feel’ stuff. I think I’m going to do it on Sunday with my parents. I’m tired of being a troubled teen.”

He laughed. He guffawed. He bent over and held his sides. I thought he was going to bust a gut right there in the rain. The line of boys stopped passing instrument cases into the U-Haul and stared at him.