Cracked Up To Be

We go to his bedroom. The speakers are mounted against his window and he turns on some sweet- sounding music really low and kisses me and I kiss him back and then, I don't know, I kind of seize up.

"What's wrong?" he asks. He's breathing heavy.

We separate and I wipe my mouth.

"What have you been eating?"

"What does it matter?"

"Were you eating something with garlic in it? I told you not to eat garlic before you kiss me anymore. It's gross."

He sighs. "What's wrong, Parker?"

"You know I hate garlic breath and you eat it anyway, that's what's wrong."

"That's not what I mean."

I untie my ponytail and retie it. I think every so often, Chris should have to work for sex by listening to me.

"Jessie thinks I'm coming down on the other girls too hard."

"We stopped making out for that?"

He leans in for another kiss and I push him away.

"Fuck off, Chris. I'm serious."

"You're always serious."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It can be." He flops back on his bed. "You should loosen the fuck up every once in a while; the world wouldn't stop. No one would die." He's such a bastard. I loosen up, sometimes. And even if I didn't, it's not like there's something wrong with being focused. Some people are focused.

That's what they do.

"She says I'm coming down on the girls too hard," I repeat.

"Is she right?" he asks. "I bet she's right."

"I may have let them know how much they suck lately." The memory of their total suckiness gets me pissed off about it all over again. "But I want us to be good, you know? Is that too much to ask? I work my ass off thinking up cheers and dance moves and if they can't get them right, what, I'm supposed to congratulate them for it?"

Chris stares.

"It's just cheerleading."

"Oh, really? And if I said that about one of your basketball games--"

"That's different." He sits up and wraps an arm around me. "I've seen you captain. You're anal. You're anal about everything, though."

"I like things a certain way."

"You're a perfectionist. You like them perfect. There's no margin for error or you go crazy."

"If I can do things right, I don't see why everyone else can't." I untie my ponytail again and do it back up. "She called me a Cheerleading Nazi in front of the entire squad. We got into a screaming match in front of everyone--"

"That's so cute," Chris says, laughing. I glare at him and he stops. "Look, you'll see her in a couple of hours when the party's in full swing. Get her after she's had a couple shots and she's mellow. You can make up, no biggie. You're best friends. That's what you're supposed to do."

He kisses my neck.

"God, you're tense," he murmurs. "Maybe you should quit the squad, take a break or something. You're, like, this close to the edge--"

"That's funny, Chris," I interrupt.

"I'm not kidding. Loosen the fuck up." He kisses me again and slides his hand up my shirt. "Forget it. We'll talk about it later--"

"No," I say. "We won't."

My hand is wet. I open my eyes, hold it out in front of me and stare. Wet. Tap, tap, tap. Rain against the window. It's raining out and my hand is wet.

I sit up in bed, groggy. Is there a leak?

A loud clap of thunder startles me and there's a whimper at the side of my bed. I turn on the light. Bailey. It's three in the morning and he's been cowering on the floor, licking my hand. The thunder sounds again and he cries.

"Bailey, you're not allowed in my room." I climb out of bed and grab him by the collar. "Come on. Out."

He resists. I give his collar a sharp tug and he whimpers, anticipating the next round of thunder, but he can anticipate it in Mom and Dad's room for all I care. I lead him down the hall. Their door is closed, of course.

I let go of his collar.

"Stay," I say firmly.

He stays. I head back to my room and crawl back into bed. The storm picks up. Every so often I hear Bailey whimpering and pawing at Mom and Dad's door and pretty soon I accept the fact I'm never getting to sleep again, so I get out of bed and find Bailey curled up in a terrified ball at the end of the hall. I slip my finger under his collar and we head downstairs to the living room.

A flash of lightning reveals Dad's armchair. I let Bailey go, grab an afghan and wrap myself in it. The dog sits beside me, frightened out of his mind. I reach out and run my hand over his head. I might scratch him behind the ears if I'm feeling particularly inspired. The thunder goes again and again and he shakes and cries.

"It's fine, Bailey," I say. "Don't be such a wimp. It's only a storm."

I wake up to Mom and Dad hovering over me. Bailey's asleep at my feet and--

Mom's holding the camera.

"You didn't," I say.

"That's one for the photo albums!" Dad winks at me. "You'd better hurry, Parker. You'll be late for school."

I hate my parents.

Chris and Becky enter homeroom joined at the hip and I make a gagging noise when they sit behind me, just because I can. Becky's still sore at me about cheerleading practice, so she calls me a bitch and excuses herself for the washrooms to confer about it with whatever minion she's got stationed there.

I turn to Chris as soon as she's gone.

"I've been thinking about the offer you made," I say. "About math."

He straightens. "Yeah?"

"I'm game if you are."

He looks around the room to make sure no one's overheard.

"Becky can't ever know," he says, an odd gravity to his voice.

"We'll see."

"Parker."

"Becky can't ever know." I hold up my hand. Scout's Honor. "Got it."

He frowns. "Meet me in the guys' change room at lunch."

"That soon, huh?"

"Just in case you change your mind."

Becky comes back five minutes later and Chris wraps his arms around her and they start sucking face. I know he's trying to make a statement, but I have no idea what that statement is. Bradley breaks them up when the Pledge of Allegiance starts, and we all stand, hands to hearts, hands to hearts--hands always to our hearts.

"If I tell you something about me, will you tell me something about you?"

Jake and I are sitting close, trying to sketch out the landscape in pencil before we start working with paint. Norton advises us to plan everything down to the most painstakingly minute details. It should be days turning into weeks before we get to the actual painting, he says. I think he doesn't want us to finish anytime soon, lest he be forced to think up new ways to occupy a class full of eighteen-year-olds. Either that or this is one of his cruel tricks where he waits until we're good and relaxed and tells us, whoops, his mistake, the project is actually due tomorrow and still counts for half our grades. That's the kind of teacher Norton is. "No."

I've been tracing the same rocks for the last thirty minutes.

"Come on," Jake says. "I'm going to make you tolerate me if it kills me. Or you. Preferably you. But we should get to know each other on some level or else it will be impossible to work on this together."

"I don't know; it's working okay so far. And besides, what about you could I possibly want to know?"

"Try me. I will hold nothing back."

I decide to shock him into silence.

"Which do you prefer: top or bottom?"

His mouth drops open a little and I go back to my rocks. Mission accomplished.

"Up," he says unexpectedly. "Against the wall."

I laugh, my pencil hovering above the paper. "Right."

"Top."

I glance at him. "Really?"

"With my last girlfriend," he says. "More often than not."

"Sure. She still in the picture, this last girlfriend?"

"Dumped me when I told her I was moving."

"Ouch."

"Eh." Jake shrugs and works on the base of a tree stump. "We were together too long. How long were you and Chris together?"

"Why would I tell you that?"

"Because we agreed--"

"No, we didn't."

His eyebrows come together as he replays the conversation in his head and realizes I'm right, but I decide to go ahead and share because what I've chosen to share might make him realize I'm not a person worth getting to know. Get him off my back.

"Actually, Chris and I were together since the ninth grade. We broke up after I stole about three hundred dollars from his savings account. Let that be a lesson to you, Jake: never give your high school sweetheart your PIN number, no matter how many times you've had sex or been Winter Ball King and Queen."

And that's not even the worst thing I've done. Jake studies me.

"Wow," he finally says. "Why'd you do that?"

"Gambling addiction," I say without missing a beat. "I spent all my money and some of his betting on horses and racked up a little debt. After a while Chris goes, `Look, Parker, I'm not giving you any more money!' So I stole it from him."

"Actually, she ran away from home."

I plaster a bright smile on my face before turning around.

"Chris!" I say, all exaggerated cheer when I do. "And just how long have you been standing there?"

"Obviously long enough!" he says with a similarly exaggeratedly cheerful voice. He pushes past me, for Jake. "Anyway, Jake, I'm not going to be in the gym at lunch, so take center. Tell the guys I said you could. Aaron will want it, but I want to make Aaron cry like a little bitch for being such an asshole last Thursday."