3

Johnny

After the bell dismisses History class, Becca meets me in the hallway. My gut sinks when her eyes follow Travis as he walks out the door. A predator and its prey.

When she turns to look at me, however, her eyes warm and shine the brightest green. She tips her head to the side in greeting and her strawberry-colored hair falls haphazardly around her shoulders. Our tutoring relationship became a little more interesting six months ago, and we’ve been together ever since. But I still get mental around her. It doesn’t help that I haven’t seen her since yesterday.

Last night she was volunteering at the hospital, but the night before we went to the movies. Becca indulged me; she’s not into movies. After, we had sex in her car. It sounds cheap, but it wasn’t. I love—make that adore—the girl. Though she makes me completely crazy. The way she gives one minute—her time, her attention, her body—and then withholds it the next. It keeps me coming back for more, and has me agreeing to almost anything. When she’s in my line of sight, everything but Becca blurs and goes fuzzy.

It does for her, too. I know it does, even if she won’t admit it.

It’s a chemical reaction, she’d say. She always has some sort of logical explanation for the illogical. Like when I told her I loved her for the first time and she said, “No you don’t.” She was absolutely serious.

“You’re feeling a chemical reaction,” she continued. “Though we may call it love, it’s really only a reaction from the estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and oxytocin in the body. That’s what neuroscience tells us. Or the feelings could simply be from some biological need all humans have to pass along their genes. And I won’t even go into the psychology of it all.”

I just laughed. It was all I could do. Then I conducted my own chemical experiment, crushing my lips into hers, letting my body tell her how I felt.

That shut her up for a while.

“Hey, Beautiful Mind,” I say now, crossing the hallway to her.

She rolls her eyes. She hates when I call her that, which is exactly why I still do it. Though I don’t mean it in the John Nash schizophrenic way; I mean it in the brilliant mathematical way. I’m pretty convinced my girlfriend is a genius.

Johnny Vega—dating the school’s valedictorian. Who would’ve thought?

I put my arm around Becca and pull her to my side. She’s bony and her skin feels like ice. This is all taking a serious toll on her. I’m sure she didn’t sleep last night either. It’s been this way for weeks now. I just hope when it’s all over, we can go back to normal. Whatever that might look like.

“Are you okay?” I whisper in her ear. She blinks and gives me a quick smile.

“I’m fine,” she says as she squirms out of my arms.

And that’s Becca. She pretends not to feel. She tries to be logical and clinical and cold. But she hurts. She hurts harder than anyone I know, and that’s including my dad—who lost his other half too.

Last year, Becca lost her twin sister Brit in a car accident.

It was the same accident that took my mom; the accident that brought Becca to me. When we first started talking, I was in pretty rough shape. But Becca? She was worse. Her parents were making her go to Twinless Twins, a support group based on some specific twins-related psychology. It was about the saddest thing I’d ever heard. I’ve since discovered that psychology might actually be my thing, but it’s Becca’s nemesis. It’s one of the sciences that she believes holds no weight. I can’t imagine the kind of shit she pulled in that group, but know it couldn’t’ve been good. I think she lasted three weeks. On her terms or theirs, I have no clue.

Becca looks up and those green eyes zero in on me. She knows I’m analyzing her. She doesn’t like that, either. So she backs me up against the row of lockers and kisses me.

She brushes her lips across mine, slowly, gently. Her tongue slides along my bottom lip ever so slightly. And before I can run my hand up the back of her neck to hold her in place, she slips away.

It’s one of her distraction techniques—one of the better ones. For someone who says she’s never had a boyfriend, she knows what she’s doing. I’m completely wrapped around her little finger.

Mr. Swanson walks by and clears his throat.

“Uh-oh,” Becca whispers. “The Enforcer.”

That’s one of my girl’s many—shall we say—quirks. She doesn’t like to use people’s names, other than mine, anyway. She prefers her self-designated titles: The Enforcer, Pack Leader, Hall Monitor, Socio, Daddy Issues. She likes to keep a nice healthy distance from anyone and everyone because, in her mind, it helps her stay in control.

For Travis Kent? Well, she refers to that asshole as The Opponent. I guess it’s because she considers all of this some kind of fucked-up game.

Once I asked how she would label herself. Broken Girl, she answered.

I’d have to agree with that.

I pull Becca back to me, not willing to lose our connection so soon. My arms snake around her and my hands settle on the small of her back. I have to fight the urge to let them drop lower. Becca has no idea how hot she is, and that only makes her more appealing. I nestle into her neck, breathing in her clean, soapy scent.

For once, she lets me.

The two of us stand there in the hallway, wrapped up in each other, as the whole world continues to go on around us. Unaware of the pain that threatens to break us every day, or the strength we gain from it. Oblivious to our plan to make things right.

Tonight, everything has been arranged down to the minute. Yes, it’s rash and cruel and twisted. But nobody will get hurt. And we need this, Becca and me. With each day that passes without Mom and Brit, we both die a little. Soon there’ll be nothing left of either of us.

When I finally release her, Becca’s eyes droop like they do every time she’s worried. We’re taking such a big risk tonight. It could be the end of everything, and I know she feels it too.

“Come on, Vega.” She bumps my hip. “Pretend you’re a gentleman and walk me to class.”

I grab her hand, trying not to think about anything but this—walking with my girl in school. Just like any normal couple. We reach her class as the warning bell goes off, giving me two minutes to get to the other end of the building.

“Better get to class,” I tell her. “I can’t be late.”

Becca nods. She knows this. We can’t have any missteps.

“Okay, see you tonight.”

“Here, take this,” I add, shoving a granola bar into the chest pocket of her button-down shirt. “I like my women with a little meat on their bones.”

Then I break into a run down the hall. And for the rest of the day I get lost in my head, mapping out every detail of tonight’s plan.

Becca would call it proper planning.

The authorities would call it premeditation.