––––––––
The man in the poncho threw all his weight into the punch and lunged toward Calder.
Calder shifted to the side, dodging it. The man stumbled forward. Calder grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved him.
The man fell and smacked into the floor, splayed out across the tile.
The people at the table next to me jumped out of their seats and backed away.
Calder stood over him, and the man started to push himself up.
“Stay down,” Calder ordered.
Faced away from him, the man continued to sit up. Then he swung a fist around toward Calder’s knee.
Calder bent his knee and took the shot, and then he punched him in the face.
The man’s head snapped to the side, followed by his torso. Blood splattered from his mouth across the pale tile, and he caught himself with his hands on the floor.
Calder shifted closer.
The man looked up at him. Blood spit from his mouth as he tried to talk. “Please. Not my idea.”
Calder just stared down at him.
“I was put up to it. I swear. Not my idea.” He coughed blood all the way to the counter. “Please, man.”
Calder looked over at the girl behind the counter. “Call the police.” Then he turned to me and held his hand out.
I slipped past the man in the poncho and took Calder’s hand, and then we were out the door.
“Are you all right?” Calder asked as Maggie pulled out of the lot.
“Yeah. Did he hurt you?”
“No.” He crossed the tracks and looked over at me. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He kept looking at me, no attention on the road.
“The road,” I said.
He sounded annoyed, impatient. “It’s raining.”
I looked out the windshield. The tires remained in the lines, splashing gently—as if the water was guiding them.
His fingers at my chin, he brought my gaze back to him. “Are you all right?”
“How’re you doing that?”
“Ayanna.”
“You’re making it rain, aren’t you?”
His jaw tightened, and he turned toward the windshield. “Yes.”
“So you wouldn’t have to steer?”
The rain stopped, and he turned onto Main Street.
I allowed a few minutes of silence. When he turned off Walnut past the park, I twisted in my seat to face him. I focused on keeping my voice calm “What do you think he meant, that someone put him up to it?”
“Who knows.”
He stopped at the corner and looked over at me. A few seconds passed, and he sighed. “I’m worried Tara had something to do with it.”
“Why would she?”
“No one with a brain in their head would risk robbing the Dairy Queen. There’s a damn sign on the door that says they don’t keep more than fifty dollars in the cash drawer.”
“I saw that.” Then I added, “Why do you think Tara?”
He sighed. “She’s getting more erratic, and she’s good at getting guys to do shit for her.”
“You think she was trying to antagonize you into doing something stupid?”
“And losing you in the process.” He looked away.
With a gentle hand, I touched his arm.
He stayed turned away, and his voice was quiet. “Thank you for keeping me calm.”
“Calder,” I murmured.
He looked at me.
We were quiet for several seconds.
Then he pulled me into a hug, a hand on my hair as I rested my head on his shoulder.
***
Calculus was the only class all three of us had together. It was becoming a difficult hour to get through. Tara sat one row to the right and behind us. I swore I could feel her gaze on him.
My anger rose from my stomach through my chest and invaded my head. I understood what was meant by seeing red, but I saw not a single color. I saw no color, as if the intensity of my anger was like a tornado that pulled in the things around it—debris, trees, Dorothy’s house. The whirlwind rising through me sucked into itself my ability to understand, to function in the world around me.
A sound from behind us distracted Mrs. Pratt. Apparently, something had made the shades bang against the windows—a violent breeze perhaps. It was cold out. I thought the windows were closed.
Calder turned to look at me.
Mrs. Pratt continued with her lecture on derivatives. “Ayanna, can you tell us the solution to—?”
I met her gray eyes and shook my head infinitesimally. Mrs. Pratt moved on.
Calder kept looking at me, at my lifeless eyes and rigid back. I was draining all the emotion out of my face in an attempt to maintain control.
The shades banged again, and the papers on Mrs. Pratt’s desk rustled. I held my breath.
“Ayanna,” he whispered.
I resumed breathing. “I’m trying.”
“It’s all right.”
“She won’t listen. She can’t.” She was never going to stop.
He sighed. He looked like he was purposefully not looking in her direction, as if our ignoring her could make her go away. It was obvious now it couldn’t. She was always there.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t think she can help it.”
“Calder,” Mrs. Pratt called in an annoyed tone.
With the roll of his eyes, he turned only his head. “Yeah?”
“Talk with me after class.”
He faced her and slouched back in his chair. “Sure.”
The rest of the class, I remained rigidly aware of a few rows back across the aisle and of her lustful gaze.
The bell rang. He went to talk with Mrs. Pratt, and I dawdled to wait for him. Posture relaxed, he stood with his hands in his pockets.
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled to her quiet lecture.
That revved her back up, voice still quiet but stern. Apparently, she thought the few remaining students across room couldn’t hear. No one else looked over. Maybe they couldn’t hear.
I paid close attention to the books I was stacking on my desk. Someone yelling at him seemed funny to me.
“Tara, come on,” her friend said. “Are you all right?”
I peeked over my shoulder. She definitely didn’t look all right. She used to be pretty. Her complexion had shifted from fair to waxy and ashen. Her eyes were rimmed in pink, and her figure sucked in around her bones. Her clothes draped off her. My anger receded. Pity was stronger.
She glanced over and caught me looking, twitched her shoulders with attitude, and curled a sneer over her lips.
Mrs. Pratt’s steam fizzled. “Well, at least your grades are back on track.”
I turned away from Tara just in time to see Mrs. Pratt glance at me. “I’m beginning to wonder if a tutor was even necessary.”
The corner of Calder’s mouth pulled into a grin.
A sob escaped Tara’s lips. She ran past him out of the room, and her friend grabbed all of their things and closely followed.
Calder was no longer grinning.
Mrs. Pratt’s tone, which usually reminded me of what a schematic would sound like if it could talk, softened. “You need to do something about that.”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Calder said.
At the sound of his stress, I moved to his side to hold his hand.
“Have you talked to her?” she said.
“I’ve been clear from the beginning.”
Her eyebrows pulled together, and she nodded before turning to erase the blackboard.
I realized what was pushing Tara toward the edge. Calder didn’t hide his feelings for me. The death of her hope was slowly killing her.
“Has she always liked you?” I asked as we walked the hall.
He looked where he was going. “It wasn’t like this before.”
“Before Charlie’s party.”
“It was just, I don’t know, normal before that.” His forehead wrinkled as he turned to me. “I don’t think she can help it.”
That had to be it—that kind of intimate contact with him. But was it a strengthening of an emotional desire, or was she just not equipped to handle that kind of connection with someone like Calder, someone...special?
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“It’s not your fault she’s hurting.”
He turned away, his forehead still wrinkled.
“She chose it,” I added.
“But she didn’t understand what she was choosing.”
“Neither did you.” But I knew he was right—she couldn’t have foreseen the ramifications of her actions.
We continued walking in silence.
After last period, he met me at the door to my English class, and we walked toward the gym. We often sat there while he waited for dive practice to be over.
He slipped into the locker room to change into his warm-up clothes.
He was gone too long. I stood at the locker room door to see if I could hear if anything was wrong. A female voice in a male locker room was definitely wrong. I cracked the door just a sliver and kept my gaze down in case he wasn’t the only guy in there.
“Calder,” Tara pleaded.
A locker slammed, reverberating through the row of metal.
“Dammit, I’m trying to be nice here,” Calder said.
“Please. She doesn’t have to know.”
I slipped through the door. I passed a couple of rows of lockers and stopped at the end of the one where his locker was. Standing at the other end, focused on their conversation, they didn’t notice me. I stayed mostly hidden and also realized he was the only male in the room.
“What don’t you understand?” he said. “I’ve never wanted you.”
Her eyes were rimmed in crimson, and her gaunt cheeks were moist. She looked like a heroin junky. “You did before.” She moved closer. Her attempt at sexy looked sad, something disgusting and pathetic about it. “Don’t you remember what it felt like? I know you haven’t had it since. You could have it as much as you want. I’m not like her. You can screw me however you want. You can even keep her too.”
He’d already changed into his swim suit but hadn’t gotten the warm-up on yet, and she reached for him, one hand toward his chest and the other toward the only covered part of him. “I can make you excited like she does. Just give me a chance.”
My body shifted. He grabbed her hands to hold them away before I took a step.
“I don’t want you,” he growled.
She crumbled, folding over to land on the bench. She looked like her bony frame was barely attached at the hinges, as if everything about her was frail, mind, body, spirit, everything. Nothing else mattered but getting her fix.
His jaw remained clenched, but pity replaced anger in his eyes. He sat next to her, a good two feet of distance between them. “I’m sorry, Tara.”
Her gaze on her lap, she blubbered, “Please.”
His voice softened. “I can’t,” he said, “not even if I wanted to.”
She looked up, like a lost child searching for help. “You can. You can do anything. I know you.”
“I exist only for her. I would’ve chosen her anyway, but it’s not a choice for me. I am only for her.”
I drew back slightly and touched my hand to my mouth.
She sobbed quietly, and he just sat there, looking like he had no idea what to do.
“Damn, Cal. Gettin’ some all over, huh?” One of his teammates had come in through the other door. He walked past them with an amused smirk and opened a locker halfway down the row.
I stepped back, hidden.
I heard Tara walk away, still sobbing quietly.
“Jackass,” Calder said.
“What, man?” his teammate said. “I wasn’t interrupting, was I?”
Feet padded the cement floor, and Calder turned the corner a few seconds later. He stopped short when he saw me.