Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (бесплатные серии книг .txt) 📗

What was wrongwith me?

“Oh fucking shit,” he muttered.

I giggled a little.

“What could you possibly find funny at a time like this?” he practically screamed.

“You never swear like you’ve been doing today.” I giggled harder. “It’s kind of cute, your little attempt at being bad-ass.”

Soon we were both laughing with sheer, gut-wrenching nerves. When I finally caught a breath, I got off with Devon and went to cry on Evan’s shoulder.

“Who was that on the phone?” she asked, bopping her hips in time to a song blaring through my speakers.

“Um, Evan? Did you get a letter from Dublin?” My question crept out, afraid to hear the answers I was fairly sure I’d hear.

“Just before I left. Some anthology or something? There was a reading in Savannah I was invited to.” She put a hand to her forehead and gave a long, theatrical sigh. “I guess they decided my essay on shedding the shackles of sexual shame was just risky enough without edging over into obscenity. I’m really good at riding that line.” She pointed to the piece of paper shaking in my hand. “And you got your letter, Ms. Brilliant?”

“Yes,” I choked out, biting my knuckle to keep from screaming with tangled frustration. “Devon too.”

“Not the fucking bird paper,” she gasped and shook her head slowly, her eyes bright with disdain. “I refuse to have my essay in a collection with that twaddle.”

“He changed it. He wrote about being gay. And I changed mine. Evan, I changed it from academic integrity!” I made my bed with irritated jerks of the sheets and duvet, just to keep my trembling hands busy.

She plopped down on my desk chair and her laugh twisted past my aggravation. “I knew Devon had guts under all that stick-in-the-mudness. And you wrote about boys, didn’t you? And love? Jesus, you are such a romantic girl!”

“Well now I’m fucking screwed! Jake is going to see the paper, and he’s already been freaking out about Saxon, and we just had this whole talk about honesty and how we trust each other now, and I’m going to dump thison him? What am I going to do? Evan, tell me,” I pleaded, shaking the letter in my hand like I could shake the answer out of it.

“Calm down, Brenna. Deep breaths.” She put her hands on my shoulders, and her voice went low and soothing. “Look, Jake is going to understand. Remember his halo? I swear to you, he’ll get it eventually, even if he freaks at first, alright? And it will be all good in the end. It will be. Just show him, don’t hide anything. And believe in your words, okay? You’re brilliant, girl! Seriously, that brain is big and beautiful. Trust it. He’ll understand.” Her voice crooned me into something like a numb calm.

My brain was so choked up with all of those thoughts, I didn’t even put together that Jake was coming to say goodbye to Evan. I didn’t even hear his truck pull up while I was pacing the room. All of a sudden I turned around and hit into his warm body. “Jake!”

“Were you expecting someone else?” His smile started with his lips closed, the corners slightly upturned, but it grew fast, and soon I could see his crooked tooth and the pure happiness that covered his face for me, all me. I tucked that smile in my memory in case I’d need it later.

“No.” I wrapped my arms around the strong, solid, good-smelling realness of him. “Not at all. I lost track of time. And I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“Yeah. You guys should start locking your doors. Hey, Evan.” Jake gave her an awkward hug, and she kissed his cheek and left a little smear of red lipstick.

“Oh, you know what? I have to…make a phone call to Gramma, but she can’t hear a thing. I’ll go on the back deck so my yelling doesn’t bother you.” She squeezed my hand hard and waltzed by. Jake watched me watch her leave.

“I know you’re sad about Evan heading home.” Jake rounded his hands under my elbows. “You look like you’re going to cry, Bren. She’ll come back. Don’t be so upset.” He took me into his arms and rocked me back and forth, making me feel better like the cool, understanding person he was.

And I wished my bedroom floor would open and deliver me into the bowels of hell. At least for a little while. Because I deserved a good roasting.

But the stupid essay was looming, bearing down on what was an otherwise excellent moment. I tried to push it out of my mind, to focus instead on Jake’s comforting arms and words, but it was there and completely obstinate.

“Jake, I’m not just upset about Evan. I think I fucked something up.”

He looked at me, a little expectant and pretty nervous. I opened my mouth once, then again, wanting to tell him, but not knowing how.

“I wrote something in my class this summer,” I began. He nodded his encouragement. “And I guess it was pretty good, like well-written good. They sent me a letter saying it was going to be included in this published collection and some of us were going to get to present them at a little ceremony. But I don’t know if I’m one of the ones who’ll be presenting or anything.” I was rambling a little. Jake looked confused.

I didn’t want to get to the point.

“That’s awesome, Bren.” He was definitely pressing his encouragement ahead of his nervousness. “I’m really proud of you. Are they, like, giving you a scholarship to go somewhere? Are you going back to Ireland?” He was taking a stab at figuring this all out.

“Um, no.” I swallowed. Cleared my throat. Stalled. “The thing is, we had to write about our lives and what was happening in them, and we were supposed to focus on what we were really passionate about.”

“That makes sense.” Jake smiled at me. No! Not that trusting smile that I was about to kill! I felt my guts clench hard. “Did you write about Mom? Or school?”

“No, I didn’t.” As awful as it was watching him fumble, I somehow couldn’t just put him out of his misery and spit it out.

“Why are you upset about it?” he asked after a few seconds; his eyes were on me, gray and clear and seeing what I was too chicken to just tell him. “What’s the big deal?” His face clouded a little, and I had a pretty good idea he guessed why I was being quiet about it. “Did you write about Saxon?”

“Yes,” I gasped, relieved to have been outed, finally. Jake sat up straight. Every muscle in his whole body looked stiff and angry. “I did write about Saxon, but I also wrote about you. Of course! Trust me, Jake. It was about how complicated things are. Or were! And it was kind of art, you know? So it might be a little more dramatic than real life. And I just want you to see it for yourself, so you don’t get…the wrong idea. I guess.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he bit off. His mouth worked a little, like he was chewing on more that he wanted to say, but didn’t.

“You should read it,” I offered.

He shrugged, his face tense, and his voice slid out with the slow, hypothermic cold of a glacier. “If you want.”

“I do.” I prattled a little, my nerves unhinging my tongue. “I know we’re at this good point with trust and all that, and I want you know, I would never hide this. Evan said you’d understand. It’s probably going to sound sort of melodramatic, but remember that’s for class. And I was supposed to be artistic. I mean, the point is to make it sound dramatic, so sometimes I might have gone a little bit overboard. Please don’t be upset about it.”

Jake said nothing.

I opened my laptop in the weird, uncomfortable, never-before-registered silence of the room. Jake watched as I searched for the file, opened it, and printed it. I took my time evening the pages and putting a staple in one corner. Various words jumped off the pages. Some made me calmer, and some made my mouth go dry. “Maybe you should go. Maybe you should read it and then decide…whatever you decide.”

“What does it say?” His hands shook a little and his eyes jumped all over, not really following the lines.