The Year of Falling in Love

  "Don't worry, though, hon. After I got your message, I hopped in the car, and I'm headed straight to the airport. Harry's on his phone right now looking for a flight home." Anger fills her tone. "Goddamn those two. I can't believe they're doing this to you."

  "Me either." But as soon as I say it, I know it's a lie. I'm not surprised this is happening. In fact, when I look back at my relationship with my dad and Lynn, I'm surprised they didn't try to send me away sooner.

  Tears well in my eyes as every painful memory and hurtful word come rushing back to me. Suddenly everything pours out of me in a jumble. I tell Grandma Stephy about how Lynn said my mom was dead and that she was a bad person. How I pushed Lynn and ran out of the house. How they'll call the cops on me if I don't go to Montana. By the time I'm finished babbling, I'm out of breath and highly aware that Kyler is watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  "Damn my son and that stupid bitch he calls his wife," she says when I'm finished. "I'm not going to let them do this to you. They're not sending you anywhere. You're going to stay with me."

  "But what if they call the cops?" I turn toward the window, not wanting to see the look on Kyler's face right now. If he didn't think I was a freak before, he probably does now. "What if they call me in as a runaway?"

  "I highly doubt it." She seems pretty confident. "Lynn is all about appearances. That's probably part of the reason she took you in as her own daughter--to cover up your father's affair. I'm going to call your father and make sure his stupid ass doesn't let her."

  "What should I do until then?" I ask, dabbing my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.

  "Where are you right now?"

  "Um..." I sneak a peek in Kyler's direction. He's fiddling with the stereo, pretending to be oblivious to this crazy conversation going on right beside him. "Um, I'm actually with Kyler right now. Kyler Meyers. You baked cookies for him that one time."

  "Oh, that boy you've been in love with forever," she says way too loudly.

  My gaze flits to Kyler again, wondering if he heard what she just said. His hands are on the wheel, his focus straight ahead on the road, but I swear the corners of his lips twitch.

  "No... I mean, yeah, that's him. But I'm not..." I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from saying anything embarrassing. Anything else, anyway.

  "All right, I'll let you off the hook. But when I get home, I want the details," she teases me. "Can he take you to my house?"

  "We're already heading there," I say, resting my head against the window.

  "Good. There's a spare key under the welcome mat. Indigo will be there around ten, but send her a text to let her know you're there so she'll come straight home."

  "What about Lynn and my dad?" I ask. "What if they show up there?"

  "You let me handle them." The way she says it causes me to shudder. I love my Grandpa Stephy to death, but I pity the person who makes an enemy of her.

  There was this one time she kept getting into an argument with one of her neighbors about the height of the shrubs in her yard. He kept threatening to call the police, saying they were hideous to look at and needed to be short enough that they were out of sight.

  When he finally made an official complaint, she cut down her shrubs and then, in the middle of the night, snuck into his yard and whacked down all of the guy's prize roses. The dude was obsessed with his roses to the point where he would spend all weekend attending to them.

  After she destroyed them, she piled both her shrubs and the roses into a barrel, put them in the middle of his yard and lit them on fire. He came running out of his house, freaking out and all my grandma said was, "There you go. Now both our problems are solved. You don't have to look at my shrubs anymore and I don't have to witness you fondling your rose bushes."

  The man went livid and called the cops on her. The police wrote her up but I think they thought it was funny because they kept cracking jokes about rose bush fetishes as they took down notes.

  "You'll call me after you talk to them, though, right?" I ask her.

  "Of course," she promises. "Give me a few and I'll call you right back."

  After we say goodbye, I hang up and put my phone away. Then I remain quiet, unsure of what to say to Kyler. I kind of just want to remain that way for the rest of the drive to avoid telling him anything, but Kyler decides to break the silence.

  "I've always known Lynn was a bitch to you, but I didn't know she was that bad." His grip tightens on the steering wheel as he casts a glance at me. "Isa, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that."

  I shrug, acting all blase, even though on the inside I'm a bundle of bouncy, hyped-up-on-sugar monkeys. "It's not your fault."

  "I know but..." A deafening breath puffs from his lips. "About what Hannah said earlier, I want to be truthful with you, okay?"

  Whoa. So, we're going there. Now of all times.

  "I just want you to know I've never called you a loser." He pauses and I start to thank him, but then he adds, "But."

  The cringe-worthy but, the word people use before they say something you might not want to hear.

  "I never really tried to stop people when they said stuff about you." His voice is soft, conveying shame.

  I'm not sure what to say. Part of my infatuation with Kyler came from the fact that I thought he stuck up for me, like when Hannah was teasing me and he stepped in. Or when his friends cornered me in the school, and he got them to leave me alone by telling them they were late for practice. Secretly, I always pictured him as this knight in shining armor who forced everyone to stop making fun of me even when I wasn't around to hear it.

  "Isa." His cautious tone makes me apprehensive. "I've done some things in my past I'm not proud of, but I want you to know I'm not like that anymore."

  Since when? Since I came back from Europe with my makeover? Since I became, as Indigo put it, "smokin' hot?" I want to ask him, but I'm afraid I'll have to watch him squirm in the seat and struggle for an answer. That his reaction will crush the last five years I spent dreaming of being with him one day. It was those dreams--fantasizing about another life--that got me through some of my roughest days of high school. I always convinced myself that one day I'd change, everyone would see it--Kyler would see it--and my life would get better.

  But now I'm sitting here with him, completely changed, yet my life is falling apart.

  "I sometimes used to watch you when you were out on your balcony drawing," he confesses. "You always looked so into it. I envied the way you could tune everything out like that. I've always had a really hard time not giving a shit about what people were doing, thinking, saying."

  "I wasn't always focused on my drawing," I admit. On the inside, though, I'm like holy cupids and chocolate hearts, Kyler used to watch me like I did him? "Sometimes, I just pretended I was when... when I was worried you might see me."

  A smile breaks out across his face. "So, you watched me too?"

  I roll my eyes. "You know I did."

  "No, I didn't," he tries to lie. But when I blast him with a skeptical look, he caves. "Okay. Okay. I did know, but I liked knowing you did. It made me feel..." He wavers. "Special, I guess."

  A laugh bursts from my lips, and I slap my hand across my mouth. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. You just said special and it sounded so..."

  "So what?" he presses. When I shake my head, he reaches over and tickles my leg. "Come on. You can't laugh at a guy like that and not explain why."

  I do one of my infamous pig snorts. "Kyler, stop!" I cry through my laughter.

  "Not until you tell me why you laughed." His fingers lightly trace over my leg until I finally throw my hands in the air, surrendering.

  "Fine. I laughed because it sounded like a line from a cheesy romantic movie." I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.

  "It kind of did, didn't it?" His lips pull into a grin. "You're really cute when you laugh that hard, especially with the whole pig snort thing. That was super attractive."

  I playfully swat his ar
m. "Whatever. I love my pig snort."

  "So do I," he says, sounding genuine. "It's so real. A lot of girls do that whole high-pitched fake laugh."

  I know what kind of laugh he's talking about because Hannah does it all the time.

  An extremely intense look crosses his face. I have no clue what he's about to say, but I hold my breath in anticipation. Before he gets a chance to say anything, though, my phone chirps and ruins the moment.

  "It's my grandma," I say then answer it.

  "Okay, I've got everything taken care of," she says in a rush. "For now, you'll be staying with me."

  "For now?" I ask, panicking. "Does that mean I'll eventually have to go back?"

  "No, that means that, for now, your dad's agreed to let you stay with me until things have cooled off," she explains. "I'm going to have to fight him, though, once Lynn gets involved. I can already tell that. But I will fight it. I'm not letting you go back to that house. I need you to do something for me, though. I need you to be on your best behavior. The last thing we need right now is to give them anything that they can use against us."

  I'm worried about what this will do to her health. "Are you sure you want to do this? I don't want to stress you out or anything."

  "Stressed out? It'll be a relief to know you're away from all that shit," she replies matter-of-factly. "I've spent so many nights worrying if you're okay."

  "What if they call the cops and report me as a runaway or something?" I ask. "I don't want to get you into trouble."

  "They're not going to call the cops," she insists. "They may have threatened you with that, but I have a feeling if they did, they'd end up in more trouble than you would."

  A weight falls off my shoulders, but I have to wonder... "Why would they get into trouble?"

  "Lots of reasons, hon'. Like if I reported them as neglectful, abusive parents. And you told me she grabbed you, right?"

  "It's not that bad," I say quietly, wrapping my fingers around my wrist.

  "I don't care if it's bad. She has no right to grab you like that," she says. "Plus, there's that whole thing with your dad's company."

  Huh? "What're you talking about? What's going on with my dad's company?"

  "Nothing that you should worry about," she replies hastily. "Look, I have to go. I'm getting ready to go through security. I should be home around eleven or so and then we'll talk more. And I don't want you sitting around and stressing out about stuff. Go out and do something. Maybe you could ask that Kyler boy to take you to a movie or something. I bet that'd be a great distraction."

  I resist the urge to cover the phone. Kyler's probably already heard everything she's said anyway.

  After I hang up, Kyler confirms my suspicions that he's overheard every embarrassing word my Grandma Stephy said when he turns to me and says, "She wants me to take you to a movie, huh?"

  I feel my cheeks warm. "You don't have to. She just doesn't want me sitting around at the house by myself. I'll be fine, though. Sometimes I think she still thinks of me as a little kid who needs to be watched twenty-four seven."

  "I'm sure she's just worried about you." He presses on the brakes, stopping at a red light. "I don't blame her. It has to be hard, dealing with parents like that."

  "It is, but I'm used to it." I shrug, like what're-you-gonna-do-life's-life-man.

  He considers something while studying me. He keeps his eyes on me until the light turns green, and then he flips on his blinker and veers left, breaking about five traffic laws.

  "I'm not going to let you sit around by yourself all day." He steers the car down a road that leads toward the center of Sunnyvale. "I'll keep you distracted until your grandma comes home."

  I glance at the clock on the dash. "But that's not for like eight hours."

  He arches a brow. "You don't think I can distract you for eight hours?"

  I keep my mouth shut, refusing to say what runs through my head: Maybe if you took your shirt off. Instead, I say, and might I add, awesomely calmly, "What're we going to do?"

  His eyes sparkle mischievously. "I have an idea."

  "Okay." I'm a little nervous, but curiosity gets the better of me. "What's your idea?"

  He stops the car in front of the park right by the court then silences the engine. "A game of Horse."

  "That sounds fun." I unbuckle my seatbelt. "But I'm not sure even you can make a game of Horse last eight hours."

  "Oh, that's just the start of the distraction." He grins wickedly. "I'm going to make a little game out of it."

  I smirk at him. "Um, you do realize Horse is a game, right?"

  He counters with a dirty look. "That's not what I meant."

  I can't help giggling. "Then what did you mean?"

  He slides the keys out of the ignition. "For every game I win, I get to pick something crazy we both have to do. And for every game you win, you get to pick something."

  "You do realize I rock at Horse, right? And I've kicked your ass at it before."

  "I've gotten a little bit better since I was twelve." He reaches for the door handle, flashing me cocky smile. "But if you're too afraid of getting your butt kicked we can do something else."

  I kind of want to hug him right now because I'm smiling and hardly thinking about Lynn, my dad, and how awful it'll be if they end up sending me to Montana.

  "Game on, dude." I comb my fingers through my hair as I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. Ugh. I haven't had a chance to clean myself up since the whole meltdown thing yesterday. Between the smeared eyeliner and the runny mascara, I look like I'm trying to go Goth. "Just one sec."

  I retrieve my brush from my bag and pull my hair into a ponytail as he gets out of the car and grabs a basketball from the trunk. I use one of my shirts to wipe the day old makeup off my face. I consider reapplying it, but don't want to make Kyler wait on me. It's been a while since I've gone this natural and I'll admit, I feel a bit self-conscious. Still, I hold my head high as I get out of the car and hike toward the courts with Kyler. I'm not going to feel bad for being me and looking like me. I've already spent too many days feeling like that.

  As we near the edge of the grass, Kyler inches toward me. "You have the cutest freckles." He brushes his fingers across my cheek. "I've always thought that."

  I have to remind myself to breathe. The way he touched me, so intimately, I'm not sure how to react. It's strange that the thing he thinks is cute about me is the thing I've been covering up with makeup.

  I'm not sure what to make of what's going on between us, but I definitely smile. The smile vanishes, though, when I notice a dark blue car with tinted windows driving by the park at an exceedingly sluggish pace.

  At first I don't pay too much attention to it, but as it rounds the park for the third time, almost slowing to stop beside the courts, unease stirs inside me. What if it's someone looking for me? Like maybe my parents? It's not their car but I wouldn't put it past them to borrow one just to surprise attack me? Or could it be an unmarked police vehicle?

  "What are you staring at?" Kyler asks as he jogs across the court, going in for a slam-dunk.

  "I..." I peek back to the where the car was, only to find it speeding off toward the main road. "There was this car driving around but I guess it was nothing."

  He dribbles the ball, his brows knitting. "Do you think it was your parents?"

  "No, I don't think so... It wasn't their car. And I don't think they'd look for me here." They don't know me well enough to.

  I shrug the uneasiness off the best that I can, and raise my hands in front of me, focusing on the game. Still, something doesn't quite feel right, like the calm before a storm. I just wish I knew what kind of storm was coming.

  Chapter 5

  Kai

  "A thousand bucks? A thousand bucks?" Big Doug repeats the same thing over and over again with a look of astonishment on his face. Finally, he sits down in the chair in front of his cluttered desk, his eyes wide as he shakes his head. "Kai, how the fuck did you end up in this
mess? I thought you were being more careful."

  "I was being careful." I sink down in a foldup chair. "But then I vouched for Bradon even though he has a shitty rep. I figured since he was my friend, he wouldn't screw me over."

  Big Doug reaches for a bag of opened chips propped against one of his multiple computers. "Dude, Bradon screws everyone over, friend or not."

  I lower my head into my hands. "I'm realizing that now."

  "You're too nice, man."

  "Is there such a thing?"

  "Um, yeah. When you try to help people you know are going to get you into trouble, that's called being too nice."

  "All right, I get it. I made a bad decision. Tell me something I don't know." I raise my head. "But I need to focus on fixing the problem. What's done is done, and now I need to come up with a thousand bucks before I get my ass kicked. T plays dirty. He'll probably get a bunch of his buddies to jump me. He won't give a shit if it isn't a fair fight."

  He munches on a handful of chips. "I have a couple of small jobs I need done. It won't get you a thousand, but it's a start."

  I wish I had a better solution, but right now, Big Doug's offer is the only thing I've got. "I'll take whatever I can get."

  "Okay, let's get you started." He spins the chair around, facing the largest computer screen. "I have to ask, though, why not just ask your parents for the money?"

  "They wouldn't give it to me, even if I did ask," I mutter, rubbing the heels of my hands against my eyes. This shit's giving me a headache, but it's going to mild in comparison to what will happen if I don't come up with the cash.

  The keys click as he taps his fingers against them. "Even if you explain the situation to them? Maybe you could tell them the truth. I mean, I know it's not ideal, but I'm sure they'd rather help you than see you get hurt."

  I refuse to feel the wave of hurt washing over me. "Trust me. My father wouldn't care. He'd probably tell me that I deserved whatever was coming for me."

  I can hear him now. "You got yourself into this mess, so you can get yourself out of it. It's not my problem. You're not my problem." He's right, too. This is all my fault. Every dumbass choice I've made has led me to this point in my life.

  I force thoughts of my dad's disappointment out of my head. "What exactly are these jobs?"