My Sweet Escape

  “Isn’t that...unfeminist?” Mase said.

  “I am perfectly fine with the fact that you, my friend, have muscles that are larger than mine, and can thus lift heavier objects,” Taylor said. “So if we do boys against girls, we get Mase to even it out.”

  There was mutual agreement to this plan, and Dusty gave me a wink.

  “No mercy, Red. Bring it on.”

  Of course, in order to have this fight properly, we had to dig trenches and make walls, and it was a huge production that Mase took charge of and Renee tried to take charge of.

  I didn’t want to be out here playing in the snow. I wanted to be in the basement where I belonged, hating myself.

  Wow, that sounded really emo. It was a good thing no one could read my mind, or else they’d be really worried.

  “Okay! Ready, set, GO!” Mase screamed like he was a Viking charging into battle and the girls and I followed behind him as we charged the rest of the boys. White balls of doom flew and smashed as people screamed and tried to duck and recover from being hit and make new ammo all at the same time. I stayed toward the back, but Dusty wouldn’t stand for that.

  “Come on, Red. Let’s see what you got.” He started lobbing balls with alarming accuracy that shattered on my legs and then my stomach. I threw one ball for three of his, and he kept coming closer and closer and egging me on.

  “Show me what you got!” Oh, that was it. My hair was red, and yes, I did have a temper, and yes, he was pushing my buttons. I scooped up some snow and packed it in a ball and chucked it with as much force and accuracy as I could gather.

  Yes. Direct hit. Right over his heart. He looked down, surprised, and nodded.

  “All right, okay. Now we’re talking.” Mase was busy trying to take Hunter down as Darah and Taylor ganged up on Paul. It was a bit of an unfair fight because Taylor was taking him out at the knees and then Darah was going nuts on his torso. We’d made the “no face” rule, but she was getting pretty close to violating that.

  I hucked another ball at Dusty, and he dodged it. He tossed one at me, and I did the same thing. We danced around each other, trying to fake the other one out and put them off balance.

  “Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go, Red?” He was trying to get in my head, but it was my experience that silence was more unnerving than throwing useless words around.

  The two of us circled each other and I could almost hear the Wild West music in the background. Dusty kept lunging at me and I kept shadowing him. The battle had devolved around us into people trying to shove other people into the snow, and tickling without mercy.

  “I’m gonna get you, Red. You are going down.”

  I finally decided to speak.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and I made my move, lunging forward and taking out his knees. He fell backward, and if there wouldn’t have been at least a foot of snow on the ground, he might have hurt something, but he had a cushion as I landed on top of him, pinning his shoulders.

  “I win,” I said, grinning down at him. I’d stuffed my hair under my hat, but it had started making its escape and hung down between us. I realized, far too late, that I was straddling Dusty, and if we were naked, we were in quite a compromising position. Good thing we both had quite a few layers on. Of course, those layers didn’t stop me from feeling him getting hard underneath me, so I rolled off him, onto my back.

  We both panted a little as everyone else gave up and sat or lay in the snow.

  “We win,” Mase said, punching his fist into the air.

  “Whatever,” Hunter said, shoving snow in his face. Boys.

  Dusty turned onto his side.

  “Did you enjoy that as much as I did?”

  “I don’t think so.” I shifted away from him.

  “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”

  “What am I doing?”

  He inched closer and I inched backward. If we continued, we’d wiggle our way across the yard.

  “Pushing me away. It’s pretty obvious. I knew you had some baggage when I met you, but I’m not going to let it come between us. You are not your baggage, Joscelyn.” Why? Why did he have to say my name that way? You know, if he didn’t have such a luscious voice, I would probably have a much easier time saying no to him.

  Oh, Dusty. You have no idea about my baggage. In a weird way, my baggage was his. I understood now why he’d been so closed off. He’d lost his brother, and that had probably hit him really hard. That was easy baggage. Simple. One suitcase that you could fit in any overhead compartment. Mine was a trunk. A huge, heavy trunk with about forty different locks on it. With chains wrapped around it. Like pirate’s treasure.

  He interrupted my baggage-picturing.

  “So let me help you. Let me help you carry it. We can do this together, Jos. I want to be with you.”

  I looked into his green eyes that were so bright next to the whiteness of the snow, and said the words that cut me like a knife.

  “I don’t want to be with you. I’m sorry. I don’t see you that way.” I’d told him once that I thought his pants were smoking, but this time mine were definitely on fire.

  I waited for his reaction. For him to be shocked and to get mad and storm off.

  He didn’t. Instead, he made one swift move and threw himself forward and kissed me. I realized a second too late what was happening, and by then it was much, much too late.

  My lips betrayed me.

  They knew Dusty’s lips, and they were happy they were meeting again. It was a glorious reunion, at least for my lips. They were rejoicing and attacking Dusty’s lips with a desperation that I didn’t know I was capable of. My brain fought for supremacy over my lips, but really, the lips had the upper...hand?

  I stopped thinking as Dusty held my face and I tasted the melted snow on his mouth, and even though snow was creeping down my neck and under my jacket, I didn’t give a shit.

  A sound made us jump apart as if someone had fired a gun into the air.

  “What the hell!” Renee’s voice was right above us. Dusty and I both looked up, our faces still close enough to kiss. Or continue to kiss. Or make out, which is what we were really doing.

  “Are you fucking serious, right now?” Dusty recovered first, getting to his feet, and I scrambled up behind him.

  “It’s not what you think—” Dusty said at the same time I said, “It’s not his fault.”

  “Get inside, Joscelyn. I will talk with you later.” She jabbed her finger to the house like I was a kid who had ruined the flower bed. Yeah, I wasn’t, and I’d had enough of her lecturing me and telling me what to do and treating me like I wasn’t in control of my own life anymore.

  “No. I will not get inside. I am not five, and you are not my mother. I am nearly nineteen years old and I am in control of my own life. If I want to make out with Dusty on the front lawn, I can. I’m not getting drunk or high or cutting class or breaking curfew. Yes, I did those things, but I’m not doing them anymore. I respect you and I respect your house and your rules. So stop judging me on my past mistakes.”

  I wasn’t really talking about Dusty. In fact, Renee being pissed at catching me kissing him gave me the perfect reason to push him away, but I would be damned if she was going to talk to me like that in front of everyone.

  “Joscelyn, just get in the house and we can discuss this.” She wasn’t backing down. We were going to have this out, but I’d take doing it with just her rather than in front of everyone. So I stomped as much as you can while wading through the snow, up the porch steps and into the house. I heard Dusty trying to say something to me and then to Renee, but I didn’t hear what her answer was. I didn’t really need to. I could imagine.

  I pulled off my boots and my jacket and left them to dry near the door so I wouldn’t track wa
ter all over the house. I was rushing to get back down to my cave when the door opened and I was met with Renee’s seriously pissed face. This was one threat level above her normal pissed face. In fact, it was close to the face she’d given me when I accidentally told Paul she thought she was pregnant that one time. She wasn’t, but I never forgot the look she gave me when she found out I’d told him.

  “You are not running away from me, Joscelyn Meridith Archer. We are going to sit and talk, and I’m not letting you do anything until we have this out and get everything out in the open. Sit. NOW.”

  She pointed at the couch and I had no option but to park my butt on it. Renee wasn’t messing around.

  “Okay, how about we start with the obvious. What are you doing kissing Dusty?”

  “Is there some rule against me kissing him? Because I never agreed to that when I moved in.”

  “Don’t you dare get sassy with me. I’m so not in the mood for it.”

  She sat down in the recliner and waited.

  “Fine. I was kissing him because he kissed me. Have you ever tried to avoid a kiss once it’s started? Not that easy.”

  “Did you want to kiss him?”

  The answer was both yes and no. More yes than no, but I really needed Renee to believe in the no. If she thought he’d forced me, in any way, he would be gone for good. But could I really do that to him? Let her think that he’d somehow taken advantage of me? The outcome would be better in the long run, but for who? Dusty would never be allowed in a ten-mile radius of the house. If he and Hunter wanted to hang out, they’d have to hide it better than an illicit affair. And if Renee found out?

  No, I could definitely not do that. I didn’t hate Dusty. I didn’t want him to suffer, which was why I needed to get him out of my life.

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “How long has this been going on?” The real answer? Since he helped me with that damn vending machine. If I could go back in time, I would have stayed down the hallway and not given in to my candy craving. But that might cause a nuclear war or something, according to the butterfly effect, so maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. My life had been altered by a damn vending machine.

  What I told her was “not that long.”

  “What were you thinking, Jos?” My intention had been to play ignorant about the whole Dusty-babysitting-me thing, but my resolve crumbled pretty damn quick.

  “What did you expect to happen when you told him to ‘watch over’ me like some creepy stalker slash protector? What were you thinking?” My words had the desired effect of making Renee blanch.

  “How did you know?”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “Because he told me. If anyone has the right to be pissed and yell and scream here, it’s me. Why in the hell would you do that, Renee?” I didn’t mean to, but I stood up and the volume of my voice rose until I was yelling. I was just so mad at her.

  Renee got to her feet, as well.

  “Because I didn’t know what else to do! You didn’t give me a whole lot of choices. It was either come here or send you to live with Mom, and I knew that wouldn’t be good for anyone, so I said you could come here, and Dusty had started coming over and he’d told me all about his shady past and how he’d gotten his shit together. I thought that maybe he could help you, that you would see that you could go back, you could be my sister again—”

  I cut her off.

  “So you’re saying I’m not your sister anymore? Are you fucking serious? So I can’t be your sister because I’ve changed? That’s not how family works, Renee. You love each other no matter what. No matter how much you change. So are you saying that you don’t love me anymore?” I was right in front of her and I watched the effect my words had. Her face was so shocked I might as well have slapped her.

  “I will always love you, but I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know what to say or do...” Her chin wobbled and tears started streaming down her face. “I will always, always love you. That was never even a question. How could you think that I don’t love you, Jos?”

  She threw herself on me and I was forced to catch her and hug her as she started sobbing. This was new territory for me. Renee never got emotional like this. She was much more likely to yell and scream to display her emotions. I could only remember a few times when she’d cried. One was when she broke up with Paul. She was a bit of a wreck after that, but she’d tried to hide it by crying only in the shower. But I was her sister, so I knew what was going on.

  “I’m just so lost, Jos. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help you anymore, and I feel like I’m just screwing it up.” She rested her head on my shoulder and I held her.

  “You’re not screwing it up. What happened has nothing to do with you. It’s not your fault.” I rubbed her back as she shook in my arms.

  “But I’m your older sister. I’m supposed to know what to do. I’m supposed to have words of wisdom and bake cookies and...other shit like that.” I laughed a little and she did, too.

  “You do have words of wisdom. It’s not your fault that I choose to ignore them. It’s not your job to save me, Renee.”

  She pulled back, and I used my sleeve to wipe her eyes.

  “I’m not broken beyond repair, Nene. Just a little worse for wear, but who isn’t?” She nodded and I gave her another hug.

  “You’re not supposed to be the one with the good advice,” she said.

  “It won’t happen again—I guarantee it.”

  Somehow I’d deflected her attention from the kiss with Dusty. I hadn’t been intending to do that, but I was going to take advantage of it while it lasted. It would probably be over as soon as he walked into the house.

  We sat back down on the couch, my head on Renee’s shoulder this time as she played with my hair. When we were kids she’d been jealous of it. None of our other brothers or sisters had gotten the freaky redhead gene. Except me. The terms redheaded stepchild and ginger kid were used often in my house, and those were some of the nicer names I’d been called. I couldn’t count how many times I’d heard guys musing, out loud, if “the carpet matched the drapes.”

  “Don’t be mad at him, Ne,” I said, trying to head her off from ripping him a new one. He didn’t deserve that. “It was just one of those things, but I’m going to end it.”

  “I will be mad at him. He was supposed to watch you and keep you out of trouble, not get you into it.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry, because I’m not going to let it happen.”

  “That’s probably wise. Can I ask why, though?”

  Now it was time for a performance. I was going to have to work to sell this.

  “I just don’t see him that way. He’s more of a friend, you know? I don’t think I should be with anybody right now. I want to focus on school and try and figure things out.” I deserved an Oscar for this. Even I thought I sounded sincere.

  “Now that sounds like the sister I knew.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “I don’t know. I miss her...consistency. You were always so uptight I knew what to expect. Now you’re a little wilder. A little more unpredictable.”

  “Well, I do have red hair.”

  “Yes, you do. Bitch.”

  We both laughed, and I snuggled closer to her.

  “Love you, big sister.”

  “Love you more, little sister.”

  Our sister love sharing was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

  “Oh, my God, I forgot they were all still outside,” Renee said, getting up and rushing to get the door.

  “So did I,” I said, following her. Instead of finding a bunch of shivering people on the porch, we just found one, and he wasn’t shivering.

  “Dusty,” Renee said. “Where’s everyone else?”

&
nbsp; “They took the truck to go get Dunkin’,” he said, his eyes riveted on my face. “Can we talk?” I wasn’t sure who he was addressing, but Renee decided it was her and crossed her arms.

  “Okay. Talk,” she said.

  “We should at least let him inside,” I said. He might not look cold, but I wasn’t cruel enough to make him stand outside while Renee said whatever she was going to say to him.

  “Maybe the cold would do him some good. Chill him and his penis out a little.”

  “That’s enough,” I said, reaching around her, grabbing Dusty and dragging him inside. He didn’t deserve a frozen penis. He shut the door behind him.

  “Renee, I swear to you. I never meant for this to happen, and I’m sorry, but I can’t really do anything about it now. You have to know how special she is. It was kind of...inevitable. I was sort of halfway in before I knew that’s what was happening.”

  I swallowed and realized saying no to Dusty had just gotten so much harder. Why did he have to say things like that? If he would just shut his mouth and stop kissing me, I might have a shot.

  “Very nice,” Renee said. “But I’ve talked with Jos, and I don’t think she feels the same way. So, I am going to go and fold some laundry and try not to eavesdrop while you two talk. But, if it comes to blows, I’m on her side. You lose.” With that, she pivoted on her heel and went to the laundry room in the back and shut the door.

  “You might want to take off your boots. Darah will skin you alive if she finds out that you tracked water all over her clean floors.” This wasn’t actually true. I couldn’t imagine Darah even threatening to do such a thing, but Dusty shucked his boots off and put them next to mine. Seeing him in his socks reminded me of sliding around in his apartment and how much fun we’d had. No, bad thoughts, Jos. Gotta shut those suckers down.

  We went back into the living room and sat on the couch. This talk was going to be very different from the one I’d had with Renee, that was for sure.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said, holding his hands up, as if he was asking me to slow down. “You told your sister that you don’t feel the same as me.”