It doesn’t take long before Hastings returns, but he isn’t alone. The administrator waltzes in behind him. The man heads for you, expression stern. “Cunningham, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t expel you.”
“Because my father gives you a lot of money.”
“That’s what you have to say?”
“Is that not a good reason?”
“You punched a fellow student!”
“We were just acting,” you say. “I’m Brutus. He’s Caesar. It’s to be expected.”
“Brutus stabs him. He doesn’t throw punches.”
“I was improvising.”
The girl laughs when you say that. She tries to stop herself, but the sound comes out, and the administrator hears it, his attention shifting to her.
“Look, it won’t happen again,” you say, drawing the focus back to you. “Next time, I’ll stab him and be done with it.”
“You better watch yourself,” the administrator says, pointing his finger in your face. “One more incident and you’re gone for good. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And rest assured, your father will be hearing about this.” The administrator’s attention shifts back to the girl. “Garfield, some advice? If you want to be successful here, find yourself a new friend, someone with their priorities in check… someone more like Hastings.”
Hastings stands in the aisle, rubbing his jaw. Despite the fact that it’s going to bruise, he’s grinning. Gloating.
“Because Cunningham will cause you nothing but trouble,” the administrator continues. “And you can do better.”
The man walks away. Hastings follows suit. He’s afraid to be near you without backup. The two of you have some longstanding rivalry, like Batman and the Joker… or Breezeo and Knightmare.
Which one are you, though?
The hero?
The girl shakes her head, doodling on the front of her notebook. “That was awfully rude of him.”
“Yeah, well, it’s true,” you say.
“Is it?”
“I’ve already gotten you in trouble once,” you remind her. “I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be the last time it happens.”
“Huh, and what about the other part?” she asks. “Is that true, too?”
“Which part?”
“The part where you might be trying to get the new girl naked.”
You just look at her. She’s still doodling.
“Because if you are,” she says, “you’re doing a pretty crappy job of it. I mean, you haven’t even tried yet, so…”
She’s avoiding looking at you, her cheeks pink. Her doodling is more like absent-minded scribbling, anything to distract herself. She's biting her cheek.
Reaching over, you cover her hand with yours, stopping her before the pen tears a hole through the notebook. She anxiously cuts her eyes at you.
You say nothing right away, holding her gaze, before you lean over, closing the distance, and you kiss her. It’s soft, and sweet, and it’s right there, in front of the entire Drama Club, but you don’t care who watches.
“You want to hang out?” you ask, your voice quiet. “Spend some time together outside of this hellhole?”
She nods.
“How about this weekend?”
Tearing a piece of paper from the back of her notebook, she scribbles her phone number down for you to call her after school.
You don’t, though—not right away. Your life descends into chaos that afternoon. You don’t even have a chance. Your father confronts you about the incident at school, and when you finally get away from him, you have something important to do.
But later that night, long after the sun goes down, you send her a text, asking if there’s any way possible you can see her right now. You tell her it’s important. It’s so late there’s a chance she’s already in bed, but you get a message back a few minutes later with the location of a park near her house. I can meet in thirty minutes.
It takes you about that long to drive there. She’s sitting on top of a picnic table when you arrive, staring out at the water, the park edging the bank of the Hudson River. It’s the first time you’ve ever seen her out of her school uniform, so used to the knee-length skirts with the thick tights.
She’s wearing pajama pants tonight.
It’s dark where she’s sitting, the glow of the moonlight surrounding her. You approach, your hands hidden behind your back. “I have a surprise.”
“Is it the answers to Monday’s Math test? Because if so, you’re going to at least get to third base for that.”
You laugh, standing in front of her. “Which base is third base?”
“Pretty sure it’s dry humping.”
“Shame,” you say. “Could use a good dry hump, but no, that’s not it. Although, you could always copy my answers. Just mark a few wrong on purpose, since they might get suspicious if you get a perfect score.”
“Right, since you never miss any.” She playfully rolls her eyes. “So if it’s not the answers, what is it?”
You pull your hands out from behind your back. It’s a comic book, tucked in a plastic sleeve. Her expression changes as she takes it.
Breezeo: Ghosted
Issue #5 of 5
“Is this…? Oh my god, is this what it says it is?”
“The last issue of Breezeo.”
“But how?” Her eyes meet yours. “This isn’t even out yet!”
“Ah, well, I knew a person who knew a person who knew a person,” you say. “You know how it is. Pay enough money and you can get anything.”
“You must’ve really hated waiting,” she says. “Oh my god, Jonathan. I seriously can’t believe this. Is it good? Have you read it?”
“No, I didn’t read it. I got it for you. Figured you might let me borrow it later, if I'm good to you.”
“This is for me?” she asks, holding it against her chest. “Like, for real, it’s mine?”
“Yes,” you say. “It’s yours.”
As soon as you confirm that, she flings herself at you, a full-blown flying leap right off of the picnic table, into your arms. You don’t expect it, and she nearly tackles you to the ground. You manage to stay on your feet as she wraps herself around you, legs around your waist, arms around your neck.
She kisses you.
You kiss her back as you take a few steps over to set her down on the edge of the picnic table, but she doesn’t let go of you. If anything, she’s more encouraged. She drops the comic onto the table and runs her fingers through your hair as she grinds against you.
You groan, pressing into her. You’re so hard she can feel it. “Guess I hit third, after all.”
“That? You knocked that one right out of the park.”
You laugh against her lips, still kissing her. “Yeah? You already giving me a home run?”
“It’s worth it,” she whispers. “You can slide home anytime you want. It’s all yours.”
The baseball metaphors, yeah, they’re stupid, but the meaning behind them gets you worked up. She’s giving you the green light to go all the way, and well, what hormone-driven teenage boy is going to say no to that invitation?
Your hand slips down the front of her pants, and she gasps, throwing her head back. Your mouth goes to her neck as you drive her wild with your fingertips, asking, “How do you like it?”
She stammers. “I, uh… I don’t know…”
“You want it just like this?” you ask, whispering in her ear as she grinds against you, making her own friction, nearly getting herself off. You help her, rubbing harder where she needs it. “I could bend you over the table, hit it from behind. Or we could go to my car, if you want, maybe have you ride me in the passenger seat. Tell me how to make you feel good.”
You’re a dirty talker. It makes her blush.
“I don’t know,” she says again. “I, uh… I haven’t ever…”
“You mean you’ve never…?”
She shakes her head.
“Seriously? This is your first time?”
That catches you off guard. You pause what you’re doing. You didn’t realize she was a virgin.
She groans, shifting her hips. “Oh god, don’t stop… please…”
You start rubbing again. She’s close, so close it would be cruel to stop. Just a few more seconds before she gasps, an orgasm sweeping through her. You don’t stop until she relaxes again, but once you try to pull away, she won’t let you.
“I want to,” she says. “I know you’ve done this before, and I haven’t, but I want to… with you.”
“Your first time can’t be out here,” you say. “It can’t be bent over a damn picnic table.”
“The car, then.”
“It’s not going to be that, either,” you say. “Not with me. It needs to be in a bed. Nobody’s first time should be a ten minute quickie in a park.”
“What was your first time?”
“It was a fucking quickie in a park,” you say, and she laughs. “So I know what I’m talking about. It lasted like two minutes in my case, but still.”
“Sounds rough,” she says, still laughing, but her amusement fades when she presses her palms to your cheeks. She looks at your face in the moonlight. The faint beginning of a bruise paints your jawline with discolored hues. She runs her fingers lightly along it. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” you say, pulling her hands away. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“What?”
“You know what,” she says. “Your father hits you.”
You laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. “I can take care of myself. I’m not a little kid.”
“But you’re still his kid,” she says. “And you’re only seventeen. Besides, I’m guessing this isn’t something that just started.”
You don’t say anything right away. You don’t want to talk about it. She’s not going to drop it, though. So you sit down beside her on the picnic table and say, “I turn eighteen tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, and you’re right,” you say. “It isn’t new.”
So you tell her. You tell her how he’s always been hard on you, because you were a mama’s boy. Your mother had been an aspiring actress, and that’s how you got involved at such a young age, but your father never liked it. You were supposed to follow in his footsteps. It was a source of contention between your parents, and as your father rose in political ranks, your mother stepped away from her dream.
The first time he hit you, you were twelve, but it didn’t become a regular thing until a year later when your mother swallowed a bottle of pills and never woke up from a nap. Your father blamed her career for killing her, but you blamed him.
That’s why you can answer any question thrown at you in class. He drills it into you every chance he gets. He seems to think he can beat your mother out of you and fill the hollowness left behind with more of him.
She sits beside you as you talk, her head on your shoulder. Afterward, you’re both quiet, before she says she needs to get home.
Her parents don’t know she’s gone.
“Tomorrow night,” she says as she picks up the comic book. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, come hang out with me.”
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock,” she says. “My house.”
“Your house, huh? I’m starting to think you might like trouble.”
She grins as she kisses you, just a soft peck, before saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan.”
“I’ll be there,” you say as she walks away.
You don’t know this, but that girl? She’s always been a bit of a plotter, and at the moment, she’s devising a plan. You see, her parents are going out of town tomorrow night. She’s supposed to go along, but she’s starting to feel like she might be coming down with something. *cough* *cough*
Chapter 9
KENNEDY
Before I can take even one more step, I’m yanked to a stop, a hand grasping hold of my wrist.
Turning, caught off guard, I look at him. Jonathan. We’re still in the park, not far from where we started. There’s a look on his battered face. I’m not sure how to read it, not sure what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling.
That’s the thing with him, though.
He’s an actor. His talent comes natural. He’s never had to work very hard at it. He can switch moods in a moment, change scenes in an instant, flip the script without anybody even realizing it’s happening. It’s hard to tell if he’s just playing a character or if you can trust that he means things.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice low but pointed. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act like you weren’t enough for me.”
“I wasn’t.”
He shakes his head, his expression flickering with something else. Anger? Hurt? Frustration? “I don’t know how you can say that, how you can even think that.”
“Because it’s true,” I whisper, glancing down at where his hand is wrapped around my wrist. He isn’t letting go. “I’m not saying that to be spiteful, but it’s obvious I wasn’t enough for you.”
“How is it obvious?”
I can’t believe he’s asking that, that he’s pretending to not understand what I mean. Is he pretending? I don’t know. Either that or he’s spent way too long ignoring reality.
“You wanted so much more than you ever had with me,” I say. “I couldn’t keep up. I tried, but I couldn’t. The late nights, the parties, all those different places and faces… I got lost somewhere in the middle of it all, but you never stopped to look to make sure I was still with you. And then with the drinking, the drugs… the women.”
He cringes when I say that. “I never cheated.”
He’s told me that before, but it’s not the point. Good for him for keeping his pants on, for keeping his hands to himself, but still, time and again, he chose them. He left me behind, all alone, in a city where I only had him, so he could be with them.
Actors. Models. Socialites.
I fought so hard for him and his dream. I gave up everything. But by then end, he wouldn’t even give me a minute.
A minute was all I asked for.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s over now, anyway.”
He lets go of my wrist, and I start to walk again. He strolls along beside me. I can tell he wants to argue his point, and every so often his lips will part, like he’s found the words he needs to convince me, but he stops himself.
When we reach my building, I come to a stop in the parking lot not far from my door.
“Thanks,” I mumble, awkwardly not knowing what to say in this moment.
“You’re wrong,” he says when I turn away, his voice just loud enough for me to hear. Should’ve known he wouldn’t let it go.
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“You are,” he says again. “And I hate that I ever made you think otherwise, Kennedy.”
He walks away. I watch him go, ignoring the tiny sliver of me that doesn’t want him to leave.
Maddie’s already tucked into bed when I go inside, but Meghan’s on the couch, flipping through channels so fast I’m not sure how she can tell what’s on. She looks at me, pausing as she sits up.
“Wow, you look…” she starts, waving toward me.
“I look what?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “but you look something.”
“I feel something,” I mumble, plopping down on the couch beside her, dropping her shoes on her lap as I kick my feet up on the coffee table. My dress is tugged up damn near to my waist. I’m probably flashing her my underwear, but I don’t care. What a night.
“Oh god, was it that bad?” she asks, her voice dropping low as she clutches her chest. “Is it little? Does he have a needle-nose plier dick? Oh god, this is gold… please tell me Andrew’s packing a pinky in his pants.”
“No,” I say with a la
ugh, pausing before adding, “Well, I don’t know. Never seen it, but I doubt that’s the case.”
“What do you mean you’ve never seen it?”
“I mean I’ve never seen it. We’ve never… you know.”
“What?” She looks at me with shock. “You’ve gone out a few times and you haven’t even played with it? What the hell? I mean, I don’t blame you, because gross, but why do you keep going if he’s not sticking it to you? What’s the point?”
“Maybe because he’s nice.”
“Nice? You know who else is nice?”
“Don’t even start.”
“Mister Rogers,” she says. “He wants you to be his neighbor. Bob Ross, he’s nice, too. He’ll paint you a happy little cloud. Hell, how about one of the Cleavers? Why not go out with one of them?”
“Pretty sure they’re all dead.”
“Yeah, well, so is your vagina at this rate.”
Laughing, I shove her, nearly pushing her off the couch. “It is not.”
“Fine, whatever, so Andrew’s nice.” She pretends to gag. “If you didn’t get naked, what did you do tonight?”
“Went to dinner.”
“Dinner,” she says, eyeing me. “You’ve been gone four hours. How much did you eat?”
“Why are you asking so many questions?”
“Just making sure you didn’t run off and do something stupid, like get naked with someone else.”
“Of course not,” I say. “My dress stayed on all night long.”
“But you ran off, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
She waves her finger in my face. “You saw him.”
Guilty.
I don’t have to say anything. She knows.
“Jesus Christ, Kennedy…”
“I know, I know. You don’t even have to say it.”
“Oh, but I will,” she says. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I mean, I want to. I want to tell you to get a restraining order, but I won’t. I know he’s her father…”
“He’s also your brother.”
She shoves her hand in my face, pushing my head away. “Ugh, don’t remind me.”