Unfamiliar

  Chapter Seventeen

 

  Hailey

 

  “It’s kinda cloudy today,” I commented. Awesome, Hailey, talking about the weather— real cool. “Yeah, but I think we’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else. I don’t know, some place indoors maybe?” We were at the bridge again today. He was right; no one ever came over on this side of campus so we could work on it without any distractions.

  “Stop worrying. A little rain isn’t going to hurt you, Hailey.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Did you bring your notebook?” he cut me off.

  “Obviously.” I wasn’t the one who never came prepared.

  “Can I see it?” “Yeah, sure, here.”

  He opened it up and read over what little progress we had made so far.

  “So, are you excited about the William C. Lancaster concert?” he asked without looking up from the notebook.

  “Yeah, I’m really excited actually.”

  He looked up then. “You must really like classical music.”

  “I know I like him. I’ve only seen him perform once, but I was completely mesmerized watching him play—I can’t wait to see him again. I missed the first part of his performance last time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Braxton was running late.” I shook my head dismissively and shrugged. “He hates that sort of thing anyway so it’ll be nice to go with someone who appreciates classical music. Though

  I have to admit, I never saw that coming.”

  He chuckled quietly to himself. “Well maybe there’s more to me than you think,” he said, echoing what I’d once said to him.

  I noticed that at some point in our conversation we had moved closer to one another. If I

  moved just an inch to my left I’d practically be sitting on in his lap. I bit my lip as he leaned in closer, a heady look in his eyes. Something about the way he was looking at me made me wonder if he wanted to kiss me. And then I wondered, what would I do if he tried?

  A small part of me admitted that I would probably let him.

  Our faces were too close. His forehead was almost touching mine. If I moved my head any closer, our lips would touch.

  Not trusting myself, I jumped to my feet. What I didn’t expect was for Chase to follow me. “Hailey.” Chase’s voice was low as he faced me, his hand pressed into the small of my back. I was trapped. But in a way, I liked it. Right now, I didn't want to have options. I wanted him to be the only option.

  Then, out of nowhere, those gray clouds he’d told me not to worry about broke open and the rain poured down on us. In a matter of seconds we were both soaked through. He let out a hearty laugh and pointed his face up to the clouds, his arms outstretched at his sides.

  When he dropped his eyes back down to me, he caught me staring. I tried to look away but I was too late. He brushed the wet hair out of my face and his hands lingered just a moment too long. My breathing hitched as I thought about what it would be like to kiss him in the rain.

  “You were right,” Chase said. I must’ve looked confused because he continued, “I guess next time I’ll check the radar before suggesting we work outside.”

  “Oh,” was my lame response. “Yeah. I guess I should go change.” “Are you wanting to call it quits for the day?” “No,” I answered quickly.

  “Do you want to finish working at my place?”

  “Sure.” I smiled.

  We were slowly making progress--on our lyrics and our friendship--if that’s what it was. It seemed funny to me now that I’d once thought he was just some stupid tatted up freak with freakishly huge arms. And though that gigantic skeleton tattoo still freaked me out, I found myself wanting to be around him. He made me laugh and inspired me to think about things differently.

  He was such a walking contradiction and I found him fascinating. I was immensely surprised when Jonathan had said that Chase loved classical music. That didn't seem to fit at all with what I knew of him so far—the tattooed lead singer of a pop punk band (or was it punk pop? Why couldn’t I ever remember?) was a closet lover of the classics? Yeah, it didn't seem likely at all, but Chase didn't deny it. There was something off about this whole thing, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

  I was feeling guilty about my thoughts of kissing him. And even though we’d made plans to attend the William C. Lancaster concert together as friends--I felt like maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. I wanted to go to the concert and ideally I didn't want to have to go by myself—but going with Chase? That had disaster written all over it--I still hadn’t told Braxton of said plans which was probably a bad sign.

  A part of me hoped that I was able to come up with an excuse to get out of it and then I

  wouldn’t have to come clean about it to Braxton at all, but at the same time, I really wanted to go watch William C. Lancaster again.

  When we got to Chase’s apartment and caught Tessa and Jonathan making out—I suddenly came up with the perfect solution: I would force Tessa, by the power of Girl Code, to come with. Then it would be a group thing and not so much a platonic date.

  “Sure!” she agreed immediately, and I felt a huge wave of relief. “Jonathan should come too.”

  Well, bringing Jonathan along wasn’t exactly what I had in mind--now it was less like a

  ‘group thing’ and more like a ‘double date’. I was totally screwed.

  Jonathan and Tessa retreated to his bedroom, presumably to continue their make-out session in private. I assumed we’d work on our song in the living room so I was taken by surprise when Chase led me into his bedroom. He made himself comfortable, sprawling out on the bed on his stomach.

  I took a seat on the floor—as far away from him as possible to avoid any further temptation. That didn’t stop me from thinking inappropriate thoughts though.

  Trust me, it was hard to concentrate with the way Chase’s wet shirt clung to those ridiculously large arms of his. Not to mention the sight of his abs, which were clearly defined through the thin, soaked fabric. Were those things real?

  “So,” Chase interrupted my thoughts. “What do you think of something like this:

 

  There is this energy, it’s calling me

  It’s making me change my mind

  There’s this intensity when you’re close to me

  And now we’re blurring all the lines”

 

  Blurring all the lines.

  I had to force myself to swallow before I could answer him.

  “It's good.” I said as I wrote it down, not making eye contact with him. “I like it a lot, actually.”

  Chase was actually really good at this sort of thing. A lot better than I was expecting him to be when we were given this assignment. He was just full of surprises.

  I grabbed my guitar and began strumming the chords, quietly singing the words he’d just come up with to see if anything needed to be adjusted. It was perfect.

  “You're really good at this,” I told him. “Great artist, remember?” he teased.

  “So who broke your heart then, 'great artist'?” I asked playfully, and was surprised when his expression darkened.

  “You don't want to hear it, trust me.”

  Actually, at this moment, there was nothing I wanted more than to hear his story—to get to the roots of this walking contradiction that sat before me.

  “That doesn’t really seem fair. You know my sob story, but I still know nothing about you,” I pointed out.

  There was hesitation on his face, but finally he gave a small sigh. “My ex cheated on me a few months ago . We were together for three years.”

  I was completely caught off guard. I hadn’t expected Chase to be the kind of guy who would be in a long-term relationship, especially considering he’d told me I didn’t know anything about love. Maybe when he’d said that, it’d come from bitterness. There was a lot I didn’t kno
w about him.

  “I’m so sorry, Chase.” And I meant it. Obviously this was something that was difficult for him to talk about.

  He shrugged. “I’m over it now. I’m better off without her anyway. We fought a lot over stupid shit.”

  I wanted to tell Chase that not everyone was like that. I wanted to tell him that he was a great guy. I wanted to tell him how amazing he was.

  But before I could tell him any of those things, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

  “It's Braxton,” I muttered, mostly to myself. It was a little early for his regular good-night call. “Hello?” I answered on the next ring.

  “Hailey.” Braxton’s voice broke as he said my name.

  “What's wrong?”

  “It's Mom. She--.” His voice was rough and I heard his breath catch. I could tell that he had been crying and that he was trying to stop.

  “Hold on a second, Braxton, I can barely hear you.” I looked over at Chase and mouthed the words, “I'll be right back.”

  Then I quietly left the room so I could listen to my boyfriend's breakdown in private.

  “What's going on?” I asked him once I was outside the apartment.

  “She wants us to start planning her funeral,” he said quietly. “And I just-can you just come here?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “It's a little late and I have class tomorrow.”

  “Please, Hay?”

  “Braxton—how am I supposed to get there? No car, remember?”

  “Just, please. I need you. I can’t do this alone.”

  “Fine, okay.” I told him as my mind worked out a solution. I didn’t want to do this, but if Braxton needed me, I had no choice. “I'll see if I can borrow Tessa's car.”

  I hung up with Braxton and took a deep breath. This was not something that I wanted to deal with right now. I loved Mrs. Douglas and my heart was breaking knowing that we didn’t have much time left with her. But Braxton had put me in a difficult position. I hated asking favors of people and I wasn’t particularly fond of driving at night. Regardless, he’d said he needed me so I had to go. I owed him that much. He’d been there for me when my mom had left and through the following years of neglect by my drunken father. He was always there for me. Now it was my turn to be there for him. “Something wrong?” Chase asked when I came back in the room.

  “Yeah, I have to go,” I answered apologetically as I grabbed my things.

  Chase’s face fell and I felt really bad for leaving so suddenly after he’d opened up to me about his cheating ex. Then his expression hardened and he simply shrugged. “Yeah, cool, I’ll see you later.”

  Feeling a little guilty, I walked out of Chase’s room and knocked on Jonathan's door. I heard Tessa giggling and after a scuffling noise, like someone scrambling to get on their pants, Jonathan opened the door.

  “What's up?”

  “Can I talk to Tessa for a minute? In private?” “Course.” He smiled sheepishly and left the room.

  “What's going on, Hailey?” Tessa sat up.

  “I have to ask a huge favor.” I told her what was going on.

  “Yeah, of course,” she said as she dug out her keys from her purse. “Here you go.” “I’ll fill it up when I get back,” I promised.

  “Hailey, it’s fine. Go.”

  “Thanks,” I told her sincerely. Maybe she was right about the whole roommates-equalsbest-friends-forever thing. I hugged her goodbye and left without saying anything else to Chase.

  I was so grateful to Tessa for letting me borrow her car. I wanted to race to Southlake, but I figured getting a speeding ticket in someone else's car was probably not the smartest idea so I managed to maintain the speed limit. I finally pulled into the familiar driveway around 10pm.

  The surrounding neighborhood was quiet but the lights were still on in the Douglas house.

  I didn't bother knocking on the front door. I assumed they knew I was on my way after Braxton's frantic phone call.

  I heard the faint mumbling of voices in the back room so I headed toward them. Mrs.

  Douglas was on the hospital bed that had been brought in for her, looking much worse than I'd ever seen her. The stench of vomit hung in the air mixed in with what smelled like straight bleach.

  She was asleep, propped up with some pillows. All the furniture in the living room had been shoved to the side to make room for the hospital bed. Mr. Douglas sat stoically beside her, holding her hand. It appeared that they had been having some sort of family meeting, presumably to discuss the funeral arrangements, and she had fallen asleep in the middle of it, too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer. Braxton and Brad were still deep in whispered conversation near them. “Why are we even talking about this?” I heard Braxton say.

  “Because she wants to, Braxton. She wants a say in what happens to her. You aren't going to deny her that, are you?”

  “I’m not planning our mother's funeral while she's still breathing.”

  “It's not like I want to do this. I just don't see what choice we have. We can't just keep acting like it's not going to happen. This is what she wants.”

  “It's just not fair.” Braxton sat down sobbing into his hands. His mom stirred at the sound of her son crying. “I don't want to spend what little time she has left talking about flower arrangements and music.”

  “Braxton!” I whispered loudly to get his attention, but at the same time not wanting to disturb Mrs. Douglas.

  He looked up and I could see that his eyes were red with dried tears but his face was streaked wet with new ones. He stood up when he saw me. I think he could tell that I wasn't very happy with him. I pulled him out of the room until we were outside on the porch so we could talk without disturbing his mom. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I don't know.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “This is so much harder than I thought it would be.”

  “That doesn't matter. You can't act like that.”

  “Can't act like what?”

  “All sobbing and 'poor pitiful me'. It's her choice. You owe her that. If she wants a say in how she's laid to rest, give it to her. No matter how hard it is for you to think about—I guarantee it's a million times harder for her. This isn't about you, Braxton.”

  “I figured you of all people would understand what it's like.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Don't you remember how sad you were when your mother left you?”

  "It's not the same,” I said. Any ounce of sympathy I felt toward him vanished and I was left seething. “Your mother doesn't want to leave you! She loves you! But she doesn't have choice—she's dying." My harsh--but honest--words caused him to flinch in response but I didn't care. I continued, "My mom chose to leave me. She decided one day that she didn't love me enough to stay. Trust me. That is a million times worse. Stop being so selfish. The only thing you should be concerned about right now is making sure your mom is able to spend her remaining time here with her family however she wants to, and if she wants to start planning her own funeral—then goddamn it, let her!”