Hopeless

“Is Jack going with you?” I open the car door for Karen so she can throw the last of her luggage into the backseat.

“Yeah, he’s coming. We’ll be home….I’ll be home on Sunday,” she says, correcting herself. It pains her to count Jack as a “we.” I hate that she feels that way because I really like Jack and I know he loves Karen, so I don’t understand what her hang-up is at all. She’s had a couple of boyfriends in the past twelve years, but as soon as it starts getting serious for the guy, she runs.

Karen shuts the backdoor and turns to me. “You know I trust you, but please…”

“Don’t get pregnant,” I interrupt. “I know, I know. You’ve been saying that every time you leave for the past two years. I’m not getting pregnant, Mom. Only terribly high and cracked out.”

She laughs and hugs me. “Good girl. And wasted. Don’t forget to get really wasted.”

“I won’t forget, I promise. And I’m renting a TV for the weekend so I can sit around and eat ice-cream and watch trash on cable.”

She pulls back and glares at me. “Now that’s not funny.”

I laugh and hug her again. “Have fun. I hope you sell lots of herbal thingies and soaps and tinctures and whatever else it is you do at these things.”

“Love you. If you need me, you know you can use Six’s house phone.”

I roll my eyes at the same instructions she gives me every time she leaves. “See ya,” I say. She gets in the car and pulls out of the driveway, leaving me parent-free for the weekend. To most teenagers, this would be the point at which they pull out their phones and post an invite to the most kick-ass party of the year. Not me. Nope. Instead, I go inside and decide to bake cookies, because that’s the most rebellious thing I can come up with.

I love to bake, but I don’t claim to be very good at it. I usually end up with more flour and chocolate on my face and hair than in the actual end product. Tonight’s no exception. I’ve already made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, a batch of brownies and something I’m not sure what it was supposed to be. I’m working on pouring the flour into the mixture for a homemade German chocolate cake when the doorbell rings.

I’m pretty sure I should know what to do in situations like this. Doorbells ring all the time, right? Not mine. I stare at the door, not sure what I’m expecting it to do. When it rings for a second time, I put down the measuring cup and wipe my hair out of my eyes, then walk to the front door. When I open it, I’m not even surprised to see Holder. Okay, I’m surprised. But not really.

“Hey,” I say. I can’t think of anything else to say. Even if I could think of something else to say, I probably wouldn’t be able to say it since I can’t freaking breathe! He’s standing on the top step of my entryway, hands hanging loosely in the pockets of his jeans. His hair still needs a trim, but when he brings his hand up and pushes it out of his eyes, the thought of him trimming that hair is suddenly the worst idea in the world.

“Hi.” He’s smiling awkwardly and he looks nervous and it’s terribly attractive. He’s in a good mood. For now, anyway. Who knows when he’ll get pissed off and feel like arguing again.

“Um,” I say, uneasily. I know the next step is to invite him in, but that’s only if I’m actually wanting him inside my house, and to be honest, the jury is still out on that one.

“You busy?” he asks.

I glance back into the kitchen at the inconceivable mess I’ve made. “Sort of.” It’s not a lie. I’m sort of incredibly busy.

He looks away and nods, then points behind him to his car. “Yeah. I guess I’ll…go.” He takes a step back off the top step.

“No,” I say, much too quickly and a decibel too loudly. It’s an almost desperate no, and I cringe from embarrassment. As much as I don’t know why he’s here or why he even keeps bothering, my curiosity gets the best of me. I step aside and open the door further. “You can come in, but you might be put to work.”

He hesitates, then ascends the step again. He walks inside and I shut the door behind us. Before it can get any more awkward, I walk into the kitchen and pick up the measuring cup and get right back to work like there isn’t some random, temperamental, hot guy standing in my house.

“You prepping for a bake sale?” He makes his way around the bar and eyes the plethora of desserts covering my counter.

“My mom’s out of town for the weekend. She’s anti-sugar, so I kind of go crazy when she’s not here.”

He laughs and picks up a cookie, but looks at me first for permission.

“Help yourself,” I say. “But be warned, just because I like to bake doesn’t mean I’m good at it.” I sift the last of the flour and pour it into the mixing bowl.

“So you get the house to yourself and you spend Friday night baking? Typical teenager,” he says mockingly.

“What can I say?” I shrug. “I’m a rebel.”

He turns around and opens a cabinet, eyeing the contents, then shuts it. He steps to the left and opens another cabinet, then takes out a glass. “Got any milk?” he asks while heading to the refrigerator. I pause from stirring and watch as he pulls the milk out and pours himself a glass like he’s right at home. He takes a drink and turns around to catch me staring at him, then he grins. “You shouldn’t offer cookies without milk, you know. You’re a pretty pathetic hostess.” He grabs another cookie and walks himself and the milk to the bar and takes a seat.

“I try to save my hospitality for invited guests,” I say, turning back to the counter.

“Ouch.”

I turn the mixer on, creating an excuse to not have to talk to him for three minutes on medium to high speed. I try to remember what I look like, without noticeably searching for a reflective surface. I’m pretty sure I’ve got flour everywhere. I know my hair is being held up with a pencil and my sweatpants are being worn for the fourth evening in a row. Unwashed. I try to nonchalantly wipe away any visible traces of flour, but I’m aware it’s a lost cause. Oh well, there’s no way I could look any worse right now than when I was laid out on the couch with gravel embedded into my cheek.

I turn the mixer off and depress the button to free the mixing blades. I bring one to my mouth and lick it, and walk the other one to where he’s seated. “Want one? It’s German chocolate.”

He takes it out of my hand and smiles. “How hospitable of you.”

“Shut up and lick it or I’m keeping it for myself.” I walk to the cabinet and grab my own cup, but pour myself a glass of water instead. “You want some water or do you want to continue pretending you can stomach that vegan shit?”

He laughs and crinkles up his nose, then pushes his cup across the bar toward me. “I was trying to be nice, but I can’t take another sip of whatever the hell this is. Yes, water. Please.”

I laugh and rinse out his cup, then slide him the glass of water. I take a seat in the chair across from him and eye him while I bite into a brownie. I’m waiting for him to explain why he’s here, but he doesn’t. He just sits across from me and watches me eat. I don’t ask him why he’s here because I sort of like the quiet between us. It works better when we both shut up, since all of our conversations tend to end in arguments.

Holder stands up and walks into the living room without an explanation. He looks around curiously, his attention being stolen by the photographs on the walls. He walks closer to them and slowly scans each picture. I lean back in my chair and watch him be nosey.

He’s never in much of a hurry and seems so assured in every movement he makes. It’s like all of his thoughts and actions are meticulously planned out days in advance. I can just picture him in his bedroom, writing down the words he plans to use the following day, because he’s so selective with them.

“Your mom seems really young,” he says.

“She is young.”

“You don’t look like her. Do you look like your dad?” He turns and faces me.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what he looks like.”

He turns back to the pictures and runs his finger across one of them.

“Is your dad dead?” He’s so blunt about it, I’m almost certain he knows my dad isn’t dead or he wouldn’t have asked it like that. So carelessly.

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him since I was three.”

He walks back toward the kitchen and takes a seat in front of me again. “That’s all I get? No story?”

“Oh, there’s a story. I just don’t want to tell it.”

He smiles at me again, but it’s a wary smile when accompanied by the quizzical look in his eyes. “Your cookies were good,” he says, skillfully changing the subject. “You shouldn’t downplay your baking abilities.”

Something beeps and I jump up from my seat and run to the oven. I open it, but the cake isn’t even close to being done. When I turn around, Holder is holding up my cell phone. “You got a text,” he laughs. “Your cake is fine.”

I throw the oven mitt on the counter, then walk back to my seat. He’s scrolling through the texts on my phone without a shred of respect for privacy. I really don’t care, though, so I just let him.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to have a phone,” he says. “Or was that a really pathetic excuse to avoid giving me your number?”

“I’m not allowed. My best friend gave it to me the other day. It can’t do anything but text.”

He turns the screen around to face me. “What the hell kind of texts are these?” He turns the phone around and reads one.

“Sky, you are beautiful. You are possibly the most exquisite creature in the universe and if anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll cut a bitch.” He arches an eyebrow and looks up at me, then back down to the phone. “Oh, God. They’re all like this. Please tell me you don’t text these to yourself for daily motivation.”

I laugh and reach across the bar and snatch the phone out of his hand. “Stop. You’re ruining the fun of it.”

He leans his head back and laughs. “Oh my God, you do? Those are all from you?”

“No!” I say, defensively. “They’re from Six. She’s my best friend and she’s halfway around the world and she misses me. She wants me to not be sad, so she sends me nice texts every day. I think it’s sweet.”

“Oh, you do not. You think it’s annoying and you probably don’t even read them.”

How does he know that?

I set the phone down and cross my arms over my chest. “She means well,” I say, still not admitting that the texts are annoying the living hell out of me.

“They’ll ruin you. Those texts will inflate your ego so much, you’ll explode.” He grabs the phone and pulls his own phone out of his pocket. He scrolls through the screens on both phones and punches some numbers on his phone. “We need to rectify this situation before you start suffering from delusions of grandeur.” He hands me back my phone and types something into his own phone, then puts it in his pocket. My phone sounds off, indicating a new text message. I look down at the screen and laugh.

Your cookies suck ass. And you’re really not that pretty.

“Better?” he says, teasingly. “Did the ego deflate enough?”

I laugh and set the phone down on the counter, then stand up. “You know just the right things to say to a girl.” I walk to the living room and turn around. “Want a tour of the house?”

He stands up and follows me while I point out boring facts and knick-knacks and rooms and pictures, but of course he’s slowly soaking it all in, never in a rush. He has to stop and inspect every tiny thing, never speaking a single word the whole time.

When we finally get to my bedroom, I swing open the door. “My room,” I say, flashing my Vanna White pose. “Feel free to look around, but being as though there aren’t any people eighteen or older here, stay off the bed. I’m not allowed to get pregnant this weekend.”

He pauses as he’s passing through the doorway and tilts his head toward me. “Only this weekend? You plan on getting knocked up next weekend, instead?”

I follow him into my bedroom. “Nah. I’ll probably wait a few more weeks.”

He inspects the room, slowly turning around until he’s facing me again. “I’m eighteen.”

I cock my head to the side, confused as to why he pointed out that random fact. “Yay for you?”

He cuts his eyes to the bed, then back to me. “You said to stay off your bed because I’m not eighteen. I’m just pointing out that I am.”

I don’t like the way my lungs just constricted when he looked at my bed. “Oh. Well then, I meant nineteen.”

He spins around, then walks slowly to the open window. He bends down and sticks his head out of it, then pulls back inside. “So this is the infamous window, huh?”

He doesn’t look at me, which is probably a good thing because if looks could kill he’d be dead. Why the hell did he have to go and say something like that? I was actually enjoying his company for a change. He turns back to me and his playful expression is gone, replaced by a challenging one that I’ve seen too many times before.

I sigh. “What do you want, Holder?” He either needs to get his point across about why he’s here, or he needs to leave. He folds his arms across his chest and narrows his eyes at me.

“Did I say something wrong, Sky? Or untrue? Unfounded, maybe?” It’s obvious in his taunting remarks that he knows exactly what he was insinuating with the window comment. I’m not in the mood to play his games; I have cakes that need baking. And eating.

I walk to the door and hold it open. “You know exactly what you said and you got the reaction you wanted. Happy? You can go now.”

He doesn’t. He drops his arms and turns around, then walks to my nightstand. He picks up the book Breckin gave me and inspects it as though the last thirty seconds never even occurred.

“Holder, I’m asking you as nicely as I’m going to ask you. Please leave.”

He lays the book down gently, then proceeds to lay down on the bed. He literally lays down on my bed. He’s on my damn bed.

I roll my eyes and walk over to where he is, then reach down and pull his legs off my bed. If I have to physically remove him from the house, I’ll do it. When I grab his wrists and lift upward, he pulls me to him in a move that happens faster than my mind can even comprehend. He flips me over until I’m on my back and he’s holding my arms to the mattress. It happens so unexpectedly; I don’t even have time to fight him. And looking up at him right now, half of me doesn’t even want to fight him. I don’t know if I should scream for help or rip off my clothes.

He releases my arms and brings one of his hands to my face. He brushes his thumb across my nose and laughs. “Flour,” he says, wiping it away. “It’s been bugging me.” He sits up against my headboard and brings his feet back onto the bed. I’m still flat on the mattress, staring up at the stars, actually feeling something other than nothing for the first time ever while looking at them.

I can’t even move, because I’m sort of afraid he’s crazy. I mean literally, clinically insane. It’s the only logical explanation for his personality. And the fact that I still find him so incredibly attractive can only mean one thing. I’m insane, too.

“I didn’t know he was gay.”

Yep, he’s crazy.

I turn my head toward him, but say nothing. What the hell do you say to a crazy person who literally refuses to leave your house, then starts spouting off random shit?

“I beat him up because he was an asshole. I had no idea he was gay.”

His elbows are resting on his knees and he’s looking right at me, waiting for a reaction. Or a response. Neither of which he’s getting for a few seconds, because I need to process this.

I look back up at the stars and give myself time to analyze the situation. If he’s not crazy, then he’s definitely trying to make a point. But what point? He comes over here, uninvited, to defend his reputation and insult mine? What would be the point of even going forth with the effort? I’m just one person, what does my opinion matter?

Unless, of course, he likes me. The thought literally makes me smile and I feel dirty and wrong for hoping a lunatic likes me. I had it coming, though. I should have never let him in the house, knowing I’m alone. And now he knows I’ll be home all weekend alone. If I had to weigh tonight’s decisions, this would probably be so heavy it would break the dumb side of the scale. I foresee this ending in one of two ways. We’ll either come to a mutual understanding of one another, or he’s going to kill me and chop me up into tiny pieces and bake me into cookies. Either way, it makes me sad for all the dessert that isn’t being eaten right now.

“Cake!” I yell, jumping up off the bed. I run to the kitchen just in time to smell my latest disaster. I grab the oven mitt and pull the cake out, then throw it on the counter in disappointment. It’s not too badly burnt. I could probably salvage it by drowning it in icing.

I shut the oven and decide that I’m moving on to a new hobby. Maybe I’ll make jewelry. How hard could that be? I grab two more cookies and walk back to my bedroom and hand one of the cookies to Holder, then lay down on the bed next him.

“I guess the gay-bashing asshole remark was really judgmental on my part then, huh? You aren’t really an ignorant homophobe who spent the last year in juvenile detention?”

He grins and scoots down on the bed next to me and looks up at the stars. “Nope. Not at all. I spent the entire last year living with my father in Austin. I don’t even know where the story about me being sent to juvi came into the picture.”

“Why don’t you defend yourself against the rumors if they aren’t true?”

He turns his head toward me on the pillow. “Why don’t you?”

I purse my lips together and nod. “Touché.”

We both sit quietly on the bed eating our cookies. Some of the things he’s said over the past few days are starting to make sense, and I begin to feel more and more like the people I despise. He told me outright that he would answer anything if I just asked, yet I chose to believe the rumors about him instead. No wonder he was so irritated with me. I was treating him just like everyone else treats me.

“The window comment from earlier?” I say. “You were just making a point about rumors? You really weren’t trying to be mean?”

“I’m not mean, Sky.”

“You’re intense. I’m right about that, at least.”

“I may be intense, but I’m not mean.”

“Well, I’m not a slut.”

“I’m not a gay bashing asshole.”

“So we’re all clear?”

He laughs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

I inhale a deep breath, then exhale, preparing to do something I don’t do very often. Apologize. If I wasn’t so stubborn, I might even admit that my judgmental behavior this week was completely mortifying and he had every right in the world to be angry with me for being so ignorant. Instead, I keep the apology short and sweet.

“I’m sorry, Holder,” I say quietly

He sighs heavily. “I know, Sky. I know.”

And we sit like this in complete silence for what seems like forever but also doesn’t feel like near long enough. It’s getting late and I’m afraid he’s about to say he needs to leave because there’s nothing else to say, but I don’t want him to. It feels right, being here with him now. I don’t know why, but it just does.

“I need to ask you something,” he says, finally breaking the silence. I don’t respond, because it doesn’t feel like his statement is waiting for a response. He’s just taking one of his moments to prepare whatever it is he wants to ask me. He takes a breath, then rolls over onto his side to face me. He tucks his elbow under his head and I can feel him looking at me, but I keep staring at the stars. He’s way too close for me to look at him right now, and by the way my heart is already pounding against my chest, I’m afraid moving any closer will physically kill me. It doesn’t seem possible that lust can cause a heart to take this much of a beating. It’s worse than running.

“Why were you letting Grayson do what he was doing to you in the parking lot?”

I want to crawl under my covers and hide. I was hoping this wouldn’t come up. “I already told you. He’s not my boyfriend and he’s not the one who gave me the black eye.”

“I’m not asking because of any of that. I’m asking because I saw how you reacted. You were irritated with him. You even looked a little bored. I just want to know why you allow him to do those things if you clearly don’t want him touching you.”

His words throw me for a loop and I’m suddenly feeling claustrophobic and sweaty. I don’t feel comfortable talking about this. It makes me uneasy how he reads me so well, yet I can’t read him for anything.

“My lack of interest was that obvious?” I ask.

“Yep. And from fifty yards away. I’m just surprised he didn’t take the hint.”

This time I turn to face him without thinking, and tuck my elbow under my head. “I know, right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned him down but he just doesn’t stop. It’s really pathetic. And unattractive.”

“Then why do you let him do it?” he says, eyeing me sharply. We’re in a compromising position right now, facing each other on the same bed. The way he’s staring at me and dropping his eyes to my lips prompts me to roll onto my back again. I don’t know if he feels the same, but he rolls onto his back, too.

“It’s complicated.”

“You don’t have to explain,” he says. “I was just curious. It’s really not my business.”

I tuck my hands behind my head and look up at the stars that I’ve counted more times than I can count. I’ve been in this bed with Holder longer than I’ve probably been in this bed with any boy, and it occurs to me that I haven’t felt the need to count a single star.

“Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”

“Yep,” he says. “But I hope you aren’t about to ask for details, because I don’t go there.”

I shake my head. “That’s not why I’m asking.” I pause for a few seconds, wanting to word things the right way. “When you kissed her, what did you feel?”

He pauses for a moment, probably thinking this is a trick question. “You want honesty, right?” he asks.

“That’s all I ever want.”

I can see him smile out of the corner of my eyes. “Alright then. I guess I felt…horny.”

I try to appear unaffected, hearing that word come out of his mouth, but…wow. I cross my legs, hoping it’ll help minimize the hot flashes racing through me. “So you get the butterflies and the sweaty palms and the rapid heartbeat and all that?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Not with every girl I’ve been with, but most of them.”

I angle my head in his direction, trying not to analyze the way that sentence came out. He turns his head toward me and grins.

“There weren’t that many.” He smiles and his dimple is even cuter close up. For a moment, I get lost in it. “What’s your point?”

I bring my eyes back to his, briefly, then face the ceiling again. “My point is that I don’t. I don’t feel any of that. When I make out with guys, I don’t feel anything at all. Just numbness. So sometimes I let Grayson do what he does to me, not because I enjoy it, but because I like not feeling anything at all.” He doesn’t respond and his silence makes me uncomfortable. I can’t help but wonder if he’s mentally labeling me as crazy. “I know it doesn’t make sense, and no, I’m not a lesbian. I’ve just never been attracted to anyone before you and I don’t know why.”

As soon as I say it, he darts his head toward me at the same second I squeeze my eyes shut and throw my arm over my face. I can’t believe I just admitted, out loud, that I’m attracted to him. I could die right now and it wouldn’t be soon enough.

I feel the bed shift and he encompasses my wrist with his hand and removes my arm from over my eyes. I reluctantly open them and he’s propped up on his hand, smiling at me. “You’re attracted to me?”

“Oh, God,” I groan. “That’s the last thing you need for your ego.”

“That’s probably true,” he laughs. “Better hurry up and insult me before my ego gets as big as yours.”

“You need a hair cut,” I blurt out. “Really bad. It gets in your eyes and you squint and you’re constantly moving it out of the way like you’re Justin Bieber and it’s really distracting.”

He fingers his hair with his hand and frowns, then falls back onto the bed. “Man. That really hurt. It seems like you’ve thought that one out for a while.”

“Just since Monday,” I admit.

“You met me on Monday. So technically, you’ve been thinking about how much you hate my hair since the moment we met?”

“Not every moment.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then grins again. “I can’t believe you think I’m hot.”

“Shut up.”

“You probably faked passing out the other day, just so you could be carried in my hot, sweaty, manly arms.”

“Shut up.”

“I’ll bet you fantasize about me at night, right here in this bed.”

“Shut up, Holder.”

“You probably even…”

I reach over and clamp my hand over his mouth. “You’re way hotter when you aren’t speaking.”

When he finally shuts his mouth, I remove my hand and put it back behind my head. Again, we both go a while without speaking. He’s probably silently gloating in the fact that I admitted I’m attracted to him, while I’m silently cringing that he’s now privy to that knowledge.

“I’m bored,” he says.

“So go home.”

“I don’t want to. What do you do when you’re bored? You don’t have internet or TV. Do you just sit around all day and think about how hot I am?”

I roll my eyes. “I read,” I say. “A lot. Sometimes I bake. Sometimes I run.”

“Read, bake and run. And fantasize about me. What a riveting life you lead.”

“I like my life.”

“I sort of like it, too,” he says. He rolls over and grabs the book off of my nightstand. “Here, read this.”

I take the book out of his hands and open it to the marker on page two. It’s as far as I’ve gotten. “You want me to read it out loud? You’re that bored?”

“Pretty damn bored.”

“It’s a romance,” I warn.

“Like I said. Pretty damn bored. Read.”

I scoot my pillow up toward the headboard and make myself comfortable, then start reading.

This morning if you would have told me I’d be reading a romance novel to Dean Holder in my bed tonight, I’d tell you that you were crazy. But then again, I’m obviously not the best judge of crazy.

When I open my eyes, I immediately slide my hand to the other side of the bed, but it’s empty. I sit up and look around. My light is off and my covers are on. The book is closed on the nightstand, so I pick it up. There’s a bookmark almost three-quarters of the way through.

I read until I fell asleep? Oh, no, I fell asleep. I throw the covers off and walk to the kitchen, then flip on the light and look around in shock. The entire kitchen is clean and all the cookies and brownies are wrapped in saran wrap. I look down at my phone sitting on the counter and pick it up to find a new text message.

You fell asleep right when she was about to find out her mother’s secret. How dare you. I’ll be back tomorrow night so you can finish reading it to me. And by the way, you have really bad breath and you snore way too loud.

I laugh. I’m also grinning like an idiot, but luckily no one is here to witness it. I glance at the clock on the stove and it’s only just past two in the morning, so I go back to the bedroom and crawl into bed, hoping he really does show up tomorrow night. I don’t know how this hopeless boy weaseled his way into my life this week, but I know I’m definitely not ready for him to leave.