Chapter Ten
“Good morning.” A low voice whispered in my ear.
I opened my eyes for the briefest of moments and smiled. “Good morning.” I said with a sigh, a yawn.
I heard Laynie laughing on the couch and when I turned to look at her, I saw her and Bryce sitting together. Bryce was well put together, his hair wet from an early morning shower. Laynie, like me, was still rugged from sleep. It seemed a constant trend; us being woken up with disheveled hair and morning breath and being unable to put ourselves together before we were hauled off to get working on different tasks at hand.
I searched for Laynie’s cell phone, clicked a button.
“Again?” I groaned. “It’s seven o’clock.”
“I brought donuts.” Bryce offered up for a truce when both Laynie and I began to glare at the two of them.
Laynie’s eyebrows rose. She lifted her head as if she was sniffing the air.
She closed her eyes and imagined where they could be. Her eyes popped open. “They’re on the stairs!” she screamed and took off as if she was heading into battle.
“She’s good.” Bryce said.
Jonah and I lay there still on the mattress. I turned over, looking up into his face.
“How did you sleep?” he whispered.
“Pretty good.” I smiled. “Laynie and I didn’t go to bed until like… five hours ago. We stayed up all night talking.”
“About what may I ask?” Jonah teased.
“Nothing.” I stuck my tongue out.
“Cream filled!” Laynie howled.
I bolted up and ran towards Laynie, who already had her mouth full.
I grabbed a long john out of the box and proceeded to tear it apart and plop pieces into my mouth.
To the boys, Laynie and I must have looked ridiculous, standing there in our pajamas with our makeup smeared from the night before and our hair piled up in giant rat’s nests.
Laynie took another mouthful of donut. “This is how you know we’re best friends.” She said to me and Jonah, her mouth still full. “We can eat like absolute slobs in front of each other and it doesn’t mean a thing.” She smiled, a small bit of cream clinging to the corner of her mouth. She licked the cream away and polished of the donut.
We sat down on the floor, watching the boys watch us, eating. I ate quietly, savoring the taste of chocolate in my mouth. I kept my eyes closed as I chewed, swallowed.
I covered my mouth and yawned.
“I still can’t believe you guys get up at the crack of dawn just to come over here and wake us up. Do you enjoy seeing us look our worst?”
Bryce and Jonah looked at each other, shrugged, and then nodded at Laynie and me.
Bryce and Jonah had a strange relationship. In some ways they were best friends, in other ways they were like coworkers, constantly pushing each other and seeing which one would break first.
Like Jonah had said, Blaine showed up much later. We had played video games for awhile while we waited. When Blaine showed up, he was completely oblivious as to why Laynie and I both had moon eyes while Bryce and Jonah played each other at foosball.
Bryce and Jonah were tied, and had been for the past twenty minutes. Jonah would take a one point lead, which would be evened out by Bryce scoring and tying them again.
“How about you guys postpone the match for a later date.” Laynie suggested as Blaine continued to just stare at all of us with a confused look on his face.
Blaine and Bryce exchanged a few words while Bryce caught Blaine up to pace with what we’d been doing all morning.
Blaine and Bryce were best friends and had been since preschool. But Blaine had grown apart, leaving everyone else staring after him while he worked his way down a road that no one really wanted to take with him. The only people that joined him on his trek were James and a few other people that only cared about smothering themselves in smog and smoke rings.
I hugged Blaine, surprising him. Blaine stood a whopping six feet three inches tall, leaving me almost an entire head shorter than him. He hugged me back, keeping his eyes on Jonah, who gladly kept his eyes focused on him as well.
“Hey, Blaine. Long time no see.”
“Hey, Tide.” His voice, like Bryce’s was a low monotone. His long blonde hair covered his eyes and ears.
We all walked downstairs, muddy shoes, bare feet and all. Laynie and I gathered as many folding chairs as we could find and tried to arrange the chairs in a way that everyone could be comfortable without feeling claustrophobic.
We worked on music for hours, running through the songs that we knew, working on new ones. Blaine and Bryce worked on bass and guitar parts together, while Laynie worked on a little bit of everything, working with me and Jonah on vocals. Jonah worked on the drums for a bit, but after a while decided to sit by me as Blaine’s gaze continued to fix on me.
“Can I talk to you for a second, man?” Blaine asked Jonah.
Jonah looked startled but then nodded, squeezing my hand and then walking out of the room.
Bryce, Laynie and I sat there looking at each other. Laynie quirked her head at me, unsure of what was going on.
I got up from my seat and walked to the door, which Blaine had closed behind them. I pressed my ear to the peeling paint.
The voices were muffled, but I understood them well enough.
“I’m not going after her. I’m freaked the fuck out though.” The lower voice said. Blaine.
“Then what’s going on with you, man? You’re acting weird. Tide’s had a lot of shit going on here lately as it is.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to boys to rowel themselves up over nothing. I was fine. Sort of.
“James called me last night. And he’s been calling my phone all day. He knew that I’d be here with Tide and has been trying to get a hold of her. But anyway, last night he said he saw Tide and you at the store. He freaked out.”
“What did he say?” Jonah’s voice went down an octave lower than normal, his voice soft, barely audible now.
Blaine got the hint and lowered his voice as well.
I strained my ears.
“He was saying a whole bunch of shit. He said that he needed to see her. And that there was no way in hell that he’d let her be with you. Don’t get me wrong, James and I have both been pretty fucked up here lately, but I haven’t heard him like that before. Which is saying something. He’s been into some pretty bad shit here lately, which once again, is saying something.”
I could see Blaine’s face, drawn and pale. I winced as I pictured smoke curling from his lips, a bottle gripped securely at his side, his eyes rolling back into his head and he held smoke in his mouth, letting it coil inside of him.
Jonah stayed quiet for a moment, I could picture his fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose, frustration written all over his face.
“Do you think he’ll do something?” Jonah asked.
“I don’t know. But I do know, that if he does do something, it’s not going to end well. James being as fucked up as he is right now is just going to make him think more irrationally. Blind rage, man.” Blaine said.
The blood that circulated through me froze, goose bumps rose on my arms.
Laynie pulled me away from the door and turned me around to face her.
She brushed my hair back from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “Don’t worry about anything.” She said softly. “Let Jonah handle whatever it is they’re talking about.”
“I can’t let Jonah take the fall for this.” I whined. I couldn’t imagine a fight between Jonah and James. Jonah was strong and smart, he’d have the advantage of being able to clear his head… but what’s the good in having a clear head when blind rage would only make someone that much stronger…
I shivered.
Jonah and Blaine came back into the room. Jonah looked as if he had aged ten years in five minutes. I went to him, squeezing his hand. He smiled weakly, trying to hide how exhausted he was from having to hear the few things he was afraid of.
James wanted to take me from him. And James would do anything to do it.
Laynie shifted her gaze from me to Jonah, where she confirmed her suspicions. Her jaw clenched.
Laynie yawned. “Okay guys. We’ve been at this all day and my mom’s going to be home soon.”
Blaine and Bryce got the hint and Laynie and I walked them to the door while Jonah stayed where he sat, his head in his hands.
Blaine and Bryce didn’t bother to ask why Jonah wasn’t leaving, they knew that whatever was happening, Jonah was just as much a part of is as I was.
Laynie hugged Blaine and Bryce, Bryce for a moment or two longer and they left, talking about guitar chords and different songs we should work on for the next practice.
Laynie closed the door with a smile but when she turned around her face was serious. “Let’s go back downstairs. We need to talk to Jonah.”
We walked back in the room, Jonah hadn’t moved an inch. He didn’t lift his head when we walked into the room. Laynie closed the door and I settled down by Jonah’s feet, my back against his shins.
He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around me, resting his head on my shoulders.
Laynie’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, growled.
Jonah lifted his head. “Don’t answer it.”
Laynie hung up.
It rang again. She hung up.
Over and over the phone went off, and over and over again Laynie hung up.
“I can’t do this. Give me the damn phone.” I demanded after the fifteenth time of the phone going off.
Had Laynie’s mom not told her to keep her phone charged and on at all times, we would have turned her phone off after the first call. But enough was enough.
Laynie looked at Jonah for permission.
“Are you out of your mind?” he growled.
I took the phone from Laynie anyway and waited for the next ring.
“Hello?” I answered. Jonah tensed up behind me, I heard him snarling between his teeth.
“Tide?” James’s voice was soft and sad.
“What?” I hissed angrily. “How did you get this number?”
“I got it from Joel.”
I rolled my eyes. Joel was Laynie’s late ex.
“What do you want?” I asked simply, trying to keep my temper now.
“I want to see you. I miss you. I called Blaine’s phone but he didn’t answer before.”
“Well we were all busy. We don’t like stopping band practice for phone calls.”
“I miss you.” He said softly, his voice low. It reminded me of molasses, how it seeped down the edge of a bottle, warm and sweet, but the second it touched anything and hardened, it turned into something entirely different.
“Don’t say that. That’s not fair.” My nostrils flared as I tried to bat down my emotions. I tried to place what I was feeling; tried to find the word for the emotion. But there wasn’t a word for it, I was just fed up.
“I don’t want to talk to you, James.”
“But I miss you,” he whined. It was pathetic, the way he would act as if he’d never left. Any other time I would let his voice soothe me. I would accept it as a promise that he’d never leave again. But I knew better this time. I had moved on.
“You can’t just do that.” I snapped on him. “You can’t just come back into my life whenever you want to. You left me. Remember?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. I’ve been going through a lot of things here lately. I need you, Tide. I know I was a jerk, but I miss you. I love you. I always have.”
For a second, I almost fell back in the trap. Jonah placed his hand on my back, I sighed with relief. Strength. I smiled for a moment when I realized that Jonah was there behind me, ready to give me everything if need be.
“No. You never loved me, James. And I can’t do that to myself anymore. I waited for as long as I could and all it did was waste my time.”
“So you’re screwing Jonah now then?” his voice went from sounding bitter sweet to full out malicious.
“I’m not screwing anybody!” I boomed. “And even if I was, it would be absolutely none of your business! You’re the one that fucked me over and used me!”
“Bullshit!” he yelled back.
I cried, angry tears running down my face.
“Goodbye James.” I choked.
“Wait.” His tone changed again. “I love you, Tide. I’m sorry.”
I screamed into the phone as loud as I could and then hung up. I hoped his fucking ear drum broke.
I cried, handing Laynie her phone with a shaky hand before I shattered into a million pieces right there on the floor.
“I hate this.” I sobbed. “I hate myself for that. All of it.” I twisted away from Jonah, angry at myself for ever allowing myself to belong to anyone else.
Jonah tried to wrap himself around me, for me to twist away. He wrapped his arms around me in a firm grip, and I turned around, sobbing loudly into his chest.
“Let’s go.” Jonah whispered into my ear. “We’re leaving.” He said to Laynie. “I’ll call Bryce and tell him to come back and keep you company. I doubt that was easy on you either. It wasn’t good on any of us.”
Laynie sobbed with me and peeled me away from Jonah. She hugged me and we both sobbed into each other, our bodies racking with tears. My tears soaked through her shirt, she rubbed her eyes against my shoulder. She shrieked with anger but then calmed herself. She pulled away, wiping her eyes and straightening herself. She forced a smile. Her eyes puffy and red. “I’ll see you later, Deary.”
I nodded and wiped my eyes and nose on my jacket sleeve.
Jonah led me out of the house and to the car by the elbow.
“Where are we going?” I sniffed.
“My house.” Jonah said, his voice even.
“It’s like… eleven. You’re mom is going to be furious.”
“My parents are gone. They went to DC for the next to weeks.” Jonah kept his temper though I knew he was about to boil over.
We drove in silence, I was nervous, unsure of what was going to happen. The tension in the air hung thick between us.
Jonah turned into his driveway and walked around to my door. He opened it and scooped me up. The chickens were nowhere to be found, but regardless, he carried me.
He carried me all the way up to his room where he opened the door and sat me down. His lamp was the only light in the room. Jonah sat in his computer chair, his head in his hands again.
“I’m sorry.” I managed, not knowing what else to say.
“What could you possibly be sorry for?” he asked, his voice shaky.
I still hadn’t quite stopped crying and when I thought about what to say in response a new chain of sobs broke through.
“I hate myself for it.” I choked out.
Jonah stayed quiet.
“I thought it was the only way he’d love me. And then I hated myself for it because no matter what I did he still didn’t love me.” I sobbed loudly, breaking into a loud shrill scream. I curled my hands into my hair, rocking back and forth.
Jonah stood up from his chair and boomed, sending me sprawling backwards to get away.
“Don’t for a second even think any of it was your fault!” he roared. “He used you, because he’s a sick twisted bastard that didn’t have anything better to do than make you feel like shit! I can’t believe you even loved him in the first place!”
I grew angry, acid curling in my stomach. “Just shut up Jonah!”
“Don’t even tell me to shut up! Do you have any idea how scared I am?” Jonah roared back.
I softened as Jonah quieted, taken aback everything that was happening. He sunk down to his knees with a low thud. Tears flowed from his eyes. He didn’t make a sound.
I went to him, wrapping my arms around him. My sobs shook him. He rested his head in my lap and wrapped his arms around my waist.
We didn’t say anything after that. When our tears ceased, Jonah stood and went downstairs. He grabbed our favorite movie, Phantom of the Opera, and brought it back upstairs.
We sat on the floor, wrapped around each other, holding each other together.
I sat there my head against his shoulder, drifting off to sleep occasionally. Jonah was wide awake, his arms around me protectively.
He whispered sweet words into my ear, pressing kisses against my cheek, my forehead. I sighed happily, finally able to push the day’s events into the back of my head.
Jonah’s phone went off. Jonah grimaced and searched for the phone. Fuck You was his ring tone. I had to smile a little.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” I said as he continued to search for his phone.
I walked downstairs and looked at myself in the mirror after using the bathroom. I washed my hands with cherry blossom hand soap and then dried them on a towel that was hanging up; I grimaced when I saw the small embroidered chickens that lined it.
I walked back up the stairs and opened the door to see Jonah rolling his eyes. I stepped into the door, shifting to the side.
“Owe!” I howled and fell to the floor laughing on the verge of tears. I hopped up and down holding my precious stubbed toe.
Jonah laughed quietly and motioned for me to sit down next to him so he could examine my injury.
“Regardless of why you’re calling, it’s one in the morning. What the hell.” He said mutely into the mouth piece.
“Who was that?” a loud, high pitch voice snapped.
Hannah. I groaned and fell back against the mattress.
What’s up with all the crazy people calling today?
“Hannah. It’s really none of your business who I’m with right now.”
“It’s Tide, isn’t it? I knew you two were up to something.” Her voice was snide.
Jonah rolled his eyes, his tone exasperated. “I don’t need this right now, Hannah.”
“Well can’t we just get together sometime?”
Jonah laughed nastily. “No, Hannah. I don’t want to see you in any way.”
“But Jonah!” she whined.
Jonah hung up while Hannah was mid squeal.
He turned to me, cradled me in his arms. He pressed kissed against my face. I closed my eyes, Jonah pressed kisses against my eyelids. I tilted my head back, my body tense and warm.
Jonah’s phone went off.
I started laughing. “Gah!” I groan.
Jonah rolled his eyes and turned his phone off.
We laughed, rolling around the floor and teasing each other, but deep down, I knew something was going to happen. James and Hannah all in the same day? The unknown boiled thick in the pit of my stomach.
