He pulled out a few blades of grass and threw them. “I don’t want Dad to be alone,” he said, tears in his eyes.
My heart shrank. I grabbed him and hugged him as tight as I could. “Dad won’t be alone,” I said as I felt him break down in sobs. “We’ll visit him every weekend. And you know what? When we do, we can stay up past midnight watchingStar Warsbecause Mom won’t be around to tell us to go to bed!”
Cam turned to me and tried to grin through his tears. “All of them? Can we have a marathon?”
I laughed. “Yes, we can have a marathon.”
That seemed to cheer him up. Mom was so controlling. I thought a little less order in his life would probably do him good.
We talked a while longer, and then I took him to class and made it back across campus just in time to grab my books before English class.
“How’s it going?” Taylor asked me when I walked through the door. We sat together in all the classes we shared. I don’t know if it was the best thing, because I was easily distracted and Taylor was one hell of a distraction. His hand seemed to constantly seek out my inner thigh, though I always stopped him. I couldn’t take another visit to the principal’s office. But Taylor was surprisingly smart. I remember the teacher once caught us giggling and thought he was going to stump us with a super difficult question about Lenin. But Taylor answered without hesitation, and the teacher had no choice but to go on with his lesson.
One rainy afternoon, when we were sitting in Taylor’s car, I had asked him what he wanted to study at college, and he had surprised me by telling me he wanted to be an astronaut. When he saw the look on my face, wide-eyed, he’d started laughing like crazy and said, “You don’t believe me? I’m lying. Really, I want to be a computer engineer.”
I hadn’t expected that either. “How come?” I’d asked.
“So I can hack into all the porn sites without having to pay.”
I knew he was kidding. Taylor might be lots of things, but he wasn’t a porn addict. I rolled my eyes, and he chuckled again. That was just Taylor—he always blurted out the craziest thing he could come up with, but I liked it because I never got bored with him. I had been so much more easygoing when I was young. But now, all the rules, all the keeping up appearances had made me boring, well-behaved, someone who always obeyed orders and never said “To hell with it.”
Taylor was helping me to become bolder, teaching me to live life with no limits, that a day without laughter was a day without meaning, and that there was always something we could do to make ourselves feel better.
Where did you run off to earlier?he wrote in his notebook.
As I read it, I wished I’d opened up to him before. About my parents, about everything. I could have rested my head on his shoulder and let him console me. I was so sad…I took a deep breath and held back the tears.
“Ouch, something’s stung me on my foot!” Taylor shouted out of nowhere, right in the middle of class. Everyone turned to stare. I would have believed him if he hadn’t winked at me slyly when no one was looking.
“What?” the teacher asked alarmed.
“Something stung me! God, it hurts!”
“Like a wasp or something? Do you want to go to the nurse’s office?”
“I don’t know, sir, but it’s killing me!” Taylor made a show of standing on one leg, and continued with his act of the century. “Help, Kami, please,” he said.
I stood and wrapped an arm around him.
“What if I’m allergic?” he exclaimed, putting his hands around his neck.
“Go straight to the nurse, Di Bianco. Hamilton, can you help him on your own?”
“I think so,” I said, struggling not to laugh as we walked out.
Once Mr. Stow could no longer see us, Taylor grabbed my hand and took off running.
“What are you doing?” I couldn’t believe the stunt he’d just pulled.
We ran down the hall and outside. He dragged me all the way to the bleachers, then underneath. There, he grabbed my face in both hands and gave me a kiss that took my breath away.
“I’m taking care of you. That’s what I’m doing,” he said. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
I could only hold his stare for a second before I broke down in tears.
