Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

“Stuff about your dad?” I want to look into his eyes, but our heads are too close and I refuse to pull away from him.

“About a lot of things,” he says. “Like how terrible is it that I want to leave my mom and sister to go to college in New York? They need me. I should stay, but I want to go. . . .” He shakes his head in disgust and his hair tickles my cheek again. “I’ve done such a crap job taking care of them. Even now, I can’t do the one thing I know would make my mom happy and quit smoking. I feel like my dad would be disappointed in me.”

“Micah, that’s not true. Your dad wouldn’t want you to give up your dreams, and neither would your mom or Trinity.” I turn toward him slightly. Our faces are almost touching. I wish I knew what to say to make him feel better. “You can’t be so hard on yourself.”

I feel his mouth smile against my shoulder. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to get all heavy. Now you have to tell me one of your secrets so we’re even.”

Well, I couldn’t ask for a better setup than that. Here goes nothing. “I like you,” I blurt out. And even though Micah doesn’t say anything right away, even though tears form out of nowhere and I’m shaking and my heart is threatening to explode, part of me feels like I’ve just lost fifty pounds.

And then he angles his head toward me. “I like you too,” he murmurs in my ear, his lips hovering dangerously close to my skin.

And then it’s like the song from The Devil’s Doorstep is playing again. “Wake Up Dreaming.” But the only music is the sound of our breathing and I know that if I turn just a few degrees to the right that Micah will twist inward toward me, and our lips will touch. A real kiss, more than at the soccer game. A kiss we can’t take back or justify as part of some silly plan.

I’m still shaking, but it’s like someone else is controlling my body. She’s telling me nothing matters except for the way I feel this second, how once I start kissing Micah I’m never going to want to stop. She’s turning my head for me, slowly, tilting my chin ever so slightly. I can feel him sliding around to face me. Any second now . . . I reach my left hand up and skim it across the top of his mohawk. He exhales slow and hard, his breath condensing on my lips. I hear a rushing, a roaring in my ears. My blood, my heartbeat, pounding throughout my whole body.

And then someone coughs.

I spin around so fast that my chair slams into the flimsy table leg and sends the table skating a foot across the patio. Micah drops my hand like it’s a tarantula. Amber is standing outside the back door of the club.

We are so busted.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Amber says. Her blue eyes are icicles, frigid and stabbing in the summer heat.

Before either of us can speak, she disappears. The door slams behind her.

“I have to go.” Micah pulls away and I feel instantly colder. He scrambles to his feet and heads toward the club.

“Yeah. You do that,” I whisper.

He hears me and pauses with one hand on the door. “I came here with her. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.” His voice is heavy with grief.

Regret.

As he disappears back inside the club, I crumple my soda cup with one hand and throw it against the side of the building with all my might. It bounces limply off the bricks and falls to the ground. I want to scream. I clearly don’t understand guys. If Micah is so into Amber that he ran after her like a puppy dog, what was he doing out here holding hands with me? Is he no different than Jason? Am I just a “vacation” for him?

I rest my cheek on the metal tabletop. The tears come fast. Wrapping my arms around my head so that no one who comes outside will be able to see my face, I sob quietly into the fold of my elbow. Phrases about being decisive and long delays dampening my army’s ardor float around in my head. But no, that’s bullshit. Talk is cheap. If Micah wanted me, he would be with me and not Amber. He would have walked away from her the way I walked away from Jason.

The patio door squeaks open and then slams shut. Wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I sit up and try to pretend that I’m just tired or feeling sick, that I’m not some crazy girl crying at the dance club.

But it’s Kendall, and she’s a tough one to fool. She’s at my side in a second. “Laineykins, what happened?”

I can’t get into it with her because if I do I’ll start crying again and she’ll start telling me how Micah doesn’t matter and then the tears might never stop. “It’s nothing,” I say.

“I saw him and that girl come inside. What did they say to you?”

“Nothing.”

Kendall stares me down. “ Nothing would not have made you cry.”

I hang my head. “Just forget it, okay? It’s over.” It’s so over. I don’t know what I was thinking. That’s just it—at some point I stopped thinking. I wasn’t strategizing. I wasn’t justifying. I was just responding to the situation. And it felt right. Except Micah came here with another girl. And now he’s probably leaving with her.

“No. Screw that.” Kendall is up and heading back inside the club. Good. I want her to go dance or something. Leave me alone. I want everyone to leave me alone.

Too late, I realize what her plan is.

“Kendall, wait.”

I leap from my seat and clatter after her in my platforms, stopping just long enough to pick up my crumpled cup and toss it in the trash can outside the door. Inside, Amber and Micah are standing against the far wall. It looks like they’re arguing, but the music is too loud for me to hear what they’re saying.

Kendall is cruising across the dance floor, a skinny blonde missile, a tornado bent on destruction.

“Stop.” She’s not listening. I hurry after her, half limping, wishing for once I had worn more sensible shoes.

Amber wipes at her eyes, and Micah enfolds her in a hug. I die a little inside. I try to stop staring, but can’t. I’m slowly losing control. I have been all night, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything right this second.

Except Micah.

And the way he’s got his hand on Amber’s lower back as they head toward the exit.

Kendall reaches the two of them before they can escape out into the parking lot. Her hand clamps down on Micah’s shoulder. I can only watch in horror as he spins around, a confused look on his face. She starts screaming. The music is too loud to hear what she’s saying, but from the way she’s tossing her head and waving her arms around it’s not too hard to fill in the blanks. Amber’s mouth falls open in shock.

For a moment, I consider sneaking past all three of them and out into the night. But no, I’m the cause of this scene, and even if Micah might have earned a little of Kendall’s wrath, Amber doesn’t deserve to be sliced and diced with her razor-sharp tongue.

I reach Kendall’s side and tug on her arm. “Come on. Let it go, please.” At least the club is dark. Hopefully Micah and Amber can’t tell I’ve been crying.

Kendall glances over her shoulder and then pulls free of my arm. “I will not let it go. No friend of mine is going to get treated like shit by anyone, let alone some loser thug.” She turns back to Micah. “She liked you, you asshole, and you made her cry.”

I have no idea what Micah’s response to this is, because I can’t bring myself to look at him. I will probably never be able to look at him ever again. I wish I had walked on by like I first considered. Better than that, I wish the pulsing lights were lasers that would vaporize me.