Authors: Monica Alexander
I didn’t say anything in response, because hones
tly I was a little dumbstruck.
I just let her continue.
“He as
ked me about stuff,” she said, “l
ike he was really interested
in my life
.”
“Like
what?”
I couldn’t fathom what
Chase would want to ask Keely.
They had
less
in common
than he and I did
.
“I don’
t know, like who I was dating.
When I told him
I was sort of seeing three guys
, he acted all big brother
l
y, telling me that I should let him know if any of them don’t treat me right. It’s was honestly kind of cool.”
My jaw dropped.
Chase had
never done that for me – ever.
I don’t think he even knew Ben’s name
for the first six mont
hs we’d been dating.
Chase tended not to care about
anyone but himself.
Why he was suddenly being protective
of
Keely was beyond me.
“That’s so not Chase,” I said, shaking my head
in disbelief.
“I don’t know,
maybe it
is
him
.
You don’t even know him anymore.
He’s grown up a lot.
I think you need to give him a chance to show you who he really is.
He was nice
to me, because I don’t judge him
,
and I was nice to him
.
”
I suddenly felt a pang of jealousy that I couldn’t defi
ne. I didn’t like my brother.
Why was I all of a sudden feeling bad that he wanted to hang out with Keely and not me?
It wasn’t like I had any desire to sit on the back porch and talk to him about what he did with his idiot friends
while he got high
.
“I guess,” I said, going for aloof.
I couldn’t le
t her know I was borderline
upset
.
“Did you hang out with him for a while?”
“Um, sure,” she said vaguely, and
I realized she wasn’t telling me everythin
g.
She was holding back
, and
I suddenly figur
ed out why
.
“You smoked with him
!” I accused,
pointing my finger
and
catching her off-
guard so much
so
that her head snappe
d up. Her eyes gave her away.
I knew in an instant that she’d gotten hig
h with Chase.
“Keely!”
“What?!” she said, sounding both defensive and a little hurt at the same time.
“What do you mean, what?!
You
said you would never do that!
You’re too good to become lik
e Chase and his loser friends.
What were you thinking?”
Keely looked down again.
“I’m sorry, Em
ily
, but I w
anted to see what it was like.
Plus
he was being nice to me,
” she mumbled.
“I told him
I
couldn’t sleep, so he offered.
I didn’t want him to think I was a baby
, so I took a few hits. It was sort of fun.
I was really relaxed and calm.
”
“You
took a few hits! It was fun! Unbelievable,” I hissed
, trying to keep my voice down, so
our parents wouldn’t hear.
As much as I disliked Chase, I didn’t want him, or Keely, to get in trouble
.
As if on cue,
Chase, baked to a crisp,
chose that moment to appear in the kitchen
.
His eyes
were
heavy and a lazy smile
played
on his lips
. It
soon turned to a look of amused confus
ion when he saw me looking up at
Keely
, since she had a good four inches on me
,
hands on my hips.
He could tell we’d been arguing.
“T
old you she’d freak out,” he said to
her
, in that slow way he talked whenever he was
freshly
high
, a lazy
smirk creeping onto his face
.
He knew instant
ly what we were talking about.
Hell, he could have
heard
our whole exchange.
Keely shot him a look
,
pleading
for
him to shut up.
“It’s cool, Keels,” he said, chuckling to himself as Keely shrunk
back against the
wall
.
Chase
walked past us to
the refrigerator,
grabbed
a two-liter of Coke and
took
a big swig right from the bottle before putting it back.
I reached over
and smacked him
on the back of the
head
just as he set the bottle down
, sending him lurching forward slightly, as his reac
tion time was slowed
just a bit
.
“What the fuck, Emily?” he said, slowly turning to face me.
I glared at him, and c
rossed my
a
rms in front of me. “She’s
seventeen,
dumbass, that’s what.
Besides, that Coke does not belon
g to just you. Use a glass.
That’s gross.
”
Chase smirked,
grabbed
the bottle and took another drink just to spite me.
Keely’s head snapped up at that moment
, an almost delayed reaction as she processed what I’d said about her
.
“Hey,” she said, causing us both to turn in her direction, but she was looking
at me. “I’m not a baby. I can make my own decisions.
Last night, I decided to smoke
weed
with my brother.
Big deal, it’s not like I
killed someone.
Quit being so self-righteous!”
With that, she turned and stormed out of the
room.
My jaw dropped slightly, as Keely rarely yelled a
nd especially not at me
.
Chase
recognized this fact and stared at me in mo
ck interest before he shook his head and started to leave
the room
.
God, he made me so mad s
ometimes.
“Chase,” I said
curtly
, a
s he reached doorway to the kitchen
.
“Yeah,
” he said, lazily turning around
, not
at all
fazed by my tone
.
“Why?” I asked simply.
“Because it’s real
ly not that big of a deal, Em. You should try it sometime. You’ll see.
Hell, it might even make you less rigid.”
I narro
wed my eyes and glared at him
, his words
eating at me
.
I was not
rigid.
“No thanks.
I’m good,” I said
firmly
, standing my ground.
“Y
ou
don’t know what you’re missing.” H
e turned away from m
e
, then
stopped, turned his head slightly and said,
“She’s not a dumb kid anymore.
You might want to give her some credit.”
With
that, he headed back
upstairs
.
Within a few minutes,
I could hear
his music
pulsing through the ceiling
.
Standing there in the kitchen, I realized
I was beyond fuming.
I was furious at Keely
for being so stu
pid, and
I hated that she was mad at me
.
If only she realized wha
t a big deal smoking weed
was.
I didn
’t
need
her following suit on Chase’s bad habits.
I should have been more
upset with Chase for our interaction, but with him,
well, that was a par for t
he course conversation
.
He was a jerk, and I
’d
challenged him blow for blow.
I wasn’t sure
we’d had a conversation that didn’t involve digs, glares
,
and smir
ks since we were in middle school
.
S
adly enough t
hat was as good a
s it
got with me and my brother.
“Babe,” Ben said, taking my h
and.
“I really want to see
it, and so does everyone else.
Come on.”
I was being stubborn
, b
ecause Ben was being annoying.
Ever since he
’d
picked me u
p, I’d been irritated with him.
There wasn’t one specific thing he’d do
ne that was bothering me. It was
just being in close proximity to him
that was aggravating.
He kept trying
to hold my hand and touch me, and
I just wanted to be left alone
.
W
e were standing out
s
ide the Movietown 8 Theater
with Rachel and
Ben’s best friend
,
Eric,
trying to decide on a movie.
Rachel
and I had talked about seeing a new romantic comedy, but o
nce Ben and
Eric
had seen that
Don’t Close Your Eyes
had opened that day, they h
ad decided they had to see it.
Rachel
said she was in,
which left me as the odd man out
.
Ben wouldn’t see the movie without m
e, but he was dying to see it. I knew that.
He
was a huge horror movie fanatic. He never got scared. I, on the other hand, was
a huge chicken, and afraid of the dark, so the last movie I wanted to see was one about bad
things happening in the dark whe
re I would
inevitably
be
in just a few hours.
Ben squeezed my hand
and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I promise I’ll
hold your hand the whole time.
I’ll
be right next to you
. I won’t let you get scared.”
He stood back up and looked down at me, smiling slightly.
Okay, so this was wh
y I hadn’t broken up with him.
He was really sweet at times – even when
I was being a total brat
, which
h
ad been a regular
occurrence
since we’d been home for the summer
.
His gesture was enough for me to forget ab
out how annoying he was being.
I couldn’t be mad at him when I needed him to hold my hand.
“Ok
ay, fine,” I said, begrudgingly
cracking a small smile as I turned to face my friends.
I watched B
en’s mouth
break
into a wide grin.
“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist into the air.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I s
aid, holding his hand tighter.
“No letting go, okay?”
“Never,” he said, as he leaned down and kissed me.
Suffice it to say, I s
creamed
out loud three times.
The rest of the time, I had my hand over my eye
s or my head buried in Ben’s shoulder
.
When we got back to my house, I made him come upstairs with me, as I was
afraid of everything around us.
I
definitely
could not be alone until I calmed down and distracted myself.