Full Court Press (46 page)

“I
don’t understand,” Carmondy said, really confused as she sat in the vice-principal’s office.

“Mr. Nicholson has requested someone else to act as his scribe for his first period accounting class.”

“Why?” She hadn’t spoken to Beck since the day before when he had been acting weird.

“He doesn’t need a reason, Ms. Hamilton. He is allowed to choose at his discretion as long as the person he chooses signs the correct paperwork, as you did.”

“So he didn’t say why?”

“No.”

Carmondy shook her head. It just didn’t make sense. “Okay...well, I guess I don’t really have a say in the matter, do I?”

“No, I’m sorry. Like I said, it’s all up to Mr. Nicholson.”

“Who did he replace me with?”

He glanced down at a sheet of paper in Beck’s open file. “Stephanie Blackler.”

She’d never heard of her. “What am I going to do then?”

“Well, we obviously can’t put you back into Algebra this late in the course, so I’m assigning you as a teacher’s assistant for first period. You’ll work with Mrs. Addler’s health class. You’ll report there for first period for the rest of the school year.”

Carmondy just nodded, still completely at a loss as to why Beck would do that. She just wanted to get out of this office so she could talk to him.

“All right, I’ll have the registrar take care of your scheduling changes. You’re free to go.”

She got out of there as fast as she could and headed down the hall toward her locker, searching for Beck.

A few minutes later, she found him standing alone near his locker, looking bored. He didn’t look like the Beck she had grown to know over the past couple of weeks. He looked like the Beck she seen on her first day of school: cold, detached and isolated.

“Beck,” she snapped as she approached him.

He looked up, his eyes dead.

“What is going on?”

He looked bored. “What are you talking about?”

“You canceled me as your scribe.”

He gave an annoyed sigh. “Look. I don’t think this is going to work.”

“What?”

“This...whatever we had. I’m not interested anymore.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. The scribe thing or the...everything?”

“The everything. I thought it would be okay but...I’m bored now. It’s over.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. “I thought everything was going well.”

“Your mistake.” He turned to go to class.

“Beck!” She grabbed his arm.

He rounded on her, yanking his arm out of her grasp. “Face it. You don’t satisfy me anymore. And since sex was all that there was to our relationship, it’s over. I don’t need you doing my homework and don’t want you in my bed, or anywhere else for that matter.”

Car was totally dumbstruck. How the heck did things turn around this fast? Everything had been great and then all of a sudden...
this
. The last time she’d seen him, they’d had the most incredible sex they’d had yet and then shared that moment of tenderness, and now he wanted to end it?

“You’re scared,” she said softly, suddenly knowing that was true. “You were letting me in and that scared the hell out of you.” She tried to reach out and grab his hand but he jerked it away. “It’s ok, Beck. I promise. Let’s just work through this.”

“No!” he said, taking a step back. “This is all getting too heavy. You’re trying to make me say I care about you, but I don’t. I thought we had an understanding. I thought you knew that I don’t want any of that emotional shit.”

Beck spun around and this time Carmondy didn’t try to stop him.

She proceeded numbly to her new first period class, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Carmondy filled Kendall in on the situation before their PE class. “I don’t understand it.”

“What happened between you two yesterday? You seemed fine when I walked in.”

“We were. We had really amazing sex but when he was leaving, he was suddenly all weird. Today, he’s like his old self.”

“I hope it wasn’t because I walked in.”

“I doubt it. He didn’t seem fazed by that at all.” She shook her head. “No, something’s up and we both know there is no way Beck is going to talk about it. He doesn’t talk about anything regarding his feelings.”

“Maybe he’ll...I don’t know, get over it in a day or so,” Kendall suggested.

“I don’t know. He seemed pretty adamant.”

“I don’t know what to tell you then. Other than guys are dumb-shits.”

This made Car smile just a little. “I’m gonna go see if Andy knows anything.”

After class, she tracked Andy down in the hallway by their lockers.

“Hey.” Car smiled at Andy, who was leaning against the wall, looking a little down.

He looked up and gave her a smile back. “Hey, gorgeous.”

She gave him a tight hug because he looked like he needed it, and honestly, she did too. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you know what’s going on with Beck?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

Carmondy relayed the story, and Andy just looked puzzled.

“Wow, no. I had no idea. He said that?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. He was serious though.”

“And he doesn’t want you as his scribe anymore?”

“Nope.”

Anderson shook his head, exasperated. “You know, he doesn’t look like it, but that boy has some of the most extreme moods swings I’ve ever seen. He’s like a child, I swear.”

“Yeah well...” She looked down and fiddled with her shirt hem. “It still hurts. He said that I didn’t satisfy him.”

“What?”

Car nodded, feeling tears coming on, which was ridiculous. She had promised herself she would never cry over a boy again, but this wasn’t like he had just broken up with her—he had said something he knew she was insecure about, something that would hit her where it hurt.

“Damn it,” Anderson snapped, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry he’s such an asshole. He’s my best friend but he knows how to hurt people when he wants to.”

She nodded and pulled away. If he held her any longer, she was going to fall apart. “I don’t understand why he wants to, though. I thought everything was going great. I mean we talked about his sister and everything. We—” She stopped herself. Andy didn’t need to know the details.

“What is it?”

She sighed. “We had really amazing sex. He was so sweet and everything seemed fine but when he left, he was definitely a little off.”

“I’ll see what I can find out. Let’s go,” He grabbed her hand and led her into the gym.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same for Carmondy. So was Wednesday. She continued to go alone to her first period. Beck distanced himself in PE and during History, they didn’t speak.

She was still confused as hell but had given up wondering why. Beck was going to do what he was going to do, even if it didn’t make sense.

Yeah, it hurt. He had said stuff to hurt her on purpose, which meant he was serious. He didn’t want anything to do with her anymore and she was just going to have to deal with it.

She tried to let it go, let him go. She needed to focus on the rest of her life. She needed to focus on basketball, especially today. It was game day.

It was going to take time to get over Beck Nicholson.

By the time Friday rolled around, Carmondy was tired. She hadn’t really slept at all. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was pale. The sweats and old T-shirt she was wearing didn’t do much for her looks either, but she didn’t care.

Kendall took one look at her and sighed. She slid her arm around her shoulders and directed her toward the locker room. “Come on, girl. Let’s get you cleaned up a bit.”

Carmondy just nodded.

Kendall pulled her hair out of the messy ponytail and combed it out with her fingers. “Well, it was kind of expected. You never really had a breakdown.”

“Is that a requirement?”

“For hormone-crazed teenagers? Yes, it is.” Kendall continued working on her hair. “I mean, you can’t deny that you and Beck had a connection, right?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I guess we did.”

“And a lot of trust was built. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“And then he just turns around and crushes it all without warning or anything. That’s a tough thing. You started to think he was nice but then he goes all asshole again. I’m telling you, Car, he’s not worth it.”

Carmondy stayed silent. She still didn’t know what to think.

Kendall put her damp hair back up into a cleaner ponytail. “Well, either way, we need to head to class.”

“Yeah.” Car could hear the sad tone in her own voice.

“Just...try to think about something else to get your mind off it.”

That afternoon, Carmondy left practice hoping Kendall wanted to hang out or something, but she caught a glimpse of her in the passenger seat of Andy’s car as it was leaving the parking lot.

She didn’t want to go back to her apartment. She was tired of being alone, but she didn’t really want to put any effort into being social.

She drove home. She hadn’t been home in a while and it would give her some time to think.

The two-hour drive, which was supposed to help her clear her head, was torture. All she could think about was Beck and how none of it made any sense.

Once she arrived, she found the house vacant. It was weird being in the house all alone. Now she wished she’d stayed at the apartment.

She was miserable. The house was cold, like no one had been in it for days. Upon checking the messages, she found that both her parents had left a few days ago without telling each other. One message was from her mother to her father explaining the function in Spokane that she was going to help with. The other message was from her father to her mother about the conference in Portland that was going to run longer than expected.

Great.

She went up to her room anyway, which was nearly bare since most of her stuff was in town. She lay down in her cold, unfamiliar bed and wished she knew what she’d done to ruin her relationship with Beck.

Carmondy went to the shoot-around on Sunday. She hadn’t talked to Beck all week. He hadn’t looked at her, much less spoken to her in the five days since he’d broken up with her, but if he didn’t want her back, that was fine with her. She was over him and moving on with her life.

Sure, she was a little lonely but that was just because she had gotten so used to being around him all the time. She was just going to have to get used to having more time to herself. But today, Carmondy had a bone to pick with him.

Today was Sunday, the day Beck visited his sister. They had told Lily both of them would be coming. Carmondy had a feeling that if Beck showed up alone, it wasn’t going to go well.

She found him just as he was leaving the locker room. When he saw her, he turned and walked down the hallway toward the opposite entrance of the gym.

“Beck!”

He stopped and she saw him take a deep breath before turning to face her. “What?”

She clenched her teeth. He was being an asshole. “You visit your sister on Sundays.”

“Yes. I do.”

“We told her we would both be there this week.”

“Wow, are you really that desperate to have me back? Trying to use my sister as leverage?”

She shook her head. “No, Beck. No. You know damn well that I care about your sister and that this has nothing to do with you. I’ve got some news for you. I’ve gotten over you. I don’t want you back.”

“Good. Then leave me and my sister alone.” He turned to go.

“Beck, damn it. You know that you are walking into dangerous territory. This isn’t about us. Think about your sister.”

He turned back around and pinned her with a glare. “Don’t think for one second that you know my sister better than I do. You’ve visited her once! I have been taking care of her for half of my damn life!”

“I know that.” She tried to stay calm. “But I think that if you really thought about it, you would realize that it could really upset her if I don’t show up.”

“You’re never going near my sister again. Deal with it.” He turned and walked into the gym without another word. She watched him go, furious and hurting. He must really hate her if he was willing to risk Lily’s fragile calm just so that he didn’t have to spend time with her.

After practice, she thought about just going home, but something told her she needed to go to the hospital. She’d just go and watch from the observation room. If Lily was all right, she’d leave, but something told her Lily wasn’t going to be all right.

A
s Carmondy had expected, Lily threw a fit when Beck arrived without her. Lily was screaming about the schedule and two visitors, sobbing about having wanted to talk to Carmondy about the book, telling Beck that she hated him and that she knew he’d kept Carmondy away just to hurt her.

Beck looked completely devastated. Despite all her anger at him, Carmondy hated to see him like this. He tried so hard to be a good brother to Lily. She was the only one he let himself love, and she gave him absolutely nothing in return. No wonder he was so cautious with his heart.