Stay With Him Tonight

JASON P.O.V.

“Jason, man, I heard the news. Congrats. The hottest girl in school is yours again!” Dalton whispered to me. I looked at him sharply.

“Back the fuck off.” I replied angrily.

“Jason!” the teacher exclaimed. She couldn’t be surprised at this point. It was a known fact that I was difficult to deal with recently. She pointed to the door. It was routine now. The teacher was one that believed in time-outs. I walked out of the room and closed the door, and instead of sticking around I decided it was a good time to go to the bathroom.

The only reason my grades hadn’t fallen into the failing category was because I still did the work. I read the text, I just didn’t have patience for class. The only reason I still did the work was because football and sports. It was the only part of the day—the sports—that I was allowed to let it all out. It had been difficult for the past six weeks because of my injury, but I had gotten back on the field as soon as possible. I could almost pretend I was completely healed.

I walked down the halls and saw a familiar figure. It was Allie of course, and she hadn’t seen me. I watched her make her way slowly down the hall. At one point she stopped and looked out the window towards the gym building, and I wondered what she was thinking about. She continued. I was stuck there, just watching her. I was partially hidden behind a corner in the hallway, and I was waiting until she was gone to go to the bathroom.

I didn’t know what I had ever seen in her; to think that I had once been ready to make her my girlfriend. I didn’t have girlfriends. I had “been there, done that,” and found out it was just a shitty excuse for a girl to get her claws in you and toy with you like a rag doll. Allie was short. She had a deceptively “sweet” face and blond hair. Her eyes were bright, light green. It was almost surreal sometimes, being looked at by her. She was just a weird girl to be around. That was the only reason I had temporarily lost my sanity.

To my surprise, she turned into the nurse’s office at the end of the hallway. I didn’t know why that was important anyway. I sneered at the door she disappeared into and walked into the bathroom.

*

I was pissed. All day people had been talking about Ging Tracy and I, and I was about to throw myself out of the nearest window. Every person who had tried to congratulate or talk to me about it had been rebuffed angrily. It was only fourth period. The constant flow of people trying to converse with me had finally eased, probably due to the fact that word had spread about my enthusiasm to talk about it. The teacher was talking about our next essay due two days from then, and I had never even heard of it. I made a mental note to do it the night before. I rarely forgot about these mental notes, which was the only valid explanation on how I kept up with everything.

I spend the class glaring at anyone who looked my way and quickly summarizing the main points I was going to bring up in the stupid essay. There was nothing else to do. My music blared in my ears, but the teacher was ignorant. The other students accepted it—it was normal. At long last the bell rung and I was allowed to leave the class. My mood was on its way to improving when someone stopped me in the hall.

“What’s this with you and Ginger?” my brother, Ryan, asked me. I nearly punched him. Ryan was just a couple minutes younger than me, but we were almost total opposites. We both had dark brown hair, but that was where it stopped. His was cropped short to his head, mine was normal length and had a weird-as-fuck curl thing going on. I thought it was annoying, but more than one girl had commented on it in a positive way. I had been laid purely for my hair before (not that I was complaining). Ry had dark green eyes like our mom, where I had hazel like our dad. He was slightly shorter, but also a little more muscled. We got along well—usually. Looked like today wasn’t going to be one of those days where we got along.

“Ry, you’re my brother. But if you don’t shut the fuck up about something you know nothing about, I will not hesitate to hit you.” He didn’t look shocked in the least. More and more frequently, these were our conversations; him trying to help, me pushing him away and threatening to fight. He took it all in stride, and let all but the important stuff go. Apparently this was important, because he didn’t drop it.

“I know how it’s been with . . . everything, but you can’t act like this Jase. You’re being ridiculous. Grow up. Now tonight, we are going to have a real conversation. I’ll help you through whatever is going on. You will tell me something, because I’m your brother and I deserve to know. Fine, punch me if you want,” he said when my fist twitched. The only thing stopping me is that I knew he really did care about me, even if I was being a complete dickhead (like I knew I was). “We’re still going to have this talk.”

“Fuck you,” I said. He walked away like it was nothing, disappearing into the halls. I groaned in frustration and stalked off in the other direction, towards the back doors. Everybody moved out of my way as I walked by, and I liked it that way. They should move. The look of murder on my face must have kept people away.

I slammed open the back doors, entering the deserted rear parking lot. I walked instinctively to my car, dodging past the others. I never parked in the front because I often skipped or came out during breaks. I thought, somewhat grimly amused, how my bad reputation would be ruined if someone found out I had a B average. There were even two As.

I made it to my car and took out my phone before getting in. Can you get out? I asked. The reply came seconds later.

SureI sighed and reversed out of my spot. The parking lot watcher let me out with no trouble at all, and I began going west towards the center of town (above the speed limit). I left my window cracked, not caring about the wind. It cooled me down. It was October, and getting colder every day. We had had frost overnight, but so far only slush-snow, which melted quickly. We were expecting rain soon, and I hoped for my six year old brother’s sake it didn’t rain on Halloween.

I could feel myself relaxing between the cold air and being in my own car and people not constantly mauling me for information. I pulled into the circle K near the other high school and put my window up. I blasted the air and texted her to tell her I was there.

A minute went by and a figure came out holding a cup of gas station coffee. I watched as she approached and got in my car. She huffed, got comfortable, and looked over at me.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Cher greeted. I raised an eyebrow. Cher had a quirky, quick sense of humor. It was one of the things I liked best about her. I could tell she thought of something when she got a grin on her face. Abruptly she became serious and turned towards me. She put her hands together in a way that reminded me of the old dude in The Simpsons.

“So what would you like to talk about today?” she asked in a deeper voice. She was a short girl, only 5’3” at most, with black hair in some type of short, poufy style. It looked great on her. The deeper voice was creepy coming from her.

I looked at her like she was insane. I was halfway amused. She was acting like a psychiatrist.

“Ah,” she continued like I had spoken back. “And how do you feel about that?” I looked at her blankly.

“Man you’re in a bad mood!” she exclaimed. “That thing was inspired by Freaky Friday, by the way.” My mood soured.

“Why do girls watch so many movies? Don’t you have lives?” I grumbled.

“Harsh. That was a mean thing to say!” she frowned at me. “But really, what’s up? You don’t just call a girl out of school for nothing. I had to sneak out of class and leave my bag. Good thing I had money to get a coffee!” She held it up proudly.

“Can I have some of that?” I asked. She held it away from me, smirking.

“It’s mine. You can’t have it. You need to apologize first.” I rolled my eyes, a habit I was trying to break. I never had it before, but picked it up during the brief period I lost my brain and hung out with Allie. I was trying to break it because every time it happened I thought of her. And I wanted to avoid thinking of her as long as possible.

“You always have coffee, Cher.” She sighed and handed it over. She started toying with the radio.

“Only because when I’m with you I need my caffeine,” she muttered. I almost spit out the coffee on a laugh. She looked at me and I smirked.

“You need your caffeine, huh? What for?” my smirk grew at her expression. She wrinkled her nose and looked slightly embarrassed.

“God, you perv. Not like that.” She took her coffee back and glared when I continued to make fun of her choice of words. I could see a grin form on her lips, but she pretended to still be offended.

“Stop that! Not everyone thinks like you do,” she laughed. “You’re so perverted,”

“Not usually,” I defended. “But when someone says something like that . . .” she hit my arm. I was in a much better mood than when I had left school.

“You might want to hurry up and drink that. You’re going to need your caffeine,” I advised.

“Jason Something-or-other.” She said.

“Luce,” I supplied.

“Jason Something-or-other.” She leaned in close. “Are you trying to get in my pants?” I copied her movement, leaning towards her in a pseudo-serious atmosphere.

“Cher Something-or-other.” I copied her words.

“Hayworth,” she mimicked my earlier response.

“Cher Something-or other. I am absolutely trying to get in your pants.” We were able to keep a serious face for about ten seconds before I cracked a smirk the same time she did. I put the car in drive.

“You know, you have a really serious face,” Cher commented. I scoffed. “No, you do,” she insisted.

“So?”

“So you’re good at poker. You could be dressed in a Playboy bunny outfit and still be stoic! Man, I would love to see that.” She mumbled the last part to herself, but I still caught it.

“I’d have to be stone-cold dead before I wore something like that. However,” I continued in an amused voice, “I wouldn’t object to seeing someone else in a playboy bunny outfit.” I might’ve deserved the punch she immediately delivered to my arm. I didn’t complain about it, although I could’ve claimed abuse—whatever she hit like, Ryan was much harder. Along with other people I knew. What is it with girls and hitting? Are there no meek girls anymore? First Allie, who looked like she was once a Gerber baby, and now Cher, who looked like she wouldn’t be able to take on a kid of twelve.

“ Aw, you didn’t even flinch. Maybe I should hit you harder . . .” she mused. She poked my face to get me to smile; I did so giving her an odd look.

“What?” she asked defensively. I shook my head and she spent the next five minutes of the drive trying to learn why I was so amused.

*

The room was in semi darkness, the only light coming from the curtained window in the main space. This was not unusual. In fact, it had been like that every time we had been here. It was the main room of the house we went to for most of our “dates.” We never spent long in it. I could make out shapes, like a doorway (into a kitchen, I thought), a picture frame hanging near the hall, and a shelf with trophies on it. They might’ve been golf or baseball or even hockey—I only saw a shape looking like a stick of some type.

“What are you looking at?” Cher asked. She kissed me again, and the trophies were forgotten. We made our way into the first bedroom on the left. It was kid-sized room although it had a moderately large bed, like a full-sized. There were faint blurs of light where I had nearly memorized the pattern of faint glow-in-the-dark stars around the room. The floor was clean and we made our way across with no troubles, clothes raining down behind us. We were both naked from the waist up when we made it to the bed. We weren’t in any hurry.

Being that it was the middle of the day, some light was breaking through the curtains in the window.

“Do you have one?” she asked. I nodded and sat up, reaching into my back pocket for my wallet. I happened to look over at Cher as I was searching for the familiar item when I had an odd feeling. It wasn’t Cher herself, but I felt like there was something different about this situation. She was lying down, watching me. I didn’t care about this. It was the fact that she looked slightly different. Everything was the same, except . . . I struggled to find what it was.

“What?” she asked, leaning up to rest on her elbow. She was completely unabashed by her half-nakedness. She blinked at me. I noticed her eyes were very light. This effect was probably only the light shining dimly through the window next to her, but the sight unsettled me. Her eyes were usually a very dark blue, like navy or something. Now they looked clear and almost transparent. I bit my lip.

“Cher, I need to leave,” I told her. She looked shocked.

“Why?”

“I have somewhere to be.” So it was a lie. I hoped Cher wouldn’t call me on it.

“Bullshit, Jason, and you know it.” she of course called on me immediately. “Do you have a girlfriend now or something?—because if you do, I will totally kick your ass for this. Now usually I don’t think you would cheat, so maybe you’re having an attack of guilt or something. Or maybe it’s not that. Well, what is it then?” I followed her out-of-the-box train of conversation, but didn’t say anything. She pouted for a second and then crawled over to where I was on the edge of the bed.

The thing about Cher is she usually does the most random and unexpected of things. This was one of those times. She put her hands on the sides of my head and moved it back and forth. I raised an eyebrow at her and she frowned. She pushed at my cheeks before I moved back, unsure.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked skeptically.

“Just checking to make sure this thing isn’t detachable.” She shrugged and poked my cheeks instead.

“My head? No, it’s not detachable.”

“Darn. It would explain a lot.” She stared at me. Now her eyes weren’t clear and light, but I still didn’t feel like continuing. “Is your sex drive in peril?” she asked.

“How do you come up with stuff like that? No, my mojo is perfectly fine. I just can’t do this right now.”

“Okay,” she said at last. She didn’t believe me one bit, but I didn’t want to lie to her again, and I could tell she didn’t want me to. This relationship only worked because we didn’t need to lie to each other. If we lied and did all that shit it would be no different than a normal relationship.

“Cher? It’s because you just reminded me of something. That’s all. Let me go release from stress, and we’ll continue this. Tonight, if you want.” I offered. She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, you’re so gracious. Sure, tonight. This house will be empty for another few days.” I nodded. I had a feeling this was her dad’s or uncle’s house—some male relative of hers. The decorations weren’t feminine in the least, aside from this room with pink walls.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?” I asked.

“School is fine. Lunch hour should be about done. Might as well go if I’m not doing anything the rest of the day.” She began putting on her clothes. I sighed, wondering what the hell was wrong with me and why I had bothered stopping things with Cher.