Waiting on the Sidelines (Waiting on the Sidelines #1)(37)

We’re done. We were done a long time ago, but this really nailed it. I failed you, and I’m sorry. Dating Tatum is exactly the kind of thing my brother would do. I’m the one who should be embarrassed, not you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.



I wanted to keep this going. I wanted to confess how I felt about him. But I knew that wasn’t right. So I resorted to simple things.



Hey, you were there. You gave me a sweatshirt. That saved my ass! :-)



A few minutes later my phone buzzed again.



Ha! It was seriously cold. Tatum really knows how to be mean. Do you still have the shirt?



Honesty.



I’m sleeping with it.



And now I’m suffocating from a panic attack. That was too honest, too honest. How do I take that back? My phone buzzed.



Good. Sleep tight.



I didn’t send anything after that. I wanted to end on a high note. Somehow after my nightmares I came out into my wildest dreams. I knew he was just being nice to make me feel better after my ordeal, but it was enough for tonight. I drifted off and slept the night straight through, not waking up until noon on Saturday. I felt refreshed and my bruise was barely showing. I was pretty sure I’d be able to hide it from my parents and avoid any more uncomfortable conversations for the rest of the weekend.





13. Lucky


The last few weeks of school passed without much incident, despite Tatum’s best effort. She posted a few nasty things on Facebook about me and Sean, but she hadn’t counted on Sean being such a stand-up guy. He would spam her postings with comment after comment about what a liar she was.

And despite my crushing of his heart, Sean and I started to hit a nice friendship groove much quicker than I could have hoped for. I think it helped that Becky had a bit of crush on him and he wasn’t so opposed to her either.

Our little group was quickly expanding—most Friday and Saturday nights, Sienna, Sarah, Becky, Sean, Reed and I all piled into Sean’s truck and headed into town for real shopping malls, movies and restaurants. Reed and I were also back to our old selves. We spent most nights before bed texting. Sometimes he would try to quiz me on stupid sports references, and I would amaze him with my brilliance (albeit, not admitting that I was Googling most of the answers). We’d recommend songs to each other and watch stupid videos on YouTube. Everything felt natural, and safe. Only once did our conversation turn to Tatum. Reed still felt guilty, and he seemed to feel like it was his responsibility to make up for her wrongs against me. I wouldn’t let him go there, though. If there was one thing I was determined about, it was that if I was ever going to receive kindness, of any kind, from Reed, it would be because he wanted to give it to me…not because he wanted to make up for his nasty ex-girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. That made me smile.



Summer hit and I was determined to get a job. My parents didn’t really want me to take one on this young; I had just turned 16 before school let out. But I also wanted some independence. I wanted to be able to put gas in the car, and maybe, just maybe, pick up an old clunker that was a step up from the Oldsmobile. (Not that I wasn’t thrilled when my parents had officially given it to me at my 16th birthday party, but still.) I was a pretty straight-laced teenager, and I’ve never really given them a reason to doubt my responsibilities, so the last time we sat down at dinner to talk about my employment they relented.

My dad got me an interview with the big aquatics center in Chandler, the first main town north of Coolidge. It was a cashier job, but I had hoped that I could train and test for lifeguard before the summer was over; the lifeguards made $13 an hour.

Not thrilled with the idea of me driving by myself 30-45 minutes through the desert, my dad’s original plan was that he would time his deliveries and drop me off and pick me up on his way in and out of town. But that just wasn’t realistic. He wouldn’t even be able to take me to the interview.

Luckily, my mom was a pretty strong woman and reminded him that Mike had been driving himself at that age, and he went a lot farther than 30 minutes away. Plus, Mike was still just a phone call away if I ever had an emergency while they were at work. My newly minted driver’s license was dying to be used when my dad finally gave in. Of course, just to make sure I wouldn’t speed and would be well surrounded by mass of automobile, I’d be driving the Olds.

I set out early for my interview on the Monday after school let out. My interview with the pool manager was at 11 a.m., but I gave myself a little more than an hour just to be safe. My dad gave the car a once-over before he left that morning and gave me one final lecture about safety on the road, proper signaling and the appropriate breaking distance. I mused to myself about how worried my dad was about me as I rolled down our rocked driveway and made my way to the highway. If he was really that worried, you’d think he would have sent me in the pickup he bought off of Sienna’s dad last month instead of the Oldsmobile, I thought, coming to terms with the realization that the Oldsmobile would be…is now… mine.

By the time I was a full 20 miles out of town I started to get excited. This was the farthest I had ever been alone, on my own. It felt…amazing. I turned the radio up and rolled down my window to let the warm sunshine-baked air touch my cheek and arm. The small hills on either side of me were speckled with cactus and desert brush, green from the recent rains. The blacktop had recently been paved on this stretch of the roadway and the jet black looked cool against the dusty brown of the surrounding landscape.