The Accidentals(73)

My throat is tight. Congratulations are probably expected of me. “So…I guess you’re staying in Claiborne, then.”

“That’s the plan. Is that okay with you?”

Does it really matter what I think? “Sure.” I almost choke on the word. “Sorry, I’ve got to run.” I grab my backpack. Thank God for Spanish class. I can’t wait to get out of there. “Did you tell Grandma Alice?”

“No.” He’s quiet. “I will. Soon.”

He catches my hand as I pass him. “Good work today.” He taps the guitar.

“Thanks,” I say, breaking for the door. “See you next week.” I run up Maple Street, toward school, taking gulps of the cool March air.





That night I knock on Jake’s door, feeling low.

He opens up, wearing jeans and a look of surprise, but nothing else. “Hi,” he says. “Come in?”

Once inside, I have to work hard to keep my eyes from lingering on all the bare skin of his chest. I glance around his space. “Sal and Arin actually left the room?”

“I know, right?” He cups the back of my neck, one thumb stroking my shoulder. “How was your guitar lesson?”

I’d come upstairs intending to tell him, in excruciating detail, about Frederick’s awful announcement. But that’s not what happens. Instead, I move quickly, pasting myself to Jake as tightly as a bumper sticker. Then I kiss him. Hard.

Jake makes a noise of surprise, which sounds something like “armf.”

But he recovers speedily, taking the kiss deeper, then steering me down onto his bed. All his velvety skin draws me in. I close my eyes and let my fingers enjoy the solid warmth of him. I love the way we fit together, wrapped around one another, legs entwined. We kiss as though planet Earth has only a few precious minutes left, and we’re trying to make the best of them.

Under my hands, Jake’s heart beats quickly. His body is warm and tight, his mouth worshipful. I pull him even closer, extinguishing all the empty space between us. He gives a low, happy growl that lights me up, shoving aside all the ragged worries of the day.

Everything is great until he rolls on top of me, his body fitted against mine like a jigsaw puzzle piece. That’s when the little frightened voice in my head says: now what?

My breathing stutters. I try to ignore my fear, to shove it back into its drawer. But soon my pulse is ragged and I just need air.

I push Jake off, gasping for oxygen.

For a moment, his eyes are wide and startled. But then he raises himself on one elbow, studying me. “Rachel,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”

I nod like a bobblehead. But it’s a lie. My heart is going a thousand miles an hour. And I’m mortified. A half hour ago I’d knocked on his door. He’d asked me a question. I hadn’t even answered him. Instead, I’d launched myself at him.

Then, when he was really into it, I pushed him off. Like a psycho.

And Frederick is having a baby.

“I think we shouldn’t do this anymore,” Jake says, his voice low. “Not for a while.”

I sit up, instantly afraid. “Not do what?”

“Not do this,” he says, pointing at the two of us, sprawled on the bed. “This is stressing you out. That’s no good. I don’t want to be the thing that freaks you out all the time.”

My eyes got the message faster than my brain. Two tears ran down my face even as the truth hits. He’s breaking up with me.

“Oh boy. I’m not trying to make you upset, I’m trying for the opposite. To take the pressure off. You’re just so…” He frowns.

“Just so what?” I demand.

“Hard to read. Everything is great, and then all of a sudden it’s not. And I’m like an ogre you have to escape from.”

I try to stop the tears from coming by looking up at the ceiling. “A man will do anything to get away from a woman who’s crying,” my mother had once told me.

“Rachel, can I ask you something?”

“What?” I gasp.

“Did something scary happen to you before? Because… It’s like you panic.”

“I do panic,” I mumble. “But it’s nobody’s fault.”

“So you weren’t ever…” Jake’s eyes travel to the floor, and he doesn’t finish the question. He can’t bring himself to say “raped” or “attacked” or some other ugly word.

“No,” I whisper. But I’m faced with an unwelcome realization. It isn’t Jake’s enthusiasm that frightens me. It’s mine. That zing I feel when he touches me is a dangerous thing. My mother proved it when she was only nineteen years old.

I can’t repeat her mistakes. It would be so easy to do anything—everything with Jake.

Jake’s face is flushed. “I hate scaring you. It makes me feel like Asshat.”

“You’re not an asshat,” I say, my voice cracking. Jake isn’t the problem. I am.

“What is it, then? I keep asking, but you don’t say.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” I barely get the sentence out, because my throat is closing up.

“If you’re not afraid of me, then maybe I just don’t do it for you. Is that it? Or, do you have religious objections?” He throws his hands in the air. “Something is the matter, but you don’t…” He swallows. “You don’t love me enough to tell me what it is.”