Home > Swear on This Life(13)

Swear on This Life(13)
Author: Renee Carlino

“I’m working on a song. You want to hear it?”

“I’d love to.”

I sat on the bed next to him while he pulled an acoustic guitar onto his lap. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

It struck me that Brian was nervous, and I wondered if he saw me differently. I’d grown up overnight; I wasn’t his little brother’s playmate anymore.

“I would never laugh . . . I think . . . I think you’re amazing.” My voice was shaking with nerves.

He chuckled and then pulled his long hair into a ponytail at the back of his neck. I had the stray thought that Jax would be taller and better-looking than Brian when he grew up, but I banished the thought from my mind. I’d had a crush on Brian for years, and he was about to serenade me.

He strummed the guitar and then plucked out a complicated melody. I thought he was going to sing, but he didn’t.

“What did you think?” he asked nervously.

“It was good, but what about the lyrics?”

He laughed again and then reached out and messed up my hair like he was petting a freakin’ Labrador. “Such a goofball. I’m the guitarist in my band. I don’t write the lyrics.”

“Oh, sheesh, what do I know? Well, anyway, it was really cool.” My face was getting redder by the millisecond.

“Thanks for listening. Hey, it’s getting pretty late. You better scram, kid.”

“Okay.” I put an extra bounce in my step as I left the room, hoping Brian wouldn’t see how totally heartbroken I was that he didn’t try to kiss me. I guess that would have been pretty wrong for a guy his age.

In the living room, Jax was asleep on the couch. I put a blanket over him, and he stirred.

“What are you doing?” he murmured.

“I’m leaving. I just wanted to put a blanket over you,” I said.

He popped up to his feet, suddenly awake. “I’ll walk you.”

“Next door, doofus? You don’t have to walk me.”

“I want to.”

He yawned about five times on our thirty-yard trek. At the doorstep, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“You wanna play explorers out on the rocks?”

“That’s kind of a kids’ game, don’t you think, Jax?”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Well, you wanna go read by the river? My mom picked up some new books from the library for me.”

“Maybe. I have to see how I feel.”

“Of course,” he said through a yawn.

“I better go.” I searched his eyes for a sign.

He just smiled, unaware. Jax wasn’t where I was emotionally or physically, and I was too young for Brian. Damn. “Night, Em.”

“Night, Jax.”

My house was dark, and my father and Susan were passed out in their underwear on the living room floor. I had a bag of granola bars, some Fruit Roll-Ups, a package of maxi pads, and a worn-out copy of Tuck Everlasting. I went into my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror behind my door.

For the first time, I noticed that my hips were wider and my breasts were finally larger than peanuts. I was a woman. That was the moment I started hating my mother. Even though it had been a couple of years since she’d left, the pain of her absence was searing. I had never felt her abandonment as sharply as I did the day I became a woman. Maybe it was Leila’s flawed attempt at kindness that made me miss the tenderness of a mother. My own had been kind and gentle when she was around, but she couldn’t handle the life she’d been given. Burned bread in the oven would send her into a fit of tears. I didn’t know where she’d gone, and I didn’t know any of her extended family or if she even had family. She had just vanished one day, and there was little impression of her left in our home . . . almost like she had never existed.

3. I’m Running

By one p.m., I had to stop reading. Frankly, I was drunk, emotional, and torn.

It was strange how Jase knew how I had felt toward my mother. Then again, he had been my best friend. I had told him everything. And he’d used all of that to create an emotional landscape that was strangely true to everything I remembered. The only difference was that Emerson was introspective at a young age, and I wasn’t so much. Things were happening to me back then, but only now, after reading a few chapters of Jase’s book, did I realize how I had really felt as a kid. He must have been so tuned in to me to realize I had a crush on his brother. He’d just sat there watching, taking it all in.

If I felt a tiny bit of forgiveness toward Jase, it vanished the moment I remembered that here he was making money off this story. My story. He had beaten me to the punch.

I curled up on my bed, too emotionally drained to do anything else, and fell asleep.

I WOKE UP later that evening to the sounds of Trevor and Cara making small talk in the kitchen. I put on my running gear, left my bedroom, and headed for the front door, ignoring Trevor as he stared me down from behind the kitchen counter.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“For a run,” I replied. “Want to join?”

I noticed Cara sneak off to her bedroom behind me without saying a word. Trevor and I had fallen into the habit of making people around us feel uncomfortable. I knew we were giving off weird vibes.

“I just had PT and my arm is killing me,” he said.

“You don’t use your arms to run.” I stood near the door with my hand on the knob.

   
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