Pieces Of You by Jay McLean

8

Holden

When I got homelast night, I stripped out of my clothes, and—for the first time in my entire life—I emptied my pockets.

My mom would be proud.

After we ate, Jamie excused herself to the restroom, and I took the opportunity to collect the balled-up napkins she’d turned into art.

The first one she drew was a closeup of the blackberry bushes we’d tended to that afternoon. It was of a single branch with leaves, berries, flowers, and even the thorns. It was, and I don’t use this word lightly, beautiful.

I don’t know how she did it in such a short time or from memory alone, but it deserved to be hung somewhere, displayed and appreciated—not balled-up and trashed.

The second one was just sharp lines with no conclusive image, but she obviously created it from whatever she was feeling emotionally: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Shame.

It made me question what she felt when she drew the blackberries.

I laid them both out and slid them in my desk drawer.

Why?

I don’t know.

And I refuse to question it.

“So, you went out to dinner?” Dean asks, running on the track beside me during after-school practice. Every opportunity he’s had to ask about Jamie, or specifically, me and Jamie, he’s used it. It’s been question after question, and it’s pissing me off. Obviously, I don’t have a lot to say, just like him prior to yesterday. I never pushed him for more, and I wish he’d give me the same in return.

“It wasn’t dinner. It was just… we finished the work, and I was hungry, and she offered to buy me a meal for driving her home.”

He almost trips over his own feet. “You drove her home?”

I nod, too busy trying to keep oxygen in my lungs to respond verbally.

“I’m surprised she let you see where she lives.”

“Why? Because it’s in a trailer park?” If he answers yes, I might have to re-evaluate our friendship. As much of an asshole as I can be, even I wouldn’t stoop that low. Or maybe that’ll be my excuse, because honestly? I’m finding it really fucking hard to look at him without wanting to knock out his teeth, and I don’t know if I’d be doing it for Jamie or Bethany or just because he was such a dick to them both. But, I have to remind myself that who he fucks is his business, not mine. And besides, he’s never once criticized my—as Jamie puts it—dick activity.

“No,” he answers through a strained exhale. “Because she’s weird about people knowing she lives alone.”

My steps falter. “She does?”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, turning his head toward me. “You didn’t know?”

Obviously not. “It never came up.”

“So you didn’t, like, go into her house?” I know exactly where he’s going with this, and I get it. My history with girls is prolific and… temporary, at best.

I don’t tell him that he has nothing to worry about because I am me, and Jamie has that one thing that attracts me to most girls—a vagina—but, considering what he did to her, I say, looking directly at him, “What’s it to you if I did?”