Paper Airplanes Read online

  I’d lived around the corner from her since I’d moved into the neighborhood before our senior year of high school, but I remembered seeing her for the first time three years before that. She’d gone to a different elementary and middle school, so we didn’t go to the same school until ninth grade. It was one of the first days of high school, and Scott and I were leaving to walk back to his house since he lived less than a mile away. I remember walking past one of the picnic tables out front of school where Cassie sat with Nicole Daniels, a girl I’d known for years who I couldn’t stand.

  I noticed Cassie first because she was really hot, and she was sitting there wearing little red shorts and a tiny tank top, and my fourteen year-old hormonal brain shot into overdrive. I heard them talking about cheerleading tryouts as we walked past, and Scott babbled on about some superhero movie he wanted to see that weekend. I was looking at my shoes, paying more attention to the conversation I could hear than what Scott was saying. When I heard her laugh, I chanced a look at Cassie. I liked her laugh. She made eye contact with me for a few seconds, but then she sneered at me like she was offended that I was even looking in her direction.

  Scott stopped short, and said, “Hey Cassie!” and waved.

  They had a class together, and he’d been talking about her at lunch and how hot she was. It wasn’t until he said her name that I realized she was the girl he’d been talking about. He’d described their conversation in detail, and he didn’t even realize that she’d been a total bitch to him. Scott was so good natured that he never thought the worst of people until they hit him over the head with their unkindness. It was almost what made it so much worse when people were mean to him. It was like kicking a dog.

  When Cassie’s gaze shifted to Scott who was smiling and waving, she looked surprised and then slightly horrified that he knew her name. She opened her mouth to say something, and I braced myself for how harsh it would be when Nicole called out, “Keep walking, losers! There’s nothing for you here.” And then she and Cassie had burst into a fit of giggles.

  Now granted, we were scrawny and short and looked a few years younger than we actually were, I had braces and glasses, and Scott had a combination of acne and one of those wispy mustaches that made him look like he was trying too hard to show the world he could grow facial hair, but they didn’t have to make fun of us. We were just minding our own business, and Scott was just being nice, but whatever, we were apparently naïve to how things were going to be for us in high school. We were outcasts from day one, just like we’d always been.

  That one statement was basically all it took for Scott’s shoulders to sink and his gaze to drift to his shoes. The whole way home he’d kicked at the sidewalk and sulked. So I’d slung my arm around his shoulder and told him we could go see the new superhero movie he’d been talking about all day. He brightened up a little bit after that, but it was almost as if in two seconds Nicole Daniels and Cassie Witter had shattered any dreams of Scott changing who he’d been for so long.

  He’d been so optimistic about high school and how much better it would be since two middle schools were feeding into the same school. He’d talked all summer about all the new people we’d get to meet and how old stereotypes would go away. He wanted to start fresh, but I knew that would never happen. We were at an age where if you weren’t beautiful or a jock, you were an outsider. Scott and I were what his mother called late bloomers. We’d always be outsiders.

  And it was people like Cassie Witter who perpetuated those unspoken rules of who was someone in the walls of our high school. She had immediately fallen in with the popular kids, which was so far from the circle Scott and I ran in. I didn’t care about popularity. I was okay being an outsider. Being invisible allowed me the freedom to sit back and observe the world around me. It helped me watch the interactions that people had, the emotions they displayed and the things that affected them. I had a front row seat to the world around me, and as a writer, that was invaluable.

  But Scott didn’t want to hang out on the edges and watch. He wanted in. And I hated that he tried so hard to impress people who treated him like shit, so I stuck by him fearlessly, even if it meant occasionally getting my ass kicked by guys twice my size. Our whole lives, it had been Scott and me against the world, and we’d attacked high school – all four torturous years of it – together.

  But high school was over – way over – and the cool thing about graduating and getting older was that you could leave the bullshit behind. Popularity didn’t matter in the real world, and I took pleasure in that. Cassie Witter and her friends no longer controlled any part of my life, and I wasn’t about to let her start now.

  “Hey Jare,” Brooke said, setting her arms on top of the wall that separated the servers’ station from the dining room.

  Speaking of other people I wasn’t going to let control my life.

  I looked up into her bright green eyes, and my heart started pounding. Dammit. I hated that she could still affect me. Brooke Stiller had practically destroyed me six months earlier, but I’d never let her know that.

  “Hey Brooke,” I responded, keeping things as brief as I could.

  I did not want to have the inevitable conversation I knew we would have since the last time I’d seen her in person it had been to kiss her goodbye at Thanksgiving. Then she’d broken up with me over the phone three days later. Heartless bitch.

  “You avoided me yesterday. Why did you do that?” she asked, practically pouting.

  “I didn’t avoid you,” I answered passively, as I lied my ass off. “I was working.”

  In truth I’d done everything I could to stay away from her. Aside from necessary conversations that related to work, I didn’t let her get much in conversation wise. I knew she wanted to talk. She’d hinted at it the night before, but talking to her was the last thing I wanted to do. I kind of just wished she’d leave me alone.

  Brooke and I had dated for almost five months. She’d been my first girlfriend, the first girl I’d slept with, and I’d loved her, but apparently she didn’t love me enough because she decided she didn’t want to continue to date me. She said she couldn’t do long distance any longer. She loved me, but she wasn’t in love with me, blah, blah, blah. Basically she’d met another guy and had started sleeping with him while she was still seeing me.

  I knew it had been risky to date her over the summer and then suggest long distance when she went back to college at Michigan State in the fall, but at the time, I couldn’t stand the idea of breaking up. Dating her had been one of the most exciting things I’d ever done, and the last thing I wanted to do was go back to being the shy guy who kept to himself and didn’t say much. Brooke had brought me out of my shell. Without her, I knew I would go back to being shy, quiet and alone.

  I’d never had a girlfriend before, and I truly hadn’t known what I was missing. Dating Brooke had been like a whirlwind of excitement wrapped in cotton candy and sex. It was the best summer of my life, and I couldn’t imagine letting her go. So I’d stupidly suggested long distance. Then Brooke had ripped my heart out and stomped on it with her red stiletto boot before walking away without a second glance. And now she wanted to talk? Screw that.

  “Jare, you totally avoided me yesterday,” she said, sounding on the verge of a tantrum.

  She was good at tantrums. They were sort of her specialty. After we broke up, I thought back on just how many of her tantrums and pouting spells and bratty demands I’d put up with – most of them had occurred after she’d gone back to school and started to find fault in everything I did. I couldn’t believe I’d put up with her shit for so long, but I thought we were in love, and I had no other point of reference for what a healthy relationship should be like. But I’d learned, and I knew I’d never make the same mistake with another girl.

  “Are you still mad at me, Jare?” Brooke whined when I didn’t respond to her.

  Yes. And stop calling me Jare.

  She’d started calling me Jare when we were just friends and
getting to know each other last summer. I’d loved it. It was our little thing since no one else called me that. Now I hated it. Hearing her shorten my name was like nails on a blackboard.

  “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

  She sighed loudly. “Because of the break-up. I told you I was sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  But you did.

  “Okay,” I told her.

  We’d had this conversation already. The night she dumped my ass she’d said the same things, and even after all this time, hearing them again still stung.

  She pouted at me.

  “How’s your boyfriend?” I asked, trying to catch her off-guard.

  She got a sad look on her face, but I didn’t really believe it was genuine. “We actually broke up.”

  And there it was. I knew what she was doing, and even though it was tempting as hell to think about what it would be like to kiss her again, I wasn’t jumping back into anything with her. Brooke Stiller was like kryptonite to me, and I could get sucked in really easily, and then she’d break my heart all over again. No thanks.

  “That’s too bad,” I told her passively. I knew it was killing her that I wasn’t showing any emotion, but it was one of the things I was best at, so I used it to my advantage.

  Her eyes brightened hopefully. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  I shook my head just enough. “Nope.”

  “Oh,” she said, the hope evident in her tone. Then she smiled. “That’s good to know.”

  Yeah, not gonna happen.

  “I guess,” I responded aloofly.

  Her face fell. “Jare, don’t be like this,” she whined.

  “Okay.”

  She pouted again. She was so pissed that I wasn’t giving her anything. She desperately wanted a reaction, and I knew that, so I wasn’t going to give it to her. Even though the idea of telling her exactly what I thought of her contained a certain appeal, I held my tongue.

  “I miss you, baby.”

  “I’m not your baby,” I said firmly. “I haven’t been for months.”

  “I know,” she said sadly, her gaze dropping.

  Then she looked up at me through her lashes, a look she knew would get to me. It always had. I fought to not let her affect me, even though the reality of the situation was that I still found her to be incredibly hot. I knew I had to stay strong if I planned on resisting her all summer, because I also knew she’d be relentless. Brooke Stiller went after what she wanted – and she usually got it. I’d learned that in the five months that we’d dated.

  But suddenly her gaze shifted, and I saw the genuine side of her that I’d fallen in love with.

  “Are you doing okay?” she asked, the concern in her eyes apparent.

  For the first time since she’d said hello to me, she was being sincere. She looked like she wanted to reach out and touch me, but she had the decency to keep her hands to herself.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. I knew what she was asking about. After the shooting, when I’d been at home recovering from getting shot and having surgery to remove to the bullet that had been lodged in my side, she’d called me a few times. We hadn’t spoken since the break-up, but she’d seen the news, so she knew I was involved, that I’d been injured.

  I’d listened to her messages, heard the emotion in her voice as she told me she couldn’t believe it and she was glad I was okay. I never called her back, though, because it was just too hard. I didn’t want to talk to her and know that she didn’t want me. But it was nice to know that she cared, that she was glad I hadn’t died. That meant something.

  “I’m okay, Brooke.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad. I was so worried about you,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe that insane guy actually shot you, that he shot someone I knew. So scary.”

  Dammit. She always found a way to make it all about her. Forget the fact that I went through something life-threatening and that people actually died, as long as she could tell people that she knew someone who was involved in the Coleman shooting, she felt important. It was times like this that I was glad we’d broken up. She really was shallow and self-centered.

  I wished she could be the genuine person I’d seen glimpses of from time to time the summer before. That girl was awesome, but Brooke didn’t let her come out and play much. The messages she’d left me had been genuine. I heard in her words that it wasn’t about knowing someone who’d been shot. It was about me and her concern for me. She was truly rocked by what had happened. Now she was being shallow again. Why she switched back and forth so much, I’d never understand.

  Okay, maybe I understood a little bit. Brooke was incredibly insecure, and she masked it with her tough attitude, pretending that she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. In truth she cared too much, and I knew that. I knew how little self-esteem she had and how she dressed like she did to make people pay attention to her. It was why I’d looked in the first place, but then I’d gotten to know the person she had the potential to be. Unfortunately, her insecurities kept her from being that person all the time and turned her into someone I loathed.

  “Do you miss me?” she asked then in the baby voice that used to do me in when we were together. Not anymore.

  “I’m not interested in getting back together,” I told her honestly, glad I’d said it and glad I hadn’t told her the truth. Yes, I missed her.

  She sighed. “Then what about a summer fling? No strings attached? Just sex. The sex was always soooo good with us.”

  I had to swallow to fight off the urges I suddenly felt when she talked about the sex we used to have. It had been good – damn good. And I hadn’t had sex in months – not since the weekend I’d visited Evan at school. He’d hooked me up with one of his girlfriend’s sorority sisters. We’d had a meaningless one-night stand. I’d gotten shot the next day.

  Sex with no strings with Brooke sounded tempting, but I couldn’t do what she was asking –no matter how much I wanted to.

  I shook my head before I changed my mind. “Brooke, with you there are always strings. That’s the problem,” I said and turned around and walked into the kitchen, leaving her standing there, probably stunned that I’d turned her down. Brooke wasn’t exactly used to hearing no. Then again, she wasn’t used to saying it either.

  Okay, that was mean.

  But it was also true. Brooke had brought ten times the experience I had to our relationship. Before her I’d only kissed a handful of girls and had one hot make-out session that might have turned into sex had Scott not interrupted us. So Brooke had been my first – in pretty much every way imaginable.

  I leaned against the counter where Scott was prepping salads and stole an olive from the huge can on the counter.

  “Brooke trying to get back together with you?” he asked, not looking up from his task. I knew he liked to time himself to see how many salads he could make in a minute. His personal record was twenty.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, grabbing another olive at the same time he did, and our hands collided.

  “Dammit, Jared, you messed me up,” he whined.

  “Whatever, dude,” I said as I pushed off the counter. I had to go roll silverware before we opened.

  “Maybe you should just sleep with her for a few months,” Scott suggested as I started to walk away, and it was weird, but instead of an image of Brooke filling my brain, an image of Cassie Witter popped into it.

  I turned around to face Scott, puzzled that he’d suggested that. “What?”

  Scott looked up at me. “Brooke,” he said, as if it was obvious, and it really should have been. “You should sleep with her.”

  Why had I thought he’d meant Cassie? He’d kill me if I slept with her. Besides, I didn’t like her – at all.

  I waved him off. “Nah, been there, done that.”

  “And someday soon you’ll tell me all about it?” he asked hopefully.

  I shook my head. “Dream on.”

  I did not kiss and tell no matter h
ow much Scott begged me. He was still a virgin, and he’d asked nine million questions after he’d found out Brooke and I had slept together. I hadn’t given him anything. I just told him to Google ‘sex’ and see what came up. I was pretty sure he’d actually done that.

  “Come on, Jared,” he whined. “I have to live vicariously through you. I could never get a girl as hot as Brooke Stiller – or any other girl for that matter.”

  “Sure you could,” I said, hating when he put himself down. We weren’t that different.

  He shook his head. “No way, man. You went and got all buff and sexy, and I’m still the same dorky guy I was two years ago.”

  I laughed out loud. He was such an idiot. Yeah, I’d started working out, and I had muscle tone, but I was still the same guy I’d always been. People didn’t change that much. Besides, Brooke and I hadn’t happened overnight. We’d been friends first before we’d hooked up one night over Fourth of July weekend. She hadn’t gone after me for my looks, I knew that much.

  Just then Cassie burst through the kitchen doors looking breathless. “Hey Cassie!” I heard Scott yelp from behind me. “How are you?”

  A smile lit up her face. “Hi Scott!” she said cheerfully. “I’m great. How are you?”

  Good, she actually remembered his name. About time.

  “Awesome!” he responded. “Today I’m the salad master, and I’m going to beat my personal record.”

  “Personal record?” she questioned.

  “Don’t ask,” I mumbled, and she turned to me in surprise.

  “Oh, you’re speaking to me politely?” she questioned.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. She considered that polite? I was just giving her fair warning not to get Scott started. He’d go on for an hour about his triumphs with lettuce and tomatoes.

  “Sure,” I said, because I didn’t really want to get into a real conversation with her. It was bad enough we had to work together and I had to train her. We weren’t going to be friends. “You’re late, by the way.”