Separate Schools Read online

  Taylor looked away, and he put the car in drive and headed out to State Street.

  Five minutes later, they were entering her treed and landscaped neighborhood and a sadness began to grip him. She was leaving him. She was going to be thousands of miles away. These familiar streets they drove where he used to ride ten-speeds with her would soon be irrelevant and lost, and she would make new memories with new people without him and all the way in California. His breaths came shaky and whiny but he gritted his teeth and held it together.

  He brought the Soob around Taylor’s sweeping concrete crescent driveway to stop at her garage door. The front door was ahead, but the Brooks’ kids all used the garage because Trish kept the front entrance formal and never wanted shoes and coats in there cluttering the place up.

  Taylor looked straight ahead, and he caught her in his periphery as her eyes welled up and her tightly held mouth moved around.

  He wished the day wouldn’t end. Wished they could stay together this afternoon. His mom was on his ass over being ready for university; didn’t even think he should go to Wolf Lake this weekend, but thankfully knew how much it meant to him and acquiesced. But she wanted him home Sunday afternoon, no question.

  He stopped outside the first bay door, painted white and set with Xs, and parked.

  “This is it,” Taylor said, voice constricted.

  Kay shot forward between the seats and kissed Taylor’s ear. Taylor reached over her shoulder and they held hands.

  Kay said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Taylor said, blinking tears.

  “I’ll take you to the airport and pick up your mom.”

  Taylor nodded. “Mr. Sanders is bringing her home.”

  “We’ll chill, then,” Kay said and stroked her arm.

  “And I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Harrison said.

  She nodded again, sniffed. “I’m fine. I’ll see you both before I go,” she said, brightening and showing them a strained expression of happiness.

  When he unbuckled his seatbelt, she stopped him.

  “No, Harrison. I’ll get my own stuff. You stay here. This isn’t goodbye, okay. It’s not goodbye.” She put a closed hand over his heart and she leaned into the driver’s side and kissed him.

  Their faces came away, and they both smiled weakly. She kissed Kay’s hand.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  Kay and he said in unison: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Taylor got out then and he popped the hatch. She opened the back, slid her bags out and whomped his door closed, and rapped twice on his window.

  The garage door opened on its rails and retracted, Taylor using her remote fob. She’d be alone tonight. Mom in Myrtle Beach, Dad in Lansing, Riley with her friends who knows where these days, brother in Wolf Lake. So many good memories in this house and around its property, but they were already fading. Taylor carried her things into the garage bay and she turned and waved. The garage door closed as he and Kay waved back. Slowly the white barrier came down, closing off her sad but smiling face, her long brown legs ...

  “Well,” Harrison said, looking for something profound to say but not finding it. Kay fell back to sit in her seat.

  He said, “You’re not sitting in the back, Kay, I’m not an Uber.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but pulled forward, a hand on both front seats and stepped through, her Converse scuffing the lid of his console.

  “Hey,” he scolded, but she’d already plopped down in Taylor’s seat. She said, “Take me to Denny’s?”

  “My mom will ream me if I’m not home—shit, ten minutes ago,” he said, checking the Soob’s clock.

  “Home then, Jeeves,” she said, and pointed her ringed finger out ahead.

  When he put the car in drive, she put her hand on the shifter and slid it up to park.

  He looked at her, saw her regarding him seriously. “What?”

  Kay asked, “Did she sleep with Colt?”

  It took him aback. He shook his head no, but he couldn’t lose his grim expression. Kay looked in his eyes and he thought she could read his mind. She nodded once and looked away.

  Facing out the Brooks driveway, Kay said, “She told me she did, Harrison.”

  He watched her profile, stunned. But he knew her too well. He said, “She did? When? She slept with him ...? Kay ...?”

  She turned to regard him now, her serious expression softening. “No. She didn’t. She didn’t tell me that at all.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  She shrugged, looked down. “I’m sorry.”

  Kay was crafty and smart and he could trust her until he couldn’t. Everyone knew that about Kay. But she had a kindness under the hard shell. She looked at her own hands gathered in her lap, and he could see a sadness on her expression. She would be losing her best friend this week, too.

  They sat uncomfortably silent for a while. He said, “Is she going to fall in love in California.”

  “She probably will, Harrison.”

  “Can she love two people at once?”

  She looked up and around, sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Now he wished he hadn’t asked, and his stomach hurt. Tears came quick at the thought of her looking at another boy the way she looked at him. He stayed quiet but covered his face with his hands.

  She said, “Be strong, Harrison, you got yourself into this. Don’t let her crush you, you’re too good to get splatted by a girl like her.”

  “I love her so much.”

  “Hey, dickhead,” she said and pulled one of his hands away, “she doesn’t like criers.”

  It got him laughing, and he wiped at his face.

  She said, “Buddy. You can cry on my shoulder if you want.”

  “No, you’re right, I can’t get myself into this and then cry every day about it.”

  “There’s the other option ...”

  He shook his head no.

  “You could. You could break up with her and move on.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “It’s an option.”

  “I love her too much. I can’t let her go. She’s my best friend.”

  “Then commit to it, Harrison.”

  “I know.”

  “Be a man. Impress the shit out of her with how well you can do this.”

  He nodded.

  Soob back in drive, they headed out of her street, out to Midland so they could cut around and get into Kay’s, which backed onto Taylor’s. At the stop sign, she said, “You know, Colt would be a perfect fuck-toy.”

  “For you?”

  She shrugged. “For anyone. I’m just saying. He’s not as dumb as a bag of rocks but they do their homework together. That body he has, holy shit, right? And you saw his dick. But there’s not a lot of heart in a guy like that, you know? Not much to fall for.”

  “You think he’s good for one thing?”

  “I bet he is.”

  On Midland now, he said, “I hate that guy.”

  “Hey,” she said. “Your call.”

  “My call?” he said, feigning misunderstanding. Had she talked to Taylor? What had Taylor told her friends? Kay was talking about Colt for Taylor. Recommending Colt for her, pointing out that she was unlikely to fall in love with that guy, if love was what Harrison worried about. But he hated seeing her with him, and if she ever did fall for Colt, it would be unbearable.

  On Kay’s street now she sighed and said, “You’re not careful, she’s going to use you up till you’re empty and dry as dust, Harrison. She won’t even realize she’s doing it, and she won’t notice when it’s done and too late. She’s doing it to me, too.”

  “Some friend you are, talking shit about her behind her back.”

  “You’re my friend, you should hear the shit I say about you behind your back.”

  He stopped at the end of her long driveway on purpose.

  She said, “Ha ha. You’re not going to take me to my door?”

  He said, “Ta
ylor ever talk shit about me behind my back?”

  “No, Harrison, she doesn’t. She honest-to-God does love you.”

  “She does. I know she does.”

  “She just stresses, dude,” Kay sighed.

  “I know she does.”

  “Don’t put it on her. She could break.”

  “I wouldn’t want that, Kay.”

  “Sometimes, I think you use her up, too, and you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”

  He shook his head, looked up at her house, back at her. “Really?”

  “You’re a good guy, Harrison, but you’re demanding.”

  “Hmnh. Not anymore, now, am I?”

  “It’s your one and only shot, being open. Well played. You got big balls.”

  She flashed a wily look between his legs and he laughed out loud and it surprised him how good it felt. He said, “You’re such a bitch.”

  She stayed serious. “You tell her you couldn’t be her friend if she wasn’t your lover?”

  “Why?”

  “You did right?—that’s like emotional extortion.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Think about it, Harrison. Sound like something Colt might say?”

  “What does that mean? She doesn’t like Colt.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, I’m just saying. Be strong with her. Confident. You know she stresses. You know she loves you. You put that emotional pressure on her, she can’t take it. Be the man she needs.”

  “I really do want to be open,” he said, but he was truthfully unsure. This had become the darkest, scariest fairytale woods to get lost in, and he’d left no breadcrumbs at all. He did want to be open, didn’t he?

  Kay said, “You better be for real. You better not just leverage it all against her next month or something.”

  “I won’t,” he murmured.

  “If she hurts you, I’ll be upset, and I’ll be mad at her. You hurt her, I’ll come after you.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  Now she poked his arm.

  “What?” he said, looking up again.

  “It was fun this weekend,” she said, that guileful look returning.

  He said, “We’re not supposed to have sex again.”

  Kay raised one haughty brow. “Did you think we were going to?”

  “Hey, I’m just saying.”

  “I know. She told me already. So much for us being MSU fuck buddies,” she said dryly.

  “Were we going to be fuck buddies?”

  “You might do in a pinch.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Aw, come on, Harrison. What, we had sex one time and now I can’t bust your chops ‘cause I might hurt your feelings?”

  “It was okay with me?”

  “Rule one, Harrison. Don’t ask shit like that. It’s annoying.”

  “Is it?”

  “So annoying.”

  “It’s good to talk, I thought.”

  She scooted over to his side of the car and pressed against him with surprising brusqueness. Breathlessly, she said, “Were my breasts okay? Tell me they were fine. Tell me you don’t think about other girls’ breasts. Oh Harrison, was I good in bed, did I please you? Oh be careful, my feelings are very fragile ...”

  “All right already.”

  “See? Tell me that’s not annoying. God. Cloying motherfuckers out there. But sex with you was good. It’s just weird ‘cause it was you.”

  “And you, too.”

  “You’re my friend.”

  He put the Soob in drive again and headed up the driveway to her dark brick, Gothic-looking home. “You regret it?”

  She shook her head. “Hey, I had a foursome. I can cross that off my list now.”

  In front of her house, at the foot of the wide stone stairs that led to her portico she opened her door and put a foot out but he stopped her. He said, “You told Roxie what you saw? Me and Taylor ...”

  She looked shiftily from side to side; caught and guilty. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to make fun of Taylor till we’re in our fifties, dude.”

  “That’s so mean.”

  She chuckled and closed her eyes. “You didn’t see what I saw. Oh shit, baby, oh shit, baby, I’m gonna come, Harrison, oh ... and you and your face ...” Now she waved her hands back and forth in a horizontal slice like she declared a runner safe, laughing quietly but so hard she couldn’t breathe.

  He scoffed. “Your hands were shaking.”

  She shrugged like it was nothing, but he’d seen the way her body reacted to the shocking sight she’d walked in on.

  “You didn’t tell them anything else?”

  “No way. Never. Probably never.”

  “Good.”

  A smile whipped across her face like she’d been holding it back. “Ah, who am I kidding. Sometime I will.”

  He shook his head and laughed and she punched his arm, laughing with him.

  When it petered out they eyed each other amiably. She said, “All right, Booby. You going to orientation on Wednesday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come with me? I’m looking for a new best friend.”

  “I’ll be your best friend,” he said and laughed.

  She kissed his lips, and he jolted.

  “Yeah,” she said, looking in his eyes and stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, “you and I will be good for each other.”

  She held eyes a moment longer and licked her lips. It made his insides squirm like excited twisting snakes. She backed herself out of his car, reefed his hatch open and pulled her shit out. Door slammed she strode to those mansion steps giving him a long-lasting peace sign and blew him a kiss. She ran up the steps, bag bouncing on her shoulder, then disappeared through the tall front doors of her home.

  It took a minute to gather himself, sitting and rubbing his eyes. When he had it together, he headed back out the driveway and stopped to merge with the street.

  Coming along from his right were two kids riding bikes in their swimsuits. Bare feet on the pedals, they rode in wobbly undulating lines, trying to get a bead on one another with neon squirt guns supplied with comically large reservoirs of water along their tops. A boy and a girl, soaked head to toe, laughing and yelling on this their last day of summer. The girl was missing her two front teeth, the boy had a transfer tattoo of a Transformer on his shoulder.

  Times sure changed fast. There were days not that long ago when he’d bike up and down these streets in his trunks, Taylor by his side, coming to see Kay, and he thought that was all life would be.

  As the two kids grew distant, letting their bikes drift farther so they could sprinkle each other good with their super-soakers, he smiled.

  One day, before you know it, those little kids you were biking with were growing up, and shit, you were, too, and crazy unsuspecting things would happen; you might just fall in love; you might get hurt and your heart might break; it will all happen so fucking fast, and maybe, just maybe, for fear of letting everything you breathe for slip from your grasp, you might just let the little girl you once loved be with another guy, you might sleep with her best friend to prove who fucking knows what, you might do anything to keep her with you. And you might like it.

  But you sure as shit would never see it coming.

  Afterword

  If you’ve enjoyed this story about Harrison and Taylor, I’d like to recommend my complete and finished Maggie series. It’s a complicated college-age love quadrangle between a young graduating woman, her fiance, their best man, and a boy she never should have got involved with.

  It begins here: Tempting Maggie

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