EVERYTHING TO LIVE FOR
By
Valerie Gillen
Smashwords Edition copyright 2011
Chapter 1
Jewel Stetler threw her book bag onto her bed, where it bounced once and disgorged its contents over the unmade covers. AP Calculus, AP English, AP Bio and French 5 textbooks slid out, along with the uneaten ham sandwich her mother had given her for lunch. The AP Calc book flopped open and her latest quiz slid out from between its pages, the big red D standing out like it had been written in blood.
Taking out a red Sharpie, Jewel changed the D to a B, and thought with clinical detachment that she was getting pretty good at this. She considered her handiwork, then added a plus mark next to the B for good measure. She left the quiz prominently displaced on top of her books for when her mother came snooping around later. That’s what she did these days, prying and poking like she thought her daughter was on drugs or something. Jewel tried to work up a good mad over this, but couldn’t muster the energy.
After what had happened at the end of school four months ago, her mom, who’d been gradually loosening the reins as Jewel started her senior year, had yanked them tight with a vengeance. There were appointments with a counselor, which Jewel had stopped going to after the first two visits, getting a semi-guilty, bad-kid thrill not unlike cutting class – which she also did a lot now. Getting her standing back tuck at Clifton’s Gymnastics was a hell of a lot more fun than studying any day and now that she’d lost everything that mattered, who cared, really, about the future? And instead of yelling at her and trying to force her to go back to the counselor, Jewel’s mom would take her hand and ask her if there was anything she wanted to talk about, like the Mom version of Dr. Phil.
Jewel’s gaze flicked to the picture on her bedside table, the one she couldn’t bring herself to throw out, and found her mouth quirking involuntarily. Chad’s goofy smile could always coax an answering smile back, no matter what foul mood she was in. They’d shared their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, all through high school – at least, she thought they had. All the plans they’d made – their friendly competition for valedictorian next June, applying to attend the same college – all gone. Her mouth pulled down. “Jerk,” she muttered, turning away. No, there was nothing she needed to talk about.
Jewel sat down next to Melanie under the Sayfield Oak on the village green in the middle of town. She rolled onto her back, staring up through the branches of a tree legend had it had been planted the day the town was chartered back in the 1600s.
“So, cheerleading practice tomorrow. You’ll be there, right?”
Jewel thought of that calculus quiz laying on her bed and then shrugged. “Hell yeah, I’ll be there.”
Melanie’s nut brown hair was dyed screaming violet at the ends and her eyebrow piercing winked in the sun. “Cool. I’ve been making up some new routines. Now you’ve joined, we’ll have 2 kickass tumblers and we will totally kill at the state competition this year.” She whipped a piece of paper out her notebook and started drawing on the back to illustrate.
Jewel frowned and checked her hand, then turned the paper over. “What’s this?”
Melanie shrugged. “You know I suck at math. I don’t get it at all when Mr. Loomis explains it so I guess I’ll just fail. Whatever.”
“You don’t suck at math. Mr. Loomis sucks at explaining things,” Jewel said, her gaze moving over the page. It was basic trig stuff, nothing too complicated.
A shadow fell over the paper and Jewell squinted up to meet the gaze of Allison, her AP chem lab partner. Last year they had been tops together in their Physics II class. Last year their group had won the state Scholars Bowl. Last year they had done a lot of things.
Jewel averted her eyes. “Hey Allison, what’s up?” she said casually.
Allison pushed her pale blond hair behind her ear and glanced back to where Jason and Hakim stood. “Scholar’s Bowl starts meeting tomorrow,” she said hesitantly. “We were wondering – that is – you’re planning on doing it this year, right?”
Jewel pressed her lips together and glanced back at Melanie’s trig homework. The thing of it was, part of her did want to do the Scholar’s Bowl, and the Senior engineering project at Yale, and all the other things she and her friends had been looking forward to their last year of high school. That is, until –
“Because we really need you, Jewel,” Allison rushed on. Out of the corner of her eye, Jewel saw Hakim’s hand shoot out to stop the flow of words from Allison’s mouth and knew what was coming next, tensed herself against the pain. She wished Allison would just freaking shut up, but here was no way to stop her, no way to avoid hearing …
“You’re our go-to person on chem and math too, now that Chad’s -” And Hakim’s hand made contact, giving Allison a hard rap in the shoulder. Allison gulped and her pale complexion flushed bright red. She looked abruptly miserable and Jewel would have felt sorry for her if she wasn’t busy feeling even more sorry for herself.
“Anyway,” Allison went on, after an awkward pause. “We really need you on the team this year, so you’ll be there, right?”
So now they were not even going to talk about Chad, just go on acting like he didn’t exist? Jewel felt a surge of rage and jumped up, almost whacking Allison in the chin. A corner of her mind marveled at the schizoid turn of her emotions, but the rest of her was relishing just letting them free. “Maybe I don’t want to do friggin’ Scholar’s Bowl this year. There’s more to life than books and studying, ever think of that?”
“Like – cheerleading?” Allison muttered incredulously, casting Melanie a disparaging glance.
Jewel felt the pressure building in her head. Knew she was about to lose it. Didn’t care. “Something wrong with that? Do you have a problem with it?” she shouted into Allison’s face.
“Hey Jewel, chill,” Hakim said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine, okay?”
His hand was patting her shoulder, beating out a nervous tattoo, and Jewel felt ashamed when she saw his shaken face and the tears in Allison’s eyes. After all, it wasn’t their fault that everything was different now.
“Yeah, sure. Forget about it.” She forced herself to sound calm and normal. People left you alone if you acted normal.
The three friends drifted off, muttering among themselves, and the other people in the area who’d been watching the show looked away as Jewel met their eyes defiantly. She flopped back down next to Melanie, who was staring at her, open-mouthed. Jewel reached across her to grab the math paper and Melanie flinched back. “Uh, Jewel, you okay?”
Jewel fixed a smile on her face. “I’m fine, all right? Look, don’t worry about them. I said I’m on the cheerleading team and I’m on it. I won’t bail on you. Now look at this first problem. There’s a short cut you can use that makes it a lot easier. Try it this way.” She sketched out a few quick figures.
“Sure,” Melanie said after an uncertain glance, and bent her head to the paper.
##
Jewel’s steps slowed as she neared the corner. She told herself she’d take the short way, the sensible way, home; but like so many times before, her feet made the decision for her and she found herself on Oak Lane. She leaned against the thick trunk of one of the trees that shaded the quiet road, and told herself she wouldn’t stop this time, wouldn’t look – would just walk on by. If she walked by without looking, that meant she was getting over it. It had been four months – it was time to pick up her life and get it started again. Chad was in the past – he had chosen to be.
Jewel pressed her face against the old oak, hard enough to feel the imprint of the bark against her cheek. “Oh damn it, damn it!” she whispered. She huffed out a sigh, stepped away from the shelter of the tree, and faced it squarely.
There were fresh flowers – but then, there always were. Chad’s parents came every week, dragging his little sister along. Family time, Jewel thought with a curl of her lip.
The marble headstone gleamed softly in a stray beam of sunlight that had found its way under the trees: Our Chad, taken too soon from us.
She herself had lied to Chad’s mom when his family asked her to go with them, saying she stopped by during the week when no one was there, so she could visit privately. “Of course,” Chad’s mom had said, tearing up. “You want time alone with your best friend. I totally understand.”
Although, come to think, she wasn’t such a liar after all. Because here she was, having time alone with her best friend.
Jewel clenched her teeth against the cry that ached to come out. I miss you. I need you. Why?
Turning her back, she walked quickly away.
Chapter 2
The crisp fall air snapped the flags in front of Sayfield High and rattled the branches of the maple trees that lined the school driveway, red/orange/yellow leaves etched against a sun-bright sky. The shouts of the football coach and the grunts of the players as opposing and defensive practice squads slammed against each other echoed in the blue air, with the higher notes of the cheer team adding a counterpoint.
“We’re Sayfield! We’ll push you back
We’ll take the field, cuz we rock!
We’re Sayfield! Say it loud
We’re Number One. It Ain’t – Just – Talk!”
On the last 3 beats of the cheer, Jewel and Melanie, at each end of the line, leaped up into standing back tucks as the other girls performed a divided line of split jumps ending in a lunge forward with their fists raised in victory.
“All right, looking good!” Melanie clapped her hands together to get the team’s attention. “Remember you need to be in the school parking lot this Sunday at 9 AM to make the bus for the Westbrook game. We’ll run this cheer again, and that’ll be it for today.” The other girls headed for their water bottles, wiping the sweat off their faces, as Melanie murmured in an aside to Jewel, “and that’ll give you time to talk to Scott Trevino. He’s been watching you all practice.”
Surreptitiously, Jewel glanced over at the bleachers and sure enough, Scott was looking her way. As he met her gaze, he gave her the smile that drove all the girls in school crazy; half shy boy, half experienced man, combined with riveting blue eyes and black curls that fell oh-so-carelessly over his forehead.
Even in a well-to-do town like Sayfield, the Trevino family stood out. Scott’s father owned a large trucking company and the family lived in a mansion on top of a hill just outside town. Scott drove a Corvette to school, wore designer everything, and had been in several scrapes with the law that had been carefully spun and downplayed by the family’s lawyer so that his record remained clean.
Jewel walked casually over to the bleachers and dropped her pom-poms on the bench. The cheer team had worked extremely hard over the past two weeks and Melanie had come up with some amazing routines. Jewel was enjoying polishing the skills that had gotten rusty since she’d quit gymnastics two years ago, under the pressure of an increasing load of school work.
She propped up her foot to retie her shoe laces and out of the corner of her eye, saw Scott Trevino taking the opportunity to get himself an eyeful of her tanned legs. Looks like Melanie had called it.
“So – Scott.” She ducked her head and met his gaze, letting him know that she knew he’d been checking her out.
“So – Jewel,” he responded, totally unfazed. “Looking good out there.”
“Thanks.” She was unable to suppress a little thrill. Half the girls in school would die to be in her place right now. Her life had been so suckish for a while that she was about due for some good luck.
Scott leaned back and brushed the edges of his leather jacket out of the way, tucking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. He even smelled expensive. “I was kind of surprised to see you out there with the cheer squad. I thought you were a science geek.”
Jewel shrugged. “Sometimes you just need a change. I’m enjoying doing something physical right now, and giving my brain a rest.”
“I enjoy doing physical stuff too”, he said with another sideways glance at her snug cheerleading sweater and short skirt. “Maybe we have that in common. How about I give you a ride home and we talk about it?”
Wow. Okay, that was – pretty direct. Jewel stared down at Scott, thoughts flashing through her brain of laughing in his face or hauling off and slapping the shit out of him. Finally, she settled for a tight smile and saying, “I have to finish up practice.”
Jewel slumped on the bench next to her locker and wearily toed her shoes off, chucking them into her duffle bag. She had made it to senior year without having a boyfriend and sometimes felt like she was the only one left in school who still had her virginity. Even her “science geek” friends – Allison and Hakim had been dating for two years and Jason had taken an opportunity to have sex with some girl he’d met on vacation, “purely in the interest of scientific curiosity.” Right. Sure, there’d been boys she’d liked, and who had liked her, but the two had never coincided.
Who would have thought Scott would be such a slimeball? But then, he’d had girls falling all over him since before he’d begun shaving, so it was only natural that he’d gotten arrogant. She couldn’t fault his honesty, though. He saw something he wanted and he went for it.
As she stripped off her clothes and hit the shower, she considered taking Scott up on his offer. What was she saving it for anyway? If she got her first time out of the way now, it would be less of a big deal when she finally did meet a guy she liked, who liked her back. But even the thought that she one day might be happy again, might meet somebody that she could let down her guard and trust, seemed as likely as her actually having sex with Scott Trevino. Yeah, picture it - come on, baby, drive me somewhere private. Scott would jump on that offer, for sure. And then she would take her clothes off in front of basically a total stranger and trust him not to mock her vulnerability.
She bowed her head under the stinging spray of hot water. The grief and guilt pressed against her chest like a captive bird beating its wings against a cage, and she wondered if she would ever be free of this pain.
When Jewel came out the gym door, the first thing she saw was Scott Trevino’s black Corvette parked by the curb. Crap. She hadn’t spoken to him again after practice, but maybe he just took it for granted that she’d accept his offer of a ride home plus whatever else might happen. She could bet he rarely got turned down. His face, expression hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, turned her way. Self-consciously she tugged at her shirt and prepared to set him straight.
Then she heard her name being called from far away and turned her head to see her mother stomping down the front steps of the school, a wad of papers clutched in her hand. Oh, double crap. The quiz marks she’d faked, the times she’d cut class, the nasty confrontation she’d had with her English teacher yesterday – it was payback time.
She quickly jumped into Scott’s car, flashed him a big, fake grin, and said, “Let’s hit it!” He quirked a smile at her and zoomed off down the driveway, leaving her mother’s voice a fading cry in the distance.
Hi! If you’ve enjoyed the beginnings of my new book, consider checking out A Little Magic, my YA Paranormal fantasy, now on sale through the holidays for $1.99. It’s got witches, faeries, spring in Vermont, a faux Valley girl and a sarcastic cat.
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