Interim, page 12
He said nothing.
“Which one?”
He hesitated. “Roy’s Body Shop.”
“Ohhh, I know that place. My dad had some work done there on his car,” Regan replied. “That’s, like, right around the corner.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by some time,” she offered.
When he didn’t answer, she grew embarrassed.
“Um, I work at a bakery. During the off season,” she said.
He nodded.
“I mostly decorate cakes,” she went on.
He continued nodding.
She fell silent.
I don’t know how to do this, he thought. I don’t know how to be her friend.
He has zero interest in being friends, she thought.
The words stuck in his throat, and he cleared it to clear them.
“You can come by whenever. The garage, I mean.”
Her face brightened.
“If you bring cake,” he added, and forced a smile.
“I can do that.”
“I . . . I hope this means you forgive me,” he said softly.
“I do,” she replied immediately. “Guys are always saying stupid stuff. I understand that.”
He chuckled. “I suppose so.”
“Well, now you can’t complain about knowing none of my secrets,” Regan offered.
“Huh?”
“I dropped, like, the biggest one on you!” she said. “Hello?”
“Ohhh, right, right,” he replied. “But then I gave you another one, too, so you’re still O for, um, about a thousand,” Jeremy explained.
Regan bit her lip. “Hmm, I guess you’re right.”
What could she share with him? Oh, a million things, easily. What would he want to hear right now? She instantly knew.
Jeremy checked the time on his cell phone. “I’m late. Roy’s gonna kill me.”
Well then, this was the perfect secret to share.
“I always wanted to be your friend,” Regan said. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
He stood stunned, his mind flooded with a trillion questions and no time to ask them. She did it on purpose! He looked down the sidewalk toward the garage. And then he looked back at Regan helplessly.
“Don’t you need to go to work now?” she asked.
Her face was unreadable, allowing him no further insight into her claim. What the hell was she trying to do to him? If this was a joke, then he’d label it the worst kind of bullying—emotional torment that does permanent damage.
“You know I have to,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off her face.
“Then I guess you better go,” she said just as slowly.
He stormed off, muttering under his breath. He was over it—over her little game. She always wanted to be his friend? Bullshit. There were plenty of opportunities, but she chose them. Even now, she couldn’t or wouldn’t break free from them. That made her one of them still, and he couldn’t be friends with his enemy. He knew it was paramount to try—even if he had to fake it—but he didn’t want to share her. He shouldn’t have to! And, anyway, she still owed him. She owed him all her feelings and a better fucking apology. And while they were at it, her body, too. Yeah. That’s right. She had no problem touching him without permission—tactlessly poking at his scar. Maybe he ought to poke her and see how she liked it.
God, he wanted to back her into a corner—smash her right up against the goddamn wall—hold a gun to her temple, then kiss her lips gently. I love you. I hate you. The image didn’t even bother him. He found pleasure in the fantasy of tasting her tears while his tongue explored her mouth. I love you. I hate you. The pendulum swung. Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Right. Wrong.
Victim. Vigilante.
Sanity.
Slipping.
***
She parked her mother’s sedan in an empty space beside the blue-gray building. She sat for a moment practicing breathing exercises for cardio endurance, imagining running up and down the field with Jeremy chasing after her. Heart palpitation. And another. She fixed her eyes on the faded plastic business sign—Roy’s Body Shop—with patches of red missing from several letters.
You wanted to be friends, her brain reminded her.
She nodded and glanced at the cupcakes sitting in the passenger seat.
And he did say to bring cake.
She grinned, peeling back a stray hair that was plastered to her cheek. Her sweat dried earlier, making everything around the perimeter of her face crusty and dry.
“Why didn’t I shower first?” she said aloud. “I’m revolting.”
But she knew why. She barely let Coach Allan finish her end-of-practice speech before booking it to the car for her special errand—cupcakes. It was the only thing on her mind all day, and every stolen glimpse at Jeremy served as mini tests of her patience. By 6:15 she had none left.
She breathed deeply one last time and exited the car, walking slowly around the corner to the front of the garage where the doors stood wide open. Four bays. Two empty. One was occupied by an old Camaro and a shirtless boy—shirtless! Icing on her cupcake day!
The words “Oh my” slipped soundlessly from her lips as she gripped the pink cupcake box tighter. She gulped down the view, thanking all the gods in the history of every religion on earth for delaying the fall weather. Summer continued to sizzle, even at the end of September, and the heat mixed with a broken air conditioner was responsible for her delicious, decadent visual treat.
His back was to her, and she reveled in her voyeurism. She noted his broad shoulders, defined by what she could only imagine was a strict weight lifting regiment. Strong shoulders. Sculpted back that highlighted every muscle, tapering in a V-shape to his waist. Slender and athletic, like a basketball player. She never thought of herself as a visual person. She thought of herself as more of a words person. But in that moment, she would have been fine to stare at him indefinitely without a single word uttered between them.
And like all the heroines of any great love story, she was a sucker for tattoos. She would never brand herself with one, but she liked what she saw on him. She squinted to read the scripted words spanning his upper back, starting below his left shoulder blade and arching up and over to his right: Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti. Black ink. No images. Just words—dark and bold against his fair skin.
She quietly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and typed the words one-handed into her “Notes” app. Her thumb flew around the keypad with ease—a special skill only teenagers of the Disney Channel generation possessed.
On my to-do list for tonight, she thought, if Jeremy was unwilling to explain his tattoo. And he probably would be. After all, he wasn’t the sharing kind unless he was scribbling his feelings in a notebook.
“What are you doing?”
Her face flew up as the cell phone crashed to the ground. It bounced once and cracked open, battery spilling out beside her feet.
“Oh, shit!” Regan spat, bending over to retrieve all three pieces—front, battery, back cover.
“Were you taking a picture of me?” Jeremy asked.
“Are you crazy?” Regan replied.
He blushed and clenched his jaw.
She approached him and shoved the pink box in his hands, shooting a stealthy glance at his bare chest.
“Here. Take your cupcakes,” she barked, putting her phone back together. And then she muttered, “If I lost all my freaking pics . . .”
“You did take a picture of me!” Jeremy cried. “What the fuck?”
Regan held up her hand, demanding his silence. He complied. She turned on her phone and opened her picture gallery. Every shot accounted for. And then she relaxed, looking him in the eyes.
“I did not take a picture of you, you conceited ass,” she said. “I was typing something.”
“What were you typing?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Does it have anything to do with me?”
She shuffled her feet and muttered, “Well, maybe.”
“Then it’s my business.”
“You’ll think I’m weird,” she confessed.
“I already think you’re weird. The mere fact that you’re here talking to me right now is freaking weird. So let’s have it.”
She hesitated.
“I’ll just snatch your phone,” Jeremy threatened.
“Fine! I typed your tattoo in my phone so I could look it up later.”
Silence.
She wouldn’t look at him straight on. She let her peripheral vision do all the work as she watched him walk deliberately to the counter, toss the cupcakes, and retrieve a T-shirt. He pulled it over his blond head, down past his green eyes to his flushed neck. No, not flushed. It was screaming-in-pain red.
Her own neck along with her cheeks were screaming in pain, too, and she couldn’t stand it any longer. “I figured you wouldn’t tell me, okay?”
“About my tattoo?”
“I thought it’d be weird to ask.”
“And typing it in your phone wasn’t?”
She scowled. “I didn’t want you thinking I was staring at it or something.”
“Were you?”
“Oh my God. You seriously asked me that?”
Jeremy jerked his face, forcing the hair out of his eyes. “Yes. I mean, how should I know what you were doing back there? How long have you been here, anyway?”
“Two seconds,” Regan lied.
He raised his eyebrow.
“Get over yourself,” she said, and he snorted. “And I don’t like the way you just tossed my cupcakes on the counter like they don’t matter. You’re the one who told me to bring them.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “And thank you.”
“Furthermore, I’m not a weirdo for typing your tattoo. I’m a curious person, and seeing as how it’s a different language, I’d like to know what it means . . . and thought I’d discover it for myself.”
Jeremy smiled. “Okay. Creepy, but okay.”
“And one more thing,” Regan continued, ignoring him. “You have a lot of nerve making me feel unwelcome when you said I could drop by whenever I wanted.”
“I didn’t actually think you would,” Jeremy admitted.
“Well, that just goes to show that you know absolutely nothing about me,” Regan said.
“And you know everything about me,” Jeremy replied, “including my tat! God, that was the last thing, Regan. The last thing you didn’t know.” He threw up his hands. “Well, that’s everything. Congratulations. You’re the winner.”
Regan opened her mouth and then promptly closed it.
They stood shuffling their feet and avoiding each other’s eyes until Regan spoke up.
“I didn’t mean to bother you,” she whispered. “I’ll just go.”
Man, she was good. The faltering voice. The pathetic fade-out. He barely heard the word “go” at the end of her sentence. How vexing—her ability to be strategic and manipulative with her words. Was that a girl thing? Was it innate in them? He didn’t think guys pulled that kind of bullshit, so yeah, it must be a girl thing. And she was really freaking good at it! She forced his unwilling response.
“Don’t go.” He heard himself say it, like he was standing outside of his body, watching a weaker, lust-filled version of himself utter the feeble words. There was nothing for it. She controlled him.
Regan’s face brightened. “Really?”
Jeremy nodded. He walked back to the counter and opened the box: two red velvet cupcakes with a thick dollop of cream cheese icing topping each.
“I didn’t know what you liked,” Regan said, watching his face. “See? I don’t know everything.”
Jeremy smiled and picked up one of the cupcakes. He extended his hand, and Regan walked over to him, taking the treat. She didn’t necessarily want to eat a cupcake in front of him. Cupcake eating was messy and absolutely not sexy, but she relaxed as she watched him take a healthy bite, cream cheese spreading over his lips and dotting the tip of his nose.
“Good,” he mumbled with his mouth full.
Regan tried to match his bite. Icing everywhere, but since it decorated his face, she left hers alone, too.
They ate half of their cupcakes in silence. She clenched her thighs when Jeremy’s tongue darted out to swipe the icing off his lip ring. The silver glistened with his spit, electrifying the secret parts of her body. She racked her brain for a distraction.
“Do you work a lot?”
He nodded.
“Do you like it?”
“Mostly.”
He finished the cupcake and licked his fingers. Icing remained on the tip of his nose.
Regan chuckled.
“What?”
She pointed.
He brought his large, calloused hand to his face, feeling about for what he could only presume was icing. Found it, and he scrubbed his nose with his forefinger. He pointed at her next.
“You have it everywhere,” he said.
“I know,” she replied. “Tell me about your tattoo.”
“No.”
She laughed. “Figured.”
He dumped the cupcake box and walked back to the Camaro.
“It’s, like, my motto, or whatever,” he said softly.
“Then why won’t you tell me?” Regan asked. “Usually people are proud of their mottos.”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“And I’m a smart person,” Regan replied.
Jeremy tinkered about the engine, unwilling to look at her. Unwilling to elaborate further on a decision he made a year ago that sealed his plan. He knew he’d forever be a coward if he didn’t brand himself with the words. The tattoo forced him into the next and final phase—gave him the courage to fight. There was no going back now. Decision made. The inked words a prayer for deliverance.
“It’s an Old Testament verse,” he said finally. Maybe that would be enough.
“About?”
Okay. Maybe not.
He thought a moment. “Mercy.”
Fucking. Lie. Nothing in the Old Testament was about mercy. Try revenge and justice instead. Lucky for him she had no idea.
“Oh,” was her reply. Like, “Oh, I didn’t understand a thing you just said.”
He was satisfied.
“Will you, at least, tell me what language it’s written in?”
“Latin.”
She thought so. “Why Latin? I mean, isn’t the Old Testament in Hebrew?”
“I prefer Latin.”
“Why?”
He sighed patiently. “I like the way it looks better.”
“Oh.” And there it was again—that I-don’t-understand-you-at-all “Oh.”
“Did you finish your English essay?” she asked, and he jumped.
She stood close beside him, watching his greasy fingers move about the engine, pulling on wires and adjusting bolts. How did he not hear her sidle up to him?
“No,” he replied, and looked down at her.
“I chose the second essay question. The one about defining satire,” she went on.
He noticed she’d finally cleaned her face, but a stray swipe of icing hung back on her cheekbone, and he was tempted to dab it. He glanced at his filthy hands. Perhaps not.
“I’m doing that one, too,” he said, though he hadn’t bothered to read over the question options yet.
“Cool. Maybe we can compare notes,” Regan offered.
“Maybe.”
And that was her cue to leave. Her face went hot with embarrassment at his blatant rejection. He didn’t want to compare notes with her. Shit. He probably didn’t want her in his garage in the first place. What was she thinking coming here? This was his personal space—his place away from school and all the jerks in it. She probably stood as an annoying reminder of all the things he hated.
“I better go,” she said quickly. “I have tons of homework.”
He couldn’t understand her abrupt change in attitude. Weren’t they having a nice conversation? Did he say or do something wrong? That wouldn’t surprise him. She made him nervous, and he couldn’t be sure he didn’t accidentally pass gas in front of her. Oh God, did he fart in front of Regan Walters and not realize it?
“Jeremy?”
He whipped his head to the side, looking at her standing in the garage doorway.
“I said bye, like, ten times,” she said.
“Oh,” he replied. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Um, okaaaay.”
“I was wondering why you want to leave,” he explained. He lifted the front of his shirt to his nose. “Do I smell or something?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Did I say something wrong?”
She continued shaking her head.
“I’ll take you up on your offer. Comparing our essays? If you have time, anyway. I know it’s due at the end of the week.”
Wow. That was a total misread. She relaxed.
“Okay,” she replied. “How about tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Here?”
He nodded again.
His heart continued to beat loud and painfully inside his chest long after she’d left. The fantasy of kissing her flashed inside his brain once more, but this time, he wasn’t holding a gun to her head.
***
Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti.
Regan typed the English translation into Google: Let them be like chaff before the wind. A list of Bible resource websites popped up, and she randomly chose the fourth. She read to herself. It was a verse from the book of Psalm: “Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord scattering them.” She had no idea what that meant, and there wasn’t an explanation accompanying the verse.
She started at the beginning.
What is chaff in the Bible? she typed into the search bar. She learned it was the outer casing of grain seeds—useless for human consumption. A waste material.
Well, that makes sense, she thought. “Them” must refer to Jeremy’s tormentors, and he saw them as chaff. Useless. A waste. Waste of space. Waste of air. She might have agreed if she didn’t believe that every person had at least one redeemable quality.
She reread the verse. Who’s speaking? Who’s upset? Who wants vengeance, and why? She thought these questions would help her better understand Jeremy, so she specified her search: What is “let them be like chaff before the wind” about? Not the best search phrase, but it landed her more information.
“Which one?”
He hesitated. “Roy’s Body Shop.”
“Ohhh, I know that place. My dad had some work done there on his car,” Regan replied. “That’s, like, right around the corner.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by some time,” she offered.
When he didn’t answer, she grew embarrassed.
“Um, I work at a bakery. During the off season,” she said.
He nodded.
“I mostly decorate cakes,” she went on.
He continued nodding.
She fell silent.
I don’t know how to do this, he thought. I don’t know how to be her friend.
He has zero interest in being friends, she thought.
The words stuck in his throat, and he cleared it to clear them.
“You can come by whenever. The garage, I mean.”
Her face brightened.
“If you bring cake,” he added, and forced a smile.
“I can do that.”
“I . . . I hope this means you forgive me,” he said softly.
“I do,” she replied immediately. “Guys are always saying stupid stuff. I understand that.”
He chuckled. “I suppose so.”
“Well, now you can’t complain about knowing none of my secrets,” Regan offered.
“Huh?”
“I dropped, like, the biggest one on you!” she said. “Hello?”
“Ohhh, right, right,” he replied. “But then I gave you another one, too, so you’re still O for, um, about a thousand,” Jeremy explained.
Regan bit her lip. “Hmm, I guess you’re right.”
What could she share with him? Oh, a million things, easily. What would he want to hear right now? She instantly knew.
Jeremy checked the time on his cell phone. “I’m late. Roy’s gonna kill me.”
Well then, this was the perfect secret to share.
“I always wanted to be your friend,” Regan said. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
He stood stunned, his mind flooded with a trillion questions and no time to ask them. She did it on purpose! He looked down the sidewalk toward the garage. And then he looked back at Regan helplessly.
“Don’t you need to go to work now?” she asked.
Her face was unreadable, allowing him no further insight into her claim. What the hell was she trying to do to him? If this was a joke, then he’d label it the worst kind of bullying—emotional torment that does permanent damage.
“You know I have to,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off her face.
“Then I guess you better go,” she said just as slowly.
He stormed off, muttering under his breath. He was over it—over her little game. She always wanted to be his friend? Bullshit. There were plenty of opportunities, but she chose them. Even now, she couldn’t or wouldn’t break free from them. That made her one of them still, and he couldn’t be friends with his enemy. He knew it was paramount to try—even if he had to fake it—but he didn’t want to share her. He shouldn’t have to! And, anyway, she still owed him. She owed him all her feelings and a better fucking apology. And while they were at it, her body, too. Yeah. That’s right. She had no problem touching him without permission—tactlessly poking at his scar. Maybe he ought to poke her and see how she liked it.
God, he wanted to back her into a corner—smash her right up against the goddamn wall—hold a gun to her temple, then kiss her lips gently. I love you. I hate you. The image didn’t even bother him. He found pleasure in the fantasy of tasting her tears while his tongue explored her mouth. I love you. I hate you. The pendulum swung. Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Right. Wrong.
Victim. Vigilante.
Sanity.
Slipping.
***
She parked her mother’s sedan in an empty space beside the blue-gray building. She sat for a moment practicing breathing exercises for cardio endurance, imagining running up and down the field with Jeremy chasing after her. Heart palpitation. And another. She fixed her eyes on the faded plastic business sign—Roy’s Body Shop—with patches of red missing from several letters.
You wanted to be friends, her brain reminded her.
She nodded and glanced at the cupcakes sitting in the passenger seat.
And he did say to bring cake.
She grinned, peeling back a stray hair that was plastered to her cheek. Her sweat dried earlier, making everything around the perimeter of her face crusty and dry.
“Why didn’t I shower first?” she said aloud. “I’m revolting.”
But she knew why. She barely let Coach Allan finish her end-of-practice speech before booking it to the car for her special errand—cupcakes. It was the only thing on her mind all day, and every stolen glimpse at Jeremy served as mini tests of her patience. By 6:15 she had none left.
She breathed deeply one last time and exited the car, walking slowly around the corner to the front of the garage where the doors stood wide open. Four bays. Two empty. One was occupied by an old Camaro and a shirtless boy—shirtless! Icing on her cupcake day!
The words “Oh my” slipped soundlessly from her lips as she gripped the pink cupcake box tighter. She gulped down the view, thanking all the gods in the history of every religion on earth for delaying the fall weather. Summer continued to sizzle, even at the end of September, and the heat mixed with a broken air conditioner was responsible for her delicious, decadent visual treat.
His back was to her, and she reveled in her voyeurism. She noted his broad shoulders, defined by what she could only imagine was a strict weight lifting regiment. Strong shoulders. Sculpted back that highlighted every muscle, tapering in a V-shape to his waist. Slender and athletic, like a basketball player. She never thought of herself as a visual person. She thought of herself as more of a words person. But in that moment, she would have been fine to stare at him indefinitely without a single word uttered between them.
And like all the heroines of any great love story, she was a sucker for tattoos. She would never brand herself with one, but she liked what she saw on him. She squinted to read the scripted words spanning his upper back, starting below his left shoulder blade and arching up and over to his right: Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti. Black ink. No images. Just words—dark and bold against his fair skin.
She quietly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and typed the words one-handed into her “Notes” app. Her thumb flew around the keypad with ease—a special skill only teenagers of the Disney Channel generation possessed.
On my to-do list for tonight, she thought, if Jeremy was unwilling to explain his tattoo. And he probably would be. After all, he wasn’t the sharing kind unless he was scribbling his feelings in a notebook.
“What are you doing?”
Her face flew up as the cell phone crashed to the ground. It bounced once and cracked open, battery spilling out beside her feet.
“Oh, shit!” Regan spat, bending over to retrieve all three pieces—front, battery, back cover.
“Were you taking a picture of me?” Jeremy asked.
“Are you crazy?” Regan replied.
He blushed and clenched his jaw.
She approached him and shoved the pink box in his hands, shooting a stealthy glance at his bare chest.
“Here. Take your cupcakes,” she barked, putting her phone back together. And then she muttered, “If I lost all my freaking pics . . .”
“You did take a picture of me!” Jeremy cried. “What the fuck?”
Regan held up her hand, demanding his silence. He complied. She turned on her phone and opened her picture gallery. Every shot accounted for. And then she relaxed, looking him in the eyes.
“I did not take a picture of you, you conceited ass,” she said. “I was typing something.”
“What were you typing?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Does it have anything to do with me?”
She shuffled her feet and muttered, “Well, maybe.”
“Then it’s my business.”
“You’ll think I’m weird,” she confessed.
“I already think you’re weird. The mere fact that you’re here talking to me right now is freaking weird. So let’s have it.”
She hesitated.
“I’ll just snatch your phone,” Jeremy threatened.
“Fine! I typed your tattoo in my phone so I could look it up later.”
Silence.
She wouldn’t look at him straight on. She let her peripheral vision do all the work as she watched him walk deliberately to the counter, toss the cupcakes, and retrieve a T-shirt. He pulled it over his blond head, down past his green eyes to his flushed neck. No, not flushed. It was screaming-in-pain red.
Her own neck along with her cheeks were screaming in pain, too, and she couldn’t stand it any longer. “I figured you wouldn’t tell me, okay?”
“About my tattoo?”
“I thought it’d be weird to ask.”
“And typing it in your phone wasn’t?”
She scowled. “I didn’t want you thinking I was staring at it or something.”
“Were you?”
“Oh my God. You seriously asked me that?”
Jeremy jerked his face, forcing the hair out of his eyes. “Yes. I mean, how should I know what you were doing back there? How long have you been here, anyway?”
“Two seconds,” Regan lied.
He raised his eyebrow.
“Get over yourself,” she said, and he snorted. “And I don’t like the way you just tossed my cupcakes on the counter like they don’t matter. You’re the one who told me to bring them.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “And thank you.”
“Furthermore, I’m not a weirdo for typing your tattoo. I’m a curious person, and seeing as how it’s a different language, I’d like to know what it means . . . and thought I’d discover it for myself.”
Jeremy smiled. “Okay. Creepy, but okay.”
“And one more thing,” Regan continued, ignoring him. “You have a lot of nerve making me feel unwelcome when you said I could drop by whenever I wanted.”
“I didn’t actually think you would,” Jeremy admitted.
“Well, that just goes to show that you know absolutely nothing about me,” Regan said.
“And you know everything about me,” Jeremy replied, “including my tat! God, that was the last thing, Regan. The last thing you didn’t know.” He threw up his hands. “Well, that’s everything. Congratulations. You’re the winner.”
Regan opened her mouth and then promptly closed it.
They stood shuffling their feet and avoiding each other’s eyes until Regan spoke up.
“I didn’t mean to bother you,” she whispered. “I’ll just go.”
Man, she was good. The faltering voice. The pathetic fade-out. He barely heard the word “go” at the end of her sentence. How vexing—her ability to be strategic and manipulative with her words. Was that a girl thing? Was it innate in them? He didn’t think guys pulled that kind of bullshit, so yeah, it must be a girl thing. And she was really freaking good at it! She forced his unwilling response.
“Don’t go.” He heard himself say it, like he was standing outside of his body, watching a weaker, lust-filled version of himself utter the feeble words. There was nothing for it. She controlled him.
Regan’s face brightened. “Really?”
Jeremy nodded. He walked back to the counter and opened the box: two red velvet cupcakes with a thick dollop of cream cheese icing topping each.
“I didn’t know what you liked,” Regan said, watching his face. “See? I don’t know everything.”
Jeremy smiled and picked up one of the cupcakes. He extended his hand, and Regan walked over to him, taking the treat. She didn’t necessarily want to eat a cupcake in front of him. Cupcake eating was messy and absolutely not sexy, but she relaxed as she watched him take a healthy bite, cream cheese spreading over his lips and dotting the tip of his nose.
“Good,” he mumbled with his mouth full.
Regan tried to match his bite. Icing everywhere, but since it decorated his face, she left hers alone, too.
They ate half of their cupcakes in silence. She clenched her thighs when Jeremy’s tongue darted out to swipe the icing off his lip ring. The silver glistened with his spit, electrifying the secret parts of her body. She racked her brain for a distraction.
“Do you work a lot?”
He nodded.
“Do you like it?”
“Mostly.”
He finished the cupcake and licked his fingers. Icing remained on the tip of his nose.
Regan chuckled.
“What?”
She pointed.
He brought his large, calloused hand to his face, feeling about for what he could only presume was icing. Found it, and he scrubbed his nose with his forefinger. He pointed at her next.
“You have it everywhere,” he said.
“I know,” she replied. “Tell me about your tattoo.”
“No.”
She laughed. “Figured.”
He dumped the cupcake box and walked back to the Camaro.
“It’s, like, my motto, or whatever,” he said softly.
“Then why won’t you tell me?” Regan asked. “Usually people are proud of their mottos.”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“And I’m a smart person,” Regan replied.
Jeremy tinkered about the engine, unwilling to look at her. Unwilling to elaborate further on a decision he made a year ago that sealed his plan. He knew he’d forever be a coward if he didn’t brand himself with the words. The tattoo forced him into the next and final phase—gave him the courage to fight. There was no going back now. Decision made. The inked words a prayer for deliverance.
“It’s an Old Testament verse,” he said finally. Maybe that would be enough.
“About?”
Okay. Maybe not.
He thought a moment. “Mercy.”
Fucking. Lie. Nothing in the Old Testament was about mercy. Try revenge and justice instead. Lucky for him she had no idea.
“Oh,” was her reply. Like, “Oh, I didn’t understand a thing you just said.”
He was satisfied.
“Will you, at least, tell me what language it’s written in?”
“Latin.”
She thought so. “Why Latin? I mean, isn’t the Old Testament in Hebrew?”
“I prefer Latin.”
“Why?”
He sighed patiently. “I like the way it looks better.”
“Oh.” And there it was again—that I-don’t-understand-you-at-all “Oh.”
“Did you finish your English essay?” she asked, and he jumped.
She stood close beside him, watching his greasy fingers move about the engine, pulling on wires and adjusting bolts. How did he not hear her sidle up to him?
“No,” he replied, and looked down at her.
“I chose the second essay question. The one about defining satire,” she went on.
He noticed she’d finally cleaned her face, but a stray swipe of icing hung back on her cheekbone, and he was tempted to dab it. He glanced at his filthy hands. Perhaps not.
“I’m doing that one, too,” he said, though he hadn’t bothered to read over the question options yet.
“Cool. Maybe we can compare notes,” Regan offered.
“Maybe.”
And that was her cue to leave. Her face went hot with embarrassment at his blatant rejection. He didn’t want to compare notes with her. Shit. He probably didn’t want her in his garage in the first place. What was she thinking coming here? This was his personal space—his place away from school and all the jerks in it. She probably stood as an annoying reminder of all the things he hated.
“I better go,” she said quickly. “I have tons of homework.”
He couldn’t understand her abrupt change in attitude. Weren’t they having a nice conversation? Did he say or do something wrong? That wouldn’t surprise him. She made him nervous, and he couldn’t be sure he didn’t accidentally pass gas in front of her. Oh God, did he fart in front of Regan Walters and not realize it?
“Jeremy?”
He whipped his head to the side, looking at her standing in the garage doorway.
“I said bye, like, ten times,” she said.
“Oh,” he replied. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Um, okaaaay.”
“I was wondering why you want to leave,” he explained. He lifted the front of his shirt to his nose. “Do I smell or something?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Did I say something wrong?”
She continued shaking her head.
“I’ll take you up on your offer. Comparing our essays? If you have time, anyway. I know it’s due at the end of the week.”
Wow. That was a total misread. She relaxed.
“Okay,” she replied. “How about tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Here?”
He nodded again.
His heart continued to beat loud and painfully inside his chest long after she’d left. The fantasy of kissing her flashed inside his brain once more, but this time, he wasn’t holding a gun to her head.
***
Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti.
Regan typed the English translation into Google: Let them be like chaff before the wind. A list of Bible resource websites popped up, and she randomly chose the fourth. She read to herself. It was a verse from the book of Psalm: “Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord scattering them.” She had no idea what that meant, and there wasn’t an explanation accompanying the verse.
She started at the beginning.
What is chaff in the Bible? she typed into the search bar. She learned it was the outer casing of grain seeds—useless for human consumption. A waste material.
Well, that makes sense, she thought. “Them” must refer to Jeremy’s tormentors, and he saw them as chaff. Useless. A waste. Waste of space. Waste of air. She might have agreed if she didn’t believe that every person had at least one redeemable quality.
She reread the verse. Who’s speaking? Who’s upset? Who wants vengeance, and why? She thought these questions would help her better understand Jeremy, so she specified her search: What is “let them be like chaff before the wind” about? Not the best search phrase, but it landed her more information.
