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Chapter 16— Bleeding Hearts
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When I first hung out in Rodrick’s van after detention, I expected it to be a festering greenhouse of pot smoke and trash, but I was glad to be wrong. While the front seats had many stains and the back of the van was cluttered with shoes, broken drum sticks, and amps, there was, luckily, no pot smell. Only the intoxicating burning sting of Axe and Red Hots that made my hair stand on end. I was well used to the van after several days of our rock music rituals. The seats sat up high and I could see a wide stretch of the school parking lot before me as I leaned back in the seat and took another drag.
Rodrick sat next to me, smoking his own cigarette and nodding his head to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. I remembered when I first heard this song—hanging in Freddy’s basement and listening to him do a terrible cover of it on Guitar Hero. But now, I had to sit and listen politely like the innocent angel that I definitely was not.
“You know, you’re really good at smoking,” Rodrick said, letting a puff of white smoke out of the cracked window.
I looked at him funny and smiled. “What a weird compliment.”
“No, I mean, you don’t look like someone who smokes a lot. I guess you did the first time I met you, but then something changed…”
I felt a lump harden in my throat and I swallowed it down. “That a bad thing?”
Rodrick’s eyes widened briefly and he glanced down. “No, no, not bad. That’s not what I meant…I mean, you’re just…really good.”
Our eyes met for a moment and those stupid feelings I got rose up in my abdomen again. I adjusted my false glasses, suddenly very aware they were there, and twirled the cigarette between my fingers. “Thanks.”
The edges of Rodrick’s full lips turned up and his face relaxed. And he looked at me the same way he had back in the science lab before I found out about his—
“So, did you hear back about the test yet?”
With a heavy sigh, Rodrick nodded and turned down the radio slightly.
A new burst of energy shot through me and I sat straight up, desperate to know something, anything.
Rodrick stared ahead as if he was focusing very intensely on something far out of reach. He frowned and continued after a brief pause, “They said I had trouble with spelling, putting letters where they’re not supposed to be and that kind of thing.”
“Did they diagnose you?”
“Yep. Dixlexia.”
“It’s Dyslexia, Rodrick.”
He looked at me sheepishly and shrugged. “Oh, yeah.”
I let out a quiet chuckle. “How are you feeling about that?”
He fell silent and shifted uncomfortably, taking a big inhale of smoke and holding it in. When he finally did exhale, his eyes drifted down and he began picking at a stray thread on his red flannel shirt. “Whatever. Everyone’s always told me I’m an idiot. Guess they were finally right.”
“Not true.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, really. The good grades stuff is your thing anyway.”
I squinted at him. “How do you know I make good grades?”
He shrugged and took another quick drag from his smoke. He flicked his eyes away as if what he had to say might land him in even more detention. “I notice your tests.”
“Notice?”
“Some could say ‘cheat’.”
“You cheat off of my tests?!”
“Hey,” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up, “In my defense, you do this annoying tapping thing with the end of your pencil. It’s pretty much impossible to focus with that going.”
There were a dozen other things I could’ve nagged him about and I could’ve easily started an argument there in the van. But, instead, I sucked in a low breath and barely shook my head at him, cradling a smile on the inside.
“So, you’re really okay with the dyslexia thing?”
“Guess I have to be. Though, it’s not really something that’s gonna make me look much cooler, huh?”
And without even a thought, I blurted, “How much cooler can you really get?” My breath hitched and even Rodrick looked up at me, his large brown eyes sinking into mine. Why would you say that? What the hell was that?
I immediately looked away and sucked in a lungful of smoke to calm my frazzled nerves. Since when did this lanky mop-headed loser turn me into such a blabbermouth idiot?
After a few awkward seconds, the slow hum of ‘Creep’ in the background, I gathered up the nerve to look back and found him still staring. Perhaps that wasn’t a totally stupid thing to say? Did anyone ever really tell Rodrick he was cool?
I decided to stop being such a coward and own up to it. “I mean it. You’re cool.”
He smiled a genuine toothy smile and held my gaze. “You too. In a Strawberry Shortcake kinda way, I guess.”
I beamed, my cheeks probably a bright pink. “I can do Strawberry Shortcake.”
The silence no longer felt strained and empty. Instead, I felt his presence there so strongly next to me and hoped I wasn’t the only one. As the song came to a sad ending, the piano plinking out the melody until fading to nothing, Rodrick grunted an excited noise and dug through his CD collection in his armrest compartment.
“Oh, man, I almost forgot. These guys are one of my favorites of all time. Crazy good. The drummer, Freddy Hillmore, is actually the one who made me want to take drumming seriously. You’ve gotta hear them.”
Freddy?
Rodrick pulled out a CD printed with the cover of a long, busted-up road leading out into the desert. The sun was setting low in the photo and was in the shape of a skull. I knew the album immediately. It was Hell’s Highway, our first album. Anarchy Road’s first album.
My eyes grew to the shape of saucers, and it took every ounce of willpower in me not to shriek and claw at the CD. My thoughts went black and white, only one word flashing across my eyes: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
Before I could come up with an idea of what to do next, Rodrick popped out the CD and slid it into the stereo, skipping a few songs to get to our fourth track, “Bleeding Hearts”, the song I wrote in late middle school about Patrick Dean. It wasn’t necessarily the most popular of our tracks, but it’d been a personal favorite of mine.
I bit my lip harshly so as to not let my jaw fall to the floor. After a few seconds, I could taste the metallic sourness of blood on the very tip of my tongue. Oh my god. What am I going to do? He’s gonna know. He’s gonna fucking know.
The song began, my voice coming through the speakers against the distorted growl of Val’s guitar. I did the only thing I could possibly do and stared at Rodrick with every muscle held stiff as stone in anticipation. But, his eyes were closed. He mouthed along with my lyrics, his head tilted back slightly and his strong jaw cutting in the air. His hands found their way back onto the steering wheel just as they always did when he found a song he particularly enjoyed. His fingers slid over the faded leather wheel and tapped to the rhythm. I fought desperately with all the conflicting feelings overtaking my body. I felt as if any moment I might topple out of the van and curl up into a fetal position.
By the time the drums came in, Rodrick was nearly in full performance mode, beating the palms of his hands against the steering wheel like a drummer pounding on tight drumheads. He moved as if there was a spotlight shining right down on him, and in my mind, there already was one. The way his head lurched forward at the start of the chorus, tossing locks of his tousled dark hair over his eyes. The way his lips were always just slightly parted, mouthing my words. I’d never felt so terrified and so incredibly close to another person.
As the song came to a dramatic ending with Valerie redefining the word ‘guitar solo’, Rodrick’s pace slowed and he fell back in his seat, out of breath and over-the-moon with pleasure.
“Anarchy Road. They’re so awesome.”
I opened my mouth to say something but yet again fell short of words. What should I say? What could I say?
Rodrick finally opened his eyes and locked onto mine, gazing at me like I was a painting or maybe a sunset. He had to know. I knew he had to. And while I should’ve made a run for it, all I could do was gaze back at him, wanting more than anything to, for once, tell the truth. Thankfully, I didn’t have to suffer for much longer since Rodrick smiled breathlessly and turned down the radio volume.
“Jenny, I never thanked you for hanging out with me here. Listening to music like this.”
God yes, a subject change.
I forced a guttural laugh and darted my eyes away, suddenly remembering my cigarette between my fingers. “Oh yeah, I should be thanking you. If not for this, I’d be stuck lecturing my friend Angie on how to not laugh like a hyena in front of boys.”
He tilted his head to the side and took the last drag of his cigarette before tossing the bud out of the window.
“My friend Angie,” I explained, “has a crush on this guy on the yearbook team, but she can’t say more than two words to him without choking on her own tongue. She wants to ask him to Homecoming but doesn’t know how to. So, I’m teaching her how to flirt with guys.”
Rodrick’s amused grin took up his whole face and he raised his thick eyebrows. “So you’re an expert at flirting, too?”
A certain shyness took over and I could only bashfully shake my head and open and close my mouth like a fish.
Rodrick teased, “Well, how good are you?”
I raised my eyes to meet his in a certain moment of courage and found him gazing back at me like that again. The air shifted. Raw energy masked in the stillness. I found myself drawing my gaze down to his full lips, slightly parted and almost forming the shape of my name. Not Jenny Tyler. My name. I was too scared to close my eyes, knowing that if I did, I would feel his fingers sliding down my jaw and neck again. And I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I felt my fingers reaching out, nearly grasping the bottom of his red flannel. What was worse, I felt him lean towards me, his own gaze softening and falling on my mouth. Every movement was still all around us. Every nerve in my body was frozen, waiting for the moment of collision to finally come. I could feel his warm breath—the same warm disarming breath I’d daydreamed of—prickle upon the surface of my lips. He was so close.
A rapping at the van window nearly shattered my nerves into pieces. We halted to a stop and Rodrick drew back, rolling down the window and dealing with the teacher telling us we had to leave school campus after hours. I released a long-held breath and finally let my shoulders fall back down. Maybe this was just all wrong…
When the teacher finally left, Rodrick turned back to me in silence, both of us equally unsure of what next to say. I felt around for my backpack down at my feet and coughed into my fist.
“I guess that’s my signal to go…” I said.
Rodrick didn’t say much at first but watched me grab my backpack and open the van door. I then heard him suck in a sharp breath. The next thing I knew, a warm hand latched around my arm, holding me in place.
“Wait, Jenny.”
I turned back, almost ready to shut the door and stay for hours longer. “Yeah?”
“You mentioned the Homecoming dance next week. It’s pretty lame…and normally I never go. But…um, since you’re new here, I thought, well, uh, maybe you’d want someone to go with. Not that it really matters. Actually, fuck it. Forget I said anything.”
“No,” I rushed, laying my hand over his on my arm. “That sounds really fun. I want to.”
Rodrick’s unsure face slowly glowed alive with a huge toothy grin, but he quickly caught himself, coughing in his hand, and playing it off cool again. “A-Awesome. Sounds great.”
“Bye,” I smiled, “Thanks for the smokes.”
“Bye. Thanks for the…Bye.”
As I walked back to my car, each step pounding and vibrating in my chest like cannon shots, the feelings all came flooding back to me—total utter terror, thrilling excitement, debilitating guilt, fiery and unavoidable heat. How would I cope with it all every time I saw him and felt like grabbing at his shirt? He asked me to Homecoming. Me. But, who did he ask: Jenny or Philly? Maybe right now, it just didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The only other insignificant thought making its way into the chasms of my mind was: Angie’s gonna kill me.
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