Chapter 9
Brett and I spent the rest of the day wondering around to zoo and checking out the other animals. My favorite animal was the penguins, partly because all they do is waddle around without a care in the world. It was about five now and Brett offered to take me out for supper, as friends of course.
“You heard about the winter dance?” Brett asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I offered to help out with it,” I told him. He gave me a quizzical look as he took a bite out of his cheeseburger.
“I thought it would take my mind off things,” I replied.
He nodded. “Makes sense, what theme is it?”
“Winter Wonderland,” I replied before taking a sip of my water.
“Original,” Brett muttered.
I laughed. “That’s what I said; I wanted to do like candy cane themed; I thought that would have been cool!”
“Yeah,” Brett said smiling sadly at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
I sighed but decided to leave it alone. We finished supper pretty quickly and Brett paid again. As we headed out of the restaurant I glanced over at Brett. “Where do you get all this money from?” I asked.
“I have a job,” Brett smirked at me. “You really think my parents would send me money, they barely have enough to keep themselves going! To be honest, I’m pretty sure if they had more money they wouldn’t be together.”
“Why’s that?”
Brett sighed. “You see, Ally, if they got divorced they wouldn’t have enough money to make it on their own but together they have enough.”
“Wow,” I said not knowing what else I should say.
“Pathetic, I know,” Brett said with a shrug.
I smiled sadly. “Yeah.”
When Brett and I pulled up at a movie store I looked over at him confused. “Um, what are we doing here?”
“Logan, wants me to stop and buy some new movies because he’s tired of watching the same ones,” Brett rolled his eyes and I couldn’t help but smile.
“That sounds like him,” I said.
Brett nodded. “Yeah, he’s kind of a movie freak, he hates watching the same movies over and over while Tyler and I don’t give a shit!”
I chuckled. “So now he’s making you buy more movies because he’s lazy and doesn’t wanna leave your dorm?”
Brett nodded once. “Pretty much.”
Brett and I headed into the movie store and browsed through the movies for a little while, I was actually tempted to buy one myself considering Zoey, Shelby, and I always watch the same movies.
“Ally,” someone called my name as I looked at the chick flicks. I turned around and saw Kendra walking up to me. I could tell she was judging me with her eyes by the face she made as she walked over here.
“Hi,” I said.
To be honest I really didn’t know much about Kendra, just that, apparently I don’t like her all that much. I watched her closely as she crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?”
“Brett’s looking for movies,” I told her nodding to the action movie section where Brett was reading the summary of a movie on the back of the case.
“Shouldn’t you be with Justin?” she asked raising a brow as if she thought I was cheating on him or something.
“Brett and I came as friends, I wouldn’t cheat on Justin, I’m not a slut,” I told her even though I really wanted to add ‘like you’ at the end, I decided against that.
I’m pretty sure she read my mind by the look she gave me. “I see,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied. Then I turned and continued to browse hoping she would leave me alone, unfortunately she didn’t.
“So I hear you’re a part of the Winter Dance club, huh?”
“Yep,” I replied popping the p.
“So since you and Brett aren’t together, do you think I could go with him?” she asked smirking at me.
Just then Brett came up to us. “Why don’t you ask him?” I shot her my sweetest smile.
“Ask me what?” Brett asked looking between us.
Kendra looked nervously at Brett before shooting a glare at me. “You wanna go to the dance with me?” Kendra asked Brett as innocently as she could.
“No,” Brett dead panned.
“Why not?”
“I’m not stupid Kendra, I know about all that stuff you did to Ally, why would I go with you?” Brett explained.
Kendra glared at me and I gave her a confused look, what did she do to me? “Bitch,” she muttered before turning and walking away.
“Ready to go?” Brett asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
I grabbed the movies that I had picked out and we both headed for the checkout. Brett and I began showing each other the movies we had picked out. After we had paid, we headed out of the store when Kendra caught up to us.
“Guys, I want to apologize about earlier, I was being rude,” Kendra said.
“It’s fine,” I said at the same Brett said, “Yeah, you were.” I turned and raised a brow at him and he shrugged in response.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry,” he said. Then she pulled me in for a hug. I was beyond shocked that I just stood there in nothing while I could feel Brett’s gaze on me. I could only imagine the face he was giving Kendra right now.
Kendra pulled away before smiling. “See you around,” and then she was gone.
Brett and I exchanged a look. “That was weird,” Brett said.
I shrugged. “Whatever, maybe she’ll leave us alone now.”
“Doubt it,” Brett muttered before heading through the door. I stopped when the security buzzer went off. I looked over at Brett and he raised a brow.
“I didn’t steal anything,” I scoffed as one of the workers walked over to me and checked my bag. She went through my bag as she looked at the receipt. She pulled a key chain out of the bag and gave me a disapproving frown.
“Can you explain this?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Ma’am you didn’t pay for this,” she told me.
“I swear I never grabbed that,” I told her.
“Do I have to call security?” she asked.
“What? No!” I snapped. I don’t remember even grabbing that key chain! Why would I grab a monkey key chain for your keys when I don’t even have a car?!
“Calm down,” she told me. “You stupid teenagers can’t just go around stealing things from stores; I’m calling security to come down here!”
Before I could tell her that wasn’t necessary she was already walking away the key chain in her hand. I turned to Brett, he was glaring at her back, and behind him I could see Kendra smirking as she blew a kiss.
“I’m going to fucking kill her!” I screamed.
Brett looked over at me startled. “Who?” he asked.
“Kendra! When she hugged me she put that stupid key chain in my bag so that I would get caught!” I gritted my teeth together and balled my fists at my sides.
Kendra was still standing there when Brett turned around and flipped her off. She glared at him and started walking away. The lady then came back with two security guards. One of them was very big, with a giant beer belly and looked to be in his early forties while the other one was a tall African American man who had a big afro and looked to be in a lot better shape than the other guy.
“This is them,” the lady said glaring at us before stalking off back to her till.
“Do we have a problem?” Beer belly asked.
“She thinks I stole a key chain! Sir I don’t even have a car why would I do that?” I told him.
“That’s actually true!” Brett added. “Plus, this girl can barely open the peanut butter jar let alone steal something!”
“Thanks,” I muttered frowning at Brett who shrugged. “But he is right; I would never steal anything I swear! Someone put that in my bag!”
Afro sighed. “What are your names?”
Just when I was about to tell him Brett cut in. “That’s Liz and I’m Jake, we’re brother and sister.”
I gave Brett a what-the-fuck look.
Afro raised an eyebrow at us. “You guys look nothing alike,” he pointed out clearly not believing our story.
“Step siblings,” Brett said. “Her mom married my dad, and we happen to be almost the same age.”
Afro sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll let you two off with a warning tonight, but if I catch you again, you two are in big trouble.”
Then he turned dragging his partner along with him. “Are we aloud to do that?” Beer belly asked as they walked away.
I turned to Brett, “What the hell?” I exclaimed.
Brett rolled his eyes and grabbed my hand before pulling me out of the movie store. “Relax, Ally, we’ll never see them again.”
“You just lied to cops!” I told him.
“I know, it’s no biggie,” he shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“Brett, if we get in trouble, I swear to God I’ll–”
“What?” he interrupted. “Break my heart? Put me in juvie again? Make me watch you date someone who isn’t me? Or what? Because Baby Girl you’ve done it all before.”
I stayed silent looking at my feet. “I’m–”
“No, stop saying you’re sorry!” Brett explained throwing his hands up in exasperation.
“Brett I–”
“Do you have any idea what it was like for me in juvie?” Brett asked.
“No!” I told him because honestly I had no idea!
Just then my phone started ringing. I muttered a sorry before answering without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Hey, Hon,” Mom said and I could tell she was smiling even though we were on the phone.
“Hi, Mom,” I sighed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“You’re taking your medication right?”
“Yes,” I said. “Relax, Mom, I’m fine, nothing’s happened like what happened during the summer so calm down.”
She sighed. “Okay, anyway, I’m calling to ask if you’re still coming home for Christmas, because we really miss you and want to spend Christmas with you.”
“Yeah, I am,” I told her. “You do know Christmas isn’t for like three more weeks.”
“I know, I know, I just miss you,” she told me.
“Ally,” Brett said gesturing to the taxi door he was holding open for me.
I climbed in before he climbed in beside me. “I have to go now,” I told my mom as Brett told the taxi driver the directions.
“Is Brett with you?” Mom asked. “I heard him!”
“Yeah, why?” I asked her.
She swore under her breath and I frowned. What the hell? “Mom?”
“Oh, uh, nothing,” she told me. “Love you, bye!” Then she hung up just like that.
“Medication?” Brett asked as soon as I got off the phone.
“You were eavesdropping?” I asked him.
“Kind of hard not to when your mom talks so loud,” he told me with a small smile.
“So you heard what she said about you?”
“Yes, I did, now stop avoiding the question. What medication is she talking about, and what happened during the summer?”
“It’s none of your business!” I snapped turning and looking out the window.
“Ally…” Brett said a bit of whining in his voice.
“Brett…” I mocked.
“What is she talking about?”
“It’s nothing. Leave. It. Alone.”
He sighed. “Fine,” he muttered.
The rest of the ride was silent and I was glad to finally get out of that taxi so that Brett wasn’t so close to me anymore. We walked to the door side by side. Every once in a while our hands would brush against each other’s and I would pull mine away quickly because every single time I felt the sparks.
“Thanks for taking me to the zoo,” I told him.
“Anytime,” Brett told me with a smile, I could see his breath in the cold air. It was starting to get extremely cold now and I could see the ice on Brett’s dark eyelashes and the redness on his cheeks.
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Goodnight,” I told him.
He pulled me in for a warm hug and I hugged him back, partly because I was frozen to the bone. Then I felt Brett’s lips on my cheek, they were warm and soft and I wanted him to kiss me more but I knew that it was wrong.
“I have a–”
“I know,” he said, “it was a friendly kiss.” He gave my hand a small squeeze before heading inside. I stayed outside for a minute longer, for some reason deep down I had a really bad feeling.