48. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

2016

“ C lem, come on, just come out and show me?” Cael’s voice echoed over the heavy curtain of the dressing room door. We were looking for homecoming outfits at Dandy's, but everything we pulled off the racks was either ugly or too tight on my curves.

“No,” I groaned. I hated everything about shopping for clothes. It only made me feel worse about myself, but Cael insisted we get something new for the dance. “I look stupid!”

Cael’s head peeked through the curtain, blond strands of hair sticking every which way as I flinched and covered anything that wasn’t concealed by clothes the best I could. “Cael!” I hollered and swatted at him.

“You didn’t want to come out, I came in. Problem solved.” Cael slinked into the changing room and scrunched his nose up. The bruise on his jaw was still healing from his fight with Kiefer, and I felt bad that it was festering in an ugly dark purple.

It had taken me two days to finally leave my room and, when I did, he was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Momma had said he’d been there since it happened and that broke my heart all over again. I was stupid to trust a boy, especially one that Cael had warned me against. What had happened wasn’t his fault, I had gotten myself into the mess. I would have to get myself out.

There was a meeting set for my parents and Kiefer’s, because Cael had called his Mama, the incident was reported, and now we had to figure out how to proceed. Kiefer had called a few times to apologize, but Daddy had picked up the phone and hung it up after the first sob session.

He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. That’s what Daddy had said but it didn’t make me feel any better. After a week of sulking, Cael decided that getting out of the house was necessary. My parents were hovering, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I had sent out a S.O.S. in the form of a flashlight call into his bedroom window and he showed up the next morning with a plan.

“We’re going to homecoming,” he’d declared.

I responded with, “absolutely not.”

And then we drove to Dandy’s and Cael pulled thirty dresses off the racks.

He chewed on his lip.

“That’s horrible.”

“No kidding!” I slapped his shoulder and groaned. The dress I had somehow wiggled into pinched my stomach with dark blue scratchy sequins and rolled around my thighs. I couldn’t even get it zipped up properly with the fabric bunching up.

“This store sucks. Why did we come in here?” Cael asked, staring over me. Blue eyes were always so quick and curious, sometimes making me feel even more insecure than I already was.

“Eyes up here,” I barked, and he snapped them up to meet mine with a soft smile. “It’s the only store that carries my sizes.”

“That can’t be true. What about at the mall?” He asked.

“That’s a two-hour drive into the city.” I shook my head.

“So?” He shrugged in the dark sleeveless tank he was wearing, his eyes glittering under the fluorescents. “You’re forgetting your boy has a license now!”

“There’s no way Daddy is going to let you drive me into the city without a parent. Especially not after you got in trouble!” I laughed at him, shoving him back until he was practically out of the changing room.

“Let me deal with Mr. Matthews.” Cael winked and let the curtain fall over.

Let me make this right. He didn’t say it but his glossy blue eyes gave him away. He still felt terrible for what happened, but he was treating me like I was made of glass now and it made me feel small .

Cael was gone all of ten minutes, leaving me waiting for him at the front of the store with my cardigan folded over my arms. He had a cell phone, I didn’t. Something about it being too expensive and not worth the money if Cael had one and we were always together.

I suppose it made sense to our parents, but it became another reason I depended on him constantly. I couldn’t leave the house unless my parents could reach me, which meant I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without Cael.

Although it was his idea to attend homecoming in the first place, I couldn’t have cared less. I’d rather spend that time in my room or by the creek, listening to the birds and writing in my journal about their songs; but he had preached the need for a proper high school experience, and, like the naive idiot I was, I followed him step for step into the unknown.

I hated how easily he convinced me to do the things I feared most.

When Cael appeared around the corner with a cheesy grin and a twinkle in his eyes, I knew that whatever plan he had devised had worked. “Mr. Matthews is a chump.” He winked and linked his arm with mine.

“ Turns out the supplies we need to put together our science project can only be bought in the city. Yes, Sir, of course, Sir, I’ll have her back before dark,” he mocked my Dad’s voice.

“He’s going to expect a science project, you know that, right?” I laughed at Cael.

“That’s later Cael’s problem,” he snorted and pushed open the door for me.

The truck was parked in the back row of the small parking lot, but from the door to the truck, my nerves bubbled violently, and I stopped in my tracks. Pressing my heels down into the cracked, sun-worn pavement with a shaky breath.

“Clem?” Cael turned to look at me, only realizing I’d stopped when he reached his truck.

“We don’t need to go into the city,” I shook my head and adjusted my small bag on my back. “I don’t need to go to homecoming.”

“What do you mean?” He closed his door and sauntered the few steps back to me.

“It’s too much fuss over…” I stopped talking and started to fiddle with the straps with my fingers.

“Now I know you didn’t just say that to me.” Cael chortled. “It’s not a fuss to find you a pretty dress for our first homecoming, Clementine, so what if we have to drive into the city? We can turn the music up real loud and drive too fast on the highway!”

Cael had this way of making everything sound fun, even when I was sad.

“I hate that we have to do that,” I argued, but Cael just scoffed. “You don’t get it, you’re–”

“I’m what, Clem?” He stepped forward and waited.

“Average!” I grumbled. “You fit everything, and trying on dresses that I’m too big for makes me sad!”

“Trying on dresses that don’t fit you ,” he corrected me. “You’re not too big for them.” He closed the distance between us and pulled the bag away from me. “So you’re saying because you don’t fit the Polly Pocket plastic Dandy’s is selling, you don’t deserve to go to homecoming?”

“None of the other girls have to go into the city for a dress they’ll wear once, Cael. It’s not–”

“ Fair , I know,” he said, picking my chin up with his finger. “That’s why I lied to your Daddy, so that I could level the playing field.”

“Cael,” I groaned.

“You don’t deserve anything less than going to homecoming and feeling as pretty as I know you are,” he said, and I could feel the blush creeping up my neck. “You’re worth more than a hundred girls dressed in the same cheap dress on any day, Clementine. Let me prove it to you.”

He held out his hand to me, wiggling his fingers until I pressed my palm into his.

“And I am anything but average,” he scoffed as he opened my door for me. “Clem,” he said before closing it.

“What?”

“Promise me something?” He asked. The sun kissed his tan cheeks, and I watched his throat bob slightly as he danced around saying what he wanted. He was painfully handsome, and sometimes it was easier to forget just how so but, illuminated in the sun like he was today, it was clear he stood above everyone in this god-forsaken town.

However, no matter how beautiful Cael may have been, whatever he was about to ask was sure to be ridiculous. Gathering my courage, I nodded for him to continue.

“Try to stop bending yourself to fit into a box not made for you.” He squinted in the sunlight and grimaced. “I hate watching you contort to what you expect people want from you, and I know me telling you what you want to hear won't help, but try being nicer to yourself for my sake?”

I know he wanted to say more, he wanted to talk to me about Kiefer, but I couldn’t do it. It just hurt too much. There was so much wrong and there was not a single word that would quell my twisted, dark feelings. We both understood the risks of going to homecoming, and yet the look in his eye gave me confidence that maybe it could be fun.

But then the idea of coming face to face with Kiefer caught in my throat like a cotton ball.

“I’ll try,” I said but, deep down, that was a lot harder of a task than he made it sound.