Chapter Twenty Nine

A.N Thank you for all the reviews. Sorry I've been slow at updating. Here's a nice long chapter to make up for it.

It was a very different experience being with Chris Chambers after Ace Merrill.

Chris listened when I talked. He opened doors and he pulled out chairs. He stroked my hair when I couldn't sleep and it was almost as if he didn't notice other girls when I was in the room.

In most ways it was a good change. Chris was everything a boyfriend should be. But it made things calm. Quiet. Something I wasn't used to.

"You wanna go do something?" I asked him one evening at the tree house. Chris was leaning over his geometry book, a look of concentration on his face. He glanced up at me distractedly.

"Like what?"

"I don't know…get drunk? Boost a car? Get in some trouble?"

I was only half kidding but he chuckled anyway and leaned over to shove me playfully before he went back to his book. I sighed.

"Chris, I'm bored of studying. All we do is study."

"That's not true." He put out a hand and pulled me towards him. "How about after I finish this we go to the diner? My shout?"

His warm blue eyes were mesmerising but I had let them sway me too many times before.

"Are you not bored? Don't you ever get the urge to do something wild now and then?"

Chris frowned at me and pouted a little.

"Like what?"

"Like go drinking?"

He dropped his eyes back to his book.

"I'm not a big drinker."

"Then how about we get a tattoo?" I grinned.

Now his face soured entirely. He tossed his book aside, his voice acid like.

"A tattoo of what? A cobra?"

"Huh?" It took me a few seconds to register what he was trying to say.

"Look, Nina, I'm not Ace, and I'm not my brother. If you wanna date a neanderthal, you're with the wrong guy." His voice was indignant, irritated almost, and his accusation made me mad. I tensed up.

"That is not what I meant!"

"Sure it wasn't." He slumped back on the treehouse wall, and picked the book up again "Maybe it's me that's boring you."

"It is not!" I snatched the book from him and tossed it aside. "It's this. The study, study, study day and night. When we're not studying, I'm waiting tables or you're lifting boxes and it never freaking ends. I get it, Chris. You wanna do well, you wanna go to college. But can't we have a little fun now and then too?"

Chris' face reddened slightly.

"You've got no damn will power, you know that?" The passion was oozing out of every pore. Chris Chambers was a guy who saw things through. And those who didn't see things through were weak in his eyes. "This time next year we'll be cramming for finals, you realise that? This time next year I'll be inches from getting away from this damn town and starting some place new. It's the wrong time to drop the ball, Nina. I've been working my ass off to make sure this happens and I can't give up now. I need all the study time and all the cash I can get. And so do you."

"Who the hell are you to tell me what I need?" I snapped.

"I'm the person who's going to college and wants you to come with me."

I sucked in my breath and looked at him kind of agape for a while. He ducked his head and scuffed his boot against one of the treehouse floorboards.

"This is the part where you say something," he mumbled.

I didn't know what to say but suddenly I felt an enormous pressure. Ace had never wanted anything from me. Not commitment, not emotion; and I had felt cheated at that. But now…now that I had what I had wanted, I felt afraid.

"Well, I…it's just….I'll never get into the same college you do."

He looked up at me, his eyes confident.

"Sure you will. You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. You carry on the way you have been lately, you'll bring your grade average way up. I got it all figured out. We apply to the same five colleges and we only consider the ones we have matches in. We'll do a mix of competitive schools, less competitive and a back up college."

I ran a hand through my hair, stalling for time. He had obviously put some thought into this.

"What if I don't want to go to college?"

He looked at a loss for words but then shook it off impatiently.

"Why wouldn't you? What would you want to stay here for?" His voice was tense, his breathing was heavy.

I thought about it. There was nothing keeping me here and if Chris was leaving, there was everything to leave for. But I didn't belong in college. I wasn't a brain box like Chris or Gordie. I had always figured I'd end up tending bar or waiting tables. It had been Chris who had put the idea of college into my head. As Stan would say, I was getting ideas beyond my standing.

"I'm just not college material."

"Don't say that."

"I'm not."

"Don't say that." He sounded almost upset the second time.

"Maloney nearly fell down dead when I got an A on that math test. And Mrs Hester made me move seats in history because she thought I cheated on her dumb quiz."

"Fuck Maloney and fuck Hester," he said heatedly. "Fuck their reactions, just hold onto the fact that you aced both those tests. You studied for them and you didn't cheat and you aced them both. You are college material."

"You just don't get it," I sighed. "People believe in you. Everybody thinks you''re smart."

"You think that happened overnight? I'm the kid brother of Eyeball Chambers and even if some of the teachers have worked out I'm not a complete dumb ass by now, everybody's expecting me to screw up at something. Thats the family pattern, I guess. But fuck them. Fuck them all."

"But what if I wasn't smart? What if I was gonna end up a townie? Tending bar or working a grill some place? Would you still wanna be with me?"

I was fiddling with the laces of my sneakers as Chris' eyes were searching my face in confusion.

"Nina, why are you saying this? What's this about? Don't you wanna come to college with me?"

I looked into his deep blue eyes and wanted to tell him I'd follow him into hell if he asked me. But instead, I shrugged.

"What if I can't?"

He shook his head vehemently.

"Stop talking yourself down like this. You're a smart girl and I like that about you."

"Would you still wanna be with me if I didn't get into college?"

"You will get into college." His voice booked no room for argument.

But it wasn't an answer. And we both knew it.

888

I ran into Stan on a humid afternoon outside the dime store on Main. The day was heavy and airless and so while Gordie and Chris were flicking through car magazines across the street, I'd bought a coke and sat down to rest my tired legs.

I think I sensed him before I saw him. Because when Stan's shadow fell over me, I immediately felt a sense of unease. Our eyes met, and for a moment neither of us spoke.

Slowly, he lifted his chin in greeting. My eyes widened in surprise.

"You want something?" I demanded.

"Nope." He shifted uncomfortably. "You uh- need anything?"

"Not from you, no."

He paused for a moment, wiped a hand over his brow and then nodded, before heading towards the dime store. I took a nervous gulp of my coke before I saw Chris hurrying across the street towards me. I stood as he approached.

"You okay?" He reached out with both hands, holding me in front of him as if to get a better look and I forced a smile.

"I'm good."

"What did Stan want?"

"I'm not too sure." I watched as Stan disappeared through the store entrance and then refocused on Chris. "He was weird."

Chris frowned.

"Weird how?"

"He was just…not Stan. Not mean, not angry…I don't know, just weird."

Chris studied my face for a few more seconds before he pulled me closer to him. I buried my face in his chest but couldn't shake off the unease of Stan's behaviour.

"Chris-uh- could I…could you give me a minute?"

"To talk to him?" He exclaimed. I nodded.

"Just for a minute. He won't touch me in the store. Please?"

Chris bit his lip and cast a look back at the store front.

"Be careful, Nina, please. I'll wait right here, okay?"

I stood on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek before I handed him my coke and headed inside. I found Stan in the third aisle looking at garden hoses. He didn't notice me for a while.

"Stan."

He looked up in surprise.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you acting so weird?"

A shadow of his usual darkness crossed his face. He looked irritated.

"Whaddya mean?"

"You know what I mean." I clenched my fists, remembering our last conversation back at the house.

"Well, I-uh- I'm just keeping my word. Like I said I would."

I was growing more and more puzzled.

"Keeping your word to whom?"

"To your boyfriend, of course."

For a second I thought he meant Chris but I quickly realised he was talking about Ace. My stomach sank.

"And what does keeping your word involve?"

"You know. Telling the school you still live at the house. And keeping the peace."

My head began to spin.

"And what do you get?"

"You know what I get," he hissed. "Or don't get. Dont you push me, girl. You trying to antagonise me so Merrill turns on me? Well it ain't gonna work." With that, Stan turned his back on me and strode away.

I stood there in stunned silence for a few minutes, trying to process what Stan had said. I remembered the conversation I had had with the principal and how surprised I'd been when he had said he had spoken with Stan. Sure, Ace had took up for me with Stan before, but what really really surprised me was that Ace had to have threatened Stan after we had broken up.

"Nina." Chris' voice behind me in the store aisle made me jump and I turned around to look into his worried face. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "Come on, let's go."

Chris didn't ask what I'd said to Stan. I think he realised if I wanted to tell him I would have. And for some reason, I didn't want to.

888

When word got around that Butch Merrill had drawn his last breath, I couldn't stay away. The unbearable summer heat had given way to a monsoon type of rain and I was drenched through and shivering when he opened the front door to my frantic knocking.

Ace stood there, completely dry eyed, his mouth twisted into what would have looked like a sneer to anyone else. But I could see the pain beyond that. I could see the dark circles under his eyes and the glimmer of relief at me standing there in front of him.

We didn't speak but he walked towards the sofa, leaving the door ajar, I came inside and shook off my wet coat, sourcing a towel in the bathroom and drying myself as best I could.

I found him sat on the sofa, staring at the television which for once wasn't switched on. I sat on the armchair and leaned towards him.

"I'm sorry," I told him. "He would have been proud of you."

It was the truth. Ace was most parents idea of a nightmare but he had turned out just like Butch had wanted him to.

"Bullshit."

"It's true. That day at the prison, he asked me about you. After you left. He wanted to know if you could drink and fight. And if women liked you."

Ace raised an eyebrow.

"What'd you say?"

"I told him the truth. I told him that those things were your speciality. He was proud, Ace."

Ace rubbed his hands across the knees of his ripped jeans and hunched forward on the sofa.

"I shouldn't have been such a shit," he mumbled, almost as if to himself. He stood up and began to pace the room like a restless tiger "He died thinking I didn't give a shit."

"That's not true. He knew you gave a shit and he knew he'd done wrong."

"How? I mean…did you tell him? About…" He couldn't say the words but he slipped the gold St Christopher from out of his shirt and fingered it uncomfortably.

I paused. I didn't know how he was going to take the news but in the end I didn't think I could lie about it either.

"Yeah. Yeah, I told him."

Ace stopped pacing and sank down on the sofa again.

"Thanks," he said softly.

"I guess I should be thanking you too," I said.

Ace glanced up in genuine confusion.

"For what?"

"For making Stan tell the school he was still my guardian."

Ace looked disinterested.

"I got no idea what you're fucking talking about," he spat.

I didn't believe him for a second.

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