Chapter 17: Head in the Clouds

Riley

I've always had this idea that getting to know someone is a little like watching the clouds change shape before your eyes. One minute they're exactly what you thought they were – a fully formed shape of something familiar and real. But before you know it, they have the ability to morph into something else entirely – an image so foreign that it might not even be recognizable to anyone but yourself.

As I lay in a small patch of grass near the large oak tree in the park by my apartment, I couldn't help but let my mind drift to thoughts of Jensen. I watched the clouds weave in and out of different shapes in the sky, and all I could think about was that bad feeling I got in the pit of my stomach the night I met him in front of the hospital. I thought that it had disappeared the more I had gotten to know him, but I couldn't push it away. It was the one cloud that wouldn't change shape no matter how hard I stared, or how much closer I got to it.

"What do you see?" Auggie asked, gently poking me in the side to get my attention. I removed the earphones from my ears and turned my head towards him, squinting my eyes to block the sun from my view.

"Bunny," I grinned, already anticipating his annoyed response. Auggie rolled his eyes and sat up in the grass to get a better look at me.

"You always say bunny," Auggie whined, clearly unimpressed with my cloud-gazing abilities.

"That's because bunnies are fluffy and round – just like clouds," I explained. "It's just what I see. I can't see anything different."

"Maybe you should try looking at them from a different perspective. Tilt your head to the side, squint your eyes a little," Auggie demonstrated this for me, and I couldn't help but laugh a little. "Maybe it'll open your eyes to a whole different type of cloud."

That was it. To shake that feeling I had about Jensen, I needed to see him from a different perspective. I needed to give him a chance to show me that he was more than one fixed feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Auggie, you're a genius," I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air and pushing off the ground in one hurried motion.

"I mean, that's a given," Auggie agreed, sounding confident with this information. When he realized that he had no idea what I was talking about, he looked at me questioningly. "But what did I do specifically to show my genius-like abilities this time?"

Ignoring his question, I gathered my backpack off of the blanket we were laying on, and quickly stood up. "I have to go," I announced.

"Wait, you can't leave me here!" Auggie protested, scrambling to stand on his feet.

"You're in the fourth grade, I think you can cross the street to our apartment by yourself," I snatched up the blanket, quickly shaking off the blades of grass that had accumulated since we had spread it out an hour ago.

"No, you can't leave me alone in the apartment," Auggie reminded me. "Mom's rule remember? You don't want to get on her bad side like last time do you?"

I thought about that for a second, remembering the incident in question. I quickly realized that I would rather have Auggie join me on this ridiculous mission of mine, than to have my mom look at me the way she did the last time I disobeyed her.

"Good point, let's go," I said automatically, placing the items underneath my arm and heading in the direction of the subway.

"Sweet! Where are we going?" Auggie asked, hurrying to catch up with me. I stopped abruptly, placing a hand on his shoulder and squinting my eyes at him dramatically.

"To a far away land where there's candy in crystal-plated bowls on every table and gold-rimmed toilet seat covers in every bathroom," I teased, trying everything I could to convince him that wherever we were going was worth his while.

"Awesome," he muttered, shuffling his feet to keep up with me as we made our way down into the subway station.

I grabbed Auggie's hand as we weaved our way through the crowd of people hurrying to return to wherever they called home. I knew that what I was about to do was just a distraction from Lucas and everything that he was trying to protect me from. And I knew how this would make him feel. But I had to find out for myself if Jensen was everything Lucas warned me about, or if he was something much more. I had to know. And there was only one way to find out.

Auggie and I stood in front of Jensen Haynes' apartment building waiting for me to build up the courage to open the door to the lobby. Auggie wiggled impatiently next to me as I made the move to open the door, and then quickly moved my hand away, too afraid to follow through with it.

"Are we going inside, or are we just going to stand out here like a bunch of weirdos," Auggie complained, clearly annoyed with my inability to make up my mind.

"Just give me a minute," I mumbled, biting my lower lip and gazing up at the windows of the unbelievably tall building.

"I've given you ten minutes, open the door already!"

"Alright, alright," I muttered, my hand hovering over the door handle, ready to do as he instructed. I took a deep breath, preparing to step inside when the doorman appeared in front of me.

"Good afternoon, miss. May I ask who you are here to see?"

I shifted uncomfortably and cleared my throat. "Uh, Jensen Haynes," I muttered, unable to steady my voice.

"Oh, of course! You must be the new girlfriend," the doorman smiled knowingly, and I heard Auggie giggle next to me.

"No, no, definitely not," I sputtered out quickly. "I'm just his tutor."

"Sorry, miss, I guess I just assumed," the doorman apologized. "Jensen hasn't brought anyone home since Miss Jessica. I figured it was about time that he met someone new."

My eyes went wide at the sound of her name. "Jessica? Jessica Evans?"

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded solemnly. "I didn't think I would ever see him smile again after the night she passed. Then all of a sudden, a few nights ago he came home from the park with the goofiest grin on his face. I just assumed it was because of a girl."

The image of the kiss that Jensen and I shared flashed across my mind, and I felt my cheeks begin to blush at the memory of his lips on mine.

"Is Jensen here, or should I come back later?" I changed the subject, desperate to get what I came here to do out of the way.

"Sorry, miss. Kevin will check for you at the desk. It will just take a moment," he explained, gesturing to the young man sitting behind the large mahogany desk in the corner of the lobby.

Auggie and I made our way over to Kevin, I told him my name, and then we waited for him to call up to the Haynes' apartment. I couldn't help but notice the way Auggie's eyes popped out of his head when he saw the size of the chandelier hanging above us. It was very similar to the way I felt when I first stepped into the Haynes' apartment with Jensen.

"Mr. Haynes will be down in just a moment, if you and your brother would like to have a seat. Can I offer you anything to drink?" Kevin asked, looking at us expectantly.

"Double chocolate chip milkshake, extra whip cream, cherry on top," Auggie told him, leaning back in his plush chair and kicking up his feet onto the coffee table. I gave him a stern look and he just shrugged at me.

"No, thank you," I declined. "We're fine." I settled into the chair and Kevin nodded, shuffling back to his position behind the desk.

"Be careful with him," Kevin called from behind the counter.

"What do you mean?" I asked, not entirely sure what he was talking about. I stood from the chair and walked over to the desk, doing whatever I could to distance Auggie from our conversation.

"Jensen Haynes has a temper and a deadly desire to get what he wants. And the people he cares about most end up getting hurt when that's the case - I saw that first hand the night his girlfriend died," Kevin turned around to place a book on the shelf behind him, and I leaned in to whisper to him.

"You know something about that night, don't you, Kevin?"

"You learn a lot of secrets working at the front desk in this kind of place. Secrets you wish you never would have been told in the first place. I know a lot of things, Ms. Matthews. But nothing you want me to tell you." With that, Kevin turned on his heel to head to the back office without another word on the subject. I quickly returned to my seat and Auggie turned to face me.

"So, are you going to tell me why we're here, or are you just going to make me guess?" Auggie narrowed his eyes at me, that mischievous look on his face letting me know that he had already whipped up a few crazy theories in his head about why we were in this fancy apartment building.

"You'll find out soon enough," I muttered through gritted teeth, the nerves finally starting to set in.

"What happened to that other guy? The one you had a crush on, but kept pretending you didn't?"

I thought about arguing with him - "I don't know what you're talking about", or, "I never had a crush!" - but I was tired of arguing and denying and lying about everything. It was time to be direct and straight-forward with the people I cared about.

"He's... He's not a possibility right now," I said in almost a whisper.

"Why not?" Auggie furrowed his brows, clearly confused.

Let's face it, I was just as confused as he was.

"I'll tell you another time, but right now - " I started to say, but was cut short by the sight of Jensen barging through the entrance to the staircase, his breath coming in short, labored spurts and his eyes dancing wildly.

"Riley," Jensen breathed, trying his best to catch his breath. It occurred to me that he had taken the stairs, even though the elevators seemed to be working just fine. "I didn't think I'd ever hear from you again. Not after what happened in the park."

"What happened in the park?" Auggie tugged on my arm, and I slapped his hand away.

"Uh, Jensen this is my little brother Auggie," I took a deep breath and pulled Jensen off to the side, out of Auggie's earshot. "Look, I need to get this out, so I don't want any interruptions - no flirtatiously witty retorts or comments or that annoyingly sly smile that you're giving me right now."

"I am not - " Jensen began, but I placed one finger over his mouth to shush him. I slowly lowered my hand, and he nodded for me to continue.

"There's a lot I don't know about you. In fact, I barely know you at all. And the things that I've heard about you make me wonder if I even should," I glanced down at my hands, afraid to meet his eyes. "But I told someone recently that they shouldn't think of another person as just a perception or a rumor that they've heard from other people. They need to see that person in a different light - to shake the perception, and get to know them in a different way, on their own terms."

I was doing everything I could to make the words that I was saying sound convincing. It didn't matter if I believed them anymore, as long as Jensen did. The truth was that I really did believe everything I told Lucas about letting people tell their side of the story, before you peg them as something undesirable in your eyes. But I also believed in gut feelings. And I had a terrible one about Jensen Haynes. The remark that Kevin had just made about Jensen getting the people he loved mixed up in his desire to get what he wants, confirmed that completely.

"So that's what I'm going to try to do with you," I slowly let my eyes wander up to meet his gaze and I took in a deep breath. "Will you go to the homecoming dance with me?"

I thought about Lucas, and how mad he would be that I was doing the exact opposite of what he told me to do about Jensen. I thought about everything that I had heard about Jensen and the night that Jessica Evans died. I needed to trust my instincts and figure out why Jensen made me feel so uncomfortable. I needed to figure out the truth - for Lucas and for myself.

"You're sure about this? Me going back to that school - you might learn some things about me that you're not ready to know," Jensen warned me.

I'm kind of counting on it.

"I'm sure," I promised him, trying everything I could to keep my voice calm.

"Then, yes," Jensen's eyes lit up, and the corners of his mouth curled into that classic sly smile of his. "Riley Matthews, I would be honored to go to homecoming with you."

I let myself smile back at him, but I couldn't ignore the fact that the feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one I was trying to shake by asking Jensen to the homecoming dance, still lingered. It was faint, hardly worth acknowledging, but it was still there. And I had an even worse feeling that it wasn't going to go away any time soon. In fact, I think that it was going to get worse.

"You're going to the homecoming dance? With Jensen Haynes? Have you lost your mind?" Maya dropped the history book she was flipping through, and turned to face me on the couch we were sitting on in my mother's bakery.

"Maya, I have to go with him," I tried to explain. "Something's not right. I thought that I needed to get closer to him to prove that this bad feeling I had about him since the beginning was wrong. But I think that I need to prove the opposite. I think I need to prove that it's right. And whatever I find out about him - I have this feeling that it'll protect Lucas somehow."

Maya looked at me with a blank expression and shook her head in complete disbelief.

"Okay, now you're making zero sense," she frowned.

"I know, but everything will make sense after the dance," I promised her, picking up my AP calculus book from the coffee table and flipping to the correct page.

"Riley, you're going to be careful, right?" Maya placed a hand on my shoulder and I smiled at her reassuringly.

"Aren't I always?"

"Yes - annoyingly so," Maya muttered, and I nudged her arm playfully. "Where's Farkle by the way?"

As if he had heard Maya say his name, Farkle swung open the front door of Topanga's and skipped - yes, skipped - over to the section of the bakery where Maya and I were seated.

"You guys won't believe this," Farkle announced, as he tried to catch his breath. "But I just got a date to the homecoming dance!" Farkle exclaimed, a bead of sweat dripping down his face.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Maya threw her arms in the air, and Farkle limped over to sit in the chair next to Maya.

"That's great, Farkle," I told him, shooting Maya a disapproving look. "Who did you ask?"

"Her name is Isadora, and she's probably the smartest person I've ever met," Farkle beamed. "We were in history and she answered this ridiculous question about Archduke Ferdinand. So naturally I told her my Archduke Ferdinand joke. And - get this - she actually laughed. Then I just took a chance and asked her to the dance. It was amazing."

"So you two nerds have dates, and I'm stuck at home all night eating cheese puffs and watching reality tv marathons?" Maya gaped at both of us, and I turned in my seat to look at her sympathetically.

"We'll find you a date, Maya," I promised her.

"Oh, I'm not worried about that. I've had like three different guys on the newspaper ask me. I just don't wanna go," Maya whined.

"Come on, Maya, it'll be fun," I tried to convince her, but something at the front of the bakery caught her eye, and her attention was pulled to whatever was happening up there.

"Speaking of fun," Maya mumbled, pointing to the person walking into the bakery. "Boyfriend number one just walked in."

Lucas entered the bakery - his hair disheveled and eyes swimming with confusion. He looked like he had been up all night studying or thinking or both - anything that didn't involve sleeping. I immediately stood from the couch and met him in front of the counter.

"Lucas, what is it?" I asked, not even afraid to hide my concern anymore.

"You were right," Lucas blurted out. "I talked to Merritt and Holden. Everything is starting to make sense. And all of it - the night of the lacrosse championships, the reason we needed to keep our tutoring sessions a secret, the misunderstanding with my brother and Merritt - it all has to do with Jensen."

I led him to the bay window at the front of the bakery and we both sat down.

"I know," I assured him, and his brows immediately furrowed in confusion.

"You know?"

"Well, not really. But I had a feeling," I explained. Lucas didn't press me for any further details, he simply nodded and placed one of his hands on top of mine.

"Okay. Okay, good," Lucas smiled, relief evident in his voice. "That means you can stop tutoring him."

"No, I can't," I shook my head firmly, and removed my hand from underneath his.

"Why not?"

"I'm going to help you figure out everything that he's been hiding," I told him firmly, standing up and walking over to the counter to pick the smoothie I had ordered before he walked in.

"Riley, no, I can't ask you to do that," he protested, following close behind me.

"You didn't," I reminded him. "I decided that on my own. That's why I'm going to the homecoming dance with him."

"You're what?" Lucas' jaw dropped as I picked up the strawberry banana smoothie and turned to look at him. "You can't go to the dance with him, Riley. He's way too dangerous! I thought you just said that you knew that he was up to no good."

"I do know, that, Lucas," I sighed, maneuvering my way around him to sit at one of the stools at the counter. "I just don't know what that is. And if I can go to the dance with him - maybe I can figure that out."

"Riley, that's insane!"

"Lucas, I know that whatever happened the night of the lacrosse championships with Jessica Evans - it was Jensen's responsibility. Not yours. But he wants everyone to think that it was. Why?"

Lucas rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably and took a deep breath.

"To tell you that - I'd have to start from the very beginning."

"I have all night," I informed him, folding my left leg underneath me and settling into my seat, smoothie in hand.

With that, Lucas turned to face me, closed his eyes for a moment, and prepared to tell me everything that he knew about the night of the lacrosse championships.

"Okay, here it goes."