Beautiful Tragedy (A Standalone Romance Novel) Read online

  I know that sappy stuff sounds like I’m talking about a guy that I’m dating. It’s exactly why I don’t say any of it out loud. People, and by people I mean Megan and Jake, would take it the wrong way. Thinking it in my head just means that I think he’s a really cool guy. Saying it out loud would make me sound like I was in love. Which I am not. Absolutely, positively, not.

  “You spend more time at their apartment than I do. Jake says he sees you more than he does me.”

  “I’m tutoring him in math,” I said. It was true. I have always been good at math, and he was struggling. We’re friends and that’s what friends do for each other. If Megan or Jake needed to be tutored, I would tutor them as well. It’s not like we’re in one of those silly teenage movies where we gaze at each other across the table over the math book and realize we’re made for each other. We do his math, we cook and we talk. Sometimes we play video games or watch movies. We do lots of things that people who are just hanging out do. He’s easy to talk to. Sometimes I find myself almost saying too much. Last week we started talking about our childhoods and I told him about my grandmother and how grateful I was for everything she’s done for me. I was so comfortable talking to him that I almost said the “C” word. Whew!

  “Are you guys taking the bike?” Megan asked.

  “Yes, we’ll be taking Suzie.” Suzie, now that’s the real love of Brock’s life.

  Megan laughed, “Do you call it that in front of him with a straight face?”

  “Yes,” I said, “And don’t call her an “it”. He hates that.”

  “Ohh,” she said, “We wouldn’t want to say anything that upsets Molly’s boyfriend.”

  “Megan.”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up,” I told her as I pulled my warm sweater over my long-sleeved shirt. As we have already established the night of the football game last month, I hate to be cold. At least when we ride Suzie, Brock’s body blocks most of the wind. He tells me to put my hands around his waist and hide my face down behind him. Some people, and again I mean Megan and Jake, might think that we looked like we were dating, but it’s just about staying warm. And since I’m not saying this out loud, he always smells really good.

  “Are you and Jake going tonight?” I asked Megan, hoping to distract her from worrying about me and my “not a date” tonight.

  “Yeah, but he has a study group until nine, so don’t worry, we won’t interrupt your date.”

  “Megan, you are incorrigible!”

  “Is that a fancy word for pretty?” She said it with a smile. I just shook my head at her. Sometimes no words will do.

  I was saved by a text message from Brock. I grabbed my jacket and told Megan, “See you later!”

  As I was going out the door she said, “He really should come to the door and pick you up.”

  I told her, “He would, if it was a date.” I think I heard her pillow hit the door as I closed it behind me.

  Brock was sitting on the circular brick walk in front of the dorm on Suzie. Suzie looked great, and so did he. He grinned and said, “Hey, you look nice.” I think I blushed, or at least my face felt hot.

  “Thanks, so do you,” I said. He handed me my helmet. I called it my helmet because lately I’d been using it a lot. But if the truth was told, I was pretty sure it wasn’t my helmet. I mean I would be willing to bet it was the one he had bought for all of the girls that he’s taken out to wear. For tonight it was mine, so I slipped it on and climbed onto the back of Suzie. He started her up and told me to hold on. I put my hands around his waist as we took off and rested my face down low behind his back. Suzie had really grown on me.

  The haunted train ride was at a tree farm about forty miles from the school. I had never been there but I had looked it up online. It said that besides selling Christmas trees and fresh fruits and corn grown on the farm, they used it for Halloween with a haunted train and a haunted hay ride through a corn field. The whole place was decorated with scary things and there were people who jumped out at you as you wondered through. They had pumpkin patches and pumpkins for sale, face painting booths and food booths. At Christmas time, it said they have a pajama train ride with a live band and Santa Claus and Christmas trees. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I was looking forward to tonight a lot.

  It was a pretty ride out there too, with a lot of curvy roads and pretty scenery. I liked that Brock wasn’t one of those guys that thought he had to drive fast or like a complete idiot to be cool. He took it slow and easy around the steep curves, and I wasn’t even scared.

  The sun had just gone down when we got there. We parked in the lot and it was a little hike down a dirt hill to where the festivities were. I slipped a little bit as we were going down the hill and Brock grabbed my hand to help me down the rest of the way. When we hit level ground, he was still holding onto it, and I wasn’t pulling it away. Hmm…now we’re holding hands. Megan would analyze this to death. I decided to be cool; it comes naturally to me…really.

  We walked down past one of the pumpkin patches and I saw two of the biggest pumpkins I had ever seen in my life.

  “How’d you like to make a jack ‘o lantern out of that guy?” Brock said, pulling me over towards the bigger of the two.

  “That would be so much fun!” I loved making jack o’ lanterns on Halloween.

  “I don’t think we could carry him on Suzie,” Brock was saying. “If Megan and Jake get here before we leave tonight though, I’ll buy us two and ask them to take them home for us. I’ll probably go a little smaller than this guy here.”

  I smiled; that was sweet of him. What other nineteen-year-old guy wants to carve pumpkins? And, he was still holding my hand too.

  “That sounds like fun.”

  From there we went and walked through the corn maze. It wasn’t really hard, although that could be because I held onto the back of Brock’s shirt most of the way through. I know they’re fake, but those guys that jump out at you scare the crap out of me. After we made it out of there alive, Brock said, “Do you want to get something to eat?”

  I wasn’t really hungry, and as usual I was worried that they might not have anything here I could eat. “They make these really good fruit cups at the corn stand,” he said. I was sold. We walked around some more as we ate our fruit. There was a giant old eucalyptus tree that had a swing in it, and I sat down and Brock pushed me. That was fun; I haven’t been on a swing in a long time. The announcer from the dark somewhere announced that the haunted train ride would be leaving the station in fifteen minutes, so we headed over there. On the way, we had to cross this old, suspended wooden bridge. It was cool, except there was a twelve-year-old boy on it with us that thought it would be fun to swing it back and forth. I hope he had fun with it, because it didn’t sit well on my stomach.

  We passed a castle playhouse with a moat and an old schoolhouse playhouse that Brock told me had a slide that went underground. I opted to try that one next time. It’ll give me time to think of an out. We finally found the line for the train. It was long, and the cold was horrible, but the employees had bonfires lit and a bizarre pack of clowns that looked like Gene Simmons were handing out hot chocolate and cookies.

  We had to wait for four trains before it was our turn, so we got to hear the faint sounds of blood-curdling screams in the distance, and we watched a few sweaty, shaky people get off the train as well. It only increased the excitement factor. Brock let me pick the car we would ride in. Being a huge chicken, I picked one in the middle. These cars aren’t covered, and I’m guessing that when things jump out, the front and the back probably get the worst of it.

  The car was small, so we were sitting really close. No one sat opposite us, so we also had it all to ourselves. As the train began chugging along I had to think that Megan had been right…again. This was really romantic.

  Just as I had that thought, Michael Myers and his trusty, sister-killing bloody knife stepped out of the corn and waved at me. I wanted to scream, but thought maybe etiquette dictate
d it was too soon, so I waved instead. I did grab Brock’s jacket and I didn’t let go of it either. If Michael was there, Jason and Freddy were sure to follow.

  “You okay?” Brock asked when he felt me jump and grab onto him.

  “I’m fine,” I said with a smile. “I should have brought dry pants though.” He cracked up at that. How did he know I was kidding?

  All in all, the ride was a blast. The best part was, and I don’t plan on telling Megan this when I see her and having to look at the smug smile, that it was really romantic. I liked being close to him, and I was starting to realize more each time that I was with him, just how far things had gotten.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BROCK

  Sometimes I look at her and think I would pay money just to know what she’s thinking. She sits there quietly a lot and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head. A girl who thinks is a precious animal as far as I’m concerned. It’s one of the things that attracts me to her the most. That, and her incredible smile, and her sense of humor, and the fact that she always smells good, and her eyes. Okay, there’s a whole list, and the more we hang out, the more things I find to like about her.

  I haven’t asked her out on an official date since that night at the club. I’ve discovered that she seems so much more comfortable when we both act like we’re just hanging out. It’s been a great month. I’ve had a lot of fun with her, and she’s actually the best math tutor I ever had. I’m not just saying that because the last one had a booger that stuck out of his left nostril…all the time. She’s really smart, and she’s patient with me. If I don’t get it, she explains it again. Sometimes she has to lean across me to show me something and then I get to smell her, and I also get a clear shot of her nostrils…no boogers.

  The problem with all of this hanging out is that now we’ve gotten into the friend zone. It’s not a bad thing. As a matter of fact it’s been great. I can talk to her about almost anything. I say almost, because I haven’t told her about the cancer yet. It’s too soon for all that. But everything else, we’ve talked about. But now we’re in this friend kind of place and I still want to kiss her so flipping bad that sometimes it feels like there’s this hot fire burning in my chest. The rules are pretty clear though. When you are friends with a girl, and hanging out and not dating, kissing is not completely acceptable.

  I held her hand tonight. That was nice. I took hers, to help her down the dirt ramp, and I thought she’d pull it back right away. She didn’t, so I didn’t let go either. We walked through most of the tree farm, hand in hand. For some reason when we were in the pumpkin patch, talking about carving jack o’ lanterns, the desire to kiss her became almost overwhelming. I’m not sure why. She had this look on her face that made me wonder so much what she was thinking, I almost asked. I didn’t though. I just enjoyed the look. She’s so pretty and damn, I really want to kiss her.

  I considered giving it a shot on the train. We were alone, except for the walking dead guys that kept popping out of the corn field. It was dark and romantic and every time one of the guys popped out, she’d grab on to my jacket. I envisioned being brave enough to throw my arm around her protectively, and while I had her there I could cover her lips with mine, and finally taste her kiss. I thought about it, but again I didn’t do it.

  It’s so strange, because I’ve always been able to tell when a girl liked me and wanted me to kiss her. I think Molly likes me, maybe just a little more than a friend. But she protests a lot about not wanting to date, and not wanting a boyfriend, so I have to ask myself why would she be receptive to a kiss?

  Last week we watched a movie together. It was one with Johnny Depp that I had seen a bunch of times. I like Johnny Depp, and when I was sick my dad used to buy me all of his movies and I’d watch them over and over in the hospital when Dad wasn’t watching football. I quoted this one part, before the girl on the screen said it. This may sound weird, but at that moment I thought she was going to actually kiss me. If I were smarter, I would have gone in for it right there. I don’t claim to be all that bright though, so here I am looking at her hair shine in the moonlight and her pretty dark eyes looking at me…still wanting to kiss her, so very badly.

  We had done pretty much everything there was to do, and it was getting colder and the wind looked like it was blowing in some dark clouds. I asked her if she was ready to go. I wanted to get her home on the bike without getting soaked. She said yes, and then I remembered the pumpkins.

  “Damn, I never saw Jake and Megan. Did they show up?” I said. Molly looked at her phone and said, “It’s only nine-thirty; they’re probably just on their way. We can get pumpkins anywhere though.” She was always so...flexible.

  I smiled at her and said, “Okay, we better get going then before that black cloud up there opens up and we drown on the way home.” This was the sad part about having a Harley instead of a car. I can’t honestly say I can think of many others.

  I took her hand again, feeling brave now and helped her up the dirt ramp to the parking lot. Just as we got there I heard a roll of thunder and then a clap of lightning. I looked up again and that black cloud was moving fast. “Maybe we should wait and have you ride home with Jake and Molly. I don’t want you to get sick or something from being soaked.”

  She laughed and said, “That’s nice of you to worry, but I’m no wimp. I’ll be fine.”

  You already are…fine. I think I stared at her too long after I thought that. What the hell were we talking about? Oh yeah, going home. I felt a fat drop of rain on my head, and then another and another. Suddenly it was like standing under a solid shower. We were a ways away from any shelter, and sitting on Suzie wasn’t going to help, so I did what any guy would do…I took her hand in mine and said, “May I have this dance?” I thought she would tell me I was crazy, or run for the corn shack. Instead, she smiled through the rain that was now beating against her pretty face and said, “Why certainly.” There was, of course, no music so I had to improvise. Now, I’m a musician. I should have a thousand or more songs in my head at any given time and be able to sing them all on demand. I usually do. But tonight, the only song I could recall the words and the tune to was by Aerosmith. I have no reason to lay here, scouts honor and all of that; it was the only song I could recall.

  I used the hand I still had ahold of, and I pulled her close. I was trying to block some of the rain, but I also just really wanted to feel her close to me. It gave me kind of a light-headed feeling. I tilted my head down and put my lips close to her ear and sang, “I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t want to fall asleep because I’ll miss you babe and I don’t want to miss a thing.”

  I wasn’t sure what she thought about my song choice, but at this point I was into it and she hadn’t kneed me in the gonads so it was all good. I had one of her hands in mine and the other one on the lower part of her back as we moved our bodies together to the tune. My pulse was racing and every time I opened my eyes and looked at her I shuddered. I don’t think it was from the cold. I had never done this before, singing to a girl without any music at all while we danced, in a dirt parking lot next to a pumpkin patch. Okay if I had billed it that way to begin with, she probably would have said no. The spontaneity of it had made it that much more exciting, and I had never wanted to kiss her more than I did now.

  I looked down at her face when I got to the part that says, “Even when I dream of you, the sweetest dream will never do and I miss you babe and I don’t want to miss a thing…” I wanted to tell her that was true. I had never even dreamt of a woman like her. As I looked at her, I saw and felt her take a deep breath and I could feel a little tremble in her hand that I wasn’t sure if it was for me or because she was cold and soaking wet. I liked thinking it was for me. My hands were shaking, and I knew it was because of her.

  She had a smudge of mascara under her eyes, and her hair was now plastered to her head and I swear to God at that moment she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I couldn’t talk myself out of it anymore
. If she objected, I would just shoulder the consequences. I was finally going to do it. I was going to kiss her.

  As I finished the chorus of the song once more, I pulled my head up again slightly from where it was at next to her ear along the side of her cheek. This time, instead of rising up to look at her, I let it linger there. Our mouths were so close that all it would take was one gentle motion by either of us for our lips to meet. I took another deep breath and…

  Just then, there was a flash of headlights and a honk of a car horn. I squinted through the rain and saw that it was Megan and Jake. I told myself that I was getting new friends the first thing in the morning. The friends that I have right now seriously suck. At this very moment I should be feeling Molly’s warm, sweet lips on mine. I despise them.

  Molly looked at me and grinned. I think she knew I was going to kiss her. I think she wanted me too, maybe as much as I wanted to. Or maybe it was my imagination. Now I would never know.

  I took her hand and we walked over to where Jake had his big head sticking out of the car window.

  “What are you guys doing?” he said with a big, stupid grin.

  I’ll remember this next time he wants me to leave so he can have a “romantic” evening with Megan. I’m going to sit on the couch in my SpongeBob boxers and play video games all night. I’m going to pass gas and scratch myself and leave my dirty socks in the living room. Oh! And…I’m going to leave the toilet seat up every time I went to the bathroom. That’ll teach him.

  “We were going to leave, but it started raining…” Molly said. I wondered if she was thinking revenge too when Megan interrupted her with, “So you stopped in the dirt and danced?” Then she and Jake laughed like they were so proud of themselves for setting us up. Molly looked at me and rolled her eyes. Then back at Megan and said, “It was mud, which we are still standing in by the way. Now are you going to invite us in, or do you enjoy seeing us out here getting drenched?”