Take Chances Read online

  “Bitch,” I mutter under my breath as I get up and cross my room to the phone on my nightstand. My mom gave me the phone when I was eight, back when I was still into dolls, and so the receiver is pink and glittery and looks like it belongs in Barbie’s Dreamhouse. I’ve been trying to get her to get me a cell phone, but she says we can’t afford it.

  I dial Bryant’s number and wait for him to answer.

  “Hey, how’s the sexiest redhead in the world?” he asks, which is how he always answers. We’re still pretty close, but we actually used to be closer until he started dating someone a few months ago and the girl thought I was some sort of threat, especially when she asked Bryant if we’d ever hooked up and he stupidly told her the truth: that yes, one time when we were fifteen, and tried drinking for the first time, we made out and touched each other inappropriately. After that she didn’t want him hanging out with me. He still did hang out once in a while, but not nearly as much as he used to.

  “Did you tell Martha to try and give me the benefit of the doubt?” I ask, plopping down onto my bed and staring up at the ceiling at a poster of Flashdance, which is totally eighties, but as a dancer I can respect the movie.

  “Shit, she told you that?” He curses under his breath and I smile to myself, knowing that if nothing else, Bryant’s going to chew her out for doing so.

  “Yeah, after she told me that she wasn’t going to do it anymore,” I tell him, twisting the phone cord around my finger. “And that I was a bitch.”

  “And were you being a bitch?” he asks.

  “Maybe,” I admit. “But she called my mom a whore.”

  He pauses. “But she kind of is.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t give her the right to say it.”

  He sighs. “I know. I’ll talk to her.”

  “Don’t bother.” I roll onto my side and prop my elbow onto the mattress so I can rest my head against my hand. “I know you want us to get along, but without you, it just feels awkward.”

  “But I worry about you,” he tells me. “You don’t have a lot of friends, and I’m worried that you’ll just sink.”

  “You make me sound suicidal,” I reply. “And I’m not.”

  “I know you’re not,” he replies. “But you can be self-destructive when you’re by yourself.”

  “How do you figure?” I ask, not sure whether I’m curious or offended.

  “Remember when I went on that family vacation during the summer,” he says. “When we were thirteen.”

  I frown at the memory. “I was going through a phase.”

  “Delilah, you almost got arrested.”

  “I was bored,” I argue. “And Milly Amerson was the only one who would spend time with me. It wasn’t my fault she was a klepto.”

  “But it was your fault you tried to be a klepto. And a very bad one at that,” he says. “You chose to do it because you were bored and have such a hard time making friends. In fact, you’re better at making enemies than anything.”

  I sigh heavyheartedly. “All right, I get your point,” I say. “Sheesh, you’re such a mom.”

  “Well, someone has to be,” he says. With anyone else I’d get offended, but I always let Bryant off the hook because he was there right after the divorce when my mom hit rock bottom and she drank herself into depression and would barely get out of bed for three months. She did eventually get up, though, and start taking care of me again, and people are allowed to break every once in a while.

  “Thanks for taking care of me,” I say. “But I promise, even if Martha and I don’t hang out, I’m not going to go back to my klepto days with Milly.”

  “Just be careful,” he says. “I worry about you.”

  “I know you do,” I tell him. “But I promise, if things get too bad, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good,” he says. “Now, I gotta go. My mom’s nagging at me to help her finish unpacking.”

  “Okay, call me when you get a chance,” I say. “And I’ll tell you about my hot neighbor.”

  He laughs. “Okay, that definitely sounds call-back worthy.”

  We say good-bye, hang up, and then I lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It’s quiet, and I’m guessing my mom went to work already, which means I have the house to myself until three, an hour after the bar closes, because she always spends an hour with whatever guy she’s tempting to come home with her.

  Boredom starts to set in. I hate being alone. It makes me feel even more invisible. If I had my way, I’d have someone around me all the time.

  Finally, I can’t take the silence anymore. I get out of bed, put on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, pull my hair up and grab my classical music record from the stack of records on the floor. Moving to the record player on my bureau, I place the needle on it and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata comes on.

  I start to dance, letting the music own me as I picture myself on stage and everyone is watching. Fouetté en tournant. Grand jeté. Pirouette. My movements are slow, but graceful and powerful. Each brush of my toe, each twirl, each leg lift perfectly flowing with the music. I create a story simply by using my body, one of a girl who is not necessarily sad, but searching for something—she just doesn’t know what it is yet.

  The longer the song goes on, the more into it I get. The more overpowering the story becomes. I transform into someone else. Someone alive. Someone noticed. Someone not overlooked. I can picture myself on the stage dressed in tulle and feathers, starring as Odette in Swan Lake, and everyone sees me. Notices me. Is in awe.

  By the time I’m finished, I’m almost in tears and I don’t know why. I don’t feel sad. In fact, I feel content.

  I wish I could go back and savor the moment, realize just how amazing it was that I could feel that happy. It was the last summer I ever felt like that. Danced like that. Felt content. Eventually, I’d lose the will to do it anymore, and my pointe shoes would go in a box along with my Barbie phone and my Flashdance poster, everything that made up who I was at the start of the summer.

  When I did dance again, it wouldn’t be the same—I wouldn’t be the same. Yes, I would cry, but not because I was moved. It would be because I was dancing topless on a stage in a front of a bunch of screaming strangers who wouldn’t really see me, at least the real me who once dreamed of being Odette. To them I’d just be a plastic doll.

  Chapter 3

  She-Devil

  Later that night, as I’m sitting in front of the television, debating whether I want to watch late-night reruns and keep folding laundry or go to bed, I hear the sound of music from next door. This isn’t out of the ordinary. At least one of the houses in the neighborhood usually has a party during the weekend.

  But this sounds like it’s coming from next door, which doesn’t really happen. Before Dylan’s parents moved in, an elderly couple used to live there until they got sick of the noise and headed to Florida. And I rarely hear anything from Dylan’s parents, except for maybe yelling.

  Not wanting to be a stalker again, I try to resist the urge to look outside. But eventually it becomes too much, and I get up from the couch and pad over to the window. The driveway is packed with cars, along with the front of the house, and people are standing outside, laughing and smoking and drinking out of plastic cups. It’s a full-blown party, topped off with a guy dancing in the front yard, high off his ass, and a blond girl wearing a leather dress, shaking her hips to the beat of the music on top of a car.

  I’m about to look away, figuring I’ll take Bryant’s advice and steer away from any potential self-destructive behavior, when Dylan appears beside the guy smoking the joint. Dylan says something that makes the guy laugh, then he offers him the joint. He takes the joint and puts it up to his lips, inhaling slowly and deeply. I’m completely mesmerized watching his lips, the way he presses them tightly together when he pulls the joint out of his mouth. When he releases the smoke from his lungs, his tongue slips out and he licks lips.

  I wish I was the one licking his lips. If I were my mother, I�
��d get out of my sweats and go over there. Put on a leather dress like the girl on the car and laugh and touch his arm until he came home with me.

  But I’m not my mother.

  I’m just Delilah.

  So instead I just stare out the window, a little longer than I should, and he ends up glancing up at me. Because I left the light on in the kitchen, it lights the house just enough that he can see me.

  I contemplate whether to duck and hide and prove that I’m a stalker, or just wave and shrug it off. What would Poison Ivy do? I lift my hand and wave at him, mustering up the best half smile that I can, then I start to turn around, but he holds up his finger like he wants me to wait. I pause as he hands the joint to the lanky guy then hops over the fence into my yard. He keeps his eyes on me as he makes his way up the sidewalk to my front steps, only looking away when he gets close enough to the front door that he can’t see me anymore.

  I back off the couch as he knocks and quickly run over to the laundry basket on the couch, rummaging through until I find a pair of my shorts and put them on. Then I tug the elastic out of my hair, shaking it out a little bit before running my fingers through it.

  I move so fast that I have to catch my breath before I answer the door and forget to mentally prepare myself. When I catch sight of him, my heart slams so hard in my chest it actually hurts, and I almost fall to the floor, my knees shaking. I’m pretty sure he notices my reaction, but if he does, he doesn’t say anything.

  “Hey,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing, looking all relaxed and sexy in his jeans and pinstriped shirt, the sleeves pushed up so I can see his tattoos and lean arms. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching TV and folding laundry,” I say, not realizing how lame it sounds until it actually leaves my mouth.

  His lips quirk. “Sounds like a night full of possibilities.”

  I try to make a joke and salvage the start of a conversation. “If by possibilities you mean staying up and watching Jay Leno crack jokes while I binge on popcorn, then yeah, the possibilities are endless.” I try to mimic the smile my mom makes every time she’s trying to be cute. “In fact, I might even get really daring and stay up past midnight.”

  “Wow, staying up past midnight,” he says, pressing his hand against his chest. “How very adventurous of you.”

  “What can I say. I like to live life on the wild side.”

  “I bet you do.” His gaze flickers up and down my body and I feel something inside me lift. Then he glances over my shoulder and asks, “Is your mom home?”

  My expression falters, and whatever was inside me that was lifting crashes. But as if he senses my disappointment, he adds, “I was just wondering if you were good to come over to the party, or if the parental was going to get in the way.”

  I love that he calls her “the parental,” not “my hot sexy sister” or the many other things she’s been called that in no way imply that she’s a mother.

  “Actually, she’s at work until three,” I tell him, the lifting sensation rising again, and I feel like I’m about to float away into the sunset.

  He glances at the watch. “So you’re good to hang for at least a few hours, right?”

  I nod, telling myself to settle down and not be a dork by getting overly excited. “Yep, I’m cool.” It’s so not cool to say you’re cool, but thankfully Dylan seems to find my dorkiness mildly adorable.

  He grins at me and then motions me to follow him as he steps down the stairway. I shut the door behind me and follow him down the sidewalk, staying just behind him until we reach the fence. There he jumps over, and then gives me his hand to help me over. I hesitate, staring at his hand, offered to me. Me.

  Finally, I take his hand, slipping my fingers through his. The contact of his skin is amazing, creates heat that’s more powerful than the hot summer air flowing around us. His touch is what authors write about. What women dream about. What singers sing about.

  And even though I didn’t know it at the time, the moment he took my hand, he owned me, which would seem amazing, except for owning someone and loving someone aren’t the same thing.

  He doesn’t let go of my hand after he helps me over the fence. I think he must like holding it. Either that, or he’s forgotten that he has it. I don’t say anything as I follow him across the small strip of lawn on the other side of the fence until we reach the side of the car where the girl is dancing. I realize I know her. Nikki, a girl I go to school with. The way she moves is enthralling, and everyone is watching her. It’s not like she’s the greatest dancer. In fact, I’m sure I’m better. But she’s like my mother, drawing in attention as if she were casting a magic spell over everyone.

  I only look away from her when Dylan takes the joint from the lanky guy’s hand and takes a hit as he introduces me. “Landon, this is Delilah.”

  Up close and in the light from the porch, I can see his face, and I realize that I know him.

  I say, “Yeah, I know. We go to school together.”

  He’s stoned, eyes bloodshot and ringed with red, so it takes him a moment to place me. But eventually recognition clicks. “Oh yeah, you had Mr. Melson for fourth, right?”

  “And you always sat at the back and got lectured for drawing and not taking notes,” I say, feeling my pulse pound as Dylan grazes his finger along the inside of my wrist.

  “And you always got in trouble for being late,” Landon says with a small smile.

  I try not to shudder as Dylan’s finger makes his way up my forearm. I want to look at him, see what’s in his eyes, but I’m almost afraid to look. “What can I say,” I tell Landon, tensing when Dylan hands me the joint. “I like to make an entrance.” I stare down at the joint in my hand. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

  I’ve never smoked pot before and I think about just handing it back, but everyone’s looking at me, waiting for me to take a hit—Dylan is waiting for me to take a hit. I don’t want to disappoint him, so I put it up to my lips and inhale just like I saw him do earlier.

  But the smoke stings and unable to hold it in, I let out a sharp choking cough that makes me feel ridiculous, especially when a few people laugh at me. Dylan doesn’t, though. As I’m hacking my lungs out, Dylan takes the joint from my hand and gives it back to Landon. Then he swings his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him, kissing the side of my head.

  I no longer feel ridiculous.

  In fact, I feel like the exact opposite.

  I feel like Odette.

  And he is Prince Siegfried.

  I look up at him and he smiles down at me, moving me with him as he steps forward. “Come on, gorgeous, let’s go get you a drink.”

  A smile spreads across my face as I walk with him, squeezing past two cars in the driveway and onto the front yard. He takes me inside his house that’s full of people dancing and drinking.

  “It’s my birthday,” he shouts over the music.

  “Well, happy birthday then,” I shout back, and he smiles again at me.

  As we make our way through his house, I find myself noticing how much his eyes light up when he talks and how much they darken when he looks at me, not in a bad way, but in an I-notice-you way. It makes me happy and nervous at the same time, because no one has ever looked at me like that. By the time we reach the kitchen, I’m sweating and jittery inside, so when he hands me the drink, I devour it, hoping to calm my nerves. But it’s vodka, and I choke on the fiery burn of it.

  “Shit.” I cough, throwing the plastic cup like it’s made of poison.

  He kicks the cup out of the way and steps closer to me, restraining a grin as he pats me on the back. “Are you okay?”

  I nod, biting back a gag. “Super.” I cough, pressing my hand to my chest as I stand back up. “I’m sorry. I thought it was water.”

  “Do you want me to get you a water so you can wash it down?” he asks, watching me, his eyes always locked on me, unlike a lot of people who usually look through me when they talk to me, like I
barely exist. At least that’s what it feels like.

  I shake my head. “No, I’m good now. I promise.”

  He nods and then scoots a few liquor bottles out of the way so he can hop on the counter, where he sits and lets his legs dangle over the edge. “So, other than dancing down the driveway and staying up all night and getting freaky with your laundry, what else do you like to do?” He flashes me a grin, and I nearly melt into a puddle right there on the kitchen floor for the crowd to tramp through.

  “That’s about it, really,” I admit, scooting closer to him as people pack their way into the already crowded kitchen. “I’m actually pretty boring.”

  “I doubt that.” His eyes fill with want. “In fact, aren’t redheads supposed to be wild and fun?”

  I self-consciously touch my hair, wishing that were true, wishing I could say yes, wishing I could be that for him. “I think that’s blondes.”

  He shakes his hand, his gaze devouring me. “No way. It’s definitely redheads.” He considers something. “Blondes are known for being airheads.”

  I snort a laugh. “Well, my mom’s a blonde, and she’s no spacier than I am.”

  He considers something for a moment. “Your mom’s a beautiful woman,” he says, and it feels like a knife has entered my chest. He leans forward and touches the side of my head with his fingers. “You look just like her except for the hair.”

  “Thanks,” I say, a little confused. “Wait, that was a compliment, right?”

  He laughs as he hops off the counter. “It was, but since that wasn’t completely clear, here’s another one for you.” He inches toward me, and I have to tip my head up to meet his eyes. Even though there are people around us, it feels like we’re the only ones in the room.

  We stand there for an eternity. He’s eyeing my lips, and I’m struggling to breathe. Then I stop breathing altogether as he reaches forward and grazes his thumb across my bottom lip. “You have the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen.”

  I want to say thank you, but I’m speechless, and the feeling only amplifies when he leans in like he’s going to kiss me. But that can’t be right, because gorgeous guys never want to kiss me.