Taking Chances Read online

  He was stepping out of his black Honda. He was very handsome, with short, auburn hair, and probably about six foot two. He wore a dark blue button-up flannel shirt, blue jeans, and brown cowboy boots. He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and I could see that he had very muscular arms. Beside him was another tall boy with blond hair who was a little shorter and much thinner. I didn’t get out of my car until they entered the small brick building. I had noticed something familiar about the first boy.

  The school was one long hallway with two or three hallways branching off of it. No stairs. The floor was covered with shiny, white, and light green tiles. I walked into the lobby where four tables awaited, with signs that read, “freshmen,” “sophomore,” “junior” and “senior.” Above the little signs, a big red banner announced, “Welcome back Timberwolves!” I went to the back of the “junior” line, where standing in the front was the boy with the auburn hair from the parking lot. When he was done at the table, he walked past me. His light brown eyes locked with mine for half a second. He smiled, and continued on.

  I smiled back softly. Where have I seen him before? I thought. There was definitely something I recognized about him. Was it his hair, or his face, or maybe his light brown eyes? Maybe I’d seen him from one of my visits here?

  In Chicago, I never had time for a boyfriend, or even time to look for a boy. I was always working. I tried to tell myself to concentrate, yet my heart was pounding in my chest. I looked down at myself. I had the same short legs, built hips, and badly bitten fingernails that I’d had in Chicago. I still even had my medium length, curly, dark brown hair up in my usual headband and ponytail. I had never considered myself unattractive, but I was definitely not one of those stick skinny blond girls who had every guy begging at their feet.

  When it was my turn, I walked up to the table, and the teacher gave me my A-B day schedule along with my locker number and combination. With the A-B day schedule, I would have four classes on A days, and four opposite classes on B days, making the classes longer in length.

  I walked away from the table and down the hallway to my locker, number 123. Simple enough. I used the combination to open it up, and started unloading my backpack. I had almost finished putting some of my favorite novels onto the top shelf when a soft, sweet, young man’s voice said, “Excuse me, is this yours?”

  I looked up to see the parking lot boy’s light brown eyes looking down at me. In his hands he held one of my favorite books, a novel by Nicholas Sparks that Grandma had sent me for my birthday the year before.

  “Um…” I struggled to find my voice, failing miserably and speaking only in a whisper. I was nervous. I wasn’t really ready to talk to anyone at the new school. I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in. “Yeah, thanks.” He handed me the book, and I put it on the shelf with the others.

  “Hey, um…you’re Maggie George’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. She passed away last week, and I just moved down here with my family.” I looked back over at him and he looked down at his feet, as if he was embarrassed.

  “I heard there were relatives living there now,” he muttered. “I’m really sorry about your grandma.” He looked up and smiled sweetly.

  “Thanks.” A boy I didn’t even know felt bad, when Michael, Grandma’s son-in-law didn’t even care. “About time,” Michael had said. We got in a fight over that, too. It always made it worse that he was so much stronger than me. I winced and suddenly the flashback came quickly into my mind.

  “You don’t talk back to me!” Michael had said as he pushed me to the ground.

  “Maybe if you cared, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” I said with tears coming from my eyes.

  Michael had taken empty beer bottles off of the counter next to me and threw them at me in anger. I covered my face from the flying glass, but I could still feel the little shards cut into the skin of my legs and arms. Michael had continued to yell at me, but I couldn’t make out the words. I wasn’t focusing on what he said. I was trying to drown him out. I shivered involuntarily as the flashback ended. I could never win.

  I looked back up at the boy, and he said, “I’m Spencer, by the way. Spencer Stevenson.”

  I smiled politely. “I’m…wait…Stevenson? You live down the road from me, right?” I knew I had seen him somewhere before.

  “Yeah, I think I met you at the bonfires your grandparents used to have in the fall.”

  “That was you,” I realized. “We used to hang out with my cousins behind the silos,” I said.

  “Cindy?” he asked.

  “Sydney,” I corrected. I pictured him the way he used to look, with jean overalls and colored button up shirts. I smiled at the memories and then looked back up at him.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s been so long. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice to see you too.” I agreed as he opened his locker next to mine.

  “Maybe we could hang out again sometime.” He turned towards me again and gave me a completely heartbreaking smile. You know, the smiles that you only see boys give girls in movies.

  “Um…” I sighed and looked away from his perfect movie smile. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

  Spencer smiled again, and said, “Now, how many brothers and sisters did you have again?”

  “Violet and Clayton are older and moved out. But I have two younger half-sisters, Lillian and Rebecca living with me.”

  “That’s nice.” I heard him sigh quietly as his smile fell. It was like he was remembering something sad, but didn’t think to ask what was wrong. I didn’t want to pry.

  “And you had your Aunt with you a lot, right?” he asked, not looking at me anymore.

  “Yes. My Aunt Megan lives in town, down on Navaho Avenue.”

  The bell rang, signaling that we had ten minutes before we had to be in our A-day first hour class.

  “I have to go, I’m sorry. I need to stop in at the office for a map.” I said with a sigh. I didn’t really want to leave when he seemed so upset. I wanted to keep talking to him. Not just because I didn’t want to seem like a jerk, but also because I felt somewhat comfortable talking to him. He knew me, or at least he thought he did.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later, then,” he said. “Hey!” He called out as I moved down the hall. “You won’t have too much trouble finding your way around. It’s a small school.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled and continued towards the office. At least I had made a friend. Maybe that would make my day easier.

  “Hello. You must be Miss Baker,” the secretary said at the front desk. She was a short woman with short brown hair and a skinny figure. Her nameplate said Mrs. Hillman.

  “Here is your map, and it’s labeled pretty well, I believe. Your first class is Biology, so you’ll need to turn left after you exit the office, and the lab is the room at the very end of the hallway on your left,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said to her, taking the map and leaving the office. As Spencer said, it wasn’t hard to find my way around. I didn’t even need the map as I headed down the hall to the science lab.

  I sat down in the Biology lab at an empty blacktop table in the back of the room, and began reading one of my Nicholas Sparks books before the bell rang.

  “Good morning, students.” The older teacher, Mr. Jansen, spoke as class started. “I have text books for you right here and…” He put his hand on a large stack of books. “Martinson?”

  A skinny girl with dingy blond hair doodling on her notebook looked up.

  “Help me pass these out,” he instructed. She stood up shyly, and began to distribute the old, worn textbooks.

  My second class of the day was Calculus. I took a lot of notes, expecting to have trouble paying attention. I’d never found math classes particularly interesting. P.E. came along, and we played basketball, which was never my best sport. Spencer was in my class, and he tried to include me in the game by passing the ball to me occasionally, but when I missed the pass, it embarrassed me ev
en more. Two girls chuckled when I messed up, but Spencer just smiled and said, “Nice try.”

  At the end of class, we all went into the locker rooms to change and then came back out and stood in the hallway until the bell rang. When Spencer came out of the guy’s locker room, he came and stood next to me.

  “You did good today,” he commented. I looked down at my feet and said, “I’m terrible at basketball.”

  Spencer laughed softly. “Not everyone is good at everything, “ he said. “You’ll get better. I’ll help you out.”

  I looked up at him and he was smiling.

  When lunch came around, I stood in line behind a group of freshman girls, including Lillian, who were chatting about the cute guys they’d seen in their classes. It was nice to see that Lillian had made some friends. When it was my turn to pick up my lunch, I realized that there wasn’t a choice of what you ate. It was just the one tray of food. They were serving hot dogs and French fries with ice cream that day, and everyone had the exact same thing. That was another thing I wasn’t used to. At my old school, everything was a la carte.

  When I looked awkwardly for a place to sit in the small lunchroom, I saw Spencer waving at me from the back table. He smiled, and motioned for me to sit with him and his group of friends. I sighed and slowly walked over nervously. His friends seemed engaged in their own conversations, and I didn’t really want to intrude. When I sat down next to Spencer, I realized that the blond-haired boy I’d seen with him in the parking lot was sitting there, too.

  “Hey Sydney.” Spencer said with a smile as I sat down. “Hey guys,” he turned towards his friends and they all looked at him. “This is Sydney Baker. She just moved here from Chicago.”

  “Hey Sydney.” The boy from the parking lot said.

  “Sydney, this is Dean Wickstrom,” Spencer said.

  “Hi, Dean,” I said.

  “This is my twin brother, Michael.” Dean gestured to a boy who looked exactly like him. I knew by his nice smile that Michael would be much nicer than my stepdad, Michael.

  “And that’s Michael’s girlfriend, Annie Fredricks.” She was a pretty girl with honey blond hair and blue eyes.

  “And, this is Jeremy Hall, and his girlfriend, Jacqueline Tyler.” Jeremy was a tall, muscular boy with short, curly, brown hair. Jacqueline was just as pretty, if not more beautiful than Annie with long, light brown hair and hazel eyes. Both girls had small figures, but Annie’s was not much smaller than mine.

  “Hi,” Jacqueline said to me. They all went back to talking and Spencer turned to me.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “They use this time to gossip, and they don’t like to waste time.”

  I smiled. “That’s okay.”

  “So, how is your first day so far?”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “Tomorrow will be better, I bet,” he said. “But it must be hard being in a new place and barely knowing anyone.”

  I nodded, agreeing with that fact. If I didn’t know Spencer, I’d be completely lost.

  “Well, you’ve got us now,” he said with a smile. I smiled back at the thought that our friendship would continue. He seemed like a great friend.

  The conversation continued to flow easily as we ate lunch.

  “Hey Spence,” Dean asked Spencer. “Do you think you’ll do better at the poetry slam this year?”

  “I hope so. I’m going to start writing early this year. Last year really sucked because I didn’t have much time to write anything.”

  “Poetry slam? Like when you all read poetry?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Dean said. “During the middle of the year, around January, all of the kids in Creative Writing compete in a poetry competition. Sometimes, a professor from NIU will come and if you do really well, he or she will invite you to the state contest.” NIU was the university in DeKalb, a city about thirty minutes from Shabbona.

  “Cool. That sounds fun. I didn’t know you wrote, Spencer.”

  “I do,” Spencer said. “It’s fun, and it gets me away from everything. You’ll be able to participate in the slam if you are in Creative Writing.”

  “I actually have that class tomorrow,” I told him as I pulled out my schedule from my pocket and looked at it.

  “Really? What hour?”

  “Um…second,” I replied. He asked to see my schedule and I handed it to him. He glanced over it and smiled. “Yep, second hour. Well, I’ll see you in class then,” he said.

  “Cool,” I said happily. I looked forward to having another class with Spencer. Maybe I wouldn’t embarrass myself like in P.E. Apart from being super sweet, Spencer was also a very good looking boy. It was hard for me not to think about not trying to impress him.

  “I think Spence will need to start writing now,” the boy named Jeremy chuckled. “Otherwise he’s never going to beat his girlfriend.”

  The rest of them laughed, but I sighed and looked down at my tray. I didn’t know that Spencer had someone already. I felt bad for being even slightly interested in him. Well, it wasn’t like I’d ever have a chance with him anyway…he seemed too perfect to be with someone like me with such a messed up life.

  “You have a girlfriend? That’s cool,” I said, trying to act like it didn’t bother me. “Does she go to this school, too?” They all laughed, and Spencer hit Jeremy’s arm.

  “Aren’t you his girlfriend?” Annie asked me. My eyes widened the tiniest bit in surprise. Girlfriend? Is that who they think I am?

  “First of all, she’s not my girlfriend.” Spencer snuck a quick look at me.

  “She looks like it.” Dean cut him off. “I’ve never really seen you talk to new kids.”

  That’s what people think? I’ve only been here for a day and I’m already being talked about…?

  “Well, she’s not,” Spencer said. Though this statement was true, it crushed me a little to hear him say it so quickly. Does that mean I don’t appeal to him at all? I wondered.

  “I know her because she’s Maggie George’s granddaughter,” he continued. “And she lives on her family farm that my uncle farms his corn at.”

  “Oh, okay,” Dean said. Then, they all started laughing for no apparent reason. It was fun hanging around Spencer’s friends. They were always laughing. That was something I hadn’t done in a while.

  Fourth hour, I had a History class, which I enjoyed more than any other class that day, but I was happy to get home after school. It seemed like a long day, though I wish I could have talked to Spencer more. He was really sweet, and he seemed like he thought we could be friends. Although, his comment about not being his girlfriend bugged me a little. But why should it? It was true. I sighed, and looked back down at the Calculus notes I was studying.

  There was a knock on my bedroom door, and Lillian came inside.

  “Hey, Sydney,” she said.

  “Oh, hi Lil. How was your first day?”

  “It was so much fun! I met these really cool girls who were in a lot of my classes and…”

  I let her go on about her day without saying much. About ten minutes later, the doorbell rang, and she went to answer it. I followed her when Rebecca yelled, “Aunt Megan!”

  I smiled and almost ran down the stairs. Aunt Megan saw me and took me into her arms happily.

  “Hi sweetie,” she said. “Where’s your Mom?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably out with Michael.”

  “Are Violet and Clayton here?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, they didn’t want to come. They’re still living together in Chicago in that apartment they decided to rent after we were evicted. They didn’t want to stay with us.”

  “That’s a shame,” she sighed. “It would have been nice to have you all here together. Grandma would have been so excited.” A small tear rolled down her cheek.

  I hugged her tightly, giving her support. “It’ll be okay,” I soothed.

  She nodded. “I know. I just miss her.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

&n
bsp; “Hey girls,” she greeted Lillian and Rebecca. “I haven’t seen you girls since Clayton’s birthday. How have you been?”

  “Good,” Lillian replied quietly, brushing her curls from her face. Lillian was shyer around Aunt Megan than Rebecca, who automatically began telling Aunt Megan about her day at school and all of the new friends she had met.

  Aunt Megan stayed until dinnertime, waiting for Maddie…but she never came.

  “She’s probably out shopping or something. Well, I’ll come back tomorrow during the day and see if she’s here. I have to get home.” She kissed us goodbye and left the house.

  “Bye Aunt Megan,” Rebecca called.

  As usual, I was in charge of dinner, so I made pizza for Lillian, Rebecca and myself, and then went back up to my room. Lillian followed me, but didn’t speak until we were in my room.

  “Sydney?”

  “Yeah?” I asked as I sat on my bed.

  “Does Aunt Megan know about Mom being an alcoholic like my dad?” she asked quietly.

  I sighed. “I don’t think so, but I might be wrong. She knows Michael is, but I don’t think she knows about Maddie. It’s been too long since they’ve actually seen each other. They used to talk on the phone all the time, but I don’t know what’s going on now.”

  She bowed her head. “Do you think that things will get any better?”

  I was silent for a moment, trying to think.

  “I’m old enough to know what’s going on, Sydney,” Lillian said. “Rebecca knows a little but not much. She doesn’t know about the things my dad does to you. She just thinks he’s yelling at you. Do you think it will ever stop? Clayton and Violet left, are you going to leave too?”

  “No.” I said firmly. As I looked into her fear-filled eyes, I knew that I couldn’t leave her, or Rebecca. I needed to continue to stay strong and try to fight my way through my last years with Michael until I turned eighteen and could leave. I knew I’d do whatever it took to get us away from him.

  “I won’t leave you and Rebecca alone.” I told her. “I hope things will get better soon, and then I won’t have a reason to leave. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I won’t let them hurt you or Becca. I promise. If things don’t change, I’ll move out when I turn eighteen, but no matter what, I’m taking you two with me.”