Sempre (Sempre 1)
“I’m going to break in if you don’t answer this door!” Jen yelled, her demeanor turning from eagerness to anger. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you ruin this for me!”
Jen beat on the windows as Haven looked back down at the phone. Without hesitation, her fingers dialed the number that popped into her head: 555–0121.
She had stared at the paper with the phone number so much it had been burned into her mind. It rang as she curled into herself, fighting to keep her composure.
The phone was picked up after the fourth ring, the voice tentative. “Uh, hello?”
“Nicholas.” She spoke as quietly as she could. “It’s Haven.”
“Haven? Are you okay?”
“Yes. Well, at least, I think I am, but I need help and I don’t know who else to ask. Dr. DeMarco told me to get ahold of Carmine, but his phone isn’t on. He broke it, I think.”
“So . . . you’re calling me instead?”
“Yes,” she said, “to find him.”
“Wait, you want me to track down your boyfriend?”
She sighed. “Yes, I need him to come home.”
“And you think this is a good idea? No offense, but I’m not in the mood for another fight.”
“I know, but it’s important. Please? He’s taking a test at the high school. The SAT thing.”
“Jesus, you not only want me to tell Carmine what to do, but you want me to trespass on school property and drag him out of the SAT? He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die today.”
“He’ll understand,” she said as Jen wiggled the knob of the front door.
* * *
Glaring at the paper on his desk, Carmine read the last question for the twentieth time, but he was no closer to an answer than he had been five minutes ago.
He groaned as he slouched in the hard plastic chair, shifting position to get comfortable. The girl beside him shot him an annoyed look, and he cocked an eyebrow at her, daring her to say something. She huffed dramatically before focusing back on her test. He stared at her, unable to place her name.
Michelle? Mandy? Monique? He couldn’t fucking remember.
She cut her eyes at him again and mouthed, “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” he said, turning to his paper. He didn’t care about her. He barely noticed anyone anymore. They were all the same, and there wasn’t a single thing any of them could do for him. Haven was everything he wanted, the reason he sat in this room, stressing over this ridiculous test, so he could take her away and start a new life somewhere.
The administrator announced there were five minutes left, and Carmine sighed loudly as he read the question once more. He tried to wrap his brain around the analogies, but he didn’t know what half the words meant. He gave up and dropped the pencil, not bothering to answer. The only analogy that mattered was weed is to smoke, as pussy is to fuck, because that was the only thing that would ease his nerves today.
After the tests were collected, Carmine headed for the exit, rolling his neck to get the tension out of it. He strolled out to the parking lot with the rest of his classmates, where the sound of squealing tires stopped him in his tracks. He looked up, his brow furrowing in confusion when the old pickup truck pulled into the parking lot.
“Isn’t that Nicholas?”
Carmine cringed as Lisa spoke behind him. Nicholas parked his truck and climbed out, glancing around in a rush. He looked in Carmine’s direction, muttering to himself as he approached. “Carmine, I need to talk to you about Haven. She—”
He didn’t have time to finish before Carmine swung. Nicholas’s head snapped to the side when the fist connected. Staggering backward, Nicholas glared at him. “There’s something wrong with you! I told her you’d go psycho if I came here!”
“Excuse me?” Carmine grabbed Nicholas’s shirt. “When did you talk to her?”
Nicholas pried his hands off, shoving Carmine away. “Twenty minutes ago when she called me.”
The words stung. “What do you mean she called you?”
“I mean—ring, ring—she called my phone,” he said. “What else would ‘she called me’ mean?”