Page 85 of Sunday Morning
“I’m leaving. Give me my underwear.”
“Nope.” He tossed the paper towels into the garbage can and stood, again peering out the window to check for Wesley.
“Why?”
“I’ll give them back to you in Nashville.”
I balled my fists, and his attention shifted to my sides.
“Use your power.”
Hispower,baloney, only made me angrier. As it was, I had to go home and not get paid for the day.
“Keep them, you perv.” I pushed him out of my way and grabbed my purse from the shelf under the counter.
“Singing is performing,” he said as I headed toward the door. “Performing is harnessing all of your power to be everything you are and everything you hope to be. Performing isfinding courage in the face of fear. It’s raw vulnerability.” He grinned. “But it’s the best fucking feeling in the world.”
I didn’t let on that his words gave me chills. Music was my love language. Isaac spoke my language in a world where my averageness made me feel invisible.
“What’s your point?” I asked without turning toward him.
“You don’t deserve to be on a stage until you’re ready to harness that power, to take what’s yours.”
I opened the door and slammed it behind me, but I only got two steps before I turned and stomped back into the shed and straight to Isaac. He glanced over his shoulder as he stood with the freezer door open. When he started to turn, I pushed his back to keep him facing away from me. Pressing my chest to his back, I slid both hands into his front pockets, finding my underwear in one while my thumb grazed something else while searching his other pocket.
I was shaking, heart pounding. Yet, I mustered enough courage to lift onto my toes and whisper in his ear, “I’m going to sing with you on stage.”
His lips twitched. “Have Heather drop you off in the church parking lot at six a.m.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CARS, “DRIVE”
“It’sokay to change your mind. If anything happens to you, your parents will have no idea. Do you really trust Isaac?” Heather lived on the edge more than I did, but she stepped up and gave me the mom talk on our way to the church. And I loved her for it. As much as we were each other’s cheerleaders for taking chances and enjoying the beauty of being young,naive, reckless (and a little stupid), we loved each other like sisters.
I worried about her.
She worried about me.
“He was in the Army for six years. I think that makes him pretty trustworthy,” I said despite my hands shaking.
“Does he have your phone number in case he needs to call your parents? Does he have condoms?”
“I said we’renot?—”
“Sarah Elaine Jacobson, stop lying to yourself. Whether you like sex or not, you know you’re going to say yes to him. Don’t. Get. Pregnant.”
Chewing the heck out of my lower lip, shaky hands reaching for my seat belt, I nodded.
Heather pulled into the church parking lot at ten before six, and Isaac’s truck was already there. Adrenaline surged through my body; it was almost too much to take. Maybe it was too reckless, too stupid.
Yet, it felt like a mistake that I would only regretnotmaking.
The thousand-calorie slice of chocolate cake.
Missing curfew to hang out with my friends a little longer.
Spending a whole summer’s worth of paychecks on the perfect leather jacket.