Only Mostly Devastated

by Sophie Gonzales

  “Oh.” Crista rolled onto her side. “Are you sad?”

  I forced a smile. “Sometimes we only get to be friends for a little while. That’s why you’ve always gotta make it count, right?”

  “Right. ’Night, Ollie.”

  “’Night.”

  7

  He looked at me.

  No, I’m sure of it. There had definitely been times when I’d thought Will was looking at me, when actually it was at something behind me, or on top of me, or below me, or through me, but this time it was super-certainly at me. Not a drill.

  Sure, it only lasted a second, but still. He’d turned away when I saw him. Way too suspicious for an accident. Plus, his table was on the opposite side of the cafeteria. If he hadn’t been staring right at me, there’s no way he would’ve even noticed me glancing back.

  Breathe. Breathe, Ollie. You don’t care about Will anymore, remember? Just because it’s finally occurred to him that you’ve been existing in his vicinity for the past couple weeks does not erase his doucheyness. And it is most certainly not a marriage proposal.

  “Wow, Jules, I’ve heard chewing helps,” Lara said, her fork hovering halfway to her mouth as she stared at Juliette.

  Juliette shrugged, wide eyed and chipmunk cheeked. “Ree ung Awrry—”

  “No, no, stop,” Niamh interrupted, holding a hand up. “Swallow. Breathe. Proceed.”

  Juliette complied. When she’d finished coming up for air, she continued. “Me and Ollie are going to pick my audition song. We need as much time in the music room as we can get.”

  I’d actually forgotten about that, but hey, sure, I was down. It’d be cool to—oh, hell no, he did it again. What was he looking at me for? Had someone said something? Was I hot today? I glanced down at my outfit. I pretty much lived in these jeans, so it wasn’t them. The shirt made my arms seem bigger than they were, so it might be that? Or—maybe it was my hair? Whatever I’d done with it, I’d just have to make sure to exactly replicate it every day from here on out until I died. Easy.

  “Come on, Ollie,” Juliette said. “You’ve barely eaten.”

  I somehow snapped my attention back to our own table. “Sorry. I think I’m full, anyway.”

  Lara turned behind her. To see what I’d been distracted by, I guess. When she flipped back she had on her Disney villain smile. Which, in the short time I’d known her, had never led to anything too fun. For me, anyway. “It’s been so long since the guys sat with us,” she said.

  And there it was. Cue the trap. I shoved a forkful of potato salad into my mouth so I’d have an excuse not to fall into it.

  Niamh did the honors for me. “Yeah, it really has. Do you think it’s because of Ollie?”

  Juliette side-eyed the hell out of her. Like the thought would’ve never occurred to me without Niamh pointing it out.

  Lara’s laugh was a touch too loud. I braced myself. “No, oh, no way. Matt told me why. It’s because of Jess.”

  Niamh and Juliette shared twin confused expressions. “Jess Rigor?” Juliette asked.

  “Yeah. Apparently she was getting all jealous that Will was hanging with us, and asked him to stop. Even though he was with the guys, too. Pretty girls are so easily threatened, have you noticed?”

  Potato salad. Potato salad. Don’t take your eyes off the damn potato salad.

  Lara must have been disappointed at my non-reaction, because she pushed harder. “Did Will ever mention Jess to you, Ollie? She’s his ex. They used to be joined at the hip, didn’t they, Niamh?”

  I cracked and resurfaced to join the conversation. Even Niamh seemed to have caught on to what Lara was doing. At least, she looked pretty unimpressed. “I guess,” she said. “Until she cheated on him. That was a while ago. I’m surprised he still talks to her.”

  “Oh, all the time,” Lara said. She crossed her legs underneath her to prop herself higher.

  “Well, I’ve never seen her,” Juliette said airily, standing up. “Anyway, come on, Ollie. We’ve really got to go if we’re gonna do this.”

  I scrambled to follow her. As I did, I checked Will’s table one last time.

  Will ripped his gaze away, pretending to be all absorbed in whatever Darnell was saying. He burst out laughing, and a couple of the guys slapped him on his back and arms. Whatever they were laughing about, it seemed to be with Will, not at Will. Probably a super-hetero joke about his super-hetero past relationship with this Jess girl. A vicious part of me wanted to ask the girls to point her out in the crowd so I could find flaws with her. Maybe she was duller than vanilla ice cream. Or, even better, one of those people with an obnoxious laugh that makes you want to fill your ear canals with gasoline and light it. Or she might be an earnest flat-earther. As long as I could cheerfully hate her, I’d take any of the above.

  As the guys stopped laughing, Will’s eyes were aimed toward me again. We looked away from each other at the same time. Him to turn back to his group. Me to the back wall. Half because I didn’t have anywhere else to look, half because I could still check Will out in my peripheral at this angle.

  Suddenly, I desperately didn’t want to go off with Juliette. Why did he have to pick today to remember I existed? Why couldn’t I sit in that seat for the next twelve hours, counting how many times we locked eyes?

  “I really don’t know what’s up with Lara,” Juliette said as we dumped our trays. “She’s doing that on purpose. Don’t think me and Niamh haven’t noticed.”

  “I don’t think she likes me very much,” I admitted.

  Juliette made a show of shaking her head, all wide-eyed horror. “No, of course she does! It’s not that at all.”

  She didn’t offer any alternative explanations. I didn’t push it, though. Even two weeks in, these girls were my best options for friends. Actually, that wasn’t fair. I really, genuinely liked Juliette and Niamh. It was just Lara. I got along with the others in Absolution of the Chained okay, but they didn’t hang out together, so I didn’t have an easy in. Basically, if I wanted to keep the peace with the two people I could call proper friends in this school, I had to put up with Miss Malice Personified. Small sacrifices, right?

  In the music room, Juliette set herself up on a chair, with about three novels’ worth of music stacked on the sheet stand. “All right, so, these are the four pieces I have to choose from. I think I have it down to two final ones, but I’d really, really appreciate your feedback. See, I have to balance it between the ones I perform better and the ones that are technically harder. I think it’s better to be awesome at an easier song than less awesome at a tricky song, but … what do you think?”

  I sat on the piano bench and played a couple of notes. “Can you just, like, get really awesome at a complex song?”

  I got a scrunched-up piece of sheet music lobbed at me for that one. Apparently not.

  One by one, Juliette played the pieces. I was no expert judge of the clarinet, but she was obviously good. Really good. She tripped up once or twice during the first song, but after that she was pretty much flawless. Either that one was the “tricky” piece, or she’d had nerves. I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be, because they all sounded the same to me.

  I was starting to imagine how the clarinet would sound covering Nightwish or something—epic, probably—when she started on her last song. And, finally, something sounded different. From the expression on her face, it was obvious this was her favorite. Something about the piece made me think of crying, and emptiness, and death. Frankly, it was awful. I spent half the song staring at the wall, thinking about Aunt Linda, and how sunken her cheeks were looking, and what would happen if she didn’t make it. Then I thought about my friends back home, and how they probably barely missed me, and they’d have all these memories together that I wouldn’t be a part of. All I wanted to do suddenly was go home, climb into bed, and sleep until everything was all better.

  The second Juliette stopped, I said, “Play that one.” That might sound weird, but even if that song made me feel horribl
e, it made me feel. And that was the point with music, wasn’t it?

  “Really? Why that one?” But she looked pleased. Clearly I’d told her what she wanted to hear.

  “I could tell you meant it.”

  “I did. But it’s not as hard as the second one.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Anyone can play a note. Talent’s what you do with the notes. Don’t you think?”

  Juliette rested her clarinet between her knees and flushed. “You think I’m talented?”

  “Nah. You suck. I was being nice.”

  She laughed, then gave me that little half-smile of hers. “I’m so glad I met you, Ollie-oop. You know, you’re not this funny around the others. Have you noticed?”

  Well, that was because every sentence I spoke around Lara was like pulling the trigger in a game of bitchy Russian roulette. Kind of puts a damper on attempts at humor. “I’m not great in groups,” I said. “I’m socially awkward.”

  “You’re not socially awkward.” Said the girl who insisted Lara didn’t dislike me. Super credible. “But you should try to relax more. Don’t be afraid to talk with us, okay? We love having you around.”

  Love. That was a strong word. But it perked me up, anyway. I shuffled around to face the piano. It was easier to speak to an instrument, even one I couldn’t really play beyond the basics. “Maybe if we ate lunch in here I’d be more relaxed.”

  Juliette started packing up her clarinet. “Oh my God, I know. There’s something about music, don’t you think? It makes everything feel so much easier, and nicer.”

  I played a C chord on the piano and nodded. “All my friendships were based on music back home. We all listened to similar stuff, we all played together … It doesn’t seem to be as big here.”

  “I guess it depends what groups you hang around with. You’re right, though. You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk about playing with.”

  “It’s an honor.” I grinned.

  “My parents don’t take it seriously. Apparently I get everything from my grandpa. It skipped a generation.”

  “Their loss, I guess.”

  “Try my loss. I mean, they’re not horrible about it. They sprang for private lessons. As a hobby, though, not a career.”

  “So, what do they think about this audition?”

  “They don’t. Think. They don’t know about it.”

  I gaped. “You rebel!”

  “Easier to say sorry than ask permission, Ollie-oop. Needs do as needs must.”

  “You can quote as many clichéd sayings at me as you want, but I’m still impressed.”

  I couldn’t imagine going behind my parents’ backs with something that big. The most rebellious thing I’d ever done to date had been sneaking out to see Will his last night at the lake, and I could blame that on irrational hormones.

  I’d been pumped full of those irrational hormones. Like Romeo and Juliet, but a teensy bit less stupid.

  I grabbed my phone as Juliette gathered her music, and only then noticed I had a new text. The tone must have been drowned out by the clarinet. I unlocked it, expecting it to be Ryan or Hayley through some weird, telepathic connection, telling me they missed me or something.

  But it was way weirder than that.

  It was Will. I recognized the last few digits.

  Can we talk?

  Shit.

  Shit shit shit shit oh God shit fuck crap. I was not prepared for this, oh Jesus.

  My first instinct was to text him back, begging him to meet me right this second.

  The next was to delete this message thread so I wouldn’t be tempted to ever reply. I actually got halfway through doing that, then chickened out. I wasn’t quite that strong. Alas and alack and whatever.

  I went with door number three. Don’t reply, for now. I’d wait until I came up with the perfect response. If experience was anything to go by, the perfect response was never the first one that came to mind. Let him think I was busy. I was, after all. Busy putting together a life here. A life that didn’t need to revolve around Will “Who?” Tavares.

  As soon as I made that decision, a rush of power coursed through me. Finally, after all these weeks, I had the opportunity to be the one ignoring him. I could get used to being on this side of the power balance.

  I didn’t reply throughout the rest of the school day. Played it totally cool, if I do say so myself. I was 90 percent sure it was because of all Mom’s mindfulness training. When I realized that, I did some visualization. Of Will checking his phone every five minutes with his heart in his throat, like I’d been doing the whole last couple weeks of summer. And that felt so good, it was sure to manifest. It turned out I got most of my positive energy from the thought of karmic schadenfreude.

  At home, Crista and Dylan were over. Aunt Linda had taken a “bad turn” during the day, according to Mom, and was back in the hospital overnight. The kids seemed pretty down—and so did the adults, to be perfectly honest—so we decided to go out for cheeseburgers. It was one of those places with entertainers wearing creepy, anthropomorphic costumes of chipmunks, ducks, and bears that have crazy eyes like they’ve taken a strong hit of something. The animals, I mean, not the entertainers. Although, their eyes were hidden, so it was hard to make that call either way, I guess.

  Anyway, Crista and Dylan loved it, and spent more time following around one of the chipmunks than they did eating. It seemed ridiculous to me that they could be so scared of things like the dark, or trees rustling outside, and not the slightest bit terrified of the chipmunk costumes. Those wide, staring eyes and creepily stretched-out, half-open mouths … Nothing has ever said “I eat children” more than the face of Chipmunk Charlie, put it that way.

  Even though I was still ignoring Will, I kept opening the message thread, like something would’ve somehow changed since I looked at it thirty seconds before. A part of me wondered if Will had noticed the seen receipt. If he was maybe even obsessing over it a little, internally rationalizing why I hadn’t replied.

  Can we talk?

  Talk about what, Will? About how you’ve ignored me since … well, since that night? Or about your reaction at the party? Or do you want to discuss why you were basically Jesus at the lake and are now in the running to be the Antichrist? Because as interesting as those conversation topics all sound, I’d rather invite Chipmunk Charlie into my room to watch me sleep every night than hear you explain how little I mean to you.

  Every time I took my phone out, my parents started talking in low voices, like I would somehow miss what they were saying from the other side of the rounded booth. I was distracted, but not that distracted. They were talking about Aunt Linda. The topic of the times, these days. I picked up enough snippets to get a feel for it. Not responding to treatment… Changing medication … Demand some better pain meds … Says she doesn’t want to be foggy, but…

  My phone buzzed in my hand, and I jumped a full mile. Then I saw who was calling, and my parents’ conversation was officially tuned out.

  Will. Will was calling me. Will was out there somewhere, right now, calling me. Thinking about me. Wanting me to pick up.

  Maybe Mom was onto something with this “manifesting” theory after all.

  I almost answered it, too. Almost. But there was that tingling power again. And honestly, it was more than that. The more I’d been thinking about his message, the more I suspected that he wanted to beg me not to out him. Or to tell me the summer meant nothing, and he’d see me around. Goddamnit, I didn’t want to hear him say that. It’d cheapen the whole thing. As if the second I heard him discount it, it’d erase all that happiness. With everything going on with Aunt Linda, and being away from my friends, and having to deal with Lara, those memories were all I had. I needed them for a little longer.

  So I watched my phone in silence until the call ended.

  Sorry, Will.

  Too busy.

  Just like you’ve been.

  8

  He ambushed me.

  I was running m
ore than ten minutes late the next morning. I’d finished up at my locker, mentally rehearsing my excuse to Ms. Hurstenwild, when I got that creepy, ominous feeling. The one that says there’s someone, possibly-slash-probably a serial killer, right behind you. I turned around to find Will all up in my personal space, staring me down like he was a freaking matador or something.

  “Didn’t get my text, I guess?” he said in this airy way, like he couldn’t really care. Which would be believable if he wasn’t in the process of cornering me in an empty hallway about it.

  I was rattled, but I did my best not to make it obvious. “Pot, kettle,” I said, even airier. So airy it was approaching helium. Okay, maybe it was obvious after all.

  He shoved one hand into the pocket of his chinos and stuck one finger of the other in his mouth to chew a cuticle. I got déjà vu seeing that. It’s what he did whenever I caught him off guard in the summer. Cuticle nibbling, faraway look, shifting his weight. He was so familiar. I knew him. Probably better than someone had any business knowing someone they’d only met a few months ago.

  He removed his finger from his mouth. Here we go. Considered, thoughtful response time. “You’re right. I’m a total hypocrite.”

  Again. Not what I’d expected. And there I’d been bracing myself for a gentle lecture about how he didn’t owe me anything, or how I’d been reading into the summer too much. It was a surprisingly mature response for someone who’d spent a solid two weeks refusing to look me in the eye.

  It made me relax a little. “Yup. Do I get an explanation, or … ?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

  “Well, I’m here. So, let’s talk, I guess.”