“What’s this?” I asked as he came in.
“Mom would kill me if I came around without bringing anything. And I thought the kids might like some junk food.”
“They’re in bed, thank God,” I said. “If you gave them any of that now they’d be up until six in the morning rolling around on the floor screaming nursery rhymes.”
“Oh. Well, how do you feel about eating all this ourselves, then?”
“Extremely positive, obviously.”
“Great. Also, they’re sort of celebratory, too.”
I paused by the door. “What are we celebrating?”
He shifted on the spot to readjust his hold on the junk food bounty. “I applied for the nursing program at the University of North Carolina.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I was tossing it around, but after we talked about it on Thanksgiving I decided I was gonna do it.”
He looked hopeful. Hopeful and soft.
“Well,” I said. “They’d be out of their minds not to accept you.”
We decided to put on a horror movie—with the volume on as low as we could get away with—and I laid the junk food out on the coffee table while Will kicked his shoes off and set up on the couch under the blanket Aunt Linda kept there.
When I was done, he lifted the blanket so I could climb in next to him. “When do your aunt and uncle get back?”
“They’re out to dinner. It’s the first time they’ve done something nice like that for months, so I’m hoping they won’t be in a rush to come home.”
Will nodded, and ran a finger along my thigh. I shivered. “How’s she doing?”
“Umm. Same. She seems a little more tired than usual, but she’s got so many appointments and stuff it might just be that. I don’t know if I’m reading into things or not anymore.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m glad she got to go out for something fun for once, though. It’s really good of you to always volunteer to babysit.”
I shrugged. “She needs help. It’s what we’re here for.”
He nodded, but he seemed distant as he turned to watch the movie. The thick black hood of his jacket was bunched up around his neck, and he was biting his bottom lip. He had the world’s most beautiful lips. When the Great, Ethereal Being was putting together the blueprint for Will Tavares, it must have just figured out the winning formula for the exact shape, thickness, and ratio of the perfect mouth. Then it’d gone and put that perfect mouth on a mortal, just to show off.
Woops. I’d gone all slack-jawed staring at it.
The perfect mouth opened a little. Not too far above it, the world’s most perfect pair of eyes—the origin story of which was probably similar to the mouth—were scanning my own lips. My too-small, not very defined, unremarkable lips.
He touched my jaw. “I always wish I could see inside your head,” he said. “You always seem to be thinking so hard about something or other.”
“It’s not that interesting,” I said. I meant to look at his eyes, but I was right back fixated on his mouth.
He leaned in. “I think you’re extremely interesting.”
The way he kissed me was ginger, like I was made out of tissue paper that could be torn with the slightest sudden movement. For a moment, my rational mind piped up that we should be careful, that Crista or Dylan could come out for a drink or something at any moment, and making out on duty was a little unprofessional, even if it was family duty. But then his fingers were weaving their way through the hair at the back of my head, and his other hand was squeezing my thigh, and—responsibility? What responsibility? Who cared? Crista and Dylan had to learn about birds and bees sooner or later, so win-win, right?
Even though the first time I’d kissed him had been, like, seven months ago, none of the novelty had worn off. Every time his lips met mine, it was the first kiss all over again. And again, and again, and again …
Before I knew it, I heard the movie credits playing in the back of my mind. I broke away from Will, shaking my head at the TV. “It’s over already?”
“Looks like it.”
“I didn’t even watch any of it, though.”
Will tipped his head to one side and ran a hand up my thigh. “I’m sorry to distract you like that.”
“You should be,” I said, leaning back on the couch as he came back up and over me, crashing his lips against mine.
Then a key turned in the lock, and we sprung away from each other with a fluidity that’d make an Olympic gymnastics team green with jealousy.
Aunt Linda and Uncle Roy were laughing when they came inside. They looked lighter than I’d seen them in weeks. Aunt Linda beamed when she saw Will. “Will, hey, how are you doing? I haven’t seen you in forever.”
Will had gone pale, and he stared at Aunt Linda for way too long before replying. At first I thought maybe he was freaking out that we’d almost been caught making out, but then I realized, it wasn’t that. He was just shocked to see Aunt Linda. The skinny, gray-skinned, slowed-down version of her.
“Hi,” he said in a weak voice. “I’m good. How are … how are you?”
“I,” she said, “am fantastic. We just had the best steak ever, at this new place that’s just opened over on Main Street.”
I had my doubts as to how much steak Aunt Linda had eaten, given her appetite lately, but I wasn’t about to point that out.
“Bernetti Café?” Will asked. “We’ve been meaning to go there.”
“Oh, you should. It’s very romantic.”
There was no way Aunt Linda thought the “we” in that sentence referred to me and him—she knew if Will and I had gone public she’d practically know about it before I did—so I had to assume she was doing it to tease Will. Or maybe to even normalize the idea for him.
Will blinked at me. I wondered if he was picturing us on a date, and if the idea was kind of nice or just terrifying. “Good to know,” he said finally, which didn’t give me anything to go on. I would’ve asked him, but I was suddenly scared of what he might say.
Will and I packed up and left at the same time. It was only then that we noticed we hadn’t even started to eat any of the junk food.
“She looks different these days, huh?” I asked once we were out of earshot.
“Yeah. I know you said she’s been worse, but it was something else seeing it.”
“And this was one of her good nights.”
“God, Ollie, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Don’t. She’s here, and we’re here, and we’re just going to keep getting through.”
We stopped when we got to the door of my car. “It was nice to see you tonight,” Will said. “How about we go for a drive tomorrow? We can go back to that place in the woods.”
Well, it wasn’t a candlelit dinner, but for now that was fine. I could take it. Especially given how much I’d enjoyed the last time we went to the woods, a few days before. “Yeah. All right. Lock it in.”
He studied me, and all at once I got what he meant about wishing he could peek inside someone’s mind.
“Can’t wait.”
“What was this, exactly?”
Mr. Theo stood over Will’s desk, holding up the pile of essays he’d marked over the break. He didn’t look angry as much as exasperated. I watched from across the class. The biweekly installment of Will vs. Mr. Theo was like tuning in to a soap opera you’d been following for months. It was trashy, but the dialogue was quick, and the drama was high, and you couldn’t quite look away even if you had more important things to be doing.
Will cocked his head to one side. “Looks like my essay to me. You asked us to hand them in before Winter break, don’t you remember?”
Matt snickered at the back of the classroom.
“I asked for an essay on symbolism and literary techniques. You gave me an essay on how Lord of the Flies is an allegory for Trump’s America.”
“An allegory is a technique! You said so yourself, sir, just last lesson.”
“One technique, in an essay
that was supposed to discuss four at a minimum. And it quite clearly isn’t one of the techniques the author employed to tell his story, as Lord of the Flies was written approximately a century ago.”
Will glanced over his shoulder at Matt and smirked. “Well, I don’t know, Mr. Theo, maybe this Golding guy was telepathic.”
“You mean clairvoyant. Will, if you want to use a homework task as an outlet for a political rant, there are many appropriate subjects. As it stands, English lit is not one of them. Rewrite it. Get it back to me Monday.”
“Someone’s a republican,” Will muttered over the lunch bell, not quietly enough so that he couldn’t be heard. Mr. Theo chose to ignore it.
Will shot me the briefest look as he went off with Matt. Maybe to see if I was laughing, or shaking my head. Honestly, I was kind of doing both.
I headed to the cafeteria more slowly, drifting along while I thought about the drive Will and I were going to take after school. Having something like that to look forward to made the days seem so much faster.
“Niamh’s been keeping a secret,” Juliette said in a singsong voice when I finally sat down at the lunch table.
Niamh looked up, alarmed. “Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Darnell’s gonna be here in, like, thirty seconds.”
“So spit it out.”
Niamh half-stood in her chair to eye the basketball guys, who were still filling their trays, then she sat abruptly and splayed her hands out on the table. “Okay. So we stop talking about this as soon as the guys get here, but I got signed by Enchantée Models. I found out in first period.”
“What?” I asked.
“Ho-lee shit, Niamh,” Lara said. “For real?”
“Yes, for real. An agency for real wanted me.” There was an edge to her voice, but Lara didn’t rise to the challenge. She just lifted her root beer in a one-sided toast.
“And they have strong ties in New York,” Niamh went on, “so they said I might get a casting up there sometime.”
“Niamh, that’s amazing,” I said.
Niamh was mostly looking at Lara, though. I’d thought that bad blood was behind them, but apparently not quite yet. If Niamh was looking for an apology, though, I wasn’t sure if she’d get one. “Also,” she said, “I’ve decided I’m not going to diet for it.”
Lara met her eyes now. I mean, she wasn’t dumb. She got the point. But she just waited for Niamh to go on.
“I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t really know how to bring it up, but I found out a little while ago I have polycystic ovary syndrome,” Niamh said. “I was getting really sick, and I wasn’t losing weight even when I was exercising a ton, so I ate a lot less, and it made me really exhausted. And PCOS can make you feel exhausted to begin with, so I was making the problem worse by over-dieting.”
“Oh, Niamh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Juliette said. “How did you know? Like, did you get tested because you couldn’t lose weight?”
“No. I got tested because I kept skipping … periods.” She lowered her voice, and her eyes flashed toward me as she said it. Her mouth twisted, and I realized she was embarrassed to talk about this with me there. I wasn’t sure if I should be looking away like I hadn’t heard, or something, but I decided that’d be significantly weirder and settled for nodding. “Like, I’d get it one month, then the next few it’d disappear. And obviously I couldn’t be pregnant. But Mom has it, too, so she had a hunch. Turns out she was right.”
“So, what does that mean?” I asked. “Is it … like, is it bad?”
What I meant to ask was, can it kill you? But I felt like that wasn’t the most tactful question.
“Well, it’s not amazing. Like it could affect my fertility, and it’s going to be something I’ll have for life. But I’ve seen my mom handle it, and it’s manageable with medication and a healthy lifestyle. Which, I might add, is why I’m not going to crash diet anymore. I figure I used to focus on the wrong thing. I was so desperate to lose weight, and it was like fighting a losing battle. But now my goal is to exercise for strength, and eat the right things so I don’t feel so tired and grumpy all the time. I’m already at a higher risk of diabetes and heart issues now that I have this, so I can’t afford to cut out whole food groups just so I might lose a pound or two. I do know losing weight can potentially help with some of the symptoms, but it’s much harder for people with PCOS. I’m working with my doctor on that, though, so I don’t need anyone else monitoring me or commenting on what I do and don’t eat.”
It was officially the longest speech I’d ever heard Niamh give. By the end of it she looked triumphant, if a little nervous. Finally, she added uncertainly, “Health is more important, okay?”
Lara was utterly engrossed in her mac and cheese. When she finally looked up, she had to face Juliette, Niamh, and me all giving her expectant stares. She rolled her eyes, but I didn’t miss the shame that flashed across her face at first. “Yeah, I agree with you,” she said to Niamh. “Good call.”
Well, it was as much of a win as Niamh was ever likely to get from Lara. In any case, it was the closest I’d ever heard Lara come to admitting she was wrong. It came just in time, too, because the basketball guys arrived seconds later to pull extra chairs over and crowd our table. Let it never be said that the basketball guys weren’t excellent wingmen. They were obviously hanging around like fruit flies so Darnell could see Niamh.
The group of them were laughing about something, though, and for once Darnell’s attention wasn’t on Niamh. He was zeroed right in on Will. So was Matt, actually. As they took their seats and lined up their lunch trays, the rest of the guys gravitated in to hear the conversation, with Will in the center of it all.
“So, is there something going on there again?” Matt asked Will, his voice all gooey and teasing.
“What do you mean?” Juliette asked before I had to.
Will’s face made it immediately obvious he’d been keeping something from me. He looked like a rabbit who’d been unceremoniously teleported out of his burrow and dumped before a fox. Caught off guard and full of dread.
Guess I was the fox.
Matt, totally oblivious to Will’s tension, cracked open a can of Coke. “He’s going to the dance with Jessica,” he said in a teasing, singsong way.
Well, if that wasn’t the worst song I’d ever heard.
I didn’t mean to look at Will with quite the level of despair that I think ended up on my face, but there was only so much self-control a guy could have when slapped with that kind of news. Will visibly winced when he met my eyes, and he covered up the movement by bending over his tray and shoving mac and cheese in his mouth. “Werr jush frensh,” he said around a full mouth, before launching into a coughing fit.
“Mmm, but does she know that?” Darnell asked.
Funnily enough, that was just what I wanted to know. Well, that, and who the hell did Will think he was to keep this from me?
Did I not deserve to hear that from him?
Wasn’t that my right?
Well, actually, that was kind of a good question. The problem with not labeling something was that what you could and couldn’t expect was kind of gray. Was it unreasonable of me to expect Will to let me know if he was going to a dance with someone else? Or even, maybe, to ask if I was okay with that? Or did he owe me nothing, because he wasn’t my boyfriend?
That didn’t feel good.
“If she doesn’t know it, she’s gonna get a rude shock,” Will said.
Darnell cackled. “Listen to this heartbreaker.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “I’m just saying, you don’t pass up your chance at all this and then get to change your mind later.”
“Damn right,” Matt said. “Make her regret it.”
“He doesn’t have to make her,” Darnell said. “She’s gonna regret it the second she sees him in a tie.”
Huh. For some reason I’d always assumed Will dumped Jess, not the other way around. Did that mean he’d still loved
her when they broke up? And how long ago did they break up, anyway? Was it possible I’d been some sort of summer rebound for Will to get over her? A thick vine of jealousy snaked around my stomach.
“What about you, Ollie?” Matt asked, and I snapped back to attention. “Going to the dance?”
He didn’t ask if I was going with anyone. I guess he figured the answer to that was obvious. To go to this dance with a date, you had to be asked by a girl. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but my cheeks started burning up anyway. It hit me that, back home, I never had to feel like I was lesser than everyone else. My school would never have held a dance that stuck to gendered rules. I would’ve been in the same position as everyone else—wondering if someone would ask me, or maybe figuring out if I even wanted to be asked.
But the point was, at my old school, no one would’ve assumed I didn’t have a date to something because of my sexuality.
Well maybe they’d assume I didn’t have a date because I was a super-awkward introvert who spent the whole of eleventh grade with a haircut that made me look like a toddler who’d played with scissors, but that was valid. At least that was, like, equal opportunity rejection.
I was too busy blushing at the table to notice Lara lean forward at first. Then she said, “I asked him,” and I snapped straight back to the present.
Pardon? She asked me? Was I asleep at the time? Because I sure as hell didn’t remember this. Maybe she’d whispered it from outside the door while I was practicing bass in the music room or something.
I was stunned, but not so stunned I missed Matt’s face fall. “Really?”
Lara stabbed at her mac and cheese. “Really. He scrubs up better than most of the guys here, and I’m planning on bringing it. We’ll look great in the pre-dance photos, don’t you think?”
The thing about Lara’s particular brand of irony was that you could never quite tell if she was playing with you or not. The guys seemed to agree; Matt kind of smiled, then half-frowned, then smiled with his eyebrows drawn together. “Well, if you’re planning on bringing it, then I’m gonna have to make sure I drop in to check it out for myself,” he said finally.
Smooth. Safe reply.
Only Mostly Devastated Page 15
