He cracks a smile. “Don’t worry. The positions are interchangeable.”
“But you don’t think that about me anymore?”
He swallows his mouthful of muffin, looking pensive. “Hmm. Jury’s still out on that one. Check back with me tomorrow.”
I slap him with the backside of my hand.
He throws his arms up in surrender. “Hey, I’m just following the evidence.”
“What evidence?” I challenge in a mocking tone.
“Let’s see.” He drops the muffin and dusts crumbs off his fingers so he can count on them. “Top of the class. Student fund-raising captain. Member of all the clubs.”
“I’m not a member of all the clubs,” I interject.
He ignores me and keeps counting. “Immaculate uniform.”
I glance down at my gray skirt, white blouse, and blazer. “What’s wrong with my uniform?”
“What’s wrong with your uniform?” he echoes. “Where do I start? Your shirt is perfectly pressed and tucked in. Your blazer looks like you lint-roll it daily. Your socks are never slouched. And your skirt is…” He reaches out and touches the gray fabric, his fingertips grazing my bare skin.
For some reason, this little action sends a shiver through me. Even though his hands are warm. Surprisingly warm.
He tilts his head and studies me for a moment, almost as though he can sense my reaction. I play it off quickly by continuing my act of annoyance. “What’s wrong with my skirt?”
But he doesn’t answer right away. I lift my eyes to meet his and suddenly our gazes lock. Involuntarily. Unexpectedly. Irreversibly.
He clears his throat and looks away. “It’s … um, very clean.”
“Would you rather it be filthy and wrinkled like your uniform?”
“Yes,” he replies. “Yes, I would.”
“Fine.” I reach for the pastry on the tray in front of us, run my fingertip through the chocolate cream filling, and smear it across my lap.
Dylan stares at me with his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape.
“Happy now?” I grin.
It takes him a while to reply. But when he does, he says, “Yes. And admittedly a little turned on.”
Then My Past Catches Up with Me
“So, what was this big idea of yours?” I ask, sipping my latte.
Dylan stuffs the last of his muffin into his mouth. “I think we should try to hack the password of the email account.”
“Or,” I say thoughtfully, “you can just tell me the password. Since, you know, you created it.”
He gives me a devilish smirk. “Where would be the fun in that?” He bypasses the stack of napkins on the table and wipes his hands on his pants, leaving behind an unsightly grease streak. I guess that solves the mystery of why he always looks so disheveled. He turns the laptop toward him. “What email address is the perp using?”
“I’m sorry,” I say teasingly. “The perp?”
“Yes, the perpetrator. Keep up.”
“I know what perp means,” I argue. “I just … You know what? Never mind. It’s [email protected].”
He nods and navigates to the YouMail site. He types the email address into the log-in box and clicks the Forgot Password link.
“Look, the perp set up a password hint.” He squints at the screen, his eyebrows knitting in confusion as he reads aloud. “I know what you’re thinking…”
“What?” I grab the laptop and spin it toward me so I can read it for myself.
I know what you’re thinking …
He turns and looks at me. “What on earth does that mean?”
I shrug and shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a warning message to us. Or whoever is trying to hack the password. Like, I know what you’re thinking about doing, so don’t even try it.”
Dylan takes the computer back and stares at the password hint.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he repeats with a curious inflection. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Every time he says those words aloud, something stirs in me. Something I can’t quite identify. I can almost hear someone else saying them. Someone in my past. A faint, clouded memory that’s struggling to break through.
He raps his fingers against the keys, contemplating. “Maybe it’s a line from a book. Like on the Chronicle list.”
I nod. “It’s as good an idea as any.”
He opens a new tab in the browser and Googles the exact password hint along with the word “book.” There are no obvious results.
I don’t know what the password hint is referring to, but for some strange reason I’m positive it’s not a book. And my conviction is starting to unnerve me.
“What about…?” Dylan starts to ask but I don’t hear the rest of his suggestion. I don’t hear anything, actually. Because just then, the door of Peabody’s jingles as two customers come tumbling into the restaurant and all of the blood instantly drains from my face.
Oh my God. This isn’t happening.
Why, oh why, did I agree to come here? Why didn’t I suggest we go somewhere else?
I should have known they’d walk through that door. I should have been more cautious. I should have protected myself from this very situation.
I watch in a mixture of shock and horror and jealousy as my ex-boyfriend and my former best friend order coffees from the barista and carry them to a nearby booth. They slide into the same side, leaving the opposite bench empty, and immediately snuggle up to each other.
And in that moment, all I can think is Austin never did that with me.
We never snuggled on the same side of the booth. Not even in the beginning when things were new and exciting. He always insisted on sitting opposite me. He said it was so he could see me better. I never argued because that sounded so sweet.
But maybe it was a lie.
Maybe he just didn’t want to be that close to me. Maybe the thought of being separated from me by a foot of table didn’t bother him in the slightest.
“Friends of yours?” Dylan asks, crashing into my thoughts.
I blink and face him. “No,” I mumble, trying to focus on my laptop screen. But my attention keeps getting diverted. I keep looking up to see what they’re doing. What they’re saying. How many times they turn to just look at each other. Not talk. Not smile. Just gaze into each other’s eyes.
“They look happy,” Dylan remarks, and once again I realize that I’m staring.
“Whatever,” I mutter. “Let’s get back to work.”
But I can sense Dylan watching me. I have a feeling he won’t let this go. “Is that your ex-boyfriend or something?”
I bark out a laugh. “No. I mean, not really. We went on one date in middle school.”
I notice his body tense for a moment before he leans back in his chair. “Is that like a pattern with you? One date and then you’re done?” It sounds like a joke, but I can hear the hostility behind the words. I know he’s referring to us. To our one date. The one I don’t remember, but he obviously does.
“N-n-no,” I stammer. “It wasn’t like that.”
“So, did you stop responding to his texts, too?”
I startle at this. Not just because he’s no longer even trying to hide the resentment in his voice, but because I can’t believe I would do that. Or she would do that. Did she just ignore him until he got the point and went away? That seems kind of harsh. And incredibly cowardly.
I bite my lip, struggling for words. “No. It just didn’t work out.” I see a flicker of something on his face and quickly add, “With him.”
Because the truth is, I don’t know what happened with us. With Dylan and me. All I know is what Sequoia told me. That we had one date. That I was planning on going out with him again but then I met her and she convinced me to focus on school instead of boys.
“Why didn’t it work out?” he asks, and then after a moment, he also adds, “With him.”
But I have a feeling he’s asking me for more than that. He’s asking me for som
ething I can’t give. An overdue explanation that I simply don’t have.
I swallow. “Because I went to Windsor and he went to Southwest High. It just kind of fizzled out.”
“So,” Dylan presses, folding his hands in his lap like a TV talk show interviewer. “If you hadn’t gone to Windsor, you two might still be a couple?”
Yeah, and he would have eventually cheated on me.
My body tenses. My heart thumps in my chest. I don’t want to think about that. I spent the last three and a half years wondering about what-ifs. I’m done. This is my life now. This is where I belong. I’ve already made that decision.
“It doesn’t matter what would have happened,” I say. “This is what did happen.”
“So you’re bitter,” Dylan guesses. “About the one that got away?”
“What?” I ask, flustered. I can feel my face turning red. “No. I’m not bitter about anything. That was more than three years ago. In middle school. I don’t care about him. I barely even think about him.”
Dylan’s expression is inscrutable. But apparently mine is not. “That’s not what your face says,” he points out.
So, now he’s the micro-expression expert?
“Admit it,” Dylan prods. “You’re totally still in love with that guy.”
“No!” I screech. “I will not admit that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not true! He and I … we were … we didn’t…”
Dylan’s hostility gives way to amusement as he sits back and watches me struggle.
“We were terrible together,” I finish. “We didn’t work. We had different interests and he made weird sounds with his teeth and laughed at fart jokes. And he misuses the phrase ‘for all intents and purposes,’ which is just annoying.”
“That’s a lot of specifics for one date.”
I don’t like where this conversation is heading. Actually, I don’t like where it already is. “Let’s drop it. We weren’t meant to be and that’s that.”
“Unlike them,” Dylan prompts, and I get the sense from his goading tone that he’s trying to get me riled up again.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, those two are clearly meant for each other. Just look at them.”
Reluctantly, I turn back to the booth where Laney and Austin are sitting. Of course, it happens to be the exact moment when he chooses to kiss her on the forehead. I avert my eyes. For some reason this gesture seems more intimate than watching them swap spit in the parking lot for five minutes. This hits me in a more vulnerable spot. So instead, I let my gaze wander to the empty bench across from them.
In the old days, when the three of us used to go out together, Laney and I would always take one side of the booth and Austin would sit by himself on the other. I did it because I didn’t want Laney to feel like the third wheel. I never wanted her to be uncomfortable hanging out with us. But it turns out, she was. Just maybe not for the reasons I thought.
Is Dylan right?
Is there a reason they ended up together in both versions of this life?
Were they the ones meant to be together all along?
“I should probably get home,” I say, closing my laptop and returning it to my bag. “We’re not making much progress here.”
“Okay,” Dylan agrees, still looking at me like he’s trying to X-ray my brain. “I’ll drive you.”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I can walk.”
Dylan laughs. “Are you crazy? Have you seen what it looks like out there?”
I peer through the darkening window of Peabody’s at the rivers of rain streaming down the glass.
Crap.
When did that start?
Probably the moment Laney and Austin walked through the door. Like some kind of dark omen.
“You’re not walking home in that,” Dylan insists. “I’ll give you a ride.”
I sigh. “Fine.” Then I remember my manners. “I mean, thanks.”
Then the Truth Comes Out
By the time Dylan drops me off in front of my house, we’ve suffered through five minutes of awkward silence, punctuated only by the sounds of the rain pounding on the windshield, the wipers swishing, and the hard-hitting guitars of whatever heavy rock music he has playing on the stereo.
Dylan keeps asking if I’m okay, to which I repeatedly respond, “I’m fine.”
I feel like I’ve been saying that for the past month. When Mr. Fitz told me he was worried about me. When Sequoia told me she was worried about me. Even when I woke up in Nurse Wilson’s office and she insisted I wasn’t, I still repeated it.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m fine.”
Like a parrot who’s only learned to speak one phrase.
But I’m starting to wonder if that’s really true. Am I fine? My face looks like it’s been left out in the rain for too long. My body is always tired. I’ve been renting out space in my brain to a permanent headache that doesn’t want to leave no matter how much coffee I drink. My teachers think I’m going to crack. Dylan thinks I’ve been brainwashed and turned into a zombie. Three people who are important to me have told me that they think I’m capable of cheating my way through life.
Am I really fine?
Is that what Lucinda told everyone before she did what she did? Is that what the Windsor Academy trains you to say no matter what?
The song on the speakers kicks into a final chorus as the main singer croons something about trying to figure out the mind of a girl.
Yeah, good luck, buddy, I think. We can’t even figure ourselves out.
“Who is this?” I ask, nodding toward the radio.
Dylan immediately lowers the volume, as if interpreting my question as a dislike for the song. “Some new band I just discovered online. They’re called Whack-a-Mole.” He shrugs. “They’re pretty good.”
I give Dylan directions to my house from the main road and he pulls up to the curb and puts the car in Park.
I reach for the door handle, fairly desperate to get away from the awkward energy of this car. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Wait,” he calls out. And suddenly his hand is on my arm. Even through the thick fabric of my blazer, I feel a tingle shoot through me. The kind of tingle I haven’t felt since Austin McKinley kissed me in that movie theater lobby. The kind of tingle I never thought I’d ever feel again the second I saw him kissing someone else.
And yet there it is. Scorching through wool and cotton and skin. Traveling up my arm, spreading across my skin, rushing right through my heart.
Originating from the least likely of places.
I glance down at his hand and suddenly find myself wondering if this happened before. Three and a half years ago. Did he touch me then? Did I feel what I just felt? Did it scare me away?
Dylan notices me staring at his hand and quickly pulls it away, taking that glorious rushing, heart-skittering sensation with him.
“I—” he starts to say, but he stumbles over the words. Starting and restarting like an Olympic sprinter who can’t manage to synchronize his feet with the sound of the gun. “I’m not good at this.” The sentence finally tumbles out.
Despite everything, I manage a thin smile. “Not good at what?”
He rubs his hands on his pants. “Um. You know…” He gestures ambiguously between the two of us. Back and forth, faster and faster. “I’m not good at…”
“Finishing sentences?”
He laughs. It’s a genuine one. Not the sarcastic chuckle that I’ve grown accustomed to over the past few weeks.
“I think I owe you an apology,” he finally says.
My forehead scrunches in confusion. “Excuse me?”
He blows out a breath. “I’ve been kind of a jerk to you lately.”
“Kind of?”
He laughs. “Okay. I’ve been a big jerk. But you haven’t exactly been a picnic either. I mean, sometimes you’re just so infuriating and rude and—”
He looks at his lap. “Sorry. You’re right. I’m just trying to say that I might have misjudged you. I…” He stops and restarts. “For a while, I suspected … I mean, I’m in the library a lot. I see things. And you’re at the top of the class. You seemed like the most obvious choice. So I thought … well, the point is, I was mistaken. And I’m sorry.”
I squint at him through the darkness of the car. “What are you talking about?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m rambling. It happens when I’m nervous. I was trying to say that I was wrong about you.”
I’m not exactly sure what he means but I still feel a squeeze in my chest. I look down at my lap. “I think I’ve been wrong about a few things, too.”
He flashes me a toothy grin. It’s kind of adorable. “Does that mean you don’t think I’m the perp anymore?”
“I didn’t say that,” I correct.
He chuckles, then falls quiet. “It wouldn’t be so bad, you know.”
I squint. “What?”
“If I was guilty. Maybe then I could get out of here.”
I’m suddenly no longer interested in leaving the car. I train my eyes on him. He runs his hands anxiously over the steering wheel. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“Never mind,” he mutters. “Just forget it.”
“No. What?”
He sighs. “I don’t exactly love it at Windsor.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I joke.
He gives me a thin smile. “My dad is the only reason I’m there. He thinks if he can put me on the right track, I’ll stay on the right track.”
“You’re ranked in the top 20 of our class. I’d say that’s a pretty good track.”
He shakes his head. “Not for him. Until I agree to go to business school and follow in his footsteps, he doesn’t take anything I do seriously.” He glances out the window with a sigh. “He thinks writing as a profession is a joke.”
I chuckle. “Then I guess we’re both screwed.”
He pulls his questioning gaze back to me.
“I’m a writer, too,” I tell him.
He looks extremely dubious.
“I know. I know,” I say. “I’m in the Robotics Club and the Investment Club and the National Economics of Boredom Club. But actually, I want to study journalism.”
In Some Other Life: A Novel Page 24
