I know I have to become a more active participant in this conversation, so for some reason I choose to nod vigorously. I probably look deranged. “Yes. I’m a math. I mean a tutor. I mean, I do. Tutor math. Sometimes.” I suck in a sharp breath, wishing I could just faint in peace or at least press my overheated face to the nice cold lockers to cool down a little. I can hear the sound of my own heartbeat and I’m feeling a little woozy.
“I’m only asking because I could use some help and I was wondering if you’re, um. Free. Sometime. Just—whenever. I’m flexible.” He lowers his eyes. “With my schedule, I mean.”
I laugh and it sounds shrill even to my own ears. “No, sure, of course,” I hasten to assure him. “I’m free. I mean, I have, uh, stuff. To do. Sometimes. But yes. I can do it. When I don’t have stuff, I mean. Which is not all the time, I’m mostly, uh … free. No problem.”
His face lights up with delight. “Seriously? That’s wonderful!”
“Yes,” I say. “Um, I mean. Yes, I can do it … Friday?”
“Friday is great,” he agrees.
“I like Fridays,” I say just for the sake of saying something.
He laughs. “Friday afternoon, then?”
I nod again, making my head move a little more slowly this time. I feel dizzy enough as it is. “Sure.”
“Okay.” He smiles, waits a moment. “I’ll find you tomorrow and we’ll work out the details?”
“Okay,” I agree.
He waits another moment, then gives me a little wave before he turns and walks away.
I slump back against the locker next to mine and bite back the whimper rising in my chest, trying to get my breathing back under control.
What the hell just happened?
Chapter 15
Meg
I DON’T SHARE A LOT of classes with Linus so I haven’t seen him in several hours by the time I spot him approaching across the parking lot after school.
We have plans to hang out and keep each other company this afternoon, and I’m looking forward to it because it’s one more opportunity to maybe talk him into getting his nerve up to offer his tutoring magic to that Danny guy. I just firmly believe that Danny would like him if they ever got to know each other.
And honestly, I’m really proud of the way I’m handling this little project. It proves that I really am okay even without a girlfriend. I was a little afraid it would affect me negatively, but look at me handling school and taking care of my friend all at the same time! So maybe I’m meddling a bit, but it’s for the best. I may have to get a little creative with those two, maybe resort to some crazier plans, but hey, when did I ever say I was a completely sane person? At least this is only marginally crazy—it’s not like I’m locking them in an elevator together or anything.
Anyway, I push myself off the car door I’m leaning against once I see Linus walking toward me, and I immediately know that something has happened.
Because for one thing, he’s not so much walking as wobbling his way across the parking lot, his face as white as a freshly bleached sheet, his eyes wide and pretty much unblinking as his mouth hangs almost comically open.
“Linus?” I ask carefully, quickly checking him over for obvious injuries in case the Sports Jerseys got to him. “Is everything okay?”
He says something that sounds mostly like “Uhhhhrrrrgh” and I frown at him, raising a hand to touch the back of his hair.
“Did you hit your head or something? Do you need me to take you to the nurse?”
“Nahh-ahh,” he says, and stands very still, chest heaving with too-deep breaths as if he’s hyperventilating, and just stares at me with those big, round eyes.
“Okay, you’re freaking me out a little,” I admit, not sure if I should call for help or make him sit down first.
“He—I—” Linus provides helpfully.
At least he’s almost using words again, and I take that as a good sign.
“Who?” I ask.
He shakes his head, breathes too fast, opens and closes his mouth before he says, voice higher than usual, “Danny.”
That sounds promising, but I still need more information. “Danny?” I prompt him.
“He.” Linus swallows again, breathes audibly, shakes his head, flails his hands around a little. “He talked to me.”
“Oh!” I can feel my mood lifting almost immediately. “That’s nice! How did that happen?”
Linus turns away, bends over with his hands on his knees, and pants at the asphalt of our high school parking lot. “I’m going to throw up. Oh my god.”
“No, don’t do that,” I tell him. “Tell me what he said instead!”
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Linus breathes, wheezing a little, and I put a comforting hand on his back.
“What did he say? Do you want to sit down? Do you need some water?”
“Sit,” he says, and immediately flumps down right there in the parking lot on the summer-warm asphalt.
I think we could have found a better place to sit, since my car is right there behind me and it has seats that are clean and everything, but I’m a good friend so I just shrug and sit down next to him if sitting right here is what he prefers.
“Was it bad?” I have to ask. “Because you kind of look like you might pass out.”
He seems to think about it for a second, then shakes his head. “It wasn’t that bad,” he says. “It could have been better. I didn’t know what to say, but I think I managed to keep it sort of together until I made it outside and away from him.”
“Then what’s with the major freak-out right now?”
“He asked me to tutor him.”
“Oh my god!” I squeal, slapping my hands over my face so enthusiastically I almost knock off my glasses. “Seriously? That’s wonderful!” It’s all going according to plan, exactly the way I wanted, and I do a little internal happy dance.
“Yes, I’m delighted,” Linus says, but his face looks as if someone had just told him that Gene Roddenberry had come back to life for an hour and he’d only just missed the chance to speak with him.
“Then why the long face?” I ask, playfully punching him in the arm. “Hey! This is a good thing, isn’t it?”
He barks out a high-pitched laugh, eyes still too wide. “Oh, is it? Is that why I’m sitting in the parking lot completely freaking out about it? Because this was just like a minute-long conversation in a crowded hallway; what do you think is going to happen to me once I really have to talk to him in actual sentences that convey actual meaning?” He waves his hands helplessly. “I’ll probably die.”
“You are not going to die.” I roll my eyes at him, then scramble to my feet before offering him a hand up. “You’re going to be fine.”
He takes my hand, his own a little clammy, and lets me pull him to his feet. “I guess I’ll have to tutor him in the library. A public place sounds a lot less stressful. I’ll need exit strategies in case things go south. And the library calms me.”
“Excellent idea,” I assure him, happy to see that the color is already returning to his face. That’s just Linus for you. He’s never upset for very long.
“And maybe I’ll prepare cue cards with light conversational topics so I don’t instead go off on a thirty-minute tangent on the influence that social media has had on our generation when I attempt small talk.”
“Sure,” I say, gently pushing him toward the passenger-side door of my car.
We’ll have to have a talk about the cue cards, because I may have a mild case of social awkwardness as well, but even I know that’s kind of a weird idea. But for now I have to get him to my house so I can feed him some coffee and get him to sit down somewhere that was actually meant for sitting.
“Now get in the car already. We have coffee to make and then we’re going to discuss what you’re going to wear to your first study date!”
He winces. “Can we call it a tutoring session, please?”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes at him, start walking around the car. “We can
call it whatever you like as long as I get to pick your shirt.”
“Sometimes,” he says, and opens his door, “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you.”
I laugh and finally get behind the wheel so we can get started on our well-deserved afternoon of not doing anything in particular.
Chapter 16
Linus
SO, I DON’T REALLY KNOW what happened. Like, I do know that I was standing by my locker putting away some things and minding my own business when Danny suddenly appeared next to me. I also know that despite my knees suddenly feeling completely unsuitable for supporting the entire rest of my body above them, I somehow managed to stay standing. And I also know that I didn’t do anything so embarrassing and irredeemable that he turned on his heels and walked away from me, never to be seen again.
What I don’t understand is how he showed up next to my locker in the first place. Here is a list of all the times in my life cute boys have approached me to start a conversation with me before today:
1. Never
…
That’s it. That’s the list. It has literally never happened to me before, and when I was eating my cereal this morning I honestly didn’t expect that today would be the day of all days when I would finally be able to put an actual name on that list.
It’s not like people haven’t approached me for help with schoolwork before. I have done this tutoring thing a few times already, because I do have really good grades and once you’ve tutored one person, word kind of gets around.
And the thing is that sometimes when people just want to have a reason to talk to that cute girl who always has the answers in bio, they’ll ask her for homework help. But when your grades are actually slipping and you do care about that kind of thing, you go and find the school nerd to help you out.
And I know that is what happened here; I am not the cute girl Danny wanted to get closer to. Because first of all, I’m not a girl (and Danny might not be gay), and second of all, I’m not cute.
Well. I am maybe a little bit cute. But not in the way that makes people want to date me. Just in the short, funny, round-faced dude kind of way.
So, yes, I know why Danny approached me and I know that this does not at all qualify as an event big enough to make it onto the potential list of Hot Guys Who Have Talked To Me. But I can tell you, my knees did not care about that fact in that particular situation, and neither did my pulse, which insisted on simulating me passing the twelve-mile mark at a marathon in the middle of the hottest day in August. (At least I imagine I’d feel something like that, should I ever pass the twelve-mile mark at a marathon. Which is unlikely.)
Anyway. People asking me to tutor them is definitely something that has happened before. Not like, a dozen times, but it’s also not something that surprises me when it happens.
And yet. And yet!
It’s Danny! Whatever his reasons for asking me when he could have just as well asked Meg or someone else who has good grades in math—well, I don’t really care. To be quite honest, all I care about right now is being able to acquire a certain level of cool that will allow me to act like a normal and sane person when me meet up for the first time this Friday. That leaves me just about three days to fundamentally change my entire personality. Totally possible, right?
“Hey, are you okay?” Meg asks, and I realize we have stopped in front of her house and she’s getting out of the car while I’m still sitting there with my seat belt on, staring dumbly ahead.
“Oh my god,” I say. “Sorry. Totally drifted off, I don’t even know what happened.”
She smirks. “I might have kind of an idea, actually.”
I can feel myself blush furiously and quickly get out of the car, mumbling, “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
She’s walking up to the door to unlock it, grins back at me. “Yeah, you do.”
“You’re making too big a deal out of this!”
She groans, pushes the door open, and I follow her inside to toe off my shoes by the entrance. “Why are you being difficult about this? This is a good thing!”
“It just doesn’t mean anything,” I remind her.
“You don’t know that it doesn’t!”
“You don’t know that it does!”
She pouts, blinking at me from under her lashes. “So you won’t even try to flirt with him?”
I sigh. “Meg, I wouldn’t know where to start!”
“I can help you with that!”
“Please don’t!”
“Okay, then just … isn’t there anything I can do?”
I shake my head. “Why is this so important to you?”
She shrugs. “I just care about you.”
I think about it, then lower my head. “I’m just not sure this is a good idea. He’s new, he just needs some help, and I—”
“You are helping him,” she cuts me off, and I follow her into the kitchen, where she hands me a bottle of water from the fridge. “That doesn’t mean you have to completely discard any possibility of it turning into more eventually.”
I lean back against the kitchen counter and open my water, take a slow sip from the bottle. I know she means it when she says that she just wants to help, and I guess it can’t hurt to just approach this situation with an open mind. Even if I know it won’t lead to anything. And I guess she needs a little distraction. I can do this for her, as long as it doesn’t get too out of hand.
“Okay,” I say slowly, sighing internally. The things you do for friendship. “If I let you dress me for the tutoring session and promise you that you can come straight over afterward and we’ll dissect everything that was said between us—would that make you happy?”
She bounces a little on her feet, nods excitedly. “Oh my god! Yes! That would make me very happy! Thank you!”
“Okay, then.”
For a moment, she looks concerned. “Are you sure? I mean, I know I can be a bit pushy, but … I don’t want to make you do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“No, actually, I think I’d like your help,” I admit, and find that, well, yes, maybe I do. “Just don’t make me dress up in anything embarrassing?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Just hide everything you don’t want to be wearing before you let me have a look at your closet.”
These are the moments when I think that she definitely deserves to win the spot of class valedictorian over me.
Chapter 17
Meg
IF I’M BEING HONEST, THE more time passes, the more annoyed I get at myself. Because there are still days like today when I wake up already thinking about Sophia, and every time that happens it ruins my entire day. I’m really ready to finally be done with this.
But, I remind myself as I gloomily stare down into my coffee cup over breakfast Friday morning, it’s not even been three weeks now. I don’t think three weeks is enough time to get over a breakup like this one. Maybe I’ll just have to wait this one out.
“Good morning,” Mom says, entering the kitchen already dressed for work.
“Morning,” I say back, unable to sound too enthusiastic about the beginning of this day.
Mom kisses my hair in passing and rubs my shoulder as she heads for the coffeemaker. “You look sad.”
I keep staring at my coffee and shrug. “Whatever.”
“No, not whatever.” Mom gets her coffee, sits down across from me at the small kitchen table, ducks her head to catch my eyes. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head, sigh. Because … this morning, I’m not. It sort of comes in waves. “Not particularly.”
She nods. “You know,” she says, “you haven’t even done any real wallowing yet. Maybe you’re finally ready?”
I shake my head emphatically. “No! I’m not. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to go through any stages of grief or whatever. It happened, and now I have things to do regardless. It’s senior year, I have to—”
“Meggie,” Mom says, sounding concerned.
“You’re allowed to be sad, you know? I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, moping around isn’t going to magically convince her that we’re better off together,” I point out.
“No,” Mom admits. “But it’ll make you feel better.”
“No, it won’t,” I insist.
“You were hurt. You have to allow yourself some time to heal.”
“I’m fine!”
“No,” she says. “You’re not. You miss her. And that’s okay. You’re probably angry. And that’s okay, too. I mean, I miss her, too. I liked her. And I liked how happy she made you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I say firmly. “Can we just not talk about it anymore?”
She sighs. “I’m not going to make you talk to me if that makes you uncomfortable,” Mom promises. “But I think that you should talk to someone. I don’t know. Linus, maybe?”
I laugh. “He doesn’t need this. He has his own stuff.”
Mom gives me a worried look. “I’m sure he’d be there for you if you told him how you feel.”
“I feel like I want another cup of coffee,” I say. “That’s really all I want right now.”
“You and your coffee. Is there a twelve-step program for that?” Mom says it in a joking voice, but her face is serious. She gives me a long look, then smiles at me. “Hey, if you want, I can call in sick today and we can go shoe shopping? What do you say?”
“Mom, I have school!”
“You’re also going through stuff, it’s the beginning of the school year, and you haven’t missed a day since you had the flu in third grade. You can afford it.”
“It’s a tempting offer,” I say. “But Linus has his first tutoring session today with that guy he likes and I have to be there for him or he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. I’ve never seen him this nervous before.” I can’t help but grin a little. The thought of Linus maybe possibly finally getting a boyfriend and the romance he deserves is enough to cheer me up a little.
She grins back. “That sounds serious!”
“I hope it is! They’d be really cute together!”
“Well, okay.” Mom nods at me, smiles. “Go to school and be awesome. But we’re going to take a day off next week or the week after. You pick the day. It doesn’t matter when. And we’re going to go shopping and have some food that’s really bad for us and maybe watch some incredibly bad movies. Just us. You deserve a day off. All right?”
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