Meg & Linus

by Hanna Nowinski

  The thing is, I am getting a little antsy, wanting to talk to her. Danny kept texting me all through the weekend and I’m impatient to tell her about it; harmless as it may be, I’ve never done anything like this before and it makes me very, very happy. And I don’t know how much longer I can keep it all inside—I need to talk about it.

  I trust that she’s going to have time to listen to me over lunch; right now class is starting and I need to pay attention.

  I have to stop by my locker after class and Meg trails behind, oddly quiet the entire time. I’ll definitely have to find out what’s going on with her, if she ever feels like talking about it. But I can tell that she’s worried about something. I want to help, but since she won’t tell me what’s up, I don’t know how.

  And then when I’m closing my locker and turn around, the first thing I see is Danny walking straight toward me through the crowd of students in the hallway, and I barely register Meg, who’s been hiding behind her phone, finally looking up as she notices him, too. I tend to get Danny tunnel vision whenever he’s around. It’s a serious condition. So far, there’s no known cure.

  “Linus,” he calls out for me, loud enough for people to hear. It’s one of my favorite things about him, that he doesn’t pretend we don’t know each other in public.

  “Hi, Danny,” I say as Meg pushes herself off the row of lockers she had been leaning against, putting away her phone.

  I expect him to tell me he can’t make our session this Wednesday or that he has some news about drama club he needs to share, like an emergency meeting or something. I don’t know if drama clubs have emergency meetings, but it seems like the kind of club that would do something like that.

  He surprises me once again, though, by just stopping next to me, smiling, as if we’re old friends and meet up by our lockers right before lunch every day.

  “How was your weekend?” he asks brightly.

  “Um.” I’m not sure how to answer that, since we’ve been texting all weekend anyway. He pretty much knows everything I’ve been doing: studying, reading, watching TV, hanging out with Meg. “It was. Uh. Good? I guess?”

  “Awesome,” he says, and Meg clears her throat next to me.

  “Listen,” she says. “I have to—um, I got a text. I just need to run out quickly and—I forgot my English assignment on my desk and Mom is dropping it off. I have to meet her in the parking lot.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” I offer immediately. We’re having lunch together so it makes sense for me to trail behind. The cafeteria is a scary place for one lonely nerd all on his own.

  “Why don’t you and Danny go ahead?” she suggests, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to suggest such a thing. “I’ll be right there. You two can get us a table.”

  “Oh but—” I can feel myself blushing and I have no idea what she’s doing; Danny only stopped to say hi on the way to his own lunch group. “I’m—no, that’s all right, I can just—”

  “Yeah, okay,” Danny interrupts before I can formulate my protest. “We’ll save you a seat.”

  I stare, don’t know what to make of this. “Uh, what?”

  “Wonderful,” Meg says.

  “Danny, you don’t have to—” I start.

  “Let’s get going, shall we?” he says cheerfully. “I think there’s chocolate mousse for dessert today!”

  I’m confused and embarrassed and I know Danny is just being nice; it’s like he can’t help it, but I’m going to have to have words with Meg once I get her alone. I don’t care what kind of stuff she is going through today, she can’t put me in this kind of a position with Danny, not when she knows how much I like him!

  “Okay,” I agree, because there’s nothing to be done about it anymore without making everything even worse. Maybe I can just eat super fast and leave so that Danny can rejoin his friends later and won’t have to waste his entire lunch period hanging out with me.

  Meg smiles and I glare at her, which only makes her smile wider before she pretty much skips away from us.

  “So,” Danny says, and puts a hand on my shoulder to steer me in the direction of the cafeteria. “Oh, by the way, I have your highlighter in my bag—remind me to give that back to you. Also, I started watching Firefly yesterday since you recommended it, and oh my god, the first two episodes were amazing! I can’t wait to watch the rest!”

  “Um,” I say eloquently. Because. Recommended? I did mention that I liked it when we briefly talked about mixed genres in books and television after tutoring on Friday. But I really can’t believe he remembered that. “I’m glad you like it so far,” I provide lamely.

  He beams at me. “You know, I have never watched that much science fiction before, but I guess that’s mostly because there’s just such a flood of amazing things out there and we all tend to gravitate toward certain genres at some point, don’t we? But maybe that’s too restrictive in the long run; maybe we all need to start branching out into other genres to keep things fresh—”

  I keep walking beside him and do my best to listen and nod, and apparently I am about to have lunch with him and apparently we’re going to be talking about television shows.

  This is a very unexpected turn of events and I can’t help enjoying it a little bit through all my discomfort over knowing that he probably does have better things to do.

  I really need to talk to Meg about this. She can’t do anything like this ever again. No matter how much I’m enjoying it.

  Chapter 27

  Meg

  I DON’T HATE MONDAYS LIKE so many people seem to. But I know I’m being weird today and Linus can tell. I just don’t quite know how to snap out of it. I woke up feeling lonely and even though I know I’m not alone, not really, it’s a difficult feeling to shake off.

  At least my mood improved considerably when I got my first opportunity at matchmaking right around lunchtime, and the beauty of it is that I hardly had to do anything at all.

  It was Danny who found Linus and immediately started talking to him. And even if I am distracted today, I can still see the way they look at each other all the time. Seeing them together at lunchtime was enough for me to have all my suspicions confirmed.

  The way Danny keeps smiling at my best friend speaks volumes; he seems so excited and happy and so eager to please, it’s the cutest thing I have ever seen. This is going to make everything so much easier. Because Danny seems more than ready to take things a step further the moment he gets a signal from Linus that his attention is welcome.

  Unfortunately, Linus still seems completely oblivious—not that I had expected him to actually realize he’s being flirted with, but he almost looks downright uncomfortable.

  I don’t feel bad for ditching them, though. I’d only be in the way. They might be more relaxed if I leave them alone together and they can be as fluttery and awkward around each other as they like.

  I wait around the corner until they’ve disappeared in the direction of the cafeteria, then I slowly follow them. I have no intention of joining them for lunch, but I am hungry. I’ll just have to give them a good head start.

  So I swing by the restroom, take the time to check my phone, wait until I can be sure that the line will be short and the two boys will have found a table and hopefully be deep in conversation.

  Getting lunch doesn’t take long now that lunch period is drawing to an end, and I hurry and keep my head down even though I can’t see Danny and Linus anywhere. Which lets me hope that maybe they cannot see me, either.

  I finally spot them in the far corner when I’ve acquired my sandwich and apple and am about to leave the cafeteria to sneakily eat outside. They’re sitting at a table by themselves, far away from the Sports Jerseys and Popular Guys, and Linus is talking animatedly, hands waving, and Danny is laughing with such a joyous expression on his face, he just looks absolutely smitten. I cannot believe Linus still thinks he isn’t interested in him.

  Before they have a chance to see me, I quickly duck away and turn my
back to find a quiet spot out in the yard.

  “Hey!” a voice to my left calls out, and I turn my head to see a girl walk up to me with a lunch tray, smiling widely. It’s Alyssa Valdez, the girl from drama club whose group I volunteered for.

  “Hi,” I greet her. I’m not quite sure what else to say; people usually don’t talk to me in the cafeteria, where everyone sits with their own group of friends.

  “I’m Alyssa,” she says, and I smile back at her. “Drama club? You’re in my group? Costumes and props?”

  “I know,” I answer. “I remember. Hi. I’m Meg.”

  “Yes, I know,” she says excitedly. “You’re Sophia Jones’s girlfriend, right?”

  My face falls and my mood sinks just a little. “Um,” I say. “No. Actually. Not anymore. No.”

  “Oh.” She looks embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. I just—”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her quickly. “She only dumped me a little while ago. Uh. College and stuff, you know? Since she was a year ahead.”

  “I just came over because we all really miss Sophia and I wanted to tell you to say hi to her from us. But I guess that wouldn’t be appropriate now, given the circumstances.” She winces. “I’m sorry. I picked exactly the wrong thing to say.”

  She did, but she had no way of knowing that and she seems nice, so I shrug. “It’s okay. Really.”

  “I’m not usually this insensitive,” she promises.

  “You didn’t know.” I twitch a smile at her, and she smiles back.

  “Well, anyway,” she says. “We have a table in that corner over there. Do you want to—? Where’s your friend? He can come, too!”

  “Oh,” I say, pausing for a second. This is … new. “Linus is, um, busy. But—”

  “Well, come on, then,” she says, and motions with her head for me to follow her. “Sit with us.”

  “… Okay,” I agree, only a little hesitant. I’ve never had a lunch group before. This is so weird. But from what I’ve seen of the drama people so far, they’re nice enough. I guess I can sit with them instead of hiding away by myself in a quiet corner out in the yard. “By the way,” I say, and she looks over at me as we’re walking, “I’ve been meaning to ask—is it difficult for a newbie to get a part in the play? You know. For someone who has never done anything like that before.”

  She shrugs. “Not if you’re good. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the club. Why? Are you thinking of auditioning for a part? Because you should!”

  “Maybe.” I shrug. This is valuable information. And yes, I think I do want to audition. But I wasn’t asking for me. She doesn’t need to know that, though. But now I can work on my new plan. This is going to be great.

  Chapter 28

  Linus

  SO, LUNCH WITH DANNY TURNS out to be not as awkward as I imagined it, and he doesn’t really seem in any hurry to get up and leave and rejoin his own friends. He’s easy to talk to and the more we hang out, the more we manage to avoid those uncomfortable silences that I hate so much.

  He’s sitting across from me, waving his hands as he talks, and I almost completely forget about my own pasta over listening to him telling me about his old drama club at his last school.

  “They called it a pre-performance lock-in,” he says. “We usually did it the week before every new play.”

  “You all slept on the stage?” I ask. It sounds a little crazy, but also kind of fun.

  “It was great,” he says. “We’d just rehearse a bit through the late afternoon, and then we’d order pizza and watch movies right there in the auditorium.”

  “Isn’t a stage uncomfortable to sleep on?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, a bit. But we didn’t sleep that much anyway. And by the time we went to sleep we were so tired it didn’t really matter where we lay down.”

  “That sounds amazing,” I tell him.

  “It was. Just a fun night with friends, you know?”

  “Do you miss them?” I ask.

  He nods. “I do. I miss them a lot. But”—he sighs—“Mom got a new job here so we had to move. She’s an environmental scientist and she got the chance to be put in charge of a long-term project here, so—” He shrugs.

  “For your senior year. That’s really bad luck.”

  “Oh well.” He grins at me. “It’s okay. I mean, yeah, I miss my friends. But I like this place, too. And new friends are good, too, right?”

  I nod quickly. “Absolutely.” I like new friends. I like that he maybe kind of sort of is a new friend for me. We’re having lunch and we’re talking. That’s what friends do. I’m really happy about this.

  But even if lunch does end up being kind of nice after all, I still really want to know what on earth Meg was thinking by inviting him to lunch with us in the first place. I’m afraid that all of this is still part of her insane idea that there is something going on between the two of us. Maybe I’m being unfair; maybe she thought she was just being nice to him and then something came up and she couldn’t join us. She’s been distracted all day—it’s completely possible that she didn’t mean to leave me alone with him.

  But it puts me in a difficult position because now I’m worried about her and mad at her at the same time and I can’t just walk up to her and demand an explanation.

  Because first of all there isn’t much opportunity to talk to her between afternoon classes and then there’s debate this afternoon, during which she’s still distracted and still keeps playing with her phone.

  Even our debate teacher seems to notice and calls on Meg to do a mock debate. She only ever calls on students like that when she feels they aren’t paying enough attention, and Meg looks mortified at being singled out like that. As a result, she seems to give a hundred and fifty percent—she argues fiercely, way too angrily, way too invested in just a random debate. It makes me think there must be something more behind the way she argues than just humiliation at being singled out in front of the whole class. She wipes the floor with her debate partner. It’s this thing she does where she gets so focused instead of letting anyone know how she feels. Our teacher pats her on the back for it, but I’m feeling more than a little unsettled by all of this.

  When it comes down to it, I am much more worried than mad. I think something is wrong and I don’t want to upset her further. For a moment, I’m afraid she’s found out that I’ve been talking to Sophia. But no. She’d confront me about that. And I doubt she could have found out anyway. I’ll just have to figure out what it is that’s upsetting her.

  Fortunately, she’s driving me home today, so I wait until we’re walking out to the parking lot before I broach the subject again. If it’s something private, she’s not going to tell me at school anyway.

  “Meg?” I ask, walking next to her down the steps outside the main entrance while she’s staring off into the distance.

  “Mm?”

  “What’s going on with you?”

  She turns her head to look at me, eyebrows drawn together. “What do you mean?”

  I sigh. “Look, you’ve been absentminded and twitchy all day and then you didn’t even show up for lunch, and you haven’t even told me yet what that was all about. Which, um. Would be kind of nice to know. I mean. It just made me feel a bit—dumb, being left all friend-less for lunch. Is something wrong?”

  “Oh.” She laughs. “Don’t worry about that. I’m sorry I didn’t show. Mom was just running late and there wasn’t the time—”

  “Are you sure that’s all there is?”

  “You had Danny, right? I wouldn’t have let you sit by yourself. I just needed my assignment. But if you’d been by yourself I would never have—”

  “This isn’t about me,” I interrupt. “Although it was a little weird that you just invited Danny along like that. I mean, he probably didn’t really want to—”

  “Wait, I thought you guys were friends,” she asks, sounding very confused.

  “Um.” I frown at her. “Why did you think that?”

  “Because you
kept texting him all weekend!” she exclaims, as if I’m the one not making any sense here.

  “Are you mad at me because of that?” I want to know.

  “Of course not! I just thought it was no big deal to invite him along if you guys were friends.”

  “Well, we’re not friends,” I point out patiently. “I don’t really know him all that well yet.”

  “You hang out with him all the time!”

  “It’s not all the time and also it’s because I’m tutoring him!”

  “But you like him!”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  She stops me with a hand to my shoulder. “Linus? Are you mad at me? Because I’m sorry, but I really just had to—I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings or anything. I promise.”

  I pause, think about it, lift my shoulders. “Okay,” I say. “Fine. I’m not mad at you.” It’s not exactly true, but this is a lie I can live with. Because eventually I won’t be mad, and because I don’t want to have a confrontation about this, not here, not now.

  “I—” She stops, bites her lip. “I—okay. I’m still sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “Just—are you sure that you’re okay? You seem a little—”

  “Oh no, I’m fine.” She smiles, so brightly I can easily tell that it’s fake, then turns and continues walking in the direction of her car.

  I have to jog a little to catch up with her, and more than ever I am convinced that there’s something she’s not telling me. Or is she still just upset about Sophia?

  “You know you can talk to me, right?” I ask her in a final, rather lame attempt at opening up a dialogue between us.

  “I know,” she says. “There’s just nothing to talk about.”

  I don’t believe her, but I don’t want to be pushy. So I let it go for now. But I’m going to have to keep an eye on her, because I’m starting to suspect that the breakup is finally catching up with her emotionally, and honestly, it’s about time. I have been waiting to provide cookies and a shoulder to cry on for weeks now. If she’s finally getting ready to deal with her feelings, then I’m definitely ready to offer support.