Flop rolled her eyes when she noticed people whispering about me. “Seriously, did they think that anyone could be so nasty and not get it in the end? It’s karma.”
Tuba nodded and patted my shoulder. Junie started with her new thing that would save me. I needed to take up meditation. She was convinced that chanting to New Age would bring me back to myself, whoever that was. I found fliers and pamphlets in my locker every time I opened it. So, not relaxing.
I took to eating my lunch as fast as possible then ducking outside the school where I’d wander around until it was time to go to class. That day, Friday, Cole came up to me during lunch while I hung out with a brick wall.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked leaning beside me.
I stared at him with my mouth open before I shook my head and glared at him. “And you care why? How’s your girlfriend?”
He shrugged. “She’s fine. She’s coming back Monday. She’s plotting all kinds of revenge so you should probably watch out.”
I waited for him to leave after he’d finished with her threats but he didn't move. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll have to practice my knife hands.”
He smiled, and I almost remembered the kid I used to really like. “You should. Do you want to spar?”
I stared at him while he shifted into a defensive position. He was actually serious. I was weirdly tempted—it would feel good to flatten somebody—but I wasn’t going there with Cole. I wasn’t going anywhere with him ever again.
“Do you seriously think that’s a good idea considering how big a jerk I think you are?”
He smiled and cocked his head. “You quit training. I seriously doubt you can beat me up these days. Check it out.” He flexed his muscles. I rolled my eyes and looked away but not quite able to choke back the laugh. It should have been borderline creepy to have Cole messing around with me, but it felt almost normal.
“Yeah. Very, um, nice. So you’re trying to beat me up to get back at me for making your girlfriend’s face match her soul?”
He gave me a long suffering sigh. “Sharly’s fine. You didn’t even break her nose. Apparently you’re out of shape.”
I shook my head and turned to walk into the building. If we kept talking like that, I'd forget that we were enemies.
“Hey,” he called after me. I stopped but didn't turn around. “You should watch your step. Sharly’s seriously pissed.”
I turned and glared at him. “After five years of wishing you’d talk to me, now you won’t shut up. Sharky’s always hated me. I’ll cope.”
He chewed on his bottom lip then shrugged. “It’s nice that you’re back to normal. I’d like for us to be friends again. I asked your dad what I should do when you started acting weird; he told me to give you space, time, that it would pass. He was my sensei, not like I could say no.”
I stared at him feeling like my feet were coated in oil and I was sliding somewhere down down down really fast. “My dad?”
He nodded. “He’d noticed some changes in you too.”
I turned and kept walking into the building. I concentrated on the feeling of the metal handle in my death grip as I shoved through the glass doors, walking into the hall that smelled like industrial carpet, dried sugar and sweaty teenagers. I wanted to bury my thoughts in that smell, the sound of people talking and laughing like there was something possibly funny in this world. My dad and Cole decided that him treating me like I didn’t exist was the best thing for me. I shook my head and was glad no one talked to me, that people stayed away. I didn’t feel up to fighting, all I wanted to do was curl up and die.
I stopped abruptly as a chest materialized in front of me. I blinked at it, hoping it would go away, but the muscular arms folded over it and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Sean.”
“How are you doing?”
It took a ridiculous amount of effort to raise my eyes to his face, chiseled jaw, ice blue eyes. “Crap, crap, crap. You?”
He frowned at me like he was studying me for signs of weakness and fear. “You stopped swimming with Bernice. You haven’t answered her phone calls.”
“Oh, right,” I muttered and wished someone would kill me. “I slept in on Monday, not really, but you can tell Bernice that, then I’ve been in detention all last week for almost breaking Sharky’s nose. I wasn’t allowed to see or talk to anyone. I guess I didn’t really think about it this week; with everything being so messed.”
“She thinks you’re avoiding her. She feels like she deserves it for not being a good friend to you for so long, that she offended you at my party. She cried on me, got my shirt wet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? You have to get over your shirts. They’re washable. Getting wet and dirty is what they do, other than cover your body, which half of the female students resent your shirts for anyway. I’m sorry that I hurt Bernice’s feelings. Honestly. I wasn’t thinking about her at all. I’m just trying to keep breathing. Do you know where she is right now? I can clear all of this up and you won’t have to confront me about your shirts ever again.”
“She’d be at her locker,” he said finally stepping away from me so I could pass. He kept walking with me though, apparently feeling the need to escort me to her so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings so she messed up another one of his shirts.
I stopped when I saw her standing close to Oliver, talking to him in a low intense voice while she used her hands to gesture something.
“Bernice,” I said, sounding like a robot. “Can we talk for a minute?”
She turned from me, and I saw Oliver grab her hand. My stomach dropped like a rock as I saw that touch, felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I turned and started walking. I had to get away from her, from him, from them.
“Hey, wait up,” she said, catching up to me.
I kept walking until I ducked into a girl’s bathroom where I ran the water in the sink then splashed my face a few times.
“I’m sorry,” I said when I finally had it enough together that I didn’t think I would try to strangle her when I faced her. “I haven’t been feeling very well. That’s not a good excuse. I really appreciated all the time you spent teaching me how to swim, the early mornings, being my friend. I’m sorry that you felt like I didn’t care. I do care.”
Her eyes were all big and vulnerable. “So, you’re not mad about me talking to Ben and ignoring you the whole time at the party? I only realized I did that afterwards. I felt so bad.”
I shook my head. “No. He seems really nice, and I thought he liked you, but if you like him so much, why were you holding Oliver’s hand?”
She frowned at me, confused for a moment then waved my question away. “I think he was getting my attention, wanted to say something but then Sean and you came. I’m really glad you came.”
She hugged me. I stiffened up at first, but then, after a few seconds, I hugged her back, kind of delicately. I wasn’t really a hugging person, but maybe I should have been, because after she pulled away I felt a teeny bit better.
“So you haven’t been feeling well? You’re not the only one,” she said, checking her teeth in the mirror. “Sean is incredibly pissy and Oliver…” She shook her head pityingly. “He broods like he’s homesick or something.”
“Sean?” I sighed as I remembered the bike thing, the him fixing my bike thing and me not even bothering to say thank-you. I had to stop letting everything else disappear because some idiot boy kissed me. I liked hearing that Oliver wasn’t still flirting with every girl though. I liked it way more than I should have.
I had to rush to class after that, but after school I hunted Sean down, waiting at the edge of his pack of groupies.
“Gen,” he finally said after the crowd had cleared.
“What were you autographing?” I asked, watching the last girl walk away still staring at Sean with a struck look on her face.
“Is that a request? I’ll have to decline; I only give autographs to true fans. What do you want?”
“Fixing stuff is a hobby of mine,” he said turning to his locker as though he were finished with the conversation.
I was trying to sound grateful. “That’s a nice hobby, I guess, but doesn’t it get expensive? I’d love to pay you, at least for parts.”
“I only used stuff lying around. I have no idea what anything costs, but even if I did, there’s no way I’m taking money from you.”
I stared at him, bewildered when he glared at me, like I’d insulted him. “But I want to. I love my bike. You made her fly, better than new, I can’t imagine the time, effort, money, at least I can pay you for one of those.”
His eyes got even icier as he said, “You’ve been to my house and I’ve been to yours. You can’t afford me while to me the expense is nothing. You’re insulting me when you assume that my time and energy can be bought.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine. I’m sorry I insulted you, thanks for fixing my bike, good-bye.”
I stopped when he grabbed my arm. “You’re welcome.” I was going to jerk my arm away, but he let go before I got the chance. We stared at each other until he cocked his head to the side and looked me up and down. I looked at what he saw, and realized I was wearing the same clothes I’d been wearing all week. Why hadn’t I noticed that sooner?
“Nice,” I muttered.
“There’s something you can do for me,” Sean said bringing my attention back to his face. “Something I can’t buy. If you’d really like to,” his mouth twisted, “Pay me back.”
“Um, sure.” I did, didn’t I? It would be nice to feel good about my music program and my bike. “What can I do?”
I saw myself hand-washing and ironing his shirts for a week, but surely he could pay for someone to do that.
“I’ll pick you up tonight, six-thirty. Do you have work?”
I shook my head. “What exactly are we talking about? I have to know what to wear.”
He looked at my clothes again while I sighed. “You can wear whatever you want,” he said. I got the idea he wanted to leave but instead he added, “I suppose I should warn you. I want you to be a human shield.”
“A human shield. So, armor? At least a bullet proof vest?” My dad actually had one of those in the shed.
He shook his head. “I have to go to dinner with my mother. You know how my personality comes across as slightly cool and reserved?”
I stared at him. “You mean arctic and an arrogant jerk?”
“That,” he agreed not even slightly bothered by my description. “My mother makes me look like a wriggling puppy.”
I examined him, perfectly still, a statue type person if ever there was one, with the features that always looked disapproving. I smiled as I imagined him bouncing around on his hands and knees with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, drooling on my shoes.
“I may never look at you the same way again.”
“I’ll survive. Do you agree to come?”
“I already agreed. If you really need someone to take potato shrapnel for you, I’m your man.”
He almost smiled. Not that his face changed at all, but I could sense that. Not really, but he should have cracked a smile. Anyone else would have.
“Six-thirty,” he said, turning away.
“I need your number.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“In case something comes up and I have to cancel, or if I want us to match, or if I have sudden allergies you should know about, you know, things like that.”
He still looked skeptical.
“Also so that I can call you and hang up on you at three o’clock in the morning fifteen times.”
“In that case,” he said, and pulled out my notebook.
His writing was as precise as his swimming technique. I couldn’t stand people with perfect handwriting, except when writing notation. Music was something you shouldn’t mess around with. He wrote his number on the top of my page above something I’d been working on, a song that had come to me the last time I’d been at the lake, something dissonant and circular. He hummed it, so quietly that I could barely hear him, or maybe it was just in my head. He handed my notebook back then turned on his heel without another word, obviously finished with our business.
Whatever. As I walked away from him I felt a wave of misery that made me stop, blinking back tears. Blink. Oliver. Blink. Oliver. Blink. My dad and Cole planning my ultimate humiliation.
“Flop,” I said as soon as I saw her. “Can I stay at your house for the rest of my life?”
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “Okay. I was going to do a shirtless hot guy marathon this weekend.”
I nodded. “Great. That sounds really fantastic.”
“You okay?” she asked as we walked outside towards our bikes. I smoothed my hands over the bars, wishing I could rip the stupid thing apart and burn it in Sean’s yard. I patted it, offering an unspoken apology. I would never hurt her. “Turns out my dad told Cole to stop talking to me back in the day.”
She stopped walking and her eyes kind got all freaky looking. “Seriously? Wow. You must be seriously… what are you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like my whole existence doesn’t make sense. Oliver—it’s like a knife twisting every time I think of him, and Cole wants to be my friend, and Sean asked me on a date with his mother. The only thing that makes sense is Sharky. She wants to kill me.”
Flop shrugged. “I guess it’s good that some things never change. Wait. What was that part in the middle, about a date with Sean?”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “Dinner tonight at six-thirty where I’m a human shield between him and his mother. I think he wants me to wear the same clothes I’ve been wearing all week.”
She shook her head. “You have to dress nice or the waiters will treat you like crap. I take it you’re going somewhere nice.”
I gave her a helpful blank look.
“I can’t see what I think of as Sean’s mother going somewhere they serve hamburgers.”
“He said that she’s kind of mean.”
“Mean and rich. Why are you doing this? I mean, Sean’s hotness will never be debated, but for your very first date ever, you’d think you’d go somewhere fun with someone you kind of liked.”
I waved away her concern. “I don’t like guys; I am irrationally obsessed with them. While Sean’s a jerk, he’s honest about it. He’s not really that bad, anyway. He did rescue me from the pool.”
“And loaned you his shirt,” she added.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, the guy knows how to sacrifice. And he fixed my bike.”
“Sean fixed your bike?” She frowned at it, unable to see the wonder behind the still rusty frame and peeling paint.
“New tires, brakes, fixed the timing on my gear shifters, seriously. The guy knows bikes.”
“Why don’t I know about this?” She turned her frown on me. “Captain hotness fixed your bike and then asked you on a date? We could have been squealing for days.”
I took a deep breath as I saw Oliver in my head, his dark eyes closing while his hair brushed my forehead. “Oliver kissed me and I forgot about my bike.”
She blinked at me. “When did he kiss you? You never said anything about a kiss. All you said was that you were obsessed. He kissed you? Where? What was it like?”
I scowled at my bike, kicking rocks. “He smelled weird. He said crap about how we were destined to kiss, and I said, nope, not interested, and then he kissed me anyway, and I did not break his arm, I just stood there and let him kiss me. Then I knocked him over onto the grass.”
“Hot,” she murmured appreciatively.
“Not hot, itchy because the weeds were all poking my head, and I was mad, mostly at myself because, honest
ly, what is wrong with me? The last time I kissed a guy, the Cole obsession happened. This time, it’s Oliver. I do not need this. I’m so distracted, I forget to change my clothes and didn’t notice Sharky until it was too late, and Bernice, completely blew her off. I like Sean.” That last bit surprised both of us. “I don’t think about Oliver very much around Sean; I’m too busy feeling humiliated and disgustingly idiotic. Believe me, that’s better for me. I am so sick of being obsessed.” I leaned over my handlebars while my stomach tightened until I was that close to throwing up.
“You know,” Flop said thoughtfully, “This might be Sean’s first date too. Whatever else happens, you’re going to look good.”
Looking good would be nice, but no one looked good mid-vomit.
Chapter 21
Sean picked me up at Flop’s house. I was waiting on the front porch so her parents wouldn’t have to feel like surrogates. I wore Flop’s cousin’s old dress. Her cousin bought a lot of clothes then passed them on to Flop in spite of Flop being too short and slim to fit into most of it. The dress pinched me a little bit in the waist and I’d had to use a push-up bra to fill out the top, but for someone else’s dress, it wasn’t too bad. I kind of liked it, silvery blue with a little gathering at the V-neck, as Flop said, sexy but not slutty. She’d said the same thing about the mid-thigh length.
I fiddled with the choker Flop had tied around my neck as I perched on the edge of Sean’s white leather seat. Ropes of freshwater pearls twisted around to meet the large glistening shell in the middle. It itched. My hands moved to the comb holding one half of my hair away from my face. Flop had convinced me that messy was a good look for me, so I’d just left it down.
Sean hadn’t said anything yet, only grunted when I opened the passenger door and slid in. I should have worn my jacket over the dress, but it really didn’t go. He wore a button-down shirt and nice slacks, but he didn’t look any better than he usually did.
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