Tess mercifully waited until we were back in her car on the way to Alex’s party before grilling me.
“And you kept that from me why?”
I shrugged.
“Mallory.”
“What? There isn’t anything to tell. He’s cute. You said the same thing the day he started school, remember?”
“Yeah, but you were not looking at him like ‘Oh, he’s cute.’ You were more like ‘Wow, I want you.’”
“I was not.”
Tess just stared at me.
“Fine. You win. But we’re not going to do anything about it, okay?”
“I’m not going to. But you are. You’ve got five weeks until homecoming; and you, my friend, are going with Liam.”
I sat back against the seat. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Tess was quiet for several minutes before she answered. “You’ve been ready for a long time.”
Tess and I caught up with Sophie and Yvie on the back porch, where the party was already in full swing. It was a perfect Indian summer night. Alex lived out of town a little bit; and where the manicured yard ended, a thick forest began. Tess didn’t say anything about Liam to the other girls, but when he came out the back door and walked onto the lawn below us, she bumped my shoulder and jutted her chin toward him.
“He and Alex really hit it off, didn’t they?” Tess said.
I nodded, watching Liam talk and laugh in a circle of guys. He looked up and saw me on the porch—I was sure of it—but then he turned away. No smile. No wave.
What happened? “Did you see that?” I asked Tess.
Tess nodded.
All of a sudden I felt like an idiot. Not only had Liam ignored me, but he’d shifted completely away from me. Like he didn’t even want to look at me.
“Did you say anything to him?” Tess asked.
“No.” I watched him talk and laugh with the guys, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I turned my back.
“You should go talk to him,” Tess said.
“Why bother?”
“Take a risk. It might be worth it.”
Even with Todd packed up in that little box in my closet, I felt incredibly guilty. The lies were going to suffocate me before I could get out from under them. And I hated that I had lied to Tess for so long. She probably would’ve understood.
I was a liar and a lousy friend. So I wasn’t exactly in any kind of mood to find out what went sour during the game.
Tess stared out into the yard, too, her eyes wide and still, looking past all the kids. I bumped her shoulder.
“Wanna talk about it?” I asked.
Tess shook her head, breaking out of the gaze, and gave me a half smile. “Later,” she said. “Right now, we’re both going down there.” She pointed into the yard and grabbed my elbow, maneuvering us through the crowd, down the stairs, and onto the lawn.
“Did you check out the peanut site?” Tess asked.
We were trying to organize a fund-raiser to get new uniforms for the team. It was Tess’s way of making a bid for team captain when we became seniors and my way of helping her do it.
“I hate selling things. And peanuts remind me of Girl Scouts. Not a fun memory.”
“I know, but the profits are good and…” She stopped. “He’s definitely ignoring you. Let’s crash the circle,” she whispered.
We walked over, and Alex went right for Tess.
“Tessie,” Alex said.
“Hey.” Tess gave me a look that let me know that she would only tolerate Alex for my sake. She had dated Alex for over a year, but they broke up halfway through sophomore year. She said she lost interest, but I knew there was more to the story. Everyone has their secrets.
Alex put his arm around her shoulder, and she deftly slipped it right back off. He seemed a little drunk. “C’mon, Tessie.”
“Would you excuse us?” she said to Liam, and then dragged Alex away from us, closer to the tree line. I couldn’t hear her, but she was pointing her finger at him. Not a good sign.
Liam looked at Tess and Alex, then slowly looked back toward me.
“So, you and Tess. Been friends a long time?” His voice didn’t hold the same warm feel as it had earlier. It was polite. But cold.
“Since third grade.” I tried to steady my nerves. “Where did you live before this?” It was the question I should have asked when we first spoke at school.
“Everywhere. My dad’s in the military, so every two years, new school, new friends, new everything.”
“That sucks.”
He shook his head. “Just the way it is.” He was quiet for what seemed like forever, and I couldn’t come up with another question. I realized that both Tess and Alex were gone at the same time Liam finally spoke up. “So, I hear you have a boyfriend.”
Oh.
“No. Where’d you hear that?” I asked.
“Actually, everywhere.” He held up his phone. “Multiple texts. Funny how much information is offered when you ask about a girl.”
My heart sank. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. We broke up. A while ago.”
Liam’s entire posture and expression changed, melting from guarded distance to that soft warmth I’d felt from him before. “Mallory. I… I didn’t… I’m sorry. I should have just asked you myself.”
“I have to go find Tess.” I slipped into the crowd, ignoring his protests. Todd was still following me everywhere. I just wanted to find Tess and get out of here.
I did a quick sweep of the backyard from the porch and then walked through the downstairs portion of the house, and still there was no sign of Tess.
I spotted Yvie sitting on a couch in the basement, and from across the room I mouthed Tess? and held out my hands. Yvie shook her head and returned her attention to J.C., her current flame, and all of her admirers. She looked like a queen holding court.
I decided to try upstairs and soon found a locked bathroom door.
I knocked. “Tess, are you in there?”
There was no answer. I turned away to keep looking, then heard the lock click on the door. I opened it. “Tess?”
Tess slid down the far wall and put her head on her knees, her shoulders moving in silent sobs.
“Oh, Tessie.”
I pulled the door closed and locked it before squeezing in beside her and the tub.
“What’d he do?”
Tess lifted her head and swiped at the tears running down her face. Tess hardly ever cried, so seeing the distraught look on her face shook me a little. I was the emotional one. She was the rock. It was how our relationship usually worked.
“What happened?” I urged.
“It’s over.”
“But… it’s been over.”
“I know. I mean, I know that. I just thought he’d quit being such a jerk someday. That he’d realize he’d lost me. That he’d for once use his brain to make a decision.”
I didn’t know what to say. She had dumped him, and he had been trying to get her back—but she was crying because he didn’t succeed?
“Tess, I’m sorry, but I’m lost here. Help me out.”
She leaned her head back against the wall and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I didn’t realize, until like ten minutes ago, how over it really was. He’s not going to change.” She wiped at her face again. “So now we both need dates for homecoming.”
I wasn’t going to let her switch the subject that easily. “What did he do?”
“He slept with Cammie Herst. And it shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t matter what he does with himself anymore….”
But obviously it did. I leaned my head against hers and tried to think of something brilliant and profound to say. But nothing came. Other than some random thoughts of causing bodily harm to Alex, I didn’t know how to make any of it better.
On the way home, Tess shut down talk of Alex and turned the subject back to the fund-raiser. It wasn’t until we walked into my room that she stopped debating profit margins. She dropped h
er bag and did a slow three-sixty in the center of my room.
“What happened in here?”
The walls did look pretty blank without Todd anywhere.
She looked at me. “So you really did it this time.”
I glanced around, still not used to the bareness myself. “Yeah.”
She threw her arms around me and squeezed. “I’m so proud of you. Did you find out why Liam was being a jerk?”
“Yeah.”
“And…”
“Rumors. Apparently he was offered a great deal of info about me.”
“You told him you don’t have a boyfriend, right?”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter.”
Tess pushed me. “Yes, it does! One, you talked to him. And two, you talked to him after breaking up with Todd. We should shoot off fireworks or something.”
“Speaking of fireworks. Your mom?” I twisted the ring on my finger.
Tess’s grin slid from her face, and her eyes darkened. “There’s nothing new to tell you. Just the same story on continuous replay. She makes me feel like the psycho. And my sister? If I were older, I’d take Ashley and leave.”
“I thought your mom was going to that counselor.”
Tess let out a hard laugh. “Yeah, that lasted one session. A record for her, though.” Tess changed into a T-shirt and cotton pants.
“Did you keep anything?” she asked, switching gears.
“Why bother?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just so weird to see your room like this.” She pulled a notebook from her backpack and then sat cross-legged on the bed. “Okay. We need to plan the best fund-raiser ever.”
Tess didn’t want to think about her mom. And I wasn’t about to make her.
So I went with it.
CHAPTER 4
Tess drove me to school, and we rode in mutual silence. Neither of us were “morning people,” so we had an ongoing pact to give each other space to get coherent before speaking. It usually worked pretty well, but Tess had been woken up by a cell phone call from her mother and was fuming. We swung by her house so that she could check on Ashley. Tess came out quickly, but I could tell that she was still really upset.
So I broke the pact.
“Was Ashley okay?”
Tess kept her eyes on the road. “She’s fine. But she didn’t have any lunch money, clean clothes, or anything to eat for breakfast. I gave her extra so she could eat at school.”
“And your mom?”
Tess scowled. “Passed out again. I never spoke to her.”
Tess pulled into the parking lot and jammed the Jeep into park. But as soon as she stood up and closed the door, she seemed to shake off the reality of what was going on at home and put a smile on her face.
I was totally impressed every time.
We went inside together, and even though I was panicky about seeing Liam, Tess standing beside me made everything in my life feel desperately small and unimportant.
Tess’s mom had always been unpredictable and irresponsible. But I could tell that something had shifted for the worse inside her house.
Tess was always there for me. She never made me feel as if my problems were small. And yet here was a chance for me to be there for her, and I didn’t know what to do. It was a monster-sized problem with no easy solution.
It’s funny, though, how high school can suck you in. As soon as we sat down in homeroom, it was like cheerleading and fund-raisers and homecoming became über-important. Tess and I had come up with a fund-raising plan. It was pretty ambitious, but Tess thought we could pull it off. She reasoned that not many people really care about new uniforms for cheerleaders, so we had to do something that would make people interested. She wanted to do a dual fund-raiser for the local domestic violence shelter and our uniforms. Her grand plan was to hold a toy drive to collect gently used toys for the day care center in the shelter, and during the toy drive we would do a “Pictures with Santa” for the kids. Most of the money from the pictures would go toward the uniforms. Everybody would win.
There were about a million things we had to work out if we were going to pull it off before Christmas; plus we were going to need a whole lot of help. Help that Tess was quite capable of rallying.
And then there was Liam. I didn’t have any classes with him on A Day, but I had two on B Day. Trig and English. So since it was A Day, that meant I could only see him in the hallways and at lunch.
I wanted to see him—and didn’t want to see him—both at the same time.
What I wasn’t prepared for was seeing him in a close conversation with Lexi Taylor.
Lexi was one of those good-girl quiet types who I never really took much notice of—until I saw her flirting with Liam. I watched the whole exchange, and even though most people would have seen it as some casual hallway convo, I knew I was in trouble.
Is Liam dating Lexi? How do I not know this? I felt way more upset about it than was reasonable.
Fortunately, Lexi was in my PE class. It would be better to find out the truth.
“Hey, Lexi. Want to be my partner?” I asked after I was changed and standing in the archery field. Lexi looked surprised, as did Katie, another cheerleader and my usual partner.
“Sure.” She picked up one of the targets. “Wanna get the arrows?”
After we got the target set up and measured our distance, we stood next to each other, taking turns trying to hit the bull’s-eye.
“I saw you talking to the new guy this morning—Liam, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She let an arrow fly, but it stuck in the ground in front of the target. “Shoot.”
I set up my shot. “Do you know him?”
“Yeah.”
I rolled my eyes. Does she not know how to elaborate? “How did you meet him?”
“He goes to my church.”
Finally something more than a one-word answer. Church. That was practically the only thing I knew about Lexi. She was a church kid.
She fell quiet again as we took turns shooting and gathering the arrows. Lexi was as bad at archery as she was at having this conversation.
I decided to keep trying. “So, are you and Liam… friends?”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Her arrow flew and hit right outside the center. She squealed, then handed me the bow. “Why are you so interested in Liam?”
“No reason.”
“He’s not really your type, you know.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” How could she presume to know my type? I didn’t even know my type. I let the arrow fly, sending it straight into the center.
She wasn’t intimidated. She held up a finger on her right hand, and for a split second I thought that Lexi, Miss Goody Two-Shoes herself, was flipping me off. “He’s a Christian. He noticed my promise ring this morning.” She pointed to a ring on her right hand. “That’s why we were talking.”
“So? Why do you think you know what my type is, anyway?” I shoved the bow toward her, and she took it.
She jammed it into the ground. “I’m not stupid. Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean that I don’t know what goes on at this school.”
I shifted but kept staring at her, still unsure exactly what she was getting at.
She picked up another arrow. “All I mean is that you’re popular, and, well, he’s just not that type of guy.”
Now she looked uncomfortable.
“So because I’m popular, he wouldn’t be interested in me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. It’s more than that.”
“Then what is it?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
I will not kill Lexi. I will not kill Lexi. “You think Liam is too good for someone like me?”
Lexi’s eyes widened. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Lexi stared, her eyes glassy. “I’m sorry… I just…” She dropped the bow on the ground and ran back toward the gym.
I stood there
with a handful of arrows feeling hurt, confused, and a little guilty.
I filled in Tess on my Lexi encounter at lunchtime.
“Okay, now that’s weird.”
“Yeah, but she obviously didn’t tell me everything. Do you think he’ll only date girls like Lexi or what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”
I looked over at where Liam was sitting with some guys at a table by the windows. It was one thing to try to get info from Lexi, but talking to Liam again was a whole other proposition.
“Or just ask him out and get it over with. Mallory, you’re stressing over nothing. There are plenty of other guys who would go out with you.”
But I didn’t want to go out with plenty of other guys. And I couldn’t even explain why I liked Liam. There was just something totally different about him. I was drawn to him. I loved the way he tapped out a rhythm on his jeans with his pencil when he was thinking hard in class. I loved how when he smiled, it made me want to smile, too. It had been so easy to stick with Todd before, because while I had found a few guys in my school cute and nice, I never really cared enough to do anything about it.
Liam changed all that, and I had no plausible explanation for it.
Tess threw her straw wrapper at me. “Snap out of it, girl. Just do it. What do you have to lose?”
“My dignity.”
Tess laughed. “Dignity is overrated. And if you don’t want him dating Lexi Do-Gooder by next weekend, you’d better do something. Because somehow, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to date around.”
And Tess was totally right. As usual. But I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except stare at him from across crowded hallways. Which really wasn’t very useful.
I dragged myself to cheerleading practice and tried to focus on Tess’s fund-raising event. She stood in front of the entire JV and varsity squad and went through her plan. I knew about it and was still impressed. The coaches asked most of the questions, but at the end they gave her the go-ahead to put together a committee to pull it off. Everyone split up to practice, and she came bouncing over to me.
“I can’t believe it. So you’ll help me, of course, but who else should we recruit?” Tess turned and looked out across the gym. Everyone was inside because of the rain. “Maybe Olivia. She’s like a math whiz. That would be helpful,” she said.
Me & My Invisible Guy Page 3
