by Isobel Irons
“Oh, right.” Cheating, which is bad. Therefore, Grant Blue would never be caught dead doing it. Kind of like me. He’d never be caught doing me, either.
Whoa, where did that come from?
“So…functions.”
Grant Blue nods. “Let’s start by sketching out a simple graph.”
He pulls out his notebook and turns to a sheet of pristine, white lined paper. I pull out mine, too, which—unlike his—has doodles around the corner of almost every page.
“Okay,” I say, when my pen is ready. “Hit me.”
“That’s really cool.”
“What?” I look up to find him staring down at my notebook. I follow his gaze. This page is ringed with thorny vines and drooping roses, with a few birds perched around here and there.
“Is that what you do in class, instead of taking notes?”
I bristle at the implication of his words. “Only when the class is too asinine to satisfy my attention span.”
“Sorry.” He looks like he means it. “I just wish I had a talent like that, otherwise I wouldn’t have to entertain myself by color-coding all my notes.”
Eyes narrowed, I inspect the organized little piles of papers and notebooks that surround him. Damn, I hadn’t noticed it before, but Grant Blue has a serious highlighter habit. Everything—even down to the page numbers—in some cases, is either circled, underlined or highlighted with meticulous precision.
“Wow, it’s like the homework version of A Beautiful Mind.”
He does that slightly uncomfortable, wince-smile thing. “Kind of, except that guy was crazy, remember?”
I find myself being mesmerized by his green-brown eyes and humble sincerity, and it makes me angry all over again.
“Sure, you’re perfectly sane. That’s why you offered to tutor me, even at the risk of becoming a social leper.”
Then again, the voice of my self-hatred whispers, maybe that’s why he wanted to meet you in the library during free period, instead of lunch. Maybe he knew none of his friends would see him here.
“Tash, you shouldn’t say things like that.” He leans toward me, and his knee brushes my leg under the table. The momentary contact—subtle though it is—sends an electric thrill through my entire body, strong enough to make me shudder. As always, that rush of sexual excitement sets off warning bells in my brain.
I’m doing it again. I’m ruining everything. It’s going to happen all over again, just like with Christopher in the third grade. He’ll pretend he likes me. He’ll say he just wants us to be friends. But then I’ll bring out the worst in him. He won’t be nice, anymore. He’ll just be hungry. Then he’ll be ashamed. Angry. Eventually, he’ll start to hate me for the things I made him do to me.
“No, I should say things like that,” I tell him, as I push back with my feet, shoving my chair away from the table. “How else am I going to warn you about what a huge mistake you’re making?”
I stand up and shove my notebook into my backpack, not even bothering to zip it shut before I swing it over my shoulder. I should’ve known this wasn’t going to work. Hell, maybe I should’ve just offered to go behind the stacks with him right now and get it over with.
“Get…what over with?” Grant Blue is standing now, too, a concerned expression on his face.
Fuck, did I say that last part out loud? Oh, God. I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” I go to leave, but he stops me with a gentle hand on my arm.
“Hey, wait.” Once again, he’s talking to me in that quiet, soothing voice, trying to calm me down. Trying to prevent a scene. Because I’m unpredictable, unreasonable. Crazy. “If you’re talking about paying me or whatever, it’s okay.”
“Paying you?” Oh, hell no. I don’t care how nice he is. He does not get to gloss over this like it’s something trivial. I take a step toward him, glaring up at him with as much hatred as I can muster toward someone I really wish I could make out with.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, Grant. You might be a goddamn saint, but you’ve got eyes and ears, just like everyone else. People like you. They respect you. They do not like or respect me. I am not a nice person, and I don’t deserve your help.”
He opens his mouth—maybe to argue, I don’t know—but I hold up a hand to stop him.
“Why are you slumming it, Grant? Just tell me what you want from me, because there is no such thing as something for nothing,” I tell him, hissing with anger. “If you can’t tell me that, I can’t do this.”
But what I really mean is, ‘I can’t let you do this.’
After a second, he lets go of my arm and steps back, looking down at the table.
“I don’t think it’s fair to judge people without getting to know them,” he says, so quietly I can barely hear him. “I just thought…maybe you needed a friend.”
The tremulous honesty in his words hits me like a fist to the face. An invisible hand clenches around my throat. My eyes prickle at the corners.
He’ll say he just wants us to be friends. But then I’ll bring out the worst in him. He won’t be nice, anymore.
Clenching my jaw, I shake my head. “I don’t need a friend, okay? And I don’t want to be friends with you. I just need to pass a fucking math test.”
With that, I storm out of the library like the irrational, psychotic bitch that I am.
CHAPTER NINE
I end up skipping detention, which I know is going to get me in trouble with Mr. Dodge, and yet I can’t bring myself to care. Plus, I get to drive Margot home for the first time in weeks, and I don’t have to worry about Trent lurking in wait for me in the relatively abandoned parking lot.
Worth it.
Because I’m feeling ultra reckless, I call in sick to work and take Margot to a movie. Last summer, we used to do this every weekend. As a matter of fact, taking Margot to the movies so often is probably how I managed to work my ass off at Baskin Robbins for three straight months and still end up with only like eight-hundred bucks in my ‘under the mattress’ account. It’s not like I ever spend money on anything else—with the exception of the occasional Slushee or blueberry muffin from the Mini Mart by my house. Anyway, it’s been way too long since I’ve seen Margot as happy as she was last summer.
Today, because I feel guilty for letting my priorities get so screwed up, I go all out. We buy popcorn and sodas and candy, and laugh ourselves silly through a romantic comedy with a ridiculous memory-loss premise. Then, when the movie is over, I scout out another theater that’s just starting a new movie, and we sneak into that one, too. Margot and I have been doing this for years, the whole ‘two movies for the price of one’ thing—we call it a ‘Double Feature.’
What? Stop judging me, it’s not like we snuck in without paying at all. Plus, I just dropped the gross domestic product of a small country on concessions.
The second movie is a lame horror flick with a whole bunch of B-movie actors in it. There’s almost no one else in the theater, so Margot and I start up our own little version of Mystery Science Theater, ripping on the actors and adding our own—in my opinion, much more clever—lines to the script. By the time the credits roll, we’re in danger of peeing ourselves again, and it’s almost nine o’ clock.
“Oh crap, I need to get home,” Margot says, as we throw away our empty popcorn containers and cups. “Nana is probably freaking out, now that her Passions marathon is over, and she’s noticed I haven’t come home yet.”
“Meh, she’ll be cool, she always is.” I wave away Margot’s worries, even as my own start to resurface. I wonder if my mom has any idea that I’m failing Pre-Calculus, that I’m on my way to being expelled? I seriously doubt it. Would she even care if she did know?
After I drop Margot off at her trailer, I roll up to find mine dark and deserted-looking, as usual. Balls, I forgot to turn on the porch light before I left for school. One of these days, we’re going to have a break-in. Not that they’ll get anyth
ing really valuable, but it would suck to have to buy a new door.
As I park in the driveway and turn off my engine, I notice a pair of red taillights glowing behind me, across the street.
Weird, I didn’t know Mrs. Jimenez had a car. Maybe her son is out of jail again.
I climb out of my car and heft my backpack out of the trunk, fumbling to separate my house key from the mess of car keys, work keys and ironic key chains cluttering up my key ring. In the dark, it’s hard to tell a bottle opener from a miniature glass slipper, let alone one semi-identical metal key from another.
As I struggle to fit my key into the lock, I hear a car door open and slam shut, behind me. I tense. Turning the key frantically, I shove the door open and reach inside to flip on the porch light. Which was a stupid idea, because it comes on right over my head, momentarily blinding me to what might lurk out there in the darkness.
The smart thing to do would be to get inside my house and lock the door behind me. Unfortunately, when I move to do just that, my backpack strap gets caught on the screen door handle, and I’m jerked back without warning.
“Son of a bitch!” I struggle to disentangle myself, and my heart rate triples as I imagine a bloody axe swinging toward me from behind.
Why did we watch that stupid horror movie? Get it together, Tash. No one is out to get you. Well, except Trent Gibson.
“Tash?” a familiar voice calls.
I freeze in horror, but then I force myself to turn around, to make sure I’m not imagining things. But nope, I’m not. Grant Blue is indeed standing on my rickety metal porch, surrounded by dying flea market cactuses and cracked plastic lawn chairs. In the glow of the porch light, his brown hair takes on a golden halo kind of effect. It makes him look even more out of place. Or actually, it’s like the place is unworthy of his presence.
Which is why I’m suddenly humiliated, when I realize that this is my house. That I live here, and now Grant Blue knows that I live here. I want to die from the shame. Wait, how does he know I live here?
“What the hell are you doing here?” Finally managing to rip my backpack free of the door handle, I fling it inside and turn to face him, hands on my hips.
“You ask me that a lot.” He’s wearing a sweater, one of those expensive zip-up ones from the Gap or whatever, and it’s cold out, but he’s still got the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Because he’s just that hot, I guess. “I’m here to see you.”
The smile he gives me is hesitant, but breathtaking. I hate him. I want to kiss him so much. Why is he here? Why is he wasting his precious time on me?
“How do you know where I live?” And more importantly, why do you care where I live?
He shrugs a shoulder, and I realize he’s wearing his backpack, single-strapping it. It’s black, like his sweater, so I didn’t see it in the dark. Dropping his bag on my filthy porch, he pulls out a Pre-Calculus book. My Pre-Calculus book.
“I was going to hold onto this for you and give it to you in detention,” he says, holding it out to me. “But then, you didn’t show up for detention. So…I was worried something might have happened.”
“Something did happen,” I say, taking the book from him, a little too violently. “I told you to get lost, remember? And you didn’t answer my question. How did you find out where I live?”
Grant Blue doesn’t look taken aback, or offended, like I want him to. Instead, he just sighs and reaches into his back pocket. Pulls out a torn and folded envelope. “I found this stuck in between the pages.”
I take that from him, too. It’s a pay stub from my work, which of course has my name and address printed on it. Oh.
“Way to go, Sherlock,” I say, feeling exceptionally stupid, on top of embarrassed and confused. “And you couldn’t have waited to talk to me until school tomorrow?”
“I could have, but I wanted to apologize.”
Apologize? Seriously? For what, being dream-worthy and unattainable?
I bite my lip to keep from spitting out any more unfortunate phrases, like ‘No, I’m the one who should be sorry,’ or ‘can I please smell your sweater?’ In my defense, he looks like he might smell especially delicious at the moment.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was a chore or something, tutoring you,” he says. “I’m not sure what I said or did, but obviously it made you feel uncomfortable.”
I open my mouth to say that uncomfortable wasn’t quite the right word, but what other word is there? Horny? Desperate? Outclassed?
Yeah, that’s a good one. When it comes to Grant Blue, I am seriously outclassed.
“Anyway,” he takes a step back, picking up his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder, “I just wanted to let you know that I meant what I said. I really do want to help you, but I don’t want to make you feel pressured to see me as anything more than a tutor. Not even a friend, if you don’t want. I know I can be…awkward, sometimes. So if that bothers you, I can try to see if anyone else in my Advanced Calculus class can—“
“No!” I interrupt him, once again losing my ability to filter myself. “You’re perfect. I mean, I’m sure you’d be an awesome tutor.” I try to find a way to rephrase that, so it’s not quite so desperate sounding. But after a few seconds of silently flailing, I just end up spewing the truth again. “It’s just…it’s me. I’m kind of a gigantic fuckup. I don’t know how to be friends with guys. Or anyone really, for that matter, except Margot. And I’m pretty sure that’s only because we’ve grown up together, and she’s learned how to ignore what a horrible person I am. And to be honest, I don’t know if I can be…not horrible. It’s like this compulsion I have.”
Grant Blue just looks at me silently for a few seconds. “Can I tell you something?”
I expel a puff of nervous, surprised laughter. Jesus Christ, why is he still standing on my porch? How is it possible that he hasn’t run away yet?
“Okay, sure.”
He puts his hands in his pockets, takes a deep breath, looks down at the porch. I try to guess what he’s going to tell me, but I honestly can’t. He could be a psycho killer, or he could be about to witness to me about his religion of choice. Or maybe this is some kind of really elaborate double-dare.
“I have OCD.”
Say what now? I blink, several times, trying to process. “OCD…isn’t that like…obsessive….?”
“Obsessive compulsive disorder,” he says, meeting my eyes again, but only for a second, before his beautiful eyes flick back toward the cactus by the door. “It’s not something a lot of people know about me. I’ve had it since I was a kid. It used to be really bad, like I couldn’t go out of the house, almost ever. I have these pills I take now, and they help a lot, but they also make me kind of…out of it, sometimes. So if I ever say the wrong thing or act like a zombie, that’s why.”
If you’re what zombies act like, then I will gladly succumb to the apocalypse. I’m biting my lips, hard, to keep from saying anything stupid, because I don’t want him to stop talking. I have no idea why Grant Blue is choosing me to confide in, but it’s the most special thing that’s ever happened to me, I’m pretty sure.
But now he’s looking at me like he’s embarrassed—which is just so surreal, on so many levels—and I have to say something.
“I don’t think that’s that big of a deal, Grant. Lots of people take pills these days—it’s practically the norm now. And you seem pretty functional to me. Honestly, I don’t think any of your crowd of friends would care if you told them.”
Nice one, Tash. Way to come up with a sensitive and appropriate response. Nailed it.
But Grant just laughs. “Well yeah, I’m functional. But that doesn’t mean I’m normal. I’ve just learned how to keep that side of myself hidden. But I still wash my hands a lot, like scary a lot. And I can’t get into an elevator unless it has an even number of people in it. Also, when I’m driving, I have to tap my left foot every time I pass a traffic sign.”
My eyes widen. Wow, that’s pretty specific. But th
en, an ugly little thought occurs to me. He could be messing with me, or making all of this up to make me feel better about myself. Why he would do that, I have no idea. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
“Why are you telling me this?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t really know. Maybe because you seem like you’re hiding something, too.”
“Nope,” I answer too quickly, my automatic self-defense sarcasm mechanism kicking in before my brain has a chance to stop it. “My life’s an open book. Haven’t you heard the rumors?”
“Not from you.”
My brain stutters at that. I make a half-hearted attempt to joke my way out of it. “Well, I don’t like to brag about myself.”
“I can trust you though, right?”
“What?” I’ve missed something.
“With my secret,” he says, very slowly and clearly. “You’re the only person at school who knows. You have something on me now. So, can I trust you?”
“Yeah.” I’m so taken aback, I can’t even think of anything else to say. But he’s right. I’d never tell anyone his secret. “Of course.”
“Good.” One corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly. For the first time, I see the doubt in his eyes, behind the smile. “So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” My lungs feel like they’re filled with helium. Is it possible that Grant actually cares what I think of him? How in the hell did that happen? Casting my eyes around for a segue, because I honestly don’t think I can stare into those eyes of his any longer without doing something truly stupid, like inviting him to come inside—and I don’t care how humble he is, I cannot let him see the inside of my house—I look down at my Pre-Calculus book, which I’m still clutching tightly to my chest like it’s a piece of armor or something.
“Anyway, thanks for bringing this back. I’ll get started on those functions tonight, and, um…if I have any questions, I’ll let you know.”
“Please do that.” He smiles again, and my eyes travel slowly up his face, past his perfect teeth and perfect nose, searching for that spark of uncertainty that reminds me how on some level, Grant is like me. I find it, hidden behind the indescribable greenish-brown, and it makes me smile.
