“Yeah, but, Reiko, that was different,” Dre says in a strained voice. “You know I’m here for you, always, but … you can’t keep this whole thing up for ever. Whatever this is.”
She’s right.
I need a new plan.
CHAPTER 45
I need to change my schedule.
I already know what Dre will say. That it isn’t healthy. That the more I see him, the more upset I’ll be.
She doesn’t know that the more he sees me, the better. It just means more opportunities to prove that he made a mistake. I really am the Reiko he thought I was. Even though I fell off that first pedestal, I survived, and now I’m climbing up to one that is even higher. If he thought I sparkled before, just wait till he sees me shine.
“Hi, Mrs. Peterson,” I say, smiling at the woman in the front office. “I think I need to switch my classes around a little.”
“Of course, dear,” she says, smiling at me. “What is it?”
“Well, I’d like to take Debate next semester, so I’ll need to switch my English and Science classes around. I’ve already spoken to the teachers. They are fine with it, and have space, if it is fine with you?”
“Let me take a look,” she says, putting on her glasses and staring at the computer. “Why yes, yes, I think that makes sense. It shouldn’t be a problem. And you said you’ve already spoken to your teachers?”
“They are absolutely fine with it,” I say with a straight face.
Then Mrs. Peterson frowns. “Reiko, this isn’t because your grades are slipping, is it? I know everyone says senior-year grades don’t matter, but they do, my dear. Colleges will look at them.”
I didn’t realize Mrs. Peterson could see my grades.
“Oh, I’ve just had a lot going on,” I say. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will. We want to see you do your best!”
During break, I pop into Mrs. Tully’s classroom.
“Reiko! What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping I could switch into your English class next semester. I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Peterson about it, and she said it is fine. It is all a bit complicated really, you see. I’m switching my elective.”
“I’d of course be delighted to have you in my class again, Reiko, but it is a bit … out of the ordinary to switch classes like this. But if Mrs. Peterson has already approved it…”
“The changed schedule is right here,” I say, presenting her with the green form.
* * *
“I’m switching English classes next week,” I say casually to Dre after school.
She frowns at me. “Why?”
“It’s because I’m dropping Photography for Debate. My dad can teach me all I need to know about photography anyway.” I don’t make eye contact with her.
“Debate. Since when have you been interested in Debate?”
I shrug. “I just thought it would be interesting.”
“Interesting, hmm? You know what I think is interesting? That Seth is in Debate.”
“Is he?”
Dre rolls her eyes. “Come on, Reiko, we both know he is.” I’m still carrying the green slip with the new timetable printed on it. She reaches out and grabs it. “You are in every class with him!”
“No, not every class,” I snatch the green slip back.
“Practically every class! Reiko, this is … kind of intense. Even for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just mean you’re intense. You know you are. But this … this is…”
“It’s what?” I tense, waiting for her response.
“It’s just a little weird,” she says. “A little … worrying.” She looks genuinely concerned.
“I’m fine,” I say, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Everything is fine.”
More than fine. Everything is good, and nothing is wrong.
“It doesn’t seem fine,” Dre mutters darkly.
“Dre,” I say, voice sharp, “I’m fine. It isn’t a big deal.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “He’s not worth it.”
“Not worth what?”
“This!” She throws her hands up. “All of this! You!”
“You’re just being mean because he’s Seth Rogers,” I say. “If you knew him like I knew him—”
Dre shakes her head so fast her hair fans out all around her face. “Nope. It isn’t about how well I know him. It doesn’t matter. No guy is worth this. If you keep acting like this − dressing up in ridiculous outfits, changing your class schedule, being generally shady − I’m … I’m going to tell Suzie.” She folds her arms and purses her lips, waiting for my rebuttal.
“Suzie who?”
“Suzie your mom Suzie!”
I shrug, but inside my heart is thumping fast. “You know my parents − they let me do things my way.”
“Not if I tell them I think you are losing your grip on reality.” Her expression matches her grim tone. I know what she is talking about. It’s the closest Dre has come to saying that she thinks I was losing my mind when I said I still saw Mika.
My palms start to sweat. “Dre, I said everything is fine.”
“You always say that, even when it clearly isn’t. And, Rei, you know I’m here for you. Always. But…”
“But what?”
“If I was losing my shit like this, especially over some guy, I’d want you to say something. Do something.”
“Well, I want you to be supportive.”
“I’m supportive of you, but I’m not supportive of … this. And don’t ask what I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about.” She’s quieter now, eyes dark and serious. “I’m just worried, Reiko.”
I take a deep breath. “OK, maybe switching classes was a little intense.”
“You think?” She raises her eyebrows.
“But it’s not a big deal! So please don’t make a big deal out of it. I know what I’m doing.”
She sighs. “Fine. I’ll drop it. For now. But if you show up at school tomorrow wearing a French maid’s outfit or some bullshit, that’s it, you hear me?”
I laugh despite myself. “All right, all right. You’ve made your point.”
Dre laughs too and rolls her eyes. “As if you thought I was going to let you get away with this. Please. Do you even know me?”
I snort. “I already said you’ve made your point. You don’t need to gloat about it.”
“Of course I do. Don’t ruin my fun.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you love it.”
Whatever tension had risen between us moments earlier has evaporated.
“Come on,” she goes on. “Let’s go back to my house and watch ‘Drag Race’.”
I link my arm through Dre’s and grin at her, hoping that an episode or two of ‘Drag Race’ will be enough of a distraction to make her forget that she even considered blabbing to my mom about my behavior.
Seth doesn’t say anything when I walk into his English class the next day. When Mrs. Tully announces that I’ll be in their class from now on, he looks up at me, and shakes his head, before turning away.
An unfamiliar feeling is unspooling inside of me. It takes me a minute to recognize it.
Embarrassment.
When I get home after school, I reach inside of myself and I yank out that ribbon of shame. I pull and pull, until I’m sure it is all out, and then I cut it into tiny pieces and I flush it down the toilet.
I’m Reiko Smith-Mori, and I’m never ashamed. I’m never embarrassed.
Especially not by Seth Rogers.
CHAPTER 46
I’m sitting with Dre in the parking lot before school the following Wednesday when Megan comes up to us.
“Reiko,” she says in this weird faux serious voice. “I wanted to tell you right away. Just so you don’t think I’m, like, taking sides. Seth and Libby are dating.”
It’s like my heart doesn’t know where it is supposed to be because
all of a sudden it is in my stomach, and I think I might vomit.
“Bullshit,” says Dre, but she doesn’t say it with much confidence.
Megan shrugs delicately. “I mean, that’s what she told me.”
I bite my cheek. It was one thing to see Libby and Seth flirting, but for them to actually be dating?
“Whatever,” I say. I know that the only reason Megan told us is so she can report back to Libby on how we responded. “Good for them.”
“But … aren’t you still … into him?”
“No,” Dre and I say at the same time.
“Oh,” says Megan. She’s clearly disappointed. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” I say. “And you can tell Libby I said so.”
“Tell Libby what?” Libby has walked up behind me. She was obviously dying to see my reaction for herself.
“Just that I think it is great you and Seth are together,” I say. The lie tastes bitter.
“Oh, thanks, hon,” she says. “I really appreciate you being so awesome about it.”
“Totally,” I say. “I mean, it isn’t that big of a deal. Although, I’ll admit I think it is a little weird…”
Megan perks up at my change of tone, and Dre moves a bit closer to me.
“Think what’s weird?” says Libby.
“Just that you don’t seem to be able to date anyone unless Dre and I have dated them first.”
“That isn’t true,” says Libby, flushing a little.
“I mean, it is totally true,” says Dre. “But don’t worry, we’re all good.”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re good.”
My smile says anything but.
“Man, I was hoping you were going to punch Libby or something,” Dre says later. “I should have. Should have punched her straight in the boob.”
“In the boob?” I say, starting to crack up. “You’re kidding, right?”
“It would have been hilarious. And well deserved if you ask me.”
I’m laughing too hard to respond. Laughing so hard that I get the hiccups. And then Dre starts laughing, so we’re just sitting in my car laughing our asses off.
“You really OK with that?” Dre says, once we’ve calmed down a bit.
“With you punching Libby in the boob?”
Dre snorts but then composes herself. “I mean, with her dating Seth.”
That chases my giggles away.
“I don’t know,” I say. I’m surprised how much it hurts.
“That’s OK,” Dre says. “That’s OK if you are upset about it.”
“You’ve changed your tone since last week,” I say, remembering when she called me out.
“Reiko, this is totally different! I still don’t especially like Seth, and I definitely don’t like how you’ve been acting, but of course I don’t want you to be hurt. And I don’t want Libby to be prancing around like she’s better than you. Also I don’t want you shutting me out because of what I said last week. I still want to know what’s going on with you, even if I don’t approve. OK? I don’t want you to start hiding things from me.”
Again, that hint to things I’ve hid before, things I’m still hiding now. But despite that, her comment reminds me why Dre is the best. Even if she’s annoyed at me, she’s always on my side. “Thanks, Dre. I just kind of feel like I found him, you know?”
Dre raises an eyebrow. “Reiko, you know he wasn’t, like, a lost puppy, right?”
“I know! But you know what I mean. Nobody saw him till I did.”
“He wasn’t invisible either! Reiko, he was just a regular, normal dude—”
“Exactly! And then I made him into someone cool!”
I expect Dre to tell me off again for that, but instead, she purses her lips together. “You might have a point there,” she says. Then she starts to laugh again. “Totally should have punched Libby in the boob.”
CHAPTER 47
This morning, when I open my closet, all my clothes are gone. Instead, there are rows and rows of shining suits of armor. Mika is sitting in the middle of it all, staring up at me. “I thought these would help,” she says.
Zach Garcia stares at me during Calculus, a funny expression on his face. I wonder if he can see my armor.
“You’re pretty messed up over this guy, aren’t you?” he says without preamble.
“You mean Seth?”
He leans back in his chair, so far back I’m surprised he doesn’t fall. But Zach is the kind of guy who never falls. “Let’s blow off History,” he says.
I’m not really the kind of girl who blows off class. But I’m not sure I know who I am anymore. I didn’t think I was the kind of girl who got dumped either.
“Where should we go?” I ask, looking over my shoulder as we sneak into the parking lot.
We end up going to a Starbucks a few blocks away from our school. “Why are you being so nice?” I ask after we’ve got our drinks.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You don’t think that I’m in some kind of vulnerable, damaged state and I’ll just crawl into bed with you, right?”
“I don’t think you crawl anywhere.”
He gets a grin for that. He’s right. I don’t.
“You just don’t seem like … the Reiko I know. You seem … so keyed up. But fragile too. I don’t know how to explain it.” He sees my face and stops. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I take a sip of my iced coffee.
“I can be a friend, you know. I’m a pretty good friend. I mean, I know you’ve got Dre, and I’m glad you’ve got her − she’s great − but I thought maybe you needed another friend too.”
I appraise Zach with new eyes. I didn’t think he was good at anything except football and looking hot.
“Thanks,” I say.
“What is it … about Seth? Why is he making you go so crazy?”
For the briefest moment, I’m embarrassed that it is so obvious, but then I remember that I’ve ripped out any embarrassment or shame.
I close my eyes for a moment, asking myself, for the millionth time, what it is about Seth.
“This summer, when we started hanging out all the time, I felt like I’d discovered this person I didn’t know I needed,” I say, opening my eyes. “I thought that I really knew him, and now it is like he is a completely different person. It is making me doubt everyone. I think I’d feel the same if Dre suddenly didn’t want me in her life.”
“Rei, I think this isn’t just about Seth. Your reaction, I mean.”
“Zach Garcia, are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” I kick his foot, grinning. I’m trying for lightness, but I know what he’s getting at.
His eyes are serious. “Reiko, I mean it. I’ve known you a long time” − it’s true; we go way back; I’ve known him since the third grade − “and I’ve only seen you get this torn up over something once before.”
His words are like a slap in the face.
“It’s not like that,” I say, pushing my chair back, away from him. “Nothing could be like that.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he just nods. “We should get back. But, hey, you better not forget who you are. Seth Rogers has got nothing on you. Hell, nobody has got a thing on you, you hear me?”
I nod. He’s wrong, though. Mika was better than me.
But I don’t say that.
Zach opens his arms wide. “How about a hug?”
It’s a nice hug.
CHAPTER 48
On Friday night, Dre comes over and we make pizza from scratch. While we roll out the dough and put on all the toppings, we talk about how we’re going to decorate our dorm at UCLA, and if we want to rush for a sorority or not and how much we’ll come home (a lot, I want to say but instead I say, “Oh, maybe once a month”, and Dre thinks even that is a lot), and while the pizzas are in the oven we go out into my backyard and climb up in my hammock. We lie with our arms pressed up against each other, hair tangled.
Dre rests her head on my shoulder. “I
’m so glad we’re going to UCLA together,” she says. Like it’s a fact. Like we’ve already gotten in. “Who wants to make new friends?”
“We can make some new friends,” I say.
“All right. A few,” she concedes.
We swing back and forth, our combined weight making the hammock hang so low that I’m surprised our butts aren’t scraping the ground.
“Rei,” Dre says, hesitantly, and I can tell by the tone of her voice she’s going to ask me something I don’t want to hear, so I tense.
“What?” I say.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I think I’m fine but if I wasn’t, how would I know? And everyone keeps asking me, so maybe that means I’m not.
“You will be,” she says, and kisses my cheek.
I laugh. “Why did you ask me if you were just going to answer your own question?”
“This is the first time that you’ve … admitted that maybe you aren’t OK. In a long time. But I think it is good. And I think that it means you are closer to being OK than when you were prancing around like some sort of demented wind-up doll.”
“Andrea!” I say, feigning outrage. At least, I pretend to feign outrage. I’m really feigning feigning outrage, because it stings more than it should. So when I shove her shoulder, meaning to be playful, it’s a little harder than it should be and we nearly topple out of the hammock.
Dre just laughs her deep, throaty laugh, the one that is so infectious that I laugh too.
The alarm on her phone buzzes. “Pizzas are done. Come on, wind-up doll.”
We take the pizzas back out into my yard, tossing a blanket on the grass, and eat out under the palm trees and the stars.
“I just realized who Seth is like,” says Andrea, grabbing a slice of her “Andrea Special” (bell peppers, onions, fresh mozzarella, and ham).
“Who?”
“That dude that Batman plays in the movie Little Women.”
“Seth is Batman?”
“No, no, the guy in Little Women who is all obsessed with the family?”
“Laurie?”
“No, the guy!”
I grin. “Laurie is the guy. He marries Amy?”
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 18
