Like somehow I had a premonition that he and Chloe would have a conversation right across from me. He’s so infuriating, assuming that my life revolves around his relationship drama.
“It’s what libraries are for,” I say. I try to sound sassy but instead come across as defensive.
Seb drags Chloe’s former chair next to mine, then sinks into it. For a long time he doesn’t speak. He drapes his arms across his widespread legs and stares down at the library’s linoleum tile floor.
“So . . . ,” he says slowly, eyes still trained on the floor, “what did you hear?”
“I . . . um.” Nothing. I heard nothing. My brain is screaming at me to deny, but lying is not a good look on me. It tends to give me dime-size hives all over my body. Seb looks up at me, his expression pleading, and I start to pity him again.
“I heard everything,” I admit.
Damn me.
He groans and rolls his head back against the chair. I get a full-on view of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I reassure him.
He stays silent.
“And I wasn’t trying to listen either.”
Still nothing. I rarely see Seb like this, lacking his usual swagger and shit-eating grin. Now he seems . . . unstable.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally.
He gives me something halfway between a snort and a cough. Then he looks at me directly. “I don’t need you feeling sorry for me. No offense, but that makes me feel, like . . . one hundred times worse.”
Any residual pity I felt for Seb drains out of my body. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
I cross my arms in front of me and glare at him.
“Oh, come on, Analee. Don’t take it personally.”
“Hmm. Let me try not to take this very personal thing personally.”
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I just . . . don’t want your pity.”
“My pity. Specifically.” I feel like I’m being carried by a current of anger. I let it sweep me into its depths, give myself over to it completely. “You know what? Chloe was right. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
He copies my posture, from the crossed arms to the glare. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“We’ve been going to the same school since the sixth grade. I know enough. Sebastian Matias, the heartthrob of East Bay, hotshot soccer goal kicker guy. You date unattainable girls like Chloe because the excitement is in the chase. Even though there is a bounty of gorgeous girls at our school who would drop everything at the snap of your fingers, that doesn’t affect you because it’s too easy. You want to be adored by the masses, but you don’t actually want to adore anyone back.”
It’s only when I get angry that my mouth can override my neuroses. I’m not thinking about what my body is doing, or how my voice sounds, or the prominent frontal vein that appears on my forehead whenever I get worked up.
Seb doesn’t speak for a moment. His face is unreadable. In the silence I wonder if I’ve gone too far. I think about my body, voice, and vein, and start to shrink back into Analee.
“Huh,” he says.
I stare down at my notebook and pick at the frayed corner. I feel shy again, but I ask anyway. “What?”
“I can’t figure you out.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning . . . you’re so quiet in class that I swear to God sometimes I forget you’re right next to me. And then you’ll have these random outbursts.” He pauses. “Why don’t you talk like this normally?”
I look up at him. He’s not smiling but also not frowning. I don’t know if it’s better or worse when people point out that I’m shy. It’s not like it’s a secret, really. But it’s something I don’t particularly want to draw attention to, like a glob of spinach stuck between my teeth.
“I do talk like this normally,” I say. “Just not . . . here.”
“Here as in ‘this planet’?”
I give him a face. “Here as in school. I mean, I used to talk to Lily, but . . .”
I don’t know what Seb knows about the Incident. He and Colton are friends, so I’m sure he’s been fed the same story Lily has. The one that paints me as the wicked witch of the East Coast.
“There are other people besides Lily,” he says. He doesn’t ask what happened between the two of us, which makes me wonder how much he knows.
“Other people suck.” Except Harris, I think. Harris defies the category of “other people,” since I’ve never met him in flesh and blood. He is non-corporeal, he is in the air, he is something that surrounds me like a force field against the population of East Bay.
“Maybe that’s because you don’t talk to them,” Seb says.
“I don’t have to. Listening is enough.”
“Oookay. Whatever.” He stands up to leave, and I feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness. It makes no sense. I was fine just a few minutes ago. “I’m gonna go find Chloe.”
“Why?” I can’t help but ask.
He stops. “Why not?”
I start to question whether I misheard the entire conversation between Seb and Chloe, or Seb is suffering from severe short-term memory loss.
“Because she told you she needs to be alone for a while.”
“She didn’t mean it. She does this all the time.”
“Sounded like she meant it,” I mutter.
“You don’t know her the way I do.”
“I know that,” I say. “And I know that the stuff between you guys isn’t any of my business.”
“You’re right,” Seb agrees. “None of your business.” He rocks back and forth on his heels, looking down the stairs and then back at me. “So, what are you saying I should do?”
I go blank. “You’re asking for my advice?”
“Yeah. Are you gonna go all shy on me now?”
It’s a strange position to be in. People like Seb, who generally have their shit together, don’t often ask walking disasters like me for life advice.
“I don’t know what you should do,” I say.
“Yes, you do.” Seb lifts his eyebrows, still standing there, waiting for my words of wisdom.
So I let it out. All of my thoughts on his situation, unfiltered. “I think you should do what she asked. Give her space. Chloe needs to know that you can respect her needs before she gives you another chance.”
Seb sticks his hands into his pockets, paces back and forth. “And what about Matt?”
“What about him?”
“He’s all over her.”
I stare at him. “You realize Matt is a total asshole, right?”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m fairly certain it is.”
“Matt’s my friend, okay?”
I’m not sure what it is about Seb, but it takes only a few sentences from him to piss me off. It must be nice for him, never understanding how it feels to be one of Matt’s targets, going through life being adored. Seb is so unaware of how good he has it that I want to shake some sense into him.
“If Matt were your friend,” I say, “you wouldn’t be worrying about him and Chloe. And if Chloe has half a brain, she won’t go for someone like Matt.”
“It’s complicated,” Seb says. He turns and starts heading down the stairs.
I don’t think it is, but I don’t fight him on it. I’m not sure if he’ll listen to me or seek Chloe out again, but I don’t ask any more. It isn’t my business. Who cares about Chleb anyway? Even if they get back together, it’s not like theirs is a love for the ages. They’ll go off to college, eventually meet other impossibly gorgeous people, and be nothing more than former high school sweethearts who make small talk over cocktail weenies at East Bay’s ten-year reunion.
Seb goes halfway down the stairs, stops, and looks up at me. “I’m a striker, by the way.”
“What?” I ask.
“You called me a ‘soccer goal kicker guy’ during your rant. The position is a striker.”
I stare at him, openmouthed like our lab frog. Out of everything I said to him, this is his takeaway?
“I don’t really like soccer,” I manage to say in my defense. It’s the nicest way I can phrase my deep contempt for all organized sports, which began in fifth grade after a volleyball and a busted lip.
“And you’ve been to how many soccer games?” Seb asks.
Zero. Zero is the answer to his question. But I’ve never eaten live maggots either, and I’m pretty sure I would hate that, too.
I want to say this to Seb, but nothing comes out.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, in the most annoying and condescending of ways, and as usual my brain can’t form a comeback until it’s too late.
CHAPTER TEN
Me: What are your thoughts on soccer?
Harris: ?
Me: As far as sports go.
Harris: i have little to no thoughts about soccer.
Me: Have you ever been to a soccer game?
Harris: nope. and zero desire to go to one. why do you ask?
Me: No reason.
Harris: doesn’t that guy play soccer?
Me: Who?
Harris: your lap partner?
Harris: *lab
Me: Sebastian
Me: And yeah. He’s a striker.
Harris: i don’t know what that is.
Me: It’s not important.
Avery bursts through my bedroom door, without knocking, of course. “Food’s ready!” she sings.
I keep my eyes on the computer screen. “Okay.”
“I’m hungry,” she says, bounding over to me. Avery doesn’t take normal footsteps. She jumps, like she’s part human, part tiny annoying grasshopper.
“I’ll be right down.”
Me: Gotta go. Dinner.
Harris: quest later?
Me: Hells yes.
“What are you smiling at?” Avery’s head pokes up from behind my shoulder, and I slam my laptop shut.
“I wasn’t smiling,” I say.
“Who were you talking to?”
“A friend.”
We stare each other down, and Avery plants her hands on her hips in her sassy pose. She says the pathetic truth without officially saying it: How could you be talking to a friend when you have no friends?
“Do you have an online boyfriend?” she asks bluntly.
“No.”
If Avery knew how desperately I want Harris to be my boyfriend, I would never hear the end of it. Besides, Harris is already more than a boyfriend to me, and Avery’s too young to understand something beyond a label.
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “You’re always chatting with someone. I’m not dumb, you know.”
“Not dumb, just obnoxious,” I reply.
“Does he go to your school? Is he friends with Colton?”
It jars me to hear her throw out the name so casually.
“No,” I snap. “He has nothing to do with Colton.”
She drops her hands, backs away from me like I’ve gone wild. “I was just asking.”
“Well, stop asking,” I say. “Just leave me alone.”
Avery gives me a dramatic eye roll. I was never allowed to roll my eyes when I was her age. Dad always threatened a spanking. No me faltes el respeto, he’d say to me. I always had to be respectful, no matter how pissed off I felt. But Avery does what she wants, like Harlow.
“If you keep acting like this,” she says, “you’re never gonna get Lily back.”
Does she do that on purpose, the whole ripping my heart out and stomping all over it? Or is she accidentally horrible? I can’t figure that out yet. Avery’s only in third grade, but she has all the makings of a mean girl. She coats her tiny fingernails with glitter, has a new best friend every week, and manages to make me feel terrible on a daily basis.
“Maybe I don’t want Lily back,” I say. I’m not sure whether I’m lying or telling the truth. Avery always got along better with Lily than with me because Lily had a higher tolerance for all her Avery-ness.
Be nice, An, Lily would say right now. She witnessed hundreds of spats between me and Avery and always guilt-tripped me. “You’re so lucky to get a sister. I always wanted one.”
“You can have her,” I would say back to her, often in front of Avery. Lily didn’t know how lucky she was to be an only child.
She had me, though. I tried to be the sister she never had, and before everything got so messed up, I thought I succeeded in the role. Then came Colton, then came the Incident at Gabrielle’s party, and then it became clear that, unlike with actual sisters, the thread connecting me and Lily was easily severed. Unlike with actual sisters, now there was nothing left holding us together.
“Girls!” Dad’s voice thunders up the stairs. “Get down here!”
Avery stops glaring at me long enough to answer, “Coming!” She sweeps past me, slamming her shoulder against my arm on her way out.
I was one of the last to officially find out when Lily and Colton started dating, even though I was supposedly still her best friend at that point.
Lily and I planned to meet in the library at four, at our usual cubicle, to study for our trig test the next day. And by “study” I mean that Lily was supposed to teach me all over again everything we’d learned in class, since the left side of my brain—or whatever side is in charge of math—is totally deficient.
Except Lily wasn’t at our cubicle at four. And at four thirty she still hadn’t shown up.
By five o’clock I started to panic. I tore through our school’s hallways, peeked inside classrooms, and called her cell phone a total of twelve times. My mind started to run away from me. I envisioned Lily crossing the street and getting barreled by a semi. Or falling down the stairs and getting rushed to the hospital. Because in our entire lives Lily had never let me down. She was always where she said she was going to be.
Even though my mind was spitting out horrible worst-case scenarios, what I actually saw still managed to surprise me. I speed-walked to the parking lot to search for Lily’s car. I dimly registered Colton and his girlfriend, Mia, making out, the two of them pressed up against his beat-up Chevy.
Something about it made me pause—the millions of tiny contradictions that my brain totaled up, like the blunt-cut bangs and cropped paint-splattered T-shirt. All of these things that led me to the slow realization that Colton was making out not with Mia but with Lily.
But how? When? The last I had heard, Colton had complimented Lily’s art, and now they were full-on snogging in a parking lot? Lily and I both lacked in the sexual experience department, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the way she was expertly maneuvering around Colton’s mouth. Why wouldn’t she have told me about this? Was she really so desperate to remove me from her life altogether? And that’s how it happened. All at once, everything I knew about my best friend was wrong.
That was when the thread that connected us started to fray.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN SEB ENTERS THE SCIENCE room today, he greets me by way of a chin nod. It’s new to have someone in our school acknowledge me, even in such a tiny way. I look up from my notebook and give him one in return, which is something I’ve never done in my life and probably will never do again. It doesn’t feel natural on me. It’s too cool, too casual.
I go back to writing in my notebook, but I’ve lost my train of thought. On the corner of the page, I draw a tiny filigree pattern in the hopes that I look like I’m writing something very important and not just doodling to avoid talking.
I’m not sure if I should ask Seb what happened with Chloe or avoid conversation altogether. It’s hard for me to figure out what topics are on the table when it comes to small talk. I could mention the dip in weather today, or ruminate as to Mr. Hubbard’s whereabouts, but both of these options seem forced. I never had this problem with Lily. I don’t have it with Harris, either. I usually launch into my latest tirade without thinking.
It doesn’t matter a
nyway, because Seb immediately turns around in his chair to talk to Dalia. I use the word “talk” loosely, because their lips are flapping but no meaningful communication is taking place.
“What did you do to your hair?” he asks, reaching to yank on Dalia’s high knotted ponytail.
“Don’t mess it up, Seb!” she whines, swatting his hand away.
“You look like Rapunzel.”
“They’re extensions. Do you like?”
“They’re aight.”
“Shut up. You love them.”
“Are you asking if you look good?”
“I don’t have to ask,” Dalia says, swishing her hair around and almost whipping her poor lab partner in the face.
Christ almighty, where is Mr. Hubbard? I’ve never been more eager to start class. Bring on the dead frogs.
I try to tune out their banter as my inked filigree takes over my notebook page, but their flirting is too incessant, like the drip of a leaky faucet.
“You going to Maddie’s on Friday?” Seb asks, and I hear the grin in his voice. The grin of someone who knows he’ll get what he wants.
“Maybe,” Dalia says coyly. “You?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What do you think?” He leaves her with that, turning back to our table. Behind us Dalia laughs. The smugness radiates off the two of them.
“Not going to work,” I murmur. It slips out unwittingly, before I can think, like breathing.
“Hmm?” Seb cocks his head at me. “Did you say something?”
“Sorry. Talking to myself.”
“If you have something to say—”
“I don’t.”
I concentrate hard on the ink swirls on the page, imagining what it would be like to shrink so small that I could twirl around on the page’s surface as if it were my own private dance floor. This notion fails to distract me from Seb, whose dark eyes stay watchful on my every move. I sigh and sweep my notebook aside.
“I said it’s not going to work,” I whisper.
“What’s not going to work?”
“Your master plan to make Chloe jealous. Girls like Chloe aren’t threatened by the Dalias of the world.”
“Why not?”
“With Dalia . . .” I peek behind me to make sure Dalia isn’t listening, but she’s engaged in more babble with a boy at an opposite table. “I can smell her desperation. She’s cute and flirty, but she screams ‘rebound.’ Chloe will know you’re not serious.”
Analee, in Real Life Page 5
