I scanned the lines of kids milling around in loosely formed lines, but there was no sign of Abby. After a few minutes, Jesse came up behind me and gave me his signature light punch on the arm.
“Hey, Nat. You ready for this?” He spun his finger around in a circle, encompassing the whole school, the kids, everything.
“I think so,” I said. “Just another school, right? Hey, have you seen Abby?”
“I don’t think she’s here yet. At least I haven’t seen her.” We both looked around, checking it all out. It was weird to see older kids, people we hadn’t seen since they left our elementary school. They looked a lot older than I remembered. Jesse eased back until he was leaning against the brick wall of the school, and I moved to stand with him.
A few minutes later, Jesse caught my eye and tilted his head. “There’s Ab.” I turned and saw her mother’s car, and then Abby coming around from the passenger side. My heart began to pound. This was the first time I’d seen her since I really knew that I loved her, that I was in love with her. I couldn’t remember how to act, what to say or where to look.
Abby looked so pretty. She was wearing a skirt that was made out of jeans material, and a pretty blue top. Her hair, always so curly and unruly, was partly pulled back into a clip so that I could see her face, her eyes bright as she caught sight of Jesse and me.
She smiled, and my breath caught. She was beautiful. The girl I loved, the girl who would always have my heart, was really and truly beautiful. I wanted to run and jump and shout and do all those things I’d never been able to do, just to show the world how I felt.
I smiled back as she approached us and blurted out the first thing I could think to say. “Hey, Abby. You look really pretty.”
She looked down as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and ran a hand down the skirt. “Thanks, Nat.” For a fleeting moment I had her full attention and her gratitude, and it felt amazing.
And then I saw her glance up at Jesse, who was still standing against the wall. Something flickered in her eyes that I didn’t quite understand. Jesse made some comment about how her mother must have dressed her, and Abby snapped back. She lost the look of eagerness that I’d seen on her face a few minutes earlier.
I was confused, wondering what had changed. Abby and Jesse had always had that kind of relationship, where he teased her and she shot back at him. I didn’t know why it would have bothered her now.
Jesse looked off over her shoulder, and this time it was his eyes that changed. Obviously he saw someone or something that interested him. Abby followed his gaze and her face changed again. It wasn’t curiosity so much as it was hurt. I was still confused.
Abby snapped at Jesse again, something about kick ball which I didn’t quite understand. And then Jesse wisely changed the subject, asking about my vacation. I was easer to tell them both about the canoeing we had done, how excited my dad had been when I could handle a canoe on my own; The idea of going out for something like crew gave me hope that they might be something me, a way to be more in Abby’s eyes.
Before I could tell them too much about it, a girl walked over behind Jesse and said hello. Her name was Sarah. I was curious, since I couldn’t figure out how Jesse would have met her, but he explained that her family was a client in the lawn mowing business. For some reason, it made Abby really mad. I could tell that.
The bell rang and everyone surged forward toward the doors. Abby stayed close to me, and I knew she was making sure I didn’t get knocked over by the bigger kids. We found out lockers and I was able to work mine without any problem. Abby was grumbling at hers, and then she turned to me.
“Where’s Jesse?”
I shrugged. We had lost him in the crowd. But since he and I were in the same homeroom, I was pretty sure we’d catch up to him later.
Sure enough, he was just about to go into the classroom when we got there. Abby snapped at him again, and he seemed embarrassed about the fact that she referred to Sarah as his girlfriend. Before they could get too far into this discussion, I saw that the teacher had risen from her desk and was beginning to take attendance. I pulled Jesse into the room with me, and turned just in time to see Abby wave to me before she shot Jesse another dirty look.
Jesse and I found two desks next to each other, and he flopped down in the chair. “What’s her issue, anyway?” he grumbled.
I shrugged. “I guess maybe she just didn’t feel like getting teased today. Maybe she’s nervous about the new school.” I waited a beat and then went on. “She did look really pretty today, though.”
“Yeah,” Jesse conceded. “But she was acting like—I don’t know. Girls are just crazy sometimes, I guess.”
I thought about it for a long time as the teacher went through the typical first day of school spiel. Abby had seemed all right when she was with me. It was only Jesse that was bothering her. And she had clearly been hurt when he didn’t compliment her the same way I had.
A new thought dawned in my mind, more troublesome than I cared to admit. What is Abby really didn’t feel the same away about me that I did about her? What if she was in love with someone else? And worst of all, what if that someone else was Jesse?
My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded again. These were my two best friends. What would I do if Abby was going to break my heart?
Chapter 8: Abby
Eighth grade was a special kind of hell for me. Things were changing, and I didn’t like it.
First there was Jesse. Jesse had always been the more popular one of our little group. His looks and his sports ability gave him more of an in with the other kids than Nat and I had. It had never seemed to make a difference between the three of us, but now it did. Suddenly Jesse wanted to go to school dances. He wanted to hang out with the other kids, and although he always invited Nat and me along, both of us knew that it wouldn’t work.
And then there were the girls. It seemed as though Jesse was always surrounded with a bunch of giggling, smirking girls who flirted and teased him, wanted him to eat lunch with them, walk home with them. . .it made me insane. Couldn’t he see how much this was hurting Nat and me?
Something else was going on with Nat. He had taken to calling me every night, just to talk and check in. The problem was that we spent most of the school day together, and there just wasn’t much to talk about at the end of the day. So I dreaded those phone conversations with their long and awkward silences. What was more disconcerting was that I often caught him staring at me the same way that Jesse stared at other girls. It made me uncomfortable.
One December day, I came home from school and threw my books on the kitchen table. My mother was standing at the sink, and she turned to give me a look.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Tough day?” she inquired, drying her hands as she came to sit next to me.
I sighed. “School was okay. But it’s so hard, Mom. Jesse is just –he’s just weird now. He likes all these girls, and he hangs out with them, and it seems like he just doesn’t have time for me and Nat anymore. It’s not it used to be.”
My mother reached over and smoothed my hair away from my face. “You’re all growing up, sweetie. You can’t expect everything to stay the same forever. So Jesse is making some new friends. That’s okay. You could do that too.”
“I don’t need new friends,” I cried. “I like the ones I have. At least I did when they weren’t acting like idiots.”
“Why, what’s going with Nat? Is he hanging around with other kids, too?”
I shook my head. “No. Nat doesn’t hang out with anyone but me. But he’s with me all the time, and he looks at me—“ I felt my face grow warm. “I just don’t like the way he looks at me.”
“Ah.” My mother smiled and touched my cheek. “So it seems Nat has a crush on you. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I wondered when one of the boys was going to realize what a beauty they had in their midst.”
“Mom!” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Seriously. We’re friends. We’ve k
nown each other literally forever. How could you say that?”
“What bothers you more, Abby? The fact that Nat might have feelings for you, or the idea that Jesse might not?”
To my utter mortification, tears filled my eyes. I dropped my head onto my folded arms.
“I love Nat, Mom. He’s like—I don’t know, kind of the brother I never had. And I always thought Jesse was the same way. But then this year, when all these girls have been fussing over Jesse, I felt—I guess I felt jealous. Jealous that he pays them so much attention and doesn’t really seem to care about me anymore.”
“I don’t blame you, sweetie. But let me ask you this. If it were Nat the girls were fawning over, would that bother you as much?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. I just can’t imagine it. Nat depends on me for everything. Maybe it might be a relief if he had someone else to count on.”
My mom nodded. “Interesting. Well, let me give you some advice. Just ride this out. Keep being Nat’s friend, but be Jesse’s friend, too. Don’t let him see that you’re bothered by the girls. Pretty soon he’ll realize what—or who—he really wants.” She stood to give me a hug. “Have I told you lately that I wouldn’t be thirteen again for all the money in the world? But don’t let it make you sad, love. It’ll all come out right in the end.”
I tried to smile and believe that she was right. But I had a feeling that eighth grade was going to be a long year.
Chapter 9: Jesse
By the time we started our junior year in high school, I was eating, breathing and sleeping football. And I loved it. I never complained about the day-long practices in a hundred degree heat or about the games where they had to clear snow from the ground so that we could see the yard markers. As long as I was out on the field, I was in heaven.
The rest of my life wasn’t so bad, either. I had a pretty cool group of friends. Most of them were football players, too, because it was easier to hang with guys who knew what I was talking about. And the girls were usually cheer leaders or the girlfriends of the football players. They understood the game and the commitment.
I still saw Nat and Abby pretty often, although they weren’t part of my main crowd. Nat had gotten involved in crew, and he spent long hours at our local college, practicing and competing. It was beginning to show, too. Although he was still smaller than the rest of us and still had that somehow scrawny look to his face, his arms and chest had filled out, and he seemed to have found some kind of quiet confidence that he’d never had before.
Abby was a different story. She had grown, too, until she was among the tallest girls in our class. She had long legs and arms, but she carried herself with a kind of grace I didn’t notice in the other girls. Her face had slimmed and softened, too. The only thing that hadn’t really changed was her hair, which was still long and curly and always in her way. I knew that she had made friends with a few girls who worked on the high school newspaper, and when I asked her about it, she went on and on about the joys of writing. I didn’t get it myself, but since she helped me sometimes with my essays and term papers, I kept my mouth shut.
Other boys in school had begun to notice Ab, too. Some of them asked me about her, what she was really like, and I know a few tried to ask her out. But she never seemed interested. She was always nice enough to everyone, but she just didn’t date. I couldn’t figure out why.
I was doing okay in that department. I didn’t have a steady girlfriend, but I dated. I liked to hang around with all of my friends most of the time, but a movie or a dance with a pretty girl was okay, too. Whenever my mom or my brothers teased me about a date though, I had to remind that for me, football came first. If a girl didn’t get that, she didn’t get me.
I asked Nat once if Ab liked any particular boy. He got the funniest look on his face, and shrugged.
“Maybe she just doesn’t want to date,” he mumbled. “Maybe she doesn’t feel like she needs to.”
I saw that his face has turned red, and right away I got it. Nat didn’t want Abby to be interested in any boy—not in any boy other than him, that is. I kind of felt sorry for him, because although I knew that Abby loved Nat as her best friend and would always be loyal to him, I didn’t think she cared about him that way. I wondered if Nat realized that.
A few weeks into school that year, I passed Ab in the hallway right after the last bell. She was clutching a pile of notebooks to her chest and walking with her head down. Behind her a few cheerleaders, dressed for the pep rally that day, were giggling.
Before I could say hello, one of the cheer leaders, Trish, reached deftly around Abby and knocked a book out of her arms. I started to smile, thinking it was the kind of thing a guy would do to a buddy, but then I saw Ab’s reaction. Her face flushed, and she jerked away before leaning down to retrieve her book.
“What’s the matter, Shabby? Clumsy today?” The girls surrounded her, hemming her in.
Abby pressed her lips together tightly and didn’t answer. She began to stand up, and another cheerleader shoved her back down.
“We didn’t like what you wrote about the squad. You need to stop saying stuff like that.”
“It’s an editorial. Opinion. I can write what I want.”
I winced. That wasn’t what these girls wanted to hear. I knew them a little from parties and from away games, when we traveled together on the bus, but they weren’t people I generally hung around with. They tended toward meanness, and I really didn’t have time for that.
“Leave her alone.” I stepped forward and stood in front of Ab. “What’s wrong with you?”
One of the cheer leaders smirked at me. “This isn’t your business, Jesse. We’ve got it.”
“She’s a friend of mine, and she didn’t do anything to do. So it’s my business.” I grabbed Abby’s hand and hauled her up. Trish looked as though she wanted to say something else, but one of the other girls snagged her arm and pulled her away. She threw one more poisonous look over her shoulder at me as they headed down the hallway.
I glanced down at Abby. “What was that all about?”
She was standing frozen, and I realized that she was staring at our still-joined hands. I released hers and she looked away.
“It was nothing,” Abby mumbled. “Stupid cheer leaders.”
“What were they talking about? What did you write to set them off?” I persisted.
She looked me full in the face for the first time. “I guess this means you don’t make it a priority to read my editorials.” There was something in her voice that wasn’t quite humor mixed with a little bit of hurt.
“I don’t read anything but school stuff during football season,” I retorted. “No time. So what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I wrote an opinion piece about the special treatment the cheer leaders get, nothing that everyone else in the school isn’t thinking. And some of them obviously didn’t like it. No big deal.”
I gritted my teeth and ran a hand through my hair. “Ab, are you crazy? Not exactly the way to make friends.”
There it was again, that flare of pain in her eyes. “Thanks. I didn’t know I needed help making friends. I used to have some really good ones.”
I ignored the sarcasm. “I’m still your friend, Ab, you know that. But couldn’t you try a little harder? I mean, with other people?”
“The people I want for friends wouldn’t think I have to be a phony. They would accept me for who I am.”
“You don’t think I do?” That stung, maybe because it felt a little bit true.
“I don’t know, Jesse. Do you even know who I am anymore?” She jerked her arms away and stalked off down the hall. I didn’t try to follow her.
Chapter 10: Abby
High school was pretty much hell for me. I watched the people around me change and grow, but it felt like I was standing still.
Nat spent so much of his time on the water once he joined crew that I hardly saw him at all. After school, his mom picked him up and drove him to the college fo
r practice. I went to as many of his matches as I could, but even there I didn’t see him for long. He told me though that it made him feel stronger when I was there watching.
“When I know you’re there, it’s like I could row for miles,” he said, eyes shining. I smiled but I couldn’t meet his gaze. Nat had been making it abundantly clear that he thought of me as more than a friend, and I walked a very fine line between ignoring it and encouraging me. I didn’t want to lose my friend, but I knew I didn’t like him that way. Mostly I knew that because there was someone who made my heart pound.
Jesse was all about the football these days. He never talked about anything else, and he had a whole new group of friends who spoke the same language. I don’t think he realized that most of these people looked at Nat and me the same way they would a bug on the sidewalk; they would as soon step on us rather than bother to walk around us. I didn’t try to point this out to Jesse because he was so clearly happy with life the way it was.
But it was killing me. I never missed a football game, but it was pure torture to sit in the stands, watching him play, knowing that it really didn’t matter to him whether or not I was there. And more often than not, after the game ended Jesse would be surrounded by cheer leaders and other popular girls. Sometimes, he would be holding the hand of one or another of them. Most everyone went to the Starlight Diner after football games, and Nat and I went a few times, too. Jesse usually managed to wave at us, or even to stop at our table sometimes, but he was always with a girl who was looking up adoringly at him. There was only so much of that I could take.
If I went out of my way to support the athletic interests of my best friends, they did their best to encourage me in my extracurricular activities, too. Newspaper was the one bright spot in my entire high school career. I loved hanging out in the editorial office, and I actually made friends with people who worked on the paper with me. They were a mixed bunch, some of them nerdy like me, a few who were on the edge of the popular crowd.
The teacher who ran the journalism club was cool, too. Ms. Nelson was young and had lots of energy, and she was always giving us fun assignments.
When We Were Us (Keeping Score, #1) Page 4
