Chapter Eighteen

There are no little talks with my mother, and this one is no exception. It’s like sitting through a eulogy or a recitation of the local phone book. Except I’d prefer either of those things over this.

She doesn’t yell either. Just drones on and on about the endless depths of her disappointment and my failure to live up to my potential.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asks.

Not really.

“Yes.”

She shakes her head, signaling the move into act three. The Guilt Effect. “Chloe, when you tell me you’re out with friends to study, I believe you. That trust is broken now.”

“I said I’m sorry,” I say, pressing my still-tender lips together. “I’m not sure what else you want me to tell you.”

“Well, I’d ask you where you’ve been, but I’m not even sure I want to know.”

I look up then, and there’s no mistaking the way she’s looking at me. I haven’t checked a mirror to be sure, but I know there’s no chance my hair and lip gloss are anywhere close to being intact.

“It’s not as bad as you’re obviously thinking,” I tell her, hoping it will appease her.

It doesn’t.

“You know, did you ever stop tonight to think about how Blake would feel if he knew you were out with another boy?”

“Mom, please.” This is so not a conversation I want to have with her.

“Don’t please me,” she says. “I thought I raised you better than this. That boy cares about you. And he could provide you with a hell of a lot better future than Adam Reed.”

I stand up then, chair legs scraping on the hardwood floor. “You were spying on me?”

“I was worried about you. When Blake called tonight, I had no idea where you were.”

“Wait a minute, Blake called here?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“He called here tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. He said he was out with most of the SAT group and wanted to see if you were interested in joining them. Which was really interesting news to me, since you were supposedly already with them.”

Fear moves through me as cold as the air I just walked out of. “What did you say to him?”

Her eyes go dark with anger. “Don’t worry, Chloe. At that point I didn’t know, so I didn’t spill your little secret. But I can’t tell you how deeply it disappoints me that all you’re worried about is hiding your liaison with that boy.”

“No, Mom, I’m not thinking about my liaison. And I’m not thinking about Adam either, who, by the way, has an academic record that makes me look like a trained chimp. Right now I’m thinking about Blake, who’s been practically stalking me since I broke up with him.”

Mom crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. “Don’t you think that’s a bit dramatic?”

“I think you see whatever the hell you want to see. With me. With Blake. Even with Adam, who you don’t know anything about at all.”

“I know he’s got a criminal record, and I’m not talking about a string of parking tickets. Did he tell you about that, Chloe? Did he tell you about the time he got arrested? Because I was on shift at the hospital that night. I stitched up his arm while the officers read him his rights.”

***

Mr. Chow moves in the front of the class, holding a stack of papers. I glance around. The faces around me are getting familiar. Julien grins at me, and I return it, glad I’ve hit it off with someone so quickly. Almost as glad as I am that I get to spend every Tuesday and Thursday evening in the same room with Blake Tanner.

“This is a timed math test,” Mr. Chow says, passing out the papers. “The objective is to move as quickly as you can to keep your mind sharp and prepared for change.”

“What’s the catch?” Blake asks, motioning at the desks that have been set up in pairs.

“Trading,” Mr. Chow says, smiling. “Every sixty seconds you will trade papers with your partner. This will keep you from looking ahead, a common mental pattern that can leave you anxious for future questions. Anxiety is like kryptonite to peak performance.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Julien says, and we smile at each other pointedly. She knows darned well math is a strong suit for me.

Mr. Chow shakes his head at this, chuckling. “I don’t think so, girls. I’ll be assigning the partners. Blake, you’re with Raul. Julien, with Tanja. Chloe, you’ll be with Adam.”

I force myself not to grimace. I’ve avoided him since the fire alarm incident, and really, I think that’s preferable. We sit down across from each other, papers facedown and timers set.

I look at my cuticles and check for split ends while Mr. Chow fiddles with a malfunctioning timer at another table.

“Pull any fire alarms lately?” Adam asks.

I roll my eyes. “You just couldn’t let it go, could you?”

Adam grins up at me. “I really didn’t think you’d have the guts to go through with it.”

“I’m full of surprises, I guess.”

“Good,” he says. “I like surprises.”

***

The sound of my phone pulls me from my dream. Not my cell phone, but my house phone, a corded pink concoction that I almost forgot I still had. I grope blindly for the handle, lifting it clumsily to my ear.

“Hello?”

“So d-do you need a ride t-to a school or what?”

I bolt upright, clutching the blankets to my chest and grinning like a loon. “Yes! I mean, yeah. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’ll b-be there in twenty,” Maggie says. “By the way, your cell phone’s off.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

It’s better than Christmas. I practically dance out of my bed and to my bathroom. Then I rush back, finding my phone in the jeans I shucked off last night before falling into bed. I find a five-dollar bill in one of the pockets. Change from the Twinkies I bought.

I trace the red squares Adam doodled in the corner of the receipt to demonstrate some basics of structural stability or something. I think of my mother’s comments last night and then of the scar I felt on his arm.

So what? He’s not a bad person. Whatever my mom thinks she knows is obviously wrong.

I pick out clothes and head into the bathroom, glancing at the time on the clock.

Time. Timers. What a minute.

I stop, one foot into the hallway, and remember the dream I woke up from. Except it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. Holy crap, it’s finally starting to come back.

I’m showered, dressed, and ready ten minutes before Maggie said she’d arrive. And it’s worse than a first date because I’m pacing in front of the door and chewing my lip. I’m half-convinced she’s never going to show. That she’ll stand me up and leave us right back where we were a couple of weeks ago.

The ragged putter of the pickup’s engine is heaven to my ears. I adjust my backpack and pick up both of the to-go coffee mugs I prepped. It’s almost like every other morning I can remember before all of this happened.

I head for the truck and hand her the coffee.

“You still drink it with cream?”

“You’re drinking it again?” she asks, obviously surprised.

I drop my bag on the floor with a smirk. “I haven’t changed that much.”

Mags takes a sip of her coffee, and I see her smile for the first time in what feels like forever. Okay. Yeah, it’s going to be okay.

I drink my coffee and listen to Maggie’s latest punk obsession, and I promise myself I will treasure this moment. I promise I won’t think about Blake’s dad or Adam’s scarred wrist or any of the stuff that’s happening. I don’t quite manage, but I’m close.

***

My day has taken a steep nosedive. Maggie barely said boo on the way to school. And I managed to tank not one but two quizzes in my first three periods. What the hell happened to my superpower brain?

I slide through the lunch line, grabbing a tuna sandwich that looks as pale and lifeless as I feel. I snag an apple and set it on my tray with a sigh.

“Bad morning?”

I try to bite back a smile, but it’s impossible. I feel the press of Adam’s arm against my shoulder, and my face practically blooms.

“I thought you might have bailed today,” I say.

“I never skip school.”

I frown up at him, furrowing my brows. “Why on earth not? You’ve got a godlike GPA. I’d probably only show up on Tuesdays.”

He just laughs and pushes his way down the line, paying for both of our lunches.

“So do I actually get to eat with you or is this a drive-by flirt?” I ask.

“Drive-by,” he says, then he looks over his shoulder at a table where Blake is glaring in our direction. “I think it’s too early to stir the waters.”

“Since when do you care what he thinks?”

“I don’t. But I think you still might.”

I feel like a balloon that lost its air. “So yesterday…”

“Was a very good day,” he fills in with another shoulder bump.

“But it was just a day,” I say, hating the hollow ache in my middle.

“Hm, I think I need to be more clear.” A wicked smile curves on his face as he leans close, his breath tickling the side of my neck. “I’m not going to kiss you in front of him. But you’d better believe I’m thinking about it.”

He backs away again, and I’m pretty sure he takes all the oxygen in the room with him because every breath I take feels thinner than the last.

“So this weekend,” he says. “Study date? We’ve got that pre-calc final.”

“I just tanked my quizzes in chemistry and English. You might need to trade me up for a better model.”

“Hell no. Math’s your subject. You’re not getting out of helping me because of a bad mood.”

He dumps his tray by the cafeteria door, keeping only the apple he stole from my plate. I can’t help but call across to him.

“You’re not even eating?”

“I paid for the company,” he says. He gives me one last grin, one that makes my whole middle squeeze in on itself, and then he’s gone.

Blake’s expression wipes the smile right off my face. I see him whip out his cell phone, texting something almost violently.

“Okay, I’m officially wanting t-to know what the hell you’re up to.”

I whirl with my tray, tuna sandwich almost sliding off. “Maggie?”

I don’t know whether to do cartwheels at the fact that she’s speaking to me in public or to be terrified of the bald accusation in her eyes.

“Yeah, we need t-to talk,” she says. “Back steps?”

“Definitely.”

We make our way out of the cafeteria to the back stairs of the school. During freshman year, I got in trouble once for being too loud in the cafeteria. When it became perfectly clear I was never going to learn to keep my trap shut, we found the back stairs. Right across from the girls’ bathroom, we could always claim feminine issues if the teachers asked.

I glance at the bathroom door, listening to the squeal of underclassmen inside. I remember those days, poised in front of the mirror, lip-glossing myself into a shimmery concoction for a boy that probably didn’t even know I existed.

We nibble our sandwiches in quiet for a while before Maggie puts hers down and brushes off her hands. “So what’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?

“I mean your sudden g-guy switch. You’re t-trading in Blake f-for Adam?”

“It’s not like that,” I say, but really it’s sort of exactly like that.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

I put down my uneaten half sandwich. “No. I’m not.”

Maggie seems satisfied with this until she frowns. “I never got it, you know. The hot factor.”

“With Adam?” I ask.

She waves a hand dismissively. “No, not Adam. He’s g-got that whole tragic but beautiful thing happening, though I never thought you noticed.”

“I didn’t,” I admit, dropping my voice to a whisper. “But I do now. I can barely go an hour without noticing.”

“I was t-talking about Blake.”

I feel my nose wrinkle. “You didn’t get why I’d like Blake? Who doesn’t like Blake? He’s Mr. Nice Guy,” I say, though I’m sarcastic as hell.

Mags pushes her plate away and looks across the hall, shaking her head. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s what he wants everyone to think. I could never t-tell.”

“You never said anything to me.”

“I never thought your crush would come t-to anything.” She turns sideways on the step to face me.

It stings like a barbed hook, and I lean back, recoiling. “So you thought I never had a chance with him?”

“No. But I d-didn’t think he’d have a chance with you either. Not if you really knew him.”

I don’t know what to think then. I nod once, and Maggie picks at her sneaker.

“Did you look into Dr. Kirkpatrick?” she asks.

“I did. I thought I had something, but it might be a dead end.”

“Keep digging. I’m t-telling you, there’s something there.”

“What about Mr. Chow? Is he even still here this year?”

Maggie shakes her head. “I heard he got a teaching gig b-back in China. I don’t know—he seemed p-pretty harmless.”

“And my mild-mannered therapist didn’t?”

Maggie’s face pinches off. “Maybe. But she wasn’t.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to keep looking.”

“You don’t have to d-do anything.” She shrugs, sliding her disinterest back into place.

“Yes, I do. Julien said I know what happened to her. Do you think I can just let that be?”

“I d-don’t know how long you can let it be. Lately you haven’t exactly b-been the person I thought you were.”

“I’m still the same person. I haven’t changed.” Mags looks unconvinced, so I reach for her hand, giving her fingers a squeeze. “I know you don’t believe me.”

She pulls free from my grip. “You’re right.”

“Then I’ll prove it to you. And I’ll start with Julien.”