Dreamology(27)

“It’s about Max,” she says, giving a shy smile.

Oh God. I put down my bag of potting soil. “You don’t need to worry—” I start to say.

“No, no, let me finish,” Celeste says. “I just feel like he gave you a really dumb impression on the quad the first day of school. Oliver just brings out a . . . pretty unattractive side of him.”

“Oh?” I say, relieved that this isn’t about me. “Why?”

“They used to be friends a few years back, but then they started to grow apart. It’s kind of a long story, but Max was different then. More reserved.”

I run my tongue along the inside of my bottom teeth, something to distract my mouth from saying I know. That he told me all about it last week, right before he broke my heart. But explaining to Celeste that Max and I were hanging out would require me to also explain where, and I am definitely not getting into CDD with her. It’s the only thing I share with him that’s just ours . . . besides the dreams, of course. And if she ever shows up in one of those, I will resolve to never fall asleep again.

Celeste is still explaining the history. “Anyway, one day he started to change. He started to focus more on school, joined the soccer team—which, turns out, he’s really good at!” She laughs like it’s the craziest thing ever, like, Oh, that Max, isn’t he a hoot? and I force myself to laugh, too. It comes out more like a chest cough. “And then he got a whole different group of friends . . . I don’t think Oliver was very happy about that. And Max was disappointed that Oliver didn’t want him to be happy.”

“Wow.” I feel like I’m reading a story where Oliver and Max are fictional characters. I’ve never even heard of the book, but Celeste knows it all. And she’s really nice. And I am a horrible person for even entertaining the idea that her boyfriend should be mine.

Except he was mine first, whispers a tiny voice in the back of my mind.

“Anyway,” Celeste says. “I know I’m talking your ear off. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression of Max. He’s actually great, once you get to know him.”

Is this really happening? Celeste is giving me advice about a guy I’ve known longer than she’s been able to spell her own name? But the irony is that she’s kind of right. I’m beginning to realize that maybe I never knew him. Not entirely anyway. And that dreams and reality are far from the same.





13


Welcome to the Bat Cave




“HEY, ALICE!” I hear Celeste call out after Terrarium Club, just as I’m unlocking Frank to head home. It’s moments like these when I really wish I had my earbuds in and could peel out of the parking lot and never look back like I hadn’t heard her at all. I’m exhausted. Between the dean and Delilah and Celeste, there’s a lot I need to process. But my earbuds are, as always, tangled in an impossible knot at the bottom of my bag.

“Hey!” I say, turning and putting on my biggest smile.

“I have kind of a big favor,” Celeste asks, biting her lip as she walks over to me. “Is there any chance I can come to your house before the party tonight? You must live nearby if you biked here, right? It’s just that I live pretty far outside the city, and I don’t really want to go out and back. It could be kind of fun! We could get ready together and I could give you the lowdown on who will be there . . .”

There are a lot of thoughts running through my head. For example, as one of the most adored girls in school, doesn’t Celeste have about a million people she could be hanging out with? I wonder if she’s doing the whole “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” thing but wipe the idea from my mind almost instantly. She’s just not that girl. Does she actually just want to be my friend? I push all those questions out of my mind, because there’s only one that’s actually on the tip of my tongue.

“What party?” I ask. Then, “Are you sure I was invited?”

Celeste laughs. “Oliver’s thing,” she says. Then she looks nervous. “Wait, aren’t you guys friends?”

I close my eyes, letting my head fall back in exhaustion. “Is it Friday already?” I ask.

“I know how you feel,” Celeste says. “But you should go! I’m making Max go, too. And then you could get to know him better, so he can prove he’s not as much of a doof as you saw this last week.” She raises her eyebrows and laughs.

I force a laugh, too, but something about this statement sends a tiny flame through my limbs. Yes, I am well aware that Max and Celeste are dating. We’ve been talking about him all afternoon. But the idea of him making a date with her, an actual prearranged time to see her, when I can practically still feel his head resting on top of mine below the Jenga tower, when the image of his stare in the hallway is still so fresh in my memory, makes me want to throw up, or break something expensive, or both.

Don’t freak out, Alice, I say to myself. You can do this. Celeste is genuinely cool, and she’s asking you to hang out, and you could use some friends. And besides, you deserve some answers.

“I’d love to,” I say, even if it is the last thing I want to do.

“This is better than Newbury Street!” Celeste exclaims for possibly the tenth time, looking around with awe. We’re camped out in the middle of Nan’s giant walk-in closet, a box of pepperoni pizza on the floor between us. “Your grandmother had impeccable taste.”