Dreamology(29)

“What’s Black Watch?” I ask.

“It’s a type of plaid,” Celeste explains. “Anyway, I dated a college guy when I was fifteen. Summer camp. It was no big deal.” She takes a swig of beer. Celeste is totally the girl who dated a college guy when she was fifteen and knows so much more about life than any of us ever will.

I open my mouth to say something when Max walks through the doorway to the kitchen, stopping dead when he sees me and his girlfriend shoulder to shoulder in conversation.

“You think I’m super creepy, don’t you?” Leilani pesters when I don’t respond.

“No!” I assure her. “That’s not it at all. I totally get it. Levy is adorable.”

“Hi, babe!” Celeste coos, slinking over to kiss Max on the cheek. “You remember Alice, right? We met on the quad. I guess you know her from psychology, too. Duh.”

And the time we broke into the Louvre and had a picnic with the Mona Lisa. And the time we raced a 1960s Porsche through back roads in Italy. And the time we rode pink elephants along the Great Wall of China.

“Hey,” I say, smiling with just my mouth.

“Hey,” Max says back, smiling with even less of his, and I blink. I know things are awkward between us, but why is he being so cold? After all, he’s the one who broke my heart, and after all that, I’m the one standing here being nice to his girlfriend.

And that’s when I realize: He’s scared. When he first saw me in psych class and walked the other way. When he was cold to me on the quad. When he slammed his tray down in the cafeteria. And now, here, when he thinks I’m becoming friends with his girlfriend. Max hates uncertainty, and I make his world less certain.

And he has no idea how to handle it.

“Alice was cool enough to have me over before the party tonight to play a little dress-up,” Celeste says, brandishing her arm candy once more. “Cool, right? Oh my God, Max, you should see this house. And her grandmother’s closet. It’s like that store I love, Second Time Around, but better!”

“Nice,” Max says, raising his brows as his eyes bounce from Celeste to me, trying to look happy but still looking panicked.

“What’ll it be, Wolfe?” Oliver asks.

Max blinks. “Excuse me?” he asks Oliver.

“What do you want to drink?” Oliver replies slowly. “It’s not rocket science.”

“Oh,” Max says, swiping a hand through his hair. “I’ll just take a Coke. I have a game tomorrow.”

“Bo-ring,” Oliver says. Then he turns to a tall kid with dark brown hair who is leaning against the fridge. “Jonathan, one Coke.” He holds up a single finger, and Jonathan obediently opens it and begins rummaging inside.

“As long as it’s not diet,” Max and I say at the same time, before glancing at each other uncomfortably. Max would rather drink acid than drink Diet Coke.

Celeste laughs. “That’s so weird! How did you know Max only drinks regular?” she asks.

“I didn’t,” I say quickly. “I just want one, too.” I clear my throat. “Um, Jonathan, one more, please?” I call out, and Jonathan tosses two cans from the fridge.

Celeste pulls Max to her and wraps her arms around his waist, leaning her chin on his chest and looking up into his eyes like a baby deer. My stomach starts to churn, and I feel like I’m watching it all in slow motion, like a violent scene in a movie I just want to fast-forward through. I thought I could handle this. I thought I was angry enough at him to show up, maybe stay long enough just to make him feel awful. But Max is smiling down at Celeste, and now he is smiling with his eyes.

You’ve never been good at hiding how you feel, I hear Sophie say in the back of my mind. It shows on your face like turquoise eyeshadow.

The can of Coke is shaking in my hand, and I know I have to get out of here.

In the grand scheme of things, I would say I’d rather be almost anywhere in the world than in an elevator. The definition of claustrophobia has never made much sense to me, because that’s like saying it’s the space itself that bugs you. Small spaces don’t necessarily bug me as long as I have a way to get out of them. I would rather be in a small room with an open roof than in a stadium with the doors locked. I just don’t like to be in a spot that I have no control over getting out of. It goes against my natural composition or something. I need to run free.

So I am already preparing myself for a heart-fluttering ride back to the ground floor as the doors to Oliver’s elevator slide shut, when a hand reaches in between them. Max gets on, his eyes boring into me, as I resolve to glare straight ahead. The only problem with this plan is that the interior of the elevator is completely mirrored, so when the doors shut, a thousand versions of me just end up looking back at him anyway.

“I offered to make an ice run,” Max says, and then pauses. “Are you okay? I know how you feel about enclosed spaces.”

I ignore him.

“Alice . . .” he starts.

But I interrupt him. “Don’t.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Max sighs. “I was going to say, this is hard for me, too.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I reply. “I’m sorry it’s hard for you. But have you thought about how it actually feels for me? To watch you with her?”