#famous(21)
KYLE
WEDNESDAY, 3:25 P.M.
“Kyle, wait up.” I was halfway across the parking lot when I heard Emma’s voice behind me.
I’d made up some confusion about the subjunctive tense so I could talk to Se?ora long enough for the halls to clear out. Apparently I hadn’t waited long enough.
I still felt . . . not bad, or angry, more like tense about the run-in with Lamont. Uncomfortable, like it was something stuck between my teeth.
I stopped to let Emma catch up, trying not to focus on the tension knots forming in my shoulders. After last night’s blow-up, I couldn’t help dreading what she had to say. We hadn’t seen each other since second-hour Econ, and she hadn’t looked at me that entire class. Message received. She jogged the last few steps, shiny brown curls bouncing against her pale cheeks.
“Hey, Emma,” I said cautiously.
But she didn’t look pissed now. She looked . . . like Emma. Eyes sparkling with some secret joke, the girl you’d see across a room and want to meet. I tried to ignore the part of me that just wanted to grab her and throw her on the hood of my car. Dude, focus. You and Emma: not even together anymore.
“I was hoping I’d catch you. I wasn’t sure if you were staying after, or if you’d left early for work . . .” Emma smiled slightly, almost like she was shy of me.
Jeez, did she know how hot that was? I couldn’t figure Emma out on good days. Emma today: might as well have been in Japanese. Was she trying to get something out of me too? Or did she just feel as awkward as I did, like we’d never met, never dated, never . . . dude, focus.
“Yeah, no,” I choked out, barely keeping my voice from breaking like some pimply thirteen-year-old. My cheeks went hot. Like Emma could see what I’d been thinking about? Get it together, Bonham. “I’m not scheduled for the rest of the week.” Actually, Jim’s text had implied I might not be scheduled for the rest of ever if this didn’t blow over.
“That’s cool.” Emma looked at the ground. She was pushing her feet up and down in some kind of ballet move. “I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”
“Why?”
Emma smirked.
“I wanted to talk to you, obviously. About last night.”
“Oh. About that . . .” I searched for the right words. How could I explain how surreal things had felt in that moment, like the volume had been turned up too loud and my whole body was made of nerves? Would that sound like I was making excuses, or—
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
Emma rolled her eyes and bent a little farther over her feet.
“I wasn’t really mad at you, and I wasn’t very understanding, I guess. Of how weird this must be, I mean.”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, why are you sorry? I was the one acting like a jerk.”
Emma looked up at me, eyes grateful.
“We can both be sorry, then. Or we can both be jerks.”
“Okay.” I wondered what had changed her mind since lunch. I almost asked, but it felt too lucky that this was even happening; I didn’t want to mess it up.
“Anyway, if you’re not doing anything tonight, it’s just me and Nathan holding down the fort. Surprise, surprise.” Emma rolled her eyes.
“I would, but I think my mom wants me home. She called during Creati— um, during fifth hour.” References to Rachel: possibly still land-mined. Besides, I didn’t want to tell Emma about our encounter after class. It felt unfinished. “She was kinda freaking out. Which makes sense. I’m still kinda freaking out.”
Emma laughed.
“That’s cool. Maybe call me later, then.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
I wasn’t sure what to do next, wasn’t sure where this left us, but Emma put her hands on my shoulders, stretched up on tiptoe, and kissed me softly at the side of the mouth. Just as I was leaning into it she pulled away, smiled, and dashed off toward her car.
I would never understand girls.
chapter thirteen
RACHEL
WEDNESDAY, 4:15 P.M.
“I think you’re making the wrong decision.”
Monique leaned over from where she was sitting—at the rickety, scuffed antique desk Mom bought me in the fourth grade—to reach the box of cupcakes she’d put on my equally rickety, spindly-legged nightstand. They were her way of saying sorry for being so pushy at lunch. Monique wasn’t big on apologies—in fact, I don’t think I’d ever heard a “sorry” from her that didn’t have a “but” right behind—but she was good at knowing when to do something like show up unexpected, bearing cupcakes.
Her long, slim fingers circled slowly over the box for a few seconds, conjuring mysteries from the depths of the glossy white cardboard. Then, with a darting movement, like a snake attacking prey, she plucked out a red velvet with a half-baseball-sized mountain of cream cheese frosting.
“Fine. Give me one of your pro/cons for why I shouldn’t delete my Flit account,” I said. I was sprawled out on the bed, head facing the bottom, so I wouldn’t be able to reach the cupcakes easily. I really, really wanted one. Maybe three—they were from Sweet Tooth, the chichi bakery tucked into a half-sized storefront in Apple Prairie’s “downtown” area. But I still couldn’t get all the “fat” comments out of my head.