#famous(63)

By lunch, at least a dozen people I’d never spoken to had addressed me by name—like they’d actually known it two days ago—and told me how good I was on TV, or how happy they were for me, or how excited they were for Wednesday’s segment. One of them was even on the Wolfettes with Emma (she was only a sophomore, so she probably didn’t realize she was supposed to hate me).

In Creative Writing Kyle and Ollie talked to me for a couple of minutes before the bell rang, and whenever I’d glance back at Kyle’s desk, he’d be looking at me hard, eyes narrowed, like I was something he needed to sear into his memory. I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Kyle’s optimism was like mono, and you caught it through kissing.

I wanted to text him after school, but I didn’t. There was something kind of delicious about waiting.

The next day things were almost embarrassing. Random people smiled at me in the halls or waved hello. Alisa Gutierrez and Rosemary Montague sat down with Mo, Mark, Britta, and me at lunch, and we had to try to talk to them, even though they were basically strangers. Mo and I “remembered” a book we’d left in her car toward the end just so we could escape to the parking lot.

I sat-leaned on the bumper of Mo’s car, staring at the school.

“So . . . Alisa and Rosemary, huh?” I smirked. Both girls were on cheer squad, which everyone knew was Wolfettes for wannabes. Alisa talked superfast, staring up over your head and pulling on a strand of straightened, bleached hair while she went on about stuff that was way more personal than you wanted to hear. Rosemary had this laugh like a donkey braying. And apparently she thought Alisa was fricking hilarious.

“If this is what it’s like to be popular, I’m starting to understand why so many popular girls are meeean.” Mo rolled her eyes. The entire meal she’d been squeezing my knee when things got extra annoying. “If they try to sit with us again, I’m faking a wasting disease. Something contagious.”

I grinned. They were annoying, Mo was right, but they were harmless. And it was nice to have people like me this much. Embarrassing and awkward—they definitely couldn’t keep sitting with us—but thrilling too. I’d never been someone people wanted to rub off on them before.

Someone emerged from the door between the middle school and the high school, walking fast. It was a girl with dark curly hair, her head down. It wasn’t until she was almost across from us that I recognized her.

Oh Jesus, this was going to be awkward. Better to say something than nothing, though.

“Hey, Emma.” I waved a little, trying to smile as pleasantly as I could. She clearly wasn’t a fan of Kyle taking me to homecoming, but she’d been so nice that first day. The only person who had been, actually. It made me feel super guilty, suddenly, about the kiss. They weren’t together, right? I tried to focus on keeping the smile as normal as possible, even though my stomach suddenly felt snake-pitty.

She stared, recognition flitting across her face for just a second, then disappearing as her eyes narrowed and her dark eyebrows lowered, like thunderclouds coming down over a sunny day. She nodded at me once and kept walking toward the woods even faster, not looking back.

“See what I’m saying?” Mo pointed her foot a few times in the air, miming dance steps. “Mean.”

“This can’t be easy for her,” I murmured as we headed in for fifth hour.

Kyle slipped into his seat right before class started, and I couldn’t seem to catch his eye all period. He kept frowning at his handout like it was an incredibly difficult puzzle he wanted to murder. When Mr. Jenkins was writing on the board, I slipped my phone out.

(To Kyle): Everything okay? You seem . . . intense.



I pressed send and looked back at him. He pulled out his phone, frowned, glanced at me, then pasted on an obviously fake smile, pointing at the handout like it was the problem. He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Okay, that was weird. I swallowed hard. My throat felt tight, like it was getting stuck on itself.

But he didn’t text anything back, so I tried not to worry about it too much.

I waited for about ten minutes after school, putting on eyeliner in the bathroom mirror, then rubbing it off, since I couldn’t seem to make it not look like some cartoon goth—how did other girls do this without looking like idiots?—before heading to my car. I didn’t want to seem too eager; it might make him realize that I was a ridiculous puppy dog, not a legitimate option. Plus, it would be super embarrassing to get to his house before he did.

The text came in just as I was pulling out of the school parking lot.

(From Kyle): Can we rain-check tonight? Something came up. I’ll text later.



I skidded the car to a stop, staring at my phone incredulously, before I realized that I was in the middle of the street in front of our school, and frankly lucky that no one had rear-ended me. I pulled off to the side.

Had he known before that he was going to cancel? He’d been so weird in Creative Writing, I should have known something was really wrong then. But why would he wait until now to tell me? Unless, of course, he didn’t give a rat’s ass how I felt about it. Stomach revolting, throat feeling like someone was sucking all the air out of it until it went flat, I forced my thumbs to type out:

(To Kyle): Sure, no worries. Talk to you soon.



Then I texted Mo to come over, SOS.