From the Jump(85)
“I didn’t mean to tell her,” I say in a desperate rush. “I was just trying to defend you. She was so mad that morning she caught us coming out of your room together, and she was saying that you couldn’t possibly care about me or anything else because you’ve never had to work for anything. I just wanted her to understand that she was wrong.”
Deiss nods slowly, all traces of hurt carefully wiped away. “Got it.”
“You do?” I take a step toward him.
“Sure,” he says. “It was about you.”
My heart speeds up, even though I don’t understand. “What?”
“You couldn’t let Simone think I wasn’t serious about you,” he says, “even though I’ve made it perfectly clear to you that I was.”
The back of my neck has grown slick with sweat. His words hold no heat of anger or accusation. In fact, they’re said gently, with understanding. But there’s something in his eyes, a distance in the way his chin has tilted, and he’s begun to speak in past tense.
“I . . .” I trail off, unable to defend myself. Maybe he’s right. Maybe, for all the effort I’ve made, I’m still the same girl, desperate to be seen as perfect.
“Are you guys boning?” Mac bellows the question, an elated grin on his face. If we didn’t already have the attention of the entire store, we have it now. He claps delightedly, and I can’t determine if he’s applauding our relationship or his brilliance in figuring it out. “You’re arguing like two people who are totally boning.”
The tweens giggle and duck their heads in unison, their fingers flying over the keyboards of their phones.
“Simone thinks so,” Deiss says with a placid smile. “That’s why she wanted to hurt me. Right, Simone?”
Simone straightens, her mouth twisting. But then her face crumples and her shoulders slump. “I tried to stop you from serving alcohol. Once I read the article, I got worried someone would show up to catch you.”
“The article you told them to write?” Once again, Deiss’s words are cool with understanding.
Simone shakes her head no, but the guilt in her face is unmistakable. “I was just venting, Deiss. I should’ve specified that it was off the record. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Deiss says. “I really wanted to believe friendships last forever. It sucks that you had to prove me wrong.”
“You don’t mean that,” I say.
Deiss doesn’t bother responding. We all know he’s never said anything he didn’t mean. It’s exactly the reason I shouldn’t have blown his secret to convince Simone—and, I might as well face it, myself—that he cared about me. I should have trusted him the way he trusted me.
“I should go.” Simone eyes Deiss pathetically.
Deiss lifts his chin in response, a silent agreement.
The crowd parts, leaving an open path to the door, where Mia has appeared to hold it open. Her mohawk tips are orangey-red tonight, like glowing embers, and the heat in her eyes as she looks past Simone says she’d gladly use them to set me on fire. Whatever unlikely friendship we might have forged over the last two weeks has disappeared as easily as Simone and Deiss’s.
She pushes the door shut behind Simone and turns to face the crowd, her fists pressed against her hips. “The concert starts now,” she shouts. “If you’re not downstairs in two minutes, you’re getting kicked out.”
The crowd around us surges, hurrying toward the stairs. We’ve warmed them up with our preshow and now they’re hyped and ready for the main act. I’ve never aspired to entertain the masses, and now I understand why Deiss spent ten years in hiding to escape the spotlight. It’s terrible. I feel peeled bare and raw, and I wish I could hide in a tiny ball and forget every second of what’s just happened.
Mia follows behind the crowd, ushering them like a rabid sheepdog. When she reaches Deiss, she pauses. “I’ll get money from everyone downstairs,” she assures him before glowering at the tweens. They’re the only ones who have made no effort to follow her directive. “You think your friends will be impressed by a selfie? Wait until they hear you saw Brendan Davis’s favorite band play live.”
Their eyes widen, and the shrieking begins again as they rush toward the door in a single unit.
“Under-eighteens pay double,” Mia hollers after them. She shoots me one last glare before she stalks off to empty everyone’s pockets.
My eyes skitter across the room as it empties out, avoiding the people I love most. I can’t face any of them. Not Deiss’s detached acceptance of the situation and my part in it. Not Phoebe’s hurt realization that we’ve been keeping secrets from her. Not even Mac’s inappropriate enthusiasm for our sex life. The temperature of the room drops with the disappearance of so many bodies, and I shiver as I move to reinsert a record someone has left sitting on top of a bin. Through the front windows, the night sky is black.
“So,” Phoebe says, her voice abnormally high, “am I to understand that, after all these years, I still don’t know your real name?”
Deiss puts a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off. “Of course not, Phoebes. I’ve never lied to you. Brendan Davis is just a stage name. It’s made up, exactly like the character I played. You’ve always known the real me.”