The Best Laid Plans(55)

I TEXT HIM once I get home.

    I’m sorry. Friends?





He takes a while to answer, and when he does, it’s just one word.

    Friends





I can’t help but think back to the day after Danielle and Chase hooked up, when she told him they could still be friends. I don’t want to “still be friends” with Andrew after this. Not the fake way Danielle and Chase are.

I’m curious where he disappeared to, but I don’t want to ask. It hits me suddenly he might be with a girl. He might have gone to her to finish what we started. The thought makes my stomach turn, even though I know I have no right to be upset.

I text my parents too, to say I’m not feeling well and decided to come home. I hear their key in the lock later in the night, the hushed whispers that mean they’re trying not to wake me. My mom cracks open the door and I pretend to be asleep.

I spend all of Saturday on the couch, wallowing in my misery. Because my parents think I’m sick, they putter around me, trying to cheer me up with hot mugs of tea and plates of saltine crackers. And I do feel sick. Just not in the way they think.

I’ve been avoiding working on my final history project, so I decide to focus on that, spreading my books out on the coffee table and flipping through pages, but I can’t seem to get anything done. It’s hard to focus on school when I’ve already gotten into college and everything going on in my social life feels so much more immediate and combustible.

I try to read a chapter on the Fertile Crescent, words that sound oddly sexual and relevant to everything going on, and suddenly my mind is wandering over the events of last night, flashes of memory that make me light-headed.

I realize it’s useless and turn on House Hunters instead. There’s something comforting in the pointlessness of it; happy couples whose biggest problems are whether they can afford granite countertops or an extra bedroom for their cat.

I’m almost on hour four when I finally work up the courage to call Andrew. He doesn’t answer.

I set my phone down on the coffee table and turn back to the TV, trying to focus, but I keep looking back at it, willing it to vibrate. And then it does, just a quick burst, indicating a text message. I reach for it eagerly and feel a little deflated when I see that it’s from Dean, which is so completely backward.

    DEAN

You playing hard to get?





ME

What?





DEAN

You never called me back





I suck in a sharp breath. He’s right—I completely forgot he called last night, when I was still at Andrew’s house. I can’t believe I forgot to respond. I usually overanalyze our texts so much, but right now I don’t really care. It feels like there are more important things.

But maybe this is a good thing. Danielle said I should play hard to get anyway. Even though my first instinct is to apologize, I think about what Danielle would say.

    I was busy





I shut my eyes, clutching the phone in my hands but unable to look at it. He takes two commercial breaks to respond.

    Wanna get pizza?





So it worked. Of course it worked. Danielle is a master. I look at the clock and see it’s 5:30. I can’t believe I wasted the entire day on the couch. My clothes feel sticky and my hair is matted to my forehead. My stomach rumbles. I have to get out of the house. I have to do something, anything to take my mind off my misery. And being with James Dean sounds like the only thing that could fully distract me.

    ME

I always want to get pizza





DEAN

I can come pick you up





I text him my address and run upstairs to take a shower and pull on some clothes. My mom knocks on the door just as I’m zipping up my jeans.

“Feeling better?” Her eyes are soft with concern.

“Yeah.” I rummage through my closet and find my birthday sweater before remembering it’s covered in blue glaze. I push it away quickly so my mom won’t see.

“Are you going somewhere?” She walks farther into the room and reaches an arm up as if to stop me. “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

“I’m just getting pizza,” I say. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

“I could make you something here. We just picked up some fresh veggies from the farmers’ market.”

“It’s okay. I want to go out.”

She looks at me then, tilting her head and scrunching her nose. It’s the look that means she’s worried—a look that’s special for me, that I’ve never seen her direct toward anyone else.

“Just come home early,” she says with a sigh. “You need a good night’s sleep.”

Just a year ago, my mom would have insisted I stay in. But I know she’s thinking about next year—how there are only three months until I leave for California and then we’ll both be on our own. Three months until she and Dad won’t be there to care for me when I’m sick. I know she’s trying to prepare me for that; trying to prepare herself.

She reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Don’t stay out too late.”