The Best Laid Plans(68)
Andrew and I had been sitting together in the back of the bus when it pulled up to a new stop and Danielle got on. With a school as small as ours, new kids could never slip by unnoticed; they were an event, one of the few exciting things that ever happened. She hadn’t looked nervous, hadn’t shuffled around looking for a place to sit. Instead she’d walked up the steps, skinny legs under a bright turquoise skirt, hands looped through the straps of a fire-engine-red backpack, and twirled. I was fascinated—who was this girl who looked like she’d come off the set of some Disney Channel movie, whose clothes were as bright and bold as she was—who looked like she wanted to stand out, wanted attention the way I had always wanted to blend in? Danielle became the sun around which all of us rotated, and she’d done it within thirty seconds of stepping onto the school bus on that first day. But just like the sun, we could never get too close, could never stare too long or we’d get burned. Because Danielle could burn. That hadn’t taken long to figure out.
Maybe Andrew had noticed her even then, had been fascinated by her like I had, but in a different way. Maybe he’s been drawn to her sunlight for years, has always been rotating in her orbit.
“Of course they know each other,” I repeat to Hannah.
“No,” Hannah says, her voice insistent. “They don’t. They only know, like . . . the polished versions of each other. But that’s not really knowing someone. Party Andrew isn’t really Andrew—you know that. You guys know each other without the bullshit. What Andrew and Danielle have is all bullshit.”
“But isn’t that what keeps it exciting?” I ask. “The not knowing?”
“Maybe it’s exciting, at first,” she says. “It’s the thrill of the chase, the thrill that someone might like you back. Getting that attention from someone is a rush. But that’s not love. Love is when your weirdness matches up with someone else’s weirdness. When you’re comfortable being exactly you.” One of her hands falls to her neck, to the spot where Charlie’s necklace used to be, and she drums her fingers softly, absently, against the hollow of her throat.
“Yeah,” I say, turning back to the mirror. I feel weirdly like I might cry, which makes no sense at all. I take some deep breaths, turning away from Hannah so she can’t see. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
“Are you getting that dress?” Hannah asks. “You look amazing. What’s Dean wearing?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer. “We haven’t talked about it.”
The dress feels important all of a sudden, something I need to get right so that the rest of my night with Dean goes the right way too. But how am I supposed to know what Dean wants? I don’t even know his favorite color.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING at school, I spend most of my energy Not Looking at Andrew, which is next to impossible because he seems to be everywhere. I’ve never noticed how much of my day I usually spend with him, how I’m always aware of him in my peripheral vision the way I’m aware of my feet and hands and nose.
Now I’m aware of his presence in a different way. Every time he comes into a room, I can feel myself tense, like the wires inside of me have been pulled tight and electric. When he walks into study hall and sits down at my table, I flinch. I force myself to look up at him and try to smile. I can be a normal, functioning human. I have to be, if I want my friend back.
“Hey,” I say, tapping my pen against the top of my desk.
“Hey,” he says back. He’s wearing a dark green shirt that brings out the green in his eyes, and I shake my head, feeling stupid for noticing his eyes at all. Friends don’t notice the color of their friends’ eyes. Especially not the eyes of friends who are in love with Danielle Oliver.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” he asks.
“It was fine,” I answer.
“I’m so tired.”
“Monday sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Great, now we’re talking like strangers.
Every time I look at him, the events of the weekend come tumbling back to me: the feel of his lips against mine, the condom in his hand, Danielle’s fingers running through his hair at dinner, Danielle smirking at him, pouting her lips. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle.
He loves her. Right now, slumped at his desk and complaining about Mondays, he loves her. He’ll love her when he raises his hand for attendance, when he walks down the hall on the way to lunch. It’s a constant—an underlying buzz that will never go away. Danielle is part of him now. Isn’t that what love is? Another person attaching themselves to your brain, eating away at your heart, your soul, consuming you entirely? Love is just a parasite.
I realize I’m staring at him and I look quickly away, pretending to rummage through my bag so I look busy. He turns away from me and starts drumming his pencil against the top of his desk.
I’m worried Danielle is going to turn him into Party Andrew forever, that she’ll take the parts of him that make him unique and interesting and wonderful and ruin them, that she’ll flatten him under her power. But I have to accept it. I have to let them be together if that’s what he wants. It’s just going to take a little while to get used to.
* * *