Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(78)

About what his tattoo looks like, the mysterious one over his right shoulder blade. He never takes off his shirt in front of me, so I’ve never spotted it.

Or what it meant when he answered fallen for a friend as “sort of”—a two-word combination that he’s pointed out I use more than him.

We’ve both been sitting on these things. It’s been easier to live without the full meanings; though I realize we’re both curious about them. I’m just as interested in the reasoning behind the answer as much as Garrison.

It doesn’t mean I’m not scared to find out.

“Yeah?” I say, unsure of the direction he’s about to take us.

“In your questionnaire, you said that you didn’t like any of the guys at your school and that people wouldn’t either if they knew them.” He faces me. “Why?”

I frown. “Have you been thinking about this for that long?” I drop my mascara on my bed.

He shrugs. “On and off, I guess.” He turns his head like he’s staring at the wall. I squint, but I can’t make out anything else. “I didn’t want to ask back then. I didn’t want to pry or whatever. We were just getting to know one another. It’s different…now.”

We’re better friends.

I pat my bed for my glasses. I can apply mascara if I put my face really close up to the mirror, if you’re wondering. Garrison suddenly nudges my hand, my glasses in his clutch.

“Thanks.” I put them on, the world ten thousand times clearer.

I also notice his downturned lips and worry creases in the corners of his eyes.

“They’re just not the guys you would want to date,” I try to explain. “Nothing terrible. Just…not my type.”

He contemplates this and then rests his back against my dresser. “What’s your type?”

“Not douchebags or guys who’d make fun of me…that’s for sure.”

His brows jump. “Did someone make fun of you?”

I stare at my hands. “I was mostly invisible. I don’t even think they noticed that I left.”

“I’d notice,” he says, full of conviction, enough that I believe him.

“It’s okay. I didn’t want them to notice me anyway.”

“Because they’re not your type?”

“Exactly.” It makes sense in my head. I’ve explained it to Maggie before, and she understood. Maybe you have to be there. In that school. Around those people. In my shoes. To truly feel what I feel. I let out a tense breath and ask, “What’s your type?”

He shakes his head once. “I’m not sure.” His eyes flit all over my room. Every time he’s in here, he skims every item, every thing. Like the stuff propped on the back of my dresser: a copy of Understanding Comics, a Loki bobble head, ticket stubs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2.

I wonder what his room looks like, but he says that he’d rather be here, away from home. I once asked him why and he said, “My brothers are dicks. And they sometimes stop by the house so our maid can do their laundry.”

I didn’t pry further, and I never beg to see his place, even if it’s tempting to ask. He learns a little more about me when he steps foot in here. I don’t see more of him.

Garrison plucks one of my old photographs off the dresser. It’s of my thirteenth birthday at the mall, the photo taken right after I got my ears pierced for the first time. My mom is there, holding a tiny Ellie.

My dad couldn’t make it.

Work stuff, he said.

“You also wrote about your little sister’s birthday party.” Garrison rests the frame back. “Why couldn’t you go downstairs?” He sets his grave expression on me.

“It’s not what you think,” I say quickly, though I’m not sure exactly what he’s thinking. “It’s actually kind of funny.”

“I hope so.” He walks to my desk and sinks down in the chair. In all the times he’s been in my room, he won’t ever sit on my bed. Not once.

I’ve offered a couple times. Just to be nice. There’s not a lot of comfortable seating in this cramped space. But he always chooses either the desk chair or the floor.

“It was a princess party,” I start to explain. His brows knot the more I talk. “And Ellie wanted a real princess downstairs. She sees me as her kind of geeky older sister, so she asked if I could stay upstairs, and my mom hired another girl to be the elder princess.”

A long wave of silence passes.

“So you couldn’t go downstairs?” he asks like he’s still confused.

“I wasn’t…a princess…” I say slowly. “It makes more sense if you know my sister.” I push up my glasses and stretch my mind to that vivid memory. “She took the theme of her party really seriously.”

“Sounds like she was channeling a character from Cinderella.”

I smile weakly. “She’s six-years-old. She doesn’t know any better.”

“What about your mom? Does she know better?”

A sharp pang punctures my heart. I must wear a pained expression because he says, “Sorry”—and I shake my head like it’s alright.

I haven’t talked to my mom as much as I would like. Our conversations are so stilted anyway. She won’t open up to me. She just says, it’s not your place. You’re the child. It’s about us—doesn’t she realize this?