Always Never Yours(57)

I feel her laugh into my shoulder.



* * *





Madeleine and I take a detour to the bathroom so we don’t look like emotional wrecks when we get home. She’s a renowned ugly crier, a reputation earned amid the A-minus-in-AP-Euro debacle of sophomore year. I’m not faring much better, my mascara streaking black lines down my face like I’m in an emo music video.

We part ways in the hallway after we’ve put ourselves together. Walking back to the drama room, I run into Owen, who’s coming out the door in the opposite direction.

“Owen!” I say, surprised. “You’re still here.”

“Uh, yeah. You left your stuff in there.” He holds up my bag and jacket.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to wait for me.” I take my things from his outstretched hand. “You want to go get pizza? I was going to drop in on Anthony.”

“That depends.” Owen grins. “Do you have a tearful reconciliation with him scheduled for today, too?”

I laugh. “Nope, I got that one done a couple weeks ago.” We walk toward the front of the Arts Center, and I pull out my phone. “I’ll text Will. He should come, too. I know how much you love to watch us flirt.”

“It’s practically an extracurricular activity,” Owen returns, giving me a sideways glance. “I could probably put it on my college applications by now.”

I roll my eyes. When I begin typing the message, he reaches over and covers the screen with his hand.

“Please,” he says with mock desperation. “Call him. By the time he deciphers your mangled stream of abbreviations and dropped punctuation, we’ll be there.”

“Will understands me just fine,” I say indignantly, shoving him lightly. But the idea of getting Will on the phone does sound good. I hit the CALL icon, pointedly ignoring Owen’s triumphant smirk. It’s a couple rings before Will picks up.

“Oh. Hey, Megan?” Will’s voice sounds distracted.

“Hey. Owen and I are going to Verona. Meet us there in fifteen?” Owen holds the door for me, and we walk out into the quad.

“Now?” Will says in my ear. “I’m, um, kind of busy. I have to run some errands for set crew.”

“It’s seven at night, Will,” I say more softly.

“Yeah, we’re really behind.” I think I hear his voice take on a bit of a defensive edge.

I want to be the cool girlfriend who doesn’t mind stuff like this, who doesn’t blink when her boyfriend has other plans, who doesn’t overanalyze whether he’s avoiding her. But I can’t hide how much the brush-off deflates me. “You’ve been kind of busy a lot lately,” I hear myself say.

He exhales over the line. “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll do something this weekend,” he promises. “Once the showcase is over.”

I hear the sincerity in his tone, and the idea of a real date this weekend replaces my worry about his reluctance tonight. I glance at Owen walking beside me. “Okay. I’m going to make Owen help me come up with something awesome for us to do.”

Owen looks back at me, his eyes wide and horrified. “I am not helping Will get laid.”

I cover the mic on the bottom of my phone. “What about me?” I ask Owen, batting my eyes. “Will you help me get laid?” His ears redden, and he speeds into the parking lot a couple steps ahead of me.

“Huh?” Will’s voice pulls me back to the phone. “Uh. Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” I drop my phone into my bag and catch up to Owen. It’s night, and the parking lot’s single light casts the pavement in orange. “Meet you over there,” I half shout to him in the fog now rolling through the trees.

“Or you could give me a ride?” He’s stopped next to the light pole.

The moment he says it, I notice mine is the only car in the school lot. “Yeah, of course.” I remember the time I saw him walking to school and he refused the ride I offered him. “Do you walk every day?” I contemplate the distances. From Owen’s house to mine and mine to school . . . “Isn’t your house, like, four miles from here?” I open my car door.

He goes to the passenger door and gets in next to me. “Yeah, my mom usually needs the car. One of her jobs is on one end of town, the other on . . . the other.” He shrugs. “I do like the time to think. It’s why I don’t take the bus.”

Impressed and feeling very lucky for my old Volkswagen, I say nothing. We pull out of the parking lot and drive the rest of the way in silence. Past a certain time of day, the roads in Stillmont get eerily quiet. There aren’t many restaurants in town, and most people eat at home, which is why there’s not much of a dinner rush—and why we end up at places like Verona Pizza when we do dine out.

Shall I compare thee to a $4.99 breadsticks platter? reads the sign lit on a backdrop of the forest when we pull up.

Inside, Anthony catches sight of Owen and me and escorts us to one of the booths lining the far wall. We pass Eric wiping a table, and I tap Anthony on the shoulder from behind. “Hey, how’s—” I catch myself before I say his name. “Nope, not going to mention you-know-who.”

“Voldemort?” Owen asks, grinning unhelpfully.