Love Songs & Other Lies(6)
Her eyes are trained on the gooey yellow mess in the pan. “Sunday morning. He’s staying for a meeting on Saturday.” She’s trying not to sound irritated, but I can see it all over her face. Mom has these tiny little wrinkles around her eyes that pinch together when she’s frustrated.
Monday through Friday my dad works in Chicago. He lives in a tiny condo outside the city and commutes to his law firm every day. Two years ago—when my parents’ arguing escalated to new heights—they sold our house by the beach. The house I grew up in. Mom started working again, and Dad took a job at a big firm in the city. He traded time with his family for a bigger paycheck. And we don’t actually talk about it, because any mention of Dad’s strange living situation means Mom’s eyes start to burrow into their wrinkly sockets. Without my dad here the arguing has stopped, but so has any semblance of what our family used to be.
*
I finally drive myself to school. Logan must be dead in a ditch. Or dying of some sort of brain-eating disease that you get from sharing a shower with too many dirty guys after gym class. No one misses the first day of school. That’s insanity. And more to the point, Logan doesn’t miss out on a chance to eat donuts. Boys are lucky like that, with their eat-whatever-they-want metabolisms and baggy clothes.
I’m sitting in the third row of Mr. Flanagan’s first-period Calc class, eyeing the clock as I drum my fingers across the shiny black desk.
Situations like this—sitting in class and wondering if Logan has decided to hate me after all—is why we never should have tried the whole friends-with-benefits thing. Because even though it only lasted for two months over the summer, and started and ended mutually (mostly), I still find myself wondering if things have changed. If Logan’s sarcastically biting comments are actually sarcastic, or if he means it now when he says, “You’re a cold bitch sometimes, Vee.” Because he’s said that to me jokingly a hundred times before, but suddenly it feels personal. I feel weird mentioning other guys. Is it cruel? Does he even care? He never seemed to before, but now I don’t know. Being paranoid sucks. Two months of make-out sessions were totally not worth the stress and second-guessing that have followed.
When I called things off, I told him I didn’t want a relationship. Which is sort of true. My parents were high school sweethearts. Mom followed Dad to college, and they couldn’t afford law school and nursing school, so Mom worked while Dad finished. She supported him. When he was done it was supposed to be her turn, but by then I’d come around. Now Dad’s a big-shot lawyer in the city and Mom’s working a job with shitty hours. She finished nursing school last year after Dad moved. On her own. Mom’s told me their epic love story over the years, but I’ve read between the lines, and had front-row seats to the live production version. You put your dreams on hold for him and look what it got you. But when I told Logan I didn’t want a relationship, mostly I just panicked. I didn’t want a relationship with him and didn’t know how to say it.
It’s three minutes until the bell signals the start of my senior year, and I’m still donut-less and down a friend. For the record, I would never voluntarily show up last minute on the first day of school. I love camping out in the hallway, catching up on summer gossip, checking out the carefully chosen outfits. The hallways squeak with new shoes and the classrooms smell like fresh denim. If it were up to Logan, we’d always slide in just as the bell rang. He and I are opposites in almost every way. And it’s not that he’s this super-popular jock-musician and I’m some kind of social zero. He is—but I’m not. I’m not a cheerleader or a star athlete, but I’m nice to everybody.
When I was a kid, I had all my birthday parties on our private beach—back when we had a private beach—and I invited everyone in my class. Not because my parents made me—I just wanted them to like me. I’m easy to get along with and I think—even though I don’t have a beach house anymore—most people still like me. I don’t trash-talk and I’m not about drama. You’d be surprised how far that gets you in a small town. It helps that most of my friends are guys.
So Logan and I are on pretty even footing socially. We’re just different in every other imaginable way. With his sarcastic comments and sometimes painful brand of honesty, Logan’s one of those “love him or hate him” kind of people.
The thing about Logan is that when he does let you in—when he chooses you—it feels amazing. Like one of those bumping electronic songs that makes your chest feel like it might explode, as the pitch goes higher and higher, threatening to shatter your car windows. We were sharing a bus seat in third grade when Logan chose me. And I’m sitting in first-period Calc, at 7:54 on the first day of my senior year, when he walks in. Finally, my nerves begin to settle—until I notice the giant box of donuts he’s holding in one hand.
On a scale of one to ten, I’d rate my anger a very respectable seven. The usual first day of school chatter is white noise around me. All I can focus on is the burning heat behind my eyes as I stare imaginary laser beams through the back of Logan’s head. I’d like to mentally decapitate him, because Donut Day is supposed to be our thing, and he promised me nothing would change.
With only seventy students in the entire senior class, the upper-level classes are always tiny, and Mr. Flanagan doesn’t even bother with a roll call. There are twelve of us, and after checking down the list of names and visually surveying each of us, he says just one name.