Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(40)

They’re still kissing when I leave.





Chapter 16


I’M STARTING TO GET WHY RUTH WAS SURPRISINGLY NONCHALANT in the wake of Gardenpocalypse. The flowers are nice, but it’s the actual gardening part that’s cathartic. You’re basically brawling with dirt. I especially need to blow off steam because the BNFs—and other people in the fandom—are starting to write response fics about Gideon and Ashbot and Scarlett, which is simultaneously incredibly cool and more than a little weird. As I sweat it out in shitty dad-style jeans with my hair pulled up in a topknot, getting the November tulip bulbs started, I begin to feel a little better.

“So?”

“Yes?”

“Do you forgive him?” asks Ruth, her tone implying that I’m a complete idiot.

“What do you mean? You’re the one he apologized to.” The wind blows Ruth’s overpowering weed smoke toward me, and I cough. “God.”

“He’s obviously apologizing to you. He doesn’t know me from Adam.”

“I’m not the one he was making out with on the dance floor.”

“You could’ve been.”

“You mean if I’d just acted like everything was totally fine? Like you said, I don’t know how to be fake.” My raking becomes harder and more vicious. “And I learned my lesson. I’m never going to another dance again. Guest starring in one episode of The Young and the Vacant was enough for me.”

Maybe I had a sliver, like, a modicum of fun. But there’s no way I’d tell her that.

Ruth shakes her head. “You’re so angry all the time. Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m kidding. I mean, I won’t go to another dance, but I’m mostly joking.”

“That’s what’s angry, the jokes.”

I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my garden glove, exasperated.

“How about you try to analyze me when you’re not completely stoned.”

“Sure, make an appointment for the twelfth of never.”

I snort. Ruth picks up expressions—what she’d call, offensively, “street”—from Ave and me that she uses wrong half the time and dead-on perfectly the other half. I’m about to respond to her when I realize she’s looking past me, smiling. A voice pipes up from behind me.

“Scarlett?”

I turn. Gideon’s standing hesitantly at the edge of the garden, holding a potted orchid.

“Oh, wow.” He blinks. “Those are some serious Jerry Seinfeld pants.”

“Hello, Newman.”

“I was wondering if you’d mind if I, like, helped you.”

The surprise and weirdness of him being there makes me docile. I nod. “Okay.”

Ruth clears her throat.

“I think I’m gonna take a nap.”

Gideon looks straight at her and says supersincerely, “I’m really sorry I did this to your garden.”

“Thank you. You’re a nice boy,” she replies without her usual saltiness—instead, like a kindly grandma. Then she goes inside. Gideon points toward the door with a perplexed smile.

“Um, was she just smoking weed?”

“Yep.”

He nods, impressed, and says mildly, “Right on.”

“Your clothes are going to get dirty,” I warn him.

“That’s cool.”

“So . . . um, yeah.” I gesture to the tools stacked up against the side of the porch. “Grab a hoe.”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do,” he jokes.

“I figured. You’re kind of a rake.”

He nods seriously. “Good for you, calling a spade a spade.”

I laugh, surprised, then narrow my eyes and fake-glare suspiciously at him. He smiles back. We’re flirting, I think. It’s sort of a dogs-circling-each-other flirt. He seems to be sizing it up the same way I am.

Then he says, “A hot Jerry Seinfeld is what I meant.”

I might pass out. Instead I say, hopefully coolly: “Right. Obviously.”

I assign him one particular square of the garden, and we work in silence for a while. He starts sweating and takes his fleece off, underneath which is a white T-shirt that fits him perfectly, and I pretend not to notice.

“Remember that time you said I didn’t have friends?” he asks, his tone light and joking but a little wounded.

“I didn’t really mean it that way.”

“I know. But, like, how would you know if I even did? Besides them, I’m, um . . . I take classes in the city at this comedy place? Upright Citizens Brigade? That’s where my best friends are, really.”

My heart twists a little at his nervous uptalk.

“Yeah, of course. Avery and I try to go every few weeks. I’ve seen a lot of shows there.”

“Really?” He’s relieved and, judging by the sudden grin, delighted. “That’s cool! And, like . . . most of your friends are on the Internet, right?”

He doesn’t sound judgmental, just curious. Ashley must’ve told him.

“Um, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty creepy. But, yeah, some of them.”

“What do you talk about with them?”

“Lycanthrope High, obviously.”