Shuffle, Repeat(69)

“Sorry. I was just really busy yesterday.” It’s transparent and flimsy and awful, but it’s all I’ve got. I feel exhausted, but like the exhaustion is happening in my brain instead of my body.

Apparently I’m not hiding it well, because Oliver leans toward me. “June, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to think about how he kissed me, and how I kissed him back, and how everything was perfect and held such promise. I know—I know—that it doesn’t matter, that none of this matters, that promises break and people lie and we’re all going to be moving on to other places.

And I know that when I’m in that other place, Oliver’s not going to be there.

“You deleted your account on Mythteries,” he says, and I shrug, because that’s an easy one to answer.

“I was spending too much time on it.”

A look of relief washes over Oliver’s face. “I was worried you didn’t have wireless anymore or something.”

Heat rises inside me, a mixture of embarrassment and anger and memories I want to erase. “Like we didn’t pay our bill? Like we got cut off?”

“No!” It pops out of Oliver’s mouth too loudly, and I hear a shush from across the library. Oliver lowers his voice. “I just meant it was weird, that’s all.” He swallows, leans in—“June, let’s talk about it”—and I jerk to my feet.

“I have to go.”

Oliver stands, too. He clasps his hand around my elbow, but gently, like he could break my bones.

Or my heart.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me. “I should have asked before I kissed you. But with the lime and everything, I thought it was clear. I thought you wanted to—”

“I did,” I say, but only because I’m aching at the thought of Oliver thinking I didn’t want it to happen when I was the one who led him outside, who pretended to put a lime between my teeth, who tilted my head. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, I wanted to do it. Tequila and starlight are a powerful combination.”

“Tequila and starlight,” Oliver repeats. He stares into my eyes, searching for answers I can’t give him. “How much tequila did you have before I got there?”

“I lost track,” I lie. “And then you arrived and everyone’s emotions were running high.”

Now Oliver looks annoyed. “Are you talking about the thing with Theo? I told you I don’t care about him and Ainsley. It wasn’t about that.”

I make a gesture of dismissal. “I meant the end of the year approaching. Teetering on the precipice of real life, adulthood, everyone leaving. It’s like the days are turning sepia-toned all around us.”

“You’re saying it was nostalgia.”

“Nothing has to change. In fact, I should be thanking you.”

“For what.” The way it comes out of his mouth is flat, not a question. He’s angry. Or hurt.

Or both.

“For Nico Vega,” I tell him.

“Who?”

“?‘Bang Bang.’ It’s a new song for our playlist.”

“A song.” Oliver crosses his arms. “You want a song. You think you get a win because of Saturday night.”

“Of course. High school life means that even though you can mess around with the girl you drive to school”—I pause, because it’s so hard to say, and yet it’s so true that it must be said—“it doesn’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.”

And that should be it. That should put an end to all of it. All this investment, all these damn feelings—this should be enough to put them on a shelf and shove them away.

But Oliver is an athlete. He’s used to pushing through the defense, to tackling in the final five, to several other football metaphors I don’t understand. Even in the last minute of the game, Oliver doesn’t give up.

And this is definitely the last minute of the game.

“That is bullshit.” He stabs his finger at me, and the circles around his irises go coal black. “You’re a coward. All this crap about how nothing this year matters, it’s an excuse.”

The fire inside me flames brighter, threatening to burn me alive. I picture my ashes dancing up and away in a giant black cloud of pain.

“You don’t care about anything.” Oliver raises his voice and I tense to meet his anger. “Not about traditions, not about memories, not even about the people who like you the most. That’s your problem. It’s not that you think high school doesn’t matter. It’s that you think nothing matters!”

“Which is way better than thinking that every tiny, stupid moment has to matter!” The vitriol explodes from me and I can’t do anything to stop it. “God, you can’t blow your nose without adding the tissue to your mental yearbook. Every move you make is the Most Important Thing!” Somewhere in the back of my fire-scorched brain, I clock the librarian—Miss Emily—standing up from her desk and moving toward us. But I don’t care. Oliver thinks I don’t care about anything anyway. “It doesn’t count, Oliver!”

“What the hell does that mean?” He glares at me, his muscles tightening, the tendons in his neck rising.