The Way You Make Me Feel(22)

She tried to look nonchalant, but I saw her glance down at her phone again, agitated. “Um, yeah, I mean my mom was supposed to be here.”

“So you’re gonna wait here alone?”

“Aren’t you going to walk home alone?” she immediately countered. Her bravado would have been more convincing if she hadn’t checked her phone again.

I pulled my sweatshirt tighter around myself. “Yeah, but this is my neighborhood, I know how to deal.” I paused. “Plus, my dad makes me carry pepper spray.”

Rose pulled something out of her shorts pocket and held it up. Mace.

I laughed. “LA kids.”

“We know all varieties of pervs,” she said with a wry smile. I smiled back, and then we looked away from each other.

I could hear her take rapid shallow breaths again. And this time I wasn’t so sure if she was breathing like that to get control—it didn’t seem in her control at all.

“I’ll wait with you, then.” Before she could respond, I crouched low to the ground, my feet flat, my butt just an inch or so off the cement, pulling out my phone to avoid looking at her.

“How are you sitting like that?” Rose asked, bending over to look at my feet. “You’re using your ankles as a seat!” She tried to copy me, but when she reached a certain depth, she fell over, landing on her butt.

I tsked. “See, even though you can touch your head with your toes, only Koreans can do this squat. It’s called the kimchi squat for that reason.” Obviously, any human could do this squat, but I liked goading Rose.

She scoffed. “Give me a break. You’re making that up.”

“Try it again.”

Rose squatted down, but had to balance on the balls of her feet, so her butt was still a good foot off the ground rather than the near-hovering mine was doing. I could sense her concentration, her thighs strained in the awkward position.

“Ha! I’ve found the one thing Rose Carver can’t do.”

She stayed balanced. “We’ll see about that.” Looking down at her feet she said, “Also, it’s true, I really didn’t think you’d get suspended.”

I almost fell over. “Are you apologizing?”

She laughed, an unexpected response that further startled me. “No, actually I’m not. Hasn’t anyone told you that it’s annoying when girls apologize all the time?”

“Good one.”

“Also, don’t think I’m stupid. I know that’s why you’ve hated me and made my life as awful as possible since then,” she said.

I shrugged, still crouched. “You deserved it.”

“I admire your endurance.”

“Thanks.”

There were a few seconds of silence, a gusty wind kicking in. Rose steadied herself, and I looked at her. “That was only the first time I smoked, you know?”

That little wrinkle between her eyes showed up again, and she shook her head.

“This is lame, but I only did it because I decided I wanted to rebel.” I didn’t know why I was even saying this. It was like something needed to fill in the gap between being annoyed at someone for narcing and my relentless poking over the years. “A few weeks before that, my parents had this huge fight about me. As you’ve noticed, my parents aren’t together anymore. My mom travels a lot for her job, so my dad’s got sole custody.”

Rose nodded.

“Anyway, my mom wanted me to take a break from school to travel with her, and my dad flipped. I was really pissed. I wanted to be with my mom, but, I don’t know. I also knew it wasn’t right, really? Anyway. The smoking. It was something I could control.”

The wind made the trees around us creak. “I’m sorry, that sounds stressful,” Rose said after a few seconds, giving me a tiny smile. “I know I apologize a lot. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s considered a bad thing because it’s something girls do a lot. Maybe it’s actually something nice that keeps the world humane. It’s a gesture.”

Huh. I nodded. “Yeah. It’s not always bad. And … thanks, I guess.”

Headlights flooded the lot.

“Rosie! Sorry hon, Jessie’s snake went missing!” Rose’s mom yelled out the driver’s side window of the sleek luxury SUV.

Rose sprang up, graceful as ever even on the verge of falling over. “Oh my God, Pizza went missing?” she yelped. “Did you find him?”

Her mom’s hand fluttered out the window. “Kind of.”

Disturbing. I got up, too. “See ya.”

“Where are you going?” Rose asked.

I looked around. “Home?”

“We can give you a ride home,” she said stiffly, the headlights shining behind her, her figure a silhouette.

“I live six blocks away; it’s fine.”

She shrugged. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Uh, ominous much? I knew this walk, nothing would happen to me. As I skirted by the car, Mrs. Carver honked and I nearly flew out of my skin. Rose’s mom stuck her head out the window again. “Get your butt in this car, Clara!”

I scrambled over and hopped into the back seat.

*

My dad’s feet greeted me when I walked into the apartment—bare and propped up on the sofa arm. The rest of him was hidden under a fleece LA Galaxy blanket, his hands and phone sticking out. There was a lump near him that was, unmistakably, a comatose Flo.