Just One of the Guys(19)
Thirty seconds later, bing! You have one new message, GirlNextDoor. Yippee! I click immediately.
Chastity?
Oh, my God! Husbandmaterial knows me! Shit! Or is it good? Yes? I type back.
It’s Matt.
Clapping my hand over the shriek of laughter (or is it horror?) that bursts forth, I snatch up the phone, dial Matt’s cell. “Hello?” he chokes. I can barely wheeze back. “You’re disgusting,” he says. “Checking out your own brother. Gross.”
“You wrote first, pervert.” I wipe my eyes and try to control myself, but it’s no use. We laugh in mutual horror for a good two minutes. “You are to tell no one about this, Matthew.”
“Right back at you, Chastity,” he says, still laughing.
“I find it hard to believe that you have trouble meeting women, Matt,” I tell him when I’ve calmed down. “Oh, and you’re a ten, by the way. A six and a half? Come on! You look like Mel Gibson!”
“Ew.”
“Well, okay, not the drunken, sun-damaged mug shot Mel. Young, wholesome Mel. Road Warrior Mel. You’re a good-looking guy, Mattie.”
“Well, you know, it’s weird to fill out all that stuff,” he says. “I do meet plenty of women, but you know. Haven’t met the right one. I figured I could cut through some crap. This single thing’s getting old. I don’t want to live with my sister for the rest of my life. No offense, Chas.”
“None taken,” I say. “Well, I’ll keep my eye out for you. And you do the same for me, okay?”
“Sure. Not that I know anyone I’d actually fix you up with, Chas. All I know are firefighters, and you don’t want to end up like Mom, do you?”
“Mom has twenty-three hits on her profile, Matt. And she just registered an hour ago.”
“Jeez! I only got fourteen all day. How many did you get?”
“Once you upgrade that attractiveness level, you’ll have more,” I answer, craftily ignoring his question. “Gotta go. Elaina’s over and she just made dinner.”
“Don’t tell her about this! And save some food for me.”
“Okay. Talk to you later.” Checking once more to see if I got any more hits—I don’t—I sigh, my humor evaporating. I’ve been registered for forty minutes now. Mom had twenty-three hits in that time…I’ve had one, and it’s from a blood relative.
“Come on. Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Elaina says from the doorway. “Everything’s better after a quesadilla.”
I sign off the computer, and for the briefest second, I let myself recall Trevor’s voice. Then I shake my head and join my friend for dinner.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN TREVOR’S SISTER DIED, she and I were both ten years old.
Her family had moved to our town while I was in fourth grade. Michelle was a pale girl with pretty, dark hair. Being a well-dressed new kid had ensured her popularity, and for the first month, she was surrounded by admirers who wanted to hear all about the glamour of Springfield, Massachusetts, where she was from. When we were assigned to the same reading group, we chatted, found that we both wanted to be horse trainers when we grew up, and started eating lunch together. But a week or two later, she became sick—no one knew what she had, just that she was out. She came back after a few weeks, but only for a day or two.
When she’d missed more than a month of school, I went to see her, bringing some cookies that Mom had baked. She only lived three blocks away, and Mom allowed me go all by myself with strict instructions to call if I were going to stay more than a few minutes. I rang the bell, and Michelle’s big brother let me into the foyer. Over his shoulder, I could see someone lying on the couch, obscured by a puffy comforter.
“Is Michelle here?” I asked. “I’m her friend from school.”
“She’s kind of sick,” the brother said. “She can’t play right now.”
“Oh.” Blushing, I handed him the cookies. “Tell her Chastity said hello,” I said, scuffing my feet. The brother was a seventh-grader, and kind of, well, cute. I peeked again over his shoulder. Michelle lifted her hand. I waved back, not realizing that I would never see her again.
“Okay. Thanks for coming by, Chastity,” he said. “Thanks for the cookies, too.”
I learned later that Michelle’s leukemia was so virulent that her immune system couldn’t handle the risk of germs from outside visitors. While I missed her, it was more on the theoretical side—we hadn’t really had time to become good friends. My life continued on pretty much the same, basketball, homework, soccer, CCD. Then one night, months after she’d left school, my mom popped into my bedroom, her face unusually grim. “Say a prayer for Michelle Meade,” she told me. “She’s very sick.”
I obeyed, chanting the hot, fervent prayers of a child. “Please, please, please don’t let anything bad happen to Michelle! Please let her be okay. Please let her get better.”
She didn’t get better.
My mother let me stay home from school to go to the funeral, and I cried great gulping sobs as the small white coffin was wheeled down the church aisle. Her parents were limp and pale with grief, her brother standing thin and ignored between them, like something left at the lost and found. At the sight of him, the barefaced knowledge that a child could die, that I might lose Jack or Lucky or Mark or Matt the way that boy had lost his sister—that my brothers could lose me—made me almost hysterical. Mom carried me to the car, staggering a little—I was already nearly five feet tall—patting my back and murmuring. When she got behind the wheel, she wiped her eyes with shaking hands. “I love you so much, Chastity,” she said, her mouth wobbling. “I love you so, so much.”