Bright Before Sunrise(18)

There are so many answers to that last question: because I didn’t want to spend a night in a rented tux surrounded by snobs who probably own theirs, because then you’d see what a loser I am, because I already emptied my bank account to rent a limo for Hamilton’s prom after you hinted—“I hear all Cross Pointe girls get them; what do you think it’s like to ride in one?”

Carly can’t seem to grasp that just because Paul has a bottomless checkbook doesn’t mean I do. I have no clue how I’m going to pay for the post-graduation dinner she wants at La Fin, Cross Pointe’s most expensive restaurant.

But I won’t tell her any of these things. I can’t. Carly’s always asking for funny anecdotes about Cross Pointe excess so she can mock their superficiality. The last thing I want is for her to make a poor-little-rich-boy joke about me—or turn my new life into a punchline.

There’s nothing I can say, so I don’t say anything. A pattern that’s becoming too common with us lately. When she gets sick of waiting, she snaps, “What are you hiding?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She looks away and says quietly, “You think I don’t know what’s going on, but I do.”

I touch her face, trace the line of her cheekbone, and slide my hand to the back of her neck. “Carly, nothing is going on. Nothing’s going on in Cross Pointe tonight, and nothing’s going on with me.”

She grasps my hand and places it back in my lap.

I know I’m only going to antagonize her—bring out the famous Carly temper—but I can’t help it. “I don’t believe I drove all the way over here so you can play prove-you-love-me games.”

“Games?” Her eyes snap wide open. “I’m not the one playing games! Screw you, Jonah.”

Except, apparently, I’m not getting screwed tonight. I turn away and glare out the window.

Carly speaks first: “I think we should break up.”

“What?” I sit up so fast I hit my head on the roof of the car. “Why? Because I won’t take you to Cross Pointe? All right, let’s go. When we get there we can buy eight-dollar coffees at Bean Haven or try and have a civil conversation with Paul and my mom—it’ll probably be a fascinating discussion about something important like if the landscaper is cutting the lawn too short or their endless debate about whether Paul has enough support to run for a spot on the country club’s board of directors. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”

She shakes her hair out of her face and meets my eyes. A lock sticks in her gloppy lip gloss and she frowns as she extracts it and smoothes it behind her ears. She’s wearing large gold hoops, not the ruby studs I saved up to buy for her birthday.

“You’ve changed.”

“I haven’t,” I lie.

“Yes! Yes, you have. You’ve become another Cross Pointe snob and you treat me like I’m not good enough for you anymore.”

“That’s crap.”

“Oh, really? Convince me you’re my old Jonah. Tell me one thing that happened at school today—to you, not one of your classmates. Tell me one fact about your life.”

I look away. What good will come from me whining about how I eat lunch in the library because there’s no place for me at the cafeteria’s round tables? How it’s almost physically painful listening to the baseball players who sit near me in bio talk about organizing a father-son summer league? How my math teacher still calls me “Noah”? Or what about how the Empress of Cross Pointe graced me with a lesson on operating my locker?

“Please?” she says, leaning forward and putting a hand on my knee. “Just talk to me, Jonah. Please.”

I flip my hands palm up in a half shrug. I can either tell her I’m a loser, or I can lose her. “I figured out how to lock my locker.”

“You mean unlock,” she says with an eye roll, pulling away from me.

“No, lock.” I shift in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position where I can face her without the steering wheel impaled in my ribs. “See, in Cross Pointe the lockers—”

She waves a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t talk down to me.”

“What?”

“In Cross Pointe,” she mimics with an affected accent. “Please, Jonah, explain to me how lockers work, because since I’m not from Cross Pointe, I’m clearly not smart enough to know.”

“Forget it.” I’m shaking my head and we’re both sighing. Frustrated exhales that are the only sound in the car.

“So that’s it? That’s all you can come up with about your day?” It’s an accusation, but I’m not sure what I’m being accused of. And when I try to think of something to share, something that would make today stand out from every other day of invisibility and over-polite refusals to acknowledge my existence, I can’t.

“Let’s talk about something else. It was just a normal day—nothing happened.”

“Just because I don’t go to your fancy high school and I’m not headed to an Ivy League college doesn’t make me stupid—” I try to interrupt, but she’s on a roll. “And just because I can’t make out with you in the back of the Jag I got for my sixteenth birthday and seduce you with the perfect boobs I got for my seventeenth—or is it the other way around, Jonah? How do Cross Pointe snobs order their lives: cars or plastic surgery first?”