If I'm Being Honest(50)
“A girl has to do something to impress the boys who stay late to work on their video games,” I reply without thinking.
Brendan raises an eyebrow. I meet his gaze evenly. Flirting with Brendan just . . . happens, and it’s not worth fighting. It’s harmless. I know I like Andrew. I view flirting with Brendan as practice for him, for when he’s no longer unpopular—thanks to me—and he needs to know how to handle himself with girls drawn to his tall frame and defined jaw.
“Well, thank god you’re good at running,” he says. “Because before I saw this, I really felt bad for you. You’re thoroughly unimpressive otherwise.”
I shove him playfully. We round the corner, and a clash of colors catches my eye. On the bulletin board beside the door to the boys’ locker room, flyers posted on top of each other in explosive hues create an unexpected collage of lines and lettering. Intrigued, I pull my phone from my armband and take a picture.
Brendan follows when I continue in the direction of the girls’ locker room. “If I’m so unimpressive, then explain why you’ve hung out with me three times now,” I say, staring up at him challengingly.
“Wait, what was that?” Brendan asks, his brows coming together with curiosity. “Why did you take a picture of the bulletin board?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say haltingly. I didn’t expect he’d be interested. “I just thought the fonts and textures were cool. I sometimes draw inspiration from stuff like this when I design websites.”
“Websites?” Brendan’s eyes light up. We’re in front of the locker room now, but I don’t go in.
“Really, it’s boring,” I say. “I do web design as a hobby is all.”
Brendan looks at me with new interest. “Can I see one?”
I toe the concrete uncomfortably, my cheeks heating. I’m not used to sharing my design work outside my closest friends. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“God, Cameron,” he says, shaking his head. “Like I said. Thoroughly unimpressive.”
I laugh. The discomfort drains from me in an instant. “Hey,” I say, wringing my headband in my hands. “Thanks for coming to my race.” There’s obviously no way he knows what it meant to me, with my friends not here and everything. But he chose to come here with his extra time, without knowing if I’d even want to hang out with him. It means something. I don’t know what.
He shrugs. “You played my game.”
“Yeah, but that was fun. This was just a boring race.”
“Believe me,” Brendan says, “I wasn’t bored.” He heads back toward campus, leaving me chewing my lip, trying to stop the stupid smile spreading on my face.
Twenty-Four
THE BELL RINGS HALFWAY THROUGH ENGLISH ON Friday. Kowalski cuts off her exhilarating lecture on essay thesis statements and reluctantly instructs us to walk down to the gym for a pep rally.
I’m out of my seat immediately. Elle flew up to San Francisco for the day to film a collaboration video with a YouTuber she describes as frustratingly popular. While everyone begins to pack up and file out, I wait for Paige by the door. Andrew walks past me, dressed in his Beaumont soccer polo, his chest a little puffed up in a way he doesn’t try to hide.
“Don’t let the fact that the entire school is required to celebrate you go to your head,” I say to him. I meant the comment to come out flirtatiously, but there’s something empty in it. I don’t know if Andrew hears it.
He doesn’t seem to. “I won’t,” he says, smiling over his shoulder and leaving the room to a smattering of applause from the class.
Beaumont is generally terrible when it comes to sports. We have a student body of two hundred, and we don’t have athletic scholarships. We’re not exactly a powerhouse. The one exception is boys’ soccer. They went to the California championships last year, and while they didn’t win, they might as well have for how excited everyone was. They’re the only team on campus that inspires school spirit. To celebrate the kickoff of their season this year, the headmaster declared a school-wide pep rally.
Paige meets me in the doorway. We walk into the hallway together, joining the mob of everybody filing out of their fourth-period classrooms.
“Rocky this Sunday,” she reminds me. “You really don’t need help with your costume?” She holds open the hallway door.
I shake my head. “I’m good,” I say. “Have you, um, told everyone I’m coming?”
We file into the gym. It’s chaos, our two hundred classmates crammed into the echoing, high-ceilinged space. “Everyone loves you,” she reassures me. “It’ll be fine.”
I give her a look.
“Okay, Hannah hates you,” she corrects herself. “But it’s all worked out.”
We push toward two empty seats on an aisle near the front of the bleachers. The school settles in, the collective sound of a hundred conversations about college and Halloween and hallway gossip coming to a clamor. The cheerleaders form a line on the court, where the teachers and the soccer team sit. Andrew watches the crowd, his eyes bright. He looks better than ever. I find my gaze wandering to the bleachers, to everyone fighting for seats, before it comes to rest on a tall figure on the opposite end.