Just Listen(25)

Chapter Five


Owen Armstrong looked like a giant, his hand enormous as it stretched toward me. Somehow I found myself extending my own back to him, and then he was folding his fingers over mine, pulling me to my feet. I stood steady for about a second before my head went light and woozy and I stumbled.

"Whoa," he said, reaching out to steady me. "Hold on. You better sit down."

He eased me back two steps, and I felt the building behind me, the bricks cool against my back. I slid down the wall slowly, until I was on the grass. From this new vantage point, he seemed even bigger.

Suddenly, he dropped his bag off his shoulder. It hit the ground with a clank, and then he was crouching down beside it, reaching in and digging around. I heard objects bumping against each other as they were moved and redistributed, and it occurred to me that maybe I should be concerned about this. Finally, his hand stopped digging, and he sat back, slightly. I braced myself as he worked his hand out of the bag, bit by bit, and came up with… a pack of Kleenex. A small one, bent and wrinkled, and he pressed them against his chest—which was enormous, oh my God—smoothing them out, before pulling one free and handing it to me. I took it the same way I'd taken his hand—in disbelief, and very carefully.

"You can have the whole pack," he said. "If you want."

"That's okay." My voice sounded hoarse. "One is fine." I pressed it to my mouth, taking a breath through it. He put the pack by my foot anyway. "Thank you," I said.

"No problem."

He sat down on the grass beside his bag. Because I'd gone to that review session at lunch, I hadn't seen him all day, but he looked pretty much the same as always: jeans, T-shirt fraying at the hem, thick-soled black wingtips, earphones. Up close— or closer—I could also see he had a few freckles, and that his eyes were green, not brown. I could hear voices rising up from the courtyard; they sounded like they were floating over our heads.

"So, um," he said, "are you okay?"

I nodded, the response instant. "Yeah," I said. "I just felt sick all of a sudden, I don't know…"

"I saw what happened," he said.

"Oh," I said. I felt my face flush. So much for trying to save face. "Yeah. That was… pretty bad."

He shrugged. "Could have been worse."

"You think?"

"Sure." His voice was not rumbly like I would have guessed, but instead low and even. Almost soft.

"You could have punched her."

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "I guess you're right."

"It's good you didn't, though. Wouldn't have been worth it."

"No?" I said, even though, truthfully, I hadn't even considered this.

"No. Not even if it felt good at the time," he said. "Trust me."

The weirdest thing of all was that I did. Trust him, that is. I looked down at the pack of tissues he'd given me, picking them up and taking out another one. Just as I did, I heard a buzzing from my bag. My phone.

I pulled it out, glancing at the caller ID. It was my mother, and I debated for a second whether I should pick up. I mean, it was weird enough to be sitting there with Owen without getting my mom involved.

Then again, it wasn't like I had that much to lose at this point, considering he'd already seen me vomit—twice, actually—and freak out in front of half the student body. We were kind of past formalities.

So I answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, honey!" Her voice was loud, so much so that I wondered if Owen could hear it. I pressed the phone closer to my ear. "How was your day?"

By now, I'd detected the nervous shrillness that crept into her cadence when she was worried but pretending not to be. "It was fine," I said. "I'm fine. What's up?"

"Well," she said, "Whitney's still at the mall. She found some great sales, but then she missed the early movie. And she really wanted to see it, so she called to say she was staying later."

I switched the phone to my other ear as there was a burst of voices around the side of the building.

Owen glanced over at them, but a second later they moved on. "So she's not coming to pick me up?"

"Well, no, as it turns out," she replied. Of course Whitney would push the limits the very first day she got her freedom. And of course my mother would say oh, yes, stay later, that's fine, but then completely freak out. "But I can come get you," she said now, "or maybe you could get a ride with one of your friends?"

One of my friends. Yeah, right. I shook my head, then ran a hand through my hair. "Mom," I said, trying to keep my voice even, "it's just that it's kind of late, and—"

"Oh, it's fine! I'll come get you right now!" she said. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She didn't want to come, and we both knew it. Whitney might call, or show up. Or, even worse, not show up. Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible.

"It's fine," I told her. "I'll get a ride."

"Are you sure?" she asked, but already, I could hear her relaxing, thinking that this problem, at least, was resolved.