Tell Me Three Things(44)
“Huh?”
Does he not notice that every girl in school lusts after him? That people actually line up to talk to him?
“Come on, it’s like you have a harem at lunchtime.” Again, I say too much. Seriously, I need lessons on how to flirt.
“Nah. That has nothing to do with me. It’s because of…Never mind. Long story.”
I want to say something like I have time, but I see how he is, that things are pretty straightforward: When he wants to talk, he talks. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. I don’t know him well enough yet to push.
“Who writes your lyrics?” What I really want to know is who wrote “The Girl No One Knows,” but I don’t want to admit to knowing Oville’s entire playlist. Dri sent me all of their songs, but I keep listening to that one on repeat, my tally now so high I’d die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw it. At the store, Liam only sang the chorus, which is simple and catchy and misleading because the rest of the song is something altogether different. Brooding, beautiful, desperate.
A poem, really. An elegy.
“Depends on the song. Me, usually. Some Liam. Oh, and this guy Caleb, who’s not actually in the band but hangs around and pitches in.” My head shoots up. Caleb? Did he write “The Girl No One Knows”? If so, then it all makes sense. SN is the type to write song lyrics, haunting, melancholy ones, but not the type to get up onstage and sing them out loud. In front of people.
“Caleb’s the tall guy, right?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Not really. Sort of. Met him the other day at work.”
“Yeah, he and Liam are tight.” I guess Ethan knows I work at Liam’s mom’s store. I must have told him last week when I mentioned knowing Liam. Or did Liam mention it? Oh shit. Have they talked about me? My palms start to sweat: I picture Ethan and Liam laughing about how I made it seem like Liam and I are close friends.
Is that why Gem called me a skank? Does everyone think I’m obsessed with Liam? Does Liam? Does Ethan? Does Caleb?
“You think I’ll ever figure this school out?” I ask Ethan. It’s frustrating how everyone knows each other. My closest friend here is SN—or should I just call him Caleb?—and our relationship consists solely of text messages. I need to hire Dri to give me a full background on everyone so I can stop stepping in it.
“Nope,” Ethan says. “I haven’t, and I’ve been here since kindergarten. But you know what I did figure out?”
“What?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. Not even a little bit.”
“Really?” I now stir my latte, which is finished, which means I’m stirring an empty cup. I need to keep my hands busy. The desire to touch Ethan’s hair, even his hands, has become borderline uncontrollable. I want to bite his earlobe, which looks like it once housed an ill-advised earring. I want to ask him how he can run so hot and so cold, how right now he can be so reassuring, almost a real friend, and at the party, I wasn’t worth enough of his time to stop and say more than that one syllable, that dismissive “hey.”
“Yup. Who cares about all these *s? A few of them are great people, the vast majority are not, and at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself. If they don’t like you, screw ’em.”
“Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”
“Right. Jessie is Jessie is Jessie.”
Fine, I’ll admit it: I’m sad when Ethan stops saying my name.
—
Home. Or, more accurately, the place I eat and sleep. Under the dome: chicken Marbella or marsala or something with an “M,” spears of asparagus, a dollop of wild rice.
SN: your day? go.
Me: great, actually. yours?
SN: memorable.
I only saw Caleb once today. He was leaning against a locker in the hall at school, and when he saw me, he saluted me with his cell phone and then whispered something to the guy standing next to him, a senior who has the feltlike complexion of a Muppet. I assume his cell salute meant something like Let’s keep talking with our phones, not in person, since there’s been no attempt to make my suggestion of a date a reality. But thirty seconds later, my IM dinged.
SN: three things. (1) Hendrix was the most amazing guitarist who ever lived. even better than Jimmy Page. (2) sometimes when I listen to music, I actually feel lighter. (3) and sometimes when I play Xbox, I feel nothing.
Me: Which do you like better? Music or Xbox?
SN: ahh, that’s a good question. no doubt my mom’s medicine cabinet is like her Xbox, right? so I’m going to say music, because there’s nothing scarier to me than becoming my mother.
SN: but truthfully?
SN: Xbox.
I think it’s becoming clear Caleb and I will never actually chat over hot beverages, never say out loud that SN is Caleb and Caleb is SN, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe we’ve said too many scary things online already, and knowing what we’ve already shared, all that honesty, makes talking in person impossible.
Still, it’s sad, because I’m starting to appreciate his particular brand of hotness. Sitting across from him wouldn’t be distracting the way it is with Ethan. He’s a blanker, simpler, well-balanced canvas. Like Rachel’s white-on-white walls.