Tell Me Three Things(45)

Me: Your day was memorable? Memorable=good? Or memorable=bad?

SN: good. what was under the dome tonight?

Me: Fancy-pants chicken. And you? Please tell me not Whole Foods sushi again? I’m starting to worry about you getting mercury poisoning.

SN: my mom cooked, actually, which, as you know, is weird. it was good, though. homemade mac ’n’ cheese. my favorite when I was a kid. I guess still my favorite.

Me: That’s sweet of her.

SN: yeah, it felt like an apology. like she knows she’s been…absent.

Me: Did she seem, you know, clear?

SN: hard to tell, but yeah. i’m allowing myself to think so. at least for tonight.

Me: Good.

SN: then again, do you know what’s the number one sign of mercury poisoning?

Me: What?

SN: optimism.



—

That night, I dream about Ethan and Caleb, both of them in my room and perched on my day bed, except they’ve switched T-shirts. Ethan wears gray, and Caleb wears Batman, and neither of them talks to me. Caleb plays with his phone, texting someone else—maybe me, but not the me in this room—and Ethan strums his guitar, lost in some complicated finger work, lost in the way that happens when he looks out the library window. I sit behind them, quiet, just watching and admiring the backs of their very different necks, trying not to be bothered by the fact that they don’t even realize I’m right here.





CHAPTER 21


“What do you guys think about me getting a pink stripe? Like just slightly off center?” Dri asks, and runs her fingers through her unruly brown hair. We are sitting outside during our free period, our faces tilted up toward the sun like hungry cartoon flowers. I now have sunglasses—Dri and Agnes helped me pick out a knockoff pair—and I love them. They feel transformative, like I’m somehow a different person with large squares of plastic covering my face.

“Pink?” Agnes asks.

“Pink with an exclamation point instead of an ‘i,’ pink?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Dri says. “Either. Both.”

“No.” Agnes says it straight out, no attempt to preserve the possibility. Pure veto, which is exactly what Scarlett did when I suggested getting my inner ear flab pierced. Well, after she told me to Google what that part of the body is actually called, because she never wanted to hear the words “my inner ear flab” together in a sentence again. Can’t say I blamed her.

Turns out it’s called your tragus, which sounds vaguely dirty. No one should have their tragus pierced.

“How about all pink?” Dri asks. “Dye my whole head.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I like your hair the way it is.”

“Why? Why would you do that to yourself?” Agnes asks, though neither Dri nor I have the nerve to point out that Agnes’s red hair is as artificial as Dri’s would be if she were to dye hers pink. Then again, Agnes’s red somehow works in a way that I don’t think Dri’s pink would. Not a fine line between red and pink when we are talking hair.

“I just want a change,” she says.

“This is like the ukulele. You just want to be noticed,” Agnes says, blunt but not unkind. “I get it.”

“I feel…I don’t know, sort of invisible these days. Like, you know, except for you guys, no one would notice if I didn’t even go to this school,” Dri says, and leans back so that she’s lying down, staring up at the vast blue sky, so open there aren’t even clouds to read. I consider telling her that SN told me to befriend her, that he obviously has noticed how cool and funny she is, but for some reason, I’m embarrassed. I want her to think our friendship was totally organic.

“Honestly, I’d kill to be invisible,” I say. “Gem and Crystal won’t leave me alone.”

“Screw them,” Agnes says. “They just wish they could be as cool as you.”

“I am not cool. I am the opposite of cool,” I say.

“You are cool. I mean, now that I know you, I realize you’re actually something better than cool. But you somehow give off this badass, above-it-all vibe. And you’re hot,” Agnes says. “In Gem’s world, no one else is allowed to be hot.”

“Seriously? Who are you even talking about right now?” I ask.

“They’re just jealous because Liam likes you. Honestly? I’m jealous because Liam likes you,” Dri says.

“Liam doesn’t like me,” I say. “I just work at his mom’s store.”

“Whatever,” Dri says.

“No, seriously, we’re just coworkers. And for the record, I don’t like him. Not in that way, at least.” I hope Dri believes me. I need her to believe me.

“Then you’re crazy,” she says. “Because he’s smokin’.”

“Please do not get a pink stripe because of Liam Sandler,” Agnes says. “He’s not worth it.”

I spot Ethan crossing the lawn, coffee in hand, heading to the parking lot, even though it’s only noon. And just like every other time I’ve seen him like this, what I think of as out in the wild, I feel like I have managed to conjure him up, as if he has appeared only because I’m thinking about him. Which I was, since I pretty much think about him all the time. I can be talking pink hair or Liam Sandler, but what I’m really thinking is Ethan is Ethan is Ethan.