Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(78)

“Remember me?” I asked.

“True, right? How could I forget?”

“Good, because I have a favor to ask you.”

He sat up straight, intrigued. “I’m listening.”

“I need some information about your audition this weekend,” I told him, sitting in the empty chair next to his. “We’re planning a little surprise. . . .”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR


Claudia


Twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes. That was how long it had been since I’d received a text from Keegan. The guy who I’d let take my shirt off and a lot more on Tuesday afternoon. The guy who I’d thought was now, basically, if not officially, my boyfriend. Meanwhile, I’d texted him at least a couple dozen times and called. Had he lost his phone? Had he been in some kind of coma? Had he been kidnapped by aliens? What? As I pulled my Prius into a spot in front of St. Joseph’s Preparatory on Thursday afternoon, I hoped against hope that he had a legitimate excuse. Because otherwise . . .

I looked at my eyes in the rearview mirror and wasn’t exactly impressed by what I saw. I saw uncertainty, nervousness, and fear.

Because, well, otherwise, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

The front doors of the school opened, and a horde of boys spilled out onto the steps with Keegan at the lead. I cut the engine, opened the door, and got out, straightening my skirt and flipping my hair over my shoulder. Somehow, flipping my hair always made me feel a tad more self-assured. I wasn’t sure why, but whatever worked.

Keegan was laughing as he hit the bottom step, but he stopped laughing when he saw me approach. His face, in fact, fell. He knew he was in trouble. Which meant he had gotten my messages. Now I was pissed.

“Claudia!” he crowed, his expression suddenly brightening again.

He said good-bye to a couple of friends, slapped a hand or two, and then turned his full attention on me. I stopped about three feet away from him, clinging to my ballet-shoe key ring with both hands, so he had to step forward to envelop me in a warm, leather-scented hug. I, however, remained as stiff as a board.

“What’s up? What’re you doing here?” he said.

“Did you get my texts?” I asked. “My voice mail?”

A cloud moved in front of the sun as Keegan thought it over. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Which ones?”

I shifted from foot to foot. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or messing with me, but either way, I felt hot and uncomfortable. “Keegan, come on. I texted you a dozen times yesterday, at least.”

“Oh, right! Sorry. Yesterday was crazy.” He pulled his phone out and looked at it, hitting a few buttons as if that was doing anything. “And then last night, my phone was off. My parents are doing this lockdown thing, making me study for my final SAT attempt. I didn’t really check it until I got to school this morning.”

Lies. That was the first word to pop into my head. Keegan always had his phone on. Even if his parents had taken it away from him for a few hours so he would study, he would have turned it on the second he got it back. Anyone would have. But he looked so contrite and innocent, standing there with that big, lovely smile on his face. I couldn’t muster up the confidence to call him on it.

“So what’s up?” he asked finally. “Is everything okay?”

His hands were in his pockets again.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, there must be something wrong if you felt like you had to drive all the way over here just to talk to me.”

I looked away, confused and defeated, insecure and awkward. He was the one who’d done something wrong, right? So why did I suddenly feel out of line?

“No. Not really,” I said. “I was just . . . confused.”

Keegan blinked. The bells in the tower on the campus church began to toll, ringing long and clear from very nearby. The sound vibrated my bones and seemed to shake the ground beneath my feet.

“Confused?” he said eventually. “Because I didn’t call you back for one day?”

I swallowed. “Well when you put it like that—”

Keegan turned toward the parking lot, shaking his head. I could see his blue car gleaming in the sunlight a few rows behind mine. He started to walk, giving me no other option other than to fall into step with him.

“What is it with you people? Just when I think we’re starting to have fun, you get crazy and clingy.”

I almost tripped. Luckily, we were passing the driver’s-side door of my car at the time. I stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped thinking. It was as if the reverb of that bell had filled my brain, shuddering the insides of my skull, drowning out everything else.

There were no words for what I was feeling. No words for what he had just done to me. But I had to say something.

“Us people?” I blurted. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You people. Girls. It’s like pathetic is your default setting. I’m sorry I can’t be there for you every second of every hour of every day. I have a life.”

My eyes filled so suddenly I almost gasped. No one had ever called me pathetic before, and it did not feel good. Suddenly I remembered the way Peter’s face had crumbled when I’d used the same word on him last week, and I wanted to go back in time and slap my hand over my own mouth.