Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(55)

“Hey, Riley, don’t do that. I don’t trust the janitor to clean up chemicals with proper protocol,” Garrick says. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head. “Ted hates me.”

“People can get mad,” he says, “and then they can get over it.”

Garrick is right about everything to do with science, but I don’t believe him on this.

*

Reid intercepts me on my way to lunch. “Ri, we need to talk now. Come on.”

I follow him down the hallway to the library. I wait for him to bring up my red and puffy eyes or the fact that I’m wearing a pajama shirt with jeans or any other SIGNIFICANT SIGN that I am falling apart.

“The honesty thing did not go like you said it would,” he says. “Jane is pissed that I lied about wanting a dog—”

“But you have the dog now! And you love him!”

“And Madison says ‘second-and-a-half base’ is the dumbest thing she’s ever heard.”

“Reid, oh my god, why would you tell her THAT part?”

“Ri, we swore to be honest.” He shakes his head so forcefully I worry he’s going to sprain something in his face. “Jennie and Erika didn’t really act like they cared, but I’m sure they think I’m a creep.”

“Reid, I’m—”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“Talk you into what? Being honest was your idea!”

“The Passenger Manifest,” he says.

“Are you serious? That was both of our ideas. Don’t make this about me.”

“I wouldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“Neither one of us would!”

Ms. Jensen, the school librarian, walks over and literally shushes us. I don’t feel like standing here and getting yelled at by Reid, who’s clearly taken up residence in Crazy Town, so I walk out like it’s a regular day and I’m going to go eat lunch.

I tell myself not to, but I glance over at Ted’s lunch table. He’s in between Brendon and Toby, who are gesturing frantically about whatever guys gesture about. I do my best to make eye contact, but instead of returning it, he looks right through me.

*

We have practice after school because timing is crappy. I don’t want to see Reid, and I don’t want to act normal around Lucy and Nathan, and basically everything in the world sucks.

I’m trying to concentrate on “Stop Talking/Start Dancing,” but my mind is only sort of with the music. Every time I hear Reid’s bass I wish it was a tangible thing I could punch. We finish the song, but unlike how often that’s a moment of triumph, the four of us glance around like we’re acknowledging it was crappy.

“Let’s take that one again,” Nathan says. “It could have been a lot cleaner.”

“I think something’s off with the drumming,” Reid says.

“I think something’s off with the drumming,” I chipmunk at him. “Why don’t you go detail it to death in a book?”

Reid stares at me for a moment like he’s making sure he heard what he heard. “Why don’t you lie about it and pretend it never happened?”

Lucy’s mouth is agape like an extra in a crowd scene from a monster movie.

“Whoa, guys.” Nathan looks back and forth between us. “Let’s just take it again from the top.”

“Let’s not.” I get up from behind my drums. “You’re not President of the Band. And I don’t want to do this today. Maybe at all.”

The “at all” is a bluff. It just feels so great to say.

“Riley,” Lucy says. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

I don’t even respond to her. I leave my drums in the garage and walk out. I’ve never left them somewhere before, and it’s as if I’m leaving my heart and lungs behind. But I drive away like I’m brave.

At home I work on homework because what else am I going to do? Still, everything seems pointless. Who cares if I can do the quadratic equation if I have no friends and Ted hates me and my band is over?

My phone beeps, and I come up with a billion wonderful possibilities. It’s Ted, saying everything’s okay! It’s Reid, and he’s calm and cool and collected and apologetic and wants to go shopping for vinyl, which is boring, but I can live with it! It’s Madison, and she’s made me more jewelry and boxes to put it in! (That would be surprising. But I’d take it.) The text is from Reid, but it is not about vinyl.

Way to make everything worse.





CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE


No, seriously. Where is the freaking book??





CHAPTER SIXTY


Lucy is sitting on her front porch when I walk up on Friday afternoon to get my drums back. Her hands are wrapped around a mug of cider, and she looks like a postcard for fall. “Hey. Do you want to stay for a while?”

“Sure.” I follow her down the hall to her room. Just five months ago if this much of my life was falling apart, I would tell Lucy to tell me what to do, so maybe I should do that now. And Lucy won’t think my guy problems are silly and childish, because now we’ve both done it.

Except, wait, it’s not like I think Reid’s girl problems are silly and childish just because he’s holding steady at second-and-a-half base. Which means maybe Lucy never would have—no. I am not doing this now. I am getting advice and fixing stuff.