The Pretty One(24)

“I may look different, but I’m not exactly better than I was before. I have to take that nose spray every day so that my nose doesn’t run. And even then it still runs when my eyes water and stuff. And I have to sleep with a nose stent for the rest of my life.”

“A what?”

“I showed it to you before. It’s that little thing that looks like a piece of rigatoni…the thing I have to stick in my nose at night.”

Although my nose before was extra large, most of the tissue was so embedded with gravel it was unusable. They had to cut out all the damaged parts and make do with what was left, pulling the skin so tight that I have to stretch out my nose every night just to make sure it keeps its shape. Otherwise my nostril will just close up tighter than an unroasted pistachio shell. I’m thinking about sharing all this with Simon, but I just don’t feel like saying the word nostril out loud. Or pistachio.

“I’m sick of talking about my face.” I push my drink away from me. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about band camp.”

This year they didn’t allow the campers to send e-mails, so Simon could only communicate by snail mail. To make matters worse, I had barely spoken to him while he was at his dad’s. I had hoped to catch up at lunch, but with all the people stopping by to gawk, we never really got a chance.

“It was all right,” he replies.

“All right?” I repeat. I can tell from the way Simon is shifting his eyes that all right means fantastic, which means some physical activity involving a member of the opposite sex. “In your letters you said you were having a great time.”

“I guess.”

I lean over the table and grin as I whisper, “What’s the story that you wanted to tell me?”

“What story?”

“When you wrote this summer you told me you had a wild story for me, but that you had to tell me in person.”

“Oh,” he says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “It was nothing.”

Okay, if he wants me to twist his arm a little, I’m more than happy to comply. “Does it have to do with Susan?” Susan was the girl he had hooked up with the previous year.

“She’s nothing,” Simon says defensively. “Just a friend.”

The little twerp is lying to me. But why? I pick up a fork and poke him in the wrist. “Did you guys hook up again?” I ask, determined.

“I told you, we’re just friends.”

“So you mean you didn’t hook up?”

“I mean we’re not seeing each other or anything like that. We’re both, well, single.” Simon is looking at me in a way that makes me feel as if my bra strap is showing. The truth of the matter is Simon has been acting weird all day.

“It’s amazing,” he says. “It’s like a whole different you. Does it feel that way, too?”

“Yes and no,” I say with a shrug. “I felt different at the club the other night, that’s for sure.”

“I remember when I came to see you in the hospital, right after…it happened. Your face was all puffy and swollen and you had stitches all over and I thought that, well, I didn’t think they’d ever be able to fix you. And here you are. Tu sembles parfaite.”

“What?” I ask, even though I have taken enough French to translate. What I really mean is, Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?

“You look perfect,” he says softly.

I crunch down on something hard and vaguely familiar. With horror, I realize that I’ve bitten off part of my thumbnail.





eight

director (noun): the person responsible for the interpretive aspects of a stage, film, or television production.

On Wednesday I stay after school to talk to my pre-calc teacher, Mrs. Pritchie. Students weren’t allowed to take pre-calc unless they achieved a B or higher in Algebra 2 and even though I had finished the textbook with my tutor, Mrs. Pritchie is concerned I might not be able to keep up with the class and has loaned me a tutoring book in case I need it.

I finish tucking Tutoring for Precalculus into my backpack and I’m standing at my locker, staring at the sign and trying to make out the two signatures that are smeared together on the bottom, when I hear a familiar voice say hello. My blood pressure suddenly spikes because I know who it is before I turn around.

Drew.

We don’t have a class together this semester, so we’ve not really spoken besides an occasional hello in the halls. I have however, learned two key details:

He and Lindsey broke up over the summer.

He spent his summer working as a counselor at a camp for the arts. (Not exactly key, but I’m always happy to get any details on Drew, no matter how trivial.)

I’m so nervous standing so close to him after all this time that I step back up against my open locker, nearly toppling inside.

“Hi,” I reply, grabbing onto the edges of my locker and pulling myself upright.

“Are you coming out or going in?” he asks, nodding toward my locker.

“What?” I ask.

“Narnia. You know, the magical door that leads to the other world. My guess is you were coming out.”

Drew is making a Narnia reference? I had no idea something this dorky would make him even hotter. “Ha, ha,” I say stiffly. “I loved that movie, too.”