The Pretty One(27)

I whip my thumb out of my mouth and look at it as if I’ve never seen it before in my life. Oh crap. “No,” I say weakly.

“Megan! It’s such a nasty habit,” Lucy says, focusing her attention back on her script. “And you didn’t do it for almost a whole year. You can’t start up again.”

I tuck my hand under my rear end and say, “Are you sure he wrote the part for you?”

Lucy looks at me. “What do you mean?”

I stand up and kick off my shoes. “I was just…curious.”

“Well, that’s what Annie says.”

Annie, Annie, Annie. She is really beginning to get on my nerves.

“She and Drew carpool sometimes,” Lucy continues. “She said she thinks Drew likes me.”

My heart drops into my belly. Drew? My Drew likes Lucy?

No, no, no, no!

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Lucy continues. “He’s so quiet and standoffish. I mean, I always thought he was really cute, and of course everyone always talks about how talented he is and everything, and then today, I was looking at him and I couldn’t take my eyes off his chin.”

“His chin?”

“It’s so well defined, so strong. It’s quite unusual.”

I summon up a visual of Drew. Lucy’s right. He does have a very nice chin. But the fact that she is zeroing in on this tiny detail is totally disconcerting. It can only mean one thing: Lucy is in love with my future husband.

“What about that guy from the club?” I ask. “Pouffy. He’s so, so cute! And he seemed to really like you.”

“Pouffy?” she repeats, like she has no idea who I’m talking about.

“The guy who was sitting next to you, the one who e-mailed you the next day…”

“Alex?” she asks, like you’ve got to be joking. “Those guys were cute, but they were totally GU,” Lucy says, using her acronym for geographically undesirable. “I think they lived in Hunt Valley. And besides, they were no Drew Reynolds.”

Why even bother? It’s hopeless. My wannabe relationship with Drew is over, gone, kaput. No guy possesses the strength to resist my sister’s giggly, wiggly, touchy, smiley, blue-eyed, question-asking tractor beam.

I take a seat beside her, my heart broken. I have no choice but to play my last card. It’s desperate, potentially foolish, and almost surely disastrous, but I honestly don’t know what else I can do. I have to tell her how I feel about Drew. “Lucy, there’s something I need to tell you…” I begin.

But before I can spit out the truth, Lucy’s phone rings. She raises a finger as if telling me to wait a minute. “Marybeth,” she says, looking at her caller ID. “I’ll tell her that I’ll call her right back.”

As Lucy answers her phone I sit on the edge of my bed while I silently practice what I’m about to say. Something like, You know what’s funny? Ha ha! Listen to this: I like Drew! Isn’t that a riot? That’s right, me! Megan Fletcher, your sweet, loving sister who just spent the past year recovering from a horrible accident that probably never would have happened if you and Alicia hadn’t been talking about how ugly and grotesque I was but hey, that’s all water under the bridge, right? Forgiven and forgotten. And it will especially be forgotten when you forget all about Drew and hook up with good ole Pouffy instead…

Lucy is nudging me with her foot. “George Longwell?” she shrieks excitedly, giving me a big smile. “Oh my God. He is so cute!”

My heart lurches. Am I being saved by George Longwell? I lean forward and hold my breath.

“And such a sweetheart, too!” Lucy exclaims, winking at me and smiling.

Saved! I breathe a big sigh of relief and give Lucy a big happy smile. I always knew I liked George Longwell but I really think that at this moment I might just love him.

“Megan’s right here,” Lucy says. “I can’t wait to tell her.”

“George Longwell? He is so, so cute!” I blurt out as she hangs up her phone. “And talk about chins…does he have a great one or what?”

“I know,” Lucy says. “I’m so excited for you.”

“And the way he writes poetry for his girlfriends and…”

Hold on a second.

Did she say she was excited for me?

“Marybeth said she ran into him at the market after school and all he wanted to talk about was you,” Lucy says. “She said he went on and on about how cute you are and how sweet and blah, blah, blah. He even asked her if she thought you would go out with him.”

No, no, no. This was not happening.

“She was like, duh!” Lucy laughs. “Of course! He’s such a great guy.”

“But…,” I begin.

“You wouldn’t believe how many girls like him,” Lucy continues. “They’re always calling him and asking him out. But he doesn’t want them. He wants you.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“Oh Megan,” Lucy says, taking my hand. “Last year I kept trying to be positive by thinking how great everything would be for us both when you got better. And now here you are—here we are. I have Drew, you have George…. This is the first time I’ve actually been happy in a long, long time.” She sighs deeply and smiles as her eyes well with tears.