What If It's Us(13)

I want to know the real world better. Not just the ones I make up or the ones I play with on Sims. But right now I just feel lonely and unwanted in the real world.

Mr. Hayes walks in with a crutch under one armpit and carrying a duffel bag in his other hand, like he’s about to work out instead of talk about chemical properties for the next two hours. “Good morning, friends,” he says. “Let’s roll through attendance.”

Hudson raises his hand. “Hi. I’m Hudson Robinson. I missed yesterday.”

Mr. Hayes nods. “You sure did. Feeling better?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Great. Let’s chat after class. I can walk you through what you missed,” Mr. Hayes says. “Okay, Pete’s here. Scarlett—”

“Wait,” Hudson interrupts. “I’m not staying late. Coming to school during the summer is already over the top, thank you very much.”

Harriett gives Hudson her signature dude-shut-the-hell-up face.

“I’m not the one who failed you. It’s my job to make sure you don’t fail again. Just hang back for thirty minutes after class so you don’t have to spend the next year watching your friends get ready for prom and graduation and college while you’re making friends with juniors.” Man, Mr. Hayes knows how to go for the throat without sounding like a total dick.

“I’m not stupid, I know the material,” Hudson says. I’ve never seen him talk to a teacher like this. “That’s not why I’m here. I was just . . .” He doesn’t look at me. “I only missed the first day. I got the basics covered.”

“Cool. Tell us how ionic bonds are formed and you can earn your freedom.”

Hudson doesn’t say anything.

“Alloys are a combination of what?”

Nothing. See? School pauses for no one. Not even confusing ex-boyfriends.

Hudson shrugs and pulls out his phone, and holy shit, I hope he’s going to google these answers and not just text away. This stretch of awkward silence is made even more awkward by how hard Hudson is blushing. I haven’t seen him this quiet since Kim Epstein tried to call him one of the girls as an insult because he’s a little effeminate, and Harriett blasted Kim’s business for trying to swing at her best friend.

I’m killing the awkward silence. “Alloys are a combination of metals.” We relearned that yesterday.

Hudson snaps away from his phone and stares at me. “I don’t need anything from you, okay? Don’t ask me how I’m doing. Don’t help me out.” He’s so red in the face it’s a miracle he doesn’t not-so-spontaneously combust.

I want to prop up my notebook and hide.

No one here knows our history except Harriett.

They must think Hudson is a loose cannon and I’m the summer school know-it-all. I do know one thing: this is going to be a long summer.





Chapter Five


Arthur


On the subway ride home, it hits me: I really, truly, irrevocably messed up. I met the most gorgeous boy with the most sun-kissed cheeks, and the weird part is, I honestly think he was into me. That smile. It wasn’t a solidarity smile. It was a smile like a door opening. But that door is now slammed shut, locked, and dead-bolted. I’ll never see Hudson again. I’ll never kiss him on his Emma Watson mouth. And isn’t that just the story of my life. Relationship status: Forever Alone.

Wish I’d had the guts to ask for your number.

Jessie’s dead wrong about me being a badass. The truth is, I have zero guts and zero game. I’ve never had a boyfriend, never had sex, never kissed anyone, never come close. It hasn’t bothered me until now. It just felt normal. After all, Ethan and Jessie are right there with me in that boat. But now it feels like I’m auditioning for Broadway with no training and an empty résumé. Unprepared and unqualified and totally, totally out of my depth.

And all the way home, I feel too big for my skin. I hop off at Seventy-Second Street and step out into a mess of people and taxis and strollers and noise. There are three blocks between the subway station and home. I spend the whole time reading missed connections on my phone.

As soon as I open the door: “Art, is that you?”

I set down my laptop bag on the dining room table, which is also both the living room table and the kitchen table. My great-uncle Milton’s apartment has two bedrooms, and I guess it’s considered big for New York. Even so, it makes me feel like a mummy in a sarcophagus. I definitely get why Uncle Milton’s hanging out in Martha’s Vineyard all summer.

I follow Dad’s voice, and he’s sitting at my desk with a mug of coffee and his laptop.

“Why are you in my room?”

He shakes his head like he’s baffled to find himself here. “I don’t know, change of scenery?”

“You’re scared of the horses.”

“I love horses. I just don’t understand why your uncle Milton needs twenty-two paintings of them,” Dad says. “Their eyes follow you, right? I’m not imagining it?”

“You’re not imagining it.”

“I just want to, like . . . glue sunglasses on them, or something.”

“Good call. Mom would be thrilled.”

For a moment, we just grin at each other. Sometimes with my dad, it’s like we’re two kids in the back of a classroom. Which means there are times we must throw wads of paper at the back of my mother’s head. Metaphorically speaking.