Wrong About the Guy(59)

“I don’t know.” I tried to collect my thoughts. “I guess it does make more sense the other way. George probably is too sophisticated for you. He’s definitely too old for you.”

“He’s only a couple of years older. My dad is six years older than my mom.”

“It’s different when you’re middle-aged.”

“But they were like eighteen and twenty-four when they met!”

“Oh. Right.”

“A lot of girls date older guys,” she added. “I feel the same way you do about high school boys. They’re lame. George is like a real person—that sounds stupid, but you know what I mean. And he’s so nice. We text sometimes, you know.”

I shook my head slowly. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“You were the one who told me I should text him!” She put her hand to her mouth, laughing. “Oh, wait—I guess you meant I should text Aaron. Well, I thought you meant I should text George, so I did. Just a couple of times, telling him how worried I felt about college stuff and how my college counselor is totally burned-out and overwhelmed.” She grinned and her dimple carved a comma into her right cheek. “So he said he’d help me figure out some new choices if Elton doesn’t work out. I didn’t even ask him to. It was totally his idea.”

“Has he asked you out?” My body tensed up as I waited for the answer. Heather could easily end up hurt—George was way out of her league, even if they could surmount the age difference. He was smarter, funnier, and . . . I didn’t even know what the word was, but he understood people in a way she didn’t.

“Well . . . he did say we should get together once I hear from Elton, either to celebrate or to figure out my next step. I think he feels like he needs an excuse to see me, like he can’t just show up at my house. Which I get.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “There’s my mom for one thing . . . but also it’s probably weird for him that I’m still in high school. We’re really alike, though.”

Heather’s cheerful obtuseness had never annoyed me so much before. “Really? I wouldn’t have said that at all. You guys seem really different to me.”

She opened her big blue eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? Haven’t you noticed when we’re all together how he and I agree about almost everything? You’re the one who’s always on the other side of arguments. And we work so well together—he never makes me feel stupid.” She shot me a sideways look. “Unlike other people I could name.”

“Is that directed at me?”

She flung her hand out. “You’re doing it right now—making me feel like I’m too stupid for someone like George to even notice.”

“I didn’t say you were too stupid. I said you were too young.”

“And unsophisticated, which is just another way of saying stupid!”

“No, actually, it’s another way of saying young.”

“I don’t see what your problem is. If he likes me and I like him—” She stopped. “Unless you like him, too? Is that what the problem is here?”

“George?” I dismissed that thought with a ripple of my fingers. “Of course not. He’s my SAT tutor, Heather. And he’s Jonathan’s brother, and Jonathan’s like my brother, which makes him like a brother to me—”

“It’s the transitive property,” she said brightly. “See how much math I remember, thanks to him?”

“Plus he’s just not . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to be mean, but he’s just such a George.”


“That’s what I like about him,” she said with a little smile. “But you and I have always had different taste in guys. Anyway, that’s how I thought you felt. I just wanted to make sure, since you were being so weird about it.”

“I wasn’t being weird. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Why would I get hurt?” she said. “George is the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “You really think he likes you?”

“I do,” she said, her face turning pink. “I know that sounds conceited, but . . . he kept looking at me last time. Not in a gross way. In a nice way.”

“You did look amazing.” I remembered how much care she had put into her outfit and makeup that night. “Is that why you were so dressed up?”

“Maybe,” she said, a little coyly. “But let’s not talk about this anymore. I don’t want to jinx it.”

And she wondered why I questioned her sophistication.


I ended our chat as soon as I gracefully could and just sat there for a while, paralyzed. I couldn’t believe I’d misread yet another situation. My ego had taken a lot of pounding over the last twenty-four hours, all of it deserved.

I tried to remember the original conversation with Heather. I could have sworn she’d said she liked Aaron. Plain as that. But clearly she hadn’t. I should have felt relieved about that, since it meant her heart wasn’t broken by the news he’d been in love with his stepmother all this time, but I didn’t; I felt annoyed.

Heather could drive me crazy, I reminded myself. She was sweet and loyal and trustworthy and dear in all sorts of ways, but she could also be a little misguided and clueless. Like saying that George was interested in her . . . That was ridiculous, wasn’t it? I would have noticed if he liked her.