Wrong About the Guy(6)

“You’ll wait on her, but not me?” I said.

“Heather asks nicely,” George said, setting down the milk carton and taking his seat. “You should try it. You guys ready to do some work?”

“I should warn you that I did terribly on the PSATs,” Heather said. “I may be hopeless.”

“That’s why you’re here,” I said.

George gave us a bunch of multiple-choice math word problems. It took me a little while on one, and I made a careless error on another, but I basically knew what I was doing, which he acknowledged.

But Heather kept saying, “I just don’t get it. I don’t get how you can turn this into something solvable.”

“You make x stand in for the unknown answer,” George said, for about the fourth time in five minutes. “And then you create a simple equation and solve for x. Did you see how Ellie set hers up?”

“My brain doesn’t work like Ellie’s.”

“I’ve just done more SAT prep than you have,” I said. “That’s all.”

“I’ve taken an eight-week class and two one-day workshops,” she said morosely.

While we worked, my phone kept vibrating with texts from my school friends Riley and Skyler, who wanted to get together with me that afternoon. The fourth time I picked up my phone to read a text, George plucked it out of my hand and said, “You can’t have this thing near you. You’re an addict.”

“Some of us have social lives. You wouldn’t know about that.”

He squinted at the screen. “Who’s Skyler? Boy or girl?”

“Never occurred to me to find out.”

“Whoever it is wants to come over.”


“Shocker,” I said, because everyone always wanted to come over to my house: my house was where Luke Weston lived. I grabbed my phone back and quickly texted Skyler and Riley—while George tapped his fingers impatiently on the table—to tell them I’d rather meet at the mall and go see a movie. “If I don’t answer, they’ll just keep bugging me,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said. “Ready to get back to work?”

“One sec.” Now I had to text Mom to let her know my plans and make sure she wasn’t counting on me for dinner or anything. Texting was our main method of communication. Mom liked me to keep her informed, but sometimes I had no idea if she was even home or not (like I said, our house was really big) so . . . texting. The next best thing to being there.

“Okay, now,” I said, and put the phone down for the rest of our study time—except when I got bored waiting for Heather to catch up and used the time to check my Instagram feed.

Once George said we were done for the day, I invited Heather to come to the mall with me, and she ran to the bathroom to get ready.

George looked up from his keyboard; he was back to researching anniversary celebration venues. He said idly, “So . . . is Skyler a girl or a guy?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah. I could be walking down the street and someone could yell, ‘Skyler’s getting away!’ and I wouldn’t know who to look for.”

“Probably a dog,” I said. “In that scenario.”

“Yes, but a boy or girl dog?”

“You’d have to look between its legs to figure that out.”

“Sounds risky.” He beckoned to me and lowered his voice. “Listen, Ellie, Heather’s really sweet but you might want to study with someone who can keep up with you.”

“I like helping her.”

“Very noble,” he said. “But if she’s slowing you down—”

“I’m back,” Heather announced from the doorway.

I said, “Let’s go. Skyler texted that she’s already there.”

“Aha!” said George. “She’s a girl.”

“Shes usually are,” I said.





five


We saw the movie and then ate and shopped. Heather had to leave early; she checked her phone right after the movie to discover that her mother was freaking out because Heather hadn’t returned her six calls and five texts. “My phone was off,” I heard her explain. “I told you I was going to a movie.” Then after a long listening silence: “I didn’t mean to worry you. Okay, fine, I’m on my way.”

Skyler and Riley pretended to be sorry Heather had to go, but they only hung out with her because of me. The two of them were best friends and I guess I was sort of their third Musketeer, since I ate lunch with them every day at school and sometimes saw them on the weekends, but deep down I didn’t feel that close to them. They were perfectly fine high school friends, but I doubted we’d stay in touch once we left for college.

Riley was probably going to be our class valedictorian. She took all honors courses and was the top student in most of them. She wore her long brown hair in a ponytail and studied incredibly hard during the week, and then let her hair down both literally and figuratively on the weekends, when she liked to go to parties where she got so drunk she usually threw up and passed out on the floor. It didn’t appeal to me much as a lifestyle, but she seemed committed to it.

Skyler was more mellow about school, partially because she could be. She’d already been recruited by Brown for volleyball. She had red hair and green eyes and was over six feet tall. She and Riley had both been going to Coral Tree since kindergarten and had been best friends the whole time.