You Should See Me in a Crown(51)
I’m in Steak ’n Shake looking like exactly what I am: a pitiful heartbreakee in a pair of Jordan’s old Ray-Bans from his glove compartment. As we drove, Jordan wound through the streets of Campbell like someone who owns it, window down, tapping his hand on his door and nodding along to the new Cardi B song on the radio. He drove in silence, exactly the speed limit, never going above or below except to slow to a stop at a red light and accelerate at a green one.
We passed the main strip of shops that make up the center of Campbell: A Ritter’s Frozen Custard that me and Robbie used to beg to go to for cookie dough glaciers when we were kids, a Speedway gas station with a bold window decal advertising eighty-nine-cent Speedy Freezes, the nail shop where every girl in town will find herself the day before prom. So many stores Gabi and I have drifted in and out of on boring summer Saturdays, the restaurants that we dreamed we’d get hostess gigs at when we were old enough to get the jobs that’d fund our way out of Campbell.
All the pieces of the place that have made up my life fly by outside the confines of Jordan’s brand-new SUV.
Inside the restaurant, everything looks as it always has: the fifties motif dripping through every bit of the design, from the checkered floors to the waitresses in slightly stained white button-ups to the buzzing, red cursive sign above the counter telling customers to “Takhomasak.”
Even though there are only a few people milling around the small restaurant—a couple girls I recognize from school giggling over shakes by the huge picture windows that wrap around the whole room—I still prefer the anonymity of wearing shades.
“You look like you had a great night, and I look like I just finished an all-night bender at Club Monaco.” I grab his straw paper off the table and roll it into a ball between my thumb and forefinger. I’m exhausted in the worst way.
The aftershocks of a panic attack aren’t like a hangover, even though they probably feel physically similar. I didn’t black out last night—I remember everything. My stupid jealousy. Amanda’s face. The puking all over Jordan’s hoodie. Oh my God, the Yeezy hoodie.
I put my hand against my forehead and groan.
“I am so sorry about your hoodie, Jordan.”
“First of all, Club Monaco is a store, not an actual club, Lighty. Bless your innocent soul.” He nudges my foot with his underneath the table. “Second, it’s just a hoodie, man. I can get another one. I’m more worried about you. You haven’t been that bad since, what? Before we even met?”
“Yeah.” The glasses slip down my nose a little, and I have to push them back up. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”
No matter how much time has passed, my body acutely remembers the shame that follows a panic attack that severe. I feel like I’m in fourth grade again, barely making it to the trash can in time after hearing that we would be having a math quiz that I hadn’t had time to study for because I was in the hospital with my mom the night before. Everything aches; my face burns.
“What’s going on with you, Lighty?”
“Me and Amanda broke up.” It hurts to say, to admit so plainly. “I wasn’t honest with her about why we couldn’t be, um, out together.”
He leans both elbows on the table and waits. He doesn’t push me until I’m ready to be pushed. Exactly like the old days.
“I’m not running for prom queen because it’s fun or tradition or whatever. I’m running because I need that scholarship money. I didn’t get as much in financial aid from Pennington as I thought I was going to get, and now I’m screwed. I’ve been too embarrassed to talk about it.” I shake my head. “I just knew that if people found out about my relationship with Amanda, my chances of winning would be absolutely shot.”
“That sucks,” he says simply, a little insulted on my behalf. “The breakup and the scholarship. And the whole lying to your cool, goofy girlfriend. That part is also bad. You definitely fumbled the ball there.”
He’s smirking when I look up at him, and I throw the straw paper ball at his face. But I’m smiling too. A little.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“How come you never talk about Emme? I’ve been broken up for less than twelve hours, and it’s all I can think about. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
He hesitates.
“Because I love her, and her secrets aren’t mine to tell.” He crinkles his nose in that way he does sometimes, and the diamond stud catches the light. “But things got bad. And I think I didn’t do enough for her, you know? So it hurts to talk about.”
I nod. There’s a heaviness in what he’s saying that tells me I have to tread lightly on how to proceed, like he’s entrusting me with something major. The whole conversation suddenly feels surreal and deeply personal, but somehow it makes sense for us to be having it. Me and Jordan may not be who we used to be, but we still fit together. Like Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart: Freaky, but it works.
“I’m gonna miss this,” I say after some silence. I take a sip of my water. I really am going to miss Jordan when this is all over. Having him in my life again for the past few weeks has been amazing. It’s almost like the past four years didn’t happen. But the reality is they did. “Me and you sort of balance each other out.”