One of Us Is Next(36)
I clap loudly until the principal moves on to the next kid, then return my attention to my phone. It’s like I just yanked off a bandage, and now I can’t help but poke the wound beneath. I set my Instagram account to private, which I obviously should have done a week ago, and scroll to my message requests. They’re full of guys I don’t know begging me to “tutor” them. One of them just puts a phone number. Does that ever work? Has any girl in the history of the world texted a stranger because he slid his digits into her DMs? I’m about to hit Decline All and erase them from my account forever when a name at the bottom of the screen catches my eye.
Derekculpepper01 Hi, it’s Derek. I was
That’s all I can see without opening the message. Ugh, what does Emma’s ex want? We haven’t spoken since the night in Jules’s laundry room. We never exchanged numbers, obviously, or he wouldn’t be going through Instagram now. If he’s going to apologize for telling someone about us, I don’t care. Too late.
I eye Decline All again, but my curiosity gets the better of me. Hi, it’s Derek. I was hoping we could talk sometime. Can you text me? With a phone number.
Well, that raises more questions than it answers.
I cup my hand around my phone so it blocks the screen from Emma’s line of sight and navigate to Derek’s profile. He has literally no selfies. His entire Instagram feed is pictures of food or his dog. Who does that? It’s not as if he’s terrible-looking. Just sort of unmemorable.
Emma coughs lightly, and I sneak another look at her. I would rather chop my own arm off and beat myself senseless with it than talk to Derek Culpepper again, and I’m pretty sure Emma feels the same way. That leaves Derek as the only person in our twisted triangle who’s interested in reopening the channels of communication, and nobody cares about him.
“And now let’s begin with our first word of the day, for Owen Lawton. Owen, can you spell bizarre for us, please?”
I look up just in time to catch Owen’s eye as he grins and gives me what he thinks is a stealthy thumbs-up. I put my phone away and try to smile back.
* * *
—
A couple of hours later, Mom is at a Golden Rings wedding planner meeting and Emma and I are in our room. I’m stretched out on my bed with a textbook on my lap, and Emma is at her desk with headphones on, her head bobbing silently to whatever music she’s playing. We’re not being social, exactly, but everything feels less tense than it has for a while.
A knock sounds on our door, and Owen pokes his head in. “Hey,” I say, sitting up. “Congratulations again, brainiac.”
“Thanks,” Owen says modestly as Emma pulls her headphones off. “It wasn’t really a contest, though. Nobody else at that school can spell.”
“Alex Chen made a solid showing,” Emma points out.
Owen looks unconvinced. “You’d think an eighth-grader would know how to spell parallel, though.” He perches on the edge of my bed and angles toward me. “Phoebe, I forgot to tell you.” His glasses are a mess of smudges, so I pull them off and wipe the lenses with the hem of my T-shirt. His eyes look unfinished without them. “You have to invite your friend over. Knox something?”
“I have to—what?” I blink in surprise as I hand his glasses back. He settles them unevenly on his nose. “How do you know Knox?”
“I met him at Café Contigo. He plays Bounty Wars,” Owen says, like that’s all the explanation I should require.
Emma wrinkles her brow at me. “You and Knox Myers are friends?”
“We’re friend-adjacent,” I say.
She nods approvingly. “He seems like a good guy.”
“He is,” I say, and turn back to Owen. “Why do you want me to invite Knox over?”
“So we can play Bounty Wars. We talked about it at Café Contigo,” Owen explains, and now all of this is starting to make sense. My brother misreads social cues a lot. Knox was probably being nice, asking about Owen’s favorite game while he waited for our food to be ready. I don’t know Knox well, but he seems that type: the sort of boy parents love because he’s friendly to kids and old people. Polite, clean-cut, and completely nonthreatening.
It confused me when I realized he and Maeve were going out a while back, because they made such an odd couple. She’s the subtle kind of pretty that slides under the radar, but once you start noticing her you wonder how you missed it. Maybe it’s the eyes; I’ve never seen that dark-honey color on anyone else. Or the way she sort of glides around Bayview High like she’s just passing through and doesn’t worry about the same kind of stuff the rest of us do. No wonder Luis Santos can’t take his eyes off her. Them I can see together. They match.
It’s a shallow way to look at things, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Knox has potential, though. Add a few pounds, get a better haircut, amp up the confidence, and—wham. Knox Myers could be a heartbreaker, someday. Just not yet.
Owen is still looking at me expectantly. “Knox and I aren’t really the kind of friends who go to each other’s houses,” I tell him.
His lower lip juts out in a pout. “Why not? You let Brandon come over.”
My chest constricts at the memory of Brandon’s slimy tongue trying to invade my mouth. “That’s not—”