It doesn’t.
Not to mention there’s Elise’s status, SOME PEOPLE. UGH. I know it’s about me because I can’t think of anyone else it would be about. Elise isn’t like me—she doesn’t get angry easily, doesn’t have a litany of awkward relationships with former friends, doesn’t trash-talk or tell people her problems or complain online about her sorry life. But when she wants to tell me something and doesn’t want to do it directly, she goes online to vaguely vent. The things she can’t say to me out loud, she can hint at in public. I can’t even fault her for it, given how messed up I am.
There’s a knock at the window. I want it to be Joe so badly that I take a few seconds before looking up to see who it is. I just want a few moments when I can believe that it’s him, that he’ll be out there in his red North Face and wind-whipped cheeks waiting to rescue me, or maybe fool around in the empty café.
So there’s an even bigger shock when it’s Devon’s face I see in the window. Big blue eyes and long lashes, a wiry frame, an oversize striped scarf, a furry hat that must be from Russia. And that face: the only word for it is pretty. His face is a perfect, slender oval, and there’s something to love about his super-straight nose and freckled cheeks. Not love, but you know, find pretty cute.
He waves. He’s more than a year older than me, but the way he moves is more like a little kid. I let him in.
“Hey there,” I say. It doesn’t sound like me. It especially doesn’t sound like me in the state I’m in right now. I’m sad and stressed and scared, but he has a look on his face like he wants me to smile at him, so I do.
I could do more. I could be the girl Zed is pushing me to be. I could do all my Assignments, go further that I ever imagined. Maybe I could kiss Devon, and Joe could walk by and see us lips-to-lips in the window, and then Joe would burst in and wrestle me from Devon’s arms so he can have me for himself.
Or something like that.
But I feel bad that my impulse is to use Devon. He’s so cute all bundled up and unsure of how I’m going to respond to him.
“I needed a friendly face,” I say. My nerves are under control, compared to earlier. Or maybe I’m high.
“I came by to apologize,” Devon says, oblivious to the intricate fantasy happening in my head right now. “I mean, that’s why I was here earlier too, before you got sort of . . . nervous. Do I make you nervous?”
“Yeah. I mean no,” I try. I sort of shake my head and twirl a strand of hair and shrug at my own silliness. “I’m nervous a lot lately. So it’s not you.”
“Anyway. I’m sorry,” he says. He doesn’t laugh at how incredibly not smart I sound.
“Why? What’d you do?” I say.
“I guess I want to apologize for Jemma,” he says. “It’s partly my fault, I think.” He stares at the tips of his shoes, so I do too. “I kept teasing Jemma about how hot you’d gotten, and I think it sort of freaked her out, you know?” He isn’t blushing red like me, but he is sort of shifting from side to side, so he’s got to be at least a little nervous.
“Teasing her,” I repeat. I don’t want to talk about Jemma. I don’t want to ignite the pocket of sadness and nostalgia and confusion I feel when I think too much about what it means that we’re not friends anymore. “I don’t think it’s your fault,” I say. I mean to dismiss the conversation, but because being around him makes me smile, it comes across flirtatious. Like, it’s not his fault that I’m so supercute. How could he help himself?
“Jemma seems younger than you, you know? I mean, she doesn’t think so. Jemma thinks she’s about forty. But in some ways, she’s a kid and maybe in some ways . . . you’re not?” He steps closer to me. My heart pounds. Good pounds. But maybe it’s the weed.
“I’m not really a kid,” I say. I let myself take a step closer to him. So close my shoulder is an inch away from pressing against his chest. So close it would take nothing more than a little breeze for us to be hugging.
Or kissing.
I wonder what would happen if I leaned into his lips. How would my life change if I completed another terrifying Assignment? If I did something I’d never do without Zed’s or LBC’s urging?
Mostly I think of Joe and how badly I want him to want me, and I stay put. I stay close to him.
“Are you okay?” Devon says. He touches my shoulder, but I can’t decide if it’s sweet or pitying. “You’re going to hate this, but I sort of . . . heard everything.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say, but the second it’s out of my mouth I obviously do know what he means. He heard Cate and Paul and the screaming.