Then I’m sobbing. Into Devon’s T-shirt. He is not a perfect boy. He pats my back awkwardly, and I know he has no idea how to deal with a crying girl. “Shhhh,” he tries.
I take the binder from his hands and hold it to my chest, like maybe it will help me gain control of my breathing. It doesn’t, so I let myself outside, and he follows. I can’t risk Jemma finding me here. As much as I want to not care, I can’t take things at school getting any worse. So we stand on the porch. There is a not-quite-full moon and a cold wind rustling the trees. Devon puts his hands in his pockets. I can see his fingers moving beneath the fabric, and I like that he can’t completely hide his nerves. I look up, tilt my head back a little, and try to maintain eye contact for as long as my heart can handle it. He takes a step closer and I think maybe he will kiss me and maybe I want him to, but maybe I don’t. Yet. There’s a breath when I could move toward him too, but I don’t take it. I let my chin drop, my eyes drift to the trees instead of his mouth, and the moment’s over.
For some reason, this is the Assignment I cannot complete.
“Are you gonna be okay?” he says. I take a step from his porch back to his lawn. I look up at Jemma’s bedroom window and for a split second wonder if I could plant the weed in there. Direct her parents toward its hiding place.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll figure it out,” I say.
“We?” Devon says.
I’m so dizzy from the crying and the overwhelming weirdness of tonight that I’m not watching my words carefully enough.
“Like, me. And my friends.”
Devon looks at me funny. Like Jemma has told him that I have no friends. Which I’m sure she has.
“Maybe I’ll come by the Cozy tomorrow?” he says.
But tomorrow I will be busy ruining his sister’s life. So I shake my head no.
“I have an Assignment I have to do,” I say. I take a few steps farther away from him, and it’s sad to know the night’s basically over, that whatever adventure I was on is over, and all I’m left with is my own failure and a book full of pictures of a person I used to be. Devon’s eyes are the kind that make me want to say all kinds of things, and I have too many things I’m not allowed to say.
“Hey, Tabby?” he says, before I am totally in shadow on the street.
“Yep?”
“Don’t give up on us. On me. Or Jemma. Or just people, you know?”
“Why would I?” I say.
“I don’t know,” Devon says, taking a big breath and focusing those incredible blue eyes on me like he knows I already have. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Secret:
It wasn’t love.
—Star
Twenty-Two.
The next morning, eight hours to go, I treat myself to three cups of coffee at Tea Cozy. It does not help me forget about the weed in my backpack. For something so light, it is unusually heavy. I wait to go into school. I skip first period. Paul is working, but there’s no sign of Cate. For all I know, Paul thinks it is Saturday. His beard is neat and trimmed, though, and his flannel shirt tucked into his pants. His eyes and hands are steady, and he’s listening to Aerosmith, which I know he can’t handle when he’s high.
Still, he doesn’t see me. Not enough to do any more than wave at me and ask me to clean up a table.
I stare at LBC until my eyes hurt and my father starts to get a look on his face like maybe he has realized it’s not the weekend and I should be at school.
BITTY: I would rather stay home and read.
AGNES: I would always rather stay home and read.
ZED: Cold feet on your Assignment? Don’t trust us yet?
BITTY: I’m scared.
ZED: That’s great! You should be scared! Life is scary if you’re doing it right.
STAR: That’s where we’re different, ladyfriend. I’m not so much a reader.
@SSHOLE: Too busy having sex.
STAR: Not anymore. You not see my last post?
BRENDA: Don’t have to be in love to have sex!
ZED: Star, we need to talk. You were supposed to complete your Assignment.
STAR: It sort of stopped being relevant.
ZED: That’s not how it works. Assignments are relevant no matter what.
STAR: I’m not proposing to some guy I don’t love.
ZED: But you DID love him. You probably still would if you’d followed what we said.
AGNES: It’s not fair if we’re not all doing it.
This happens sometimes. A thread will start off as mine or Zed’s or Elfboy’s or whatever, but it will shift and turn into another conversation entirely, before it circles back around to the relevant secret or Assignment. So at first I’m only skimming the comments, but when I realize what a tense, massive conversation it is, I go back and read more carefully.
It’s the least interesting part of the whole conversation, except that it’s everything.
Star doesn’t like reading.
And whoever made notes in The Secret Garden loved reading.
BITTY: You don’t like reading, Star?
STAR: God, I haven’t actually read a book since, like, elementary school. CliffsNotes, girl.