“Fine…” Scarlett said, her teeth sightly clenched.
“I’m on my way back in a cab, with yet another cab behind me full of outfits. You should see this haul! Well, you will, in about fifteen minutes. Just giving you a little heads up to…set up a clothes rack or two.”
This remark was punctuated by a tiny snicker. Scarlett could hear her sucking on a cigarette in satisfaction.
“You know what I think, O’Hara?” she said. “I think I do know your type after all.”
She hung up.
“I’ve wanted to do that pretty much since I first saw you in the park,” he said. He almost sounded nervous. “I hope that was okay.”
Scarlett clutched the pile of chairs behind her in what she hoped looked like post-kiss casualness as opposed to just, well, collapsing in shock.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“I don’t want to be weird, but…we should maybe not tell your brother about this. Just because we work together, you know? Is that all right?”
“Sure,” she said, not even processing the question. Her brain had gone all soft and floppy. Something about not telling Spencer. Whatever. It was probably a good idea.
“So,” he said, “is she on her way?”
Scarlett nodded.
“Well, we probably have time…”
And then he did it again.
CRACKS
The train home that night was packed.
A crowded New York subway car in the summer is a wonderful place to meet new people. There is no decorum, no breathing room, and often, no deodorant. You survive by keeping yourself small and taking short maintenance breaths and making them last, like divers do.
Scarlett was well versed in the art of subway riding and could handle even the worst of conditions—but today, she was simply overloaded. Her brain was scrambled as they sped along, the train shaking back and forth. All she could see, all she could think about was the kissing. It had become overwhelming—it was taking over everything. It had passed over feeling good to that superintense feeling that is just too much for the brain or body to hold. She pushed her face, lips and all, against the subway pole to keep herself upright, even if that was almost a guarantee of catching something truly horrible.
“Are you going to puke?” Spencer asked. He was standing next to her, holding his bike upright with one hand and carefully balancing himself by holding onto the pole high over her head.
“Huh?”
“You look like you’re going to hurl,” he said in a low voice. “Should we get off?”
The man Scarlett was pressed up against on the other side looked down warily.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It was just warm in there today. Must be dehydrated…”
…from all the kissing I was doing. Shut up, brain!
“What’s wrong with you today?” he asked, unsatisfied. “It wasn’t just the heat. You seemed…I don’t know. Like something was up.”
When she was little, Spencer told her that he could see pictures of her thoughts in her eyes. Obviously, she had figured out this wasn’t possible, but there was still something in her that believed that he could get at her thoughts if he wanted to.
He was doing it now. He was looking her in the eye and seeing the truth there.
“Is there something going on?” he asked.
“Going on?” she repeated. “Going on with what?”
This was idiotic. She knew what Spencer meant, and he knew that she knew. This was her moment to come clean. So what if Eric had asked her to keep quiet? There was no need to keep things from Spencer.
Scarlett opened her mouth to tell him, but something strange flashed across his expression—something so fast and so subtle that anyone else would have missed it. But Scarlett saw it. He wasn’t going to like her answer.
“I got my period,” she blurted out, much to the continuing delight of the man pushed up next to her. “It’s catastrophic.”
“Oh,” Spencer said. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“You would tell me if there was something else, right?”
“Of course!” she said.
This was the first time she had ever really lied to Spencer. It was upsettingly easy. He turned back to the Manhattan Storage ad that he’d been staring at before this doomed conversation started. He had asked, and he had taken her at the word. Which made her the worst sister, ever.