Cassidy snorted, and I tried not to.
Evan reached over and snagged a handful of fries off Charlotte’s plate. She fake-pouted and slapped at his hand as he crammed them into his mouth, laughing.
“I’m hungry,” Evan said by way of apology. “Rocked it hard at practice this afternoon.”
“Hell yeah!” Jimmy affirmed. They bumped greasy fists over the napkin dispenser. Toby winced.
“So Ezra,” Charlotte said, “how come you’re not sitting with us at lunch anymore?”
All eyes were on me. I shrugged and took a pull of my drink, stalling. The family with the screaming kid left their trays and trash at the table as they got up.
“It’s, well . . .” I trailed off, unsure of how to answer.
Did she honestly want me to say it out loud? That it felt wrong for me to go back, like they only wanted me around out of some sense of residual pity? That they’d been lousy friends when I was in the hospital? That she’d cheated on me the night of the accident, and that, just a little bit, I blamed her for what had happened? That, if it came to it, I’d rather eat lunch on a cot in the nurse’s office than bear daily witness to Charlotte sitting on Evan’s lap?
Thankfully, Toby came to my rescue.
“Faulkner’s on the debate team now.”
They all burst out laughing, as though Toby had claimed I’d joined forces with the kids who brought their laptops and headsets to school to play World of Warcraft during lunch.
“Dude, for real?” Evan asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
“Can we talk?” Charlotte batted her eyelashes, her smile curving dangerously.
Unasked, Cassidy and Toby got up so I could extract myself from the booth. In thick, awkward silence, I followed Charlotte over to the condiment bar.
We hadn’t talked. Not since Jonas Beidecker’s pre-prom party, when she’d run after me insisting I better not back out of prom. And there was so much to say, and to avoid saying, that I didn’t know where to begin. But Charlotte clearly did.
“What is up with you?” she demanded. “You’re hanging out with Toby Ellicott and joining the debate team?”
Charlotte was still in her song squad skirt, ribbons tied around her ponytail, a little blue paw print painted on her cheek. But her expression was far from cheerful.
“Well?” she asked, waiting for an explanation.
But the thing was, by my reckoning, I didn’t owe her one. Not for something as trivial as whom I chose to eat lunch with.
“So you and Evan,” I countered. “Awesome. You’ll have my vote for Homecoming Court.”
“Oh, please,” Charlotte protested, a little too vehemently. “That’s not why we’re together.”
“Of course not.” I held back a smile, noting how my comment had infuriated her.
“This is ridiculous,” Charlotte said. “You should come back to our lunch table. It’s not your place to sit with those losers. Bring your snotty prep-school girlfriend, even. I don’t care.”
“They’re not losers. And Cassidy and I are just friends.”
“Yeah.” Charlotte laughed. “Because so many girls see you and think, ‘Now that’s a guy I’d like to be just friends with.’”
“What are you talking about?”
I was fairly certain that most girls saw me and thought, That’s the kid who almost died at Jonas’s party. Used to be a star athlete, but he’s, like, crippled now. Isn’t it so sad?
I raised an eyebrow, waiting for Charlotte to voice the truth of what everyone wasn’t saying. Instead, she sighed and swished her skirt as though I exasperated her. It was a move I recognized from the halcyon days of junior year, when we’d just started dating.
“Ohmigod, Ezra! Get a clue. You’re all brooding and depressed now, and don’t even ask me why, but dark, deep, and twisty totally works for you. You could have anyone you want, so ditch the social outcasts and stop sulking over your sprained knee.”
My sprained knee—right. I didn’t even know what to say to that, so I did what I always did around Charlotte—around all of my old friends, really. I shrugged and said nothing.
“Listen,” she said, stepping closer and pouting cutely. “I’m having a party next Friday. You’re coming, right?”
Now I was sure she was flirting. But the thing was, I wanted no part of it.
“Actually, I’m not. I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Debate tournament,” I said, enjoying myself. “All weekend, unfortunately. Out of town.”
“You’re not serious.”
I leaned in, closing the distance between us and knowing that I would get away with whatever I said next.
“I’m as serious as a car crash.”
I gave her my most winning smile before heading back to the table.
AS WE WALKED back to my car, I turned around only once. The sun was setting, and the lights strung between the palm trees in the parking lot had just come on. But even in the purpling night, with the glow of hundreds of tiny lights reflected against the In-N-Out window, I could see them sitting there in the large corner booth, the one they’d taken for just the three of them. Their food was finished, but they hoarded the best table in the place as though it was theirs as long as they wanted it.
Not so long ago, I would have been there with them, inhaling a Double-Double after tennis practice, dipping my fries into my milk shake just to make Charlotte squeal in disgust. I would have laughed at Evan and Jimmy’s antics, because we all knew they were only doing it to see how long until I made them stop.
“We’re going to get kicked out,” I’d warn, shaking my head. “They’ll take a mug shot of us in those stupid paper hats and hang it on the wall to shame us.”
And eventually, when Justin Wong came over to pointedly clear our trays, I would have shot him an apologetic look when the others weren’t watching, knowing that we’d been wrong but had gotten away with it anyway.
“Well,” Cassidy said, climbing into the front seat, “that was exquisitely unpleasant.”
“Welcome to the OC, bitch?” Toby offered.
“Let’s just go.” I put on some music, not wanting to talk about it. Arcade Fire was on the local college station, crooning about growing up in the suburbs. I concentrated on the lyrics until I turned back onto Princeton Boulevard.
“Tumbleweed,” Toby noted. “Fifty points if you hit it.”
“In Soviet Russia,” I said, doing a terrible accent, “tumbleweeds hit you.”
“There are no tumbleweeds in Soviet Russia,” Cassidy put in. “But speaking of the KGB, what was up with your ex-girlfriend?”
I laughed hollowly.
“She informed me that I’m upsetting the status quo. And also that she’s having a party next Friday.”
“So are we,” Toby said. “And I can guarantee you, ours is going to be far better, and far more exclusive.”
“It will,” Cassidy assured me. “You’ve yet to experience the undiluted awesome that is a hotel-room party.”
“My single regret in life,” I replied.
“I don’t know,” Toby mused, “that mullet you had in sixth grade was pretty bad.”
Cassidy laughed.
“He’s lying,” I said. “It’s physically impossible for my hair to mullet.”
“Since when is mullet a verb?” Toby grinned.
“Since you started lying about my having one,” I said, turning into the school lot. It was just starting to fill up with cars for that night’s football game.
“I’ll drive Cassidy home,” Toby said, digging for his keys.
“I’m fine,” Cassidy protested. “I don’t know why you’re all so afraid of coyotes.”
“I’m not,” Toby said. “I’m afraid Faulkner’s gonna offer to put your bike in his trunk again, and we all know he’ll kill himself lifting it.”
“You’re an asshole,” I informed him.
“At least I didn’t have a mullet in the sixth grade!”
14