She turned around and gave me a death stare.
“Yo? You’ve got to be kidding me.” She kept walking.
“Where’s Macallan?”
“Oh, so you noticed her existence?” she said dryly.
“Come on, I —”
She interrupted me. “No, total y, dude. I get it. You had your bros around. Chil ax, yo.”
Wow. A girl was overreacting. Paging Captain Cliché.
“Try her locker,” she said over her shoulder.
I raced to Macal an’s locker. And was relieved to see her, until she turned around and looked like she was about to cry.
I’d only seen Macal an cry about her mom. She handled everything else — the dissolving of her friendship with Emily, her breakup with Ian, academic stress — with this quiet strength.
“Hey, hey!” I ran up to her, but she began walking in the opposite direction. “You’re mad at me?”
She didn’t need to answer when she turned around. The look on
her face said enough. But unfortunately, she answered, “What do
you think?”
“I’m sorry.” Even though I had no idea what had gotten her so
mad. I’d only been fooling around with my friends at my locker. She couldn’t have waited a minute or two before she would have had my undivided attention? Of course she couldn’t. She was used to having me all to herself.
But now I had other friends, other commitments.
It wasn’t my problem if she couldn’t handle that.
She laughed. “You know, I usual y believe you when you apologize, but I have a feeling you have no idea what this is about.”
“Actual y I do.”
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“Oh, real y? Would you care to enlighten me?” She was being so
smug, it made me even angrier.
“You don’t like that your little errand and whipping boy isn’t at your beck and cal .”
She stared blankly at me. I’d got her so good.
“No.” Her voice was so quiet. “It’s that I think I’m losing my best friend. Wait, no, not just a best friend but part of my family. You know more than anybody how much my family means to me, and I let you be part of it. You promised me, Levi — you promised my mom — that you’d always be there for me. Some promise.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
She wiped away a tear and continued. “I understand how important it is for you to have your guy friends, I do. But I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen you in the past month. The past month, Levi. And don’t forget, one of those times was so we could go shopping to get a suit for you to take that junior girl to her prom.”
She was helpful, picking out the corsage I gave Jil .
“I gave up one of my closest friends because of you, Levi. Because I thought the friendship we had was worth it. But the second you get guy friends, you push me aside. Do you have any idea how worth-less you’ve made me feel? Did you even once think about my feelings every time you canceled on me?”
Because Keith always had the worst timing, he came down the
hal way right then. “Come on, California! You coming or not?” he called out.
Macal an glared at him before she turned back to me. “Please
don’t let me get in the way of your precious bro time.” She rol ed her eyes.
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That’s when I snapped. I no longer felt sorry for her. I was sick of the way she always made me feel like the things I wanted were stupid. That her time was more important than mine. For the way she kissed me and pretended it was nothing. That there were no conse-quences for her when it comes to me.
“This is all a joke for you, isn’t it?” I spat at her.
Her face turned white. “I never thought —”
I cut her off. “Yep, you never think.”
And then I walked away from her.
I had no desire to hear what she had to say anymore. I didn’t like being made to feel like I was letting her down. That I was a failure somehow. That I was single-handedly responsible for her happiness.
That I was the one responsible for her not being friends with Emily anymore. It was a decision she had made. And it wasn’t my fault she wasn’t with Ian anymore, either. She needed to stop putting so much on our friendship.
I was a fifteen-year-old guy. What was so wrong with wanting to
hang out with my friends? My real friends.
I went with Keith, but it was like I wasn’t there. I caught the ball because I needed to catch the bal . But that was it. My mind was back in that hal way. My mind would not move.
I wasn’t proud of myself for making Macal an sad or knowing full well she was probably crying at that very second, somewhere out of my reach.
But she just got to me.
I hated that she was making me feel guilty, when she was the one who should’ve been — 143
I mean, she was the one who, like, wanted to —
I was so angry, I couldn’t even think straight. I hated that I felt that way. I hated that I used to be able to tell Macal an everything, but couldn’t anymore.
She drove me nuts. She had these certain ways about her that
would fill me with rage when I thought about it.
The way she would tease me.