The Boyfriend Thief

CHAPTER 21





When Zac’s text arrived at quarter to midnight, I was still wide awake in my bed.

Ready 4 midnite comedy?

For a moment, I considered not answering. I should have stayed in bed, stayed in my nice, normal life where things weren’t so complicated.

Ready, I texted back.

My body rebelled against me. My head said no, but my legs walked me across the room, my hands grabbed my clothes and then my feet carried me outside to where Zac waited in my driveway.

“You’re going to love my routine tonight,” Zac said. “I have something new planned.”

He rattled on but I barely heard him. My fingers drummed along the steering wheel in no discernible rhythm. My heart raced like I’d had too much caffeine.

“Hey, you okay?” Zac asked, tapping my arm.

I jumped and suddenly realized I was about to run a red light. The car squealed to a stop at the empty intersection.

“What?”

“You zoned out there for a minute.”

I breathed heavily. Why couldn’t I stay away from Zac? What had made me come with him tonight?

“Oh, sorry. I was...thinking about Costa Rica.”

Zac nodded. “Are you excited about going?

The light turned green and I pressed the accelerator, kicking up dry dust on the road behind us. “Yes, I really am. As a high school student, I won’t get to do much with the medical work except fetch supplies and observe. But I’m still eager to get there.” I sighed. “If I can get the rest of the money I need.”

Zac leaned his head back against the seat and looked over at me. “Costs a lot?”

“Four thousand dollars,” I said. “Which is why I work at Diggity Dog House.”

Zac whistled. “Saving the world is definitely not cheap.”

“No, it’s not. But it’ll be worth it, once I’m there.”

Zac traced a finger along the seam in the plastic seat cover. “So what happens if you don’t make it there? Will your entire future fall apart?”

I thought about his question for a moment before answering. Mom was the only one who could tell us why she had decided running away was better than staying. Maybe Mom was in Costa Rica living the life she had dreamed or maybe she was somewhere else. But this was the only clue I had in finding her and getting some answers so we could all move on.

“No, I guess everything would be fine if I don’t go. Or at least, everything will be the same as it has been.”

“Which is not quite fine?”

I shrugged, unable to meet his gaze. “Nothing has been fine for four years now.”

We were quiet for a long time as I drove through the darkened streets. It was almost peaceful, sitting here in my car with Zac and neither us saying a word. Only the radio’s low hum filled the silence.

“Parents don’t always realize how they hurt their kids by the things they do,” Zac told me. He stared straight ahead, his fingers moving back and forth across his thigh, tracing the lines of the denim. “They make mistakes. Big ones.”

“Sometimes mistakes can’t be forgiven,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “Sometimes they can’t.”

I spoke the words I’d never spoken to anyone before, not even to Molly. “Sometimes I wish I could forget everything about her.”

He turned toward me and it seemed as if his gaze could see right through me.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Sometimes, yes. I don’t like to think about what she did to my dad or how my brother cried for months. It’s better for all of us if we pretend she was never there. A myth, you know? Although some of us seem to want to forget more than others.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I sighed, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “My dad. He’s seeing this woman and it seems serious. I don’t understand how he can put himself back out there. Like he doesn’t remember how much my mom hurt him.”

“Maybe he’s lonely,” Zac suggested. “Maybe your dad chooses to remember the good times of being in love and he wants to experience that again.”

“But he needs to remember the bad parts. That way he won’t open himself up to that pain again.”

Zac gave me a half-smile. “I certainly picked the best business partner to start up a matchmaking service with, didn’t I?”

I laughed a little. “I tried to warn you. Why let yourself be vulnerable? It’s better to go through life without letting all these hormones rule us and make us do crazy things.”

Zac reached over and squeezed my hand. “Sometimes relationships are more than hormones, you know.”

My skin felt as if it were on fire where Zac had touched me.

Hormones, I reminded myself. It was all hormones.

“Sometimes it’s a deep connection between two people,” Zac said. “It’s…I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But I know it’s more than hormones.”

The glow of the passing streetlights reflected back at me in Zac’s dark eyes when I glanced at him. I looked at him across the small distance between us, feeling as if I, like those stupid teen magazines said, were getting lost in his eyes. My thoughts were cloudy and I couldn’t remember where we were, as if the rest of the world around us had disappeared. Suddenly only one thought made any sense in my head.

What would it be like to kiss Zac Greeley?

* * *

I couldn’t focus on Zac’s comedy routine. My bones felt as if they were about to burst out of my body. My fingers drummed on my leg, tapping out a steady rhythm over and over again. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

It took several moments before I realized all attention in the room had turned to me. Every head had swiveled in my direction, all smiling and faces shining. Some called out to me, “Come on, get up there!” and “You can do it!” They clapped as if in encouragement.

From the stage, Zac waved one arm, beckoning me toward him. “Come on up here, Avery! Don’t be shy.”

Oh, no. This was not happening. It was one thing for me to go on stage to deliver a speech after careful planning and consideration, knowing exactly what would happen while I was up there, but being ambushed was not my idea of fun. The cheers grew louder and now everyone was chanting, “A-ver-y! A-ver-y!”

“Don’t be shy,” Zac said. “Come on up!”

My body was frozen in place, my fingers poised in mid-tap over my leg. All I could think about was our eighth grade graduation, when I had been called onstage to accept an academic achievement award. I had tripped while going up the steps, fallen on my face and then slid the rest of the way back off the stage. The entire auditorium—students, parents, and teachers—had laughed at my imperfect moment. Elliott had teased me all summer whenever we passed on the sidewalk outside our houses, asking if I’d been on “any good trips” lately.

“It’ll be fun.” Zac smiled wide at me over the microphone. “Come on up, Avery.”

My body finally released itself from the freeze and I could move again. But I didn’t go toward the stage. I leaped out of the bean bag chair and zigzagged through the crowd of tables and people toward the door.

I burst out of the diner, sucking in the warm night air as if I were suffocating. My head spun sickeningly and I bent over, bracing one arm against the brick wall to steady myself. Everything came pouring out of me in hot tears streaming down my cheeks.

He found me there, still bent over and sobbing. Without a word, he pulled me into him, slipping his arms around me and holding me close. I buried my face into his shoulder. I wasn’t even sure exactly why I was crying, but a million reasons flooded into my head all at once. Because of that memory from eighth grade. Because I had wanted to kiss Zac. Because Molly was in love with Elliott. Because Elliott and Hannah had destroyed me. Because Dad was dating Trisha and Ian actually liked her.

Or because my mom had become a stranger and I didn’t know if she ever even thought about us.

I realized Zac was talking as he rubbed a hand over the back of my head and I choked down a sob.

“Sorry,” he whispered in my ear, his breath tickling my skin. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

I tilted my face up to look at him. He gazed back at me, his expression soft. He swept his thumb over my cheek, wiping away tears. I closed my eyes, leaning into the gentle touch of his hand.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, his breath hot on my cheek.

When I opened my eyes, he was so close, his nose barely an inch from mine. If I leaned forward only slightly, my lips would brush his.

I pulled back and put some distance between us. My body missed the warmth of his and I had the urge to settle back into his embrace. But I fought it down as I wiped at my cheeks.

“It’s okay.” My voice sounded deeper and crackling after my crying.

“I didn’t know you had such bad stage fright,” Zac said. “I wouldn’t have asked you up there if I’d known.”

I shook my head, but it would be hard to explain to Zac why I’d reacted the way I had. So I changed the subject. “Sorry for getting snot all over your shirt.”

Zac shrugged. “A little snot never hurt.”

“And sorry for ruining your routine.”

“You didn’t ruin it. If anything, people will talk about me more now. The guy with the friend who freaked out. Any publicity is good in my book.”

I cringed. I did not freak out like that, not in front of people. Reactions like that were best kept behind closed doors where no one could see them. I was humiliated that Zac had seen me like this, crying and acting like a crazy person.

“Maybe I should go home,” I said, taking a step back toward the safety of my car.

“And leave me stranded?” Zac asked, reminding me that I was his ride. “No way. We have to go get slushies before going home.”

“I’m not in the mood for a slushie.”

“Not in the mood for a slushie? That’s impossible. Any time is perfect for a slushie. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

He clasped his hands together, pleading with me to agree to a slushie. He looked so pathetic, with those big brown eyes staring at me and his lower lip poked out.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Slushies, then we’re going home and going to bed like normal people.” I realized what I’d said and added, “To our separate homes and separate beds, I mean.”

“You put a lot of emphasis on what ‘normal’ people are expected to do,” Zac said once we were in my car and on the road toward the Gas ‘N Drive.

“What’s wrong with wanting to be normal?” I asked.

“What’s normal?” he challenged me.

I shrugged. “You know, getting good grades at school and enough sleep at night. Family dinners where everyone talks about their day and then settles down to watch TV together after.”

“That’s your definition of normal. But this right here—” He gestured toward the neon lit world outside the car window. “This is my normal. Slushies at one A.M. Midnight comedy. Making friends wherever I go and getting to know the people who don’t live by normal rules.” His hands tapped a fast, always changing beat on my dashboard. “What’s so great about your kind of normal anyway?”

“It’s...” I searched for the right word. “Expected. It just is.”

“It’s not much fun.”

“Is that all you care about, having fun?”

The words came out before I could stop them, before I realized how much like Hannah I sounded. One glance toward the passenger seat told me I’d hurt his feelings. “I care about a lot of things,” he said in a quiet voice.

I clenched my teeth against the wave of shame that washed through me. “Sorry.”

We were quiet during the ride to the gas station. I turned up the volume on the radio to let Hallow Flux fill the silence for us.

I blinked against the sudden glare inside Gas ‘N Drive when we entered a few minutes later, pausing a moment until my eyes became adjusted to the light. The cashier we’d seen before, Jake, stood slumped over the counter, half-asleep again. He barely opened his eyes when we came in.

“Hey, man,” he said, holding out a hand for Zac to clench in greeting. They did some elaborate handshake that went too fast for me to keep up with.

“Slushie run,” Zac told him and Jake nodded, waving us toward the back.

“Was that your secret handshake?” I asked as I followed Zac toward the machines. “Are you two in a gang or something?”

Zac laughed a little. “No, that’s something we made up last year. It’s kind of our thing now. Low five, grip, fist bump, grip, flutter away.” He shrugged. “It’s dumb really, I guess. Not something normal people do.”

This felt like a dig at me, but I smiled to keep from showing him that I was hurt. “It’s not dumb. I’ve never had a secret handshake.”

Zac shook his head as he grabbed two cups from the stack. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

He mixed up our slushies to perfection, then we made our way back toward the front, where Jake was now snoring slightly over the register.

Zac held a finger to his lips to signal me to stay quiet. He silently counted out the money for the drinks and placed it on the counter next to the sleeping Jake’s elbow. Then we tiptoed out of the store and back to my car.

“Does he always sleep while working?” I asked as we sat down on the plastic covered seats. “Mr. Throckmorton would have fired me long ago if I did that.”

“I can’t blame him for sleeping,” Zac said. “Jake’s a busy guy. He has to catch a few Z’s when he can.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, he looks so busy in there.” Inside the store, Jake still slept at the counter.

Zac raised an eyebrow at my tone and said, “He’s going to school to become an emergency medical technician. He attends classes in the afternoon, goes to work at the Lucky Burrito during the dinner shift, and comes to the Gas ‘N Drive for the night shift. He’s paying for school all on his own.”

I looked back at the ragged guy inside the store, feeling ashamed that I had thought of him as a loser stuck in a dead end job at a gas station, sleeping instead of working. “I didn’t know that.”

Zac tapped his left ear. “That’s because you have to listen to find out things about people. Looking only tells you a small part of the story.”

I swallowed a mouthful of cherry-lime-grape slushie. “And what has listening told you about me?”

Zac tilted his head to one side as he regarded me. “That you think I’m the most hilarious comedian you’ve ever met.”

I laughed. “You wish.”

“And that you’re loyal to the people you care about.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t everyone?”

“And,” he said in a softer tone, “you try to hide yourself from the rest of the world, though I haven’t yet figured out why.”

A shiver tickled its way up my spine, setting all the tiny hairs along my arms standing on end. “I’m not hiding.” My voice didn’t sound convincing, even to myself.

But I wasn’t hiding. I was here, in plain sight, sitting in the shadowy parking lot of the Gas ‘N Drive with Zac Greeley, drinking slushies in a car which had always been slushie-free territory before he arrived in my life. If I were hiding, I’d be back in my room, sound asleep in my bed as I’d always been on Saturday nights at one A.M.

“Why would I be hiding?” I asked, my fingers squeezing the cup toward dangerously close quarters, likely to spill over with the purple-black liquid at any moment.

Zac shrugged. “I’m not the one with the answers, I’m just the one listening.”

“If anything, you’re hiding,” I said. My voice got more and more high-pitched as I spoke. I could feel another major freak out coming on if I didn’t let out some steam and get control of myself again.

But I couldn’t stop the flow of words spilling out of my mouth now, like Zac had broken open a dam inside me. “You’re the one who hasn’t told his dad anything at all about what he really wants to do with his life. You sneak out and perform at midnight comedy shows for a bunch of strangers, but then you go back home and pretend you’re satisfied with making keys every night. You sit with me while your girlfriend is off doing who knows what and you try to tell me what relationships are about? I’m not hiding. I’m right here! I’m not the one who runs away!” I slapped my hand on my steering wheel, causing the horn to give out a loud blast, echoing around us. Inside the store, Jake jolted awake from his nap, nearly crashing into a display of magazines behind the counter.

I shivered for a few minutes while the silence grew around us. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, probably awakened from sleep by my car horn.

What had I done? I could feel Zac’s discomfort growing with each passing second as my words absorbed into both of us. Now he knew. He could see for himself that I was Avery James, Total Freak. The persona I’d worked so hard to build at school would crumble around me. He’d tell Hannah how psycho I was and then she’d know that she would win valedictorian next year. Underneath the perfect layers I showed to the world, the truth was I couldn’t handle the pressure. When things got tough, the people in my family ran.

I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the top of the steering wheel, squeezing my eyes shut and wishing this entire day would disappear.

“Are you okay?” Zac asked.

“Go away.”

“What?”

I sucked in a ragged breath, trying to force down the panic building inside me. “Go. Away. Just for a minute. Let me have some time alone.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Why are you afraid of letting people see you like this?”

Why couldn’t get he just out of the car and leave me alone so I could freak out in privacy? Wasn’t one public breakdown enough for him?

“I’m not walking away, Avery,” Zac said. “But I am sorry for trying to get you to go onstage.”

I rolled my head over to look at him. “What?”

“At the diner,” he explained. “I thought maybe getting up onstage would help you to...I don’t know, stop hiding. Maybe make you realize you don’t have to plan every moment of your life in advance. Sometimes it’s good to let things happen. Go with the flow.”

I set my cup in the cup holder and started the ignition. I turned out onto the street and drove in silence for a long time.

“What if everyone laughs at me when I get onstage?” I asked after I’d driven away from the store.

“It’s a comedy show. Making the audience laugh is a good thing.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean, what if I get onstage and I blow it? What if they’re not laughing at my jokes, but laughing at me? What if I’m not good enough for them? What happens then?”

Zac yawned as he shrugged. “You get back up there and try again another time. No one expects you to be perfect.”

“Hannah is perfect,” I said.

“Hannah wants you to think she’s perfect. Trust me, underneath she’s as messed up as you and me.”

I reached my house and pulled to a stop in the driveway. Zac’s car sat along the side of the road, but neither of us made a move to get out. I killed the ignition and then picked up my cup, staring into the melting drink.

“No one can possibly be as messed up as I am,” I said.

“Everyone is messed up in their own way. The funny part is we all don’t want anyone else to know, so we work so hard to hide it.” He yawned and leaned his head back against the seat.

I thought about all the people I knew and all the ways we were messed up. My dad believed self-help books would heal the hole in his heart. Ian desperately wanted a mother to fill the empty place in his life that he tried to cover up with junk food. Molly hacked into her mom’s email account to delete messages from her father before they could start new fights over her or the divorce settlement.

Maybe Zac was right. Maybe we were all hiding from ourselves and each other.

“I don’t know if I should go to Costa Rica,” I murmured. “What if I get there and I find my mom and...nothing changes? What if I’m still not good enough to make her want to come back?”

When he didn’t answer, I looked over and found him asleep. Zac Greeley, the boy who never stopped moving, was finally still. His eyes were closed, dark eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheeks. His mouth hung open slightly and his breathing was slow and steady.

I reached over to take the slushie from his hand and set it in the cup holder before he could spill it. I rolled down the windows enough to let in what little breeze there was and then eased out of the car, shutting the door as gently as I could to keep from waking him.