“Or maybe they’re just dicks.”
I watch the steady clip-swipe of the windshield wipers. They can’t move fast enough to keep up with the rain.
“Charlie…are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Happy?”
He looks stunned for a minute, like I’ve voiced the most personal question he’s ever been asked. It’s raining so hard I can barely hear him when he answers, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
We slowly wind through wet gray streets. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. What do you care?”
“I do care. I want you to be happy.”
His expression flickers between anger and something that looks like shame.
By the time he pulls up to my house, it’s pouring even harder. I have my fingers on the handle when he speaks.
“If you ever need a ride…” He’s looking down at the steering wheel, his fingers slowly tightening and loosening around it.
“Thank you, Charlie.” Then I open the door and run through the rain.
AFTER SCHOOL I jog to catch Adam just as everyone is piling into his car. Charlie is in the back, so I guess he isn’t angry with Adam anymore.
“Hi, Julian,” Jesse says, and at the same time Adam asks, “You don’t have rehearsal today?”
“Um…no.”
“Really? The play’s in like two days.” He keeps looking at me as if he suspects I’m lying and is considering kicking me out of his car.
“I kept messing up,” I finally admit, too embarrassed to look at anyone. “Miss Cross had to give the part to someone else.”
“You should’ve told me.” He puts the car into drive. “I would have practiced with you.”
I glance up to find Emerald watching me, her eyes full of sympathy, and I have to look down again.
“It’s not a big deal,” Charlie says. “Did you even really want to be in the play?”
“No.” But I did, mostly because Adam seemed to think it was so amazing that I was cast in the first place. “I guess not.”
After Adam drops everyone else off, he drives to his house instead of mine. Once we’re inside, he heads straight to the giant computer on the desk in the living room. “I’m pulling up the script,” he says as he sits down. “Let’s go over your lines.”
Even if it weren’t too late, I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself by trying to read in front of him. I’m not a second grader anymore. “No.”
For a moment he looks surprised by my refusal, then he pushes out the chair next to him. “Julian…” For Adam, it’s an incredibly firm tone. “Come on.”
My feet begin moving all on their own until I’m sitting at the desk. Frustrated, I drop my head onto my outstretched arms.
“These lines are kind of hard,” he says after a minute. “Sit up. All I want you to do is read them, all right?”
“I can’t.”
He tugs the back of my collar just hard enough to make me look at the screen. “Try.”
So I try, and I actually do okay until I get to line three. “Sp-spruns evnee—see? I told you I can’t!” I drop my head back down.
“You can. You were doing fine. Sit up.”
I do what he says.
“Read this word again.” He brackets it between two index fingers so it’s all I can see.
“Sp-spruns.”
“Spurns,” he corrects.
“Spurns.”
“And the next word?”
“I don’t know.”
He brackets it just like he did before.
“En-enviously?”
“Right. Now start that line from the beginning.”
“Spurns enviously at s-straws; sp-speaks things in doubt.” I glance at Adam. He nods, so I keep reading.
“See?” He smiles. “You know it. It was one word tripping you up. Now do it again.”
Instead of going to lunch, I head to the English Hall. Ms. Cross is eating a sandwich with one hand and typing with the other. I knock on the doorframe.
“Adam!” She smiles, and it totally transforms her face. “How’s my all-time favorite student?”
“You say that to everyone, don’t you?”
“No, I do not,” she says seriously.
I pull a chair up in front of her desk and take a seat. “Since I’m your all-time favorite student, I was wondering…” Her eyes narrow in exaggerated suspicion. “…if I could talk to you about Julian Harlow.”
“I can’t believe this.” She sets her sandwich down firmly on a napkin.
“What?”
“Is this about him being reinstated as the Gentleman?”
“How’d you know?”
“You are the third person to speak to me about this today.”
“Seriously? Who else?”
“Emerald, and another boy who has asked to remain anonymous.”
“Oh, come on. Tell me.”
“Charlie Taylor.”
“Charlie?” I laugh.
“I’ll tell you what I told them. Julian is a very sweet boy. I gave him the part to begin with because I…My point is, it’s just too difficult for him.”
“It’s not.”