“I should just drop out and be a farmer.”
“A very dumb farmer,” I counter, and when that isn’t enough to make Luke change his mind, I say, “Look, Luke, you can’t just run away from your problems. If you don’t stand up for yourself, this kid’s never going to stop.”
“You let Danica bully you,” Luke points out, and I frown as I enter my room.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Well, for one, I deserve it. I developed a crush on her boyfriend, which means I deserve the very worst she can give me. And for two—“We’re family,” I say, and my brother scoffs.
“That’s crap, and you know it.”
“Yeah well . . .” With lack of a better argument, I simply order, “You’re still going to school tomorrow.”
“Can’t you just play for a little while with me?” Luke pleads, and I stare at my computer. I can’t play Deadzone with him because if Mike logs on, I know he’ll play with us. Which will involve talking. Which will resurrect those damn butterflies in my stomach.
I rub the ache in my chest and say, “What about that dragon game we played before?”
“I want to play Deadzone.”
“Why? I feel like being a princess tonight.”
“Because I miss playing with you and Mike, but he’s not on yet.”
My throat dries, and I croak, “You’re logged on right now?”
“Yeah.”
“But Mike isn’t on?”
“Not yet.”
I sit down at my desk, worrying my lip. Mike texted me to ask me to play Sunday night, but I ignored him. He sent me a couple more messages as I sat at my desk frowning at my black computer screen, and then just one: Sweet dreams, Hailey.
It was the same Monday night. But last night, he didn’t bother asking. I was lying in bed, wondering what he was doing, when my phone dinged. He wished me sweet dreams. Nothing else—just sweet dreams.
I didn’t respond.
He’s an addiction that I need to stop fueling, for my sake and his. He told me I’m one of his best friends, and I’m trying to be a good one by not letting these feelings grow. He has a girlfriend, and even if he didn’t, my feelings for him would only end in hurt feelings. For me: because I’m not Mike’s type—I’m no Danica—and I’d eventually have to hear that from his own mouth. And for him: because he lost a friend he thought he could trust to not fall for him like every other girl who’s ever seen him bang on the drums.
We can be friends again. Someday soon, I hope. I just have to smother these damn sparks inside of me first.
“Alright,” I tell Luke as I boot up my computer. “Half an hour, but then you’re going to bed and going to school tomorrow.”
“Deal,” Luke says before I can change my mind, and we hang up the phone to start chatting in the game. For twenty-three minutes, I almost forget about Mike—right up until his username appears on the right side of my screen.
“Luke, I’ve got to go.”
“But Mike just signed on!”
“Sorry,” I rush to say. “My stomach is hurting.”
“But you promised you’d play for half an hour . . .”
“I love you,” I tell him in a hurry. “We’ll play again soon. Go to school tomorrow.”
I sign off before he can say another word, and then I press my fingers against my stinging eyes.
I miss Mike. I miss his banter and his smile and his humor and his voice. I miss making him laugh over the phone. I miss him wishing me sweet dreams just before I fall asleep.
I crawl under my bedcovers, wondering how long it’s going to take for me to stop feeling this way. If I developed this crush on him in just two and a half weeks, it should only take that long to get rid of it, right? I’m already four days in, so I should only have two weeks left. Just two weeks. That’s not that long . . .
Only, Mike is leaving on tour in eleven days, and he’ll be gone for six weeks. So even if it only takes me two weeks to get over him, I won’t see him again for two months. And I promised myself—no more phone calls, no more private chats. So it will be at least two months until group get-togethers, two months until I can try to be Mike’s friend again . . .
My phone dings with a text, and my screen lights up my dark room as I read it.
Sweet dreams, Hailey.
I close my eyes, imagining Mike thinking of me in this moment, and it reopens the hole in my chest.
Does he know I’m avoiding him? He must. Did he see my name on his screen before I logged off? If he did, I hope my brother told him I have a stomachache. I hope Mike believed him . . .
It feels like my heart is starving, and I don’t know how to fix that, but it warns me that I’m wrong: two weeks isn’t going to be enough.
Not enough to stop falling for Mike Madden.
Chapter 15
Three more days pass, and I stay away from Deadzone. I try not to miss Mike’s “sweet dreams” texts when they stop coming. I do my best to ignore the hollow emptiness in my chest that makes it hard to sleep at night, to breathe at night. And I pretend I don’t care when Dee tells me that Mike has caught the debilitating cold that Kit birthed into the world.
She says Mike is sick—well, more dramatically, she tells me he’s dying. She says no one has heard from him and he’s probably rotting to death on his kitchen floor. And no one else can go help him out because everyone else is still sick or recovering too. She says I should go, but I know it isn’t my place. I’m only a week into Mike-addiction recovery, and I don’t want to fall off the wagon now, not after how difficult these past seven days have been.
Instead, I plead with Danica.
“You should go check on Mike,” I tell her one week after the disaster at the pond, going against my better judgment to try to convince her to do what any good girlfriend would do. “The girls said he’s not feeling well,” I continue while she sits folded up on her bed with pink foam separators wedged between her toes. She concentrates on her glittery silver brush as it swipes over her toenail.
“He’s a big boy,” she counters without looking up at me.
“You’re his girlfriend.”
“So?”
“So, don’t you even care about him?”
Danica scowls up at me. “Of course I care about him. Not that it’s any of your business.” She goes back to pampering her toes, snooty as ever. “I talked to him yesterday.”
“And he sounded okay?”
Her pause tells me more than her mouth ever will. “He said he was fine.”
“In a text?”
I sigh when she can’t even deny it. “Look, Hailey, this music video is shooting in seven days. What do you want me to do, go over there and get sick?”