I saw my chance then. “I’ve got to use the bathroom,” I said. “I’ll be out in a sec.”
But by the time I’d shut myself in the bathroom next to the kitchen, I’d lost my nerve. I sat on the toilet and inhaled. Hey, Andrew. We never hang out anymore. It was so simple. I would not be a goddamn wimp. We were in diapers together, practically. In preschool, we played army with those little plastic bears meant for learning how to count, back when my mom still worked and shared carpooling with Andrew’s mom.
I flushed the empty toilet and washed my hands. Stepped out into the kitchen, where Andrew was adding a mountain of mix to a glass pitcher of iced tea.
His mouth parted with surprise when he saw me. He smiled. “You caught me. I like it extra sweet.”
I folded my arms across my chest, forcing myself to be cool. “I didn’t mean to be such a creeper.”
“Nah, you weren’t. It’s just weird seeing you in here again.” His smile turned sad. “The last time you were here was my seventh birthday. Remember those teal overalls you used to wear? They were made out of that fuzzy stuff—”
“Corduroy. I can’t believe you remember that.” I tried to hold back the smile blooming on my lips. Be fucking cool.
“I remember everything.”
So do I. “That was the party when your stepdad dressed up as Darth Vader, and we hit the pi?ata with light sabers.”
Andrew laughed. I hadn’t heard him laugh since sophomore year. Since the whole thing with Meg Constanzo dumping him, he’d been broody. Different. But lately, I caught him smiling again. You made him laugh.
“We used to have so much fun,” he said. “I miss that.”
“I do too.” Sadness mingled with the butterflies in my stomach. I miss it too. But we can still get it back.
Andrew’s eyes twinkled. “Remember how ticklish you were?”
“I still am,” I laughed, and then he came at me from the side and used two fingers to tickle the space above my hip. My heart leapt into my throat. Don’t ever stop touching me.
I squealed and grabbed his fingers. He was laughing, and I was laughing, and God, the look on his face. I’ll be replaying it in my mind forever, like a scene from a favorite movie. I’ll feel his fingers grazing my side like a warm glow in my stomach forever.
Then his mom called to him from the open window, asking where the iced tea was. I followed him outside, our moment interrupted. When Jade asked me why I was wearing a shit-eating grin, I just shook my head and took my position by the volleyball net.
I’m closer than I’ve ever been.
Something is finally going to happen between us. I can feel it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Bridget and Val leave the café, I ask Rob to watch the front counter so I can lock myself in the bathroom.
She was only friends with you to get to Andrew.
I lower the toilet seat and sit, hugging my knees to my chest. Bridget is wrong; Bailey and I are friends because I sat next to her that first day in local history. She asked me to be her partner because I was there. We’re friends because of fate, not because of Andrew.
Fucking Andrew. I’m not stupid; I know that every girl in our grade has been in love with him at some point. But I’d always assumed that Jade and Bailey were immune to his charms. Jade is constantly making fun of him, calling him McSketch, pointing out how he wears basket shorts even in the freezing cold. He’s so weird. Bailey would even sometimes join in.
But then a flash of a memory comes on strong, like a migraine.
Meg Constanzo.
Meg is one of the girls that other girls like to hate—she plays a sport every season. Her wardrobe is entirely J. Crew and her ponytail is unnaturally bouncy. But when she smiles at you, it’s impossible to hate her, because she just looks like she really means it.
Bailey hated her anyway. We were hanging out in the parking lot after school last spring, waiting for Jade to finish uploading her photographs to the Mac in Mr. White’s room. Bailey and I leaned against the chain link separating us from the fields, soaking up the last bit of sun before her four p.m. shift at Friendly Drugs.
The gym doors opened at the side of the building, and the lacrosse girls jogged past us. Meg was at their helm, already a captain even though she was only a junior. She smiled and waved at us. Hey, guys. That was the entire transaction.
When the lacrosse girls were gone, Bailey said, “God, I fucking hate her.”
I watched them run onto the field, sticks held high, their laughter echoing up to the parking lot. “Meg? Why? She’s nice.”
“It’s so fake,” Bailey said. “No one is that nice.”
It took months for Andrew to open up to me about what happened the previous fall, why he missed so much soccer practice and got kicked off the team.
“I was dating this girl for like six months,” he’d said, over teaching me how to play Risk. “When she broke up with me, she wouldn’t tell me why. And I guess I sort of just shut down.”
Color had crept into his cheeks when he said it, like I would judge him for something. Judge him for the pills I’d seen Ashley pick up for him from Friendly Drugs.
But I understood; after a particularly bad fight with my mom, I wouldn’t want to leave my room for days. My bed was my only comfort from the feeling that started with being unable to face one person and ended with being unable to face the world.
Andrew told me the girl’s name with a shrug. Meg Constanzo. From what I knew about her, she was exactly the type of girl that it made sense for Andrew to date.
But I didn’t put the pieces together that day in the parking lot when Meg said hey to Bailey and me. God, I fucking hate her. I’d written it off as Bailey feeling bitchy for no reason. A flash of a moment, so quick you could blink and miss it.
Now I’m left wondering: what else have I missed?
—
Moments after Bridget and Val leave, my phone buzzes in my back pocket with a text from Jade: what did bitch 1 and bitch 2 want??
I swallow, shaking off the eerie feeling of being watched. Jade works at Tim’s Taqueria down the street; no doubt she saw Val’s Camry parked outside the café when she arrived at work for her eleven-thirty shift.
I can’t shake Bridget’s words from my head. Could it be true that Bailey was only using me to get to Andrew? Jade’s not stupid; she must have known how Bailey felt about Andrew. Jade was the best friend, and I was the extra friend. There are things you tell your best friend that you don’t tell the extra one.
I wonder if they did it on purpose: not telling me that Bailey was into my brother.
I delete the text from Jade and head back to the sink, praying that she won’t come over here when she realizes I saw the message and chose not to respond. Jade’s boss, the eponymous Tim, is a hardass and only lets her have short breaks.