“Well… sort of?”
“I don’t think he’s crushing on you, though,” she says to rescue me, and I like her even more for it. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh, I’m not worried.”
“You seem worried. I figured it was for the usual reasons, not wanting the awkwardness of not liking someone who likes you.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him.”
“Oh, wait… do you like him?”
“I don’t like like him, but he’s not the douchebag I first thought he… might have been. I don’t usually peg people so wrong and… I don’t know…”
“Is it hard to imagine a guy might want to be your friend without falling in love with you? Wow—”
“What? No! That’s not what I mean! Jesus, ninety-nine percent of the guys here don’t talk to me at all—it hardly ever happens—so sue me if I don’t know what to do when it does.”
I’m not joking but Molly laughs. This makes me smile. It is pretty funny.
“Anyway, I feel bad that I was mean to him before.”
“I doubt he even noticed.”
“It doesn’t matter. My dad used to say if you’re mean to someone then you’re a mean person, period. You can explain forever why someone deserved it and it’ll never add up to you being nice. Like two wrongs don’t make a right. If you see someone being mean, even if they’re being mean to Hitler, you might say Good for you but you’d never say That was nice of you.”
“Your dad thought you should be nice to Hitler?”
“Hmph, now you’re just being thick. I just don’t want to be mean.”
Silence. Well, except for Molly’s breathing and the cricket on my shoulder whispering in my ear that I’m a bad person.
“When I say I don’t think he noticed,” Molly finally says, “I mean you’re talking like you’ve shot him down or something and I don’t think he sees it that way at all.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “I think he might be gay.”
“What? Really?”
“I don’t know if he’s ready to admit it, even to himself, but it’s what I think. Maybe I’m wrong. Doesn’t really matter, though, if you don’t like him.”
“No, but maybe it helps. The point of all this is I was thinking we could invite him to study with us. He really needs help in Trig—”
Molly laughs. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Screw you, Molly—I am saying so!”
“I guess you did get around to it eventually. Sure, yeah, you can invite him.”
“I mean can you invite him? In case we’re wrong, I don’t want him to—”
“To take it the wrong way, I get it. Leave it to me; I can make it work. And don’t let anyone say you’re a mean person, Parker Grant. Sometimes you can be downright… nice.”
“Why, thank you, Molly Ray. But… how exactly will you make it work?”
“I’ll tell him you already have a crush on someone—”
“Don’t you dare! I do not have a crush on anybody! Crushes are…”
“I know: empty, superficial, like with Jason—”
“Hey! That’s…” I sniff at her. “Truth can hurt, you know.”
“Okay… I’ll tell him you’ve already given your heart away. Better?”
“Well, don’t lie to him.”
“It’s not a lie, though, is it.”
She doesn’t say it like a question so I don’t need to answer.
I stand near the track at lunchtime, eating, waiting for Jason to see me. If he hasn’t by the time I finish my sandwich, I’ll text him.
“Hey, Parker,” he says, from a better distance today so it doesn’t startle me.
“Hey. Granola bar lunch?”
“Yeah. You feeling better today? Did something happen to set you off like that?”
“I don’t usually break down and fall apart for no reason. It was my dad’s birthday yesterday.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m better now. If you saw me upset, why didn’t you come over?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I wait him out.
“I don’t know. It looked like your friends had you covered…”
“You’re not my friend?”
“I am, but… we don’t know each other very well yet… They were your best friends… I didn’t want to get in the way.”
“I met Molly a week before I met you and she stayed in my room with me all afternoon.”
“Oh. Well… girls usually want to be with other girls when they’re really upset. Should I have come over?”
“There are no shoulds. But if you’re asking if I’m grateful that you didn’t come or call or text when you saw me sobbing in the yard and get dragged behind the custodian’s shed and then disappear from school… No, I’m not feeling all that grateful.”
“I just thought… Yeah, you’re right. Let me make it up to you. Saturday night. You pick the restaurant. Okay?”
I think for a moment, for the nice way to be honest.
“I don’t think so…”
“Not Saturday? Or not ever?”
“Not ever is a long time. But that’s probably closer. It’s not all your fault—”
“Oh, here it comes.”
“What?”