She stands up suddenly and Sarah’s hand twitches.
“You had your chance but it’s over. Scotty doesn’t want anything to do with you but he’s too nice to just come out and tell you himself. That’s not a problem for me, so here we are, me telling you to leave him the hell alone. And now we’re done.”
She stomps away.
“You okay?” Sarah asks.
Not okay. Not okay at all. Getting dizzy. I fumble in my bag for my phone. When I find it I hold it out because my hands are shaking and I want a fast answer.
“Text him for me. Are you friends with Trish? Just that.”
“Aren’t you going to see him in a few minutes anyway, in Trig?”
I wiggle the phone and try to keep my voice steady. “Please?”
She takes it. I hear the swoosh as the text goes out.
“I’m glad she wasn’t drinking a beer,” I say.
“Huh?”
“It’s not a weapon I want to be on the receiving end of.”
Keep the banter up. That’s how to keep it together. Hang on, just see what Scott says. Maybe Trish is full of shit.
“Looks like I have a new nickname.”
“Was she really calling you a…?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Blind Bitch.”
“Jesus.”
“Bibi… B.B. You know, I think I like it—”
“No! You don’t! And… well… even if you do, if anyone calls you that again, I’ll start carrying a beer bottle!”
I try to smile but can’t manage more than a wince. My denial barrier is stretching thinner by the second. Trish couldn’t have said all those things without knowing Scott really well— Bzzz.
“He says, Yeah. She talk to you?”
I don’t know how to start breathing again without making noise, noise that would trigger a lot of other noises I don’t want to make, not here in the Junior Quad… not again…
I put my forehead down on the rough wooden table.
“God, Parker… are you okay?”
Sarah puts her arm around my shoulders.
I swallow and clear my throat and somehow manage to get words out.
“Hug me later, okay? I… I can’t… not now.”
She pulls her arm away but takes my hand; I grab on tight.
Maybe I don’t know Scott anymore… sending this stranger to tell me this…
Bzzz bzzz bzzz…
“He’s calling.”
“Turn it off.”
It stops.
“I’m sorry, Parker.”
“It’s fine.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It is fine. A week ago I didn’t want to talk to him either. Now we’re even.”
Silence.
“What are you going to do?”
“Same things I always do.”
“I mean, in ten minutes you’re going to be sitting by him.”
“Not that I’ll be able to see.”
TWENTY-SIX
Despite feeling wretched I can’t help being a little proud of myself. I’m dying inside but on the outside I’m putting on a pretty good show. I keep telling myself what I told Sarah ten minutes ago: I didn’t want him or trust him until recently so I don’t have far to backtrack. I’m confident our mutual silence will resume and we won’t be making any scenes.
“Pop quiz,” I say when a silence comes that I fear might lead to something serious. “Tell me the sine, cosine, tangent formulas.”
“Okay,” D.B. says. “Sine is opposite over hypotenuse, cosine is adjacent over hypotenuse, and tangent is opposite over adjacent.”
“Hundred percent!” I say. “A-plus!”
“The hippies deserve some of the credit,” he says.
“They deserve none!” I’m thinking bluster could get me through the day. “The victory is all yours. And you get a gold star for saying the word hypotenuse instead of slanty side.”
“Hey, Parker.” Scott plops down in his chair. “So Trish talked to you?”
Jesus, he sounds excited. What. The. Hell.
“What?” I say in my thousand-icy-daggers voice.
“Trish Oberlander. She—”
“I know. I was there. Why are you talking to me?”
“I… uh… okay…” His voice sets a record for speed plummeting. “I… I know it’s not what you wanted to hear—”
“We don’t need to talk about what you think anymore.”
The icy daggers find their target because he doesn’t say another word.
While we pack up after class, I’m not sure whether I want Scott to keep his mouth shut or try to say something else so I can shut him down again. Before I think about it too long he makes his choice.
“Parker, I know you’re mad at me again,” he says softly. “But can you at least tell me what you said?”
“To Trish? You want a reenactment? Why didn’t you just watch?”
“I just want to know if you’re going to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Run with her.”
My heart spasms in my chest, twice, and again, like it’s trying to escape from my rib cage. My face suddenly burns hot enough to itch and I know it’s turning red.