But of course I was speaking in monosyllables and it was pretty obvious I was not happy, and in the end you just raised your hands and said, “Fine. Let’s just go home.”
That made it sound like our home was together, like we were a couple or something, which just made me feel even worse, thinking of you rushing to help Paris, of how stupid I had been, thinking that any of this had anything to do with me. I knew that was a thing boys did—get to the beautiful one through her plain friend.
I figured that was what you were doing.
I know better now. I know you were helping Paris because you liked me, and I liked Paris, and so automatically you liked Paris. At least I assume so; just as likely you just saw that she needed help and you didn’t even think about it. I’m the one who thinks about stuff too much, I’m aware of that.
Anyway, that’s why I was frosty to you in the pickup, okay?
Eventually you gave up on me and a little part inside me died, and you started the engine and drove back toward the house. After a while, watching the streetlights go past, I started to think maybe I had been an idiot. Maybe I had read something into nothing. I opened my mouth to say sorry—
—and we passed Dad’s car, a few blocks from the house, driving home.
****.
“Hit the gas,” I said. That was another opportunity wasted to spend time with you, to talk to you alone, because you sped up to beat him and we got home like two minutes before him so I didn’t even say good night to you, just ran into the house while you lay down in the pickup so he wouldn’t see you. And we made it. We got away with it.
So that’s why I’ve told you the story of the game, which you know anyway, what with being there and all.
One: because I was mean to you afterward and you didn’t deserve it and I’m sorry. Two: because you saw what happened at the game, with Paris and Julie, but you didn’t understand.
You see, you were on the phone at the pier when Julie was talking about never winning anything. You probably just thought it was Paris being crazy, as usual.
But you get it now, right? You get what I’m telling you about her?
You could call her crazy. If that was the way you saw the world. Or you could call her someone who would go to the trouble of having a trophy made, specially, and then crash a sporting event just to give it to her friend.
That’s the Paris I want the world to remember. That’s the Paris I want you to remember.
“Can you wash up?” said Dad. We had just finished eating—pizza from the restaurant for the third night in a row.
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ll be in the study.”
“Sure.” I was not varying my vocabulary much. I was thinking about you, and how even if you did like me, which I wasn’t at all sure about, but still, even if you did, I had messed it all up now.
He left his plate and went to the bug room. He was still pissed with me, even though he didn’t see me get back from the roller derby, luckily. I didn’t blame him, really. At least he hadn’t shouted for a while. Of course that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dad’s anger, it surfaces unexpectedly, I’ve told you already. Like spray from a whale’s blowhole. Stillness …
then …
whoosh.
So I was just waiting for him to blow over some tiny inconsequential thing. Like the dishes not being cleaned properly—so as a result I scrubbed them for ages before putting them in the rack to dry, trying to give him no excuses.
I stopped at the door to the study, on the way up to my room. Dad was hunched over the computer, typing. On the forum, I guessed. Dad was always on the forum, when he wasn’t actually feeding the bugs or breeding them or whatever he did with them.
On the forum he was BEETLEJUICE3. It was like a lame superhero identity. I mean, in real life, he was an ex-soldier with a failing restaurant and a sick daughter. But there on the forum he was a PRO-LEVEL BUGGER. He had seventeen hundred posts or something and two thousand comments. People would ask him questions, post comments with lots of animated emojis about how awesome he was—I’d seen him answering them lots of times. He was like a legend on that site.
No wonder he didn’t want to deal with real things. Like me.
“’Night, Dad,” I said.
He turned. “’Night.”
“Watcha doing?”
“Posting some pics of my new giant pills.”
“Pills?”
“Millis. They roll into balls. Like a pill bug, you know?” He went back to the screen, typing with one finger, slowly.
“Okay, well, see you tomorrow.”
He grunted and I went up the stairs. I lay on my bed, all my clothes still on. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then I grabbed my phone and texted Paris.
U there? xxx
I waited for, like, half an hour, but she didn’t text back. I turned on the radio, and Katy Perry blasted out into the room.
“Turn that ******* **** down!”
That was Dad, shouting up from the study.
I sighed and turned it down. I got up onto my knees on the bed and looked out the window—but I couldn’t see you and Shane on your deck chairs, and there was no light spilling from your apartment.
My phone buzzed. I picked it up.