“Oh, hey, Kyle.” She smiled and turned back to Eleanor.
“I wanted to say, about last night—”
“You watched too, right?” Eleanor turned toward me, eyes wide. “Wait, were you there? Do you film all these together?” I shook my head no. “Oh. Well then, we’ll both be surprised! Oh my god, I hope they pick a good dress. One of the not-slutty ones.”
Rachel’s smile looked mischievous, but she didn’t say anything.
“I haven’t even seen the segment. Rachel was supposed to watch with me, but something came up.” I tried to catch Rachel’s eye. “Rachel, can I—”
“Oh my god. Are you guys, like, a real couple now? Because that is so. Cute.” Eleanor’s eyes flitted between us, like we were competing puppy videos or something.
“Well, it’s comp—”
“No, we’re not,” Rachel said, smile never faltering. “Just friends. I’m gonna go settle in—El, Annika, find me after class?”
“Um, totally.”
Since when did Rachel want to see Eleanor and Annika? They seemed like the kind of people she went to dingy bowling alleys specifically to avoid. But she was walking away, waving at them and grinning hard. I followed, leaning over her shoulder to whisper in her ear.
“Hey, sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up in front of other people.”
She set her bag on the floor and turned to me, face totally blank.
“Shouldn’t have brought what up?”
Rachel’s expression didn’t move at all. It was like trying to figure out what a brick wall was thinking.
“Last night. I know I canceled kinda last minute, and—”
“It’s fine. Stuff comes up.” Rachel sat down and leaned over to look through her messenger bag.
“If you want to rain check tonight, I DVRed it.”
“That’s nice, but actually I’m busy. A few girls were gonna help me pick shoes now that I have a dress. I texted Mary, and she said the show isn’t going to run a segment on that. Plus, I watched it already with Mo.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She looked up at me, same bland smile pasted on. It was like she’d pulled curtains over her eyes. That smile: a locked door. And I didn’t know what words were the key.
“I’ve gotta get ready for class.” Rachel gestured at the pile of papers she’d dug out.
“Sure, yeah, totally.” I leaned back and forth from one foot to the other, feeling awkward. “We’re cool, though?”
“Of course,” Rachel said. “Still friends.”
“Oh. Uh, cool.” I took a couple steps back. “Catch you later.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Friends.
Oof.
The next day I filmed a tux-fitting segment. Somehow they managed to find a burger-themed tux, a fry-box outfit, and Burger Barn orange everything to force me into. I sent Rachel pictures. She just replied with “haha” every time.
Over the weekend they took Rachel to a salon to do crazy things with her hair and makeup. Flit: loved her hair. That’s where I found a teaser picture. On her feed.
I’d text her, and she’d always text back. But nothing ever, like, real. It was like I was running up a hill and never reaching the top.
And as the dance got closer, and people got more excited about the show coming to our school, Rachel just got farther away. Every day more girls from school would be around her, asking about Laura, about what she was wearing, about when we’d film next. It made it impossible to ever talk. I couldn’t help but notice more guys started hanging off her too. Which made it impossible to focus on whoever I was talking to, or really anything but the red color taking over my field of vision.
Every day that went by I felt more and more annoyed. With her, with the show, with everyone. This was not what was supposed to happen. This whole thing was supposed to be fun.
“It’s like she’s trying to avoid me,” I said, grabbing the bag of Doritos off the coffee table. Ollie was over to watch Rachel’s latest segment. They’d run my tux thing Tuesday, they were running Rachel’s hair today, then they’d film the dance over the weekend and air it next week.
“Maybe.” He grabbed a chip. “Probably.”
“At least you’re happy, right?”
“Why would I be happy?”
“You made it pretty clear that you wanted me to get back together with Emma.”
Ollie frowned. His tongue: moving around in his mouth like it was trying to dig words out of his cheeks. Could’ve just been Doritos, though.
“What I wanted was for the whole Flit thing not to change you.”
“What?”
“Okay, Rachel: she’s a nice girl, right?”
“Yeah.” I said it grudgingly. It was true, she hadn’t been mean about anything. She just seemed . . . distant. New Rachel: nice, but farther away. Less nice to me.
“But you never talked to her before this. None of our friends knew her. And she posted that picture of you, so obviously she had a crush.”
“Not that obviously,” I muttered.
“Kyle, I don’t care who you hook up with, I just didn’t want you to become some massive tool. Like Dave, if Dave were ever able to close the deal.”