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  “What?”

  The light from the hall, more than the voice, startles us. We’re suspended in it like a mote of dust. Frozen. Caught. I pull my face away from his. My leg is up, gripped in his hand, my pelvis pressed against his. My shirt up to my collarbone.

  “I mean, what—” A voice again from the doorway. Grier. I can’t see her face—the light is behind her—but I can imagine her expression.

  Gavin lets my leg down slowly. Politely pulls down the hem of my top.

  “There you are, baby,” he says, like she doesn’t know what she just saw, drunk as she may be.

  “I just—” There’s the shadow of her head, shaking, and then more light blares on, this time shining down on us, on the stupid IKEA desks. The dust bunnies under the chairs. In slow motion, her finger comes up, pointing. I can feel how puffy my lips are, can feel the scrape marks Gavin’s dark stubble has left on my face, how stark it must look in this stupid cheap light. I feel the shameful wet pulsing in my pants.

  “You,” she says, cold. I’m not sure if she means me or Gavin. It’s all she says, and then she’s gone. The light glares down on us, and everything is deadly silent—even the music from the party seems to have disappeared. I see the rake marks my fingernails have left on his arms, imagine the bare hangers in the closet clanking together in her wake as she storms away.

  “Well,” Gavin says, clearing the silence and the fog in my head. I look at him: just some college jock, too good-looking for his own good, hiding his dick with his hands.

  “Yeah,” I say, sinking down to the floor.

  31

  EVENTUALLY GAVIN DRIVES ME HOME.

  First, though, there’s the fit with Grier—a call for a cab, fumbling over the address, her angry, waiting in the driveway for an hour and a half before it pulls in, the Ethiopian guy behind the wheel both pissed and apologetic. During the whole wait Gavin tries to get her to let him drive her home, but she just screams curses every time he comes near her. For a while people from the party become a part of it, checking how she is, telling him to leave her alone. Some girl brings her a cup of water. Grier works herself up higher and higher. At one point Gavin gets close enough for her to land a few punches on his chest. I sit down in the grass. The cab comes. She’s still crying, and it seems like she’s forgotten me, until she turns, tendons in her neck straining, eyes raccoon wild, and shrieks, “I shared everything with you!” She’s drunk, but we can still feel her anger pouring out with the car’s exhaust as it drives her away.

  “Did you at least give her some cash?” I finally say to him, watching the space of black where the taillights have disappeared.

  “You okay?” is all he wants to know.

  I do a mental check, scanning myself with my interior eyeballs. Nothing broken. Everything intact. But his kindness right now is not anything I can stand.

  “Get ready for a bunch of angry texts coming your way,” he says. “I’m sure my phone’s already full.”

  A surge of hatred swells in me. Stupid Grier. Thinking he would amount to more than exactly this. Making me prove it to her. And then making such a big deal of it when it happened just the way I knew it would.

  “Take me home,” I say. “I’m done.”

  We’re both stone-cold sober now.

  “Okay,” he agrees. And goes to get his keys.

  • • •

  All the outside lights are on at the house when Gavin stops in my driveway. Mom and Louis are going to wonder, again, why I’m not at Grier’s. There’s going to be more I’m going to have to explain.

  “Are you going to—?” he starts.

  “Shut up.” My fists are clenched against my hard thighs. Everything is hard.

  He touches my elbow. “I’m not sorry.”

  I look at him.

  I’m not sorry either. I’m beyond sorry, into nothing. I feel nothing right now.

  “I’ll see you Monday at practice.”

  And I get out of the car.

  32

  I SLEEP UNTIL MOM COMES to get me for breakfast at ten. It still isn’t enough. I don’t know what time it was when I crawled into bed last night, and if I dreamed at all, I have no idea now what about, but I’m still tired. Or hung over. Or both.

  “You okay, honey?” Mom says, raising her fingers to her own chin in a question.

  I reach up, feel the scrape marks left by Gavin and his swarthy stubble.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “You and Grier have some kind of a fight?”

  I frown at her, not sure how she could possibly know this.

  “I just mean, usually you’re over at her place. And last weekend. . . . ” She studies my face, waiting.

  “She’s got a new boyfriend” is all I say.

  “Well.” She nods. “I know how that can change things, certainly. Good thing you have Charlie then.” She pats my knee but takes her hand away when my face twists.

  “We’re glad you’ll have breakfast with us,” she goes on. “Louis’s got bacon and eggs downstairs. And yesterday I made those kitchen-sink muffins you like. You know, for this week. I figured a few extra nutrients wouldn’t do you any harm.”

  Kitchen-sink muffins have got about eighteen ingredients, including wheat germ, oats, shredded carrot, blueberries, and applesauce. We found the recipe when I joined Van’s team, and Mom got a rare burst of enthusiasm about my routine. They’re good for breakfast before school. They freeze easily. They allow her to pretend she actually cares.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  I follow her out my door and down the hall where I duck into the bathroom to check myself in the mirror. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t good, either. I look like a kid who fell on her roller skates and scraped her chin on the sidewalk. Maybe not that bad. But there’s also a pretty impressive hickey just under my collarbone, and a yellow spot below my shoulder where I think Gavin’s thumb pressed in.

  “Way to be subtle,” I say to myself in the mirror.

  I put on a baggy T-shirt that covers the hickey and most of my arms. I cannot think about it right now. I need to eat first.

  But it’s not easy. Louis is on me the second I reach the kitchen. “You and Charlie have a good time at the party last night? Getting pretty serious?” He gives Mom what I guess is supposed to be a privately amused smile.

  “You know, we like Charlie so much,” Mom says. “We really should have him and his family over for dinner. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

  I don’t correct them about Charlie not being at the party, and I don’t say anything about dinner, either. Or him, for that matter. It’s all just a reminder of what I didn’t want—all this involvement, all these people and their feelings. Dragging you down while you’re fighting to keep your head above-water. Louis drops a plate in front of me, and I tuck in, trying to listen to only my body right now. Though the thought of that makes me laugh—because that’s what I thought I was doing last night, too.

  • • •

  After breakfast I take two aspirin and lie on the couch, watching a movie and dozing a little, but I still feel like ass when it’s time to go over to the cemetery. Tired, yes, but also like my body’s one of those dried-up vanilla beans with the juicy seeds all scraped out too hard. Nothing but splintery husk on the inside.

  Changing clothes upstairs, I avoid my phone on the dresser. I still haven’t looked at it after Grier left last night. Part of me wants to chuck it into the pool at this point, because God knows what I’ll find when I finally turn it on. Scathing shit from Grier, obviously. It’ll be impressive to say the least. And then there’s Gavin, too. Last night in the car he said he wasn’t sorry. What dumb shit is he going to try and say now? That we’ll be boyfriend and girlfriend? Or he can’t wait for next time? What am I going to say to Charlie, too, if he wants to hang out this afternoon? I can’t put him off again, not unless I want a confrontation. But I also can’t face him. Not like this. I wanted him last night, right before . . . But now I feel li
ke it’d be much easier to break up with him than dodge him again this afternoon.

  All of it makes me feel worse than I did lying on the couch. On top of that, it’s turned sticky and hot when we get out of the car, and I’m sweating before we even walk up the little hill to dad’s graveside. Luckily, Granny P paid some ungodly amount of money to the cemetery so we could get a little dogwood tree planted at the base of Dad’s grave, but it’s still not quite big enough to provide a lot of shade. Standing there, head throbbing, I watch Mom place the lilies she brought—real ones this time—and all I can think about is how quickly they’ll wilt and rot. Next week they’ll probably be nothing but black goo, just like Dad is now. Nothing.

  It’s how I feel too: black and gooey, out in the heat. After everything from the last two days, even my ever-cement back muscles want to slip off my bones, slide down around my ankles and into the ground. I watch Mom dust off bits of dry leaves and grass from Dad’s stone, Louis standing there with his hands crossed in front of him, sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip, watching her. Letting her do it herself. Being fucking reverent.

  Maybe it’s because I’m burnt to a crisp inside, but suddenly a deep wash of frustration and sadness falls over me. Here I am, stuck with a sweaty, paunchy stepdad who means well but will never cut it, and a mediocre mom who tries to cover her gross inadequacies with her stupid lilies, her muffins, and her soft, questioning voice. Our main family together time, every week, involves staring at a stone-slab hole filled with a titanium box, inside of which is a scorched, half-crushed mummy who used to be my strong, brave, funny, encouraging, badass father who could lift a car off the ground with his bare hands and who rescued people for a living. So now what?

  My eyes prickle and my heartbeat speeds up. I can’t even take breath one.

  • • •

  On the ride home, I keep my head back and my eyes closed behind my sunglasses so I don’t see what Mom means when she says, “Why, look, honey,” as we pull up to the house. I don’t care. I just want to get away from them and back in my bed.

  But it’s Charlie.

  On our front step.

  And I can tell he’s been crying.

  Shit.

  While Mom and Louis give him their hugs and their backslaps, I tell myself as many lies as I can about why he might be here. Maybe his sister choked on something at breakfast. Or Maria and Ethan broke up. Possibly it’s something about his father.

  But when he finally turns so I can see his face, I know exactly why he’s here.

  “Is it true?” he demands as soon as Mom and Louis are inside.

  “Charlie—” I start, not sure how to finish.

  “See, that’s where you were supposed to say, ‘Is what true?’ or, at least, ‘No.’ ”

  I look at him. I wasn’t ready for any of this yet. And how the hell does he know?

  After too long of a pause, I start, “Charlie, I don’t know what else to—”

  “Yeah.” He holds up his hand and laughs meanly. His face is so bitter. “You do. You know exactly. I can see it all over your face, and not just because of your chin. Which—awesome, by the way.”

  My hand goes up too late. “It isn’t—”

  But he’s obviously been thinking all this over, sitting there on the step.

  “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” His throat works up and down like he’s going to spit. “I told myself—I don’t even know what. Lies. Fantasies. Useless hopes. I mean, I knew you were just dicking around with me. I knew it. But you kept coming over. Kept wanting me so bad. Every day. All the time. You could’ve dropped me at any point in all this, and I would’ve totally understood. I expected it, and probably so did everyone else. I mean, why would you be into someone like me, huh? Someone who can’t keep up with you in more than one way? It doesn’t make sense. But then, sometimes . . . the way you would look at me . . . even when I knew you needed things to stay cool . . . which was fine, but I’d think . . .” For a quick second I see how much I’ve hurt him, and I want to reach out, stop him, but then this anger moves in again. “Polo, god damn it, you hung out with my friends.”

  He’s been pacing all around the yard, moving in circles, but now he’s completely still, his hands in loose fists at his sides.

  “I know.” My throat is dry, and my whole body is heavy. “I’m sorry, Charlie—”

  But moving even slightly in his direction makes his teeth clench harder, which is when I know there’s nothing I can say, even if I could think of the right thing.

  He clears his throat. “So, when Grier texts me last night, and then calls me, I think it’s just you guys goofing around on her phone like that time before. Whatever—she’s just some girl you hang out with, who I barely know. But when I listen to the message this morning, she’s crying and telling me she has to be honest with me. When I text back, she’s ready with all this shit. Shit about you and some Gavin guy in your club. I don’t really believe her, I mean, I still don’t actually want to believe her, but now I see your face, and I . . .”

  All the anger’s drained out of him. But mine is just starting to boil. Grier.

  “Should I even try and explain?” I say, meaner than I intend, just at the thought of her and what she’s done. My eyes are sticky and my muscles are goo and everything feels like shit, and in steps fucking Grier, making it worse. Fucking, fucking, goddamned Grier.

  “I don’t really think there’s a point, Polo. I mean, I knew you didn’t want this, with me. I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s just that being with you felt better than any stupid shit at the pool I’ve ever won.”

  It shocks me, how well I understand at that moment. It pulls my thoughts away from Grier and back to him. Which isn’t any better, because of how sad he is.

  He clears his throat and straightens up. “I know I’ve always been a loser to you. So thanks for driving that point home. I mean, I really have to thank you for telling me something I didn’t already know.”

  I should say something right now to stop him, but for some reason I can’t.

  “You know, I will never be able to stop picturing you and . . . whoever that guy is.” His voice is shaking again. Partly mad, partly more than that. “So from now on, you just imagine me, having to go now and explain to my mom, to all of my friends, that we’re broken up. And then you picture me having to answer when they ask me why.”

  I can’t look at him. Only his flip-flops on the grass, the driveway, the sidewalk, tell me he’s gone. When I can’t hear him anymore, I finally look up. He’s moving fast, but he’s still close enough for me to see him wipe a fist across his eyes. I want to be sad for him—for myself maybe—and briefly that thing he said about us being together feeling better than the pool echoes in me, but as he disappears around the corner, the sludginess I’ve felt all day starts to harden. As I sit there, watching after the space where Charlie isn’t any longer, the shards begin to prick behind my eyes, and my hands squeeze into fists. Rage whipping up inside me. I can see Grier being mad about Gavin, but she had no right to involve Charlie.

  Before, I just wanted to show her how dumb she was being.

  Now, I want to make her pay.

  33

  WAKE.

  Pee.

  Pajamas off—pull on whatever’s handiest. This time the cutoffs and hoodie at the top of the pile of clean laundry I brought up last night but was too pissed to put away.

  Make bed, pound pillow.

  Downstairs, Louis is sipping his coffee. There’s a banana and two peeled hard-boiled eggs on the counter for me, plus two of Mom’s muffins. Important week this week. Have to be ready.

  I pull my ball cap down over my eyes, grab my bag, and follow Louis to the car.

  When we head out of the neighborhood, passing Charlie’s house, Louis says, “Hey, is everything okay with you and—?”

  “Don’t want to talk about it.” I wave my hand at a red Mazda coming the other way. “Substitute teacher on her way over to Seymour. From the looks of it
, she’s going to be late.”

  • • •

  I spent some time last night fuming, trying to think of what I could do to get back at Grier, but everything I came up with just felt pathetic. Being upset about Charlie, or making her think I am, will only please her. I can’t have her feeling she has anything over me. Not anything at all.

  So I go through the motions of school. At lunch I sit as far away from the salad bar as I can, though I don’t see Charlie or his friends. They probably took him off campus for a cheer-up-she’s-a-cooze burger or something.

  I didn’t like them anyway.

  • • •

  Seeing Kate sitting in Enviro pulls me out of my black cloud, though, because in all this—god damn it—I forgot about those other two annotations due today for Woodham.

  Kate sees me hesitate at the door, and a weird expression crosses her face. It’s clear she’s been watching for me to come in, but now she turns in her desk and faces forward. She can tell I haven’t done them. Well, Kate, don’t act surprised.

  I peek around the lab stations to see if Chu’s at her desk yet—no. Which means I can sneak out, go to Coach Trumbull’s office, tell her . . . well, I’ll think of something on the way there. I may also still have an old pass in my bag. I can sign it, go to the library, and try to write something for Woodham there, fast.