Complete Nothing (7 page)

“Most of them take the general application,” Mr. Garvey said, his forehead glistening. He’d been my guidance counselor since freshman year, and every year his hairline moved farther back on his head. He leaned forward in his chair and glanced at Coach Morschauser, who sat next to me.

“And most of ’em are looking for QBs.”

“Yeah?” I said hopefully.

“Yeah. Now we just gotta get their scouts out here to take a look at you,” he replied, like he wasn’t entirely sure if it would even be possible. “Rutgers and the College of New Jersey are coming out this weekend to check out Ross, so if you put on a good show . . . well, you never know.”

Mitchell Ross was our kicker, and had been All-State for the past two years. He’d have a lot of schools courting him.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“Look, Peter. The point is, you’ve really gotta take your SATs again, and you’ve really gotta fill out at least the general application,” Mr. Garvey said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his brow. “You can’t put this off much longer. You’re gonna be somewhere next year. If you don’t decide where soon, the universe is gonna decide for you.”

Coach Morschauser cleared his throat. I knew he was thinking the guy was cracked. That New Agey crap didn’t fly with him. But me? I was feeling as if some huge hand was holding me unsteadily over the mouth of a big black hole.

Next year. I was gonna be somewhere next year. But where? With who? Would I have any friends? Would I ever get to see the guys? My mom? Michelle? And what about Claudia? Would I ever be with Claudia again?

My palms itched with sweat. I felt like I was having a heart attack.

I don’t want to do this,
a voice in my head said.
I don’t want to do it.

Garvey picked up the stack of brochures, which slid around, and clumsily dropped them in my lap. “Talk to your mom and see what she thinks.”

“Okay,” I said.

But I already knew what she was going to say. She’d approved these schools last night and had started filling out the scholarship applications for a bunch of them. My mom already had me halfway out the door.

The bell rang. At almost the exact same second, my phone beeped with a text. I somehow cradled the brochures in one arm
while fishing the phone out of my pocket with my free hand.

“See you on the field!” Coach said, then disappeared.

The text was from Claudia.

MEET @ YOUR LOCKER! I WANT TO HEAR HOW IT WENT!

I swallowed hard. My throat was lined with dread. None of these schools were on Claudia’s list, even though she could get into any of them. I couldn’t even get into the Princeton Bagel Shop. I didn’t reply to the text.

“Thanks, Mr. Garvey,” I said, picking up my backpack and edging out of his cubicle.

“Anytime. Come to me with any questions and have your mom call me too, if she wants to,” he said with a smile, pulling himself closer to his desk.

“I will.”

As I passed the big gray garbage can near the door, I was tempted to toss the whole stack of brochures into it. I knew how much lighter I would feel. How much freer. But I didn’t. Mostly because the secretary and two other guidance counselors were watching me. Instead I shoved my way into the hall, which was already packed with people.

“How’s it going, QB? You gonna take down St. Joe’s this weekend?” one of the guys from the basketball team asked as he and his friends hung near the drink machine on the opposite wall.

“You know it,” I replied, feeling ill.

“Yo, Marrott? Can I get in on this city trip this weekend?” Jeffrey Norris asked, jogging up next to me. “Sounds like it’s gonna be epic.” Jeff was captain of the tennis team and constantly battling Claudia for the number one academic spot in our class. I had no
clue what he was talking about, but this happened sometimes. My friends made plans, but everyone thought I was the one in charge.

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll text you the details,” I said.

We slapped hands and I kept moving, my pulse pounding in my temples.

A few girls in JV cheerleading uniforms blatantly checked me out, whispering and giggling before I even made it past them. A couple of teachers smiled at me as I passed them by. On the wall above my locker, Claudia’s huge, glittery
GO MARROTT!
sign welcomed me. Suddenly I felt nostalgic for this. For now. Even though I hadn’t left it yet.

This was my home. Everyone here knew my name. Some of them even wanted to be me. Or at least be
with
me. I looked down at the top brochure again, and my vision blurred. When I got to college—if I got to college—I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d be no one. And I’d be completely alone.

“So? How did it go? Lemme see! Lemme see!”

Claudia barreled into me from behind, wrapping her arms around me and knocking the brochures to the floor. One of the corners of the heavier ones hit me square on the top of my foot and I winced. Sandals. Not a good idea.

“Ow,” I said through my teeth, starting to sweat under my arms and behind my ears.

“Oh God! Sorry!” Claudia stooped to pick up the brochures and quickly neatened them into a stack. Her smile was huge when she looked up at me. “Well? What did you think? Are any of these places
the one
?”

“I don’t know.” I spun my lock, then yanked on the catch. It didn’t open. Claudia flipped carefully through the brochures, and as her eyes scanned the names of the schools, I wished more than
ever that I’d thrown them out. I hadn’t heard of half of them, and I was sure she hadn’t either. But she was so excited. So excited to get rid of me.

“Bowling Green looks nice,” she said finally.

“It’s in Ohio.”

“So? Ohio’s not that far.” She cracked open the brochure and flipped through the pages. “They have football.”

I exhaled loudly and yanked on the catch again. This time it opened, and my locker door slammed back against the wall, loudly. Claudia jumped.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you psyched? One of these places could be your school!”

She grabbed my wrist and sort of shook my arm. She was so bubbly it made me want to pop.

“God! Can we just drop it?”

Claudia’s face fell and I immediately felt guilty, but my anger squashed it quick. I didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t she get that? Didn’t she care that going to school meant the end of everything? The end of us?

“Why are you always snapping at me lately?” she asked quietly, but angrily. “I’m so sick of it.”

“Yeah? Well I’m sick of you being on me about this!” I shot back. “All you do is nag, nag, nag.”

Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious! It’s like you can’t wait for this year to be over,” I bit out, staring into my locker. Taped inside the door was a big blue #11 that she’d made for me last season, her first year as my booster. What I wouldn’t give to be back there. To be a junior again. When none of this mattered.

“Well, yeah. I mean . . . it’s college. Who can wait for college?
We’re going to be on our own. We get to do whatever we want—”

I looked at her, my eyes flashing. “Yeah. Everything except be together.”

I reached out and slammed my locker, but it was too hard and it ricocheted open again, so I had to slam it twice. It still didn’t close, and Claudia flinched.

“It’s like you just can’t
wait
to move on and put me in the rearview. Maybe it’s
me
you’re sick of,” I spat, yanking my backpack straps over my shoulders.

Claudia glanced around. A few random packs of people were watching us and trying to look like they weren’t. I felt like such an asshole, and such a dork, and such a whipped loser. Yelling at my girlfriend in public about her not liking me enough? Was this how low I’d sunk?

“What?” she said shakily. “Peter. Come on.”

I glared down at her, my chest heaving angrily even as a tiny part of me withered and died. I didn’t hear her denying it. She wasn’t denying it.

“Whatever,” I said. “If you’re so psyched about starting your life without me, maybe we should just start right now.”

What are you doing?
a tiny voice in my head screamed.
What the hell are you doing?

Claudia’s face paled, then suddenly reddened. “Are you breaking up with me?”

Take it back! Take it back!

But I couldn’t. It was like I’d chucked a Hail Mary as hard as I could into the air and was powerless to stop it. I had to stand back and watch it fall.

And I was so angry. I’d never felt so angry. I just wanted time to stop, but it wouldn’t. It just kept going and going and going. I
had no control over anything anymore, and it totally pissed me off.

“Why not? It was going to happen anyway, right? Now you can go hang out with Lance as much as you want and practice for your big audition,” I blurted. “Princeton calls!”

“That is so not fair,” she said through her teeth. “You know there’s nothing going on with me and Lance.”

“Yeah. Not yet, maybe,” I said. “But you can’t tell me you don’t think about it—what it would be like to go out with a guy like him. Somebody with a brain, somebody who likes the same things you do, somebody with a future.”

“You could
have
a future!” Claudia shouted, holding the stack of brochures up. “You just don’t want to be bothered. You’re so pathetic sometimes, Peter. For the great big football star, sometimes I swear you’re like some scared little boy.”

And there it was. What she really thought of me. Pathetic. She thought I was pathetic.

A few freshmen laughed into their hands, and my face burned. She shoved the stack of brochures at me but stood her ground, lifting her tiny chin, which, I noticed with a pang, was quivering awfully. At that point, though, I was too pissed off and humiliated to care. If that was what she really thought of me, then maybe I was doing the right thing.

I took the brochures and threw them into the bottom of my locker with a clang. This time when I slammed the door, I made sure it stayed shut.

“Well, I know one thing for sure,” I said. “My pathetic future is not with you.”

As she crumbled into tears, I turned around and speed-walked toward the gym.

What just happened? What just happened?

I couldn’t breathe. I could barely see. Everything was a blur. The blue-and-white locker doors. The shred of paper on the floor. The yellowing caulk around the windows. I tipped my face up and tried to stop the flow of tears. The Marrott poster I’d toiled over yesterday afternoon glinted in the sun, mocking me.

Had Peter really just dumped me? Had he just called me a nag, accused me of liking someone else, said I couldn’t wait to get away from him?

Had I just called the guy I loved pathetic?

Oh God, oh God, oh God. This couldn’t be happening.

My hands shook. Slowly my gaze traveled along the faces around me. Most of them turned away as my eyes met theirs, as if that could make them invisible, erase the fact that my humiliation had come with an audience. The pulse in my wrists fluttered like the wings on a dying bird. Dying. I was dying. I was going to die. I wiped my face, then turned and slowly walked through the library entrance across the hall and over to the table where my chemistry notes were laid out neatly, ready to be organized into a lab report.

Are you breaking up with me?
my tremulous voice repeated in my head.

Why not?
he blurted in reply.
Why not? Why not? Why not?

It was like I didn’t matter to him one bit. Like breaking up with me was nothing. Did he really think I wanted someone else? Someone like Lance? Did he think that I thought I was too good for him?

“No.”

I said the word so loudly I startled a girl reading a romance novel near the windows.

“Sorry,” I said, shoving everything haphazardly into my leather backpack. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I felt snot forming inside my nose. I took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. I had to get out of there. Now. My knees shaking beneath me as if I’d just done five hundred first-position deep pliés at the barre, I somehow made it out the door.

There had to be some kind of mistake. Peter wouldn’t just break up with me out of nowhere. We were fine. We were happy. We were a perfect couple. We’d never fought in the fifteen months, three weeks, and three days we’d been together. Not once. Yes, he’d been snapping at me here and there, acting impatient, but that was different. That was a phase. Not a cause for a breakup. There had to be some kind of mistake.

I repeated this word to myself over and over again like a mantra as I walked toward the locker rooms just outside the gym.

Mistake mistake mistake.

Mistake mistake mistake.

Why not? Whynotwhynotwhynot?

No.

Mistake mistake mistake.

Mistake mistake mistake.

A twittering klatch of freshman girls stood near their lockers gossiping and messing with their hair. God, how excited they’d be when they heard that Peter Marrott was single again. I felt an ache in my heart that seemed unsurvivable, but yet, I kept walking.

Mistake mistake mistake.

Mistake mistake mistake.

I got to the door of the boys’ locker room. Only then did I realize I could follow Peter no farther. Inside, I heard boy laughter, the kind that normally made my heart quicken because it was just so male, so mysteriously carefree. Now I wanted to slam my hand against the door and scream. Were they laughing at me? Was he telling them he’d finally dumped the bookish bitch they couldn’t stand? I could see Lester doing a happy dance, whooping it up over my misery.

One humiliated tear spilled down my cheek, and then my teeth clenched. No. He loved me. He might never have said it, but he did. Or at the very least, he respected me. He wouldn’t talk about me behind my back. He’d never do that. I turned and walked through the doors of the always ice-cold gymnasium, then out the back door, where the football players would eventually emerge from their locker room. The JV girls’ soccer team was gathered into a huddle with their coach under a copse of trees, and that True girl sat on one of the metal benches, watching Gavin and Orion chat by the door with Mitchell Ross.