“Awful, I didn’t hit a single ball, and I still got blisters on my hands.”
“Did you at least have fun hanging out with Haroon and Miles?”
“Yeah, Miles struck out the whole time too, but he was funny about it. How was your afternoon?”
“It’s been good. Since you were acting all manly, I decided to channel my inner girl and went to the mall with Kaitlyn.”
“Kaitlyn? As in Lissa’s psycho little sister?”
I gasped. “Nate, you’re talking about my new BFF.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Only a little bit. But I actually need to ask you for a favor.”
“What?”
“Well, Kaitlyn needs a ride home and I want to show off all my fancy new clothes, so can you come pick us up?”
“Sure, my mom’s about to put dinner on the table. I’ll tell her to set it for one more.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
I slipped my phone back into my purse. “Nate will be here in ten minutes.”
“Perfect, you have just enough time to change into your new red shirt.”
“Are you kidding me? After we drop you off, I’m going to have dinner with his parents. His dad’s a shrink. They’ll probably have me committed.”
Kaitlyn wouldn’t take no for an answer and dragged me toward the bathroom. “Button the sweater for dinner with the folks. Then claim you’re hot and take it off as soon as you finish eating. I guarantee it will make Nate cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
“Whatever you say.” I followed her to the bathroom anyway.
When Nate arrived ten minutes later, he got a totally goofy grin on his face and started undressing me with his eyes. It made me nervous, excited, and a little bit uncomfortable at the same time. I opened Nate’s hatchback and piled in all my shopping bags. Kaitlyn brushed past me on her way to the backseat. “Told you that outfit would drive him crazy.”
I smiled. There was no reason for me to freak out. My boyfriend thought I was hot — that was good. Goosebumps prickled my arms, and I took a deep breath as I moved around to the front seat of the car. “Thanks for picking us up.”
“No problem. I always like seeing you, and chauffeuring Kaitlyn isn’t that horrible of a price to pay.”
She grumbled and slid into the backseat. “Thanks for the ride.”
N
ate pulled into his driveway, and I started buttoning my sweater. He stuck out his bottom lip in a pouty face. Kaitlyn had been right — the hooker clothes were good. “We’re about to go in and eat dinner with your parents, remember?”
He leaned over and kissed me. “Do we have to?”
I kissed him back for about five minutes, before eventually moving to open my car door. “I’m hungry. What did your mom make for dinner anyway?”
“Eggplant parmesan.”
“Yum. Why am I sitting out here in the driveway?”
He laughed and escorted me into the house.
“Hello, Samantha.” Mrs. Larson eyed my glamified makeup and brand-new, too-tight clothing. “You’re looking lovely today.”
“Thanks so much for having me to dinner.”
“You know you’re welcome here anytime.”
I pulled out what had become my assigned seat at the dinner table and filled my bowl with salad.
“So, Samantha,” Mr. Larson addressed me while scooping eggplant onto his plate. “What have you been up to lately?”
I shrugged. When my mom was around, we talked, but it was always so much more casual. I had been taking my meals at Nate’s house more and more often lately, and I still wasn’t used to the dinner-table game of Twenty Questions. “Kaitlyn Banks and I hung out at the mall together this afternoon.”
“Mellissa’s little sister?” Mrs. Larson brightened. “She always was a sweet child. How’s she doing?”
Nate choked on his roll and grabbed for his glass of water. The day before, I probably would have reacted the same way, but I’d actually had a lot of fun with Kaitlyn that afternoon. So I smiled at Mrs. Larson and said, “Kaitlyn’s good.”
“Are you and Kaitlyn good friends?” Mrs. Larson asked.
“I don’t know. It’s hard being the new kid and having to make friends and everything. Kaitlyn’s in my English class, and we worked together on a project shortly after I moved here. We aren’t super close yet, but I like hanging out with her.”
“The Banks are such a nice family. I’m sure Kaitlyn’s just tickled pink to have you as a new friend.”
Tickled pink? Is this family for real?
After dinner, Nate and I headed up to his room. We claimed to be studying, but I didn’t even bother to get my backpack from his car. He sat on the edge of his bed, reached out, and hooked his thumbs into the back pockets of my jeans, pulling me toward him. “If it means you’re going to dress like this every day, I definitely need to rethink my opinion of Kaitlyn.”
I took off my sweater and tossed it onto one of the many stacks of books on his floor. “Kaitlyn’s pretty cool, for a normal chick.”
He reached up and carefully removed my glasses. His fingers danced across my cheek. “You look weird in makeup.”
I swatted his arm. “Gee, thanks. Way to make a girl feel appreciated.”
“Sorry.” He blushed. “That came out wrong. You’re always totally beautiful. All this makeup just erased the freckles on your nose, and I love your freckles.”
“So I’m prettier without makeup?”
“You’re you without makeup.” He cupped his hands behind my head and pulled me toward him, kissing me on my now-freckle-less nose.
I took off his glasses and set them on his bedside table next to mine. “There, now you can’t see me to know if I have makeup on or not.”
“I guess I’ll just have to rely on braille then.” He ran his hands along my skin-tight pants, and the shiver that ran up my spine had nothing to do with the lack of fabric in my shirt.
We made out until my face hurt. I was crazy about Nate, but in the back of my mind, my conversation with Kaitlyn still haunted me. Why did Nate push all his friends away? Who was he before I moved here?
I rolled over onto my back and rested my head on Nate’s chest. His fingers moved in small circles across my stomach. “Nate, will you read me a poem?”
“Of course.” He reached for his glasses. “What do you want to hear?”
“There’s this one poet whose work I really want to hear. His name’s Nathan Larson. Do you have anything by him?”
Nate blinked. “You want to hear my stuff?”
“Yes, please.” I smiled up at him, not knowing what I’d find but wanting him to let me further inside.
He sat up and reached across his bed, pulling open the drawer to his bedside table and taking out a black leather-bound journal. When he settled back down against his pillows, I scooted in even closer. His arms surrounded me as he opened the journal.
Nate flipped through the pages. A small part of me expected him to start reading sappy love poetry about me, but that didn’t happen. He read a poem called “Rain.”
Rain streaks down my windowpanes
Blurring, distorting, transfixing
The world is crying…
The poem went on from there, elaborately blending beautiful imagery with sorrowful emotions. His words were painful and lonely.
When Nate finished, I rolled into him and tangled my hands into his overgrown hair. “Why are you sad?”
He set down the journal and wiped his fingers under my own dry eyes, ignoring the moisture growing in the corner of his own. “I don’t even know anymore. I just am.”
“What happened?”
“Three and a half years ago, right before I was supposed to start my freshman year, my grandpa died. I know it’s natural. At the funeral, everyone kept saying how he’d lived a long and productive life, that we weren’t there to mourn his parting but to celebrate and remember the life he had. It seriously pissed me off.
“I was really close to my grandpa. He lived a mile away and used to watch me after school when my parents were at work. I talked to him about everything. He knew me better than anyone else did — way better than my parents. When he died, I felt like a part of me died too. I stopped eating. I didn’t want to see any of my friends, not that I really had any to begin with. I didn’t want to get close to anyone, because I was afraid I’d end up losing them too.”
I wiped the tears from Nate’s cheeks and snuggled in closer beside him. “Did you talk to anyone about it? Get help or anything?”
“Yeah, I mean, my dad’s a psychiatrist. When I didn’t want to talk to him, he sent me to one of his colleagues for grief counseling. He cycled me through at least half a dozen different drug combinations before deciding drugs weren’t helping. Now I’m med-free but forced to endure nightly psychotherapy over green bean casserole.”
“That’s why your family eats dinner together every night, so your dad can analyze you?”
“A lot of the drugs they put me on freshman year actually increase the likelihood of suicide in teenagers.”
I felt my body stiffen. Nate hugged me tighter. “I never tried anything. Trust me, I don’t want to die. But for a while, I didn’t exactly want to live either.”
I didn’t know what to say. Nate was Mr. Perfect. He saw the real me, when nobody else could, but this was my first glimpse of the real him. I squeezed my arms around him, suddenly afraid to let go. “You want to live now?”
“Yes. I definitely want to live now.”
“So the psychotherapy over green bean casserole is working?”
He laughed in a nervous way. I wasn’t sure if I believed him, or if he believed himself. “My parents care about me. And it’s kind of nice, knowing that somebody wants to talk to me at the end of each day. If I’m having a bad day and decide to yell or scream or bawl my eyes out at the dinner table, they just pass me a tissue and keep on eating. I kind of like it.”
“Do they care that I’m here all the time?”
“Are you kidding? My parents love you. I seriously think my mom dreams about redecorating the guest bedroom so you can move in permanently.”
“My mom’s constantly at work, and I haven’t even seen my dad in eight years, so I do appreciate their doting. But why do they want me around? I’ve totally hijacked your talk therapy sessions.”
Nate lifted his head off his pillow and kissed me. “My parents love you, because I love you. And they love seeing me happy.”
It was the first time he’d said it,
I love you.
I felt like I was supposed to give him a big kiss and instantly say it back. Except I couldn’t. I liked Nate a lot, but there was so much about him I was still discovering. Declaring my love now felt premature. So instead of kissing him, I tickled him. “I’m better than an MAOI inhibitor.”
“So much better.” Nate squirmed away from me and laughed. Even if I wasn’t ready to say the L-word out loud, I definitely loved seeing him smile.
The following Monday, Eli followed me out of English and walked beside me toward the special ed room. “So how’s the whole tutoring thing going?”
“Pretty good, I guess. I finished reading
The Sorcerer’s Stone
.”
“Does that mean I need to run out and get you
Chamber of Secrets
?”
“No, I’ve got it covered. But I do want to thank you for believing in me even when I didn’t exactly believe in myself.”
“I was actually kind of hoping you could return the favor.”
I stopped walking. “What do you need?”
“To not fail algebra.” His cheeks turned red. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. I got a forty-seven percent on my last exam. If my GPA drops below a two point five, I can’t play basketball. And we have a huge game this Friday. My teacher told me I could try retaking the test on Thursday. If I get seventy percent or higher, I get to play on Friday. If not, I’m benched.”
“And you’re hoping I’ll tutor you between now and Thursday?”
He put his palms together as if he were praying. “Please, Sam. You’re a math genius of international acclaim. If anyone can help me, it’s you.”
I kind of liked seeing Eli beg. “Sure, I’ll help you. Do you want to meet in the library after school?”
He threw his arms around me and started jumping up and down, pulling me off the floor with him. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, pulling my face away from Eli’s chest.
He returned me to the ground. “I’ll meet you in the library right after seventh period.”
I turned and headed toward Ms. Chatman’s room. “Okay, see you then.”
I
headed to the spot by the window that had become my regular desk. Yesenia was absent. I wondered if I’d spend the entire period reading alone, or if Ms. Chatman would have some other activity planned for me.
“Samantha.” Ms. Chatman waved at me from one of the beanbag chairs in the corner of the room, where the blond boy with disdainful eyes sat beside her. I reluctantly walked toward her. “Logan here was just about to begin reading
The Chamber of Secrets
. Since you’re also working your way through the Harry Potter series, I thought it might be fun for you guys to read the book together.”
I forced myself to smile at Logan. Something about the guy made my skin crawl. I sat down in the third beanbag chair, and Ms. Chatman handed me a copy of the book. Logan was already holding a copy of his own. “Why don’t you two take turns reading, switching off every other page?”
“Sure, whatever.” Logan opened the book and began to read. He read pretty fast — faster than I did, for sure — and I had a hard time following along. He wasn’t even sounding things out, not really. At first I wondered if he had the book memorized, but his eyes were tracking properly across the page. He wasn’t pulling a crazy stunt or anything. He just knew how to read. He was probably sixteen.
Knowing how to read is normal,
I reminded myself.
When he turned the page of his book, I flipped my page as well and began reading. I felt embarrassed, struggling to sound out each word. It wasn’t embarrassing reading with Yesenia. She couldn’t talk, so she couldn’t make fun of me. I wondered what Logan thought of me. When I got stuck on a big word, he didn’t even try to hide his scorn. I didn’t have to wonder very hard. He thought I was an idiot. I felt like an idiot.
Ms. Chatman wandered away to help other students. I finished my page, but Logan didn’t resume reading. Instead he glared at me. “You’re not better than me.”