Ditched (10 page)

Oh, sheesh. Maybe I do have a problem. I start to think about al the things Ian has done for me—brought me magazines when I was home sick, ordered me veggie pizza on his mom’s credit card, teetered on the edge of flirtation with me.

But then there’s Al yson. And Eva. His jealousy. And lack of jealousy. “No. There are grays. The stuff in between.” I shake my head. “The stuff I can’t figure out. If that’s a problem, then yeah, I have one.”

“Let me tel you a little something about Donna Kramer.” I scratch at my hand—I always get itchy when people refer to themselves in third person.

She widens her stance, like a footbal coach. “First of al , I don’t
see
the world, I stare it down like a lion does a helpless baby antelope. I wait and watch and pounce when I need to.

Ya gotta stare the world down, dol . And by world, I mean
men
. You know that, right?” I start to give her an answer, but she doesn’t real y want one. “See, you gotta figure ’em out.

Study them.” Donna paces the floor in front of the counter.

“Question them. Fil in the blanks. Make assumptions.

Otherwise, you’re left in a ditch on the side of the road on 92

your prom night wondering why did this happen? And you never saw it coming. Am I right?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Believe me, dol . Men are scumbags until they prove they’re women.”

My mouth drops. She’s left me dizzy. But I know I’ve mastered one of her suggestions . . . question them.

Why did the night end like this, Ian? Did I real y deserve to
be ditched?

The bel rings and the sliding glass door opens. A tal , slim man wearing a wel -fitting blazer and crisp khakis walks in at a brisk pace.

“Morning, Pastor Rick,” Gilda says as she reaches to the front of the counter.

He nods to her, revealing his receding hairline, and heads to the bathroom.

“It’s his Sunday morning routine,” Gilda whispers as she places three items on the counter. A twinkie, a bag of Pop Rocks, and a
National Enquirer
. “He says it pumps him up before his sermons.”

Donna inspects the bag of Pop Rocks and reads the words out loud. “‘Popping candy . . . for a kick!’” She nods.

“I like this guy.”

Pastor Rick soon joins us, his hands damp and clean, and gives friendly hel os and good mornings to al of us.

As Gilda rings him up, Donna bounces on her toes, clearly holding in something. I steady myself for the bizarre comment or question she’s about to unload.

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“Pastor, I just gotta know . . .”

Oh, no. Here it comes.

“Did God make men scumbags, or did they just figure that one out al by themselves?”

Pastor Rick doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink an eye. He turns to her and plainly says, “A man’s behavior is often a reflection of the way he’s been treated by a woman.” Donna gives him a blank look.

He sticks his hand out and shakes hers. “Have a lovely day.”

Pastor Rick leaves quietly, his feet not making a sound.

His words zing around in my head:
the way he’s been
treated by a woman . . .

I look down at my hand, the one that should be wearing the ring Ian gave me. I can’t believe I made him take it back.

Crap. Is that what this is about?

“I know what wil cheer you up.” Gilda fil s up a jumbo-size cup with berry Slurpee and sets it on the counter for me.

Donna is stil staring at the door. “Pastor Rick,” she says, under her breath. I’m not al that convinced she’s the cougar she says she is.

“Do you think he’s right? Guys behave the way they do because of the way we treat them?” I swal ow my Slurpee hard, and feel the wave of a brain-freeze coming on.

Gilda shrugs, then connects looks with me. “Why do you ask? Because Dan forced a kiss on you? That wasn’t your fault.”

94

I press on my forehead, trying to push back the freezing pain. “There’s more. I may have done something else. Maybe some of this
was
my fault.”

Donna shakes her head. “No. You’re the one who ended up in a ditch. It’s black or white. No grays, dol .”

“But there’s this.” I point to the next stain of the night—a greasy one just under my arm pit. It has spread deeper into the fabric, looking like the shape of Alaska. “Ian said it was an accident.” My eyes sting, and I can feel the tears gaining momentum again. “But now I’m not so sure.” 95

6

Butter

I DECIDED THAT going inside Dan’s house and hiding in the bathroom was the best alternative at that point. Ian was probably off talking to Dan’s parents, thanking them for a lovely time, completely oblivious to the fact that their son had just rammed his lips into mine. Ian was always comfortable with
other
people’s parents, maybe because his mom and dad were . . . confusing.

His parents were the divorced kind that probably never should have divorced. I’d never seen exes nicer to each other than his parents: high fives, compliments, birthday gifts, apologies. Ian doesn’t even have a memory of their marriage being bad—just memories of their divorce being good.

97

Comforting, but stil . . . confusing.

I think that’s why he’s always been the Perfect Boyfriend.

He never wanted to be the one who gave up too soon.

I lingered in the bathroom, scared to face Hailey. She was going to lose it. What would she do? I kissed her prom date.

Right in front of her!

After giving myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror (one of those where you convince yourself there’s some sort of silver lining in every situation, even though you know you’re lying to yourself), I final y decided to go back out and face what I had done. I careful y walked down the hal , trying to dodge the sculptures of glass dolphins, and as I rounded the corner, I suddenly found myself nose-to-nose with Hailey.

“It’s not what it looked like.” I reached for her hand, and luckily she let me take it.

“Forget it. Dan’s an ass.” She looked off with a vacant stare. “He’s not interested in me.”

“He’s drunk.”

“I know. I can’t even get a
drunk
ass to like me?” Hailey paused, leaning against the wal . “I’ve always been able to get any guy I wanted. So why can’t I get Dan? He wants me—I don’t want him—I want him—he kisses you. What’s wrong with
me
?”

“It’s not you. It’s timing. I guess you both needed to want each other at the exact same moment.”

She rubbed her temples. “Good lord, love is impossible. I mean, how do people ever even find each other?” 98

I shrugged. She was right—it did seem impossible. What were the odds that Ian and I were going to feel the same way about each other at the same precise moment? What if we leapfrogged each other forever, never landing together in the same spot?

Hailey forced a smile and stood up straight. “So we’l go to prom as friends. At least I’l get to drive his dad’s Jag since Dan’s too drunk. It has a bitchin’ sound system.” That’s my Hailey. Finding sparkle in a disaster.

I gave her my big-eyed hopeful look. “So . . . do you wanna . . .”

“Of course I do.”

And we did. We hugged it out.

Ian peeked his head around the corner. “You two ready?” My stomach free-fal ed. I had no idea if he’d seen me get kissed, and I wasn’t ready to deal with it. Watching Hailey and Dan lose out on a relationship because of timing was unbearable—and it felt like I was going to lose out on a relationship because of
Dan’s
timing. The jerk.

The car ride to the hotel was not ideal—it was silent. I counted trees and streetlights to occupy the time, but when I got to my eighteenth oak, I decided the uncomfortable silence lounging in the front seat needed to be shoved out the window.

I took the not-at-al direct approach. “Al yson Moore is a bitch.”

99

“Justina.”

“She was trying to make a move on you.”

“She needed a favor.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “She’s head of the prom committee, and she wanted me to help move decorations.”

“You don’t need to do favors for that girl. You can say no.” I hated to be the mothering type, but sometimes he needed to have things explained clearly.

He let out a big sigh. “Give her a chance. She can be a good friend.”

“Friend? She knew we were there together, and she was trying to figure out a way to get you to listen to her sad, dumb flag-twirling stuff.”

“Prom committee stuff.”

“Even worse,” I said, looking down at my dress and realizing I was bunching up the fabric inside my fist. “Why can’t she get her own boyfriend to help her?” I breathed in and let the air out slowly, making sure my words came out smooth and calm. “You don’t even have to answer. . . . It’s because she wants
you
, Ian, that’s why.” He immediately shook his head, not even taking a moment to consider this might be true. “You always assume the worst.”

“No. I try to figure people out before they screw me over.”

“Which keeps you from doing what you real y want to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

100

“The daisy ring.”

Oh no. I could not believe he was bringing up the daisy ring incident now. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because you, Miss Justina, have an assumption problem.

The first step is admitting it.”

“Okay. Fine. I admit it—I assumed the worst. But we’ve been over this, Ian. I even formal y apologized. You forced me to, remember?”

A few weeks ago, Ian bought me a gift. It was a ring. With a daisy on it. Normal y, that would be cute and appropriate and endearing, but the daisy was big.
Huge.
It was the width of two fingers! The ring was actual y hugely awesome, but something like that screamed,
Look at my ring, it’s ridiculously
huge and you should make fun of me! Glare even more at me!
I had spent the last eight months trying not to draw attention to myself, and an enormous ring was on my list of attention-getters—way,
way
down the list, probably right next to glitter nail polish, but stil . . . attention-getter. So I told him to take it back. I didn’t want it.

He didn’t talk to me for two entire days. We only went back to being best friends after I repeated an apology he had written down on a napkin from the nacho bar at the 7-Eleven.

I, Justina Griffith, apologize for my rudeness in not accepting a gift from my awesome and oh-so-handsome friend Ian. Who might also 101

possibly be magic. And therefore, hither and dither, former and latter, perfunctory and whatnot . . . I’ll never do it again.

Ian is planning on becoming a lawyer one day. He likes to inject fancy nonsense words into his writing in preparation for his future career.

I thought the daisy ring topic was closed. Apparently not.

He stopped at a red light and turned to me. “I wanted to get a gift that meant something to you.”

“The ring was enormous.”

“You worry too much about everyone else.”

“
Huge
. Like something out of a cartoon.”

“Do what you want. Forget them.”

“Like something a Muppet would wear.”

“Justina.”

“It was a Mutant Muppet ring.”

He smirked.

So I kept at it. “A Teenage Mutant . . . Muppet . . .

Turtle . . . ring . . . for Ninjas.”

And there it was. The crease.

Air.

“Justina.” He said my name like he adored me but was also total y annoyed by me. There was something about that combination that made my heart melt through the pavement.

Ian reached over and massaged my neck. “Stop assuming the worst, would you?”

102

The neck massage: signature move of a Professional Boyfriend.

Aaaaah.

But with these types of moves, he clearly could’ve landed any girl he wanted for a prom date. I couldn’t explain why he had picked me, but since he had, he also deserved the truth.

I took a deep breath and blurted it al out at once. “Dan kissed me, he was trying to make Al yson jealous so he asked me to kiss him, I told him no, but he did it anyway, it felt like a car wreck, I didn’t intend to kiss him, please don’t—”

“I know.”

“Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not.”

“Then how do you know that’s what happened?”

“I know you. The last thing you would do is kiss Dan-O

the Man-O to make someone jealous. That’s something
he
would do. Not you.”

I smiled. “Ian Clark! Did you just assume the worst of someone?”

“I didn’t assume it. I
saw
it. There’s a big difference.” I came close to tel ing him I tried to drag Al yson out of there by her ponytail. But I didn’t want him to think I had psychotic jealous strands bubbling in my DNA.

He was being so forgiving of this crap with Dan. He wasn’t acting jealous. He was trusting. Calm. Sensible.

But then again, maybe a
little
jealousy would’ve been nice.