“Girls!” Dad yelled. “What is going on in here? The entire neighborhood can hear you shouting.”
“Angela’s being a dillweed!”
“Eleanor,” my dad said, yanking me across the room and pushing me out my door. “Go walk it off.”
“But I didn’t do anything! She’s the one who—”
“Walk it off!”
Uh, yeah, so that was not the first time my father had said this to me. It’s probably not even the thousandth time he’d said it to me. He meant it, too. He expected me to go for a nice long walk—something about me being completely unreasonable and not willing to listen to anyone when I’m really pissed off.
Eh, he’s probably right.
“Whatever,” I spat, and made sure to slam the front door so hard the walls shook when I left.
I took off down the street in my pajamas and bare feet, punching a dent in our mailbox as I went. I heard Seth call my name, but I didn’t look back. The last thing I wanted to do was get in a fight with him because I was pissed off at Angela—displacing my anger is also a lovely quality of mine—or worse, accidentally tell him what Angela and I were fighting about. Yeah, that would go over real well.
I must have walked for a good two hours. Dad was gone when I got home, but Mom was waiting for me, killing the time with a book—probably some psychobabble about how to control your out-of-control teen.
What she said when I came in the door was, “Feel better?”
What I heard was, “Get your butt in here so we can have a talk.”
I’d calmed down, but I didn’t really feel any better. I said, “Not really,” and sunk down into a chair, answering both the asked question and the unspoken command.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I don’t know why my mom always feels compelled to ask questions she already knows the answers to. I glared at her, which she didn’t appreciate. Again, what she said was, “Your sister is really upset.” But what I heard was, “You watch your tone with me, young lady. You do not want to piss me off right now.”
“I don’t know why you’re so worried about
her
,” I said, not watching my tone as much as I probably should have. “She’s the one who barged into my room and stuck her nose in my business where it didn’t belong. She’s the one who was yelling at me. She’s the one who called me a—”
“She thinks you hate her,” Mom said quickly before I could finish my sentence.
“I
do
hate her.”
“She said she was just trying to help.”
“Well, she should be trying to mind her own business.”
Mom regarded me thoughtfully for a minute and then came at me from another angle. “Seth came by looking for you a little while ago. He saw you storm off. Seemed really worried.”
She was probing for cracks in my armor, but all she got out of me was another glare. We sat in a silent standoff, which I won. She cracked after a measly two minutes. “Ellie, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
“Angela’s being ridiculous. Same as always.”
“No, Ellie. Tell me what’s going on with
you
. Something’s been bothering you lately.”
“Yeah, Angela.”
“It’s not your sister.”
I folded my arms across my chest and went back to my brooding. “Where’s Dad?” I asked, hoping to distract her.
“He took your sister out to lunch.”
“What?” That stung. “Since when does Dad choose to deal with Angela over me?”
Mom finally sighed. “Your dad’s great for when you get suspended for fighting, or need help with your slap shot. He deals with the bumps and bruises, or in your case, concussions and nosebleeds.”
When Mom managed a sincere smile my stomach churned.
“You’re kind of uncharted territory for him right now,” she said, confirming my suspicions of where this conversation was headed. “Your dad took Angela because he thought maybe you needed your mom this time. So talk to me, Ellie. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“Ugh! Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m fine.”
“It’s okay to be upset, Ellie. This is a difficult time in your life. You’re growing and changing—”
“Oh, my gosh, Mom! Stop!” I threw my hands over my ears and tried not to barf. “I am not having this conversation. I got my period like three years ago, okay? I know about the birds and the bees.”
I couldn’t take it anymore and fled for my room. As I stomped up the stairs my mother called up after me in an annoyed voice, “If you don’t want to talk to me about it, then you should be nicer to your sister. She can help you, Ellie.”
Fifteen minutes later my mom was knocking on my bedroom door. I prepared myself for round two of her parental pep talk, but instead she just handed me the cordless phone. “Here she is,” she said into the receiver before handing it over. “I’m glad you called. She needs some cheering up. Try to talk some sense into her if you can.”
I snatched the phone away from my mom and waited until she was good and gone before answering it. “Seth?”
“Westleeeeeeeey!”
“What’s up?”
“Who’s Seth?”
“Why do you need cheering up?”
“It’s us!”
Getting a call from all three J’s at once was always chaos. “I know it’s you, idiots. What’s going on? Anything new happen at your-life-is-so-much-more-exciting-than-mine camp this week?”
“I took a six pound dump,” Jack offered.
“You lie.” I laughed. The J’s could always make me feel better.
“It’s true,” Josh said. “Our whole scrimmage team weighed in before and after.”
“I won twenty bucks!”
“Congrats, Jack. You’ve reached a new level of disgusting.”
“But I won twenty bucks.”
“Oh, my gosh, you guys. You have
got
to come home. I’m going crazy.”
“That’s for sure,” Jesse agreed. “If even half the rumors we’ve heard are true.”
“What rumors?”
“Nothing big,” Josh said. “Just that you turned into a chick this summer.”
After that the guys started spouting them off so fast I couldn’t tell who was saying what.
“You wear pink.”
“You flirt with guys.”
“You go to parties.”
“You got a job at the Gap.”
“It’s Old Navy,” I grumbled. As if that were any better.
“You have a nice rack.”
“Watch it, Jesse!” I warned.
“You broke Kowalski’s nose so bad he’s gonna need reconstructive surgery,” Josh said quickly. “We’re really proud of you for that one, by the way.”
“Then there’s the one that you were wearing a dress.”
“Forget that. I heard you wore a bikini.”
“Bluuugh. That’s a scary thought. I didn’t hear that one.”
“Shut up, Josh.”
“No, dudes, I got the winner,” Jack jumped in. “I heard you got down and dirty with Dave Holcomb.”
“No freaking way!” Josh shouted—obviously he hadn’t heard that one, either. “Dave Holcomb? Seriously? What the hell, Westley?”
“I did not get down and dirty with anyone.”
“Now who’s the liar?” Jack teased.
“Who told you that, Jack? You tell me right now! I’m going to kick their—”
“So you didn’t make out with Dave Holcomb? Because
everybody
has been saying—”
“Everybody? Who’s everybody? You’re at camp!”
“Westley, you’re the only person left in the known universe without a cell phone. Half the school texted us about you this week.”
I groaned and the guys burst out laughing. I couldn’t blame them, really. It’s not like I’ve never taken pleasure in their pain.
“Don’t worry about it too much, Westley,” Josh said, sounding somewhat genuine. “We’re coming home in a week and a half. We’ll get it straightened out. We’ll have a blanket party and beat you back to normal or something.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Because I’m not hanging out with you if you’re acting like a chick.”
“Unless you really do have a nice rack.”
“Jesse! Talk about my rack one more time! I dare you!”
“Yeah, dude,” Josh said. “You’re talking about
Westley
. That’s just gross.”
“Ugh! Bite me, losers!”
It felt good to hang up on them, but not good enough to not be completely pissed off still. I screamed at no one in particular and threw the phone, smashing it into pieces when it hit my dresser. Then I cranked up my stereo, climbed out onto my roof, closed my eyes, and started counting to infinity.
“How long have you been up here?” Seth asked, taking a seat by my side.
“I don’t know. Six, seven, eight songs.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m all good.”
“Yeah,” Seth said with a laugh. “You’ve got Rage Against The Machine cranked up to eleven because you’re in a fantastic mood.”
Remember that displacement of anger problem? I glared at Seth so nastily that he couldn’t laugh this time. Without saying anything he got to his feet. For a second I thought he was going to leave me to my foul mood, but instead he took me to Patty’s and ordered me a banana split. “I think you owe your mailbox an apology,” he said once I had ice cream in front of me.
“Better it than Angela’s face,” I muttered.
Seth smiled as he picked up my hand and examined my knuckles. “They sore?”
I shrugged and he brought my hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle individually. It didn’t exactly make the swelling go down, but it sure felt a lot better than ice. “I’ll wrap it for you when we get home,” Seth offered.
He gave me back my hand and said, “So are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or am I going to have to make you tell me?”
“Is that going to be a habit with you?” I snapped. “Forcing me to do stuff?”
Seth shrugged lightly. “If it’s necessary.”
“And making me be your girlfriend? That was necessary?”
To my everlasting annoyance, Seth laughed. “Not just necessary. That was a matter of life and death.”
“Life and death? What, were you going to kill me if I said no?”
Seth just gave me a knowing smile and said, “I wouldn’t have let you say no.” He took a bite of ice cream. “Just like I’m not going to let you say nothing’s wrong.”
“Nothing
is
wrong.”
Seth’s playful attitude was gone in an instant. “Don’t lie to me, Ellie.” He had the audacity to make it sound like a warning.
Two could play that game. “You do
not
get to control me,” I growled. “I am not
yours
. I do not
belong
to you. Just because you’re stronger and possibly psycho, doesn’t mean you get to boss me around. I’m not cool with being told what to do. Just ask Angela. She tried to tell me what to do this morning and almost got her head knocked off for it.”
“And what exactly was all that yelling about this morning?”
“Angela was trying to tell me I couldn’t date you. Trying to make me stay away from you. She thinks you’re unstable—dangerous.”
Seth glared at me, but I don’t think it was me he was mad at.
“Are you?” I demanded.
“Dangerous?” Seth repeated fiercely. “To some people, yes. To you? No.”
“Then quit trying to act like you are. You want something from me—ask. Don’t use fear to try and manipulate me. It pisses me off!”
I was so worked up at this point, I was about ready to take this argument out to the parking lot. I half expected Seth to suggest it first, but his mood flipped in an instant. I was confused by the sudden admiration in his eyes.
“I’m not going to be allowed to get away with murder anymore, am I?” he asked, almost awestruck.
“You wanted me not scared of you. Well this is me not scared of you. I don’t put up with stupid crap, so knock it off.”
Seth looked as if he still couldn’t believe what was happening. A grin spread subconsciously across his face and he said, “No one’s ever ordered me around before.”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?”
I was being facetious, but Seth’s grin got even wider. “You have no idea,” he said, and then pulled me to him for a kiss.
He didn’t give me a quick look-at-the-cute-happy-couple kiss. It was a get-us-thrown-out-of-the-restaurant kiss. When he finally pulled himself off me and caught his breath, he did that thing where he looks up at me through his eyelashes with a hint of vulnerability and said, “Ellie? Would you please give your overprotective boyfriend a break and explain to me what’s wrong, so that I can make whatever it is go away and stop worrying about you? Please?”
I laughed despite myself, but then I sighed and reached for my spoon. This was going to take a lot of ice cream. “Nothing’s
wrong
, exactly. I mean, this morning Angela was being a total dillweed, but then I had it out with my mom, too. I also hung up on the J’s when they called. Those idiots were just being themselves, but I’ve given them more than enough ammunition lately to deserve the fire I got today.”