Solving for Ex (23 page)

“You know what, Brendan? Saying you’re my best friend doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot if you don’t act like it.”

“Ashley, that’s not fair. Tell me one thing I’ve done wrong as your best friend this year.”

I mentally ran through every single thing Brendan had done that had pissed me off, but since each one was some form of “let Sofia touch you,” “let Sofia kiss you,” “look at Sofia like I wish you would look at me,” and “give Sofia my stuff,” there was no way I could tell him without revealing how I really felt, and making this whole thing worse. “I—It’s nothing.” I tried to take breaths to tamp down the angry burning in my chest.

“Seriously. What’s this about?”

“To my best friend,” I spat, “It should be obvious. I really wanted to be on the team, and I can’t believe she made it. That she got a perfect score.”

“Sofia?”

I nodded.

“She’s smart.”

“She’s not smart,” I sniffled, not looking at him.

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you seen her scores?”

“Of course I’ve seen them, Brendan. I graded them. But I don’t believe them.”

He quirked an eyebrow, and took a decidedly defensive stance. “I don’t even know what to say to that. Everything was fair. You know that I am always fair about everything.”

A lump rose in my throat. “I just…whatever.” I ground my teeth. I knew what I wanted to say, that there must be some explanation for how she had gotten such crazy scores, but even I couldn’t come up with one. Those papers had been with Brendan the whole time.

Was I going crazy? Obviously I was, because when Brendan whispered, “I’m sorry, Ash,” and turned to go, I blurted out, “What do you see in her, anyway? She’s so freaking fake. And now you’re fake too.”

He turned on his heel and stood there, staring at me. “Okay, I know you’re upset. And that’s fine. But goddamn, Ashley. Could you just give Sofia a break? She’s nice, okay?”

“You mean, she’s hot.” I knew that was a low blow. I knew it. But the anger had nowhere else to go. And there was no way I was going to punch Brendan’s sweet face, no matter how pissed off I was.

“Well, yeah. Anyone with eyes can see that she’s hot. But do you really want to know why? She’s interested in me, Ashley. She’s the first girl who’s ever been interested in me.”

My mouth dropped open. “Do you seriously—”

“Name one other girl at this school who has ever looked at me as more than a friend.”

I still stood there, staring at him dumbly. Never in a million years would I have thought he really, honestly, had no clue about how I felt.

“That’s what I thought. So before you go yelling about how a girl is fake, and how I only like her because she’s pretty, stop and think about how I feel for a second. I’m a senior, and I’ve never had a girlfriend, and now a girl is interested in me. So, yeah. I’m gonna kiss her.”

For a split second, I thought about telling Brendan. Laying it all out there, throwing my arms around his neck and showing him exactly how I felt. Until his face turned angry, and he said, “Just—whatever. You wouldn’t get it. You’re just fine. You have Vincent all over you.”

“Okay, that is—” I fumbled for an answer. He was absolutely right.

Brendan shrugged, but I could still see his anger in the set of his jaw. “You know what? I’m glad you’re with a decent guy. I want you to be happy. But then you can’t blame me for wanting to be happy too.”

He definitely had a funny way of showing it, giving my camera away, shutting me out of his life. And the thing is, I absolutely wanted Brendan to be happy. Just with me, not Sofia. And now I had no clue how to tell him how very wrong he was.

“Do you even like her?” I whispered, squeezing the lump in my throat to the side to get the words out.

“At first? I didn’t. Not really. But Dad wanted me to be nice to her. Give her whatever she wanted, you know? And I did it, because I can’t handle taking care of Mom all the time anymore. I can’t handle managing the house, and all of Julia’s stuff, when she’s supposed to be doing it. I really can’t.” His voice broke.

“So, yeah. I was nice to her. And I saw she was a little fake, and a little bitchy, yeah. But I wanted her to want to stay, so we hung out. You were with Vincent, and…then we started to talk. And she’s nice. Really.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nice enough to give my camera to? To take away the only thing at this whole school that gave me an escape, that made me happy? What the hell were you thinking?”

“What were you thinking, leaving it behind in Pamela’s? And after Vincent gave you that shiny new one? Why not?” Now his words were the ones that had a bite to them.

I crossed my arms over my chest. How could he be so freaking blind? Didn’t he know me at all? Any thought I’d had about telling him the truth about how I felt died a quick death. Because that wasn’t even the point anymore.

And then it hit me. Fine. He thought he was off the hook? Well I didn’t need him to take care of me anymore, whether that meant giving me a camera or anything else. I was strong enough to take care of myself.

“Gave it to me? Brendan, I was trying to teach him how to use it. It’s his. That’s why—”

“Why you were making out with him out on Mount Washington on Sunday? Yeah. Did you forget? I saw that.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing you have Sofia, so you don’t have to give a shit who I make out with.”

I walked five steps away from him, and then stopped dead in my tracks. Not looking at him, I said to the empty hallway, “That’s what you notice? Of all things about me, that’s the one thing you actually see?”

With that, I stalked all the way down the hall and out the school’s double doors, swiping whatever tears had rolled down my cheeks minutes ago away. I was surprised the heat rolling off my skin didn’t burn them off.

I raised my head and saw Vincent leaning against his car, head back, eyes closed, basking in the near-winter sun. But, for some weird reason, the only thing I wanted to was to get home, and not in the passenger seat of his car.

I ducked around the corner of the building and dialed Aunt Kristin on my cell, muttering “please pick up” into the speaker. When she finally answered, it was all I could do to ask her to come get me, and sink to sitting against the side of the building until she texted me that she was about to pull up.

to feel affection without fear or restraint

I loved Kristin so much. She drove me home, saw that I’d been crying, and didn’t say a word. She carried my bag into the house for me, and when we walked into the foyer, cocked her head toward the kitchen and asked, “Ice cream?” I nodded and followed her. We spent the next hour at the kitchen island, me sobbing into a half-gallon of mint chocolate chip and her rubbing my arm and listening. I told her all about Mathletes, and Brendan, and Vincent, and Brendan and Sofia.

Turned out she always knew I was in love with Brendan. Probably, everyone did.

“The thing is, honey,” she said, squeezing my hand, “boys are stupid. Especially high school boys.”

“You mean, it doesn’t end in high school?” I said.

She laughed. “Afraid not. Have you ever seen Uncle Bruce take out the trash unless I look him in the eye and ask him to do it? Even if there are three bags waiting by the door?”

“I guess not,” I laughed.

“So, the boys are stupid, which means you have to tell them exactly what you want. Exactly what you feel. It doesn’t mean we love them any less, unfortunately.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said, moving my spoon to dig into the ice cream again.

“What about Vincent?” she asked.

“He is…very cute. And he really likes me. Like, a lot.”

“I can tell. I think probably anyone could. Do you like him?”

I knew I should like him. I knew everything about him was right. And I knew that when I closed my eyes and imagined kissing someone, no matter how much I wanted it to be, it still wasn’t Vincent. It was Brendan. Even after our fight in the hallway, he was still the guy I’d fallen in love with last year. It didn’t make sense, but even I couldn’t rationalize my daydreams.

Then I looked out the kitchen window to see Brendan pull up in his driveway, walk around to the passenger side, and open the door. He took Sofia’s hand and helped her out, slinging his arm around her shoulders as hers snaked around his waist. They walked through the front door like that and I felt like crying and throwing up in equal parts.

“I…I don’t know. You know what? I just don’t know. I think I need to get out of here for a little bit. Away from him.”

“Well, Thanksgiving is next week.” She shifted in her chair. “I know we’re supposed to host here, but I’m happy to drive up to Williamson for the week. Stay in a hotel, come in and help your mom with the cooking. She’s been missing you, I think. And since I’d be there, things wouldn’t be hectic for her. I could give her a call.”

I thought about that for a minute. Normally, going back to Williamson would fill me with dread. Thinking about running into Kaylie Mitchell, that bitch who initiated all the torture, at the grocery store, or even at the playground with the boys. At the worst of Project Bully Ashley, they were throwing eggs at my car as it passed, and knocking my grocery basket out of my hand. But it was Thanksgiving. And if I really wanted to, I could hole up in my room for the whole week. Read a book. Not talk to anyone. Not look at Brendan’s stupid smug house and watch him making out God knows where with my least favorite person in the universe. Not think about Mathletes. Get away from everything.

“Yeah, okay. I think that’d be good.”

“Okay. Want me to call her?”

Mom hadn’t done that much about the bullying, besides arrange for me to go to Aunt Kristin’s. I could tell it was just one more overwhelming thing on her already exhausted plate. Not that I blamed her, but we hadn’t been very close since then. I was in no emotional state to start calling her now.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be awesome. And…can I just stay home from school Monday and Tuesday?”

Ω

My phone rang about seven times on Saturday morning, all from Brendan. I didn’t care. Didn’t pick up, didn’t answer one of his million texts. I did talk to Vincent, but only for a few minutes and to tell him I was going home for Thanksgiving. He was predictably sweet, funny, and awesome.

God, why didn’t I like this kid more?

Aunt Kristin and Uncle Bruce were the most awesome people to go on a road trip with that you could imagine. Uncle Bruce liked a quiet drive because he said any noise distracted him, or something. Aunt Kristin liked to listen to old political speeches for work reference on her headphones, so I was free to do what I wanted. I spent the entire three and a half hour drive drowning in classical cello. Deep and mournful and beautiful, it was absolutely perfect for the waning autumn scenery flashing by my window.

Thank God, I didn’t see a soul as we drove through town. I don’t know what I was expecting, really. It was mostly farmland. But I had imagined a gauntlet of all the assholes from school lining the streets with insults to hurl at me as I passed through.

I was totally accosted by the triplets—Luke, Teddy, and Tess—when I walked in the house. And, for that moment, I totally loved it. Tess alternately clung to me and stared at me like I was a starlet. The boys jumped on me and screamed, “Love pile!” and I really didn’t mind all that much that they wrestled me to the ground and messed up my hair. At the same time, I made a mental note to call them more often, and to further appreciate that my mom was plenty busy, even without all the stress my bullying brought into the mix. As much as I loved that fresh-baked bread smell that seemed to cling to every surface of the house even when it wasn’t baking day, and missed the view of sunrise, misty orange and blue against a tree line that stretched to eternity pretty much every morning, I knew that it was best for me to be in Squirrel Hill.

Ω

The second morning I was home, I sat with my mom at the breakfast table, before any of the triplets had really stirred from their rooms. For the first time in a long time, I felt profoundly glad that I was a morning person. I wondered if this was why my mom was one—a skill she had cultivated to spend some time with just her coffee and the misty farm sunrise. I totally understood.

We chatted about everything, Brendan and Vincent and Sofia. Photography, school. What I liked best about Pittsburgh. What I was thinking for college. Mom said she’d take me on a college visit. I smiled.

I heard the kids start stirring in the back of the house, and one by one they trickled in to the kitchen. “We miss you, you know,” she said, mussing Tess’s hair.

“I know.”

“And I think it’s best for you to be with Kristin and Bruce.”

“I know that too.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Mom said, with a heavy sigh, wiping one of the boys’ noses. “You were so…”

“Depressed?” I offered.

“Yes, though I hate to say that. It sounds like it was all about you. But it was this school, and this small town…”

“And the things asshole kids will do at a small school in a small town. I know. But…here’s the thing. All I learned was how to run away from my problems. How to duck and hide instead of fighting back.”