The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney (15 page)

By the time Monday morning rolls around,
I have a knot in my stomach the size of the Empire State Building. I spent all weekend dreading going to school, and now that I have to, I feel like I might pass out from stress. Do people even do that? Pass out from stress, I mean. Probably not. I think they just get ulcers.

I avoided everyone for the rest of the weekend, leaving an away message up on my instant messenger and telling my mom that I had so much homework, I couldn’t possibly come to the phone. I spent a lot of time in my room, supposedly working on all the homework I allegedly had, but really I was watching TV and reading
one of the romance novels I took from my grandma’s house this summer. I also spent a lot of time looking at my hand. I know it sounds really weird, but I can’t stop thinking about Luke and how it felt to hold his hand, to feel his fingers around mine, to feel the bottom of his shirt brushing against my wrist as we walked.

I head to my locker right off the bus on Monday, my plan being to grab my books and head immediately to homeroom. I’m in such a hurry that my lock doesn’t open on the first couple of tries. Crap. 18 right, 27 left, 15 right. I spin right by 15 again, but give it a hopeful yank. I take a deep breath and try again. Yes! The lock springs open, and I reach in and start loading all the books I need for the morning into my bag. Almost done. If I can just get into homeroom before—

“Hey!” a voice chirps right next to my ear. I scream and drop my bag. Books and papers go everywhere.

“Geez,” Mel says, kneeling down with me to help me pick up my stuff. “Someone’s on a short fuse.”

“Thank God it’s you,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m trying to avoid everyone else.”

“Everyone else who?” she asks.

“Kim, Lexi, Jared, Luke, everyone,” I say. I accidentally step on my math notes, putting a big footprint over a bunch of algebra equations. Great. I hope
I can still read it—we have a test tomorrow.

“Why, what’s going on?” Mel asks. She picks up my science homework and puts it back in my purple folder. “I called you three times yesterday. Since when do you have so much homework that you can’t come to the phone?” That’s the problem with having a best friend. You can never lie to them, because they’ll always figure out the truth. I think again about how Mel still doesn’t know about my parents, and even more uneasiness passes through me.

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry, it’s just that—”

“Uh-oh,” Mel says, looking down the hall behind me.

“Uh-oh what?” I ask.

“Hey, Devi,” I hear Luke’s voice behind me.

“Oh,” I say, getting up from the floor. I wipe my hands on my jeans, trying to get some of the grime from the floor off. I glance around quickly to make sure no one else is around. “What’s going on?”

“I tried calling you yesterday,” he says, “but your mom said you had a ton of homework.” My heart is beating erratically in my chest, like when someone has their music up too loud in their car.

“Yeah, I was swamped.”

“Cool.” He runs his hands through his hair. “I was
afraid you were maybe avoiding me.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that.” Why, yes, I was avoiding you, Luke, you and pretty much everyone else because I’m a horrible liar who doesn’t want to get caught. Mel coughs from the floor, where she’s pretending to pick up my papers but is really listening to everything that’s going on.

“Good,” he says, smiling.” He reaches over and takes my hand again. Oh my God. Why does Luke keep holding my hand? And why do I like it so much? Mel coughs again. “I wanted to know if maybe you wanted to hang out after school, maybe get an ice cream or something.”

Is Luke asking me out on a date? I can’t go out on a date with Luke! Lexi thinks Jared is my boyfriend. How would it look if Luke and I started dating? This is not good. This is bad. This is beyond bad.

“Actually,” I say, “I really can’t today. I have to take care of my little sister.”

“Again?” he asks.

“Yes.” I nod. “My parents work a lot, and Katie’s only five, so …”

“Right.” Pause. “How about tomorrow?”

“Babysitting.” I swallow.

“Okay, well, maybe another time then.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, trying to sound noncommittal. I drop his hand. Holding hands with Luke in public is definitely not a good idea. What if Lexi sees? Or what if someone else sees and tells Lexi? It might be my imagination, but I think I see a look of hurt and confusion pass across Luke’s face.

“So I guess I’ll catch ya later, then,” he says.

“Yeah, definitely. Catch ya later.”

“Bye, Melissa,” he says to a still-crouched-down Mel.

“Bye,” she says, straightening up. “What was that about?” she demands once he’s out of earshot.

“What was what about?” I ask.

“You and Luke holding hands.” She throws her hands up in exasperation.

“I’m actually not sure what that’s about.” I have butterflies in my stomach. “He did it the other day too. I’m not sure what it means.”

“He did it the other day?” Mel gasps.

“Yeah, he walked me home from Jared’s on Saturday.”

“And you didn’t tell me.” She crosses her arms across her chest and raises her eyebrows.

“Well, I haven’t talked to you,” I say. “So that’s why”

“I called you three times yesterday,” she repeats.

“Mel …”

She glances into my locker, where our BFF notebook is sitting on the top shelf. I haven’t even looked at it since the last time she wrote in it. “Did you write me back?”

“Um, no, not yet,” I say, pulling down the notebook. “But I’m going to today, I just haven’t been—”

“Whatever,” she says. She hands me my bag. “Here. I should get to homeroom.” She turns around and marches down the hall, leaving me at my locker, staring after her.

I have to break up with him. Or he has to break up with me. Or we have to have a mutual breakup. Everything is getting way too complicated. Jared likes Lexi, Kim knows the truth, Mel is mad at me, and Luke and his hand-holding are about to break the whole story wide open. So at lunch, I corner Lexi and tell her I need to talk to her about something.

“What’s up, Devi?” she asks as I drag her into the bathroom.

“Listen, Lexi, something happened and I wanted you to be the first one to know about it,” I say. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror over the sinks and I put on my best serious face. I try to imagine what I would feel like if Jared really
had
broken up with me. I’m shocked to find that now that I know Jared a little better, I don’t think I’d be all that upset if he
did
break up with me. Which is going to make this a very challenging acting job.

“Oh my God, Devi, what is it?” Lexi asks, concern on her face.

“Well, the thing is …” Lexi looks at me expectantly. “The thing is, Jared and I broke up.”

Lexi gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth. “Devi, no! I can’t believe it!”

“Me neither,” I say. Understatement.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” I say slowly. “I mean, we hadn’t been getting along, you know that.” Lexi nods, but doesn’t say anything, which I’m assuming means I’m supposed to continue. “So, uh, this morning before school he IM’d me. And said he didn’t want to go out with me anymore.”

“He broke up with you over IM?! Devi, that’s despicable! To not even have the decency to do it to your
face. Or on the phone even.” Wow. Lexi’s all fired up.

“I know. So that’s that,” I say. “It’s over.” Again, understatement.

“Are you okay?” She reaches out and takes my hand. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” I say. “Not really.” I wonder if I should squeeze out a few tears. I try to think of sad things. Children in third world countries. This movie I saw once where the mother dies. I blink experimentally. Nothing. Hmm. I give a sniff and hope it will suffice.

“He’s such a jerk,” Lexi says. She squeezes her fists together at her sides. “I always thought you were too good for him.”

“You did?” How sweet. I almost forgot how loyal Lexi is. Over the summer, we entered this DDR tournament, and even though this other girl, Sacha Graves, wanted to be Lexi’s partner, Lexi stuck with me because she’d already promised. Sacha was the reigning champion, and she and Lexi would have totally won.

“Yes,” Lexi says, nodding. She’s wearing dangly red heart earrings that jangle as she moves her head. “He’s such a jerk, and you’re such a nice person, Devi. Like how you made me feel welcome here when I was new.”

I did? “I did?” For some reason, this, coupled with thinking about Lexi being my partner in the DDR
tournament, makes me feel horrible. I’m a fraud. And a bad friend.

“Of course!” Lexi nods up and down. “You let me hang with you and your friends. And Jared is just so …” She makes a face. “He’s cute and everything, Devi, but really. You can do so much better.” I relax slightly. If Lexi doesn’t like Jared, then I’m not keeping them apart. Of course, if he weren’t being such a jerk to her, maybe she
would
like him. She turns around and faces the mirror and reaches up to smooth her hair.

“Devi, do you think I should get my hair highlighted like yours?” She pulls a strand down and studies it critically.

“Definitely,” I say. “Then we could be twins.”

“Fab!” She turns around and gives me a huge smile. Her braces sparkle. “You ready to go back?”

“Actually, um, I think I’m going to go to the library for lunch. I just think it would be weird seeing Jared right now.” Actually, I want to go to the library because Mel’s there, and I feel horrible about the way we left things this morning.

“I understand,” Lexi says. “I’ll look for you after school.” She blows me a kiss. When she’s gone, I wash my hands and then take a brush out of my bag and run
it through my hair. I take a deep breath. Everything’s fine. Mel will forgive me, I’ll be able to hang out with Luke, Kim won’t have anything on me, and Jared will never find out that I told anyone we were together. Everything can finally go back to being normal. I shove my brush back in my bag. Twenty minutes left of lunch. More than enough time to get back on Mel’s good side.

Suddenly the door to the bathroom opens and Kim storms in.

“Devi,” she says. The door slams against the wall from the force of her pushing it open. Wow. Kim’s really strong for someone who is so small.

“Hi,” I say. “Listen, I just told Lexi that Jared and I broke up, so—”

“No, you listen,” she says, cutting me off. For a second, I’m afraid she’s going to hit me or something. Am I going to get in a fistfight? “I know Luke likes you. And if you go out with him, if you even
think
about starting to hang out with him, I’ll tell everyone you lied.”

“I need to talk to you,” I say, setting my books down on the library table across from Mel.

“I can’t really talk right now, Devon,” she says, not looking up. She’s bent over her math book, her hair
brushing against the table. Her pencil makes scraping sounds as it moves quickly across her paper.

“Please,” I say, “I’m begging you.” She keeps writing and doesn’t look up. “Okay, look,” I say, sliding into the seat across from her. “I know I haven’t been the best friend lately. I’m sorry. And you’ve been nothing but great to me, and doing what you did, pretending to like Jared when you really think he’s horrible …” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “But Mel, I really, really, need you right now. And I don’t know who else to talk to.”

She sighs and sets her pencil down. “I only have a second.”

I nod seriously. I fill her in quickly on what’s been going on, how I fed Lexi the fake breakup story and how everything ended in the bathroom with Kim threatening my life. Okay, so she didn’t threaten my life, exactly, but close enough.

“I don’t understand why she would do that,” I say. “Why would Kim not want me to like Luke? Does she hate me that much? Is she that determined to keep me out of her group? She hardly even knows me.”

Mel sighs and looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Devon, did you ever stop to think that maybe Kim likes Luke?”

Oh. Right. I did kind of suspect that. “But if she likes him, then why doesn’t she just ask him out? She could have any guy she wanted.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like her,” Mel says, shrugging. “Maybe she’s already tried to get him to go out with her and he said no.”

“I should pump Lexi to see if she knows anything,” I say, glancing at the clock and wondering if it’s too late to find her again before lunch ends.

Mel pulls a Baggie of trail mix out of her backpack and takes a handful, munches on it thoughtfully, and then holds it out to me. “Thanks,” I say. With all this drama, I’ve completely forgotten to eat lunch.

“You know,” Mel says, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “The other thing you could do is just tell the truth.”

Gasp. “No way.” Is Mel crazy? “You know that if I do that, I’ll be a social outcast.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she says. “At least you could relax a little bit.”

“I’ll think about it,” I lie. Ten minutes left in lunch, which means if I sprint back to the cafeteria I can be there in two minutes, one minute to find Lexi, one minute to get her away from everyone else, and six minutes to pump her for info about Kirn and Luke. “Listen, I’m
going to head back to the caf. Call me later and we’ll make a plan to hang out. I promise.” I grab another handful of trail mix and run back to the cafeteria.

“Lexi,” I say, approaching the A-list table. Kim looks up and glares at me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Of course!” she says. She has a sympathetic look on her face, probably because she thinks it’s about Jared dumping me. I wonder if I should have spun the story the other way, that I dumped Jared. How cool would that be, me dumping the hottest guy in school? Of course, it was a fictitious relationship, which means it would have been a fictitious breakup, but still. “Are you okay?” Lexi asks, once we’re out of earshot. She strokes my arm and looks at me seriously.

“Yes,” I say Lexi looks surprised. “I mean, I’m okay I will be okay, anyway.” I lean closer to her so that there’s no chance anyone will overhear us. “So listen, I was wondering, um, do you know if Kim likes Luke?”

“I don’t know,” Lexi says, shrugging. “I don’t think so.”