The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney (19 page)

“Mel, it wasn’t like that,” I say, trying to make sure my voice stays calm. “It wasn’t like I told Lexi and didn’t tell you. It was just easier to tell her.”

“Because you trust her more,” Mel says quietly.

“No!” I say. “Because I wasn’t really friends with her, not the way I am with you.” I shake my head vehemently. “Because she didn’t really know me, and I didn’t think I was ever going to see her again.”

“And not because you guys are better friends?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”

Mel bites her lip, and for a second I think I may have won her over. But then Lexi picks that moment to come over and say good morning.

“Devi!” she squeals, coming up behind me and throwing her arms around me. “I feel so much better
than yesterday!” I turn around. She’s wearing the same sweater and belt as I am, and our hair is cut and colored the same way. “Hi, Mel!” Lexi says. “Are you okay? You weren’t in school yesterday.” Mel looks wordlessly between me and Lexi, then turns on her heel and walks away.

“You were wrong,” Jared says, shrugging his shoulders. “Just admit it.” He’s turned around in his seat before the bell rings in English and he’s giving me a headache. Of all the times I wished that Jared Bentley would turn around and start talking to me in English, would acknowledge my presence, even, this is never the way I imagined it.

“I wasn’t wrong,” I say, sighing. Which is true. I wasn’t wrong about Lexi liking guys who play hard to get. Because I never thought it in the first place. Just because I knowingly gave Jared wrong information doesn’t mean that I was wrong.

“Yes, you were,” Jared says. His rolls his blue eyes. “She likes me better when I’m nice to her. In fact, she admitted that at first she thought I was kind of a jerk.” He smiles smugly.

“When did she say that?”

“Last night on IM,” he says. Great. Apparently Lexi
and Jared are like BFFs now. Which means it’s only a matter of time before he (a) asks her out or (b) she lets it slip that she knows we’re going out. Or used to go out. Whatever it is we’re doing. “So you were wrong,” Jared says again.

“Whatever, fine, I was wrong,” I say miserably. Kim comes into the room wearing a light blue sweat suit that probably cost more than my parents’ car. She sits down next to me and flips her hair back.

“Can you believe that thing with Kim and Matt?” Jared asks, lowering his voice. Jared, I’ve noticed, has become quite the gossip.

“Yeah, totally ridiculous,” I say.

“I expected it from him, but her? That’s so diabolical.” I think Jared needs to work on his vocabulary. One should only use the word “diabolical” so many times before moving on to something else. “Calculating”? “Manipulative”? Both are acceptable choices.

At lunch I push a glop of chocolate pudding around my plate forlornly. Mel’s sitting at our old table, the one we always used to sit at together until I had to start sitting with the A-list. I thought maybe at lunch I’d have a chance to smooth things over, but she doesn’t even look at me.

“Hey,” Luke says, sitting down next to me.

“Hi,” I say. His chair is so close that our legs are almost touching. Not bare legs or anything, since obviously we’re wearing pants, but still.

“So are you in a ton of trouble? I tried calling you yesterday, but your mom said you couldn’t come to the phone.” That was nice of her. To not tell people I was grounded, I mean.

“I’m grounded,” I admit.

“That sucks,” he says. “I’m really sorry. I feel like it was my fault. I shouldn’t have shown up at your house like that.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “I should have called my mom to let her know you had come over.” God, his leg is really close to mine. If I move even a millimeter, we’re probably going to be touching. I concentrate on keeping my leg perfectly still. Not that it would be horrible if our legs were touching or anything. I mean, people touch legs all the time. Right? Like in crowds and stuff. Or at sporting events. Plus we’ve already held hands. Leg touching is definitely a step down from that.

“I thought you were mad at me,” he says, sounding relieved. “I tried to talk to you yesterday after social
studies, but you took off pretty quickly.”

“I was in a rush,” I say lamely. I see Kim at the other end of the table, sitting next to Matt and sending me a death glare. What is her problem? Is it not enough that she has Matt and probably any other guys she might want? She has to stop every guy from hooking up with anyone besides her?

“You know, I tried to talk to your mom,” he says. “I told her it was my fault, that I just showed up and you had no idea.”

“You did?” How sweet.

“Yeah,” he says. His leg shifts slightly. WE ARE TOUCHING LEGS. Our legs are touching. Ohmigod, ohmigod. I wonder if I should move it away. But then what if he thinks I don’t want to be near him? But what if he’s not touching my leg on purpose, or he doesn’t realize what’s going on, and then he moves his leg, and it’s like he moved away first? And I’m the loser who wanted to touch legs with him while he didn’t? And how come every time he’s around, I end up worrying about STUFF LIKE THIS?

“Thanks for trying,” I say La, la, la. Ignoring the fact that we’re touching legs.

“So listen,” Luke says. He clears his throat. “About
what we were talking about the other day.” He runs his fingers through his hair. His hair looks really cute today. Kind of spiky. Just enough gel so that it looks cute, but not greasy. I feel my face getting hot, and I quickly start flipping through the social studies notebook that’s sitting next to my lunch tray, like I’m looking for some really crucial fact I have written down that’s essential to our project.

“Yeah?” I say.

“So maybe this weekend after we finish our project, we can go to a movie or something. To celebrate.”

I swallow. My first date, my first date, my first date.

“You mean like a date?” I ask, to clarify. Or to torture myself.

“Yes,” he says. I glance down to the other end of the table, and I can tell Kim is listening to our every word. I can’t go out with Luke. As much as I want to, I just can’t.

“Listen, Luke,” I say. “I think you’re really cool and everything, but the truth is, my mom doesn’t really allow me to date yet.”

He looks away, but not before I catch the look of skepticism that crosses his face. A few seats down, I see Kim smirk. “No problem.” I can tell he thinks I’m
lying. Of course he thinks I’m lying! If that were true, why wouldn’t I have just told him that from the beginning, instead of basically avoiding him?

“I’m not lying,” I lie. “I just didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want you to think I was a loser.” I’m flipping through my notebook now at a rapid pace. For some reason, I feel like I’m going to cry.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says. He starts getting his stuff together, getting ready to throw his tray away since the bell’s about to ring. I feel desperate, like I need to say something before the bell rings. He stands up.

“Luke,” I start. I look up at him. He’s looking back down at me, a stricken look on his face. “What is it?” I ask, frowning.

I follow his gaze down to my notebook, where at the top of a page of social studies notes, there’s a huge inked heart that says,
DEVON LOVES JARED FOREVER.
I drew it there one time during lunch in an effort to convince Lexi that I did, in fact, love Jared forever, and that he loved me. I meant to cross it out later.

“Luke … ,” I say. “Listen, it isn’t—”

“No, it’s not a big deal,” he says, shrugging. “You don’t have to explain.”

And for the second time that day, someone I care about turns around and walks away from me.

By the time school’s over, I feel like I’ve been through a battle zone. I can’t wait to get home, change into comfortable clothes, and watch DVDs. Although it might be nice to talk to my mom about some of the stuff that’s going on. Maybe I can tell her everything: the lies, the fake boyfriend, the fact that Mel is mad at me because I didn’t tell her about the stuff that was going on this summer. My mom is usually pretty good at listening. Maybe she’ll have some advice.

I feel a little better, imagining my mom and I having one of those really nice moments you sometimes see on TV shows, where the girl and her mom have this heart-to-heart talk. But when I get home, my mom’s sitting at the kitchen table, working on her laptop.

“What’s for dinner?” I say, sitting myself down across from her. Maybe we’ll even make tea. People in movies are always drinking tea during heart-to-heart chats. Or maybe hot chocolate. With marshmallows. “Do we have any hot chocolate?” I ask. I
hop back up from my chair and start going through the cupboard over the microwave. Stuffing mix, a bottle of barbecue sauce, some soup. Where is the hot chocolate when I need it? I finally spot it behind some Cheez Doodles. I grab those too. I think I’ve earned the junk food.

“We’re ordering pizza for dinner,” my mom says.

I pull two mugs down from the shelf and dump a packet of hot chocolate into each of them. That definitely doesn’t look like enough chocolate. I dump an extra packet into one of the cups, figuring I’m going to need mine extra strength.

“I’m going to make hot chocolate for us,” I report. “Do you want double chocolate, or single?” She doesn’t answer me, so I turn around. And my mom’s standing behind me, her hands on her hips, holding a piece of paper in her hand.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It’s a receipt for a sweater and a belt from bebe,” she says.

“Oh,” I say “You can throw that out. They fit. I’m keeping them.”

“It’s dated for a time and date that you were supposed to be at school, making up a test.”

“Oh.” I am in so much trouble. I am in so much trouble, it’s not even funny. I will not be allowed to leave the house until I’m thirty. I take a deep breath. “Mom,” I say, “I can explain.”

“Devon,” she says. “Please go to your room.”

I didn’t even get to have my extra
chocolate hot chocolate. I had to go right to my room. And my mom had put a password on my computer, because I’m grounded from it, so all I could do was sit there and think about what a mess everything was. And how even my mom was mad at me. Aren’t parents supposed to love you unconditionally? I threw myself on my bed and cried for a while, and then I decided it was time to do damage control. Real damage control this time. No more messing around.

The next morning I arrive at school early and
decorate Mel’s locker with my
HAPPY BFF DAY
signs. I tape streamers to the outside of her locker. I put balloons up. I paste signs and stickers all over the place. And when she gets to school, instead of being excited, she takes one look at it and says, “What’s this?”

“It’s Happy BFF day!” I exclaim. “I know things have been weird between us lately, and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

Mel looks at me. Then looks at her locker. Then looks at me again. She pushes some balloons out of the way and silently starts spinning her combination dial. I try another tactic. “So, listen, I’m technically grounded, but do you want to go to the library at lunch? Just the two of us? We could hang out and eat, catch up on everything that’s been going on the past couple weeks.”

“You think it’s that easy, Devon?” She shakes her head. “You think you can just throw some balloons on my locker and that everything will be okay?” She slams her locker shut.

“No,” I say. “I don’t. But I just thought that if we could just sit down and talk, we could work it out. I just—”

“You kept a really big secret from me, Devon. And
we were supposed to be best friends. How would you feel if I did that to you?”

I feel my good mood evaporate. She’s right. If Mel had kept something as big as her parents almost getting divorced from me, I would be really upset. “I wouldn’t have liked it,” I say.

“No,” she says quietly. “You wouldn’t have. And balloons and stuff don’t really make up for that. But thanks.”

“Devi!” Lexi calls, rushing up to me. Oh, God. Could she have picked a worse time? “I am having the worst morning.” Her hair is a mess, and her eyes look like she’s been crying. Yeah, join the club, I think.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kim and Matt,” she says, biting her lip. She glances at Mel, and I can tell she doesn’t want Mel to know what’s going on.

“Listen, Lexi,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Can we talk about this in a little bit? I’ll meet you at your locker in one minute. I was just trying to—”

“No, it’s okay,” Mel says. “I was just leaving.” And she walks off down the hall. Crap.

“Devi,” Lexi repeats. “Kim’s telling everyone that I knew she liked Matt and I decided to go after him, anyway.”

“That’s insane,” I say. “I am so sick of Kim and her crap. Besides, I thought she liked Luke.” Saying his name out loud makes me feel weird. I think of the look on his face yesterday when he saw what was written in my notebook, and my stomach flips.

“I
never
knew she liked Matt,” Lexi says.

“I know you didn’t,” I say, fuming. “And she knew YOU liked Matt and SHE went after him. It was completely the other way around.”

“That’s what Jared said!” Lexi says. She rummages through her bag and pulls out a Kleenex. She starts to dab her eyes.