“Turn it down!”
I turn it down. She stomps away and slams her door.
“It’s not even like I was moving that fast with anything,” Nash goes. “I just really like her and I thought she liked me, so . . .”
“What did she mean by ‘emotionally attached’?”
“No idea. Maybe like . . . something about how I’m too intrusive, like too interested in her life or something. But isn’t that how you get when you’re in a relationship?”
“Yeah,” I agree. But what do I know? My relationship’s technically still in that new euphoric stage where everything’s supposed to be awesome. Too bad I can’t figure out how to get to the awesome place.
“She likes me,” Nash says. “She said she likes me.”
“She obviously likes you. If she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have gone out with you.”
“Yeah, but she said she thought I liked her more than she liked me. And how that wasn’t fair to me because I deserve to be with someone who likes me equally as much.”
Oooh, that’s gotta sting. That’s like saying I like you, but not really. Or I like you, but there’s a limit to how much. Because you suck. And if you didn’t suck so bad, then maybe I’d like you more.
“I wish there was something I could do,” I say.
“There is.”
“Name it.”
“Can I stay over tonight?”
“What?”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“Isn’t your dad home?”
“Exactly. That’s where the ‘alone’ part comes in.”
“Oh. Totally, of course you can. There’s an air mattress in the hall closet.”
This is worse than I thought. Nash must have really liked Rachel. Maybe he even loved her. And still loves her. When someone rips your heart out, there’s nothing you can do to change how you feel about them. You just have to keep feeling that way until it goes away.
Unless it never does.
33
There’s a sub in geometry. You have to give him credit for trying. He’s attempting to give us directions for some worksheet he’s passing out, but nobody’s listening. Because nobody’s going to finish it. Some of us won’t even look at it. We all know it’s just busywork that’s never going to be graded, no matter what the sub tells us.
Sub in math + bogus worksheet = free time.
Except you still have to look like you’re doing the work or you could get in trouble. So groups of three or four move their desks together. We huddle over our worksheets for a minute, writing our names at the top. Exhausted after this physical exertion, the gossip begins. I tune everything out. I saw Derek and Sierra in the hall again yesterday and it looked even worse than the first time I saw them talking. I was up all night replaying their flirty little interlude until I wanted to scrape the memory part of my brain right out of my head.
I need to analyze this with Sterling. So after school, I go to her locker.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
“What’s up?”
“The whole Derek/Sierra thing. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Didn’t we go over this last night?”
She’s right. We IMed for like two hours, figuring out what I should do. Our conclusion was that I can’t worry about things I have no control over. And that Derek is my boyfriend, not Sierra’s. And that I have to chill. I want to be that person. The confident girlfriend person who isn’t jealous or annoying and doesn’t care who her boyfriend talks to.
So I got in bed and tried to relax. But it didn’t work. All I could think about is if Derek and Sierra were talking those two times, how many other times have they talked without me knowing about it? And what’s with all the touching? And why does Derek want to be around someone who dumped him?
Sterling slams her locker.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “But it didn’t help.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“No, I mean, of course you helped. It just keeps bothering me.”
“You want to come over? I’m making cupcakes.”
“Sweet.”
We walk out together. Sterling’s telling me about something that happened in gym, and I’m looking around for Derek. I feel really guilty about this, but I’d rather be with Derek than Sterling right now. Isn’t that horrible?
He’s waiting for me at our spot. When he sees us walking across the lawn, he smiles and waves. I wave back. Sterling is still talking and doesn’t notice him.
But then she does.
She’s like, “Oh. Is he waiting for you?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Either he is or he isn’t,” Sterling snaps.
“He is. I’m sorry. I totally forgot we’re supposed to hang out today.”
“You forgot?”
Derek was walking toward us, but now he stops when he sees Sterling. It’s like he can sense her anger from over there.
“Do you even
want
to come over?” Sterling accuses.
“Yes! It’s just . . . I don’t think I can.”
“Because you’d rather be with Derek.”
“No!” I don’t even know what to say to her. I’ve never seen Sterling like this. She knows how long I’ve wanted a boyfriend and now I have one. So why is she acting like I’m doing something to offend her?
Sterling’s all, “You’re doing what we said we’d never do when we got boyfriends and I’m not feeling it.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re dumping me for him. And we—”
“That is
not
true!”
“—promised we would never do that to each other.”
I don’t know what to say to make her stop being offended. Anyway, it’s not like she can talk. She’s online with random guys almost all the time now.
Derek is still waiting.
No one moves.
And then Sterling says, “Whatever. It’s no big deal.”
“Really?”
“Totally. I don’t know what my problem is.”
“Can I come over tomorrow?”
“You’d better!” She passes by Derek and says hey. I’m relieved that Sterling’s not mad at me, but that was close. I’ve got that shaky adrenaline rush you get when a friend is all severe with you.
Derek comes over and goes, “Are you okay?”
“No.” I hug him. “Hug me harder.”
He squeezes me tight.
“Harder,” I tell him.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
I pull away a little to look at him. “Promise you’ll never hurt me,” I say.
Derek laughs. “Of course I’ll never hurt you.”
“It’s not funny.”
He quits laughing. “Sorry.”
“I’m kind of sensitive.”
“Yeah, I know. You still want to come over?”
I nod. This is just what I need. Some quality time with my amazing boyfriend. My amazing boyfriend who is going to make me feel better, make me forget how much life can suck when you least expect it.
34
Mom’s like, “We need to talk.” I’m on my bed reading
Twisted
. More specifically, I’m reading a paragraph. It’s the same paragraph I’ve read seven times already. Every time I start over, I tell myself that I have to focus because if I don’t I’m going to be spending all of my time trying to read the same stupid paragraph.
“Maybe later?” I go. “I’m trying to read this.”
“I’d rather talk now,” Mom says.
“But this is a really good part.”
“Marisa.”
I look up from the book.
Mom says, “Your father’s downstairs. We need to talk to you and Sandra.”
“About what?”
“You’ll see. It’s important.”
The last person I want to be is the difficult kid. I’d much rather be the balanced kid. And I don’t want to give Mom a hard time forever. I just can’t help still being mad at her.
Dad’s sitting on the couch. Only he’s not all sprawled out with his feet hanging over the edge, the way he used to be. He looks uncomfortable, like he’s sitting on a couch that’s not his. So he has the polite couch posture you have when you’re over at a stranger’s house.
He looks so out of place. I wish things would just go back to the way they were before, with all of us happy and Dad lounging on the couch, hogging the remote.
“Hey, kid,” Dad says. Sandra’s sitting next to him, quiet for once.
My parents exchange a look. Mom nods at Dad.
He says, “There’s something we need to tell you. I thought it would be better if we were all here for this.”
They look serious. This is not a good thing.
Mom goes, “We’ve thought a lot about this, and we think it’s best—”
“I want you girls to know,” Dad interrupts, “that I never wanted this to happen. But it’s the only way we can move forward.”
“We’re getting a divorce,” Mom blurts out.
They’re getting a divorce. Not just a separation. They can’t stand to be with each other so much that they have to make this thing permanent. Lock it down and let the whole world know.
They’re just staring at me. I’m not sure what they expect me to do. Yell? Cry, like Sandra’s doing? Have a screaming, hysterical fit? Whatev. They’re not getting a reaction. They’re not entitled to one.
I can’t even look at my mom. Or my dad. She was the one who started this, but he let it happen.
35
We are sad.
We are sad and pathetic.
And we’re not recovering any time soon.
Even our lunches are sad. Nash has limp spaghetti with cheap sauce. I have a soggy sandwich with rubbery cold cuts. Not that we’re eating anything. We’re too sad and pathetic to have an appetite. I bet if Sterling were in this lunch with us, she wouldn’t even be able to tempt me with one of her famous brownies. I was so relieved when Nash’s schedule changed and he showed up in my lunch this semester. Now we can be miserable together.
“At least you didn’t get dumped,” Nash says.
“It doesn’t matter,” I argue. “This still sucks.”
“It sucks worse for me.”
We do this sometimes. Argue about who’s more depressed. All things considered, Nash wins. He’s been trying to get over Rachel, but now he gets to watch her at lunch. Being all happy and laughing with her friends.
Nash looks absolutely crushed. He looks exactly how I feel.
“So what should I do about Derek?” I ask. I’ve already told him everything that’s been going on with Sierra. “Do you think I should talk to him more and try and get him to tell me what’s really going on? Or should I just believe him that nothing is?”
“I think any time something’s bothering you, you should talk about it.”
“But I did talk about it. He said nothing’s going on.”
“So maybe nothing’s going on.”
“But I
know
something is.” I pick up my water. I put it back down. “You know how sometimes you can just tell? You have a gut feeling?”
“Then why do you have to ask?”
He has a point. If it’s really true and I’m not just obsessing over nothing, then it’s still true whether Derek admits it or not.
“If I were lucky enough to be Derek,” Nash says, “I would never do this to you.”
What did he just say?
Nash goes, “I would never even look at another girl. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Where did all
that
come from? Nash must really feel bad for me. That was so sweet. And intense. He’s really . . . wow.
I’m trying to figure out what to say. Nash takes out his iPod. He selects a song, staring at the screen, not looking at me. He has one earbud in, the other one dangling down his shirt.
“What are you listening to?” I ask.
“Here.” He gives me the other earbud and I put it in. I don’t know what song this is, but it’s extreme. I immediately love it. The iPod screen says it’s called “Treasure.”
I take my earbud out. “It’s sad,” I say.
“I know. The Cure is like that. But it always improves my mood. Misery loves company and all.”
I never knew boys had songs that made them feel better. I always thought that was exclusively a girl thing.
“We should probably eat something,” Nash decides.
“I know. I feel dizzy.”
“I feel sick.”
We stare at our food. We’re not hungry. We push our trays away.
“Did you hear it last night?” Linda asks some random junior at the other end of the table.
“Dude,” he says. “I always hear it.”
They’re obviously talking about Dirk.
Linda’s like, “Can you believe it about Mrs. Hunter?”
“What a load.”
“No, it’s true. I mean, he never said she was the teacher who did it, but he was definitely talking about her.”
“There’s no way she’d do that.”
“So now you’re sticking up for a teacher?”
“It was probably Tabitha’s fault. That chick is psycho.”
They keep talking. We keep sulking.
Nash glares at Rachel for the bajillionth time.
I go, “Here, switch seats with me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” I yank Nash out of his seat and we switch so his back is to Rachel. I can’t stand watching him watch her. It’s heart-breaking.
I pick up my cookie. I break off a tiny piece of the edge for me and hold the cookie out to Nash. “Want?”
“Dude, no. If I eat anything, I’ll vomit.”
“But you already feel sick.”
“That’s the problem.”
I rest my head on the table and look out the window. As if I don’t have enough to deal with, it won’t stop raining. It’s rained for three days already. Three days of wet socks and bad moods and the locker room smelling like grungy mold. The rain fluctuates between drizzle and torrential. It messes with your mind. It makes you think things will always be like this, never getting better, always letting you down right when you thought the worst was over.
36
A note lands on my desk in psychology elective. I turn a round to see who threw it. Julia is giving me a look.
I hold the note under my desk so Ms. Knight doesn’t snatch it away. She’s infamous for that kind of thing. I unfold the paper slowly, so she can’t hear it crinkle. Then I peek under my desk and read it.