Made You Up (11 page)

Do you ever think about lobsters?

Very doubtful

I think about lobsters all the time. You knew that already; I’ve told you the stories.

Yes

Do you think the lobsters in the tank try to help the other lobsters? Is that why they pile up like that? Or is it just for company, because they know they’re all doomed?

Better not tell you now

Either way, it must be nice to have someone.

I
told Tucker about Celia and her mother the next day, when we both had to work the late shift at Finnegan’s.

“And her mom just
showed up
at school?” Tucker said. “I didn’t think they got along.”

I’d been considering the idea that the encounter had been some kind of hallucination, but there was confirmation— even Tucker knew about Celia’s mom.

“Well they sure didn’t sound happy to see each other. I think her mom must have been watching,” I said. “She was there right after we walked out. But when Celia saw me, I swore she was going to fly across the gym and strangle me to death.”

Tucker shook his head. “Add it to Celia’s list of Weird Conversations.”

“What does that mean?”

“Did you know McCoy talks to Celia all the time?” he asked. “He calls her to his office all the time. I used to be the front desk attendant sophomore year, and a week into September, Celia started showing up every other day. Into McCoy’s office, stayed for half an hour, waltzed back out again. And she’s been doing that ever since. Think that was included in her mom’s ‘plans’?”

“McCoy? No, I don’t think McCoy is included in anyone’s plans.”

“Speaking of McCoy.” Tucker leaned against the counter and clipped his mechanical pencil to the frames of his glasses. “Talking about the scoreboard legend a while back got me curious. I’m going to the library on Saturday to research—wanna come? I’ll pick you up.”

I thrust out my hand. “Deal.”

Though I felt better after telling Tucker what I’d seen, I spent the next days wondering if Celia was going to jump out and stab me. She didn’t, but she did shoot me warning looks that said I’d get shanked if I went near her.

I was still jittery on Friday. I sat on a bench outside school and waited for the parking lot to quiet down—there were still way too many cars around and I didn’t want to take Erwin into that sort of hostile environment. The lights cast wide yellow pools on the asphalt. Most kids had stayed
inside for some sort of basketball after-party in the gym, and anyone out here was in their car and gone within minutes.

Except for one person.

I spotted her when she crept out from behind a row of cars. Celia. She had a can of paint in one hand, and she shook it as she peered over her shoulder.

Abandoning my backpack on the bench, I darted down the next row of cars. I kneeled between two cars and watched her lean over the hood of a white convertible and paint the windshield.

I pointed my camera. A minute later,
Captain Bitch
in neon pink covered the convertible’s windshield.

Oh, great. Celia listened to her mom. Cheerleader retribution.

The camera slipped from my fingers and clattered on the asphalt. Celia whipped around. Saw me kneeling there.

I scooped up the camera and sprinted in the other direction. Celia screamed something and the paint can hit the hood of a car as I passed by. It burst open, spraying fluorescent pink everywhere. I veered left, ducking down so Celia wouldn’t see my head. I glanced through a car window. She raced down the row after me.

I crawled along, doubled back, and passed her before rolling underneath a van.

“RIDGEMONT!” I could see her sneakers. She walked
back the other way. I held my breath as she passed the van.

Please, please let me be hallucinating this.
Because if I wasn’t, that meant Celia Hendricks really was losing it. Maybe her mom was pushing her there, or maybe she’d always been like this, but I was pretty sure if she found me right now she was going to rip my hair out.

My salvation came a few seconds later.

“Milesie!” Celia squealed.

“What are you doing, Hendricks?” Miles’s feet—shiny shoes and all—came into view. He always walked like that, heel-toe-
push,
like he’d knock over anyone who got in his way.

“Oh, nothing. Just hanging out. You?”

Now they were both planted right in front of the van.

“Nothing,” he replied. His voice was low and sharp. “Just wondering why you’re running around the parking lot, screaming your head off.”

Celia hesitated. “No reason. I have to get going. But I’ll see you tomorrow!”

She hurried off, and a moment later an engine started up.

Miles was still there. I held my breath—if he’d move, I could go get Erwin and leave. I wanted him to find me under this van about as much as I wanted Celia to. He couldn’t see me like this.

But then he walked to the van’s front bumper, kneeled down, and peered underneath. “Having fun?” he asked.

I let out a gust of breath and set my forehead against the asphalt. What an asshole.

“Running from crazy people is always fun,” I replied.

Miles helped me out from under the van. As I brushed myself off, he asked, “So what was she chasing you for?”

“That depends,” I said, bringing up the picture of Celia spray-painting Britney’s car on my camera. I showed it to him.
Please be there. Please be there.
“What do you see?”

He pushed his glasses up and stared at it for a moment. “I see Celia getting angry about her cheerleading position and taking it out on Britney Carver’s car with some offensively bright paint.”

I almost hugged him. “Oh, good.”

“Are you going to tell Britney?” he asked.

“Why? Do you think she’d believe me?”

“With this evidence? Sure. But good luck getting to her with Celia around.”

“I’ll probably give these to Mr. Gunthrie or someone on Monday.”

“Give them to Claude.”

“Why?”

“He’ll give them to his dad, and he’ll make sure everyone knows about it.”

“That seems excessively mean.”

“Celia was prepared to beat you to a bloody pulp a few minutes ago,” he pointed out.

I made a mental note to go to the newspaper room Monday morning and give Claude the pictures.

Miles and I walked back up to the school. The crickets and cicadas had faded for the year, leaving the night quiet and undisturbed. Miles’s truck was parked against the curb, near Erwin’s bushes. The light outside the school’s front entrance illuminated the whole front walk. I grabbed Erwin’s handlebars.

The front half of my bike slipped free of the bush.

Only
the front half.

Someone had cut my bike in half. It had been rusting away in the middle, but I was positive I’d get at least another semester out of the poor thing. Anger welled up in my chest.

Someone cut my bike in half.

Pressure built up behind my eyes. I had no transportation.

My mother would call me careless for letting this happen. She’d give me a lecture about respecting my possessions, even though I’d heard it a thousand times before. I wiped my eyes on the back of my sleeve and forced the knot back down my throat.

Dad had bought me Erwin. Brought Erwin all the way from Egypt. He was basically an artifact, and one of the few
things I had from Dad that I knew for sure was real. He was priceless.

And now he was broken.

I grabbed the back half and rounded on Miles, who still stood a few feet behind me, looking mildly surprised. “Did you do this?” I asked.

“No.”

“Right.” I grabbed my bag from the bench and started down the sidewalk.

“You’re going to walk home?”

“Yep.”

“Great plan.” He planted himself in front of me. “I can’t let you. Not in the dark.”

“Well that’s too bad, isn’t it?” I wondered when he’d decided to become a white knight. “I didn’t ask for your permission.”

“And I won’t ask for yours,” he retorted. “I
will
throw you in my truck.”

“And I
will
scream rape,” I replied evenly.

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t cut your bike in half. I swear.”

“Why should I believe you? You’re kind of notorious for being a lying, thieving bastard.” He shrugged.

“You don’t explain yourself to anyone, do you?”

He motioned to his truck. “Will you please get in?”

I looked around quickly; finding another ride home would be pretty impossible. And as I looked out at the dark, quiet street, it occurred to me that walking home wasn’t the best idea ever. Sure, I hung out around Red Witch Bridge in the middle of the night, but that was in the cover of the trees with an urban legend and a baseball bat as weapons. Here, I was a teenaged girl with average upper body strength, hair like a signal beacon, and a mental condition that could make me think I was being attacked even when I wasn’t.

At least I knew Miles well enough to understand that the look of frustration on his face wasn’t a ploy. So I tossed the two halves of Erwin into the back of his truck and climbed into the passenger seat.

The cab still smelled like pastries and mint soap. I breathed in deeply without realizing it, and hastily let it out as a sigh. Miles glanced through the driver’s side window, let out a quick curse, and grabbed a stack of papers on the seat.

“Sorry, I have to drop these off. I forgot. I’ll be right back.”

He hurried into the school. The papers must have been his stat charts for the week, but I found it hard to believe he’d forgotten them. Miles didn’t forget things.

His truck was surprisingly clean. The dash had been stripped bare; the radio front was smashed in, and the knob for the heater was missing. Miles had stashed his backpack
behind the driver’s seat—apparently in a hurry, because it was on its side, and its contents spilled out in the cramped space.

The corner of his black notebook peeked out beneath his chemistry book.

This was my chance. I could just . . . take a look. Get a glimpse at the tip of Miles Richter’s psychological iceberg. I checked to make sure he was still safely inside East Shoal, then pulled the notebook out.

It was bound in leather. There were several pieces of paper clipped to the inside back cover, but I ignored them and flipped it open to the middle. Both pages were covered with his untidy scrawl.

I went back to the beginning and skimmed through. Math equations filled whole pages. There were symbols I’d never seen and little notes scribbled off to the sides. There were quotes from books and more notes. There were lists of scientific classifications for plants and animals, and even more lists for words I’d never encountered. There were entire passages written in German, dated like journal entries. I noticed familiar names, like my own and the other members of the club.

And then, separated from the rest of the scribbles by a few blank pages, like he’d wanted to remember these things specifically, were short one- or two-sentence declarations, marked with the dates they’d been written.

Intelligence is not measured by how much you know, but by how much you have the capacity to learn.

You are never as great or as pitiful as you think you are.

Those who are picked last are the only ones who truly know what it feels like.

Schools without bike racks should be convicted of criminal negligence.

I stared at that last line, dated on the first day of school, urging it to change, to revert to its true form, because I knew I must have made it up. If that wasn’t a quote from somewhere, if that was one of his own observations . . . then he’d lied about not standing up to Cliff for me. Celia’d scoffed at Erwin, and Cliff had stood in my way, and Miles had said he hadn’t done any of it for me. . . .

This notebook didn’t sound like Miles. It sounded like someone a lot more naïve than Miles. Someone who really liked to know things. Scientific classifications. Complex math. Words.

I looked up. Miles was coming out of the school. Groaning, I stuffed the notebook back under his chemistry book. I faced forward, trying to look inconspicuous. He slid into the driver’s seat.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“You seem to have forgotten that someone cut my bike in half.”

“And you seem to have forgotten that I have a truck,” said Miles. “I can give you a ride. To school, at least.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“Really. I’m not joking. Unless you’re that against having anything to do with me. I don’t care. You can get in line.”

He turned onto the main road. The line from the notebook felt like a dead weight in my stomach.

“No, not against it.” I realized with a strange sort of happy dread that we were falling back into the easy conversation we’d had at the bonfire. “But I’d like to know why you’re offering.”

“What do you mean?” Honest confusion crossed his face. “Isn’t that the good thing to do?”

I burst out laughing. “Since when have you been
good
? Are you feeling guilty or something?”

“A little sentimental, maybe. My first idea was to drive up and down in front of you a few times to prove I had a car and you didn’t.” His tone was light and he was smiling.

Holy crap, he was smiling. A real, teeth-showing, nose-scrunching, eyes-crinkling smile.

The smile slipped off his face. “What? What’s wrong?”

“You were smiling,” I said. “It was kind of weird.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning. “Thanks.”

“No, no, don’t do that! The smile was better.” The
words felt wrong coming out of my mouth. I shouldn’t say things like that to him, but they hung neatly in the air and cleared out the tension. Miles didn’t smile again. He turned down my street and pulled into my driveway.