Me & My Invisible Guy (26 page)

“What if they make me sound like a nut?” I asked.

“Good grief, girl, you didn’t say enough to sound like anything. Darby will get the airtime. And besides, who watches the news, anyway?”

“The smart kids.”

“Well, they’re probably all virgins, too. Except Cammie Herst, of course, thanks to Alex the jerk. I still can’t believe him.” Tess slammed the car into park. Before she jumped out she turned and looked at me. “Are you really sure about this whole thing? You don’t have to be at the game. Have Liam take you to a dark movie theater where no one will recognize you.”

I reassured her that I’d be fine, and she left to get ready. I knew if I just quit talking about it, it would go away and I could move on. But it all felt important somehow. As if doing this had bigger implications. I had taken a stand—a reluctant one—and I wasn’t going to hide from it. I wasn’t going to pretend anymore. About anything.

I went looking for Liam, who I found waiting with a Dr Pepper. He patted the seat beside him. “At least we’ll get to sit together.”

“As much as I like being with you, I’d still rather be down there cheering.”

Liam picked up his phone, looked at the screen, and shoved it into his pocket.

“Was it a text about me?”

Liam didn’t say yes, but his face told me. “What are they saying?”

“Everything from ‘Way to go’ to suggestions on how to get you in bed.”

I cringed.

“You asked,” he said. “Are you getting them, too?”

“I turned off my phone and left it at home,” I said.

“That was probably smart.”

I looked out at the field. It was so different from the bleachers. Instead of being up front, I was just one of hundreds. And despite wanting to be cheering and dancing, I got into the game with Liam and had fun telling him about who was on the team and which numbers they wore.

At halftime we stood in line at the concession stand and ran into Samantha Morgan.

“Hey! I saw the broadcast tonight. Nice job,” she said.

“I didn’t watch it.”

“You’re not cheering anymore?”

I filled her in on my suspension as we moved up in line.

“Aren’t you the one who designs the pep rally flyers and banners?

“Yeah.”

“If you’re not cheering right now, do you think you could help me with something?” Samantha told us how she’s been trying to figure out a way to make the newspaper more interesting and wants to redesign it. But no one on the staff actually knew how to drastically change the templates they were using. “Do you know how to do that stuff?”

“Yeah, but I’m not an expert or anything.”

“Could you come to the newspaper office Monday after school and take a look at them? Please?”

I agreed. But in the back of my head I was thinking that
the plan didn’t make a lot of sense, anyway. No one read the paper because it was still a physical piece of paper that you had to pick up. If she wanted people to read it, online was really the way to go.

Liam was oddly excited about it. “That would be so great if you could do it. Great college app stuff.”

“I didn’t say I was going to do anything. I just said I’d look at their templates.”

We ordered our food and began heading back to the bleachers.

“But you never know. It might be the perfect thing for you to do.”

“I don’t have time for anything else besides cheering.”

“Maybe that’s what’s great about it.”

We sat down as the band was marching off the field. Liam got a phone call and left to go answer it, gesturing that he’d be right back. But as I watched him go, he looked upset. When he closed his phone, he leaned on the railing for several minutes before he came back to his seat.

“Everything okay?”

Liam sat down on the very edge of the bleacher.

“Mall, I hate to do this, but I’ve got to go home.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My dad. He got a call from my OSO. It didn’t go well.”

“Your OS what?”

“The recruitment guy who’s been helping me with college applications and everything else. I guess I let on that I wasn’t exactly sure about what I want to do.”

“Oh. But that’s good, right?”

Liam shrugged. “I’ve got to go home. He’s got my mom all upset.”

“Okay. Call me later?”

“Yeah.” He kissed me on the cheek in a distracted way and hurried off. I wished I could help him somehow. I hadn’t met his parents yet, and the little I’d heard about his dad made me scared of him. That got me wondering what my “role” was here. Was I Liam’s girlfriend? We acted like a couple, but neither of us had used the words
girlfriend
or
boyfriend
.

I watched the second half of the game and the squad, but mostly I thought about Liam and his future. And my own. My parents had never pressured me to do or be anything in particular, and I had no idea what I wanted—or didn’t want—to do.

Then my mind turned back to the newscast and what everyone would think. Hiding in my room the rest of the weekend would be an excellent strategy.
Maybe the worst of it will be over by Monday.

But Tess was my ride, and she wanted to go to a party after the game.

“Your virginity is not going to make us miss our junior year, Mallory. Come on. It won’t be that bad.”

I really wished she’d stop using any variation of the word
virgin
. It was so awkward. “But the news show, Tess. Let me hide this weekend.”

“Well, some of us don’t have a boyfriend to go to homecoming with.”

“Like you’ll find one there?”

She screwed up her mouth and then rolled her eyes. “Better than staying in.”

In my other life I would have caved and gone to the party because it was what Tess wanted to do. But now that my secrets were out in the world, I couldn’t help feeling different.
And hanging out at a party where half the people probably hated me (and the other half thought I was some sort of freak) was about as appealing as a visit to the gynecologist.

I looked at Tess, her eyes pleading. “I can’t do it. I just want to go home.”

Tess dropped me off, clearly miffed, but I knew she’d forget I wasn’t with her once she got there. I called Liam three times, but he never picked up or answered my texts. I was worried, but eventually I gave up and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning thinking maybe everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks was just one big, horrible dream.

It was my blank walls that made me realize that it was no nightmare. It was my actual life.

I cautiously turned on my phone and found sixty-one texts. Some were supportive, saying they were glad I spoke up or that it made them think. Many were just names: liar and slut, to name a few. And there were two pictures sent to show me what I was missing out on. I deleted them without even opening them. I deleted everything but the kind comments—I thought I might need to read those again.

A knock at my door was followed by my dad stepping into my room. “Mally, you’ve got company.”

I looked down at my rumpled pajamas. “Who is it?”

“He said his name was Liam.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“Tell him to wait. I’ll be right there.”

I took the world’s quickest shower and made myself as
cute as possible.
Liam’s downstairs talking to my dad? What are they saying to each other?
I was more worried about my appearance at first, but as I finished getting ready, I started to stress.

Why is he here so early?
I couldn’t help but wonder if something happened when he went home. If Liam’s dad saw me as nothing but a distraction… What if he had to break up with me? We weren’t anything official, but we were
something
.

And I didn’t want it to end.

Someone knocked on my door. “Mallory, come on.”

It was my dad. I pulled open the door, and he was standing there with a coffee mug in his hand.

“He’s still waiting, and I’ve run out of things to talk about. Would you please come down?”

I went to the kitchen, where Liam was sitting on one of the barstools at the counter. Waiting for me. “You okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

He glanced around. “Can we go outside?”

I led him to the back porch, where the sun was already starting to take the chill out of the air.

He held my hand as we sat down.

“So tell me. Are they sending you away to military school?”

Liam grimaced and shook his head. “If my dad had his way, I’d be on a plane already.”

The thought of Liam on a plane… leaving me… made my chest tighten and my heart actually hurt.
Is this what love feels like?

I was almost afraid to ask any more questions. Especially with the way he was looking at me. But I had to know. “What happened?”

I could see that he didn’t want to tell me either. It took him several minutes, but finally he spoke. “My dad thinks I need to simplify my life so that I can concentrate on the application process. He doesn’t want me to be wasting my time on music… girls….”

“Me?”

Liam squeezed my hand and pulled me closer. “Nothing is going to change. He may want it to, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I care too much about you to end this.”

The reality of what he was saying sank in. His dad didn’t want me around. That—combined with all the hate at school—made me want to disappear.

He lifted my head with his hand and held my gaze for a long moment. “Nothing is going to change. I think I smoothed it over for the time being.”

“Smoothed it over? How?”

“By promising to be extrafocused on my applications. Promising to get in.”

“But you don’t want to go…. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

He shook his head. “It’ll crush him.”

“So you’re just going to give up on your own dreams?”

“But playing music, it’s kind of a fantasy, anyway. It’s not like I could make a living at it.”

“Who cares?”

Liam smiled then and laughed a little. “You’re good for me. So what about you? How bad is it?”

“Bad. I think I’m going to change my cell number.”

“I saw your interview last night; my mom taped the show. That was some new information… about your sister. How come you never mentioned it?”

I shrugged. “It was a secret. A secret I shouldn’t have told.”

Liam shook his head. “Don’t be mad at me for saying this, but you have a lot of secrets.”

“Not so many anymore.”

“Tell me something. Something no one else in the whole world knows,” he said.

“Why?”

“So I can prove to you that you can trust me.”

“I do trust you.” At least I was pretty sure I did.

“Please?”

I looked at Liam again, at his brown hair, those brown eyes—a real guy. A real guy who made a mistake but cares about me. How much I wasn’t sure yet, but it was real.

Can I be strong and brave with my heart?

CHAPTER 21

Liam made me want to risk it all. Risk my heart, my emotions, everything, to find out what a real relationship looked like, felt like. But wanting to jump into a river and actually doing it were two different things. I had to jump.

Had to trust.

Liam waited patiently, stroking the top of my hand with his thumb.

“When it first happened, it was awful. We didn’t even know if Darby would make it. But for me, it was worse when we got home. I felt lost and scared… and one night, I almost took a handful of pills myself.”

Liam’s eyes widened.

“It was just that one time, but I never told anyone. I don’t even know why I considered it. I mean, I saw how awful it was for all of us. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through what we went through. But I came close.”

Liam wrapped his arms around me and pressed his face into my neck. I relaxed into his embrace, his warmth. It felt perfect.

He let me go and reached down and took his guitar out of the case.

He strummed and adjusted it, and after a little bit he looked in my eyes. “First of all, thank you for trusting me with that. And I’m so glad you’re still here. Second, a secret for a secret, right? But I need to sing my secret.”

I just nodded. There was no way I could get words out.