Something Real (10 page)

“If you need help, just, you know.” He gives a little wave of his hand.

“Got it. Thanks. Mer, can you show me that album you were talking about?”

“Yep. This way.”

And just like that, they’re waltzing toward the rock section.

I think I’m about to have the longest conversation I’ve ever had with Patrick—well, the longest one where it’s just us. I smile at him and point to the book.

“What part are you at?”

He flicks his hair out of his eyes (want want
want
him) and says, “I might spoil it for you—where are you at?”

“The first time Winston and Julia go to the apartment.”

“Kills me.”

“Right? It’s like you just
know
it’s not going to end well. I mean it can’t, but I love how for a little while, they just don’t care,” I say.

“Have you read it before?”

I shake my head, and he pulls a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum out of his front pocket.

“Man, are you in for it, then,” he says.

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He offers me a piece. As I reach for it, our fingertips brush against each other, like two dogs touching noses. It’s only for the span of a heartbeat, but my blood instantly turns fizzy. I stick the gum in my mouth and busy my hands with folding and refolding the wrapper.

We’re silent for a minute, but it’s a good silence. I can hear Tessa and Mer murmuring at the back of the store, no doubt theorizing on what our body language suggests about the potential for coupledom. I gasp when Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host” comes on.

Patrick nods his head to those first shivery opening chords: a slow, melancholy dance between bass and guitar. “It’s a good one, huh?”

“It’s been in my head all day—this is so weird.” The first line is
I want to, I want to be someone else or I’ll explode.
So, yeah. In my head all day. “It’s one of those songs that make me stop whatever I’m doing and just…”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

So we listen for a while, me leaning against the counter, Patrick lightly tapping its surface in time to the music with his finger. Thom Yorke’s wild, crazy, beautiful voice serenades us, and I think,
Not bad, Chloe. Not bad at all
.

“Chloe.”

“Hmm?”

“Yesterday in class … I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but … are you okay?”

I think the noise I make is a nervous laugh, but I’m worried it might sound more like a bray. Then I start talking, because I have to answer, right? And it’s like I’m on speed, each word rear-ending the next in its haste to spew out of my mouth because I want to skip over the me in this and just be a normal girl talking with this boy who gets under her skin in the best kind of way, but it’s unavoidable, what I did, and I wish I could go back and undo it, but I can’t. And so that’s why Patrick Sheldon will never, ever be my boyfriend and I hate, just completely
hate,
my life. I want to be someone else or I’ll explode.

I say, “So stupid, huh? I had to get out of there, and it seemed like a dramatic way to, uh, ditch. I was thinking about that dumb yearbook picture Jason took and was sort of like,
agh
! And then Schwartz was waiting for an answer, and I thought, Hey, what the hell—it’s true, isn’t it?”

“What?” he asks, eyebrows drawing together, so so cute.

“That it would feel like shit. To be on camera all the time.”

“Oh. Yeah. Definitely.”

Shut up, Chloe aka Bonnie™, shut up.
But I can’t. I have to fill the dead air between us, because the silence is dangerous now.

“I mean, hypothetically true,” I say. “Obviously I don’t
know
know, I just—”

“Chlo, ready for some lunch?”

Saved.

I turn around and flash Tessa a grateful smile. “I’m starving. You got what you needed for your, er—”

I can’t remember the excuse she gave and, apparently, neither can she. Her eyes widen, and my stomach jumps into my chest. There’s a scary five seconds in which I’m certain Patrick’s going to be all,
Oh. She likes me. Poor girl
. But Mer saves us.

“Sheldon. My house—tonight—eight P.M. My parents are out of town, ergo
party
. Are you free?”

My heart starts beating a
say yes, say yes
, but I know that even if he comes, I’ll probably get nervous and avoid him. What’s the point when in a few weeks’ time, everyone will know what a freak I am?

He looks over at me. “Are you going?”

My eyes widen, and there are internal fireworks, and all I can say is, “Um. Yeah.”

Tessa and Mer elbow each other none too subtly.

Patrick smiles his crooked upturn of the lips. “Then I’ll see you later tonight.”

He grabs the record out of Tessa’s hand and raises his eyebrows. It’s a ninety-nine-cent Weird Al Yankovic album.

Tessa shrugs. “It called to me.”

He laughs and puts it in a bag after he rings her up.

“See you tonight,” Mer chirps.

Patrick picks up his book and nods. “Later.”

My eyes snag on his, but I can feel a blush creeping up my neck, so I say a quick good-bye and stumble out the door.

“Success!” Tessa says, pumping her fist as we walk down the street. “I
knew
he was into you! Haven’t I been saying that for months?”

“You guys are shameless,” I mutter. They don’t buy my grouchiness. I can’t hide the goofy smile that snuck onto my face as soon as I left the store.

Mer shimmies down the sidewalk, ignoring the amused glances of passersby. “
Parents out of town! Cha-cha-cha. Party at my house. Cha-cha-cha!”

Tessa gives me a long-suffering woe-is-me look. “This is
before
wine coolers. She’s going to be out of control tonight.”

Mer turns around and grins. “I’ll hold your hair back if you hold mine.”

We pass a newsstand where glossy tabloids yell at us with words like REHAB, CHEATING, and EXPOSED on the covers. It feels like someone just threw a bucket of cold water on me. Like,
Wake the hell up, Bonnie™.
How many headlines will I have this time? Which trashy magazines will put me or someone from my family on the cover?

Patrick better not be crushing on me right when everything changes and I can’t have him.

*   *   *

I take a sip from Benny’s red plastic cup and grimace. “
Bleh
. How can you drink this stuff?”

“Because I’m so manly.” He puffs out his chest, and I can’t help but laugh.

We’re hiding out on Mer’s back porch, away from the spilled beer and loud laughter.

“Whatever,” I say. “Just … don’t get crazy. Camera phones are not our friends.”

I don’t trust people I barely know to resist the temptation to sell a story or a picture to
Us Weekly
.

Benny takes another drag of his cigarette. “MetaReel rears its ugly head.”

“Yeah.”

He snorts as a few of Mer’s drama friends fall into a pile on the trampoline that takes up most of her backyard. They laugh and shriek and crawl all over one another with tipsy affection. The old, familiar ache comes back, pulsing and raw. I wish I could laugh so hard my stomach hurt. Don’t remember the last time I did.

Benny blows his smoke away from me, out the side of his mouth. “I can see the headline now:
Benton™ Baker, Raging Alcoholic?
”

We shouldn’t have come.

“Let’s skip out,” I say. “If Chuck saw us leave the house, there could be cameras on their way and—”

“He didn’t see us!” Benny’s voice is laced with frustration. I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since we got here, wondering if Patrick will show, half hoping that he won’t. “We were careful, trust me. Just … enjoy being out while it lasts.”

The sliding glass door opens, and the sounds of the party dance in the air: Kanye West, drunken laughter, hollering.

“There you are,” says Tessa. She’s wearing the hilarious shirt she bought on her last trip to Korea with her family that has pictures of smiling flowers around the words
Life is beautiful. Be my happy place.

Her lips turn up in an impish smirk. “He’s here.”

My body reacts as if it just jumped out of a plane—elation followed by sheer panic.

Benny gives her a puzzled look. “Who’s here?”

“I’ll answer that with a riddle: what walks on two legs and is the object of Chloe’s affection?”

He laughs. “Ah. Sheldon.” He turns to me. “Get your ass in there, Chloe.”

My voice goes whiny. “Can’t you go with me?” He takes a particularly long drag as if to say,
Nope. Nada. End of Discussion
.

“
Please?
You guys are friends, you can make it less weird.”

“Chlo, Sheldon’s not gonna make a move if your big brother is standing right next to you,” he says. “Now,
go
.”

He swats my butt, and I sock his arm before Tessa drags me inside. The smell of beer and a million different perfumes and colognes hits me as soon as I enter the living room. In the half hour I’ve been outside with Benny, Mer’s house has filled to bursting. I recognize almost everyone, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to carry on a conversation. I don’t know how to do teenager. Every time I try, it’s like I’m a thirty-year-old cast in an after-school special.

“Tess—”

I spin around, scanning the crowd for her jet-black mane, but Tessa’s been absorbed into the fray. I can’t believe she ditched me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Patrick. We’re separated by at least fifteen people, but my whole body is attuned to his, as if after all these months, we’re finally on the same frequency. His lanky frame moves smoothly through the sea of bodies, somehow avoiding being jostled. He’s encased in a bubble of cool. Me? I’m standing here, turning around in circles like I’m in one of the Mad Hatter’s teacups at Disneyland. I lose sight of Patrick when a group of football players pushes past me to get to the backyard.

“Excuse me. Sorry. Oops, sorry. Thanks,” I mumble, trying to orient myself.

“Chloe.”

I feel a slight tug on my sweater, and there he is, looking down at me.

“Patrick—hi.”

Damn. The way his lips twist, like he’s got a secret but isn’t telling, gets me every time.

“I’m guessing this isn’t really your scene,” he says. Is that because I’m wearing only jeans, a T-shirt, and a comfy sweater when every girl here is dressed to kill?

I shake my head. “Not so much. But it’s Mer’s, so … I’m here,” I finish lamely.

“So what is your scene?” he asks, shouting a little, to be heard above the Lady Gaga mix the lead in this year’s school musical just put on.

“I don’t have one,” I say. “What’s yours?”

He laughs. “I don’t have one, either.”

A couple of Mer’s show choir friends start doing an improvised cheer while a guy from my English class gets ready to do a keg stand.

Patrick shakes his head and leans close so I can hear him. “Don’t you ever feel like they’re all on a different planet or something?”

“
Yes
,” I say. I start laughing as I look around me. “I’m so glad you’re here. Usually I just hide in a corner and play on my phone until Tessa or Mer rescues me.”

“Anytime, Baker.”

I point to the dining room. “Thirsty?”

He gestures for me to lead the way, and I take him to the cooler on the dining room table. I grab a Coke and Patrick takes a beer and says something to me with an adorable smile, but I have no idea what, because two guys next to us have decided to play a violent version of thumb war that involves reciting a litany of every curse word known to man.

“What?” I shout, over a particularly creative string of expletives.

Patrick looks at the guys and rolls his eyes, then moves his lips close to my ear and says, “I was saying that I’m really glad you came into Spin today.”

I shiver a little as his warm breath touches my ear. “Me too.”

There’s about eleven seconds when I feel like we could almost kiss, but then Mer’s shouting in the living room for everyone to gather round.

“Looks like the birthday girl’s going to make a speech,” I say. My eyes flick up to his, and I hear myself saying, “Keep me company?”

“That’s why I came.”

I bite my lip to keep my grin a respectable size, and he follows me to the living room. Why wasn’t he flirting with me last year, when I was relatively normal? Tessa says it’s my fault he hasn’t asked me out yet because I’m the human version of the shower in her downstairs bathroom; hot one minute, cold the next. But Patrick’s not like other guys. He’s really hard to get a read on, so I never know where I stand with him. I mean, compare yesterday in Schwartz’s class with today—totally different, right?