The Dating Deal (17 page)

What a dope I had been!  A sap.  All of this, this whole time, it had all been Trent’s big
joke
.  He read my journal.  He knew everything about me.  He knew exactly how to push my buttons, and he had!  He’d pushed them
all
.  Every one. 

I was a moron!

I bolted to my car, but Trent grabbed my arm.  “Megan, wait a minute.  Let me explain.” 

I pushed him away.  “I hate you!” I sobbed. 

I got into my car and tore out of his driveway, heading down the street.   But I was a shaking mess, a wreck waiting to happen.  As soon as I rounded the corner, I pulled over and bawled my eyes out.

When I finally got home, I flung myself across my bed, still bawling.  How stupid I had been this afternoon.  When Trent told me he was taking the missionary lessons my heart had raced with happiness.  “Yes!” I’d thought.  “Now we can date.”

But he’d only been playing some bizarre, cruel joke.  (The kind “cool” people from Jefferson play.  The kind I never got.)  He probably laughed about me with Caitlin and his friends.  Constantly.  Continually. 

“Guess how I messed with Megan The Mormon’s head today,” he’d say.  “Today I made her think I was interested in her church.”  Or, crueler yet, “Today I made the pathetic sap think I’m interested in
her
!” 

Imagining the traumatic scene made me sob even harder.  What a moron I had been!  Megan the Mormon moron.

*  *  *  *  *

Sunday, Trent and Wendy came to church again.

When I saw them walk in, I spun back around in my seat, practically giving myself whiplash.  Suddenly I was all sweaty. 

“Why is he bothering to go on with this?” I wondered, my face growing hot with anger and shame.  “Why doesn’t he just leave me alone now?  Move on to someone else?”

I had to wipe away a tear.  And I hated that.  That he got to see me cry.  I refused to do it again.  Ever.  He was a jerk.  A bully.  He wasn’t worth my tears.  I wanted to forget him.  Now.  Forget everything that happened.  None of it had been real anyway.  It had all been an act, every last bit of it. 
Guess how I messed with Megan The Mormon’s head today
.

After sacrament meeting, Trent and Wendy came up to me as I was waiting for Nina in the hall.  “Just stay away from me,” I growled, storming off.  But after I did it, I felt miserable.  Poor Wendy.  She’d looked hurt, stunned.  She was completely innocent of Trent’s mean game.  I hated that I’d hurt her.  I wanted to go back and apologize.  Explain that I hadn’t meant to be cruel to
her
.  But I couldn’t find the strength to go back and look for them.  Actually, I didn’t want to see either of them ever again.

But all through Sunday school, I couldn’t get Wendy’s hurt face out of my head.  I had to apologize. 

After church, I waited for her outside of her primary class.  When she came out, I focused on her, only her.  “Wendy, can I talk to you?”  Then I glared at Trent.  “Alone?”

I took her aside and said I was sorry for acting so mean.  “I was mad at your brother, not you.”

“I know.”  Wendy smiled.  “Charlie explained that you two are in a misunderstanding.”

A misunderstanding?!  He called it a
misunderstanding
?!

Trent grabbed my arm, pulling me aside.  “Now, I want to talk to you, alone.”  I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.  “Just let me explain.”

People were watching us, looking concerned.  Sister Somebody furrowed her brow.  “Is everything alright?”

“No!” I said, glaring at Trent.

He let go of my arm.  “I just want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to
you
,” I told him, and stormed away.

Today in third period Ms. Wright was doing something weird.  “Experimental.” 

“I’ve been teaching most of you all year,” she said as soon as everyone was seated.  “But it’s only an hour a day, and I want to get to know you.  Really know you.  But more importantly, I want you to get to know yourselves.”

Ms. Wright explained that she had a top hat full of questions, personal questions, and she was going to pull them out one by one.  She was going to go around the room, asking each of us a different question.  A question we would have to answer.  Aloud.  

“I want you to answer them honestly,” she said.  “So take your time.  Really think about your answers.” 

Ms. Wright pulled out the first question, assigning it to Shawna, since Shawna sat at the front of the class.  It made me glad I was sort of toward the back. 

Ms. Wright read, “If you were the president of the United States, what policy, big or small, would you change?”

I slunk down in my seat only half-listening to Ms. Wright’s unrelenting questions and each student’s wavering answers, wishing I hadn’t come to class today.  After all, I was feeling kind of sick.  And this “getting to know you” thing wasn’t going to make me feel any better.  I hated stuff like this.  Stuff where I had to … talk.  Of course it would happen in
this
class, with snotty Aspen and slime-ball Trent.

When it was my turn to answer a question, I slumped down in my seat, trying to be invisible.  “Megan,” Ms. Wright said, “If you could be anyone in the world, who would you be?”

That was easy.  “Taylor Scott,” I said.

When everyone looked at me like, who? I went on to explain, “He’s this awesome composer and I’m trying to write this song that’s kind of like his and,” I just went on and on, my face growing sizzling hot, all the while wishing I had simply answered Lindsay Lohan. 

When it was Trent’s turn, he had been reading a magazine.  I don’t think he had a clue what was going on.  Ms. Wright asked him, “Trent, what’s dear to you?”

“Megan Turner,” he answered without a moment’s hesitation.  Then he went on reading his magazine.

I stared at him in disbelief.  Everyone else ooohed and aahhed. 

Why’d he
say
that?  Why was he
doing
this?

I stared down at my hands for the rest of class, ignoring Nina’s gaze.  When class was over, Nina put her hand on my shoulder.  “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, ready to cry.  Guys were jerks.  All of them.  They made you trust them, believe in them, but it always ended the same, with a big sharp knife in your back.

A tear ran down my cheek.  “He knows everything, Nina.  My dorky crush on him, us making him all those cookies.  This whole time that he’s been acting so nice, he’s just been laughing at me.”

“He sounded serious,” Nina said.  “About that what’s dear to him thing.”

“He wasn’t serious!” I groaned.  “He’s just playing games.  This is all a big joke to him.  He’s a jerk.  I hate him.”

After class, Caitlin was at my locker.  “Hey, Megan,” she said awkwardly.  “I know we aren’t exactly friends.  But Trent
is
my friend.  And he’s really down.  I don’t know exactly what happened between you.  I mean, you’re fighting, but Trent, he really likes you a lot and—”

“Look, just drop the act,” I snapped.  “I know you guys were in this together.  A big laugh on Megan The Mormon, good one.  But it’s over, okay?  Just knock it off and leave me alone.”

I stormed away without getting my books for fourth.  It didn’t matter anyway.  No way could I concentrate on math theorems.  What was Trent doing to me?  Why was he being so horrible?  And what did he think he would accomplish by sending Caitlin to talk to me?  Caitlin!  Did he actually believe I would listen to a word she had to say?  Did he really think I was that gullible?

During pre-calculus Brooke Hunter slipped me a note.  It read:
It was so sweet of Trent to say you were dear to him—right in front of the whole class.  Romantic!!!  You two make a cute couple.
  Then she had drawn a smiley face. 

I wadded up the note and threw in the wastebasket.  The whole school was gullible.

Tuesday, after Ms. Wright’s class, Trent ambushed me.  He blocked me against my locker, forcing me to listen to him.  “I didn’t know it was yours,” he said.  “I had no idea.”  He ignored my attempts to push him away.  “Listen, how could I possibly know?  My mom said she got the computer off e-bay.”

“E-bay
local
,” I snapped.

“Well, she didn’t tell me that.  She just said e-bay, and so it could have come from anywhere.  And it was just fun—and I thought totally harmless—to read about this cool chick that liked to write songs.”

I looked away. 

“Look, I was going to tell you about the computer.  It was just—the moment never seemed right.”  Trent made me look up at him.  “Megan, I was trying to tell you Saturday at my house.  That’s what my big talk was about, explaining why I’d been so drawn to you before I actually knew you.  It was because I
did
know you.  I knew everything about you.”

“I don’t want to hear this!”  I pushed him away.  “You had no right to know everything about me.” 

I stormed off to class with the words, “I didn’t know it was yours!” trailing after me.

I hated Trent! 
Hated
him.  I wanted to disappear.  Him to disappear.  He had read my most intimate thoughts and feelings.  He knew everything.

*  *  *  *  *

In chemistry we had a sub.  So no lab, thank goodness.  If I’d had to work with chemicals I probably would have blown up the whole school, making banana oil.  As it was, I sat all through class writing:  I hate Trent Ryan.  I hate Trent Ryan.  I wrote it on my notebook over and over again.  I hate Trent Ryan.

But then, all of a sudden, I remembered something, and it made me feel kind of sick.  This morning in seminary our teacher, Brother Shelton, had challenged us to spend the day pretending Heavenly Father came to school with us.  “Because He does, everyday,” Brother Shelton said.

I imagined Heavenly Father peeking over my shoulder now, seeing what I was working on.  Man!  I quickly scribbled out the words. 

I was going to need a new notebook.

After school, Trent was leaning against my car.  He just wouldn’t go away.  “What do you want?” I tried not to growl, but I think I did.

“Look, I know you’re mad at me and in a way, you have every right to be.  But I didn’t know it was you.”

“For how long?” I snapped.  “The first paragraph?  The third entry?  When?  Because I know you had to’ve figured it out before you came up with your great ‘deal’.”

Trent bit his lip.  “Yeah.  I knew before that.”

“So, just stay away from me,” I told him, getting into my car.

“What about practicing for the duet?”

“Forget the duet.  I don’t care about the duet anymore,” I told him.  And I didn’t,

for the most part.  I mean, I still would have liked to beat Hailey.  But there were many, many things I would have liked more, like Trent not being a big, fat fake, or Trent stuffing his head in a toilet.  Things like that.

“Won’t you just listen to me?” Trent said.  “Just let me explain?”

“No,” I told him flatly.  “I’m never going to listen to another word you have to say.”

*  *  *  *  *

When I got home from work tonight there was an e-mail waiting for me from Trent.

Megan, you have to understand, when I first started reading I didn’t know it was your computer.  I had no idea.  I just liked the girl I read about.  I thought it would be cool to get to know her.  But I didn’t dream it was someone I actually knew.  Even when I read all the Mormon stuff.  It just made me interested in your church. 


But see, this girl—her brother died, and it was comforting to hear her thoughts about that, because, you know, my dad died.  She was so certain she would see her brother again.  It made me feel comforted.  Like maybe I could see my dad again, too.