The Start of Me and You (12 page)

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry; that was rude of me.”

I blew my bangs out of my face. “It’s not so bad, really. I mean, Tessa’s almost a year older than I am anyway, so she’s been driving me around for a while.”

“Yeah, Ryan and I drive together a lot even though we both have our own cars. It’s just more fun. Even though he has the
worst
taste in music.”

We turned down my street, and I pointed toward my house.

“I’m the third house on the right,” I said. Before I could stop myself, I let out a groan. My dad’s car was parked in the driveway.

“What’s wrong?” Max asked, frowning as he pulled into the driveway.

“Nothing. My dad’s just … here.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It’s a long story.”

He shrugged, sliding the gear shift into park. “I’ve got time.”

I considered telling him, for reasons I didn’t understand. Maybe it was because he’d told me personal stuff about his own family. Maybe it was that, as far as I could tell, he didn’t know about Aaron—so he didn’t see me through a lens of pity.

“You won’t tell anyone?” I sounded like a little kid, bartering in secrecy.

“Of course not. I’m really good with secrets.”

“Me, too,” I said. I settled back in my seat, propping up my knees on the dashboard. “My parents divorced when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry,” Max said automatically, the way I’d said it when he mentioned that his dad wasn’t around.

“Don’t be,” I said, quoting him. “I’m not.”

He cocked his head, waiting for me to explain.

“I know. It’s weird that their divorce never upset me …,” I trailed off, realizing my attitude must have sounded heartless to Max, who had only ever known one parent. So I rephrased.

“My parents, as a couple, were miserable. They were only happy apart. They were better—”

“Parents?” Max finished for me.

“Exactly. Anyway, a little over a week ago my mom told me that she was seeing someone,” I said. “And that someone is my dad.”

“… You’re kidding.”

“I wish. They’ve been dating for four months.”

“Wow.” Max shook his head, mouthing “wow” again.

“At first, I thought I could commiserate with my younger sister, but she doesn’t even think it’s weird. I feel like I’m the only person in the history of time who has experienced the awful phenomenon of watching your divorced parents date.”

He glanced over at me.

“Sorry,” I said, giving a little laugh. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so solipsistic.”

I paused, now embarrassed. It was an old tendency, a habit I thought I had broken, to use bigger words when I got worked up. “I meant that—”

“I know what ‘solipsistic’ means.”

I sighed, regaining my fervor. “It’s like I’ve floated out of my body and I’m watching my parents flirt with each other. My original plan was to ignore it and pretend they were both dating someone I didn’t know.”

“Until …,” Max guessed.

“Until yesterday, when my mom announced that she wants the four of us to go to dinner next weekend, and attendance is not optional.”

“Yikes!” he said. “What are you going to do?”

Max and I sat there together for the next half hour, as the sun dropped in the sky—tangerine smearing into fading blue. I should have been embarrassed about unloading on a stranger, but that was just it: he hardly knew me, let alone my family, so his opinion was unbiased. He listened as I detailed all of the ways my parents’ relationship would go wrong and hurt everyone involved.

“But,” Max said, after I had wound down from the last part of my rant. “What if it doesn’t go wrong?”

“This isn’t
The Parent Trap
. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life.”

A small smile spread across Max’s face. “It does, though. Not very often, but it does.”

I gave him the same disbelieving look I gave Morgan when she said that this season of
The Bachelor
was going to end in true love. “Believe me, my parents are not going to wind up as a ‘happily ever after.’”

“Maybe not. But even if they don’t, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it for them.”

“How do you figure?”

He twisted in his seat, turning toward me. “Do you ever go back and reread books that you really love?”

“Yes.” This was probably so much of an understatement that it was actually a lie.

“And you know what happens, right? Even in the tragedies.”

I narrowed my eyes instead of responding.

“Look,” he said, gesturing with his hands now. “Romeo and Juliet manage a double suicide, Beth dies and Laurie marries Amy, Rhett leaves Scarlett …”

“You read really girly books.”

He paused to roll his eyes at me. “I was trying to use examples you would know.”

“Sure.”

“The point is that we already know it doesn’t work out, but we reread them anyway, because the good stuff that comes before the ending is worth it.”

This took me aback. It was a compelling argument—one I’d never considered.

“Also!” Max shook his finger as if giving a lecture. “In books, sometimes the foreshadowing is so obvious that you know what’s going to happen. But knowing
what
happens isn’t the same as knowing
how
it happens. Getting there is the best part.”

It made sense, I had to admit. Max stayed silent, waiting for me to respond. I stared down at my lap. He’d handed me a new mind-set, wrapped in literary references.

Maybe it was the near darkness, protecting this
conversation in a way that daylight never could. I felt cocooned, separate from home and school and everywhere else.

“Thank you.” The words were hushed in the dark space between us, and I looked his way.

His eyes found mine. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Nine

The night before my first QuizBowl match, I dreamed of drowning. As usual, I plummeted under the water—clear pool water this time instead of a murky river—until my whole head was submerged. My gasps for air became gulps of liquid, my lungs nearly burst, and my open eyes stung and blurred.

After what felt like an hour, I startled awake in the darkness, heart slamming against my rib cage. I wiped my palms against my duvet cover and tried to slow my breathing. Tears rolled, as they always did—the ending credits to this nightmare. I cried out of relief that it wasn’t real. I cried because Aaron was still gone, and it would always be so achingly unfair.

I got my laptop from my desk and reread script dialogue. In the glow of the screen’s light, I mouthed the words I’d written, trying to imagine them acted out. And, for the thousandth time, I pulled up NYU’s web page and found the screen-writing program. The deadline was approaching, and I already had my
Mission District
script polished. I’d need a school transcript, a teacher recommendation, and the hundred-dollar application fee, which would take a serious chunk out of my birthday-and-Christmas-money bank account. But I wanted to do it for myself. And I wanted to do it for my grandma, to show her I could be as brave as she was.

When I finally fell back asleep, I dreamed of Ryan Chase.
That’s more like it
, I told my brain after the alarm woke me up. I spent extra time getting ready, hoping that looking good would give me more confidence going into QuizBowl. But I couldn’t find the shirt I’d decided on. I tugged a sweater on and opened my door. “Mom! Have you seen my plaid button-down shirt? The blue-and-white checked one?”

“No, sorry, honey,” my mom called. I had only a minute or two before Tessa picked me up, and I searched frantically through my hamper. Finally, it dawned on me.

“Cameron!” I yelled.

I heard her footsteps padding down the hall, but she didn’t answer.

“What?” she said, crossing her arms from the doorway of my room.

“Did you borrow a plaid shirt without asking?”

She avoided my gaze. “Well, you weren’t home for me to ask.”

“God, Cameron. You
know
I plan my outfits out.” I picked out my outfits the Sunday before each school week, to make sure everything was clean and ironed. “You’re not even allowed in my room!”

“So wear something else—what’s the big deal?”

“Where did you put the shirt?”

“It’s in my hamper.”

“Cameron!” I shrilled.

“God, chill out,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Drama queen.”

“Girls,” my mom said, ducking in to referee. “Enough. Cameron, apologize to your sister and go finish getting ready.”

“Sorry,” Cameron said over her shoulder.

“I bet,” I grumbled, pulling my bag onto my shoulder. I’d have to wear this stupid sweater.

My mom sighed. “I’ll have a talk with her about staying out of your room. No exceptions. But you could cut her some slack, you know. I don’t know why you girls can’t get along.”

I looked at her as if this were one of the dumbest
comments ever made. “Maybe because Cameron only thinks about Cameron. And we have nothing in common.”

“What about the fact that you’re sisters?”

I thought about this for a moment. I didn’t really see how this bonded us, other than genetically. Sure, we had inherited a few of the same physical qualities, but in terms of interests and even personality, Cameron and I had no common ground whatsoever. My mom sighed again, seeing that she was getting nowhere with me.

“She looks up to you, you know.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, Paige. She does. You should try to remember what it’s like to be in junior high.”

“Pass,” I said. “High school sucks enough, thanks.”

And with that, Tessa’s car horn beckoned me to school.

“You know where my locker is, right?” Max asked as we left English class. I nodded. “Meet me there after school, and I’ll walk with you to the QuizBowl match room.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Are you nervous?”

“A little,” I admitted. “I—”

“Hey,” a guy said from near us. He was leaning against a locker, wearing an oversize sweatshirt and looking right at me. I recognized him—Josh something, a stoner kid who
used to live in my neighborhood. Nice enough, but a total burnout. His eyes were always bloodshot, and as far as I could remember, he’d never spoken to me directly. He sat in the back of my math class and always had his head down, hoodie up. “Hey … Grammar Girl.”

I closed my eyes, trying to convince myself that this had not just happened. Josh rode the same bus as I did during the Chrissie Cohen years. I opened my eyes to find Max staring at me, wide-eyed with delight.

Grammar Girl?
he mouthed at me.

“Did you take notes in math yesterday?” Stoner Josh asked. “My dad’s gonna kill me if I don’t pull a C.”

“Yeah,” I said, even though a part of me wanted to punish him for calling me Grammar Girl. “You can look at them before class if you want.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

I turned away, not caring whether Max caught up. I felt the heat of humiliation creeping up my neck.

“Um,” Max began, easily lengthening his strides to keep up with me. I could see him in my peripheral vision, suppressing a grin again. “When do I get to meet Grammar Girl?”

“Never.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes following me as I stared ahead. “Because she sounds awesome.”

I glanced over at him as he dodged the crowd, struggling to keep pace with me.

“Ow!” he cried as his elbow connected with an open locker door. “Look, I am in physical pain because I am so dedicated to the genesis of Grammar Girl!”

“Fine.” I sighed as we made the turn toward the cafeteria. He was still walking with me, even though this wasn’t his lunch period. I stopped, crossing my arms. “Do you remember me telling you how much I hated Chrissie Cohen? Because she used to make fun of me on the bus?”

Max nodded.

“Morgan rode the bus home with me one day in sixth grade. My usual seat was taken, so we sat in the last open seats near Chrissie and her sidekick. She turned to us and said, ‘Hell no. Sixth graders do not sit next to Amber and I.”

His grin widened. “And you corrected her?”

The memory still made me shudder. I’d thought it was my moment—I was smart, and I could stand up to her. “I said, ‘It’s Amber and
me
. Don’t they teach you that by eighth grade?’ But it backfired. By the end of the week, she had everyone on Bus 84 calling me Grammar Girl. She moved away later that year, but it sort of stuck. Apparently, it’s
still
stuck …”

I glanced up at Max, who was beaming as if he’d discovered a pile of gold.

“Grammar Girl,” he repeated, entranced. “I love it.”

“That’s enough out of you.”

“Not quite. I can’t believe you lied to me!”

“What?” My eyebrows scrunched together. “When?”

“You,” he said, pointing at me, “were supposed to tell me any and all nicknames.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I had no defense. “Grammar Girl” had entered my mind that day we did the name work sheet in class, but I hadn’t mentioned it. I never, ever thought it would come up again.

Max looked incredulous. “I gave you “Maxi-Pad,” and you held out on me!”

“I … I …,” I stuttered while I tried to think of an excuse. But Max was already stepping away from me, walking backward as he shook his head.