You and Me and Him (17 page)

“How about the measure of happiness?” she asks, her voice so quiet I almost can’t hear her.

“Kayla, be serious,” I say. “You can’t possibly—”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she interrupts me. “You saw that wall with all those people on it, those ‘friends’ of mine? And that seems great. But to be with them, I have to be this . . . person. The person you just described. And if I stray from that even a little, if I want to talk about a book I read, or skip a party to study, or make friends with people like you and Nash, I’m out. No friends, no status, nothing.” She’s spinning her ring like crazy.

“It’s not a cult, Kayla.”

“It might as well be,” she says. I must have looked skeptical. “You don’t get it,” Kayla says. “It’s like chickens.”

“Chickens?”

“Yeah. You know how if there’s a chicken that’s weird, or just not like the other chickens, the whole flock turns on them? They actually peck them to death. You can’t be different and survive. It threatens the group.”

“Then find a different group.”

“I know,” she says. “That sounds easy. But what if nobody else wants me? I don’t think I could handle being the one on the outside.”

“Come on. It can’t be that bad. You’re here with me, in public. Twice now. And you had me over to your house. Have they threatened to throw you out of the clubhouse?”

The table is clean now, but Kayla starts rubbing her fingernail over the spot where the chocolate used to be.

I press her harder. “What exactly did you tell your friends about why we’ve been hanging out?”

“I, um . . . I told them we had an extra-credit project to work on for history and that you needed help.” She looks away. “It’s harder than you think, Maggie. I’m onstage all the time. I am never myself.”

“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You were so embarrassed to be seen with me that you told your friends you have to hang out with me for extra credit?” I want to kick myself for not listening to Nash and my own intuition. “This is such bullshit!” I start to slide out of the booth.

“No, Maggie, wait! Please!”

I don’t look at her. “You didn’t used to be like this, Kayla.”

“I’ve always been like this. But I never had to worry about it with you. Being friends with you was easy.” She pulls her hair back into a ponytail, then smoothes it down in front. “I’m sorry. I know it’s lame. But I’m doing the best I can here. I’m out of practice at how to be . . . real, I guess? I haven’t done it in so long. Please, don’t leave yet.”

I let that sink in, then slide back onto the bench. “Okay. I’ll stay.” My hand is still clamped on my backpack. “But this is messed up, Kayla. You can’t pretend you don’t know me. If you have the kind of friends that would kick you to the curb because you hang out with the fat kid, those are some twisted amigos.”

She slumps forward and covers her face with her hands. “I know, I know, I know.” She sits up, giving me her trademark smile. But I can see it doesn’t reach deep. “Can we start over? Talk about something normal?”

“Sure,” I say. We sit in silence, and I pick at my cuticles, waiting. I’ve done enough today; Kayla’s going to have to come up with something or I’m out.

“So, tell me more about Tom,” she says. If she was looking for a neutral topic, she missed by a mile. “I started sitting next to him in French, and we’ve hung out a couple times, but I can’t seem to get beyond ‘
comment allez-vous
’ with him. What’s his story?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out myself.”

“He seems like he might be kind of a player.”

“He’s pretty universally friendly, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. I definitely have some new competition as the school flirt. But he’s hot, all the same.”

“Kayla Hill: Master of the Obvious.”

“I know he and I went out, but seeing you guys together, it looks like, well, you must be crushing on him a little?”

I smile to myself, thinking about Tom’s goofy grin, Seattle, the hikes, the kiss. One unguarded moment, and Kayla pounces.

“I knew it!” She points at me. “I knew you liked him!” She claps her hands together and rubs them like she’s about to hatch some evil plan. “Maggie Bower, you’ve been thinking naughty thoughts about Tom!”

“No, Kayla,” I say, backpedaling wildly. “It’s not like that.” But I can see she isn’t listening. I grab her hands across the table. “Kayla, listen to me!”

She stops, looking at our hands, then up at me.

“Oh, Maggie, chill out! I won’t tell anyone,” she says. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“There’s no secret to tell.” Kayla’s watching me. I feel a bit like a bug watched by a crow. “I’m serious, Kayla!” I say, feeling desperate now. “I don’t want people getting the wrong idea. There’s nothing between Tom and me. Period. End of story.” My heart starts rattling, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in.

Kayla examines me. I can practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “Maggie,” she says, her voice coaxing. “Something happened. Tell me.”

I start folding my napkin again, but it’s wearing thin and starts tearing into strips. I go with it, adapting my fidget to this new reality. I can hear Nash’s warning about Kayla, his voice in my head telling me to be cautious. I know I should listen. But the pressure of the kiss with Tom, my first kiss ever, is swelling in my throat like water behind a clogged drain. I have to tell someone, and who else do I have right now? I take a deep breath, let it out.

“Nothing happened.” My voice is quiet. I clear my throat. “Really. Nothing.”

Kayla looks at her phone, then back at me. I can see she’s trying to put things together, her mind clicking and whirring. I feel the dizzying weight of my secret resting on my heart, a secret made of both bubbles and stones.

“Nothing? Nothing at all?” She watches me, then picks up her phone again. “Hey. Whatever. If you don’t want to tell me—”

“Look, Kayla. After I left your place yesterday, we met for a hike and—”

“But you like him?”

“Yeah, no, not—It’s not like that.” I put my head in my hands and feel the heat of my lies creep up my neck and onto my cheeks.

“If you say so, Maggie.” Kayla glances at her phone. Sends a text.

“I do. I do say so.” I hesitate. Telling Kayla about Nash’s crush on Tom could be as big a mistake as the kiss. I understand all at once that my guilt over Nash is only part of my stress. What if Tom was on drugs? What if it was just a rush of errant hormones? What if it was some kind of dare or bet? Kiss the chubby girl, an extra twenty bucks if you do it with tongue? I put my forehead on the table again as it begins to dawn on me what a colossal mistake I have made. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t worry. I get it. Just friends.” Kayla starts texting again, which makes my heart pump faster.

I cover my panic with a quick retreat. “Okay. Good. Thanks, Kayla.” I grab my pack and scoot along the bench. “I have to go. But thanks, again, for this. Sorry I’m not better at it.”

“Don’t worry.” Kayla lays her hand on my forearm. “Life has a way of working out. You’ll see.”

Leaving the café, I feel like I’m in one of those Whac-A-Mole games. I just keep popping my head up and letting Kayla bash me on the head with her hammer. My stupidity is epic, and all I can do now is sweat it out and hope she doesn’t catch on.

The walk home gives me plenty of time to settle down, and the crisp, fall evening cools the heated flush that my moment of panic brought on. Mom is working at the kitchen counter. She offers me dinner. I want to eat, but not dinner. I want something that will dull the edges of these feelings. Something sweet. Something soft. Not the chicken stir-fry Mom cooked. But I take it anyway. I need to push down the panic with something.

I carry the chicken and rice up to my room to do homework. It’s only a few minutes before I hear a knock at my door.

“Can I come in?” Mom says, hovering outside in the hall.

“Sure,” I say. “What’s up?”

“I was going to ask you that.”

I flip through my history book, looking for the chapter I’m supposed to be studying. “What do you mean?”

“You seemed a little agitated when you came in. Anything I can help with?”

“Nope, nothing in particular going on. Life’s been sort of a giant hairball of crazy this last month, but that’s actually pretty normal for me.”

Mom laughs. To her credit, she doesn’t act at all surprised or condescending about my bout of teenage angst.

“I’ll get through it,” I say.

“I know you will, honey. I hope . . . I want you to enjoy life a little along the way. You deserve that.”

I snort. “Sorry, I’ve been spending a lot more energy surviving than having fun.”

“That’s too bad.” Mom doesn’t leave.

I put the history book aside, but I’m glancing through my notes now, avoiding Mom’s eyes.

“What can you do to change that?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“If your life isn’t going the way you want, change what you’re doing.”

“Who said my life isn’t going the way I want?”

“You just said you’re barely surviving!”

“I didn’t say that. I said I was spending more energy on surviving than on recreation.”

“Fine. And is that how you want to live?” Mom’s voice rises.

I turn back to my notes, hoping she’ll get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn’t. “Mom, no offense, but I’m not sure a lecture is really what I need or want at the moment.”

Mom takes a deep breath. She starts to massage her forehead with her fingertips. “Then what do you want, Maggie?”

This one stumps me. Mom usually asks me how I feel, or what I want to do about a particular situation. Most often she hands out advice like free peanuts on an airplane. But this question stops me. What do I want?

“Hmmmmm . . .” I say, stalling. “World peace?”

Mom flinches.

“Universal health care?” I try again. “Mom. What’s this all about?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I know, Mom. You’re always trying to help.”

Mom looks at the floor and sighs. “Look, Maggie, I’m guessing you want a lot of things all at once.”

I’ve stopped shuffling papers now. Mom has my full attention.

She rubs her forehead again. “I know what it’s like to want things, and I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t deserve to have them. Or to feel like you don’t deserve to even want them.” Mom looks right at me now. “I spent too much of my own life tossed around on the waves of what other people thought was best for me. I know I’ve been hard on you at times, but I do it because I can see you’re adrift.”

“I’m not adrift. I really do want world peace,” I say.

Mom sighs. “Joke if you want, Maggie. But I hate seeing you unhappy.”

My eyes start to contract as they fill with tears. One drops onto my notes, smearing the blue ink. I kind of hate Mom for being so caring and wise all of a sudden after months of not-so-gentle cluelessness.

She hands me a tissue. “Sorry if I said too much.”

I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. “No, it’s okay. I know you care.”

“Never forget that,” she says.

The minute I get on the bus the next morning, I know something’s up. Nash crosses his arms and looks out the window, but not before he has given me a momentary death stare. He doesn’t make room for me, so I sit across from Tom in the other front seat. I kind of dig how he always sits there. He’s just going to school, and he seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that the front seat is designated for king geeks and losers.

I haven’t seen him since the weekend, since the kiss. And there are so many questions and not enough answers right now. I can feel my forehead knotting together in the middle as I wait to see if my Kayla stupidity has any consequences. Tom tells me some story about living in Las Vegas and how he found out his friend’s mom was a stripper during a sleepover one night. He’s acting weird, but in an endearing way, so I don’t call him on it.

Out of habit I look around for Nash when I get off the bus. I don’t see him until he pushes between Tom and me, knocking us apart. He doesn’t say a word or look at us as he stomps into the building.

“Shit,” I say under my breath.

“Rough morning, I guess.” Tom steps closer and lays his hand on my arm. “He wouldn’t talk to me, either.”

I look at Tom, a panic rising in my chest. “Any idea why?” I keep my voice neutral, but the answer is already kicking around my brain, trying to get my attention.

“Can we talk? Maybe after school or something?” People are flowing around us into the building. Tom leans in. “You know, about this weekend?”

I almost slap my hand to my own forehead like some Saturday morning cartoon character as I realize the worst has happened: Nash knows about the kiss. “Sure. Whatever. I have to go.” I scuttle into the building, putting as much distance as possible between Tom and myself. When I get to my locker, I lean against it, my body heavy with the weight of my confusion. What is going on here? Kayla must have said something, but what, exactly, did she say? Who did she tell? And why? I mean apart from the obvious: she’s just that girl. The warning bell rings, echoing the ones going off in my head, and I decide all I can do is play dumb until I have time for more reconnaissance.

Cece is waiting for me outside English. As soon as she sees me, she rushes over, grabs my elbow, and drags me into the girls’ bathroom. After checking the stalls and finding them empty, Cece leans her backpack against the door. She’s scaring me a little now.

“Nash told me! How could you do this to him?” she says. “He is . . . You are . . . Nash is your best friend. And you throw it away for . . . for what?” Cece’s pacing back and forth. She won’t look at me.

“Cece—”

“Nash told me!” she says again. She’s still pacing. “I knew something was up. You were trying to tell me yesterday.”

“Nash told you what, exactly?” I’m speaking softly, trying not to spook her.

“Don’t play dumb, Maggie. You and Tom?”

“And where did Nash hear that?”

“Who cares? How could you do this to Nash?”

“I haven’t . . . This isn’t what you think. Tom and I aren’t . . .” But I don’t really have a way to explain this away, and Cece knows it.