Lemon Lavender Is Not Fine

by Elle Pallmore

  I’m slightly stunned. No, not slightly. I’m strapped-to-the-train-tracks stunned. I remind myself I’m not supposed to care, then proceed to do the opposite.

  “Are you saying they’re . . . together?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she asked him to the dance and they’re going. But she must’ve noticed Graham hanging around you, and she definitely heard about him taking you home yesterday. You’re on her radar.”

  Since I don’t have the rapid-processing brain that Isabel has, it takes me a few seconds to put it all together. Chelsea thinks I’m trying to steal her new toy, even though I had no idea about the dance. I recall how Chelsea shoved me, then I think about her field-hockey club. I heard she broke another girl’s nose once by throwing a high elbow during a scrimmage. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to see I’m in some deep, next-level shit. I sit hard on the bench.

  “Where did you hear all this?”

  Isabel is about to respond, but Coach Keets blows her devil whistle, forcing us to line up in the gym. I haven’t seen Chelsea yet, but I know she’s there, probably hiding in a corner and plotting my demise. It isn’t until Coach ushers us outside that I spot her glossy braid bouncing ahead of everyone. Once we get to the track, I zip my sweatshirt against the wind, but it doesn’t help. My chest is tight, my nerves taut. I can barely stand still while Coach shouts instructions.

  “Alright, ladies, I want at least four laps around. If you finish all four, then continue walking until I whistle you in. I don’t want any lazy legs out there. If you walk one lap, you have to jog the next. I’ll be watching.” She chirps her whistle as I keep my eyes on Chelsea, who has already chewed up a quarter of track by the time I plant my first step across the starting line.

  Isabel picks up the conversation where we left off. “I heard it from Mike, of all people. He has lunch the same time as Chelsea and Madeline. They let him sit at the end of their table because he stands in line for them and delivers their trays.”

  “Ew,” I say.

  “I know.” She rolls her eyes. “Not his most redeeming quality.”

  We jog in silence after that, partly because I have no breath, but also because I need to think. Talking to Graham has opened my safe, insulated world to intruders, and I have no defenses against them. I’ve gotten so good at blending in, not making waves, that I have no idea how to handle this. Do I talk to Chelsea? Reassure her I’m not trying to steal Graham? Or do I say nothing, avoid him, and let it take care of itself?

  Mostly, I want to curl up in a ball and hide until all this is over. In a choice between me and Chelsea, I’m pretty sure he’ll go for her. Maybe I can just ride it out until that happens—pretend I’m fine on the outside and endure the pain of rejection in closeted agony.

  When we’re on a walking lap, Isabel tries to reassure me. “At least what happened yesterday wasn’t on Lady W. That’s a relief, right?”

  “Yeah, but if Chelsea is pissed, why hasn’t Madeline destroyed me? They’re like a two-headed snake.”

  “Don’t know, Lem. But I think, right now, Chelsea is going to the dance with Graham. She has what she wants, so maybe she doesn't think she needs to play the LW card yet. It doesn’t do any good for her reputation to promote a story about the competition—you.”

  I’m still digesting everything when we start our final loop. My legs are heavy, my heart clenches, and every breath burns. I’m barely a few steps into it when a jolt splits down my back, shoving me off balance and sending the ground up to meet my face. My feet skitter onto their toes, and I pitch forward until my palms find the track, saving me from a gravel facial.

  “Watch it!” I hear as I push myself upright.

  Chelsea, my phantom assaulter, has already darted by, not laughing like last time, but turning to sear me with her most evil look and an extra braid swish, just in case I didn’t get the message. She zips around the track like she’s on rails, leaving her pack of leeches on the grass since they’re already finished. Clearly, she wants to run, and she wants to do it alone.

  Isabel places her hand on my back, where Chelsea nailed me. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, Lem. I didn’t see her coming.”

  I examine my hands, attempting to will the sting away. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” I want to cry, but squeeze my eye ducts shut. I refuse to give Chelsea the satisfaction.

  Coach Keets didn’t see the shove, so I don’t bother trying to explain. I tell her I tripped, and she lets me go inside to wash the cuts on my palms and see the nurse if I need to. Once I get the gravel out, there are a few scrapes, but nothing that needs bandages. I can’t stop shaking as I change back into my clothes, though. I don’t want to be there when everyone comes back in, so I use the hall pass Coach gave me to hide in the library until the bell rings.

  FOR THE REST OF THE day, I simmer in what Isabel told me and what happened with Chelsea. I manage to avoid Graham during class exchanges, but when I approach my car after final bell, he’s already standing against the fender, waiting, just like this morning. I do my best to be indifferent, which he notices right away.

  “Bad day?” he asks when I don’t greet him.

  “You could say that.” He stands in the path of my door. “Do you mind?”

  He steps aside but grips the window frame after I slump into my seat. We remain like that for a few beats, neither of us breaking the tension.

  “I’d kind of like to get home,” I say.

  He squints down at me. “You’re angry, but I’m not sure why.”

  “I’m fine,” I reply. “Don’t worry about it.”

  He lets go of the door, and I think he’s going to leave, but he says, “Please give me a chance to talk to you. Five minutes?”

  I sigh. This is entirely too much for one day. Plus, if anyone sees me with him, I’m going to have Chelsea’s sneaker tracks up my back by the end of tomorrow’s gym class. Still, the reckless part of me is curious to hear him out. As much as I want to tell him to get lost, I can’t do it. Not when he’s staring at me like that, all kinds of sincere.

  I’m parked in the very back of the lot, with a modicum of privacy, so I say, “Okay, five minutes. But get in.”

  He closes my door and walks to the other side. I lower my eyes from his shoulders to his hips as he passes the bumper, enjoying the view for a second before mentally slapping myself out of it. I reset my face into annoyance as he drops into the passenger seat and turns toward me. My stomach feels like it’s using my intestines as a zip line, and I wonder if it’ll ever be possible to be calm around him.

  After tossing his bag on the floorboard, he says, “I have a speech ready and everything.” He pushes up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal pen scrawls across the inside of his forearm.

  I shrug, unwilling to show my hurt. It isn’t as if we’re anything more than friends, and he has every right to see who he wants. At least, that’s what the rational part of my mind says. The irrational-bitch part says he deserves to be slowly eaten alive by Chelsea.

  He stares, hazel eyes reeling me in and not letting go. “In my limited time to think about this, I know I screwed things up with us. And I don’t want to have screwed it up, because you’re sort of the best thing to happen to me in a while.” Graham looks at his arm. “You think I’m a jerk, and I think I deserve to be called a jerk, but I’m not completely sure why. So I have a pop quiz.”

  He pauses, breathes in, then out.

  “Am I, Graham Stuart, a complete and utter jerk because: A, I saw something at your house I wasn’t supposed to see; B, because I pulled you down with me yesterday, and it was embarrassing; or C, because I’m going to the Halloween dance with Chelsea Millinger?” He waits, poised for my response. “And be honest. I need to know.”

  My shoulders sag as my conviction wilts. A pop quiz? Written on his arm? I don’t want to look at him, but my feelings can’t be stuffed down, as much as I try. He never promised me anything, never asked me out officially. But he also never mentioned anything about Chelsea or
the dance. I can punish him with silent treatment, but I also consider what it took for him to approach me when I wouldn’t have had the courage to willingly confront it. I would’ve run in the other direction.

  I clutch my coat over myself and wince when my palms sting in response. “So, it’s not really A, because that wasn’t your fault. Some of B, but only because people are talking about it.” I swallow hard. “Mostly, it’s C.”

  The honesty part isn’t so bad—it’s the agonizing seconds that follow. I’ve just admitted I’m jealous of Chelsea, and letting him know it is like throwing myself at his feet, bare and exposed and drooling for his affection. I expect to spontaneously combust in a minute, leaving behind a puff of smoke and a Lemon-shaped black imprint on my seat.

  “I’m really, really happy it’s C,” he says, smiling wide and goofy. “It means you like me. I’m happy ’cause I like you too.”

  Fire. I’m on fire. I can’t make sound.

  “This thing with Chelsea,” he continues, “. . . she asked me to the dance on my second day here. I didn’t know her, and I really didn’t know you yet. Had I realized, about you, I would’ve said no. And now I feel like a total prick for going, but it’s too late to back out. At least, it is for me, since I’m sort of a nice guy.”

  My brain snags on the part about him liking me and seems unable to move on from that.

  Focus, Lemon! Be skeptical.

  “Is this a reverse-psychology thing, where I’m supposed to believe you’re a nice guy who says he likes me, but you’re taking another girl on a date? Or maybe you’re one of those bad boy antiheroes, and I’m supposed to swoon when you treat me like crap?”

  He blinks a few times, smile fading. “It’s not reverse psychology, and I wouldn’t categorize the dance as a date. And antihero? Is that even a real thing?”

  The rational and bitchy parts of my brain duke it out again. He is nice—he made a commitment before he knew how he felt about me, and he intends to keep it. But, on the other hand, Chelsea is a vicious succubus, and I want to see her dreams torn into tiny, mutilated bits.

  “Explain why you’re taking her to the dance again?”

  He groans and raises his hands to cover his eyes. “To be honest, I forgot I agreed to go with her. She ambushed me weeks ago, and then . . . you know how it is when you start to like someone—it’s like a high—and responsibilities kind of disappear. That’s what happens when I see you, when I think about you. I’ve been high for weeks, Lemon. I’m completely stoned on you.”

  Holy. Hell.

  Either he’s supremely confident, or he just stepped off the bus to crazytown. Maybe he really is high, in the traditional sense and not some girl-liking wonder cloud. As I struggle to come up with a response, I curse myself for being an emotionally repressed Lavender. Feelings—what are they? Talking about feelings—absolute madness!

  “I, um, okay. I guess I don’t really know what that’s like. You know, until now. Maybe.”

  Graham lowers his hands to his knees. “You make me forget so many things . . . where I’m going and what I’m doing, for example. And that I agreed to go to a Halloween dance with some girl I don’t care anything about, since the only thing I’ve been consumed with thinking about is you.”

  I tilt my head, disbelieving. “This whole thing sounds like a line. Do you have notes written on your other arm?” I reach for his sleeve, and he smiles, then catches my hand where my arm meets my wrist.

  “You are terribly inept at being seduced.”

  “I didn’t realize I was—being seduced.” My voice cracks, but then again, my whole body feels cracked, as if a fault line is running just under where his thumb wanders over my skin. It trembles like a warning.

  “Have I not made it obvious?” he questions. “Showing up at your locker all the time? Meeting you on Wednesdays?”

  “I’m really confused,” I whisper. “I just assumed you wouldn’t . . . think about me that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re you, and I’m . . . me.”

  He shakes his head, defying what I’ve said. “You’re . . . so much, Lemon. You don’t even realize it.”

  “I don’t understand why you’d choose me. Not when there are girls melting into little puddles whenever you walk by. And Chelsea, she’s . . . attractive.”

  The truth aches when it comes out. Chelsea is gorgeous. It’s her personality that’s repulsive.

  He sighs, stopping his thumb’s circular movements in order to lightly grip my wrist. “There are always going to be pretty girls around. You’re one of them, but with you, it’s more than that.” He angles toward me. “So, I remember my first day, first class—never feeling so awkward in my life. I had to introduce myself to people who were staring at me and imitating my accent. I pretended I didn’t care, but it sucked. A lot. And then you show up, almost trip through the door, and I know you’re just as mortified as I am, and I felt—I guess—like we were in it together. I wanted to know more about you. And after we started talking . . . it was even better. So, yeah, the looks thing is there, but it’s also you. I don’t feel that way about Chelsea. Or anyone else.” He pauses, lowering his eyes. “If I was unsure at all, then yesterday confirmed it. It was nice being . . . next to you.”

  I’m beginning to understand how he feels high. I’ve never been stoned, but I can only imagine it’s very close to feeling like your entire body has separated into a kaleidoscope of butterflies.

  “You weren’t exactly next to me,” I reply.

  He laughs. “Under you? I think that’s a better description.”

  I looked out the window to hide my all-over blush. I actually giggle. The sound is foreign when it escapes my mouth, and I sort of hate myself for it.

  Right after, I remember I’m not supposed to be doing this and why it’s the worst idea ever. The parking lot is almost empty now, yet I imagine Chelsea rolling out from under a nearby car and dousing my hood in gasoline before flicking a lit match. Besides her, there’s the problem of Lady Westmoore, and my father—all the risks I’d have to take to be with Graham. Every reason is another ember about to catch, but as I look at him, the threats soften into bits of ash, as harmless as eyelashes.

  “So what happens now?” I ask.

  Graham twines his fingers through mine and raises our joined hands to his chest, where his heart beats against my knuckles. My brain wants to slow down time so I can relive each moment in a series of delicious microseconds.

  “I get the dance over with. Then we can go to the movies or get dinner or go wherever you take a girl named Lemon Lavender on a first date.”

  I can’t stop the genuine joy that overtakes my face. For the last two months, my real smiles have been smothered under the mess Meg left behind.

  “There, that’s better,” he says. His thumb trails along my cheek, right below my eye. “You looked so sad this morning.”

  I know he’s going to kiss me. I sense it, though I have no experience with kissing anyone. He leans closer, a tidal wave coming toward me, but I’m not afraid, not in the least. I close my eyes and hold my breath. When Graham’s lips touch mine, it’s so simple, like everything clicks into its rightful place and makes sense again. Fear, competition, my own insecurity—they all disappear. I allow myself to reveal my feelings for him in an entirely different language. The touch tugs on my heart, my ribs, pinging downward. When he pulls away to look at me, I finally understand that we’re something that’s not only possible, but true.

  Searching for something to say, all I can come up with is, “You promised to take me out first.”

  “I’m not very patient,” he says. “Obviously.”

  His lips are on mine again, and I decide that kissing is a wonderful thing. It’s pure connection—energy created by us, a booming chemical reaction that can’t ever disappear now that it’s out in the world.

  After parting, I lean my head onto his shoulder, and we sit in silence for a few moments more.

  Into my hair, he as
ks, “Is it okay with you if we stay quiet for a few days, until the dance is over?”

  I look up at him, resting my chin on his collarbone. “I think you might be worth waiting for.”

  Relief passes over his face. “Lemon Lavender, I’m really glad you like me.”

  eleven

  THE NEXT THREE DAYS are torture.

  When Friday finally arrives, I keep my head down at school, counting each bell, and after I’m home again, busy myself with checking on my mother and fixing dinner, followed by my daily social media scan—until the time I know Graham is picking up Chelsea for the dance.

  After that, I track every fifteen minutes, imagining what he’s doing. Is he taking pictures with her? Does she grab his arm as they walk into the gym together? As much as I try to distract myself, I know he’s probably dancing with her, laughing with her. If only my brain would stop there, but it’s a dog off a leash, running wild. Dancing leads to him holding her hand, which avalanches into them kissing on the dance floor. It finally disintegrates into them making out in his car.

  With exasperation, I throw myself into a mad laundry session, collecting every scrap of semi-dirty clothing I can find. As I sort and fold, I force myself to replace Chelsea in my wild fantasies, so it’s me dancing with Graham, us holding hands, and then I remember how it feels to kiss him, which generates more thoughts about kissing. I definitely want more kissing.

  When I can’t possibly wash and fold anything else, my phone beeps with a new text message. I expect it to be Isabel, but when I read the screen, it’s Graham.

  Graham: We missed slushee day. Up 4 it now?

  Me: U sure it’s safe 2 c me?

  Graham: Even if it isn’t, I’m buying. Meet in 10?

  I chew the inside of my lip, alternating between elation that we’re together to paranoia that Chelsea won’t let me live long enough to enjoy it if she finds out. It’s brazen, reckless even, to see him tonight. We’re supposed to wait.

  And yet I’m restless, afraid of missing out on something I’ve only very recently discovered. It’s stunning that this whole world of relationships has been going on without my notice, as if an invisible curtain has been pulled back and I’m suddenly allowed past the velvet ropes. Now that I’ve had a glimpse of it, I don’t want to lose another second.