5
Mina
I can’t believe I’m considering this. I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.
I woke up in a fairly good mood this morning, because it’s Friday, and I am all about that. Fridays are my favorite day of the week. I come home and do all of my homework, which makes me feel accomplished; I stay up late because I don’t have school the next day, which makes me feel free; and I look forward to all the things I’m going to do on Saturday, which makes me excited. It’s a win-win-win situation. Of course, when I say “all the things I’m going to do on Saturday,” what I really mean is “all the things I’m not going to do on Saturday so that I can read a book instead.” But still. Good feelings all around.
But when Cohen pounded on my door—so hard that I half expected it to be SWAT or something—the day went rapidly downhill.
I can’t tutor Cohen. There’s no way. For a million reasons, but several stick out. One, that would require an extensive amount of social interaction with someone who makes me sort of nervous due to his superior social status. Two, that would take a lot of time, and I’m already pretty busy. I don’t know that I have time for another commitment. I mean, yeah, when he said it like that—“School and work. Is that it?”—it sounded sort of lame. But I really am busy with that stuff. And three, it would be awkward for me to try to teach Cohen things when he’s so much better than I am at basically everything, like being athletic and smelling good and talking to people.
But on the other hand…Cohen’s right. He does know Jack well. And if anyone would be able to help, it would be him. And even if Jack didn’t ask me out, other guys might take notice. And regardless of guys, I do want to become more of a people person…
The school day passes in a sort of fog. I try to slow my mind down, but it keeps racing. The enticement of whatever secret knowledge Cohen has is pulling at me to say yes. Would it really be such a big deal? It’s just tutoring my neighbor. I have a book on ACT prep; it would be as easy as going over everything in the book with him.
But if I’m honest with myself—something I attempt but sometimes fail at—it’s not just the tutoring part that makes me nervous. It’s the Jack part.
Then just tutor him and forget about the Jack thing if you’re so scared of putting yourself out there, my brain argues.
And my brain has a good point. But it’s just…it’s Jack Freeman.
Jack. Freeman. I would be crazy not to seize that chance.
And it could work! Couldn’t it?
The thought almost makes me laugh out loud as I sit down with my lunch in the corner of the cafeteria. No. No, it could not. That’s the other part I don’t like; if Cohen helped me and Jack still wasn’t interested, how mortifying would that be?
I try to read my book during lunch as usual, but I barely make it two pages because I keep reading the same sentence over and over again. I finally shut the book with a huff and look around the cafeteria.
There’s Jack, sitting with Cohen and a host of other people who are inhumanly attractive—Grant, Marie, and Virginia, to name a few. How does that happen? How do that many pretty people find each other and become friends who have enough in common to actually form genuine friendships? It seems like a statistical anomaly. Are they just pretend friends who are bound together by their attractiveness? Cohen has the scar and the crooked nose, but it only takes a second of watching him to see that he’s clearly a welcome part of that world. And I can see why; he’s a football player too, and he’s just as fit as the rest of them. He has a confidence about him that’s appealing.
Jack smiles at something Cohen says, and my insides do some kind of upbeat fluttering, leaving me sort of breathless. Somehow Jack always looks both put together and at ease, like being handsome and classy comes naturally to him. His dark hair is always parted on the side, something I never thought I liked until I saw it on him.
I remember the first time I noticed him. I’d seen him before, of course, and I thought he was cute, but I hadn’t really paid much more attention. But during freshman year, he sat behind me in math class. One day I shifted in my seat and accidentally knocked his ruler off his desk. I leaned over, picked it up, and handed it back to him—and he smiled at me and thanked me.
He smiled at me. We talked. And yet he didn’t even know I went to his school? After he thanked me, he winked at Virginia, who sat next to me, and we all know he remembers her just fine.
But I know why: because I am utterly unremarkable—because I’ve gone out of my way to be unremarkable.
I look back to Cohen. As though he feels my eyes on him, Cohen’s gaze snaps up and meets mine, surprising me so much that I jump and spill a bit of my water. Cohen looks at me, shifts his gaze discreetly to Jack, and then looks back at me, raising his eyebrows—dangling the bait in front of me.
I narrow my eyes at him and then stare back down at my lunch. I don’t see him smirk, but I have no doubt it happens.
***
When I get home from school, I still haven’t made up my mind. My list of pros and cons is short, but both sides are convincing. Pros: get Jack to like me. Or notice me, even. But also get better at making friends. Help Cohen do better on his ACT. Cons: venture completely outside of every aspect of my comfort zone.
I wince as I think of the list I made the other day. Venturing outside of my comfort zone was number three; I probably shouldn’t note it as a downside now.
I grab my apple from the counter and take a bite while I pick up the grocery list my mom has left on the refrigerator. I’ve got a few other errands to run, too; normally I do all my homework when I get home on Friday afternoons, but I can wait today. I don’t like driving in the dark. It makes me nervous, even though with my glasses, my sight is fine. I’m always worried I’m going to hit a deer or a squirrel. Or a person.
I eat quickly, watching absently out the front window. There are lots of trees in my neighborhood, and they’re colored with the usual autumn cascade of red, orange, and yellow. It’s beautiful, but I miss the green. I like fall, but after fall comes winter, and I really don’t like winter. I don’t like cold, and I don’t like cloudy.
Finishing my apple and throwing the core into the trash, I head back out to my car. There’s a black car I don’t recognize in Cohen’s driveway, although maybe it looks vaguely familiar? I am not a car person. I just don’t get it. I definitely recognize ugly cars—the boxy ones that look like hearses, for example, or the tiny little ones that would not last one second in a crash—but I really have no eye for what constitutes a pretty car.
Car people probably don’t use the word “pretty” as a description.
I’m just getting the key in the ignition when a different white car pulls up in front of Cohen’s house—looks like his car’s still down, I guess. Cohen gets out and says something to whoever’s driving, and then he waves as the car pulls away. I watch as he looks at his house and notices the black car in the driveway.
His face goes through a rapid and frankly impressive range of emotions in under a second, but what ends up there is anger. He swings around, looking lost for a minute, and then he sees me. I watch his expression change from anger to relief, and I know what’s going to happen before it does: he’s going to try to get in this car.
I say “try” because I am not ready to have the tutoring conversation with him yet.
“Willy,” he says. I read the word on his lips.
I can’t very well pretend I don’t see him, so I roll down the window. He jogs over to my car and leans down to talk to me.
“Willy,” he says again, sounding slightly out of breath.
“Try again,” I say.
“Sorry. Mina. I need a favor.”
“No. Cohen, no,” I say, cutting his protests off. “I have errands to run; I need groceries, I need to stop by the mall, I need to get gas—”
“I’m great at shopping!” he says. “I’m great at all that.”
“You want to come with me?” I ask in disb
elief. I figured he was just going to ask me to take him somewhere. Why is he being so weird?
“Yes. Please.” He sounds desperate.
I hesitate. Then I nod at the car in his driveway. “Whose car is that?”
His expression grows grim. “My dad’s.”
Dang it.
“Why’s he at your house?” I say.
Cohen’s jaw tightens. “Probably to talk to me.”
I sigh. “Fine. Get in.”
I nod my way through his thanks—thanks so fervent that I feel sort of guilty—and then turn to him when he’s seated next to me. “But I get to choose the music.”
“Right,” he says with a false bravado I can tell he doesn’t really feel. “Where are we going?”
“Why are you running away from your dad?” I say, peering out the windshield to see if I can catch a glimpse of Mr. Alexander, but he seems to be inside.
I’m not even looking at Cohen, but I can feel the atmosphere in the car change.
“I’m not,” he says, his voice stiff. All traces of the false bravado are gone.
“Oh. Okay.” I swallow. Say it. Just say it. This is my year. “It just sort of seems like you are.”
“Well, I’m not,” Cohen says.
“Okay,” I say. I don’t look at him for fear of seeing some sort of glare being aimed at me. I pick at an imaginary piece of lint on my jeans instead.
There’s ear-deafening silence as I pull away from the house and head out of the neighborhood. I’m just about to make a desperate bid for the radio when Cohen speaks.
“He keeps calling me.”
Oh. He’s confiding in me?
“Yeah?” I say. I keep my eyes on the road, partly because that’s how you should operate a car but also because I’m afraid that if I look at him he’ll clam up.
“Yeah,” he says. “And he has a girlfriend.”
Ouch. That must hurt. It’s only been…what, a year? I don’t know the details of why his dad left, and I am definitely not going to ask, but either way, a new girlfriend can’t help the situation. But what do I say to that? What can you say to someone who’s going through something like that?
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. It’s all I have.
“That’s not a great response,” he says, and finally I look at him. He’s looking at his hands. They’re nice hands, as far as hands go. They look strong. Capable.
“I don’t know what else to say,” I respond, and I feel my cheeks going red. “I’m not good with words. I just meant…that sucks.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. It does. I don’t mean to whine about it or anything. I’m just…”
“Upset,” I say as he trails off.
“Yeah. And it caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting to see him. I don’t know what he’s doing at my house.”
I eye him again as I pull into the outlet mall parking lot. His fists are clenched, his strong jaw flexing. “You’re really angry,” I say.
He rolls his eyes, which I barely see since he’s still staring fixedly at his lap. “Yeah, of course I am, Mina. He left, and yet he’s still acting like things are okay. And now he’s at my house. He has no idea what he did to my mom. She looks terrible. She looks exhausted. He left her to carry the weight of the household on her own.”
I turn off the car, but neither of us move. I can think of things I could say. I can think of things I shouldn’t say. But only one thing enters my mind that feels right.
Somehow, in the space of half a second, my heart accelerates from slightly too fast (because I never exercise) to way too fast. I’m not psychic, but I can guarantee he doesn’t want to hear what I’m thinking.
I grit my teeth and prepare myself to say it anyway, because this is my year. And maybe he needs to hear it.
Or maybe he’ll hate me for saying it.
I’m about to find out.
“Maybe you should try to forgive him. You might feel better,” I say. My voice squeaks as I speak.
Another deafening silence, but this one feels a bit colder than the last. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he finally says, his voice tight.
All right. Point taken. “I need to get a few things. You can wait in the car.”
“I don’t want to wait in the car,” he says. His tone is normal again, although something in his eyes hasn’t quite shifted away from the haunted look they had. “You’re not supposed to leave people in the car.”
“I think that’s just babies and dogs,” I say. “And it’s fall. And you’re a grown man. You can open the door if you need to.”
“I’m coming in,” he says, opening his door and stepping out before I can say anything.
I stumble my way out of the car. “No. I just need a few shirts.” No way am I buying clothes with Cohen in tow. I don’t like buying clothes with myself in tow.
“Yours aren’t gray enough anymore?”
Once again, I feel my cheeks burn. “You’re hilarious.”
“I’m joking, Willy,” he says, and when I look at him, I see him grinning.
“No, you’re not,” I say. “I’m not taking you with me.”
“You do wear a lot of gray and white,” Cohen says, leaning against my car, arms folded over his chest. He’s eyeing me with interest, his head cocked to one side. I notice he’s totally avoided responding to my insistence that he’s not coming in.
“I like gray and white,” I say. I shove my hands into my pockets, feeling the sudden urge to shield myself from his gaze. I’ve never had this conversation with anyone.
“And…?” he says, looking at me expectantly.
“And what?”
“And why do you like gray and white? They’re the most boring colors.”
“I disagree,” I say, forcing myself to start walking. He’s clearly not going to be talked out of this. I’ll just hurry. “Black is more boring than white.”
“What about gray?” he says, pushing off the car and falling into step next to me. What is he going to do if someone sees us together? Doesn’t that matter to popular people? I mean, Cohen is nice and all; he is. But I don’t know that nice extends to being seen in public with a social outcast.
“Gray…is pretty boring,” I admit.
“So why do you wear it?” he says.
I shake my head. “You’re going to laugh at me.”
“I’m not,” he says, pulling open the department store door and letting me walk through before he follows.
“You’re already smiling and I haven’t even said anything yet,” I point out.
He laughs. “I’m just curious. It’s all you wear.”
I must be crazy for telling him, but the words are already on their way out of my mouth. “Gray and white are bland. They don’t attract attention or anything.” I maneuver my way through the cologne department, enjoying every second of it. Usually I spritz some on one of the little cards they give out for samples and take it home. But since Cohen is with me…
“Hang on,” he says, and I glance over my shoulder. He’s fallen behind, looking at the watches in the glass case. That’s all the chance I need. I quickly eye the colognes they’ve got set out until I find the one I like. There’s something refreshing and familiar about it that just makes me smile, which is funny, because usually my go-to scents are all floral. I did look at the list of base notes and all that once, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I see that stuff in romance novels, and personally I find it ridiculous—a woman describing a man’s scent with words like “musk” or “sandalwood” or “cedar.” Who goes around smelling different kinds of wood? Who actually knows what musk smells like? And what even is musk?
But I digress. I spritz some of the cologne on the sample card and am just putting the bottle back on the counter when—
“That one? Really?”
Dang it. I shove the card in my back pocket as quickly as I can and spin around to face Cohen, who looks to be on the verge of laughter.
“It’s not—I was just—” But I stutter into silence. Fin
ally I say, “I just think it smells good.” My voice is almost inaudible.
“It does,” Cohen says, and he takes a step toward me, still looking amused.
He takes another step forward. And another. And…another?
I step back automatically, but he holds his arms open, like he’s going to hug me. He stands there, looking like an idiot.
“What are you doing?” I say, raising my eyebrows. My heart is doing a weird little trippy thing. I’m not sure any guy has ever been this close to me.
Well, my dad. But I don’t think that counts.
He doesn’t answer; he just grins, stepping closer again until there’s hardly any space between us. “Inhale,” he says, touching a spot on his neck, and without thinking I do as he says—I go up on my tiptoes and sniff his neck.
He smells heavenly, exactly like the little card now shoved in my butt pocket.
Perfect. He’s just found me all but swooning over what apparently is his cologne—that’s why he smelled familiar in the flower shop. I almost groan with embarrassment. “All right,” I say. “I know how this looks. But I didn’t know—I wasn’t being creepy. I didn’t know this is what you wear.”
“Sure, you didn’t,” he says, thankfully stepping away from me again and letting his arms fall. His smile has widened, and the teasing gleam in his eyes makes me want to bury my face in my hands in mortification.
Instead I do the dignified thing: I turn my back on him and march in the other direction.
6
Mina
Keep walking. Keep walking. Just don’t be weird. Cohen won’t be weird about it if you’re not weird about it.
Sometimes talking to myself works; sometimes it doesn’t. Right now it sort of doesn’t.
“So that’s it?” Cohen’s voice comes from behind me, and I hear him hurrying to catch up.
“So that’s what?” I say.
“You wear gray and white because they’re bland?”
Eye of the Beholder (Stone Springs Book 1) Page 4