“No, you didn’t. You thought you’d drop by and try to run into Malik.”
He narrows his eyes. “Hey. We’re friends too. I like you.” He steps forward, reaching out to my cheek as if to . . . I don’t know . . . caress my face?
I jerk back.
“Seriously, Hunter, you have to understand, you aren’t wel—”
The front door dings, and I want to slump to the ground in despair as Malik walks into the building.
His eyes light up when he sees me. Then they slip over to Hunter, and it’s like I can see him physically resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Hunter turns away from me, toward Malik, so I mouth I know to Malik over his shoulder and then Sorry.
Hunter does this weird rush-at-Malik-man-hug thing that is positively awkward, and Malik barely manages to disentangle himself.
“Hey, bro,” Hunter says, sticking his fist out for a bump.
Seriously, does he think that if he physically touches Malik enough, it will result in fame by osmosis?
“Uh, hello,” Malik says. Like being formal will make it clear they are not, in fact, bros. “What was your name again?”
I want to grin from ear to ear, but Hunter is all too quick to rush in and supply his name. Can’t he take a hint?
Wow, I must have been blinded by his white teeth back when we dated or something, because I completely missed the fact that he is . . . intolerable.
I shove my hands into my pockets, only then realizing I’m wearing torn-up jeans and a purple T-shirt with a small bleach stain on one shoulder.
Oh, god. I did not plan to see Malik while dressed like this. I look like a homeless person.
“So what are you two up to today?” Hunter asks. “I thought we could—”
“Look, guy,” Malik says. “I’m not sure how you knew to find us here, but—”
“Well, Mathews—”
“But,” Malik says, more forcefully, “frankly, it is an invasion of privacy. I suggest you back off. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and it should probably stay that way, okay?”
Hunter looks stricken, and I would almost feel sorry for him if, you know, he wasn’t such a transparent jerk.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll leave you two alone. But could I maybe just get one picture before you go?”
“Hunt—”
“It’s okay,” Malik says, resigned. I hate that jaded tone in his voice. It doesn’t belong there. “That’s fine. But then you go.”
Hunter tosses me his phone so quickly, I nearly miss it and have to jump to keep it from crashing to the floor.
I switch on the camera, snap a quick pick of them—Hunter with his arm around Malik, of course—and then we’re done.
“Okay, then, guys. See you later.” Hunter retreats, slowly, like a puppy with his tail between his legs.
Malik and I turn away, exchanging a good-grief kind of look, and from the corner of my eye, I catch Hunter lingering in the space between the two sets of automatic doors.
I turn and glare, and he finally gets it, spinning on his heel and walking away.
Finally, Malik turns to me. “So, fourth floor? Want to join us for lunch again? Maybe Henrietta—”
“Actually, I was just leaving when I ran into him,” I lie.
“Oh. All right.”
“I’m just going to hang around for a minute in the lobby to give time for your new BFF to clear out.”
He snorts, then pokes me in the ribs. “Seriously, I can’t believe you dated that guy.”
“Me either.”
“Okay then, catch up later?”
“Mm-hmm,” I say as he gives me a quick kiss, then slips away, heading down the hall.
I wait until he’s disappeared into the elevator before I rush down the hall in the opposite direction, back to my room.
• • •
“I can’t believe he sold me out. I mean, I should believe it. I really should. But I never thought he’d stoop to this level.”
Alex throws herself down on her bed beside me, so we’re stretched out on our stomachs, propped up on our elbows as we take in her laptop screen.
I’m staring at some TMZ rip-off, and there under the headline “Is Malik Buchannan Slumming It?” are Malik and I. I’m dressed in the ratty clothes I was wearing yesterday because, hello, I hadn’t expected to see him. His clothes are well cut, expensive-looking even on the cell-phone-quality picture, and my torn-up jeans and purple T-shirt with the stain on one shoulder are painfully ugly in comparison.
God, I can’t believe he saw me like that. How has he not yet noticed I’m a nobody? That I’ve never come from money, not even the kind Alex’s family has?
Plus, ugh, his hair is so perfect, and I’ve got a greasy-looking ponytail.
“You didn’t notice Hunter taking this picture?”
“I was kind of staring at Malik?” I say, motioning to the picture. “It’s hard to pay attention to anything but him when he’s in the room. I realized Hunter was kind of lingering, but it didn’t occur to me he was snapping a picture of us. I thought he cared more about a picture of himself with Malik. I really didn’t think he’d stoop to this level.”
I go to roll off her bed and stand but miscalculate and just roll right off, falling to the ground with a heavy thump that nearly knocks the wind out of me.
Alex bursts into a cackling laugh, and I can’t help but grin, even though I don’t want to. “I can’t believe you can laugh at a time like this,” I say, trying to scowl. “As my best friend, you’re supposed to sympathize with me here.”
“Okay, okay,” Alex says. “There are some silver linings, though.”
“Please, point them out to me.”
“Well, I mean . . .” Her voice trails off, and she clicks on the laptop. “Celeb Scoops doesn’t know who you are. They just got ahold of the picture somehow.”
“But how’d they get the picture without figuring out who I am?” I say, sitting up. “Surely, there’s someone who would pay for the complete scoop.”
“Hunter probably put the picture on Facebook or something and someone forwarded it along. Maybe someone who doesn’t know who you are at all. He probably doesn’t realize it’s a big deal to put up pictures of Malik.”
I sit up so that I can see her expression. “What he’s done has fed the flames. Malik came up here to get away from the spotlight, and now Hunter’s bringing it straight back to him.”
Alex rolls onto her back, staring upward at the glittery stars, but she doesn’t say anything. “What are you going to do?”
I sit cross-legged, rubbing my eyes. “I think . . . time is running out. Someone is going to figure out my real name, and then Malik is going to find out I’ve been lying to him. I need to tell him.”
I half expect her to protest, to tell me not to jeopardize my romance, but she doesn’t.
“I think you’re probably right.”
“I don’t know how I’ll do it.”
“Umm . . . via text?”
I snort. “Oh, hi, Malik. Just FYI, I thought you should know my real name is Holly! Oh, yeah. And I’m always at Sunrise House because I live there! Kay, thanks, bye!”
Alex giggles. “Okay, okay, so you tell him in person. Cook him dinner or something first and butter him up.”
“Yeah, in your kitchen? While he studies your family portraits?”
“Oh. Right. Hmm . . . ugh, he took a picture with Malik, too?”
I glance up. “Huh?”
“His new Facebook image is him and Malik.”
I sit up taller and take in the picture on the screen.
“You’re Facebook friends with him?”
“No, but Rena is. Maybe his profile is set to friends of friends or something.”
My heart twists. “Are you sure it’s not public?”
She raises a brow. “Um, no? How would I—”
“Log out and see if it still shows.”
I climb to my feet and crawl closer to the bed just as she clicks the logout but
ton, and . . .
Nothing changes.
“His freaking profile is public!”
Alex narrows her eyes. “Why is that a big deal?”
“Because people are going to see those photos and message him and dangle something in front of him to get him to tell. I am so screwed.”
“Okay. Then I suggest you text Malik and set up a date. And tell him. Before someone else does.”
I fall back against the floor, wishing I could sink right into the carpet and not face what I need to do next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, I’m just about to step into the hall at Sunrise House, Alex and Rena trailing behind me, when Malik strolls by. Just as he turns and his eyes catch mine, I instinctively slam the door shut.
“What the—” Alex exclaims.
“It’s Malik,” I explain.
“Did he see?”
Then the knock comes.
“Oh my god, what do I do?” I ask.
“I mean, I hate to point out the obvious, but weren’t you going to tell him?”
“Not like this!” I hiss. “I was going to do it tonight in a quiet, private place.”
“Okay, okay,” Alex says, throwing up her hands as her eyes go wide. “Don’t panic. Sheesh. Let’s just pretend my grandma lives here.”
“He knows that’s not true,” I whisper, “or you wouldn’t have told him you were going to hang out and play Candy Crush in your car a few weeks ago.”
He knocks again. “Uh, Lucy?”
“So it’s my grandma, then,” Rena says, waving her hand like it’s no big deal. “But you better open that door because he’s going to figure out something’s up.”
I close my eyes and rake in a calming breath, then plaster a smile on my face and turn back to the entry, twisting the knob.
“Malik,” I say, greeting him with a wide smile. “I didn’t know you were here today.”
“I was just leaving. What’re you doing down here on the first floor?” he asks, glancing over my shoulder and into the apartment.
I’m seriously glad we don’t have a giant portrait of me and my mom over the fireplace. That would be hard to explain.
“Um, just visiting with Rena and her grandma. We’re on our way out the door, though,” I say, stepping toward him and forcing him out of my way.
“Oh? Do you guys have plans?”
“Swimming,” I say, pointing to the ties on my bikini top, which are poking out of my tank top. “We’re heading to Alex’s house.”
“You guys can come to mine instead, if you want,” he says. “We could do the pool or the lake, whichever you prefer.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Yes,” Alex and Rena say in unison. I grit my teeth, forcing a smile on my face.
“Um, sure. That sounds great.”
• • •
I’m sitting on the dock at Malik’s house in my swimsuit, watching Rena and Alex, wondering how it is that Rena slid so easily into my place in Alex’s life. They’re both on floating loungers, arms dangling into the water.
I think they’re trying to give me space, or something, so I can talk to Malik in private, but I can’t get up the courage to pull him aside. I feel like I’m standing at the airplane door and I’m supposed to jump, but I don’t trust that my parachute will work.
And I am not prepared to crash to the ground and lose Malik.
I sigh, closing my eyes against the glare and tip my head back against the heat of the afternoon sun. The lake water remaining in my hair has all but dried, and the ice in my once-cold lemonade has melted.
August. I’m not sure where the summer went. Ever since I met Malik, it’s passed in a blur of dates and laughter and kissing. And now I have less than a week until I leave for college.
“So, how long have they been together?” Malik asks, dropping down onto the deck beside me. “They look happy.”
“Who?” I ask, opening my eyes and shielding them against the glare.
“Rena and Alex.”
I laugh. “They’re not together, they’re friends. I’ve known them both since the fourth grade.”
He slides his sunglasses onto the top of his head and stares directly into my eyes with an intense look, like he’s trying to get through to me. Or read my mind. Or . . .
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper, the words sounding more annoyed than I mean them to. My heart seems to slow, as if my blood has turned to syrup and it can’t quite keep up. “I’m telling you, they’re not together.”
He lets out a slow breath, and the realization that he’s holding back hits me hard. It’s like he’s not sure how to break bad news to me.
Like I’m wrong.
“They’re holding hands under the water,” he says, lowering his voice.
My breathing goes shallow as I turn back to where they’re floating, each with an arm dangling into the cool waters of Lake Washington.
I can’t see their hands. Just where the water laps at their upper arms. I can’t seem to move. I just stare into the murky depths, willing them to float closer, to let me see if what Malik’s saying is true.
It can’t be true. It just can’t be. I would know.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re wrong,” I say. “I would know. Alex would’ve told me.”
As I say it, I flash back through all my memories of the last year.
Alex and Rena attending prom, saying they were going stag. They danced together. But girls dance together all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.
They also bought each other corsages.
Holy crap, they bought each other corsages! I thought it was for fun, a way to make them feel like they weren’t left out of the rite of passage just because they went without a date.
But what if they didn’t go without a date after all?
I think of the way Alex had been avoiding my call after the movie-theater date with Malik, when Rena was in the background.
And how they were together at the coffee shop.
They’re always together.
I thought Rena was replacing me as Alex’s best friend. But this whole time . . .
“She never said,” I say, and it sounds like the verbal equivalent of a toddler stomping her feet.
“You want to take the kayak out?” Malik asks, suddenly standing. “Maybe you could use a little fresh air. Um, I mean . . . breathing room.”
I let him pull me to my feet and numbly follow, replaying my last few hangouts with Rena and Alex. The way they stood close together at the coffee shop and how Rena fell against Alex when she was laughing really hard. The way Alex opened the car door for Rena when they pulled up at Alex’s house the last time we were there.
The way they made those bracelets for each other instead of making their own.
Malik leads me to a boathouse next to the dock. A moment later, he’s holding out a life vest so I can stick my arms through it. He clicks on the snaps. He’s handling it all like he knows I’m moving on autopilot, that my brain isn’t completely functioning.
And then I’m climbing behind him into the second seat of a double-seated kayak and we’re pushing away from the dock.
I halfheartedly paddle as we leave his house behind, letting Malik do most of the work. Until he finally stops and we just float across the rippling water.
“Lucy?”
I close my eyes against the name, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. By the boy who thinks he knows me. By the friend I thought I knew.
Maybe everyone has a secret.
“Yeah?” I say a heartbeat later.
“What are you thinking right now?”
I laugh, a painful, half-amused, half-hurt laugh. “It’s stupid.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well . . . a big part of me is relieved. That’s what I’m thinking. That I’m relieved.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been worrying all summer that Alex was replacing me as her best fr
iend, but it’s something else entirely.”
“Fair enough,” he says, glancing back at me over his shoulder.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“She’s probably scared.”
“Of?”
“Losing you. You’re scared of that yourself, aren’t you? Scared that she doesn’t need you as a friend like you need her.”
I’m glad he can’t really see my expression, so I can sit alone with my flood of thoughts. I thought I knew her. I thought . . .
“I guess,” I say. “I kind of figured since they were going to college together that I was just being left out of that. Of their plans together. I think I’ve just been blind.”
“Maybe we should go back and you can talk to her.”
“Or maybe not?” I say.
He chuckles. “Do you really want to put it off? We can stay out here for a while, you know. It’s a big lake.”
“Yes. No. Maybe.”
I need to spend today talking to Malik, telling him the truth. But it’s all I can do to process this other kind of truth.
Malik knows enough to not respond. He just gently paddles in a way that doesn’t seem to take us closer to the dock or farther away. Just allows us to drift like this, under the searing summer sun. Occasionally, the waves of passing boats roll toward us, and we bounce along the surface like a fisherman’s bob.
“Okay,” I say, finally gathering my courage. “Yeah. Let’s go back.”
The dock comes up too fast. Then the kayak bumps against the lake bottom near the shore, and Malik climbs out, pulling it onto the sand with me in it.
He gives me a hand, and I clamber to my feet. He releases my hand with a quick, reassuring squeeze, picking up the kayak and heading to the boathouse. I’m stand there on the shore, staring out across the water at Alex and Rena.
They are still there, floating along on their loungers, tanning or sleeping or maybe really holding hands, like Malik says. I’ve never wished so much to be able to see through the water. Even though it all makes sense, I still can’t quite believe it. I can’t stop looking for something—some kind of real confirmation that what Malik has said is true.
The way the dock and the sun reflect across the surface, it’s impossible to know if he’s right.
But what he said . . . when I heard it . . .
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