I grab my towel from where it’s all balled up on the floor. It’s still damp. I fling it across my shoulder and head out into the hall. D is walking toward the bathroom wearing only red silk boxers. A faded blue towel hangs around his neck.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growls.
I duck into the bathroom and slam the door shut. He smashes into it and the whole room shakes. I press the button on the door handle and it locks with a click. Was that the right thing to do? A Nice wouldn’t do that. I breathe in through my nostrils. One of the things I liked most about kissing Dyl was the recklessness of it, the feeling of ignoring common sense and following my gut, giving a big middle finger to the consequences. But the night is over, and I’m a Nice, so I need to act like it. I’m going to shower as fast as possible, and then I’m going to apologize until D forgives me. It’s what I have to do.
With that in mind, I undress and step into the limescale-covered shower. As I close the door he shouts a shockingly profane string of insults at me. It’s so awful it’s almost comical, and even though it’s incredibly nasty, he does deserve credit for somehow managing to be sexist, racist, and homophobic within the space of ten seconds. I’m going as fast as I can! I turn the tap as far as it goes, which does nothing to heat the water up. I brace myself and step into the cold water. I wash my chest, then duck my head into the spray, wetting my hair.
I shut off the taps and stand, shivering, in the shower. He’s still screaming. I grab my towel, dry my body as well as I can, then put my old boxers on. I’ll change them when I’m back in my room, but I know he’s going to make a scene, and I’d rather not deal with him totally naked. I wrap the towel around my waist. I can do this. I’ve worked so hard to become the perfect Nice, and all he wants is for me to break character. If I show him how mad he makes me, he wins.
I open the door and step outside.
His face is blood red. “You arrogant little shit!” he says. “I was on my way to the bathroom and you went in first!”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t—”
His hands shoot out and shove me in the chest. I take a step backward and grip the towel around my waist really hard.
“Who do you think is in control around here, huh?” he asks. “You act like you’re big and important, but you’re nothing. No one expects you to win, so I’m the one who matters, because I’m the one who will still be alive in a month. Trust me, I’m counting the days until they march your entitled, flamboyant ass to the incinerator.”
He steps into the bathroom.
I feel myself lift away from the train tracks. This is going to be a wreck. It’s unavoidable. A voice tells me to stop, to keep being Nice, but it’s quiet and soft. It knows I’m already gone.
“I am.”
He steps back out into the hallway. His body is bent forward and his breath stinks like beer. “What did you say?”
“You asked me who I think is in control around here. I know who is. It’s me.”
He snarls and leaps forward. Both his hands smack into my chest, the force making my ribs vibrate. I take two quick steps back before my feet can’t keep up and they fall out from under me. I land hard on my ass. His foot comes down and presses on my sternum, giving me an excellent view of his gnarled toenails. Tufts of straggly black hair protrude from the base of each of his toes. He wiggles his foot, pressing me down into the carpet.
“I’m stronger than you! I’m in control, you little maggot!”
“You’re not!” I spit. “I’m the Love Interest. I’m the one who matters! You’re a washed-up failure who is jealous of me because this is as good as your life is ever going to get!” I shove his foot off me. Small clods of dirt remain on my chest. “Touch me again and I’ll make sure they incinerate you. Got it?” I breathe in and sit up. “In my story my real dad is dead; you’re my stepparent. You can be replaced. Got it, Dad?”
He stares at me. “Got it,” he mumbles, his face reddening. He turns and walks into the bathroom. He closes the door softly.
After getting dressed I start to cool down, and the stupidity of what I did starts to sink in. I sit on my bed and rest my head on my hands. What’s wrong with me? I just broke character, something I swore I’d never do. But I did it. I start shaking and my eyes fill with tears. What if something like that happens when I’m around Juliet? How fast, and how violently, I stopped being Nice haunts me.
Still, I have to go, so I stand up. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath, settling myself, then I head down the stairs. M is in the living room, lying on the couch, her head propped up by red pillows. The Doctors is on. I open the front door and see that the bus has stopped at the house two doors down from mine.
Shit! I forgot my costume!
I chance one last look at the bus, then sprint back through the house to my bedroom. I guess I could drive if I miss the bus, but I don’t really want to, because driving still freaks me out. Inside my room, I pick up the dirty clothes that I’d previously kicked under my bed and throw them away. Then I pick up a gray box and tear it open. Inside is my Spider-Man costume.
I grab it and shove it into my bag. Then I run down to the bus. The bus driver, whose name always escapes me, gives me a friendly smile, which settles my heart rate a little bit. It’s not enough to calm me down, though, as the memory of my epic fuckup lingers.
At school, Juliet, Natalie, and Trevor are standing near Juliet’s locker.
“Hey, Caden,” says Juliet with a small smile. “Do you have your costume for the party?”
I open my locker. “It’s not a party, it’s an extravaganza, remember? And yeah, I do.”
She snorts and pushes away from the locker. “Yeah, you’re right. It should be a lot of fun. But hey, can I talk to you for a second?”
Uh-oh.
I nod, and we walk to a quiet spot at the edge of the lockers. She leans against the wall. Normally the prospect of having one-on-one time with her would make me smile. Right now, as a side effect of my recent activities, which have been distinctly not Nice, my hands start trembling. I tuck them into my pockets.
“So, Caden,” she says. “You know how, when you first got here, I needed someone to model for me?”
I nod slowly. Kaylee scripted a scene about me modeling for Juliet, so I know which direction to steer the conversation. “Yeah. Are we ready to start? I’ve been doing a lot of chin-ups and have been avoiding the free drinks at work to make sure all this”—I gesture toward my chest—“is ready.”
“No, it’s … Don’t take this the wrong way, but I asked Dyl to pose instead. I’m good friends with you now, so staring at you pretty much naked for hours would be weird for me, and I think he would help me do well on the assignment. That’s all this is about, getting a good grade. Is that cool?”
I frown and my shoulders slump. In the script, she said yes, and I model for her. Kaylee even wrote a few witty one-liners for me to say while I was posing. Now I’ve lost all that time with her. I can’t help but think that kissing Dyl, or my outburst this morning, is what caused this.
“Juliet, I totally understand. I’ll do whatever makes you happy.”
School passes slowly because all I can think about is the fact that Juliet chose Dyl over me. Point blank, she picked him. I think about pretending to be sick so I can leave early, but that’s what the Caden who got me into this mess would do. For me to claw my way back into this contest, I need to fully recommit to being a Nice. My true thoughts and feelings are the enemy, so I need to bury them.
After lunch, I head down the hallway to English. Dyl is walking toward me, staring at his stupid poetry book. I glare at him. He’s going to strip in front of Juliet. I picture the way he’ll slowly pull his shirt up and over his body. The way he’ll grin as he balls it up and throws it away. How the ridges of muscle along his ribs will ripple as he flexes.
I think about grabbing him by the shirt and shoving him up against a locker. I’d press my forearm into his neck, just above his collarbone. I imagine h
is eyes, wide and startled, and the way his mouth would drop open for a second before he’d smirk and call me Nice guy.
He never forgot about the contest. Not even for a second. All day I’ve been distracted and he’s been making moves to pull Juliet away from me. I want to scream at him, to ask him how he could kiss me and then keep playing like nothing has changed. Instead, I clench my fists and walk past him.
After the final bell, Juliet is waiting for me outside my classroom. She’s leaning against the wall, glancing at everyone as they stream out of the room.
“Hi,” I say as I approach her. “It’s nice to see you.”
She bites her lip and detaches from the wall. We make our way down the hall toward the exit. “Caden, you know you can tell me what you actually feel, right?”
I gulp. “What makes you think I don’t?”
“Just the way you’ve been acting today. Like, it seems like you’re upset about me doing the art assignment with Dyl, but you don’t want to let it show. It’s fine if you’re mad at me or whatever, but please don’t pretend to feel something you don’t. It’s what my dad does and I can’t stand it. Promise that you’ll never do that to me?”
“I promise,” I say. “Well, from now on, anyway. In case it isn’t screamingly obvious, I’m not cut out for this whole lying thing. You can see right through me. So yeah, I’m a little bit upset that you’re doing the assignment with Dyl because I was looking forward to spending time with you. That’s it. I’ll get over it.”
“Thanks for being honest, Caden. But I want you to know the reason I’m doing the assignment with Dyl is that I like you so much, not the opposite.”
“For realsies?”
“Yep, for realsies. To do the assignment you’d have to be half naked. It’d be weird with you because, you know, you’d be shirtless.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Too bold, Caden. Get awkward, fast!
My smile drops. “About the me-being-shirtless thing, I mean. Sorry, I was trying to sound sexy and I epically screwed it up. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”
She laughs. “It’s okay, Caden. I like the idea of seeing you without a shirt on. It’s … it’s why I asked in the first place. But, well, our relationship is different now. It’s stronger than attraction, or at least I think it is. So I don’t want to screw it up by throwing a whole lot of lust into it, especially when you’re naked and I’m not. So let’s drop it, okay? Speaking of dropping it, Trevor and Natalie are coming over to my place before the party starts to get ready. Do you want to join us?”
“Dropping it? What is this, a Pitbull song?”
“Move past the bad segue, Caden.”
“I do as you command, Juliet. But wouldn’t I be intruding?”
She shakes her head. “Dude, they both love you. And I … I like you a lot, so it’d be awesome if you came. No one is being sympathetic by inviting you over. We like spending time with you because you’re funny and cool, so it’s for our benefit as much as yours. Plus, we may even have a couple drinks before. Mom is cool about alcohol as long as we don’t get drunk, so she got us a bottle of wine. It’s going to be really fun, and I want you to come. So are you in?”
Am I in? I’m as in as it is possible for me to be. I thought for a second that I’d ruined everything, but maybe the few times the real me emerged he didn’t do as much damage as I thought. I still need to be very careful about how much I let my personality come through, but it’s not as grim as I previously imagined. I’m not out of the running yet.
“Lead the way,” I say.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Juliet’s house is only a couple hundred yards away from the school, so the four of us are walking there, following the paved pathway beside the road. As we pass under the school gates I recall the e-mail Kaylee sent me last night. She thought it’d be a good idea to take advantage of my friendship with Juliet in order to damage her relationship with Dyl. Kaylee said that Juliet would listen to me as long as I didn’t come across as a “possessive fedora-wearing asshole.” Those were her words, obviously, but I agree with the sentiment.
I turn to Juliet. “So how much of Dyl have you been seeing?”
“Not much. Why do you ask?”
“He seems to like you a lot. It’s kind of creepy.”
“Liking me is creepy?”
Oh boy. Wrong tack.
“No, of course not—I mean, you barely know him and he seems kind of obsessed. Liking you isn’t creepy at all. It’s the most obvious thing in the world.”
“Barf. But I get what you’re saying. He’s intense. I think that’s just how he is.”
I could tell her so many things about him. But my feelings toward him are too strong, and I know if I say anything else it’ll come across as self-serving and bossy. I may as well start whining about how nice guys never get the girl, so I shut my mouth.
We walk around a large lake. In the middle of the water is a fountain that looks like a leaping goldfish vomiting water from its mouth. The lake itself looks sludgy and slightly green, partly covered with rotting leaves. The path we’re walking on is cream-colored concrete that’s filled with cracks. Juliet’s shoes make a satisfying clicking sound with every step.
“Do you like anyone, Caden?” asks Juliet. “You’ve been here awhile, so have you spotted anyone you could see yourself dating?”
She’s giving me her best doe eyes and her arms are swaying, her fingers curling inward, making a semi-fist. This is a test. She’s mining for information about my feelings. This is a good sign. It means she cares.
I shoot her a sly grin. “Maybe one.”
“You aren’t going to tell me who it is, are you?”
“I might,” I say. “I just want to make sure she likes me back first.”
She skips ahead to catch up with Natalie and Trevor. When she reaches them she stops and looks back at me. “Caden, she’s probably waiting for you to do the same thing.” She shrugs. “Just saying.”
She turns around and falls into step with Natalie and Trevor. I tuck my hands into my pockets and start whistling. Juliet just told me what she wants: she’s interested, but wants me to make the first move. I think about what the LIC taught me about that. One of the best Nice strategies is a big romantic first date. It’s settled. Tonight, at the party, I’m going to ask her out.
At her house, her mom opens the door. She’s dressed in a sleek black pantsuit but her blondish hair is ruffled, like she’s been running her fingers through it a lot.
“Caden,” she says as I step into the doorway. “No injuries this time?”
“None at all.”
“Great. Now, I’ve known you for a long time so I don’t feel bad asking for help. Richard’s in the kitchen preparing some snacks for you guys. Can you go and help him? Juliet, set the table.”
Juliet puts her hands on her hips. “Mom, I told you this is a casual thing.”
“Nonsense. We don’t do casual.” She points at Natalie and Trevor. “You two can go watch TV if you’d like. Caden, Juliet, snap to it.”
Natalie and Trevor stare into each other’s eyes.
“I could get used to this,” says Natalie.
“So could I, babe. Why do you think I want to go to the Olympics so bad? Win one medal and it’s, like, rock star treatment for the rest of your life!”
“Well, you’d better win! A girl could get very used to this lifestyle.” She playfully punches his chest. “And I’m rather fond of you. I’d hate to ditch you for the guy in the next lane. But I will do it. If he beats you, that is.”
I head into the kitchen. Richard is wearing an apron and carefully slicing a slab of smoked salmon. Little pieces of pink gel cling to the edge of the blade.
He places the knife down on the white stone counter top. “It’s great to see you again, Caden. But shouldn’t you be fraternizing with the other youth?”
“Daphne told me to come and help you.”
He wipes his hands on a green dish
towel. “Of course she did. That’s not a problem, is it?”
“Not at all! What do you need?”
He points to an empty white bowl. Beside it is a bag of sea salt–flavored chips.
“Can you open that and take it out to the table? There are some dips in the fridge; can you take those as well?” I nod. “Thanks, Caden, you’re a lifesaver.”
I squeeze the bag and open the chips, unleashing a salty smell. My mouth starts to water as I dump the chips into a bowl. Then I open the fridge and retrieve two clear plastic containers. One is filled with brownish dip and the other is green, presumably avocado. Both look delicious, and both are obviously off-limits for me.
“They’re homemade,” says Richard as he washes an apple in the sink. “Daphne’s own recipe. Trust me, once you’ve tried them, you’ll make your own from scratch too. It’s so much better than that store-bought garbage.”
“I bet it is!”
Carrying them, I walk out into the living room.
It’s a wide room, with two brown leather couches placed in front of a huge wide-screen TV. On the wall to the left of the TV is a massive mahogany bookshelf. One side is devoted to thick legal textbooks, and the other is filled with brightly covered cookbooks. In front of the books are various knick-knacks, like a small golden cannon and a framed photo of a baby in a white gown. It’s like a mural devoted to her family. A piece of minimalist art is on the other wall.
On the couch, Natalie is sitting on top of Trevor, kissing him. Her hair has fallen over both of their faces. I blush as I walk past them and place the food down on the coffee table. The only other thing on the table is a big hardcover book filled with photos of the ocean. I flip it open, trying to ignore the sucking and slurping coming from the couch. A harsh laugh sounds.
“I take it you’re not a fan of PDAs, Caden?”
“Is anyone?” I crack open the container of avocado dip. It smells heavenly and makes my stomach rumble. No way. I need to think of my abs.
Trevor tilts his head and looks at me. “Dude, I have a question for you.”
The Love Interest Page 14