The bell rang, like the triumphant clang at the end of a boxing match. West bolted from the table without saying goodbye. I leapt off the bench and scooped up my bag, a satisfied smile on my face.
“Oh, Trixie,” Meg muttered, sadly adjusting her lime-green bow as we started moving toward the doors.
“What?” I asked.
Harper and Cornell caught up to us, their hands locked together. Again, I was struck by how comfortably they fit together. They moved and spoke without any indication that a week ago they’d been orbiting around each other. Their twin looks of quiet disappointment only added to the overall effect. It wasn’t entirely unlike when my parents teamed up against me.
“Come on,” I said, hopping onto the defensive without waiting for an invitation. “I was perfectly nice other than that last bit. I can’t control the outside stimuli of the conversation.”
“That’s true,” Harper clucked.
“It’s just…” Cornell furrowed his brow, which only served to make him look more distinguished. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it, Trix.”
[7:18 PM]
Me
I need a homework vacation. Can either of you spare half an hour sometime for quality time with the park? (And each other, obvs.)
11
The next two weeks passed in a sort of time loop. I stayed up late working on homework, came to school twitchy and exhausted, and clenched my teeth during lunch to keep from eviscerating Ben West while he rambled. Harper and Cornell devised yet another meticulous schedule for comic book shopping that would limit an overlap between our shopping and the boys’ shopping to no more than three and a half minutes. I should have felt guilty that they were going to such extreme measures to keep me and West separated, but I was too relieved to care. It was one thing to have to deal with him at school. I didn’t want to see him bogarting the Marvel shelves.
I walked to school, already daydreaming about getting a full night’s sleep. I’d spent two days working on a ten-page paper for History of the American Immigrant. With it finally uploaded to the homework portal, I could sit back and relax. I had three unread comics in my bag and I had every intention of going to the park after school to truly enjoy them. The weather was in my favor—slightly too overcast for me to justify wearing my sunglasses, but no real sign of rain.
Harper and Meg were waiting for me outside the front gate as I strolled up. A jolt of annoyance straightened my shoulders as their heads popped up in unison and their mouths clamped into mannequin smiles. It had become more and more common for their conversation to halt at the sight of me. It’d be easier if they just cornered me and had whatever intervention they were dancing around. I might not like whatever they had to say, but it’d be better than their continued failed attempts at being covert.
“Good morning,” Meg said, quickly jumping to attention. “How are you?”
“Exhausted, as per usual,” I said. “I really should take up drinking some kind of caffeine in the morning. I don’t have to worry about stunting my growth anymore.”
Harper gave an anxious cluck. “Well, women don’t officially stop puberty until around twenty or so, but you are tall enough as it is.”
“Must be nice,” said Meg with a warbling laugh. “You know, not being Lilliputian. Like me.”
I peered at them. Things had been on the weirder side recently, but this was a new shade of uncomfortable. Harper seemed about ready to start flapping her arms until she took flight.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I didn’t hear back from either of you last night. Do you want to take a homework break after school? I was thinking we could go—”
“I can’t,” Meg interrupted. “I’m doing an extra-credit project for Gender Roles. I’m going to watch three versions of Pride and Prejudice back to back to point out the impact that the production date has on the gender normativeness—”
“Is that a word?” Harper asked. “Normativeness?”
“I think so,” Meg said.
“Anyway,” Harper continued blithely, “Cornell and I are going to the library after school. We’re going to get a head start on the American Immigrant final. You’re welcome to come, if you want.”
I did everything possible not to roll my eyes at her. Being stuck with Harper and Cornell in their love den of a study room at the public library would definitely register as one of the lower levels of the Inferno. Even Dante would have thrown up his hands and said, Hey Virgil, this is too much. Let’s go back to the level where everyone is being stung by wasps.
“You could come watch Pride and Prejudice with me,” Meg offered. “I could convince my mom to make something vegetarian for dinner.”
“That’s okay,” I said to both of them. “But, if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, make sure I didn’t go all Rip Van Winkle.”
Meg’s mouth flopped open and her eyes shone with bright and blatant shock, which was a bit extreme in the reaction department, even for her.
“Sorry,” I said. “Too early for a Washington Irving pull? I thought Sleeping Beauty would be too glamorous for the drooling-on-a-tube-slide imagery.”
“No,” Harper said. She jerked her chin in the general direction of my left shoulder. “That.”
I turned and saw the boys walking toward us from the parking lot. Jack had extricated himself from the group, veering in a parabola toward the gate. Peter was limping next to Cornell, whose stride shortened to keep from making Peter strain his knee. They were in uniform, the same pair of pleasant smiling faces that I’d gotten used to seeing across from me at lunch. There was a third boy behind them. His hair was cropped short on the sides and twisted and teased into a messy point above his forehead made up of smaller, messier points. As he fell into step with Peter, his mouth curved to the side in a cocky smirk and I held back a squawk of alarm.
At some point between calling me a hag at lunch the day before and now, Ben West had shaved his mustache and had a haircut. He may also have grown an inch or so, if that were possible. Or maybe he was just standing up straight without his facial hair weighing him down.
“Hey,” Cornell said as they reached us. He wrapped an arm around Harper’s waist and bent to kiss her.
“Oh my God, Ben,” Meg squeaked as West and Peter approached.
“Oh my God, Meg,” West parroted, hooking his thumbs in the straps of his backpack. He hazarded a glance at me. “Morning, Trix.”
I tried to remember the last time I’d seen West clean shaven. Junior year, he hadn’t had the silly mustache, but he had taken to not shaving his scruffy face as some signal to the general public that he was a pubescent male.
“Well spotted. It is, in fact, morning,” I said, schooling my face so that I wasn’t gaping at him along with the girls. “Were you attacked by a deranged barber?”
He reached up and touched his bare upper lip with an unmistakable longing.
“Something like that.”
He looked away from me quickly, as though afraid of what I’d say next. Which wasn’t entirely unfounded. I could have made endless jokes about his makeover. She’s All That, The Princess Diaries, My Fair Lady—my friendship with Meg was a continual source of chick-flick-related insults, even if they pandered to gender normativeness. But none of them seemed entirely appropriate.
“You look great, Ben,” Harper said, her head pressed to Cornell’s shoulder.
West grinned at her. His smile seemed broader without the mustache to impede its progress. “Don’t flirt with me in front of your boyfriend. He might go all Othello on us.”
Cornell laughed, folding his fingers through Harper’s. “Shakespearean racism. Great job, Ben.”
“Just trying to keep it classy,” West said.
“I’ll try not to drop a handkerchief anywhere. I’d like to avoid being strangled, if it’s all the same to you two.” Harper giggled and Cornell nudged her, chuckling into her hair.
“You look like the ninth Doctor,” Meg said, still beaming at West.
“The tenth,�
�� West and I corrected in unison. I shot him a dirty look and continued, “The ninth was shaved head, big ears. You’re thinking of David Tennant, Megs.”
Peter scrunched his face. “I’m totally lost. Is this another Star Wars reference?”
Harper craned her neck back to look at Cornell. “How can you be best friends with someone who thinks the Doctor is from Star Wars?”
“He means well,” Cornell said. “He was born without the geek gene. He’s getting good at playing Magic, though.”
“The Doctor,” I explained to Peter gently, “is the main character on the long running BBC series Doctor Who. West’s new product-heavy look is reminiscent of the tenth actor who played him.”
“Oh,” said Peter. “Is that good?”
“There are worse things,” I said, refusing to jump on the “let’s all congratulate Benedict for grooming himself” bandwagon. “Can we go in now? I have notes to take and ranking to secure.”
Everyone agreed, although Meg made a derisive noise at my mention of the ranking. We moved through the gates in V formation with Harper and Cornell’s clasped hands operating as the apex.
“Are we still on for this afternoon?” Cornell muttered to her.
“Definitely,” she said. “How did your rough draft go?”
“Oh, I’d say it’s pretty solid.”
“Are you going to let me peek at your notes before I write mine?”
“That’s completely unfair,” I said. “You can’t join forces against us.”
“That’s collusion,” West agreed.
Harper and Cornell shared a smile while Meg swallowed a series of giggles. I goggled at them, not understanding the joke.
“Sorry,” Harper said with a delighted shiver. “We’re all in the same class. Our notes should be about the same, right?”
We hit the front door and Cornell held it open, motioning all of us through. Meg and Peter waved to us and joined the throng heading toward the quad. Harper and Cornell veered toward the American Immigrant classroom, whispering to each other and giggling like little children. West passed me with his head down. I sighed and followed him into class.
[2:51 PM]
Me
Hulk smash. Must eat sandwich.
Don’t say I told you so.
[2:54 PM]
Meg
The Thought Experiment proved that breakfast was fundamental to metabolic stability.
[2:55 PM]
Me
THAT MEANS I TOLD YOU SO.
12
My stomach rumbled through both of my last classes until I was positive that I could feel the vibration in my temples. I pushed through, my fingers flying over the keys of the electronic quiz Mr. Holbrook had set up.
I’d spent lunch in the library to study. Jack had also been forgoing sustenance, his wide back hunched over the keyboard of his laptop next to a pile of textbooks.
“Programming Languages sucks,” he’d said as I passed him.
“Agreed.” I paused. Jack had been ghosting around the cafeteria lately, appearing in line and then disappearing again. A wriggle of annoyance twanged up my vertebrae as he ducked his head behind his screen again. I didn’t like Jack Donnelly, but there was only so much damage I could be responsible for. I cleared my throat. “Hey, I’m sorry about that evil twin comment from the other day.”
He didn’t look up. “Who wants to be the good twin?”
It was a fair point.
“You didn’t come back to sit with us,” I said. “I didn’t want that to be my fault.”
“I don’t have a problem with you. But Ben West never shuts up.” He set his hands to the keyboard again and started typing. “I’m not Peter. I don’t have to spend time with the student council when I don’t want to.”
No one would ever mistake you for Peter.
“Okay. Good talk,” I said.
I’d found an empty table and rummaged for my notes. My stomach protested, but I promised it a sandwich and spent forty-five minutes trying to commit the three equality functions equations to memory. It seemed to work. I finished the quiz with seven minutes to spare and watched the clock in the corner of my screen until the bell rang.
I was the first person out the door—although I had to shove Nick Conrad for the privilege. All but running, I scampered out of the front gate, making my way to the deli between the Mess and the park near my house in record time. Sweating despite the chill hanging in the air, I darted inside the deli and purchased the largest hummus-and-sprout sandwich available. I scarfed a bag of chips on the walk to the park, washing it down with half a bottle of soda.
I really should have taken Meg’s advice on the merits of breakfast. The Great Thought Experiment wasn’t always wrong.
The park was deserted. Each blade of grass in the field moved eerily in the light breeze. The chains on the swings creaked. Metal and wood groaned under my feet as I climbed up to the play structure. I threw myself down and inhaled my sandwich with far less chewing than I would normally employ. I crumpled the parchment paper and flipped open my bag to retrieve my comics and a cardigan. With food in my stomach and a sweater on, I was immediately less frantic. I hopped down off the play structure, dragging my bag by the strap, and crawled through the bark under the small slide.
The cement cubby between the slide and the stairs had always struck me as some kind of design flaw. Thousands of local kids had probably hidden from their parents in it when told it was time to leave. Someday, the city would realize there was a nonplastic park still in existence and would rip the cement and splintered wood out of the ground. But, until then, I had one perfect place to go.
I wedged myself inside the cubby, pressing my back to one wall and my feet against the other. Once upon a time, I’d been able to fit here with Harper. We’d hidden during a third-grade birthday party that our parents had forced us to go to. I couldn’t remember whose birthday it was, but I could vividly recall Harper and I squeezing into the cubby to avoid playing Red Rover on the green. Back then, it was our personal submarine; I’d been in my Jules Verne phase. Now, it was my personal sanctuary. Call it yet another pitfall of having no siblings, but I liked my private space.
I let out a contented sigh as I opened the first comic I’d brought with me. The cubby was protected from the breeze, keeping my pages from ruffling. I read leisurely, savoring each panel and speech bubble as though I had all the time in the world—instead of a backpack full of new homework.
Halfway through the third comic, I heard footsteps outside of the structure. I lowered the soda from my mouth, praying that it was a jogger or someone else who wouldn’t interrupt my quiet time. It was almost too cold for anyone else to be outside. I really didn’t want to have some prodding child discover me hiding under the little slide.
But instead of the pitter patter of obtrusive feet, the stairs beside me shuddered with heavy footfalls.
“This is huge. No, gargantuan. This is so frakking ginormous that I have to use made-up words and possibly apply Hubble’s Law to the situation.”
I sat up straight, thwacking my forehead against the cement as I recognized Meg’s voice. I started to slide out of my hidey-hole when Harper’s voice said, “We can’t tell Trixie.”
With one hand pressed to the wall of the cubby—and the other pressed to my throbbing head—I froze. The concrete scraped against my palm as my arm slid down the wall into my lap. Granted, the last few weeks hadn’t been the coziest our group had ever seen and I knew that they were continually having conversations that weren’t for my ears, but I’d assumed that they were upset about me not getting along well enough with the student council. But this was information that I wasn’t supposed to have. I stared up, as though I could will myself to have X-ray vision and see my best friends.
We didn’t hide things from each other. We’d never needed to. Harper told me when my essays veered off topic. Meg told me when I was projecting. We were all in charge of making sure no one’s bra straps were showing. It’d been us ag
ainst the world since elementary school.
“We have to tell her,” Meg shouted. I felt a swell of relief in the pit of my hummus-lined stomach. At least she was on my side. Whatever my side happened to be.
“No,” Harper countered. “I swore to Cornell that I wouldn’t tell her. I probably shouldn’t even have told you, but I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.”
In my head, I tabulated a list of secrets Harper and Cornell could be fostering. She’d been fairly mute about the physical part of their relationship. Had they moved past chicken-peck kisses?
That wouldn’t be damaging to me personally. I wasn’t the guardian of Harper’s nether regions and I’d been the one threatening to push them into closets.
“If he was in love with me, I’d want to know,” Meg said loudly. “I’d run across town, bang on his door, and throw myself into his arms.”
“But you aren’t Trixie,” Harper protested. “She’d laugh in his face if she knew he was in love with her.”
My mouth flopped open. Someone was in love with me? Beatrice Watson me? Who in the world could be in love with me? Or, more to the point, who could be in love with me and would have confided that to Cornell?
I thought about Peter at the harvest festival and his offer of a relationship by default. Had I misread that entire exchange?
Now I was sure I wasn’t going to climb out of the cubby. Not until I was absolutely positive about what was going on. Or until I got the feeling back in my toes.
“We should give her that option,” Meg said. She sounded frantic, her voice constantly changing volume. “She could—”
“She won’t,” Harper said. I felt the vibration of her stamping her foot against the play structure. “You know she won’t. She’ll tear him apart for this. God, you know what she’s like.”
What she’s like? I thought, my hands crumpling my comic. Your best friend? Loving and nerdy if a little opinionated?
“I know,” Meg said. There was a thump and her voice was suddenly closer. I guessed that she’d sat down. “But maybe she could see that he’s, you know … perfect. I mean, no offense to Cornell—”
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You Page 11