I pulled the hat off my head and clutched it tight. “So you told her and not me?”
“She figured it out.”
“Great,” I said, squeezing the hat. “Not only do you think you can’t tell me things, but I can’t even figure them out on my own.”
Grace shook her head. “That’s not it. I just wanted to make it easier for you.”
“We’re friends. Best friends. I want you guys to be happy. I don’t want you hiding things from me. How could you think I wouldn’t have wanted to hear about Derrick?”
She grabbed my hands. “I’m sorry. Terri told me to tell you. I just thought … I wasn’t thinking.”
“Do you think I’m that bad of a friend?” I was holding back tears. I couldn’t believe she didn’t tell me. “I would’ve been excited for you.”
Grace squeezed her fingers around mine. “I know, and you’re a great friend. I was trying to be one, too. I wanted to be there for you.”
“It’s true,” Terri said. “She knew you’d ask questions and want to hear everything. She was afraid you would go home and think about what you were missing.”
That feeling when Marc dumped me? This was a close second.
“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “You have to forgive me. Please?”
I nodded.
Despite standing in a room full of people, I suddenly felt very alone. “I’m going to get some air,” I said. Then I ran out of the party.
Chapter 34
I sat down on the steps outside Gretchen’s house. I didn’t feel like being at the party anymore, but I couldn’t leave. Terri was my ride.
I pulled my jacket tighter around me.
“Cam?”
I thought it would be Grace or Terri, but it was Avery, coming to my rescue once again. Her cousin was with her. “I saw you run out here—are you okay?” she asked.
I shook my head. “But I will be.”
“What can I do to help? Do you want to get out of here? Do you need a ride?”
I smiled at her. Despite being dressed as a cheerleader, she really was Wonder Woman. “You are not leaving this party for me. I’m just going to call my parents; they’ll come get me.”
“We can take you. Ty only had Diet Coke—he’s totally fine to drive. Right?”
He nodded.
Now I was ruining Avery’s night, too? I really was a sucky friend. “No, you’ve been talking about this party all week. You’re not missing it.”
“I could take you,” Ty said. “I’m ready to go. You’d be doing me a favor. Avery, too. She’s had to babysit me all night, and I’m pretty sure it’s kept a few guys from coming over to talk to her.”
I wasn’t sure if he was just being nice or if he meant it.
“Come on.” He held out his hand to help me up. “I was going to bail on this thing soon anyway.”
I took his hand and stood. “How will you get home?” I asked Avery.
“Terri saw me come out here. She texted me. I just wrote her back. I told her my cousin was driving you home, and she said she’d take me and Nikki. Okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Ty turned to Avery. “If something happens or she’s drinking, text me. I’ll come get you.”
Avery squeezed his arm. “Sometimes he goes into older cousin-slash-brother mode.”
“Gotta look out for my biggest fan,” he said, and gave Avery a hug goodbye. I did, too, and a few minutes later I was directing Ty to my house.
“You know,” he said, “if you want to talk about it to someone who’s not involved in the situation, or to take your mind off things, I have a few hours to kill. We could grab something to eat.”
I swear Avery and her family were like my guardian angels, swooping in when I was at my lowest. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. It’s for me, too. My other options are going back to a party and trailing around my cousin some more or sitting alone at Avery’s house. Her parents and mine went to a movie.”
“If you really want to do something,” I said, “I do have one idea.”
“Yeah?”
“We could watch Mary Poppins.”
His face broke into a grin. “Sounds perfect.”
“Cam?” my mom said when I opened the door. “You’re home early.” Her eyes widened and her hand went to the pore strip on her nose when she saw Ty. She had one on her forehead and another on her chin, too. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had company. Hello.”
I wanted to ask if that was what she’d worn to scare away trick-or-treaters who’d come to the door, but I didn’t want to embarrass her more than I already had. I really should have given her a heads-up that I was bringing someone over. “Mom this is Ty, Avery’s cousin. Is it okay if we watch Mary Poppins?”
“Sure.” She looked like she had a million questions. Not that I blamed her. It must have seemed odd that I’d ditched a Halloween party with my friends to come home to watch a children’s movie with a stranger. Whatever she was thinking, whether it was about Ty, me, or her pore strips, she didn’t say anything. She just went back to her room, which I appreciated. It helped that Jemma was spending the night at a friend’s, so I wasn’t going to get the third degree from her, either.
I got us some drinks and popcorn and set the movie up.
“Cam?” Ty asked.
I’d spaced out for a minute. “Sorry, my mind is in a million places.”
He looked at me, waiting for me to go on, and I did. Everything that had happened poured out of me. “I hate that they wouldn’t tell me. We always tell each other things. Since forever.”
“You go way back?” he asked.
I nodded. “Nine years ago, I really wanted to be in Girl Scouts, but the troop met Tuesdays after school, and I had Hebrew school. Everybody in my class was in the troop, except Grace. She had Korean lessons that day. We both felt left out.
“To cheer us up, Mrs. Kim and my mom decided that after our respective classes, we should all go out for ice cream. A few months later, Terri moved down the street from Grace. Mrs. Kim suggested she join us so she could get to know some kids in town. We wound up becoming best friends.”
I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose. “I mean, what kind of person do they think I am? Don’t they know I want them to be happy?”
“It sucks,” he said. “But I do think they know that. I think they were worried about you and thought they were doing the right thing—that they were helping you.”
Maybe he was right, but I still hated how they’d done it. Keeping things from me wasn’t the way to help me. Marc had lied to me; I didn’t need my friends to do it, too.
“Are you going to talk to them? It could help.”
I wiped my nose. “Yeah, but I need a little time. I need to calm down.” It hurt that they thought I worried more about my love life than I cared about them.
I turned on the movie, and for the next two-plus hours, I was able to get swept up in the world of Mary Poppins.
“Okay,” Ty said when it ended. “You were right. That was great. Dick Van Dyke was brilliant.”
“Told ya,” I said, already feeling a little better. Some “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” would do that. “Have you heard the Mary Poppins theory?” I asked him.
“No.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, waiting for me to explain.
“They say she was Bert’s nanny when he was a kid. It’s why he knows all about her magic and the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. He even says something about learning it when he was ‘just a lad.’”
He sat back. “Oh my God. That makes so much sense. I never would have thought of that. If anything, I thought there was a romance brewing between the two.”
“Yeah, the writer of the Mary Poppins books actually wanted Disney to remove any traces of romance from the movie.”
He lifted his hands to his temples and pulled them away as if his head were exploding. “This is going to make me take a whole new look at the character—it could change the enti
re dynamic. You just gave me a lot to think about.”
“Well, you did the same for me. Thank you for listening to me vent about my friends.”
“Of course.”
I walked him to the door, and we said goodbye.
“Good luck with everything,” Ty said. “And just so you know, from what I can tell, you are a good friend. Avery wouldn’t hang out with anyone who wasn’t.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I watched him get in the car, and then I went up to my room. I really hoped he was right.
Chapter 35
Grace and Terri had messaged me a lot over the weekend, but I kept telling them I just needed time. They said they understood, but it seemed that understanding had run out now that it was Monday morning and we were due back in school.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been thinking about them just because I wasn’t talking to them. They were pretty much the only things on my mind. I kept playing what had happened over and over, trying to figure out how we’d gotten to a place where they felt they couldn’t be honest with me. Between that and putting the finishing touches on the signs and program for Terri’s art show, my brain was filled with a twenty-four-hour Grace-and-Terri news cycle all weekend.
I stared out the window of the school bus, watching the trees whip by, trying to figure out what to say before writing them back. I was at a loss, but I responded anyway.
They were too late.
Whatever they were going to say, they changed their minds, and I was relieved. I wasn’t ready for a real talk, and I meant what I’d said—I wanted the art show to take center stage, not our issues. Obviously, the hurt I felt over what happened hadn’t gone away yet, but I still wanted to make sure everything went smoothly tomorrow night. It was important to me that Terri go to the school of her dreams. I wanted that for her, and I wanted to help make it a reality. For now, that meant not talking about what had happened between us. I was not risking one of us saying something we’d regret, or emotions getting out of hand. It was better to wait, to just put everything off until the show was over.
The bus pulled up to the school, and I trudged off with the rest of the students. If anyone thought it was unusual that I’d taken the bus, they didn’t let on. They didn’t even seem to notice me; it was like I was invisible. It was how I hoped to stay for the rest of the day.
I avoided my locker, afraid that my friends would be waiting for me, steered clear of hallways I knew they took, and waited until the last possible minute to get to any class that we shared. I felt Terri staring me down first period in statistics, but I was careful to never fully look in her direction.
It was like dodging Marc all over again, only worse. This was playing keep-away from my two very best friends.
They were waiting for me at the end of last period, hovering by Ms. Jackson’s class. I accidentally looked straight at them. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen them, so I gave a little wave and a meek smile.
“Catch you guys tomorrow night,” I said, not stopping to chat.
If they tried to respond, I couldn’t tell; the halls filled pretty quickly, and I let myself get caught in the shuffle toward the exit.
I felt empty. Not having Grace and Terri to talk to was a weird feeling. One more day. I could do this. The art show was almost here, and then we’d all talk, or fight, or whatever it took to figure things out.
I got back onto the bus. I’d taken it more today than I had all year.
“Cam?”
My head jerked at the sound of my name.
“Lissi?”
“Hi,” she said.
I took the seat behind her. “Hi. I didn’t know you were on this bus.”
“Yeah, I take it when Ma—I mean, when I don’t have a ride home.”
I would have thought the idea of Marc giving her rides, something he’d always done for me, would have made me feel sad, but it didn’t. I didn’t feel anything. Not about that, anyway.
“I’ve never seen you on here,” she continued.
“Terri and Grace usually have me covered on getting to and from school.”
“Nice,” she said, and then there was a long awkward pause as the bus started up. There was a lot of talking around us, but Lissi and I just sat there.
“I’m on Greenwillow Boulevard,” she offered, breaking our silence.
Oh. She lived close by, super close by. “I’m two streets over, on Quietbrook.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Yeah.” I’m pretty sure my face matched her surprised expression. “Who knew? I guess this will make it easy to work on the yearbook.”
She gave me a tentative smile. “You, um, mentioned getting together this week, right? Now that volleyball’s over, my schedule is a lot emptier, so just let me know when.”
I had told her that. I shrugged my shoulders. There was no time like the present. “If you’re free today, you can come over whenever.”
Lissi’s nose scrunched ever so slightly as she considered my offer, and then she nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
Lissi and I had just made official plans to hang out.
What was going on? I was ignoring my best friends and hanging out with my one-time archnemesis? I might as well have been in an episode of Stranger Things, because I definitely felt like I was living in the Upside Down.
Chapter 36
Lissi and I planned to meet at my house after we both finished dinner, and right at seven thirty there was a knock on the front door.
My sister answered it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re her, aren’t you?” Jemma asked, blocking the entryway.
Oh no.
“What?” Lissi asked.
“I saw you on GroupIt. You’re the one who stole Marc.”
“Jemma!” I screamed, racing down the stairs. “Go.” I pushed her out of the way, but that didn’t keep her from staring Lissi down. This night was off to a great start.
Jemma peered out from behind me. “Why are you here? Do you really think Cam wants anything to do with you? Get a clue.”
“Mom!” I screamed as I glowered at my sister. “Will you please get your daughter?”
“Jemma, come here,” my mom called out.
My sister backed out of the room, but not without making a bigger spectacle. She took two fingers and pointed to her eyes and then turned them on Lissi, warning her that she was watching her.
Mortifying. There really wasn’t any other word.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Lissi. “Please ignore my sister. I do.”
I knew Jemma thought she was protecting me, but she’d just made an already awkward night even worse.
“I can go,” Lissi said. She tugged a piece of her hair, circling it around her finger so tightly, I thought she was going to lose circulation.
I shook my head. “No, I want you here. I can use the help. I pulled up the pages you sent onto my computer,” I told her, trying to pretend the incident with my sister hadn’t happened. “Why don’t we go take a look?”
Lissi followed me upstairs.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked, even though any attempt at being a gracious host would be overshadowed by what had happened at the front door. “Soda, water, snack?”
“No, I’m good,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
Yeah, this wasn’t weird at all.
“Have a seat, make yourself comfortable.” I brought up an extra chair so that we could both sit at the computer.
I caught her looking at my wall of pictures. There were still a few with Marc in them, some group shots that I couldn’t bring myself to destroy. When she realized I was watching her, she changed her focus to the computer.
“This shot is my favorite,” she said, pointing to one of Avery mid-flip during the rally, “but the lighting is off.”
“I can fix it,” I said, opening Photoshop. A couple of clicks and the picture was perfect.
“Oh, wow, you’re really good at that,�
�� she said.
“Thanks.”
We swapped out a couple of images, fixed the color on some others, but we didn’t talk much. When we had something to say, it was about the work, but even that conversation was stilted.
“Okay,” Lissi said, after about ten minutes of pure tension. “Are we going to talk about it or what?”
“What do you mean?”
She gave me a look. I knew exactly what she was talking about—the elephant in the room.
“What’s there to talk about?” I asked. We were getting along. Well enough to maintain a working relationship, anyway. Why rock the boat?
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why I wanted to work on the yearbook, or what happened with Marc? If the situation was reversed, I’d have some questions.”
I had to press my hands into my legs to stop them from shaking. Stupid nervous tic. The truth was, there were things I wanted to know, but I didn’t really want to get the information from Lissi. Would she be honest?
Questions swirled through my head. Marc had never answered what I’d asked him the night we broke up, and I did want to know some things. Curiosity got the best of me. I started with an easy ask. “Why did you agree to work on the yearbook?”
Lissi shrugged. “I like taking pictures and playing around with layout. I was supposed to be doing it at my old school, and I guess it felt like a way of getting my life back. Moving here at the start of senior year wasn’t my choice. When I found out it was you in charge of the yearbook, I wasn’t going to join. But then Ms. Jackson approached me about it again, and I don’t know. I’d already given up so much moving here. I didn’t want to miss out on something else. And if I’m honest, a little part of me was curious.”
“Curious?”
“About you. You went out with Marc, Grace talked about you all the time—so did the others on the team. Even the soccer guys told stories about you. Good ones,” she clarified.
I thought they had forgotten all about me. When Marc dumped me, it was like they did, too.
“When did you two meet?” I blurted out. “You and Marc.” That was what I really wanted to know.
Finding Mr. Better-Than-You Page 18