Check Me Out

by Becca Wilhite

  When she turned away, I saw her shirt. It was a feminine version of his black T-shirt with “I Love Your Pickup Lines” printed across the perfectly fitted front.

  Had he sent her that shirt in the mail? Had it arrived at her work in an un-signed package?

  I hated her. I envied her.

  I hated her. I hated me.

  Cocoa was a definite no at this point. I turned around and started to sneak out the way I’d come in, but from somewhere below the humiliation and self-loathing came a tiny spark of self-respect. I tapped the guy in front of me and said, “Sorry, excuse me, I need to ask a question.”

  Mac jumped when he heard my voice. “Hey, Greta,” he said, his syrupy voice all low and insincere. His shirt flashed today’s pickup line at me. I ignored it. He did a tiny toss of his perfect hair, though it looked a whole lot more staged and less spontaneous tonight.

  The girl stopped on her way to the red chair. I could feel her watching Mac talk to me. “This will only take a second,” I said, but I wasn’t sure who I was trying to reassure.

  I knew before I said it that my words would sound stupid, scripted, trite. But I didn’t know what else I could say. “Know what today is?”

  Mac sucked in a gasp. “Is it your birthday?” He stood up straighter and said, “You get a free cookie.” His smile was perfect. Gorgeous. Insincere.

  I felt my eyebrows come together in confusion. “Seriously?”

  “Excuse me,” the guy who was now behind me said. “I would like to order some coffee.”

  I turned around. “Pardon me. Just one minute.” I looked at Mac again. “Not my birthday. Election day.”

  Mac looked relieved. “Oh, yeah. Right. Your little library thing.”

  The words went into my ears and registered in my brain and settled there.

  My little library thing.

  My little obsession.

  My little job. My little career.

  It seemed so obvious now. None of it mattered to him. And if it didn’t matter to him, I didn’t matter to him. Not when it meant so much to me.

  “I’m done here,” I said.

  He looked confused. “You didn’t order anything.”

  Seriously? “I mean, I’m done with us.”

  “No. Wait,” he said in a soft voice.

  But then—

  I watched him glance over at the girl in the red chair. Nail in the coffin. I shook my head and turned away. “Bye.”

  I didn’t flounce out of the room. I didn’t storm. I didn’t stomp. I just turned around and walked out the door like I’d done a thousand times before. But this time it felt like the right thing to do. And final.

  My hands tingled. I found myself blinking. A lot. Was I going to cry? Blink, blink. I waited for the crosswalk light. Blink, blink. I told my eyes to stop it. Stay open, I told them. They disobeyed. I held my lids up with my fingers, but only for a minute, because I felt—and possibly looked—like a lunatic. But no tears came. I walked a few blocks before I looked at my phone. Nothing. Mac hadn’t apologized. He didn’t explain. I texted Will.

  He replied right away.

  Those words felt so protective, so concerned. I wondered again if I’d cry.

  Oh.

  I rubbed my face with the hand not holding the phone.

  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A family walked out of the guitar store and almost crashed into me. I didn’t care.

  I shoved the phone into my pocket and started jogging home.

  Chapter 34

  I turned on a news radio station as soon as I woke up on Wednesday morning. I listened for stories about the library while I scrolled through my phone reading the local news. Oh. Stories. So many stories. Yes. Stories that carried photos of my signs. Stories that pointed to my signs as the reason the news was good, the reason the bond passed. Franklin was getting a new library. A big, expensive, modern, book-filled library.

  We won.

  I tweeted “Way to go, Franklin voters! Thanks for the new library. #SaveFranklinLibrary #Saved”

  We won.

  So why did I want to throw up?

  Will knocked on the door with a take-out hot chocolate and a chocolate cake donut in his hand. He congratulated me on the bond passing, and then sat at the kitchen table with me, speed-talking about absolutely nothing while I pinched up tiny bites of the donut. I kept nodding. He kept talking. He never mentioned Mac. I never spoke at all.

  After about fifteen minutes, he put his hand on my hand. I looked at his face. He wrapped his fingers around mine and squeezed. “Want me to stay? I can get a sub.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can do it.”

  “Which part?”

  I breathed in and out a few times. “Every part. I’m going to tell her.”

  He pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I’m proud of you. You can handle today.”

  I nodded. He was right. I could.

  Entering the library, I looked for the marks on the lot from the burning barrel. It had only been two and a half days, but there was no remaining sign of the “protest.”

  It was still a few minutes before ten. Julie hadn’t unlocked the front door yet. Inside, I stood on the patrons’ side of the circulation desk. I hadn’t stood there to ask a question in years. The whole desk arrangement looked small and shabby from this side.

  “I need to talk to you.” There was no way Julie could have heard me. No sound even came out. But I did make the shapes of the words. “Julie?” I tried again. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure, Greta. What do you need?” She almost raised her head from the computer monitor in front of her.

  “In your office, please?” I didn’t wait for her to say yes. Trudging behind the tables, I walked into her office and held the door open for her.

  She didn’t say anything. She came in and sat on her desk, facing the chair I should have sat in. I stood, back against the closed door.

  “I know what happened. I mean, everyone knows what happened, but I know how it happened. I know why. And it’s my fault.” Breathe, I reminded myself.

  Still she didn’t speak. So I kept going. “The signs were my idea. I had them made. I put them up around town. I thought it would be . . .” Helpful? Funny? Effective? Useful? There was no good way to finish that sentence. I shifted my legs, which were tingling. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, the barrel thing, the burning thing? That was me, too. I didn’t mean for it to be like that. Well, I think maybe I did mean it, but I didn’t recognize how scary it would be. Maybe I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. It was legal, though. I got a permit to protest, just in case. And they weren’t really books.”

  Her posture looked like she had turned to stone. I saw no emotion in her face at all.

  “And I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”

  She looked at her fingers for a long time. Then she said, “I need you to go home now.”

  “What?” I felt like all the air had been shoved out of me.

  She looked at me again. “Thank you for telling me. You need to go now.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “No.” Her voice was professional and emotionless. “No. Don’t come back until we contact you.”

  Chapter 35

  It was a long day at home. A long, lonely day. Late in the afternoon, my phone buzzed. Will.

  He clicked off, and a few minutes later, I saw his car pull into my parking lot. I watched from the window as he walked slowly to the door. He looked awful—pale and slumpy.

  “What happened?” I asked, opening the door and pulling his arm. He walked to the couch and sat.

  “I went to the library after school to talk to you.”

  “Yeah. They sent me home.”

  “So you told her?” His voice was quiet, lik
e he wasn’t sure he was allowed to have figured it out.

  I nodded. “I said I would tell her. So I did.”

  “I know. I wasn’t sure you could . . . you know.” I knew. He looked at the floor and then back at me. This time his voice was barely more than a whisper. “Are you fired?”

  I shrugged.

  We sat there, not talking, not looking at each other, for at least two minutes. I picked my feet up and wrapped my arms around my knees.

  He took a big breath. “I can’t do it anymore.”

  I waited a couple of seconds for clarification. He didn’t offer any.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t help Mac.”

  I hadn’t given Will any more information about walking out on Mac. I figured Mac would tell all the details of my not coming back or calling or anything if he wanted Will to know. I rubbed my hands along my arms to keep them warm. “Help with what?”

  “I’m not helping him get you back. I’m done telling him what to say.” He folded onto himself, his chin hitting his chest. He looked pathetic. I felt pathetic. What a pair.

  I waited for him to elaborate, explain, something. He didn’t. “I don’t get it.”

  He picked up a pillow from the couch and squeezed it. “I know I started this, but I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m not doing it anymore. I won’t do it anymore.”

  Frustration built. “Did I walk in on the middle of a conversation? Why do I not understand you?”

  “You understand me. It’s Mac who can’t understand.”

  Now I was annoyed. “No, actually, I really don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve had an unpleasant day. In fact, I may have been fired. And now you’re speaking a foreign language. Don’t be bugged that I don’t understand your code words.”

  He sat up. “I’m not helping him look and sound smart anymore.”

  I shook my head. Not making sense yet.

  “He needs me to keep this up if you’re going to make it work, and I’m done making it happen.” He gestured between me and the empty space on the couch, as if Mac were sitting there.

  I still didn’t understand. “Keep what up?”

  “Making you like him. Earning your respect for his brilliant mind. You clearly already respect his face and his hair and his—” He paused, like he wasn’t sure what to say. “His shape.” He waved his hand in front of him like he was indicating Mac’s body.

  “Gross.”

  Will laughed like it was the least funny thing he’d ever heard. When he spoke again, it was a little louder, a little more firm. “There will be no more depth coming from Mac. Because I’m done telling him what to say.”

  “There’s no more anything. It’s over.” I wanted to say it loud and clear, but it came out muttered and muted.

  He kept going, like he hadn’t heard. “He’s not going to send you any more poetry.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” He looked hopeful, almost happy.

  “I kind of told you.” I tried not to sound whiny.

  “What did you tell me?”

  I put my head on the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “He doesn’t care, remember? It wasn’t very long ago.”

  “Of course I remember that. But you didn’t say it was over. Over-over?”

  “There’s this other girl.” I managed to say it without any tone. It only sounded like heartbreak on the inside.

  Will moved forward to the edge of the couch in what would have been a leap to his feet if Will was built to leap to his feet. “What? Who? For how long?”

  I put my head on my knees. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He made me sit up. “Seriously. How long?”

  “Officially yesterday. Unofficially? Who knows?”

  At that point, Will said a few things about his cousin that even I hadn’t had time to think.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  He almost laughed. “The guy’s a complete—” He stopped. “What’s the last thing he said to you? The last text he sent?”

  “Please, Will,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “I can’t do this right now.” That seemed to convince him I was not okay.

  He cleared his throat. “Has Mac ever said anything that would make you think he deserved you? That he was good enough for you?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  I thought he’d stop. He didn’t. “I want you to tell me if he talked to you.”

  The sigh wouldn’t stay inside. “Of course. He always said charming, sweet, clever, romantic things. Every day.”

  “Anything longer than a sentence or two?”

  “What are you saying?” I was getting tired. Of everything. Including this dumb conversation.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes. Totally. His texts were almost always long and amazing and thoughtful and romantic and perfect.” I was starting to rethink my decision to end things. What’s a little flirting with a pretty girl when you put all the rest of Mac in the balance? So he didn’t care about the things that mattered to me. So what?

  Will handed me his phone.

  I took it and held it in my hand. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  He reached over, pushed the icon for texts, and clicked on Mac’s name.

  I read the last one.

  He scrolled up. I wasn’t sure what I was reading. It sure appeared that Will had sent some extremely adorable texts to Mac as well as a few bossy ones, telling him to do this, go there, try this, say that. But then it started to look familiar.

  I looked at Will, but he stared at the floor.

  The sound I made right then might have been a laugh, but it certainly did not sound happy. Not at all.

  I scrolled through dozens of familiar texts. So many words I’d read before. So much I’d sighed over, swooning like a stupid little girl.

  I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I kept reading all the words. Message after message that Will had written and then sent to Mac, who’d then sent them to me. And I’d had no idea.

  No idea at all.

  Openmouthed, I stared from the phone in my hand to the guy who was supposed to be my best friend. I couldn’t help but feel deceived.

  “You wrote these.” It wasn’t a question.

  He nodded anyway.

  “All the sweet, romantic, poetic things that Mac sent to me, you wrote.”

  He nodded again, but wouldn’t look at me.

  “And the smart things he’d say out loud? Did you send him those, too?”

  I heard him sigh, but now I couldn’t look at him. “Let’s assume so.”

  “So what you’re telling me is, he never thought any of those things about me.”

  He shook his head. “He thinks you’re beautiful. Obviously,” Will said to the floor.

  That was the least of my concerns. “Shut up.”

  He did.

  I could feel heat coming off the back of my neck in waves. Breathing became more difficult than usual, as if my lungs had shrunk. “Did you tell him what to say to me from the beginning?”

  He had the grace to look ashamed. But he didn’t deny it.

  “Rilke?”

  He almost laughed. “Do you really think Mac reads Rilke?”

  My heart felt bruised. “In management?”

  He shrugged. “You have to admit, you are kind of a snob. You’d never have moved forward so fast if he’d told you he worked in a café.”

  I would have liked to deny the accusation. I couldn’t.

  My brain pounded against my skull. Hands shaking, I whispered, “Idiot.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Will reached for his phone. “It was a stupid idea.”

  I didn’t give it to him. I wasn’t ready to release the proof of
how I’d been fooled. “Not you idiot. Me idiot. This is what happens when I ask for what I want?”

  His voice came out quiet and even. “Not always. Sometimes you get polka-dot socks.”

  Not amused. “Stop it. Stop. Do not make fun of me right now. Even though I am the biggest idiot in the world, I need you to not mock me. Nobody else would have been fooled by this stupid game, but I couldn’t see what was staring me in the face. Or talking in my ear. Or on my phone.”

  His hands held his head, elbows on knees. It looked like he was assuming crash position. “No, Greta. You couldn’t have known.”

  “If I wasn’t such an idiot, I could have guessed.” I finally pushed up off the couch and started pacing the room.

  “You’re not an idiot.” Will sounded so tired.

  I stomped across my tiny living room. “So, what was this, then? You were looking for a pity project?”

  Still on the couch, he shook his head. “I have never pitied you. You can’t pity what you admire.”

  “Stop it. This was a project. Admit it. You wanted to know if you could make some dumb girl swoon? You were trying it out on me? Like I was your stupid canvas for some experimental art project? ‘I wonder if Greta would believe these words if someone else was saying them.’ That’s awesome. Thanks so much for making me look like a fool.” I knew I should stop. Somehow I couldn’t stop.

  I threw his phone onto the couch. It bounced. He ignored it.

  He rubbed his hands through his hair. “You never looked foolish. You never looked anything but happy. I just wanted you to know what it felt like to have everything you wanted.”

  I had never hated Will before, but I was starting to now. “This was you being clever for my benefit? It’s all about me? Yeah, right.”

  His inhale took forever. “I did it because I wanted to, and because you wanted it, too. I didn’t expect it to turn out this way.” He sounded both pathetic and strong. It was uncomfortable.