Claire dropped me off at my house after practice, concern etched in her eyebrows. “Are you okay?” she asked, which was a ridiculous question for her to be asking me.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I returned, already reaching for the handle of her car.
“Your brother died and then your best friend slept with your boyfriend, for starters.”
I fell back against her passenger seat with a laugh. “Oh. That.”
“It’s okay for things not to be normal right now, is all I’m saying.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears, checking herself in the mirror. “If you need to, like, retreat or whatever.”
I stared out the window, thinking of the test Adrienne had shoved in my hand Monday. “I think I’m feeling more like myself than I have in a while,” I said, the thought breaking me a little. Then I turned back to her, smiling, because she was one good fucking thing that I still had. “But what about you? Things are better this week, right? Less bullshit.”
She held up her hand for a minute, and I thought she was going to tell me to leave it all alone but then, instead, she said, “Yes, it’s all been properly swept under the rug. Coxie broke up with me and got back together with me this week. My parents are satisfied it was all a misunderstanding. Ellie can bang Thomas Cruz to her heart’s content and continue to let her eyes glaze right over me.” She stared straight ahead out the windshield. “Everything can go back to normal.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, unsure how to answer. I saw the normal that she so clearly didn’t want stretched out in front of her. I felt that so much with Claire, sensed the bone-deep ache that was always haunting me. I wanted her to say it out loud, that Buckley was nothing. I wanted her to run away with me, but Buckley wasn’t nothing to Claire.
There’s so much more in the world that’s not here, Claire. Let’s go find it.
But that was more belief than I could find in myself right now. With the test in my bag and Adrienne’s delicate fingers wrapped around my neck.
So I got out and watched her drive away.
I trudge into the kitchen now, feeling defeat in every curve of my body. Mom is working at the kitchen table, as she does quite often, some papers gathered around her. She looks up when I come in, her face quizzical. “Bad week?”
I throw my cheer bag on the ground in response. “What’s for dinner?” I ask, making my way to the fridge and pulling it open like a meal will smack me in the face. I figure I’ll take whatever is available to my room and study my SAT booklet for the rest of the night. Whit was expecting me to have some test questions done tomorrow because he is the most demanding sucker on the planet.
I flinch at the thought, hating myself for letting it exist.
“There’s nothing,” Mom says, while I’m living out my own personal hell. “Why don’t we go out? Want a burger? I’m craving a burger. We stay in too much, don’t you think? Let’s go.”
I turn around, shocked, as the fridge closes behind me, and she has hopped up from the computer like her work couldn’t matter less to her. She’s picking up her keys, basically ready to leave right then, and I am staring at her, shell-shocked.
No, I want to say. I do not want to go get a burger with you. There’s so clearly some therapist or parenting book behind this, that I can do nothing but balk. But she’s standing there in front of me, eye to eye, with an almost hopeful look on her face, and there’s nothing but dread and comparative questions in my future.
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”
And that’s how we end up at Ellington’s, the greasy café right on the outskirts of town, heading toward Central. Ellington’s is small enough to be called cramped, and all of the furniture is from no earlier than 1977, but people drive a hundred miles for an Ellington burger. On a weekend, the wait is typically over an hour, and people mostly just skulk outside around picnic tables, taking pictures with the five-foot-tall multicolor ceramic cow.
Tonight, though, as if a higher power is on our side, Mom and I sit down at Ellington’s in fifteen minutes. “Oh, the Chipper Burger,” she reads off the menu. “That’s new.”
“‘Hit a home run with the Chipper Burger!’” I quote.
Mom smiles, flipping the one-page menu over.
It’s nice. It’s weird, but it’s nice because I’m too busy thinking about how weird it is to think of anything else. And I actually appreciate that. I appreciate she did that for me.
Then I spot Daniel Smith and some of his friends at the table across from us, and my heart sinks. It’s not that I care about Daniel, or whatever, but school seemed so far away for half a minute. There’s no escaping your demons in Buckley.
“What’s wrong, Olivia?” Mom asks, and my head snaps back to her. She has put down her menu and is watching me intently.
I shake my head, not really meeting her eye. “Just saw someone I know from school,” I tell her. I hope Daniel doesn’t see me back.
“Not just now,” Mom says. “This whole week. It’s been worse, hasn’t it?”
I never thought she noticed. I shrug.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she says. “But we can, if you want to. How’s Ethan?”
I suck in a breath. Right. That. “Ethan and I broke up. I broke up with Ethan,” I say. Half the town must know that. Hell, probably more. But she doesn’t, because I haven’t told her.
“Oh, Olivia,” she starts to say, and I shrug her off again.
“I met someone else,” I say. I’d never planned to tell her the Whit lie, but it was the easiest defense. The moment is mercifully interrupted by our bubble-gum-chewing waitress arriving to take our order. I get the Chipper Burger.
I stare off past the waitress as Mom orders. The café splits into an open kitchen toward the back with a narrow hallway leading to the bathroom. Some guys are getting out from the last table in the back, chatting and laughing easily with each other. As our waitress goes to take her leave, I realize I know one of the boys.
Oh, shit.
I glance over at Daniel’s table wildly, and he averts his eyes so that I know he was looking. Whit and his brother are getting closer, and I am panicking because this was not how anything was supposed to go ever. The absolute last thing I could afford to do was act like a total freak in front of Daniel and have it get back to Adrienne.
I hop out of my booth with forced enthusiasm. “Whit!” I call, right as he reaches our table and I am staring at him and he is staring at me so I wrap my arms tightly around his neck.
“Liv,” he says, and the nickname rolls so easily off his lips, the same one Mom and Ryan always used. I’ve always been O to everyone at school. Ade and O and a world of trouble.
“So weird,” I say, hearing the frantic note in my own voice. “I was just talking about you. Mom, this is Whit DuRant, my boyfriend.”
Mom’s eyes go wide at the sight of Whit in his khaki shorts and button-down white shirt. He extends a hand that she takes. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Clayton,” Whit says, not really missing a beat. But now Cason is looking at him as if he’s completely lost his mind.
“And his brother, Cason,” I introduce quickly. “He goes to Duke.”
Cason’s face clears completely as he smiles at Mom, and then he turns, grinning, to me. “So good to see you again, Olivia! I’m so glad tutoring is going so well for you.”
Whit smiles wider at me than is strictly necessary.
“Whit’s been tutoring you as well?” Mom asks. God, please let me disappear right here.
“Just helping me get ready for the SATs,” I say. “He’s number two in our class. Has a bunch of scholarship offers.”
“To golf,” Whit says modestly.
“Twenty-five percent scholarship to golf. The other seventy-five percent is all coming from academics,” Cason says, a note of pride in his voice. Whit looks away, rolling his eyes.
“It’s so nice to meet you both,” Mom says and I can tell she means it.
“Well…,” Whit starts, glancing between Cason
and me, “we better get going. Cason is just home for the weekend, but we had to get some Ellington’s.”
“Of course,” I say, not really sure where to put my hands. It’s not like I hadn’t dated Ethan forever, not that I don’t know how this goes. But everything had been so natural, so predetermined. There is no Whit and me as a couple, no us, so I don’t know how to be. So I do the first damn thing that pops into my mind. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him down to pop a kiss on his lips. “Text me later,” I say.
His face is still dangerously close to mine, colored in surprise. “Of course,” he says, so low only I can hear him. Then he pulls away, and he and Cason are off. I slide back into the booth across from Mom.
“Whit DuRant?” she asks. “And you’ve been doing extra work for the SAT?”
I nod.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sigh deeply. “That whole coping thing where I don’t like to talk about it,” I say.
She looks behind, at where Whit was standing. “He seems very nice.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” I don’t want this. I don’t want her to be here to see any of this, to be drawn into this bullshit. I want to keep it simple, in and out. “It’s not serious, though. He’s kind of full of himself.”
Mom’s, like, half smiling about it. Which seems like the exact opposite reaction she should have when I imply I’m screwing around with some boy. “What?” I demand.
“I was always that way with boys when I was younger, too,” she says. “Kept it all very casual to keep from admitting when I had feelings for someone.”
I roll my eyes. “This isn’t like that.”
“It’s fine if it is,” she says, like she’s making some sort of damn progress with me. Like I am a task she can conquer.
“He wanted to slum it to get his brother’s attention and that’s what this is. I’m just another science project for him,” I snap.
She purses her lips, that look wiped off her face. “Olivia, I’m sure it’s not—”
I stand up from the table. I can’t listen to her tell me how alike we are when we have nothing in common at all. “Drop it,” I answer. “I need to go outside. Adrienne wants me to call her.” I head for the exit, hating the feel of her eyes on me as I go.
34
When I go to see Mr. Doolittle on Friday morning, something bursts out of me before I can stop it. “What do you think about relationships?” I ask him.
His shock at this breakthrough is evident. “I—I think they can be very complicated.”
I nod like that’s remotely illuminating. “No shit.”
The victory fades away as fast. “Miss Clayton.”
I see Ethan in my mind then. The way he waited for me after class with a crooked smile. “I think—it’s funny, isn’t it? How one day this person is your best friend that you do everything with and the next he’s some stranger you don’t even wave at in the hall. It goes from everything to nothing in the blink of an eye. Like with your wife. Is that right?”
He bristles.
“And then, you can just, like, create relationships out of thin air, you know? It goes from stranger to sex like that.” I stare off.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Doolittle asks.
I look back at him. “Sex,” I say, letting the word hang in the air. Shocking in Buckley, where everyone’s a virgin until they’re pregnant.
“I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it,” he says gently.
I don’t want to be gentle. “I mean, it’s one of the basic building blocks of life. Nothing wrong with it, right?”
He treads carefully. “Well…”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I mean, for wanting it, so I don’t get why someone would just say no. Colleges don’t look at your sex transcript, do they?”
He is sweating. “Of course not.”
“Whit’s helping me,” I say. “With SAT prep. Thanks.”
“It’s natural,” he continues, face all red, “when dealing with loss, to seek other types of comfort.”
“Sex.”
He dies on the spot. “Yes. For one.”
“You’re saying it’s not healthy?”
“I’m saying—” To my surprise, he actually chills out for a moment, sitting up a little straighter, fixing his tie. “That it may be more important to make an emotional connection than a physical one. That may be what you’re missing.”
I’m not missing anything. Except sex. “He still doesn’t like me, which doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Mr. DuRant?”
I nod.
“Olivia, Mr. DuRant means well, whether or not he lets on. But you should be careful with him.”
“He might hurt me?” I ask, amused and almost touched by his concern.
“You might hurt him.”
* * *
An hour after Mr. Doolittle says this to me, I’m standing at Whit’s locker about to plant a stolen answer key.
I stand there and Mr. Doolittle’s words dig right under my skin. He’s no different from Adrienne. He thinks I might hurt Whit. In spite of everything, in spite of everything I’ve lost, I am still a weapon, not a person. A danger to real people—a bomb that could blow up at any moment, and everyone is a potential target. I can’t imagine what I’d have to do for my feelings to count. I can’t imagine ever being wounded enough for anyone here to care.
I can’t be dragged through it all again. I can’t be reviled anymore. It hurts too damn much. I’ll have to find another way to stop Adrienne.
This is the only way out.
Whit doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t need me. He hates me.
I have to.
I fold the answer key up and slide it in through the grille of the locker. It slips out of my fingers and falls on top of his books.
I glance around the empty hallway. Wipe my face clean. Don’t let it hurt.
Adapt and survive.
35
“You’d think the shock would wear off eventually,” Whit tells me as we walk together between classes, and people stare at us walking by.
I glance at him, feeling guilty. “You should hold my hand or something,” I tell him. “Or look like you enjoy my company even slightly.”
He shrugs.
I decide not to feel guilty. I stop at my locker.
“I have bad news.” Whit leans against the side of my locker, watching me. I cram some C papers inside, and Whit grimaces, as if the sight of it actually causes him pain.
I cock my head to the side. “What, Masters jackets are going to be orange from now on and it’s not your color?”
His eyes practically roll out of his head. “Very funny. Like I’ll win a Masters.” Wow. “No,” he goes on, “my parents heard I had a girlfriend.”
“Well dressed and a girlfriend? You’d think they’d be pleased.” He doesn’t laugh. “Did Cason tell them?”
“No, they already knew somehow. They were grilling me about it last night,” he says. “My parents know everything.”
“That’s so weird. My mom doesn’t want to know anything.” I slam my locker. “Who cares, anyway? Aren’t they, like, adults? They should be used to the idea.”
“They want to meet you.”
I stare at him for a second. “What? Why?”
Whit puts his head down, getting closer to me in the process, his words so soft that only I can hear them. “Because our country club is having this stupid charity ball tomorrow night, and my parents think I have a girlfriend, and since you’re the girlfriend they think I have, you have to go with me.”
“No.”
“It’s part of the deal,” he insists. “It won’t work otherwise.”
“I’m not meeting your parents. Then it’s like—it’s like—”
“Real.” He nods and starts walking toward his own locker. “But I met your mom, right? Turnabout is fair play.”
Right, I guess he did do that. And totally had my back. I can count on one hand the number of people w
ho have my back.
“Hang on,” I say, reaching my arm out and grabbing his. Several people run straight into me.
He turns back. “What?”
“I think Adrienne put something in your locker. I heard her talking to Elona Mabry yesterday and I—I just realized.”
Whit puts his arm on mine and pushes us over to stand next to the wall. “Okay. What did she say?”
I swallow. “Mrs. Baker’s test. Something about that.” I am no longer entirely sure who I am stabbing in the back, but I can’t do it. I can’t watch him fall directly into her trap. I run my fingers through my hair. “We can probably get rid of it if we go now. I could go.”
He watches me closely, his gaze going through me. I can almost see the decision click into place behind his eyes. “I’m not going to let you take the fall for that. If we get caught, I can get out of it easier than you can. C’mon,” he says, and holds out his hand for me to take. I do. “Let’s go.”
We get to his locker, and he opens it up and then looks at me expectantly. “There’s nothing in here.”
“Whit.”
We both turn at her voice. Mrs. Baker, our chemistry teacher, walks over to his locker. My hand is on his arm and Mrs. Baker’s eyes are on my hand on his arm and she’s holding the folded-up test and looking over her black-rimmed glasses.
He shifts my hand on his arm in a way that makes me let go. “What’s going on?” he asks Mrs. Baker.
“Can I speak to you?” She gives me a disdainful look. “Alone?”
It’s fine. Mrs. Baker has never liked me. I gave her hell in freshman chemistry, and when she looks at me, I can tell she’s remembering the mean girls in her own high school. She must’ve been the bottom of the social ladder back in the day. She was totally a person who hated high school. Now that she’s been here a few years, though, everyone thinks she’s cool.
I cross my arms over my stomach. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be a problem,” I say.
Whit keeps his voice calm. “What is it?” he asks her.
How to Break a Boy Page 13