Their bickering drew in Toby and then Hannah and Sera as spectators. Lance and Dante were looking at something on Lance’s phone. So we were likely out of the woods—even if Huck said, “Sorry, I must’ve been wrong,” in a tone that made it clear he knew he wasn’t.
In English class on Tuesday Ms. Gregoire stopped by my desk. “Have you figured out your dilemma with Curtis yet?”
I gaped. “What? It’s not a dilemma. It’s not—we’re not—we’re not-not. I mean . . .”
“About your book?” Ms. Gregoire’s eyebrows lifted. “Did you decide which of you will read Anne of Green Gables?”
I was too nervous to look across the circle, because if he was watching this, I’d trip him the next time we went running. Perhaps strangle him with his shoelaces if he was laughing. “We’re working that out.”
“Ah, so you’re both still staking your claim.” Her mouth twisted into a knowing smile. “Keep me updated.”
Maybe she hadn’t emphasized the second half of that word, but it was how my ears processed it. My mouth went too dry to speak, so I nodded and nodded until Curtis caught my eye across the room and gestured to stop.
22
As if waiting for this thing with Curtis to blow up and spending hours poring over podcast forums and drafting my next script weren’t enough to keep me busy, there was also quiz bowl. It’s not that I’d forgotten it was more than hanging out with buzzers in the bio room; I just hadn’t thought about the competitions until Dr. Badawi went through logistics at the end of Tuesday’s practice.
“We’ll meet on campus at seven thirty Saturday morning and drive in the van to Princeton. If you have family coming to watch, the competition starts at nine, though we won’t know the order of teams until check-in.”
The family part didn’t pertain to me. I’d never had parents clapping in the audience, or chaperoning field trips, or helping run the book fair, bake fair, any sort of fair. I’d known since elementary school to recycle any handouts that asked for classroom volunteers, because if they were home, my parents reacted to them with a dizzying recitation of commitments and excuses, or a sudden need to depart.
I was used to it. I had not-reacting down. I’d casually look at my lap—find a piece of fuzz to pick off my skirt or a smudge on my shoe that needed inspecting.
My phone buzzed in my blazer pocket as Dr. Badawi droned on about letting her know if we were driving home with family versus returning in the van. I stopped searching for Gatsby-hair on my tights and read the text from Merri: Mom and Rory are manning the store so Dad, Lilly, and Trent can come watch US.
It was supposed to make me feel better. And it did . . . but it also made me feel worse. It was one more kindness I couldn’t repay. What was the tipping point when the Campbells had given more favors than I was worth? I sent Merri an emoji smile, since I couldn’t manage a real one.
Curtis was looking at me. I ignored him and turned to watch Lynnie greet her boyfriend, Penn, who’d come to pick her up from practice.
Their kiss was nothing like Fielding and Merri’s. It was unbalanced—him leaning in too far, her standing rigid. His eyes shut, hers open. I would’ve thought that after dating for years, they’d have figured out the mechanisms.
But then again, what did I know? I had zero experience. I’d probably be worse than that. Curtis would—no. No, he wouldn’t, because we wouldn’t. And the fact that he was crossing the bio room toward me meant I needed to leave.
I dodged by him, making Merri practically run to keep up on the walk to my car.
Because the other option—the one that was way more tempting—was turning to him, asking him to come over, telling him how I felt about being the kid without parents. How in fifth grade a new student had assumed I was an orphan, since I’d been the only one at the school’s move-up ceremony without people in the audience. My guardian at the time, Judith, had decided to wait in her car.
I wanted Curtis to make me laugh, to make me forget with questions from his app or video games beneath my fingers—but not racing ones, the kind where I could blow things up, because everything inside me was explosive.
That felt like more than not-dating. That felt dangerous.
Merri talked for both of us on the drive. I didn’t register the route back to my house or pay attention to where I put my bag or keys when I walked in the door. Nancy called a greeting from her room—I think I answered her—but my whole focus was on getting to my laptop and pulling up the studies my parents had sent me. The ones they’d cited for why I couldn’t date. I’d read the abstracts but had never bothered with more. Why would I need reasons not to do something I had no interest in doing?
But now I wanted to know.
I finished scrolling and sat back in my desk chair, stunned. My mouth was raw; I’d chewed off a coat of lip balm and the top few layers of skin. My left hand was cramped, and the portion of skirt I’d clutched within it was hopelessly wrinkled.
Normally I took notes while reading, digitally annotating facts I wanted to remember or things I wanted to look up. There was no need tonight. My conclusion was straightforward: The studies were flawed.
They weren’t controlled for predisposing factors. The sample sizes were small. The generalizations sweeping and vague. Even the authors seemed to realize they couldn’t draw definitive conclusions and couched their results in imprecise and ambiguous phrasing.
Granted my own sample size was also flawed and limited, but nothing I’d observed about relationships seemed generalizable. Sera and Hannah’s long-term relationship differed from Penn and Lynnie’s. Rory and Merri had common DNA and were raised in the same environment, but their relationships with their respective boyfriends were unique. Hannah gave Sera confidence to speak up, Sera brought logic to Hannah’s disorganization. Rory inspired Toby’s music, he helped her in math. Fielding curbed Merri’s wilder impulses and she his overly serious ones. It was about this specific person partnered with that specific one. It wasn’t possible to pair two undefined variables and predict a precise outcome.
I glanced again at my parents’ “evidence.” They would never have let me use this sort of study as proof of anything. They’d have mercilessly mocked any colleague who cited these in their own research.
Yet, their sending these to me wasn’t some accident or oversight. It wasn’t that there were other, better studies that drew the same conclusions. I’d looked. The only valid studies I’d located had findings that directly contradicted these. I placed both elbows on the desk and leaned into my hands. What did I do with this deception?
When Rory and Merri fought like wildebeests, their mom said, “You can be right or you can be friends—which matters more?”
My parents were wrong. I could compile a whole email of proof. But this wasn’t them making a mistake; this was them deliberately misleading me. So what was the point in pointing it out?
Except, maybe this was a moment when being right was more important than being obedient. Especially since they hadn’t responded or acknowledged my last lonely email. I clicked on the mail icon, words bristling on the tips of my fingers: How dare you? and What sort of scientist employs flawed data to control someone’s behavior? Most importantly, Why?
But there was no need to draft a new email, because waiting in my inbox was one from them. It was only two sentences long—short enough that I could read it three times without taking a breath, but sharp enough to leave me gasping.
Purchase a new iLive band. It’s malfunctioning again.
I laughed aloud. My parents worried only about trauma they could quantify. Had I gained or lost weight? Had there been a tremor in my GPA? Was I getting their prescribed amount of sleep or drinking enough to reach peak hydration levels?
If none of my data markers changed, they assumed I hadn’t either.
Though it didn’t surprise me that my iLive band was malfunctioning. I’d forgotten to take it off my side mirror after Sunday’s run. It had fallen onto the driveway and cracked.
I glanced at the browser icon at the bottom of my computer screen, at the evidence I had waiting in internet tabs, and thought about the explosive fallout that would result from confronting them. What if I just . . . didn’t?
I clicked to my word processor, and my fingers flew. Not on this week’s response journal for English; this was a new podcast script. One on how to verify an experiment’s validity, on how not to be duped when someone cites “science” to prove their point.
Once I’d finished a draft, I flipped back to their email. Will do. And I just want to say: you’ve been so inspirational for my Avery project.
I closed my laptop lid and picked up my car keys.
My parents thought they were so smart, and yet deceiving them was turning out to be the simplest game in the world.
23
I called Curtis from the parking lot of the electronics store–slash–café the next town over. Bytes and Bites also had a location in the same plaza as Haute Dog, but I couldn’t risk any of the Campbells seeing me.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” I added “Eliza” because this new number wouldn’t show up on his phone, and I couldn’t presume I was the only girl who called him. Wait—did others? If we were “not-dating,” did that mean he could “yes-date” other people? I’d need that clarified at some point.
“Hey.”
“You don’t sound happy to hear from me.” I frowned. “Also, I know we’re not-dating, but are we doing so exclusively?” Some point was apparently right then.
He sighed. “You’ve been avoiding me. I assume this is where you change your mind again.”
“No.” I climbed into my car and turned the heat on—it was too cold to have this conversation outside, and I was done making myself uncomfortable for no reason. “This is where I tell you I bought a burner phone so we can talk whenever I want without my parents having a record of it.”
It had been easy to do. Phones were one row over from the iLive LifeTracker wristbands. And this—dialing his number and asking for what I wanted—was easier still. I was going to do it more often. Starting now. “Can I come over?”
“Yeah, of course. But . . . catch me up here, Firebug. I’m all for a good rebellion, but what does this mean?”
“It means I told Nancy I’d be out late practicing for quiz bowl, and I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Are we going to practice?”
“Probably not.” There was smugness in my voice—take that, Mom and Dad! “Though that’s a good backup plan if you’re boring me.”
“I can safely say that no one has ever called me boring.”
The laughter in his voice warmed my skin faster than the air rushing from my car’s vents. I shifted into reverse, saying three more letters before I hung up: “Yet.”
It was a word saturated with possibilities. I couldn’t wait to explore all sorts of yets.
Curtis must have been watching for my headlights, because he opened the door before I knocked.
“Were you busy?” I was a person who liked schedules, and I’d inserted myself into his night at the last minute.
“No, I was baking—well, frosting. Come in.”
The main section of the Cavendishes’ house was empty. The TV off, the rooms dark except for pendant lights over the kitchen island. They illuminated the plate Curtis was pointing to.
“More cupcakes?” I hung my coat on a hook, slid my shoes beside his, then blinked at how familiar those actions had become. “You didn’t have enough last week when I destroyed your kitchen?”
“There’s no such thing as ‘enough’ cupcakes.” His smile was too bright in the dim room.
I looked away. “These ones are probably better since half the dry ingredients didn’t end up on the floor.”
“Eh, we didn’t get any complaints. But those ones were vanilla.” I followed him as he wandered into the kitchen. “Tonight I’ve got all of your favorite flavors, as long as they’re chocolate and as long as they’re not peanut butter, because I’ve got a strange attachment to breathing.”
“I don’t eat chocolate. Or cupcakes.” My words were soft and slightly wounded. “I thought you’d noticed this by now.”
“Right.” He spun the plate as he added, “Your parents’ rules.”
“I probably wouldn’t eat them anyway.” The mention of my parents made me want to grind my teeth. “I don’t need rules to tell me if food is nutritious or not. It’s not a value judgment; it’s fact.”
“Interesting.” He spun the plate again. “So you’re saying it’s either good for you, or it’s bad?”
I exhaled. “Exactly!”
He froze, and the cupcakes wobbled. “How is that not a value judgment?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. He was right.
His fingers began to move again, and the cupcake plate became a hypnotic blur of frosting. “For me, it’s not a coping method. Or a reward. Or a punishment. I don’t feel guilty or like I ‘earned’ it. It’s food. It’s fuel. I want it. I eat it. Not every day, but definitely today. It’s not a trap—it’s a cupcake.”
My eyes felt huge, and his felt too perceptive, like he could see his words shredding the beliefs I’d threaded through my parents’ rules and had used to hang a curtain between myself and my peers.
“Plus, I didn’t ask you to eat them—I wouldn’t pressure you like that,” he said. “I asked what your favorite flavor was.”
“You didn’t actually ask anything. You told a factually inaccurate statement.” There was a word for the fast and shallow way I was breathing: “tachypnea.” But knowing that label did nothing to relieve the anxiety causing it. Just like knowing Curtis was right did nothing to change my parents’ rules.
I put a hand on the plate to stop his relentless spinning. We didn’t need a demonstration of centrifugal force, with cup-cakes flying off like chocolate bombs. Though at least that mess wouldn’t be my fault.
Curtis stepped closer. He dragged a finger through the blob of frosting that had ended up on the back of my hand when a cupcake tipped over from the abrupt halt. “Is this how every conversation with you ends? It turns into an intellectual debate about the precision of word choice?” He stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked off the frosting.
My nod was sharp and short, because the emotions behind it were jagged.
“That’s—” I waited for him to fill in the blank with “exhausting” or “obnoxious” or some other word I’d heard before. So many versions of Can’t you chill out? Why is everything an argument with you? Don’t you ever let anything slide? But I couldn’t. Unless I addressed them, inaccuracies sat in my head and fermented—like Lance’s comment about polar bears at the South Pole. Like my parents’ lies about adolescent relationships.
“—intellectually stimulating,” finished Curtis. “I dig it.”
“You dig it?” The edges of the words were barbed, because they were my last layer of defense against his statement. “Good for you, but I don’t choose my language for your pleasure.”
“Didn’t think you did. But it still makes me happy.”
“Where is everyone?” I didn’t want a twin audience of snark and suspicion, and who knew what his parents thought of me after my Sunday-morning spectacle.
“Mom and Dad and Win are meeting with his history teacher. Wink’s over her friend Reese’s house. It’s just me, you, and the guinea pig.”
“You have a guinea pig?”
“Win does. His name is Hudson. Want to meet him?”
“No.” I wasn’t a fan of rodents. Not after having seen them in cages for experimental testing. If I thought of them as pets, then I couldn’t think about them as “a necessary part of scientific advancement” or whatever wording my parents had used to explain it to me when I was barely out of toddlerhood.
I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about my parents tonight. That was the whole point. “Fine. Maybe I’ll try a bite. This one touched my hand, so I might as well . . .”
My words tr
ailed off as I picked up the cupcake by its silver foil wrapper. The frosting was dented, and I had a smudge of chocolate on the back of my hand. The smell of cocoa made my mouth water. When was the last time I’d had cake?
I peeled back the wrapper and bit—teeth sinking through the slick frosting and dense cake. I swallowed, and my tongue slid out to lick my lips, chasing any crumbs or dabs of rogue frosting. I turned to Curtis with wide eyes, speechless as I tried to pass him the rest.
“You’ve tainted it with your germs—you might as well finish it.”
I didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He laughed as I jerked the cupcake away from him and took another bite.
Curtis reached past me to get a cupcake of his own. One with sprinkles on top. Did sprinkles make the frosting better? Add a contrasting gritty texture? Maybe next time I’d try sprinkles. Or cookie crumbs. Or whatever those small silver balls were. I tore my gaze away from the plate and pinned it on the boy baker beside me. “Stop watching me eat—it makes this weird.”
He laughed. “Because this whole not-dating thing we’ve got going on, that’s definitely not weird. No, it’s me looking at your mouth that pushes this into the ‘weird’ category.”
I swallowed my last bite and rinsed my hands in the sink. He was holding out a towel when I turned back around, his own last bit of cupcake disappearing between his lips. And now I couldn’t stop looking at his mouth. Did he kiss like Fielding, or Penn? Or Toby, who seemed to forget the rest of the world when he was with Rory? They’d been dating the shortest amount of time, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they fit like puzzle pieces.
I blamed it on the sugar rush, my body not knowing how to process the sudden spike in blood glucose. Because what other reason could there be for my asking, “Do you think kissing is something that can be learned?”
“Is this a hypothetical?” The laughter dissolved from his voice, and I watched his throat as he swallowed.
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