The Boy Next Story

by Tiffany Schmidt

  I groaned and covered my face. “Is this drive-by humiliation?”

  “It can be. Or it can be a ride home.” Toby scooped my sweatshirt and lunch bag from the corner of the stage. “I was bored and wanted to see how you were holding up.”

  “You were bored? Thanks, I’m flattered.”

  Toby grinned. It was my favorite grin, the one that stretched his mouth wide and displayed his slightly crooked tooth. It was a belly-laugh grin that warmed me up like soup in winter. “That’s a funny way of saying, ‘Toby, my hero, you’re the highlight of my day.’”

  Ha. I joined him in laughing, but not for the same reason. If only he knew how true that statement was.

  “C’mon, it’s three o’clock—go sign out. Then meet me in the parking lot, because technically, you’re not allowed visitors.” He glanced over my shoulder to where Huck was coming back in the theater. I hadn’t noticed he’d left—but the stage was clear of brushes, buckets, and cleaners. “Does your friend need a ride?”

  “Do you?” I turned to Huck. “And also, Huck, Toby. Toby, Huck.”

  “Hey.” Toby held out a hand for Huck to shake. “I heard you did great in the game last night. Congrats.”

  Huck ducked his head to look humble, but I could still see his dimples. “You left some tough shoes to fill. And thanks, but my dad’s picking me up.”

  Toby nodded. “See you in a few, Roar.” I watched as he headed up the aisle. The knee brace made his gait the tiniest bit unbalanced, but I was pretty sure I could watch a GIF of him walking for hours. Toward me would be better, but the view from the back wasn’t bad either.

  Huck pointed at the door. “How long’s that been going on?”

  “W-what?” I sputtered. “There’s nothing—Nothing’s going on. He’s . . . Merri’s.” In more ways than one. In all the ways that counted he was hers. “He and I . . . we’re friends.”

  Huck arched an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.” I was about to protest again when he started for the door. “Come on, the Headmustard awaits.”

  I forced a laugh and followed.

  Headmaster Williams wasn’t in the office, and the receptionist was waiting with her purse on her desk and her keys in her hand. We were the last two who needed to sign out. No one had bothered to tell the freshmen that detention ended early.

  “Enjoy the rest of your weekend,” Huck told her as she locked the door behind us. She responded by turning off the lights.

  When Huck said the same to me before climbing into his dad’s car, I smiled and said, “Ditto,” while thinking ahead to weekends where he and I might hang out for reasons other than school punishment.

  Toby was leaning against his car looking at his phone. The frames of his rarely-worn-but-frequently-daydreamed-about glasses and the metal of his knee brace glinted in the sun. His gray, long-sleeved T-shirt was pushed up to showcase the lingering glow of his summer tan on his olive skin and wrists that were heavy with muscles. These were the lines I loved to draw most, because they reminded me of how those hands moved across piano keys or guitar strings. He looked like a movie poster. A book cover. An advertisement of everything I wanted.

  He looked up from his phone and smiled. I’d had a dozen years to grow immune to that grin, but it still knocked the breath from my lungs.

  I stopped short of his car and asked, “Did Merri tell you to come get me?” Because that would be a very Merri thing to do. Especially after the guilt-laden kitchen chaos that morning.

  “Nope. Every once in a while I have my own ideas.” He tugged a strand of my hair. “I knew everyone was at the store and you were upset yesterday. I wanted to check on you.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at myself. The bright green knees of my yoga pants were dimmed with dust. I’d lost my bobby pins at some point, and now my hair flopped around my face. My hands were dry from the cleaning products and smelled like chemical lemon. “I’m pretty gross. You want me in your car?”

  “It’s about time. Have you seen me after lacrosse or your sister after cross-country? This is only fair. I was convinced the only time you ever got messy was with paint.”

  “Clearly not.”

  “Really?” He lifted one of my hands and turned it over. It was stained yellow from the paint we’d scrubbed off the stage. My face had changed colors too—red—because we were so, so close to holding hands. I bit back a sigh when he let go. “And you still smell good. Do you even sweat? Like, ever?”

  “Of course I sweat. I sweat all the time. I stink after yoga.” Why was I arguing this point? Who brags about their sweatiness?

  “I stand corrected.” Toby pushed off the car and opened the passenger door for me. “C’mon, stinky, let’s get you home.”

  He turned on the car and the stereo came to life. It was midsong, one I didn’t recognize but that matched the lilting joy I felt around him. “What is this?”

  “The Amélie soundtrack.” He glanced sideways. “Do you like it?”

  I nodded and he exhaled and turned to me. “Isn’t it great? Music makes or breaks a movie.”

  “I haven’t seen it, but it sounds . . . happy. Hopeful?”

  “It is!” He looked so pleased, I mentally gave myself a gold star sticker. “If I could do anything, that’s what I’d do—compose for films.”

  “That would be a cool job.” And a very him one. Toby carried around blank sheet music like I carried sketch pads. “You should.”

  “Yeah, you try telling my dad that.” He shook his head. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m always mentally composing a score for my own life.”

  “No more ridiculous than me constantly mapping how I’d draw everything I see.” But now I was lit up with curiosity. What did this moment sound like to him?

  He grinned as he backed out of his space. “I should’ve known you’d get it.”

  “Um, yeah.” My cheeks were way too hot and I was way too flustered by that comment. “So . . . how was Merri’s race?” I hated to bring up her name because my time with him was almost always divided in her favor, and right now she wasn’t even here and I was still competing against her. Except—he’d know how she’d done and I didn’t. It wouldn’t occur to Merri to update me. Lilly, yes. Me, never.

  You’d think being only ten months apart, Merri and I would have a relationship as close as our birthdays, but the sibling social dynamic had been shaped before my ten-week-early arrival—during the two months Mom had been on bedrest and seven-year-old Lilly had had to take on much more responsibility for baby Merri. It gelled during the six weeks I was in the NICU, where neither Lilly nor Merri was allowed to visit. By the time I was brought home—“the smallest, reddest, most wrinkly little thing, with an ear-piercing shriek that was shriller than the alarm on your apnea monitor,” thanks, Dad—Lilly and Merri were a team. An indivisible team that didn’t have room for a third player. Sure, they included me sometimes, and it was rarely malicious when they did their own thing and forgot to invite me. But they still forgot, and being the one who was forgettable . . . sometimes it was easier to exclude myself than to wait to be excluded.

  I stopped fiddling with my lunch bag and looked at Toby because he hadn’t answered. A vertical worry line was digging in between his eyebrows. “I’m sure she did fine. She would’ve let me know if everything wasn’t fine.”

  “I don’t think she cares about her times,” I added. “Knowing Merri, she loves practices and hates racing.”

  “Well, yeah, because she runs with Eliza at practice—there’s no way Eliza’s slowing down so Merri can keep up in meets.” Toby said this like it was unreasonable. But then again, he thought everything about Eliza was automatically unreasonable. Normally I’d defend her—I was lovesick, not dumbstruck—but today I was too tired to do anything but tip my head back against the seat and crack my sore neck.

  “That guy—” Toby cleared his throat before he continued. “The one you were with—”

  “You mean Huck?”

  “I don’t know him. Is he trouble? I
mean, he was at Saturday detention.”

  I laughed. “For attending the same party as me. He’s fine. He’s practically my only friend on campus—don’t scare him off.” I had a frightening vision of Toby’s friends Lance and Curtis cornering Huck in a locker room for lacrosse hazing. Except Curtis was too goofy to be threatening. “Huh. And that”—I pointed out my window to the girl perched on my front step—“is my other, sometimes-friend.”

  “Penn Highbury’s little sister? He’s team captain. She’s good people.”

  “Yeah, but what is Clara doing here?” She was in her cheerleading uniform and raised her arms and waved when I got out of the car. For a brief, terrified moment I thought she was going to do a cheer with my name in it or something, because Mrs. Shadid would definitely hear that and then there’d be no escaping her small talk. But once Clara had my attention she dropped her arms. “About time you got home. Headmaster Williams has no pity, does he?”

  “Nope.” I smiled at Toby over the roof of his car. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “Anytime, Roar. See you later.”

  He headed up the walk to his house and I tromped toward my lawn, but my eyes kept darting back to him. To that gray Henley that hugged his shoulders and showed a hint of the muscle he’d packed on from lacrosse and basketball. To the dark hair on the back of his head that was starting to get shaggy, but he’d wait at least another two weeks before getting it cut.

  “Man, he’s gorgeous, huh?”

  I jumped. I hadn’t noticed Clara crossing the grass to meet me, her words an echo of my thoughts. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean—Wait, what?” I stumbled over nothing. Seriously, there wasn’t even a hose or rock or lawn gnome to blame. Maybe it was an internal stumble, because my stomach felt like it was free-falling to my feet. “You like him?”

  “No,” Clara said. “You do.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I brought you a cupcake.” She pulled a small pink box from behind her back and opened the lid to reveal a shockingly blue mound of frosting. It was larger than my fist and covered in sprinkles—if there was cake underneath, I couldn’t see it. “But then I remembered you don’t eat—What are you again? Dairy-free? Gluten? Vegan? I forget.”

  “Vegan-ish.” Normally I hated explaining the what and why of the things I did and didn’t eat, but if it steered the conversation away from Toby and feelings, I’d draw her a whole dang plant-based-diet diagram.

  “So I’ll eat it while you tell me all about you and the hottie next door. You’ve been holding out on me.” She turned toward our front walk and waited. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “I can’t. I’m grounded.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Because Clara was a parent-pleaser, and there’s no way she’d break the rules. But I’d only just gotten her to talk to me again and I missed her. Ugh, I couldn’t believe I was going to suggest this. “But we can take my parents’ dog for a walk?”

  Dogs slobbered. They chewed up your favorite paintbrushes. They barked when you were trying to concentrate, and they shed on wet paint. They had accidents if you were in the zone and forgot to take them out. But worst of all, when you took them for their walks, dogs were conversation-magnets for strangers, neighbors, anyone who crossed your path.

  I mean, where was it written that it was wrong to pass a girl with a four-legged, two-eared drool depository without asking, “What kind of dog is he?” “What’s her name?” or “Awww, cute bows.” Thanks for those, Merri, really.

  And then you were stuck standing there talking about dog fashion and weather while holding a little blue poop bag and wanting to die.

  “Oh, that works! And believe me, you want my advice. I’m an expert on matchmaking.” Clara dragged a finger through the ocean of butter and sugar, then stuck that scoop of frosting between her pink lips. “Go get the doggo, I’ll wait out here.”

  I unlocked the door and whistled. Byron didn’t come running—my parents must’ve brought him to the store—but Gatsby did, nails skittering on the tile floor and tail windmilling.

  “Fine,” I told him. “I’ll walk you. But no eating anything you find on the sidewalk. And it doesn’t mean I like you or your book.”

  That was good enough for Gats, who licked my knee and chomped on the leash handle while I clipped the other end to his collar.

  Clara had finished the frosting and was nibbling on the cake when I came back outside. “Oooh, pupper! What’s your name? Aren’t you the cutest? I could just steal you right away.”

  “Meet Gatsby—yes, Gatsby.” I held out his leash. “Be my guest.”

  She laughed but took a step backward. “Don’t I wish. I’m allergic. We’ve got twenty minutes until I blow up in hives. I’ll text my brother and tell him to come in fifteen.” She began to talk about the game she’d cheered at, the girl who’d gotten bus sick, and her plans for that night when she took the train to visit her dad. She waited a whole two houses past Toby’s before she transferred her neatly folded cupcake wrapper to her other hand and grabbed my arm. “So?! What are we doing about this crush?”

  “We? Doing? Nothing.” I stopped walking.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Clara. “Of course we’re doing something. I can come up with a plan. I’m so good—”

  “No, you don’t understand. There’s nothing to do. He’s in love with my sister.”

  “Oh.” Clara let go of my arm and began to scratch Gatsby’s head. To him, she said, “Don’t tell my mom I’m touching you . . . but who can resist that face? Not me. Not me!” He melted into a furry sidewalk puddle and she crouched to rub his exposed belly while looking up at me and tilting her head. “Okay, we’ll need a different type of plan.”

  A Mustang pulled over and honked. Clara waved at the boy behind the steering wheel. He looked vaguely familiar. I’d probably seen him on campus. “That’s Penn. I’ve got to go, but I’ll give this some thought.” She leaned in for a hug, then blew Gatsby a kiss. “You’re a complicated cookie, Aurora Campbell.”

  Was that better than a tough cookie? I wasn’t quite sure, but I didn’t have time to ponder it since Gatsby decided to protest his loss of belly scratches by dragging me down the street.

  9

  Being grounded had become a form of psychological punishment. I had no Saturday night plans. No one was texting or calling to see if I wanted to join them for dinner or bowling or whatever it was Hero High students did on the weekend.

  Which should have meant painting or drawing or sculpting. Those were always my weekend plans. Even before Hero High, those had been my weekend plans, with the occasional movie or trip to the mall when my old friends Molly and Greta had dragged me out. But I hadn’t heard from Molly and G in weeks. The last text we’d exchanged was Good luck on your 1st day! And some version of talk soon. But we’d said talk soon and let’s get together since the day after middle school graduation. And for all our promises, we’d met up only once all summer, spending an afternoon crammed in Greta’s bathroom while she and Molly dyed each other’s hair. I didn’t want blue streaks—and apparently being an audience, not a participant, made me “judgey,” which wasn’t even close to true. Also, there wasn’t much for me to contribute to a conversation solely focused on their upcoming freshman year.

  Maybe I was an awful friend, but I didn’t miss them much.

  What I missed was feeling like I knew what I was doing. Like you could drop me in any room with any art supplies and I could create something I’d be proud of. And not just create—I could enjoy the act of creating, get lost in the process and come up smiling. It was why grounding had never felt like punishment. Why sometimes I used to purposely get caught breaking the No Cell Phones During Homework rule so I’d have an excuse for going off-grid.

  But that was back when people had actually contacted my phone and missed me when it was taken away. Now my phone was an expensive paperweight and art was a series of disasters.

  First, I’d dropped a tube
of cadmium-orange oil paint. An uncapped tube. Then, while I was attempting to clean it off the floor and my throw rug, I’d stepped on a paintbrush. It’d snapped in half—the pointier side stabbing into the bottom of my foot. While hopping to grab a tissue, I’d dripped blood on an open sketchbook.

  Yeah, art was not happening.

  One Band-Aid and half a roll of paper towels later, my floor was no longer orange and my foot was no longer bleeding. I glanced at my backpack and sighed as I pulled out The Great Gatsby. Maybe I’d like the book better today?

  Nope. I shut the book at the end of the next chapter and pulled out my notebook to summarize: Nick meets Gatsby. Party is wild. Gatsby tells Jordan a secret?? Nick describes his boring life. I shut the notebook and kicked it off my bed. I’d had no reaction except a mild case of secondhand embarrassment for Nick when he realizes the man he’s been describing Gatsby’s mysteriousness to—is Gatsby. Nick was as awkward at parties as I was—maybe there was a journal entry in that? Only, Gatsby immediately reassures Nick, whereas that sort of thing would haunt me all night. Dangit, why did response journals require you to have a response?

  I left my room and headed downstairs. I needed tea or an apple or maybe I’d get my secret stash of key lime candies from their hiding place behind the canister of steel-cut oats. Maybe I’d steal one of Lilly’s fancy bath bombs and hog the bathroom for an hour.

  I rounded the corner into the kitchen and was hit with a wall of giggles.

  “The butter to kernels ratio is not one-to-one, Mayday.” Merri was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs and attempting to hold a stick of butter out of Toby’s reach.

  “I don’t see why it can’t be,” he countered, feinting left, then going right and closing his hand around her wrist. He triumphantly held up the butter, Simba-style. Or Simba-style, if the cub-lifting monkey from The Lion King had worn navy sweatpants, an unbuttoned beige Henley, and a black vest that looked like it belonged to one of his father’s suits. “Let’s try it.”

  I hesitated in the doorway and tried to decide if I wanted tea more than I wanted to avoid seeing the two of them together. “Hey, Rory,” Merri called. She pointed to the popcorn maker and then herself. “Movie night.”