Don't Ever Change (24 page)

“What d’you mean?” he asks.

“Be careful,” I say, for no reason, then leave.

Out in the hallway Booth’s standing by himself, staring at a framed picture of Nick as a child playing in the sand.

“Don’t go in there,” I tell him.

“Wasn’t going to,” he says.

I try to slip past him, but his body’s blocking my way to the patio. “Booth, move.”

“Nice, nerd,” Booth says in a dumb voice, finally noticing my glasses. “Foster’s outside.”

“I told you I’m not looking for Foster.”

“Yeah, you are,” Booth says, a sleazy smile spreading across his face. “You put your glasses on, so you’re looking for someone.”

“I
have
a boyfriend,” I say. “Foster and I . . . we’re not like that. He doesn’t want to date someone, since he’s leaving for college soon, and I’m already in a relationship with someone. He’s in a band.”

Booth looks like he doesn’t believe me, so I start rambling details.

“His name’s Elliot, but I call him ‘Elli’ or ‘Smelly’ or ‘Smelliot.’ He’s only into music, he can’t even watch a commercial without commenting on the music, and every time he reads a book, he has to make an iPod playlist to listen to while he reads, like a film score,” I say, catching my breath. “And even though I’m leaving for Boston in August, and he’s staying here, we’re making it work.”

Booth nods emphatically. He grabs my arm, wants to talk about love.

“I love Melly. I’ve never told her, though.”

I accidentally laugh, then stop myself. “Melly?” I pat Booth’s shoulder, slowly slip past him. “Well there’re other fsh in the sea, you know.”

“He’s with Amanda,” Booth says, gesturing to Foster. “And the other girls.”

He is. I see him. Right in the center of a circle of giddy, attentive girls. I join the conversation mid-giggle and catch Foster’s eyes.

“Hey,” he says, nodding at me instead of reaching out for a hug. “I remember those glasses.”

I shrug and take them off, shove them in a pocket.

“What’s up?” he asks stiffly, out of what feels like total obligation. He waits for an answer, and the girls, watching him wait, all wait too.

“Nada mucho.”

“Foster says you’re a writer,” Amanda says.

“Yep.”

“What’s something you’re writing now?” Melly asks.

“Oh, it’s just child’s play.”

“Don’t be modest,” Amanda says.

“I’m not. It’s a play for children. For a children’s theater.”

“See?” Foster says, smiling reluctantly, sadly even. “Told you she was smart.”

The girls look at me, waiting for more smartness.

“I think I’m gonna go soon,” I say.

“Okay, bye,” Jules says, turning back around, closing me out of the circle.

“Foster,” I say, over her shoulder, “want to go outside and talk for a second?”

“Why would he go with
you
?” Melly asks, and they all turn their stares from me to Foster, who looks uncomfortable.

“I’m staying, and you can stay another minute too,” he says to me.

“I’ve heard it’s cooler to leave a party before it starts to suck,” I say.

“Maybe you suck,” Jules mutters. The other girls hear and avoid eye contact.

I’ve never cared about being universally liked—like,
across-the-board
liked—because I’ve always felt there was something unnatural about people like that. If literally everyone likes you, it’s probably because you’re generic and bland, which is the opposite of what I want to be. I know that having a way-too-specific personality inevitably bothers some people, and bothers them a ton, and that’s fine with me. But I don’t want to be disliked unless I’m
known
, I’m understood. I never had a chance with these girls, and to be real, they never had much of a chance with me. Still, even though I didn’t really want to have to like them, I definitely wanted them to have to like me—to not be able to
help
but like me, to like me
in spite of
me. Of course, that’s fantasy shit. They don’t.

Then Foster shoots me a look—a conflicted, disappointed, unsympathetic look that says:
You should stay and try and have a decent time and connect with other people, if not for yourself then for me, a little favor for me, Eva, who’s sticking up for you and wants to respect you even though you’re not helping, not at all.

“Yeah, I have to go,” I say, giving Foster my own look:
Forgive me.

Follow me
.

I head back inside the house, down to the bedroom, where the door’s still closed, and I swing it open and flip on the lights. Corey’s on the bed, and this time I can see the legs kicking beneath him are wearing Alyssa’s shoes.

“Alyssa!” I shout.

“Oh hey, Eva,” Corey says again, just as casually as before.

“Alyssa, let’s go. I’m taking you home.”

“What?!” she yells, pulling off the covers and sitting up, furious. “You said I could come. You promised!”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a real promise—it was a camp promise. I can’t keep all those.”

“Well, we’re not at camp. You can’t tell me what to do.”

I go sit on the edge of the bed and lean in closer. “No one’s that into us,” I say. “No one really wants us here.”

“That’s not true.”

I stand, put my hands on my hips, try to project the authority I’ve been seeking all summer. “You’re
my
CIT. I’m leaving and so should you.”

“I’m staying!”

“We’re a team,” I say, more forcefully. “Alyssa, c’mon.”

I try and slide her off the bed, but she’s stronger than she looks.

“You’re just jealous!”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I whisper. “I’m trying to look out for you. I have to redeem myself.”

I grab her arm, pull her out the front door, and less than a minute later we’re in my car. She sulks silently. I put the keys in the ignition so the radio plays. Corey waits on the curb across the street under a dim streetlamp, basically in the dark.

“Drive,” Alyssa says impatiently.

“Please don’t be so mad.”

“Why are we still here?!” she screams, fuming, her black eyeliner smearing into streaks above her cheekbones. “What are you waiting for?!” A few tears hug the contours of her heart-shaped face.

“Foster,” I say, not wanting to lie.

“You’re fucking joking,” she seethes.

I only wait another few minutes, but by then both of us are crying. He still hasn’t come outside when I finally shift into drive and drive away.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

AT THREE A.M.
my phone rings. I don’t want to talk to any
one
about any
thing
; I just want to forget about the party, forget about the night, and forget about Foster and how he never came out to meet me. Because if he really liked me, he would have.

“We don’t
pine
for boys,” my mother always tells me. “We’re not trees.”

I answer it anyway.

It’s Elliot. Tonight he’s in Vancouver, tomorrow Seattle, the next night Portland, then Oakland, and then finally L.A. Things have mellowed between his bandmates, but the vibe’s not necessarily better. The bassist wants another singer—not
in addition
to Elliot, but
instead
of him—and he’s hurt by it.

“Screw this band,” he says at least four times, and the way he says
screw
makes me a little itchy.

Then Elliot asks what I’m wearing. What I’m really wearing is my underwear, but I tell him I’m wearing a party dress with tights and high heels. He wants to know if that’s all I’m wearing and I laugh, tell him a top hat too. We talk for a while about his bandmates, 7-Eleven snacks, his big old cat back home. Then he tells me he misses me, and it’s nice to hear someone say it, since it’s not going to be Foster. Elliot’s voice gets a little softer, kind of breathy. I don’t hear a zipper unzipping, it’s not that straightforward, but I can still tell what’s happening.

I wonder if phone sex with Elliot is like what I assume real sex with Elliot would be like, where I don’t make a sound because he’s making enough for both of us. But unlike how a boy usually expects the girl to be loving it, never knowing if she’s secretly just faking, it’s the opposite with Elliot. He probably
assumes
I’m faking, that I’d pretend anything because I’m so into him.

But tonight I’m not pretending anything. I’m really doing it.

I assume it’s going to be one of the strangest and most graceless things I’ve ever attempted, but impressively, Elliot doesn’t let it be. Apparently he’s a phone sex pro. Maybe the fact that he’s so full of himself—which is a totally pointless expression, because what else would a person be full of?—helps somehow. Still, whatever he’s projecting, I’m absorbing; he doesn’t leave a single open moment to doubt myself or feel weird. I guess sometimes you do something you’ve never ever done, yet it’s really not so pivotal. Sure, it’s
notable
, so you take note—there it is,
noted
—and then the universe nudges you to just move it along.

When it’s over, he puts down the phone to go get a tissue, clean up. I lie with the phone away from my ear, resting on my shoulder. When he returns, it’s back to the high Canadian gas prices, a boring after-party with some local bands, a quick trip to a Vancouver art museum, money with the Queen of England on it.

Before we hang up, he asks about the earthquake that hit a week or so ago, wanting to know if I felt it. He says he felt it.

There’s no point denying anything—we’re all full of something—so I say I felt it too.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

IT’S FOUR IN
the afternoon on Saturday, and I’ve been reading the same ten sentences over and over—the final ten sentences of my best short story, the one Mr. Roush didn’t like because it’s fake. It’s actually not that great, now that I’m really looking at it again. What it is, more specifically, is that it’s not that
likeable
. I need to work on coming up with stories with more likeable characters; I should focus on that for my college writing classes. I wonder if maybe I should even try to
be
more likeable, but that’ll be harder to figure out—in college or ever.

Then I get a text from Foster: Party got better. U shdve stayed. U mightve had fun.

I text back, 2 much competition 2 be yr date.

Oh.

Want to go on a real date.

When camps dun?

I’ll be in boston!

And ill be tuff.

I stare at Foster’s text—And ill be tuff—trying to decode what he meant to type, what was autocorrected.
And I’ll be tough. And it’ll be tough. And I don’t feel like texting anymore.
And I don’t feel like thinking about Foster for a while.

At eight Zack picks me up in a Toyota Camry, saying the motorcycle’s in the shop. It’s fine, I don’t want to ride it anyway, because those things are dangerous. He also tells me we’re ditching the movie idea and instead going over to hang with some of his friends at somebody’s house. “It’ll be intimate,” he says, in a smooth, buttery way, and for a moment I feel like how Shelby must’ve felt—like you’re being taken care of. Zack also looks really good: his jeans are tight, his gray V-neck showing just the softest tuft of blond chest hair. When I look at him, I think,
There’s a straightforwardly good-looking guy,
which makes me feel older, like I’m twenty, or twenty-three.

It’s nice because I don’t feel shy around him—he’s Zack, Shelby’s Zack, I’ve known him since forever—and I’m not shy around his friends either. I recognize a few of them from Shelby’s birthday senior year: Leyna and Scott and Bobby, and over in the corner by the iPod player, Marta, the camp lifeguard. She waves at me and smiles. Zack’s impressed.