Geek Girl (29 page)

⊕⊗⊕

For the last three days I have been powerfully aware of Trevor, even more so than before. I made myself vulnerable to him—again—and was rejected. My center of peace has shifted just a little and my heart is bleeding again, but I’m dealing with it.

The thing I’m having a hard time dealing with is the looks I receive from Trevor, because he watches me more intensely than he has since Beth first blew my story. He alternates between staring at me angrily, fierce looks that would burn me where I stand if he had that power, and watching me curiously, as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to figure out. Those looks actually set me on edge more than the angry ones do.

I’m walking down the hallway, looking out for him and feeling jittery, not knowing what I might get from him, when the mouse materializes in front of me.

“Hey,” she says softly. I jerk to a stop in surprise.

“Hey,” I echo automatically.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” She could have said King Kong stood behind me, and I wouldn’t be more startled than I am at her words.

Of course, there
are
plenty of kids at this school who sometimes act like primates, so maybe it wouldn’t be that shocking.

“O . . . kay . . . ,” I say slowly.

“I just want to say I’m sorry,” she says sincerely.

Now I feel the need to sit down.

“You? Sorry? For
what
?”

“Because I haven’t been very nice to you. I was really jealous of you and Trevor. I think that he liked me at one time. I mean, like a girlfriend, sort of.”

I remember the first time I had honed in on Trevor, watched him posture for this girl at their lunch table, and I can’t argue with her.

“Anyway, I liked him also,” she continues, “but I was . . .” She trails off, embarrassed, then takes a breath and looks me in the eye, determined to give me the whole truth.

“I was playing hard to get.” She stops, defiant, and I wonder if she’s waiting for me to laugh at her. But how can I, queen of playing games that I am? When I only wait, she continues.

“I guess I shouldn’t have done that. But then suddenly you were there, and I really didn’t worry about you because I knew that he wouldn’t fall for someone like you.” She glances at me apologetically at her words. “But he did. And I was even more jealous because I thought you were just using him. And I was right.” She glares at me defiantly again, waiting for me to deny her words.

“You’re right—I was,” I tell her. Now it’s her turn to be surprised. “But only in the beginning. It didn’t take long until I wasn’t using him anymore. Until I genuinely started to like him and then to love . . .” I stop. I don’t want to say this to
her
of all people.

“I know.” She’s nodding. “I could see that. And even though I didn’t like you, didn’t like the things you did, I knew you loved him. And I knew he loved you. But I was still jealous. And so I was mean to you. And I shouldn’t have been. Even after . . . you guys broke up, I was still jealous because he still loves you.”

My stomach flip-flops at her words, but however much I like hearing that, I know the truth now.

“Not anymore, he doesn’t. And since we’re apologizing, I need to tell you I’m sorry too. I haven’t been exactly nice to you either. I’ve also been jealous of you because you have always been the one he should be with.”

She smiles grimly at me, shaking her head.

“No, I’m not. Maybe at one time, but not anymore. Not that I haven’t tried. But he’s in love with you, and I’m not ever going to be able to change that. So now it’s time for me to get over myself and to stop treating you so badly for something that I can’t change.”

“But he
doesn’t
love me anymore, Mary Ellen. He’s made that clear.”

She smiles at me as if I’m dense.

“Then you haven’t been paying attention. He’s just mad. You haven’t seen the way he looks at you.”

With a shrug she walks away, leaving me standing there with my heart pounding, hope thrumming through my veins. Euphoria can be a good thing. Or devastating—you know, either way.

So, just exactly how do you think I was voted Homecoming Queen?”

Jane gets an extremely innocent look on her face, which immediately makes me wary.

“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging.

“You don’t find it odd that I go from freak girl to Homecoming Queen in a short period of time, especially considering the general feelings for me after what I did to Trevor?”

“No, not at all,” she answers, voice full of a suspicious virtue.

I stare at her while she tries to maintain guiltless eye contact. Finally, she gives up, turning her hands up in supplication.

“I
may
have campaigned for you . . . but just a little, tiny bit.” She emphasizes this by holding her thumb and first finger a hairbreadth apart.

“How much is a little, tiny bit?”

“Well, you know, I just told a few people about how bad you felt and that I thought it would really help you be happier. If they told other people the same thing, you can’t blame me.” She widens her eyes as she says this, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead of either, I just shake my head. I know without a doubt that she meant well. Jane is completely unaware of her charming powers, apparently.

Though the thought of someone campaigning for
me
to be Homecoming Queen six months ago would have been beyond laughable, I’m now grateful that someone loves me enough to care about doing such a thing on my behalf.

And, taking into account the kiss gifted to me as a result of her campaign, I decide I’m not all that angry or disappointed at all.

⊕⊗⊕

“Hey, Jen.”

Simple words. Throwaway words. Words I hear a hundred times every day—okay, well maybe not quite a hundred, but
a lot
nonetheless. However, this time they freeze me in my tracks, where I might have stayed until the end of time if Mr. Hansen hadn’t stepped out of his room and barked at me to get to my first class—which I’m now tardy for.

No, it isn’t the words themselves. It is the
source
of the words. Because they come from Trevor as I pass him in the hallway. I didn’t see him until the words were spoken because I had been digging through my backpack looking for my math book. By the time I unfreeze and turn to respond, I’m watching the back of his head disappear around the next bend in the hallway.

I make it to my math class, and I’m completely stressed. What does it mean, him saying “hey” like that, like we were . . . friends or something? Okay, maybe not friends—acquaintances.

In English, my mind is fogged in turmoil. Why now? It’s been over a week since I last talked to him, when I made my disaster of an apology. Has he decided to forgive me?

I’m off-balance and a little upset while I listen to my chemistry teacher ramble on about zinc and oxygen and other chemicals that I have a hard enough time figuring out when my mind is clear. I don’t think he’s forgiven me at all. He’s messing with me, I think angrily.

By the time lunch rolls around, the anger is drained, and I’m just plain confused. I don’t know what to think of the two little words he uttered to me this morning. Just about when I decide that I’m reading way too much into it and I need to chill and not worry about it, Brian turns my way.

“So, Jen, what do you think?”

Jane elbows me as Brian asks the question for what is apparently not the first time if the looks on the faces surrounding me are any indication.

“Uh . . . think of what?” I feel like I’m coming out of a trance. There are a few laughs from around the table.

“Saturday? My place? Movie marathon?” He repeats the highlights of the conversation I missed.

“Oh, well, um . . . who all is going to be there?” My eyes flick to Trevor, who listens to all of this. Brian knows exactly who I mean, and his eyes follow mine.

“Everyone,” he says, shrugging.

“Oh.” I don’t know how to respond to this. I glance at Jane. “Well, Jane and I actually had plans on Saturday—”

“Only hanging out at my place,” she interjects, and I can see by her smile at Brian that maybe there’s a reason she’s not backing me up. “So we go to Brian’s and then we can sleep at my house as planned.”

“Um, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

Brian, thankfully, understands my hesitation. He nods in acceptance, though his shoulders droop in despondency. Next to me, Jane sighs—a little overdramatically, I think.

“Why not?”

For the second time in one day, two words are able to spin my world upside down. Once again, it isn’t the words; it’s who speaks them. My eyes dart to Trevor’s face, but his expression is difficult for me to read. I have no answer for him. He should know better than anyone why not.

“You guys should come,” he says, and then he
grins
at me. Not just any grin, but
my
grin, the one that brings out the killer dimples, the one given whenever he either wanted something or was genuinely happy about something having to do with me. The grin that knocks me to my knees. Good thing I’m already sitting down.

“We should?” I murmur inanely. He only smiles wider. Jane squeezes my arm beneath the table—I can take a hint, so I nod slightly.

“Cool!” Jane explodes next to me. “What time should we be there?”

Brian gives the details. I can only hope that Jane’s listening because my mind is whirling. Trevor holds my gaze for a few seconds longer—a few seconds that feel like an eternity. Then he turns back to someone next to him, sending my mind spinning with all of this morning’s confusion tripled.

So much for chilling out.

It’s the dreaded night of Brian’s movie marathon—dreaded for me, anyway. Jane is overly excited about it, though she gamely tries to hide it because she can sense my mood, sense my desire to skip the whole thing. She even halfheartedly offers to skip out on it, to call Brian herself and tell him we can’t come, but I hear in her voice how much she really wants to go.

“So . . . you and Brian, huh?” I tease her.

“Me and Brian what?” she asks innocently, then blows it by beaming a smile at me.

“Since when?” I ask.

“Well, not really at all—yet. But I’ve been picking up some very positive vibes from him for a while, since after the—” She stops dead, and I look at her questioningly. She isn’t looking at me at all and is suddenly busy looking through her vanity drawer for just the right shade of red for her toes. Her face is flushed. Odd.

“After the what?” I ask slowly.

“Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” she mutters, still not looking at me. “What did I do with that Candy Apple Red polish?”

I walk over to her vanity and pick up the bottle, which she had already pulled out five minutes earlier, and hand it to her. She stares at it blankly, then reluctantly meets my raised-eyebrow gaze. She sighs, pulling me down to sit on the bench next to her.

“All right,” she surrenders dramatically. “Since the night of Homecoming, okay?”

I stare at her for a minute, then laugh. She frowns at me.

“Jane, I’m not so fragile that you can’t say those words to me. It’s not like I’m going to forget that night if we never speak of it.”

“Really?” She eyes me skeptically.

“Really.” I put my arm around her and squeeze her shoulder. “I know I was a mess that night, but I’ve been okay since then, haven’t I?”

“Well, you
seem
okay, but we’re just kind of waiting for the meltdown, I guess.”

“
We?
”

Now she looks self-conscious.

“Brian and I.”

“So you guys talk about me? Waiting for the next time I fall apart?”

“It’s only because we care about you, and we’re worried about you.”

I watch her, seeing these very emotions flit through her eyes.

“Was I that bad?” I whisper.

She considers her answer, then decides to go with honesty.

“It was bad. I was really afraid for you.”

I laugh again, mirthlessly.

“I talked to him the other day,” I tell her. She’s taken aback.

“You did?”

“I told him I was sorry for hurting him but not sorry about what I had done because I would have missed knowing him and loving him.”

“What did he say?” she breathes.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” She’s angrily shocked.

“Yeah, but that’s okay. I needed to say it. But now he’s being . . . nice, I guess. Or maybe not nice, more like polite. I think maybe it’s worse than when he was ignoring me.”

“Maybe he’s trying to, you know, let you know he wants you back.”

“Hardly,” I scoff. “He knows that as pathetic as I am, all he would have to do is say one word and I’d be back at his side in a flash. No, I think it’s one of two things. Either he’s just met the limit of the amount of rudeness he can dole out to one person no matter how much he hates them—because if Trevor is nothing else, he is the epitome of politeness and manners.

“The other theory—and the one I think is more likely—is that he’s still so angry that he wants me to suffer more than ever, and the way to do that is to remind me of just what I have lost.”

Jane pulls her eyebrows together.

“I don’t think that’s it. Trevor doesn’t seem like he’s that
mean
.”

I sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I just don’t know anymore. So it probably
is
the first theory, but the bad thing is, it’s working on me in the second way.”

Jane wraps her arm around me and grins wryly.

“You really are pathetic, aren’t you?”

“I am,” I agree. “So let’s get this pathetic girl ready so I can go sit at Brian’s house and be even more pathetic while I pine away and pretend I’m not.”

⊕⊗⊕

I’ve been to Brian’s house several times before, of course, but always with Trevor. This is my first time back since he started hating me. Brian’s mom is one of those people who accepted me the first time I walked through her door—even though I looked scary—and has never treated me any different throughout my whole transformation.