Meant to Be (33 page)

But he made me think that he cared.…

My thoughts are ping-ponging so fast it makes me dizzy. I am completely mortified. Why settle for the girl who pretends to be a supermodel when he can have an
actual supermodel
? It’s utterly humiliating, and I feel the shame in my stomach rolling around with my breakfast.

I can’t shake the image of her ruby-red lips, and the next thing I know, I’m imagining them kissing. I try to tell myself I don’t care if he did—if he does.
I
want to kiss someone else. Someone like Mark. I try to imagine what it would be like to have Mark’s strong arms around me, pulling me close. I try to imagine his lips on mine, but the image keeps disappearing right before I get to the good stuff. Instead, all I can see is an alternating slide show of Jason kissing me, then Jason kissing that girl. And then it all makes sense. That’s why kissing me was a mistake. He was probably thinking about her the whole time, and once he came to his senses and realized it was Book Licker in his arms, he bolted.

No wonder Sarah keeps telling me to back off. Thinking back to that awful look of pity she gave me at Buckingham Palace, I realize she wasn’t trying to keep Jason for herself. She was trying to protect me from Jason and his lies. She was only warning me away from him! Maybe she’s not the super villain I’ve always thought, but now my whole world seems upside down. Mark is flirting with me, Jason kissed me, and Sarah Finder is being
nice
to me? Up is down; down is up!

When I’m back on the street, I turn to head toward the tube and the rest of my class. Jason is probably headed there himself, and it won’t take him long to realize I’m gone (or will it?). As I make my way down the street, I feel the anger building up inside me, and also the pain of the shock.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised by the way Jason has been using me. But I am surprised. Surprised and hurt. For a while, it seemed like he was turning into something else.
Someone
else. Like maybe he was going to let me see some other side of him. But even that was all a lie. There
is
no other side. It wasn’t a betrayal, really, since we never had anything to begin with. A
mistake
isn’t a relationship.

If I can go back to ignoring him, just like before this trip began, then I can forget. Jason isn’t important. Mark is my MTB! Mark never makes me feel so horrible and confused and conflicted. Mark makes me feel good. That’s what an MTB is all about.

It doesn’t matter. IT. DOESN’T. MATTER. I repeat the words in my head with each step, over and over, until I’m actually whispering them aloud as I march down the street.

I thought I saw u today, outside of Harrods? (not stalking u I promise!) ;) —C

J
ason is standing in front of Lillywhites. He’s got one foot hiked up on the building and I notice his knee poking through a hole in his jeans.
(How did he not get kicked out of Harrods for that?)
He leans against the brick exterior like he’s been there all day, and when I walk up, he lazily looks up from his phone.

“Hey, Book Licker, where ya been?”

“Where have
I
been?” I say, the anger starting to bubble up, but I quickly slam the lid down tight on that pot.
I don’t care. I don’t care
. I repeat the mantra over and over until, instead of exploding, I return a lazy shrug and pull my phone from my bag to click through it. “Oh, you know, just exploring.”

“You blowing up?” he asks, nodding at my phone while he flips his own shut and returns it to his pocket. “Met lover boy yet? He get a hold of you?”

“I’m actually hoping to hear from Mark,” I say, not taking my eyes
off the phone, a sly smile on my face.
Can he see that I don’t care?
“I think we might try to get together tonight, maybe go for a swim or something.” Jason jerks back a little bit, as though I’ve reached out and slapped him. “What happened to Chris?” Jason says. I keep moving, so he’s forced to direct the question to my back.

“Well, I don’t know Chris. I
know
Mark,” I reply. I don’t turn around.

“Do you?” he says, his voice edged with coldness.

At this, I whip around to face him.

“I know he’s a totally sweet, totally nice, totally cute guy who doesn’t act like a five-year-old or
push me into ponds
,” I say.

“Touché,” Jason says, but he doesn’t smile. His expression is completely blank. There’s a moment of thick silence between us, and I refuse to speak first. I will not speak first. I. WILL. NOT—

“What have you been up to?” I ask.
Dammit
. My curiosity and desire to catch him in a lie trump whatever other game my head wants me to play.

“Oh, you know,” he says. He lets out a long breath. “Exploring. Taking in the culture. Readying myself for the excitement yet to come.”

“What kind of excitement are you expecting?” I ask. I want to trip him up; I want him to mention Harrods or that girl or the texts he’s been getting all damn day. He’s too smart, though. Or maybe too good a liar.

He doesn’t get to answer. We’re interrupted by a stream of our classmates pouring out of Lillywhites, some loaded down with bags. They move en masse toward the fountain, our designated meeting point. Ryan runs between us, a shiny new lacrosse stick in his hand. He’s waving it so wildly that I have to duck to keep my front teeth. When I stand back up, Jason is pushing off the wall with his foot.

“Never a dull moment with me, Book Licker,” he says.

I trudge through the doors of our hotel behind the rest of the class. Everyone is chatting excitedly about their new purchases. All I can think about is a swim. Or a nap. Maybe a swim and then a nap.

The class rushes for the elevators, so I head straight for the stairs. I want to fall right into my bed, and I don’t want to run into anyone between here and there.

I climb the three narrow flights to my floor and throw my body into the heavy metal fire door. It flies open and I stumble through it.

Colliding directly with Mark.

“Hey!” Mark exclaims, reaching his arms out to steady me. My face lands right in his chest, my cheek nuzzling the softest butter-yellow sweater ever.

“Oh my gosh!” I say, breathless from the climb. I step back out of his arms and straighten my hoodie, red creeping into my cheeks. “So sorry!”

“Hey, no problem. Just my luck, actually. I’ve been looking for you all morning!” he says, that big almost-perfect grin I love so much spreading across his face. “I was hoping we could do some more exploring, maybe grab some lunch. I loved wandering with you the other day.”

“Of course!” I burst out. I guess playing hard to get isn’t my forte. I can feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders melt like butter the color of his sweater, which goes perfectly with his dark hair and spring tan. While I’ve been running around looking after Jason, Mark has been looking for me
all morning
? Finally, someone who’s chasing
me
. Just like that, I’m not tired anymore. “But maybe we could avoid ponds or other bodies of water this time?”

“Of course,” he says, grinning. He leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. I swear, he looks like a cologne ad I saw last month in
Teen Vogue
. “You crack me up, Julia.”

Oh my God. He thinks I’m funny. And not in a clumsy-funny or dorky-funny way. I’m filled with the warm, happy sensation of sipping hot chocolate in front of a fire on a snow day.

Mark nods toward the elevator in one of the effortless nonverbal communication moves that only truly cool people are ever able to pull off. I follow him.

“What did you have in mind?” I ask.

“I don’t know, let’s just walk. How does that sound?” His voice is relaxed, easy.

“Perfect,” I reply. My chest feels full, and I let out a long breath. The fullness is still there, though. But this time I know it must be happiness. “Let me run to my room and grab my map.”

“No way,” he says. He presses the brass down button, and the elevator bursts open like it was waiting for us. He gestures into the elevator. “Let me be your guide.” Then, in a tone of deliberate casualness: “You don’t need to find Jason or anything, do you?”

“Why?” I try to keep the edge out of my voice, but I have no interest in talking to or about Jason right now.

“Isn’t he your trip buddy or whatever?”

“He can take care of himself,” I reply firmly, and that seems to satisfy Mark.

Mark leads the way through the streets toward the Thames. We pass Cue-2-Cue, the record shop Jason and I visited on one of our Chris hunts. They’ve changed the window display since the other day, and now it’s filled with oversized cardboard replicas of the original Beatles albums—British releases, not American, of course. I do my best not to think about Jason and our song … which is
not
“our song.”

“Oh man, I love the Beatles!” Mark says, leaning into the window until his forehead touches the glass. My heart throbs and I feel myself smiling with my entire body.
Thank GOD he likes the Beatles.… Of course, he
is
my MTB
.

“What’s your favorite song?” I ask. I hope he says “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” Or “Here, There and Everywhere.” That would be so perfect.

Mark thinks for a second before replying. “ ‘Imagine,’ ” he says
with a smile, his crooked tooth staring right at me. “Man, I love that song.”

I bite my lip. I don’t want to correct him, but I
have
to.

“Um, that’s not a Beatles song,” I say, working hard to keep my voice even so as not to sound like the know-it-all I am.

“What do you mean?” He looks completely puzzled.

“It’s a John Lennon solo song,” I say gently, hoping that will nudge him in the right direction, but from his face, I can tell this is entirely new information. “From after the breakup.”

“Oh yeah. Huh,” he says, though he doesn’t seem particularly perplexed. “Oh well, whatever. It’s all the same, right?”

I swallow back the urge to say that it’s definitely
not
all the same. It’s one thing to correct Jason, who already thinks I’m the biggest nerd to walk the face of the earth. Mark doesn’t seem to have that impression, and to correct him would only plant the seed.

Besides, it’s an easy mistake. He at least knew a Beatle sang it. Easy mistake. And
double
besides, “Imagine” is a really good song. A little cliché, but still a really good song.

I take a deep breath, and even though it kills me, I choke out the easiest, breeziest, most casual “yeah” I can muster.

When we get to the end of the block, we can see the Thames. I step off the curb and into the crooked British crosswalk. I breathe in a deep gulp of the foggy London air, the smile returning to my face.

“Julia!” Mark’s voice, firm and urgent, jolts me out of my reverie. The loud, long honk of the cab that’s barreling straight for me follows closely behind. Mark grabs my hand and pulls me up onto the curb.

“Close one,” he says when we’re safe on the other side of the street. “You okay? Didn’t even see that coming.”

“Yeah, fine,” I reply, but my eyes are focused on his fingers, which are still interlaced with mine. He doesn’t let go. When I look back up at him, I notice that he’s staring down at our clasped hands as well. I have
to clamp my mouth shut to keep from bursting into a “Yippee!” I have to say something—I know it’s the cool thing to do—but my brain can’t put three comprehensible words together.

I turn my gaze back to him. For the first time, I notice that his eyes have a little caramel color in them. It surrounds his pupil like a sunflower bloom in his iris. The attraction I feel is so intense, so chemical that I have to take a few deep breaths to keep from throwing him down in the middle of the sidewalk and making out with him until graduation. He smiles at me, and my brain reminds me that this isn’t a fantasy. It’s real life.
My
real life, and he’s just caught me staring.

“First time in London?” He breaks the tension perfectly.

“Yeah,” I reply dreamily.

“Pretty cool, huh?”