P.S. I Like You (32 page)

Cade came up behind me in the school parking lot Monday morning and picked me up in a hug. I let out a surprised yelp. He kissed my cheek and put me down. My cheeks were hot as he grabbed my hand and we continued walking.

“Did that embarrass you?” he asked.

“No. Just surprised me.”

He studied my face for a moment. “Are you not okay with being public about this?”

I had been more worried that he wouldn’t be. I was fine. “Of course I’m okay with this.”

“I’m not ruining your hipster vibe?”

I laughed. “My hipster vibe? I didn’t know I had one of those.”

“Oh, you do. You’re casually cool. Uniquely different. And I’m totally throwing that off.” He gestured to himself. His smile made it seem like a joke but I wondered if he really was worried.

I stopped, turned toward him, and kissed him in the middle of the crowded parking lot. “You’re my favorite mainstream boy in the world. Don’t forget it.”

This time he blushed a little. “Good. Because I am pretty great. I just wanted to make sure you appreciated that.” He winked at me, his confidence back.

I rolled my eyes and pulled him forward along with me. “Oh, I do.”

“Did you find your inspiration over the weekend?”

I growled.

“That good, huh?”

“I wrote and erased five lines.”

“When can I hear your songs?”

“When Blackout lets me write for them.”

He laughed. “I have an idea for inspiration. How about you actually come to the rally today?”

“The school rally? The one they do in the gym with screaming people and chanting and school spirit? And … wait, how do you know I don’t go to rallies?”

“I notice you, Lily Abbott.”

I smiled. “I’m still not going to the rally.”

“Just today. They’re doing some big thing for the football team and then introducing the post–winter break sports. That’s me. You want to be supportive and stuff, right? And I actually expect you to come to some of my baseball games in the spring.”

“I’m super supportive. I’m going to be there. At the rally and at your games. You watch me. I will be the best girlfriend ever.” I said the word before I realized I said it then quickly backtracked. “I mean, not necessarily girlfriend. Dating person. The person you go out with … and kiss … and, I’m sorry I’m still weird.”

“You are adorable. And I didn’t think I needed to ask. I thought it was assumed. But I’ll ask.” Then he did the most embarrassing thing in the world. He threw his hands in the air
as we were approaching the commons and screamed, “Lily, will you be my girlfriend?”

“Not after that I won’t,” I said.

“Really?”

“Of course I will. Now put your hands down and stop being so … ”

“Mainstream?”

“Loud.”

He laughed and gave me a quick kiss. “See you at the rally, girlfriend.”

If I smiled any more at school people might start to think I actually liked to be there. I settled into my seat in Chemistry, a new feeling of appreciation for the class coming over me. Maybe I owed Chemistry some effort for all it had done for me. I was going to get my grade up. Isabel would help me.

My hand immediately went to the underside of the desk even though Cade and I both knew Mr. Ortega was on to us and we’d said we wouldn’t write anymore. My smile widened when I felt something there.

“You and Cade, huh?” Lauren said from next to me and I jumped a little. I pulled the letter onto my lap so she wouldn’t see it.

“I guess,” I replied. “I mean, yes. Me and Cade. Cade and I. We don’t really fit but we … ” Why was I explaining myself to Lauren? “Yes.” I forced myself to stop with that.

She looked over my shoulder and nodded. I quickly glanced over as well and saw the back of Sasha heading to her seat. I was surprised she hadn’t said anything. She was probably embarrassed. She’d said enough over the last few weeks. I was glad she was going to quietly lick her wounds.

I waited several minutes—until Mr. Ortega started his lesson, until Lauren was busy taking notes—to open the letter. The handwriting brought my smile back.

Hi. I know we’re not writing anymore but I couldn’t help myself. I’m thinking about you. Plus, I forgot to tell you something this morning. Remind me later. Now pay attention or Mr. Ortega will steal this.

I grabbed my phone from my bag and sent him off a quick text.

You know that there is this thing that magically takes words and sends them through the air and delivers them to a recipient. It’s kind of new so I didn’t know if you’d heard about it. But you use it for its speed.

He wrote back immediately.

Like an airplane that attaches words to its tail? I thought those only advertised sales and things. I wonder how much they charge per word.

My cheeks hurt. He must’ve read my letters as much as I’d read his.

You’re my favorite,
I replied.

I need your letters back, btw. They belong to me.

The class had gone quiet and I silently cursed. I looked up to see if everyone was staring at me, but they weren’t. Mr. Ortega was just writing something on the board. It was my lucky day.

A lyric came into my mind:
You’re my favorite way to pass the time. But time stands still when you’re on my mind.
I reached inside my backpack to write it down, but couldn’t find my notebook. I must’ve left it on my nightstand the night before. That was new and kind of refreshing. I smiled a little and jotted the note on the corner of a scrap paper instead. The clock told me I still had thirty minutes left of class. Then it was the rally. Another thing I never thought I’d look forward to.

I
hadn’t been to a rally in a while. It was loud.

Isabel leaned close as we sat in the bleachers. “The things we do for your boyfriend,” she said with a smile.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

We had gotten to the point in the rally where the football team had just been congratulated for its amazing season. The sports teams we were now supposed to direct all our fan efforts toward were standing across the stage. I smiled at Cade, who had caught my eye.

One of the coaches tapped the microphone and asked, “Is this thing on?” It was definitely on.

Sasha, who must’ve been a tennis player or a swimmer or on some sort of spring team, walked across the stage to the coach holding the microphone. She said something too quiet for all of us to hear.

“Nobody told me about that,” the coach responded back, loud and clear in the mic.

She said something else.

“A poetry contest?”

She leaned into the mic so that she could be heard, too. “This school isn’t entirely about sports, right? We were supposed to announce the winner of the poetry contest.”

“What is she talking about?” Isabel asked.

I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe she’s the president of a poetry club.” Though I couldn’t quite see that.

“That’s not on the agenda,” the coach said. “Please take a seat, Sasha.”

“Coach Davis,” Sasha replied, her voice louder now. “I wouldn’t want a social media blowup about how Morris High only cares about their sports teams.”

The coach looked around as if expecting someone to jump to his rescue. When nobody did, he handed the microphone to Sasha. “Make it quick.”

She put on a wide smile and faced the gym. “Hello, Morris High!”

This brought a loud cheer.

“As many of you know, if you read the school paper, we held a poetry contest this first semester. I’m here to read the winning entry to you. You are all going to love this.” That’s when she took off her backpack that I hadn’t noticed before and pulled out my notebook. I recognized it from across the gym—the two-tone purple and green with my black doodles penned all over it.

My stomach fell in horror.

Noooo.

Isabel gasped. She obviously recognized my notebook, too.

“This poem was written by junior Lily Abbott, dedicated to Cade Jennings.”

It seemed like the whole room let out a collective “Aww.”

“What are you going to do?” Isabel asked.

I was frozen, half ready to jump up and tackle Sasha, half ready to run out of the gym. My eyes darted to Cade. He had a confused smile on.

“I know,” Sasha continued, “Cute, right? Well, what many of you don’t know is that Cade’s dad left him and his family several years back. A tragedy really. And Lily wrote an amazing poem about it.”

This was a nightmare.

I hadn’t written Cade’s name on any of the pages but the one she’d already read in detention. She was assuming this song was about Cade. Assuming because of the other lyrics. Assuming because of all the notes I’d written in the margins. She was assuming because she wanted to hurt me … and probably him.

I shook my head at Cade and mouthed the words
stop her
. He was much closer to Sasha than I was. He was on the stage with her. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Sasha in horror. He seemed to be as frozen as I was. I couldn’t let this happen.

I stood and began working my way down the bleachers—through students and over backpacks. But Sasha was already
reading my lyrics to “Left Behind” out loud. Cade’s very private life was now echoing through the suddenly completely silent gym.

By the time I was on the floor and heading toward the stage, she was reading the last two lines. My words were echoing through a gym full of people. People, I noticed, who seemed captivated by them. I stopped as Sasha finished. Now I stood in the middle of the basketball court alone, on the eye of our school mascot painted there—a bull.

“And there she is,” Sasha said, in the sweetest voice. “Everyone give her a hand. Come on up and accept your award, Lily.”

I did go up, because I wanted my notebook back, and I wanted to pull Cade out of there and explain everything. But it didn’t happen that way. When I’d climbed the five steps to the stage to the loud applause, Cade was gone.

“You are cruel,” I said to Sasha under my breath. I yanked my notebook out of her hands. “He didn’t deserve that.”

She smiled, pulled me into a hug and whispered. “You both did.”

She wanted me to react. Wanted me to punch her or shove her and have the whole school witness that I was a jerk who treated her poorly after she’d just showered me with praise. Plus, if I acted like this was a big deal, it would turn into a big deal. People would think she’d just exposed something about Cade that she shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t do that to him. So I smiled, said a wobbly “thank you” into the microphone, then
walked as quickly as possible off the stage and outside where I searched in vain for Cade.

Over the next thirty minutes I sent him what felt like a hundred texts that all went something like:

She stole my book

I did not enter that into a contest.

I’m sorry.

Where are you?

Can we talk about this?

This was her revenge. You know it was. Please know I did not want this to happen.

He didn’t respond. Not to a single one. It was over. We were over before we’d ever begun.

I rounded the baseball field a second time, hoping he had shown up there sometime between me searching the boys’ locker room and the cafeteria kitchen. Then my phone buzzed. Hope shot through me until I saw the text was from Isabel.

Where are you?

Home plate,
I responded, dejected.

She was there in minutes. “Should we beat her up now or later?” Isabel asked, her eyes flashing.

I pressed my palms to my temples. “I’m worried about him.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine. It was a really good song, by the way. Everyone was talking about it.”

A small surge of pride went through me, the same one I had felt for a split second while standing in the middle of that gym, my words filling it. I pushed the feeling back down.

“Isabel,” I said, my voice breaking. “He’s kept this a huge secret and now the entire school knows because of me and my stupid lyrics.”

“Not because of you. Because of Sasha.”

“I should’ve never written about his life in the first place.”