The Boyfriend App (29 page)

I took a right onto the winding, picturesque street with one house bigger than the next. I hadn’t been back in so long that I didn’t recognize most of the cars. I wondered if new families had moved in, with kids who played together and forged friendships that wouldn’t fracture like Blake’s and mine. I hoped so.

The rain fell harder now. I pulled my black hood over my head and took off across the grass. Trees arched above me, blocking the moon and leaving me stumbling blindly over roots that snaked the dirt. A dog barked in a neighboring house and I ran faster.

Rain soaked my clothes. My hands were slick as I pushed the gate. I ran the rest of the way around the circular driveway, darting between Blake’s Jeep and her dad’s BMW and clamoring up the stone steps.

I rang the bell twice. Footsteps pounded the stairs and Blake swung open the door. A terry-cloth headband pulled her black hair from her forehead. Her jaw lowered and cracked the pasty-green clay mask that covered her face. “Audrey?”

It was the first time she’d called me my real name since freshman year.

“I know you didn’t want to go along with your dad’s plan,” I said, my voice low and rushed. I didn’t know how much time I had alone with her.

Blake sniffed, then blinked a few times. It was what she always did when she didn’t know what to say.

The night felt too dark. And so did Blake’s house. I could just make out moonlight glinting against a mirror at the end of a long hallway.

“Things have changed,” Blake finally said, her voice hard.

I tried to make myself sound like her. But my words came out too shaky. “Don’t you think I know that?” I wasn’t even sure what she meant.
Everything
had changed. Did she mean between us? Or did she mean something had changed since she wrote me that cryptic email saying she needed to talk?

Her fingers gathered the yellow cotton of her nightgown. She inched closer and I felt her soften, just for a breath.

“Blake, please,” I said. I stood there waiting for her to say something, wanting her to say she was sorry, that everything that had happened since we were fourteen was a mistake—
her
mistake. But I knew what I wanted was more than she could give me.

“It’s complicated,” she finally said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “And how am I supposed to trust you when you’re the one who betrayed us first?”

I wanted to reach out my hand, like I would’ve done years before. But all the ways we’d hurt each other felt like a stone wall between us.

She glanced over her shoulder, and I could feel how scared she was. If we were going to talk, it couldn’t be
here
. Not with him upstairs.

Blake’s hands went to the edge of the door and I worried she’d shut it in my face.

“I need to speak to your father,” I said.

Her grip tightened on the door. “Are you sure you want to—”

But right then the bottom half of Robert Dawkins’s body became visible at the top of the stairs. “Not again, Blake!” he yelled. My skin prickled. I remembered his tone like it was yesterday—the one he used when he was in the house with his family and out of earshot of his adoring public. Then I watched what it did to Blake. Her entire body went rigid. It made me hate him even more.

“Hello, Mr. Dawkins,” I said as he barreled down the stairs like an attack dog. “Care for a chat?”

He froze in the doorway. I wasn’t sure who he expected to see—Xander? Woody?—but it certainly wasn’t me. I was freaked out he’d say
no
, so I added, “I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

“Robert?” Blake’s mom called.

“I’ll be right up!” he shouted. “Go upstairs with your mother,” he said to Blake, cold as ice. Blake looked down at her feet like a child. She looked small climbing the stairs.

I stepped into the house. Robert Dawkins shut the door behind me, and then opened another one into a study. Everything appeared leather except the floor. An antique clock so big it could’ve been stolen from a train station (but was probably purchased from an overpriced Pottery Barn catalogue) hung on the wall. Hardcover books with titles like
You Belong at the Top
lined the shelves.

Robert Dawkins gestured for me to sit. I didn’t. He stared out the window with his back to me. Rain trickled down the pane. “What do you want?” he finally asked.

“We both know the answer to that.” The words came easier than I thought. I let them hang in the air.

Robert Dawkins turned, and leaned his broad back against the window. Moonlight silhouetted his silk bathrobe–cloaked frame. His black hair and dark eyes matched Blake’s.

My fingers longed for my rabbit’s foot. I clenched my fists instead. “I have evidence you covered up the results of a medical study by blackmailing a doctor,” I said. “If I release the evidence, your name will be ruined. Just like you tried to ruin my father’s.”

His face was still, but I sensed fear pulsing in the air between us.

“The study
is
going to see the light of day, Robert,” I said. It was the truth. Jane Callaghan was working on a press release as we spoke. “And I have no desire to hurt you or your family.” I was so far out of my league that the only thing I knew how to do was make my tone clinical, like actresses do on TV when they want something. It kept the shake out of everything I was saying. “I’ll bury the evidence of your blackmail if you publicly take back the statements you made after my father’s death, and apologize to my family. We both know my father wasn’t careless.” I was quiet for a moment. The words were true and deserved their own space. Then I said, “You’re also going to tell Blake that I wasn’t the one who told you she was having sex freshman year. You’ll have to tell the truth again, which I know isn’t your strong suit.” Robert Dawkins stood stock-still. He wasn’t even blinking. I steeled myself, and said, “Oh, and Mr. Dawkins? You’re going to get Alec Pierce to cease activation of the BuyWare software on all buyPhones. I’ll be watching, and you have twenty-four hours to cooperate before I go public.” I leveled my gaze. “Don’t test a girl with nothing to lose, Robert.”

I backed out of the study just as Robert Dawkins’s face curled into a snarl. My hands shoved the front door and I sprinted across the lawn. My legs gave out as soon as I was hidden in the trees, and sobs shook my body.

I knew I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t stop now.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

chapter thirty-three

Me: I need 2 to talk 2 u. Y weren’t u in lab?

Aidan: had to get a new phone. Bates let me skip lab. by myself at lunch. nigit w lindsay making up somewhere.

Nigit had already made up with me, too, profusely apologizing and saying he was an idiot when he should’ve had my back. It was easy to forgive him. I’d made enough mistakes myself during the past few weeks.

I checked my watch as I entered the cafeteria: nine of the twenty-four hours to go. I zigzagged through the tables. No one said hello, but no one said
You suck
, either. Everyone seemed genuinely sick of anything having to do with me and returned to ignoring my existence.

I sat next to Aidan and lowered my brown-bagged lunch of a baked potato and some tofu wrap my mom assured me tasted good but probably didn’t. (I was boycotting the cafeteria food with my mom having been fired.)

I couldn’t read Aidan’s face. He sat very still. Then he raised an eyebrow, like he was waiting for me to say something. My hands were shaky, so I put them in my lap and wished we were somewhere private, like the secret spot behind my apartment. Why didn’t I just tell him then?

Joel Norris played a few depressing notes on his tuba while Charlotte Davis looked on dreamily. Sean DeFosse strode by us with Martha Lee, debating the ethics of animal testing. I waited for them to shut up but they didn’t. So I just started anyway. “A lot has gone down recently,” I said, my palms warm against my jeans. “And it’s made me realize a few things. I’m sorry you saw Xander kiss me in the hall. It wasn’t what I wanted.” I held my breath, and then said, “
Who
I wanted.”

Aidan’s long lashes blinked as he considered me.

“I like
you
, Aidan. I’ve liked you forever.” I tapped my thigh, impossibly nervous. “It’s okay if you don’t like me. It still doesn’t mean I’m going to be with Xander or anyone else.” I swallowed. “I’ve learned a lot about the truth lately, and what can happen when people hide it. And I don’t want to do that. So there it is. The truth.”

Aidan inched closer. I thought he was going to say something, but right then Joel blasted the intro to a new, equally terrible song that made me question why the tuba even existed. And then Mindy sat down and said: “Well if et e-sn’t Public trog verses Infinitum trog.”

Aidan leaned in and whispered to me. “Later,” was all he said.

Mindy made me give every detail about New York City, and then told us her big secret: The head of NYU’s creative-writing program had called her personally to talk about her potential future at NYU after reading the portfolio she submitted. I listened to her voice rise and fall. The way she mixed up the sounds made some of the words more beautiful than the way everybody else said them.

Goth Girl walked by wearing her black veil over her face like she was in mourning. I had the sense everything was back to normal, until Mindy said, “So why heeven’t you been oh-nswering texts?” to Aidan.

Aidan took a swig of water. “I just got my new phone like a half an hour ago,” he said. “I left the other one on the plane to California.”

I gasped. “You didn’t have your phone at headquarters?” I managed to sputter.

Aidan shook his head.

“So you weren’t apped when you came running up the Public spiral?”
And then pushed Xander away?
And kissed me?

Aidan met my gaze. “I wasn’t apped,” he said evenly.

My nerves pulsed. That meant—

The kiss.

I thought about the way his hands slid behind my neck. How his mouth had crushed mine.

It was all real.

I took deep breaths as Aidan smiled into his sandwich. He caught my eye. I tried to smile back but my facial muscles weren’t really working right because they were trying so hard not to freak out.

I felt a tap on my arm and nearly jumped out of my chair. I whirled around to see Blake. Her black hair was French-braided and hung over one shoulder. The skin around her eyes looked puffy. She didn’t acknowledge Mindy or Aidan. She just said, “Can we talk?”

I let go of a breath. Then nodded.

Mindy glanced between Blake and me. Aidan’s hand went to my arm as I stood. “I’m okay,” I said. I saw the same intensity in his eyes I saw in California, and I wanted more than anything to be somewhere alone with him. I’d already told him how I felt. Now I wanted to show him.

I could feel him watch me walk away.

Blake and I headed toward the door leading to the courtyard. I already knew where we going—there was an oak tree we used to eat lunch under during the beginning of freshman year. Harrison kids stared at us as we moved between tables, but I didn’t care as much as usual.

Blake pushed the door leading to the courtyard. It was cold, and no one was in the yard except for us. A stone trail led from the cafeteria’s door to the oak tree. Pebbles lined the square perimeter.

Blake pulled a fuzzy white hand muffler from her bag and put it on. She stood there staring at me with both hands together like she was praying.

I waited for her to say something and imagined what it might be. Maybe how her dad had told her the truth, and how she should’ve trusted me all along. How she should’ve known I’d never tell one of our secrets. But instead, she said, “I know what was going on with you and my dad and Public. And I know why your app worked.”

My heart thudded to a stop. How did she know my secret?

Her voice raised in pitch. “And I know other stuff, too, Audrey.”

My toes scrunched inside my sneakers. “What kind of stuff?” I asked, trying to play it cool.

“Stuff we can’t talk about here.”

Just because she knew something didn’t negate what she’d done. And maybe she was bluffing. “Why did you tell everyone I stole the idea from you?”

Blake pursed her lips, then started talking way faster than usual. “My dad convinced me we’d be ruined if I didn’t. That we would lose everything. That I wouldn’t get into Notre Dame. Or
anywhere
.”

“Big deal, Blake,” I said. “I couldn’t afford to go to school, either, until—” I held my tongue. I didn’t want to tell her about Infinitum. I didn’t trust her. “You still shouldn’t have done it,” I said instead.

“I know that.” Her eyes were glassy with tears. I wasn’t sure if she was crying or if the cold air was stinging her eyes. I was about to feel sorry for her when she said, “But you
were
getting a little cocky with that app.” She smirked. “A part of me enjoyed it.”

“Cocky?”
Was she serious? “I’ve had nothing good happen in the past three years. You couldn’t let me enjoy a little attention?”

Blake scoffed. “Nothing good? You have Lindsay and your friends who love you. And your overly nice mom who you actually get along with. And you have your perfect straight
A
s.” She tried to push her dark braid over her shoulder with her hands still pressed together in the muffler. “And then you have that geek what’s-his-name who obviously likes you.”

Now she was making me
really
nervous. The whole thing with Aidan felt so new, and I’d wanted him for so long, and some part of me worried she could ruin it.

Cold air swirled between us. Blake leaned against the trunk of the oak tree. But then she looked nervous, too, and straightened again. She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry for what I said about your dad in the bowling alley.”

My jaw tightened. I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to lie and say it was okay.