The One That I Want (14 page)

A shadow flitted across the spotlight beam. Bats were dipping in and out of the light.

“Maybe you worked very hard at a relationship,” he said quietly, “and it crumbled, despite everything you tried. How long has it been since you saw your dad?”

It felt like my heart was beating somewhere down in my gut. I said weakly, “I’ve told you. He lives in Hilton Head and runs all these businesses, so it’s hard for him to come all the way over here just to see me.”

Max didn’t say anything. He could have changed the subject with a joke and made me feel better. But he was content to open a wound and then just sit there and watch it bleed.

I asked angrily, “What are you planning for your college major? Psychology?”

His dark brows knitted. “No. My dad wants me to go to Tech and major in engineering. He says psychologists don’t make enough money.”

“And why don’t you tell him what you really want to do?” I sneered. “Because that would make your relationship hard?”

“I like reading people,” he said. “I think I’m good at it. That doesn’t mean I’m good at reading myself, or solving my own problems.”

“Obviously,” I said, “because you just caused another problem. You’re right. I don’t like complicated relationships. You know what’s really complicated? Being friends with my best friend’s date. So don’t think you have to pick me up anymore. You’re smart enough to arrange another way to go out with Addison.” I opened the door.

“Gemma,” he said. His hand squeezed my thigh. Electricity shot across my skin, up my torso, and across my chest to my heart, which pounded like I’d just finished a workout.

I slid out from under his touch and slammed the door behind me.

As I stomped across the yard, I realized I
shouldn’t have slammed Max’s door. My mother might have heard it. She might be watching me out a window now. She would know from the way I walked that I was angry. She would hear that anger again if I slammed the front door behind me. Then we’d have to talk about what had happened.

I’d thought I longed to have the chat with her that she kept promising me. But the prospect of talking to her about something this real made me cringe. I didn’t want her to know I had a complicated relationship with Max. Then I would have a more complicated relationship with
her
. Max was right, and that made me even madder at him.

I closed the front door, careful to shut it the way I normally did, which I probably got completely wrong now that I was thinking so hard about it.

Then I edged to the window to peek out at the driveway. I half expected—or half hoped—Max would still be parked there, staring mournfully at my house, contemplating running after me and ringing the (oh God) gong doorbell to tell me he was sorry. But he was already backing into the street, probably not even thinking about my prissy little fit.

I watched him until his taillights disappeared around the corner.

In the kitchen, I peered into the refrigerator, then the freezer, then the refrigerator again, looking for . . . something. I asked myself whether I was hungry or just wanted something to eat. The answer was neither. I wanted Max to come back. I wanted to erase what I had said, and what he had said, and go back to a time before I saw myself so clearly. I didn’t like what I saw.

I climbed the stairs. My mom was in her office. Really I thought of it as Dad’s office, though it had been Mom’s for the past six years. She hadn’t redecorated after Dad left. The walls were still painted a manly forest green and lined with towering dark wood cabinets. She seemed out of place in Dad’s leather office chair, sitting behind his massive wooden desk and pecking at the computer. A bowl and a spoon sat next to the keyboard. Without looking, I knew the bowl had held cobbler and ice cream, and that it was empty.

When I stood in the doorway, she didn’t glance up from hunting and pecking. My high school made everybody take typing now, but she had missed out on that. And apparently, working for a few years as a secretary before marrying my dad had not taught her any keyboarding skills. Biting her lip, she was really intent on finding that
G
or whatever.

“Hi, Mom,” I finally said. “I’m back.”

“Oh, hey, sweetie.” She pecked another letter before she looked up. Her brow furrowed. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you have fun on your date with Max?”

“Sure,” I lied. Wait. “Carter. My date with Carter.”

“That’s what I said.” She went back to typing. Over the clicks of the keyboard, she called, “Let me finish this up, and then I want to hear all about it.”

Right. I knew how it worked. We wouldn’t talk again until morning, when she would make me a big breakfast and I’d refuse to eat it.

I wandered down the hall to my room and sank down on my bed, thinking hard about Max. I had lashed out at him instinctively because what he’d said had hurt—like slapping a mosquito when it stung me.

But he had been right about a lot. He was so right about my “friendship” with Addison that I almost felt like I should apologize to her for losing weight and making the majorette line. I’d gained confidence, I’d started fighting for my own friendships with people, and I’d ruined the nice, peaceful princess-and-servant relationship that Addison and I had had before.

I
knew
I should apologize to Max for getting so angry. And telling him I couldn’t be friends with him anymore. What if he took that
seriously
?

I pulled my phone from my purse. With a shaking finger, I flipped to his number and called him.

“Hello?” he said.

I’d never heard him over the phone before. His low voice sent a shiver through the center of my chest.

“It’s Gemma.” He should have known it was me, since he had my number in his phone, but he didn’t sound like he knew who was calling.

“Hi, Gemma,” he said evenly.

“I’m sorry about what I said to you,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean it. I guess I got really mad at you for understanding so much about me. You got a little too close for comfort. Like you said, knowing what your problems are doesn’t always help you solve them, and I—”

“Gemma,” he interrupted me. “I do want to hear this story, but can we talk about it later? I’m on the phone with Addison.”

I was so surprised that I let the silence stretch way too long.

I’d thought our relationship was important to him, but I was just his date’s friend after all.

“No, that’s fine,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay. See ya.” He hung up.

I stared at my phone until my vision blurred with tears. Then I lay back on the bed and stared at the blurry lines of beadboard in the ornate dropped ceiling. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep and forget it all.

But I hadn’t practiced baton yet, except during band period at school. I’d taught fourth graders at the baton studio, but I was just showing them simple stuff like vertical spins. If I wasn’t perfecting my illusions, which I loved to do now that my thighs had shrunk, I didn’t feel like I’d practiced at all.

I snuck down into the dark yard, intending to practice only until midnight. But the more I tried not to think about Max, the angrier I got, and the faster I twirled. I stayed out until one.

* * *

All week at school, I worried about my upcoming date with Carter and Addison’s date with Max. People I vaguely knew continued to stop me in the hall and ask me in a friendly way if I was really dating the quarterback from East. One day during band practice, Delilah even whispered that she’d heard I’d made out with him—was that true? The only possible source of this rumor was Addison. And since Delilah managed to make everything sound like a compliment, I couldn’t tell whether Addison had spread this information to help me or hurt me.

Though I could take a guess. The vote for head majorette–elect was coming up in less than two weeks. If rumors were circulating about me, then Mrs. Baxter would think I wasn’t keeping my nose clean.

On Friday I still hadn’t heard the plan for our date that night. During a lull in band practice, when the director stood way up in the stands and made minute adjustments to the trombones standing in a curlicue on the football field, I slipped my phone from my pocket and checked my messages. Nothing. The idea of Carter calling me made my stomach go south, but I wanted to know whether we still had a date. More importantly, I wanted to know whether I would ever see Max again.

Addison walked over from her place on the thirty-five yard line to my place on the forty and plopped down beside me in the grass. “Ready for tonight? It sounds like a bore to me.”

I was loath to admit she knew something I didn’t, but that had been the case all along with us and these boys. “I haven’t talked to Carter,” I said. “Where are we going?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “We’re seeing some kung fu movie at the Fox and getting coffee after. We need to hint that Carter should start coming up with these dates, not Max.”

I suppressed a laugh. The Fox was a gorgeous 1920s theater not far from where we lived. When it wasn’t hosting concerts or plays, it showed classic movies. Trust Max to find the most offbeat movie they showed. It sounded like a blast to me.

If Carter planned our date? Wow, it sounded like a chain restaurant and a blockbuster movie to me. What a yawn. Addison would love it.

“So Max called you?” I asked. “That’s great, right?”

She shook her head. “No, I got a text from Carter today.”

“But Max called you earlier in the week, right?”

“No, why?”

“Oh. I just figured he would, since he kissed you after the concert,” I said casually, even though my heart was pounding. Max had lied to me Friday night when he said he was on the phone with Addison. He’d been trying to make me jealous. Which must mean he liked me!

After that initial spike of adrenaline, though, I talked myself down off the ledge. He could have been trying to make me jealous, or more likely, he was angry that I’d
yelled at him
. He’d probably been mad and hadn’t wanted to talk to me when I’d called to apologize.

That was all.

“It was the lamest kiss ever,” Addison was saying. “I get a sexier kiss than that from my grandpa.”

Despite the fact that I’d talked myself out of thinking Max liked me, it made me happy that their kiss had been no big deal. If she hadn’t gotten into it, maybe he hadn’t either.

“But you”—she tapped my cell phone on my knee—“have been getting calls from Carter, right?”

“No.” I tried not to sound relieved about that. “Why?”

“Because it’s totally rude of him to ignore you after the way y’all were swapping slobber last Friday.”

She watched me to see if I reacted. I gave her my majorette grin. The very idea that she was spreading rumors about Carter and me made my stomach hurt. But if I let her see that, she would know what bothered me, and she would do more of it.

Standing up and brushing the grass off her butt, she said, “I’m gonna go talk to Susan,” without even trying to disguise that talking to me bored her. Susan was the head majorette. Addison made the rounds every day, ingratiating herself to all the majorettes so she could get their votes for head-elect. She was wasting a lot of energy if you asked me. There was no way I would be chosen, and Delilah only had a chance if she stopped turning ashen every time the band started the opening number.

Robert plopped down beside me the instant Addison stepped away, as if he’d been hovering, waiting for his opportunity. “Hey, Gemma.” With a giant nod, he gave his dyed-black hair a toss out of his eyes.

I just stared at him for a moment. He had a lot of nerve trying to share my forty yard line without asking. “Hey,” I said warily.

“Want to go out tonight?”

I had waited two whole years to hear those words, and Robert asked nonchalantly, like he was asking to borrow a dollar.

I wasn’t happy about the prospect of another night tolerating Carter and pining for Max, but it sure was nice to be able to tell Robert I had other things to do. “I have plans.”

“With that quarterback?” he asked. “I heard about that. But y’all aren’t serious, are you? How about tomorrow night?”

I hardly dared to ask, because he might make fun of me, but I needed to know. “Robert, are you asking me out on a date?”

He spread his hands. “Duh! What did you think?”

I was quiet. I wanted to shout,
What I
thought
was, you sent me a sympathy card right before majorette tryouts last April.
But I didn’t.

Then I remembered Max saying I only wanted relationships that weren’t complicated. If I told Robert how I felt right now, things would get complicated.

And so I told him. “What I
thought
was, you sent me a sympathy card right before majorette tryouts last April.”

“That was a joke!” he exclaimed. “We always used to send each other cards like that.”

“No, not like that, Robert,” I told him sternly. “Not sympathy cards. Not before an important tryout. You shouldn’t have done that. A good friend wouldn’t do that. Then you sent me a text message that I’d sold out. And
then
you stopped speaking to me.”

He pointed at me. “
You
stopped speaking to
me
. The day after you made majorette, you sicced Delilah Allen on me in history class.”

“I did not
sic
her on you,” I said, almost laughing at the thought of tiny Delilah scaring the bejesus out of a full-grown guy. “I told her about the card. She must have taken it upon herself to tell you what she thought of how you treated your so-called friend.”

Robert furrowed his brow and shook his head like this did not compute. “You stopped talking to
all
of us, not just me. You lost weight, you made majorette, and you became a different person.”

He was wrong. I had been very careful
not
to become a different person. And I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “You wouldn’t know whether I became a different person or not,” I pointed out, “because you stopped speaking to me.”

He blinked at me in surprise, then tossed his hair out of his eyes again to give himself time to think. He had never seen this Gemma before, Gemma Who Bites Back.