The Trouble With Flirting (18 page)

I ignore that last question. “You can’t deny that since you’ve gotten here, you’ve flirted with every girl in sight.”

“Flirted, yes. Actually liked? One girl. Actually kissed? One girl.”

“Come on,” I say. “You spent an hour in the hot tub with Marie. You going to tell me you didn’t kiss her?”

“
She
kissed
me
.”

“Oh, please.”

“It’s a real distinction!”

“You guys disappeared on the beach—”

“Right. We went for a walk together. She flirted with me like crazy and kept grabbing at me, but I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been interested in her. If I had been, we’d have hooked up.” He pounds his fist against his thigh. “God, Franny,
I’m
not the one playing two girls against each other.
I’m
not the one who waits for his girlfriend to walk away so
he can go grab hold of someone else.”

“Alex doesn’t do that! He—”

“I’ve
seen
him do it, over and over again! It drove me nuts for Isabella’s sake, but I thought that at least he didn’t have a chance with you—that you were too smart for that kind of shit.”

“Alex and I are old friends,” I say. “We like to talk to each other, that’s all.” Which has been true, right? Up until tonight. “But the stuff between you and Julia and Marie—that was ridiculous, and it went on for days. You sucked up all their adoration and let them slug it out.”

He raises his hands, like he’s strangling the air. “That was their fault, not mine. I never claimed to be involved with either of them. They were interchangeable to me.”

“Who isn’t?”

He just stares at me, and I writhe uncomfortably under his silent gaze.

“Anyway,” I say, “I don’t actually care. The thing with Julia and Marie . . . it doesn’t matter. I was just making a point.”

There’s a pause. Then he says, “You really don’t ‘actually care,’ do you?”

“I just said I don’t.”

“I mean about me. About . . .” He points at me, then at himself.

“Of course I care about you,” I say. “You’re one of my best friends here, Harry.”

“Right,” he says coldly. “And let’s not forget that I’m sweet and fun.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I sneak a sideways peek at him. Maybe he’ll laugh. He likes to laugh.

But he doesn’t laugh. He just stands there, waiting for me to do or say something else. But I don’t know what to say or do. Now it’s like I’m caught in that narrow doorway with him and Alex.
None
of us can pass through.

When the silence has gone on for an entire minute . . .

“Screw this,” he says, and walks away.

I call after him—I don’t want him to go away mad—but he just flicks his fingers in my direction and keeps walking. It looks like a friendly wave from a distance, but it’s not.

A noisy group of girls is also heading toward the dorm door. As they get closer to the light, I realize Marie is one of them. Harry spots her at the same time. He glances back at me. Then he strides forward with sudden energy, grabs her by the arm, and pulls her away from the other girls and against his hip. She laughs and clutches at him as he spins her around so they can head away from the dorm together.

Harry doesn’t look back at me, but Marie does. With a smile and a toss of her head. Which she then leans against his shoulder as they disappear into the dark.

I feel a spasm of anger and something else, too: something like pain. Did he really just run off with her? Like
that
—two seconds after telling me I was special?

I guess he’s as unreliable and changeable as I thought. I
should feel glad that I escaped before I got so tangled up with him that he had the power to hurt me. It’s pretty clear right now that any girl who really likes Harry Cartwright is going to end up getting hurt.

I should feel good about this. To hell with him.

I stand there for a while, trying to appreciate how good this should make me feel, but I’m still not convinced when I finally turn around and head slowly back toward Amelia’s apartment.

What else am I going to do? I have nowhere else to go right now.

I
don’t know who’s more surprised that I’m home at such a reasonable hour, Amelia or me. I immediately tell her I’m tired and just want to crash in my room with a book. She’s riveted by the show she’s watching—people are screaming at each other—so she lets me go without an argument.

I fall down on my bed and curl up so my feet are sticking out over the side, since it feels like too much work to take off my shoes. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and spin it around on the blanket.

I feel unsettled. On edge.

There’s this weird little bubble of happiness inside of me—Alex kissed me!—and then this bad feeling that has to do with Harry walking away furious and clutching Marie to his side.

Why’d he have to grab her like that? I know I shouldn’t expect anything else from him—but still . . . it was rude and deliberately hurtful.

But Alex
, I remind myself.
Alex.

Some time passes. I sit up and pick a book off the stack on my desk and try to settle myself down with some reading, but then I realize it’s one of the books Alex gave me on our day trip, and that gets me started all over again: thinking about whether Alex bought the books because he liked me, remembering how much fun Harry and I had that day, wondering whether Harry was just trying to teach me a lesson when he
disappeared with Marie right now or if something happened when they were alone rehearsing that had him already planning to do that.

My phone buzzes, and I snatch it up instantly.

Come to the window.

It’s from Alex.

I scramble to my feet and look out.

Alex is standing in the courtyard, gazing up at Amelia’s room. The fact that he’s confused about whose window is whose makes me melt toward him.

Not that I needed any extra heart-melting in his direction.

I open my window—only a crack because Amelia’s put in some kind of thief-deterring hardware that keeps it from opening any wider—and call out a muted but very happy “Wait there!” through the inch of open space. He turns and sees me, so I wave before ducking down and running into the living room. I’m in luck: Amelia has disappeared into her bedroom, so I’m free to creep through unchallenged. I close the apartment door behind me very quietly.

He’s right below the front step as I come out. His eyes search my face eagerly.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says. He’s wearing the same blue T-shirt and jeans he was wearing when I last saw him an hour or so ago. Of course he is. Why would he have changed? Nothing’s changed.

Unless everything’s changed?

“I’m fine,” I say. We’re both speaking in whispers. People
are asleep in the buildings all around us. I hope Amelia is asleep.

“Harry and Marie . . .” He stops, sticks his hands in his pockets. “He was with her when he met up with us, and they were all over each other.. . . I didn’t know if you knew about it. I thought you should.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But it’s fine. I don’t care.”

“So you guys broke up?”

I wave my hand dismissively. “We weren’t going out enough to call it breaking up. I mean, I knew all along that he and I didn’t really belong together.”

“So you’re not upset?”

“God, no.”

“Good. I hated the thought of you being here alone, feeling sad . . .” He glances at his watch. “Shoot—it’s almost curfew.”

“You’d better go.”

“Yeah.” He looks up at me, a sideways glance full of hope and uncertainty. It’s a killer look. “Franny, if you need anything . . . a friend, a shoulder to cry on, a bodyguard, a physical trainer, an oral surgeon . . . I’m here for you.”

“All of those things sound nice,” I say with a little laugh.

“Anything,” he repeats. He studies my face. “Man, you’re pretty,” he says. And then he comes up onto the step and presses his mouth against mine.

It’s a real kiss—I can feel his lips hard against mine—and my knees almost buckle with the unexpected thrill. I want it
to last a long time, but he breaks away too quickly and steps back down. “This conversation isn’t over,” he says, his eyes intent on mine.

“Good,” I manage to say. I’m shaking all over.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I nod. He kind of salutes me and then he walks away. From across the street, he glances back and sees I’m still watching him. We hold up our hands briefly in a sort of motionless wave. And then he heads down the sidewalk and I watch him disappear around the corner. But that’s okay.

Because this conversation isn’t over.

I go back to the apartment, keyed up, excited and anxious and a little desperate for something else to happen. Another text. A spray of pebbles on my window. A phone call. A plague of locusts.

Nothing.

I put on my pajamas and brush my teeth.

Nothing.

I toss and turn in bed, still waiting.

But I know nothing more is going to happen tonight.

It doesn’t matter: I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about how I made a choice tonight. I didn’t make it on purpose; it just kind of happened, and I’m still a little confused how. But it was the right choice: Alex over Harry. Substance over style. Kindness over selfishness. Steadiness over unreliability.

I choose you, Pikachu.

The nonsense words—from some stupid old animated show William used to watch—pop into my head for no good reason and keep repeating themselves. The more I try to ignore them, the more they bug me.
I choose you, Pikachu.

I keep flipping over, from one side to the other, trying to find a cool spot on my pillow, wishing I could block the noise in my head, fairly certain I flicked the switch to start something new and glad of it—but slightly unsettled by the way I had to end something to do it.

Alex over Harry. The right choice.

And the weird little sore spot I’m feeling somewhere in the back of my throat or my stomach or my head—I don’t know where; it keeps moving—that’s probably just because Harry and I fought and I don’t like to fight with anyone. He was angry at me—I didn’t expect all that anger. Other people’s anger sucks.

Also . . . he grabbed Marie so quickly that it was like he was
relieved
to have an excuse to leave me and go to her. He’s like the worst of my old boyfriends combined—he doesn’t take anything seriously and especially not me. I’m at the bottom of the list of things he cares deeply about, and Harry doesn’t even
have
a list.

My ego is hurt, I think. That’s the problem. I want to be with Alex, but it was flattering having Harry—who everyone’s got a crush on—act like my boyfriend. If I just take my ego out of the equation, then I’ll see that the best thing for me is having Harry happily off pursuing Marie.

I spend some time trying to take my ego out of the equation.

But the sore feeling doesn’t go away.

I fall asleep at some point after sunrise, and the next thing I know Amelia is shaking me awake. “Throw some clothes on quickly,” she says when I crack open my eyes. “I want to leave here in five minutes and you’d better be with me.”

I don’t have time to shower, so I pull my hair into a ratty ponytail. I know I’ll feel grungy and sticky for the entire day, but at least I don’t have to face people at breakfast—as eager as I am to see Alex and to continue the conversation, I’m equally dreading seeing Harry. It just feels easier to postpone both for the moment.

I choose you, Pikachu.

Rats, it’s still in my head.

When we reach the Sweatshop, I can hear a rehearsal going on in the theater. The casts rotate in and out: every day one gets the stage for the morning, two have shifts in the afternoon, and one rehearses there after dinner. The rest of the time, the casts rehearse in practice rooms on the second floor. The schedule changes daily, but it gives them all an equal opportunity to get used to the space before performing in it.

Amelia and I don’t actually go through the auditorium, so I can’t tell which cast is in there right now.

But Amelia checks the rehearsal schedule once we’re in
her office.
“Twelfth Night,”
she says. “Your cast, but Charles didn’t ask for you until this afternoon, which is good, because you can help with the fitting I want to do now—the costumes are almost done. Charles can send the kids back here when they’re not needed onstage.”

I hide the groan that rises to my lips. Of all the casts . . .

It hadn’t even occurred to me until now that I’ve got to go rehearse with them later today. That I’ll have to see Harry and Marie
together
. I can still see him taking her arm last night and her laughing and clutching at him . . .

But it’s good, I remind myself. By running off with Marie, Harry made it okay for me to obsess about Alex. I was on the verge of feeling guilty, and he freed me from that. There’s still Isabella to consider, I guess, but if Alex likes me better than her, then he’ll just have to make that clear to her. Maybe he already has.

That thought momentarily cheers me up.

Still, rehearsal is going to be awkward. At least it’s not until later, and most of my scenes aren’t with Harry or Marie, and sometimes Charles pulls me out to rehearse with—

“Franny,” Amelia says sharply, interrupting my train of thought. “How many times do I have to ask you to go?”

“Go where?” I ask, genuinely confused. She talks at me so much when we’re alone that sometimes I don’t bother listening.

“To the theater to tell Charles to send the kids back here to try on their costumes. Hurry up.”

I enter the auditorium through one of the side doors. Charles is standing just below the stage, tilting his head back so he can talk up to the kids who are on it. The ones who aren’t performing right now are down in the audience.

Harry and Marie are sitting side by side. She sees me before he does and whispers audibly, “What’s she doing here? Charles said she wasn’t coming until later.”

Harry turns, and our eyes meet. He nods at me coldly, then turns back to Marie with an indifferent shrug. She snuggles in as close to him as their separate seats will allow, and he curves his arm around her.