Want to Go Private? (6 page)

I can’t believe Luke remembered that. Wow. My own parents don’t remember what I tell them about my life from one day to the next. Probably because they’re only half listening to me most of the time.

The pencil cursor hangs there. I wonder if he’s going to answer me. Finally, he types.

Omigod. He used the L word. No one’s ever used the L word to me except my parents and my grandparents. Oh, and Faith, but that doesn’t count because that’s just best-friend talk.

“Abby, it’s time for dinner.”

Mom opens the door and comes into my room and I quickly minimize the chat screen so she can’t see my conversation with Luke.

“Can’t you knock, Mom? I mean, I could have been changing or something. Aren’t I entitled to a little privacy?”

Mom tilts her head and gives me one of those annoying I’m-such-a-cool-understanding-mom smiles.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t think. Sometimes I forget that my little girl has …
blossomed
into a young woman and doesn’t want her mom seeing her in her underwear anymore.”

Sheesh. At least she didn’t use the words
puberty
and
menstruation
. There was a time when I was afraid to get in the car with her because she kept trying to bring up “my changing body,” like I’d actually want to talk about that with
her
.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Let me just finish this sentence and I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Don’t be long,” Mom says. “It’s your favorite — spaghetti Bolognese.”

As soon as she’s gone, I open the chat screen and read:

I type, fast and furious.

I’m not even hungry for dinner now. I just want to know what Luke is going to say to me about “us.” But Mom is shouting my name from downstairs.

I barely taste my dinner, and I toss and turn all night, wondering what Luke was going to say.

CHAPTER 5
OCTOBER 6

I log on before school the next morning to see if Luke’s online but he isn’t, and there aren’t any messages from him either. I was hoping maybe he’d write whatever he was going to say to me in an e-mail. It’s driving me crazy trying to guess.

It’s also really distracting. I find my thoughts drifting in science and when I look down I’ve doodled Luke’s name in my notes.
Must. Concentrate
.

Ms. Forcier’s talking about the characteristics of living things. Wait, I know this. I did the homework. She’s already listed:

I scribble these down in my notes, next to all my Luke doodles.

“Billy, what’s another characteristic of living things?” Ms. Forcier asks.

Billy Fisher is my lab partner. We ended up together after everyone else picked lab partners and we were the only two left
without one. In other words, we were the biggest losers in the room. The thing is, he’s not the kind of guy you’d think of as a loser. He’s really smart and even kind of cute. I like the way he blushes a little whenever Ms. Forcier asks him a question. I guess he’s shy or something.

“Uh … reproduction.”

“Ooooohhhhh,” Tyrone says. “Figures you’d remember that one, B.”

Most of the class cracks up, and Billy turns even redder.

“Thank you, Tyrone, that’s enough commentary,” Ms. Forcier says, writing
5. Reproduction
on the board. “Abby, how about giving me another characteristic?”

I’m trying to visualize the textbook that I read last night, except all I see are Luke’s chats. This is bad. Science is usually my best subject. I stare at the list on the board and will myself to remember what I know is in my brain under all the Lukeness.

“Um … they adapt to the environment?”

“That’s right,” Ms. Forcier says, turning to add it to the list on the board.

I glance over at Billy. He grins at me and I mime wiping my brow with relief.

“Didn’t you read the chapter?” he asks me after class. “You’re usually the first one to raise your hand with the answer when Ms. Forcier asks a question.”

“I did. I guess I was having a brain fart or something.”

He laughs. “Too many beans for dinner last night, huh?”

“Ha-ha. You’re so funny. Not.”

But he kind of is. And he’s pretty cute when he smiles.

“I’ve got to get to math,” I say.

“Okay, see you around.”

Nick Peters is waiting to copy my math homework, as usual. It kind of pisses me off that he’s started to expect it. When I said I would help him with math, I didn’t mean I would do it for him. I kind of expected him to put in
some
effort.

“Thanks, Angie,” he says, handing back my paper. “You rock.”

Yeah
. I rock so much you can’t even get my fricking name right.

It drives me crazy how Amanda giggles every time Nick calls me by the wrong name, but she never bothers to correct him. But then, why would she? If they made a movie of our high school, I’d just be “girl in math class” in the credits, where Nick and Mandy would have starring roles.

Glancing down, I realize I’m doodling Luke’s name again. I guess thinking about him makes the rest of this seem bearable, because to Luke I’m not just social plankton. To Luke, I’m someone special. I hope he’s online when I get home, so I can finally hear what it was he was going to tell me before Mom called me for dinner last night. The suspense is killing me.

I race to check my computer when I get home, but Luke’s
still
not online. I go down to have a snack and then force myself to focus on my homework. Well, not entirely. I allow myself to check if he’s online every ten minutes, but he’s not there. I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. I realize he’s never really told me all that much about himself.

“Wut up, loser?”

Great. Lily’s home.

“Nothing much, spawn o’ Satan.”

“We learned about sexually transmitted diseases in health today. It was
soooooooo
disgusting. I think I’m warped for life.”

“Uh … I hate to break this to you, Lily, but you were warped for life before that.”

“Like
you’re
one to talk! Seriously, though. I am
never, ever
going to have sex. Like,
ever
.”

“Dad’ll be psyched to hear that. He won’t have to buy a shotgun.”

“Whatever. I’m going to get a snack. You better not have finished all the chocolate chip cookies.”

The shriek from the kitchen one minute and thirty-five seconds later tells me that Lily’s discovered that I have, indeed, finished the chocolate chip cookies. What can I say? I’m stressed out because I need to talk to Luke. She can just sue me.

Dad’s not home for dinner, as usual. It seems like we hardly ever see him these days. Even on the weekends, he spends half the time in his home office working, only emerging long enough to ask me what I’m studying and how my grades are doing. Sometimes I feel like telling him I got an F just to get his attention. Yeah, like I’d ever really do that. Being smart is about the only thing I have going for me. It’s not like I’m ever going to win a beauty contest or anything. I guess the only way guys like Nick Peters are ever going to look at me is to see if they can copy my homework.

It’s so depressing. I wish I could just take some magic pretty pill or something, so I could look like Amanda Armitage. Not that I’d want to be a witch like her. I’d just like to see what it felt like to
have a guy like Nick pay attention to me, even if it was only for a day. Or even one math class. Is that
so
much to ask?

Sighing, I log on to ChezTeen. Luke
still
isn’t online. Where
is
he? It’s driving me crazy. I go into the music store and start talking to a group of people about some of the upcoming concerts. Then an MSN chat pops up from Faith.

But then I think about Luke and how he’s always telling me how pretty and smart I am. How he makes me feel special.

Part of me wants to go to Faith’s more than anything, to see if things can be the way they were before school started. Like if we can turn back time. But there’s another part of me that is still really mad at her. And it’s probably crazy, but because I haven’t heard from Luke, I don’t want to be away from my computer. I mean, I’m sure I’ll have heard from him by then, but … what if I haven’t? It’ll be hard to explain to Faith why I need to go online every five minutes.

The cursor blinks at me, as if urging me to make a decision. Slowly, I begin to type.

I’m just hoping she doesn’t ask me what they are, because I don’t actually have any.

That’s because you’re so wrapped up in Ted and Grace and stage crew and all the stuff you know I can’t do. You’re the one who changed everything. Not me
.