Want to Go Private? (7 page)

I stare at the screen after Faith signs off, a sudden heaviness in my chest. My cell phone is sitting on my desk and I reach for it to call her back and tell her that I
will
come for the sleepover, after all, but something stops me from pressing the speed dial key with her number. I put the phone back on the desk, and check again to see if Luke’s online. When I see he’s not, I force myself to turn off the computer and pick up a book to read until I fall asleep. Even after Mom comes and tells me to turn the light out, I can’t stop myself from sneaking over to my desk and checking one last time. When Luke’s online icon is still set to
AWAY
, I want to cry. When I get back into bed I give in, and tears of longing and frustration silently soak my pillow.

CHAPTER 6
OCTOBER 7

“Are you okay, Abby?”

Billy is looking at me all worried. I must have completely spaced out.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

“You look pretty out of it. Maybe you should go to the nurse or something.”

As tempting as it sounds to go down to the nurse and fake a headache so she’d let me lie down for a while, I don’t want to risk her calling Mom.

“I’ll be okay. So where were we?”

“We’re on step four. Here, I’ll do this part. You get the petri dishes, okay?”

I go to the front of the room and collect our petri dishes, then set them up on our lab bench. My hands are all trembly, probably because I barely slept last night. Luke better be online tonight to put me out of my misery.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” Billy says. He takes a step closer to me and our arms touch. I notice that he’s flushed from the neck up. Weird.

We start to label the petri dishes. My hands are shaking so much I manage to drop one. Luckily, it doesn’t break, but the lid comes off so I have to go up and get another.

“Are you
sure
you’re okay?” Billy asks. “Because you don’t seem like your usual bright, funny self.”

It takes a moment for his words to pierce through the fogginess in my brain.
Whoa. Hold the phone. Did Billy just say he thinks I’m bright and funny
?

“I … uh … well …” I kind of just stare at him, noticing for the first time how his eyes are a really cool shade of blue.

“And you definitely aren’t as quick with the words as you normally are.”

He taps lightly on my head with his fist.

“Hello? Is the real Abby home? Can she come out to play?”

I can’t help giggling as I push his hand away.

“Stop it, you dork! You’re messing up my hair.”

“Now that sounds more like the Abby I know,” Billy says, grinning. “But I still think I’m going to nominate myself to be in charge of the experiment today, okay? Since you’re so out of it, you can just be Lab Flunky to my Evil Genius and take notes. What do you say?”

“I say it sounds good to me. Anything as long as I don’t have to think too much.”

With Billy in charge, we manage to get through the rest of the experiment without any disasters. I write down what he tells me to, and surreptitiously check the clock, counting down the minutes till class is over.

“So … Abby,” Billy says, as we’re waiting for the bell to ring. “Do you maybe want to get together this weekend and … uh … study for the science test? And then I thought maybe … we
could … you know … uh … go see a movie … you know … or something like that.”

My head’s spinning from lack of sleep and the unexpectedness of Billy’s question.

“I … I … maybe … I …”

“Well, I know you’re kind of out of it right now, so why don’t you, uh, you know, think about it and then when you’re a little more with it you could, um, maybe call or text me?”

He takes his pen and scribbles his cell number on my science notebook. I just stand there, nodding like a mute idiot.

“Hope you feel better. Later!” he says, leaving me standing there, dazed.

I wish Faith were on the bus with me on the way home so I could ask her advice. But I bet she’s busy backstage in the auditorium working on sets with The Amazing Ted. I rest my head against the window, listening to the hubbub of conversation and the tinny sound coming from the iPod earbuds of the kid in front of me (one case of adult deafness, coming right up) and try to imagine talking to Luke about this. But I get the feeling he’d take it badly. Really badly. This is something I’m going to have to work out for myself.

I log on to ChezTeen.com as soon as I get home, but Luke’s
still
not online. What the hell? Maybe he was just bullshitting me when he said I was gorgeous and the “hottest chick he’d ever seen” and stuff like that. Maybe he doesn’t really like me at all. I’m struggling to concentrate on my homework, but between the exhaustion and my constant checking of Luke’s status, it takes me twice as long as it normally would.

When I’m finally done, I see that Faith’s online. I ask her to go into a private chat.

I realize Billy’s given me just the excuse I needed for why I said no.

I can’t talk to Faith about Luke.
People might not understand about us
. I know
she
won’t understand. I just know it.

Without telling her about Luke, I don’t know what to say. So I lie. I’m getting better and better at lying to Faith. It’s kind of scary, considering how I never used to lie to her, ever.

He’s not Luke, that’s what.

What have I got to lose? A “relationship” with a guy I’ve never even met, who I think will be mad if I go out with a guy I actually know.

Maybe Faith’s right. Maybe I should say yes to Billy. But I want to hear whatever it was that Luke wanted to say to me first.

She goes on and on, describing Ted’s wonderfulness, and I periodically write “Great” or “Awesome” but after a while I just want to get off, so I tell her my mom’s calling me. I log out for half an hour, then go back on briefly to see if Luke is online. He’s not.

No luck after dinner, either. I can barely keep my eyes open because I’m so tired from the night before, but I figure maybe he had to work late at whatever he does — he never answered that question when I asked — so I decide to try to stay up at least till eleven.

“Abby, turn off the computer and go to bed!” Mom says. “You fell asleep on the keyboard.”

I feel like it’s three in the morning, but when I look at the clock it’s only ten thirty.

“I thought you said you finished all your homework before dinner,” Mom says. “Close that computer and go to sleep!”

“I did. I was just watching some funny videos on YouTube.” I close my laptop and yawn. I’m dying to check if Luke IM’ed me, but I don’t want to do it with Mom in the room.
Okay, Mom, good night
!

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“
Yeees
.” I groan. “Good night.”

“Good night, honey. Sleep well.”

She turns off the overhead light and closes the door, leaving it cracked just a little so I can see the night-light in the hallway like she has since I was little and afraid of the dark. Doesn’t she realize I’m not that little kid anymore, I’m fourteen? That’s one of the things I like about Luke; he treats me like an equal, like a grown-up, not like I’m a little kid with no opinion.

Once Mom’s safely down the hall, I open my laptop and check. What I see makes me want to cry, because what I see is nothing. No chat messages, no e-mails. No sign of life from Luke at all. How can he leave me hanging like this? I feel sick to my stomach. Maybe he doesn’t care about me after all. Maybe he really thinks I’m ugly and this was all just a game to him — maybe he’s been laughing with his twenty-seven-year-old friends about what a gullible idiot I am.

I grab my cell phone and text Billy Fisher that I’ll go out with him tomorrow night. Then I cry myself to sleep.

CHAPTER 7
OCTOBER 8

Another day goes by and there’s still no sign of Luke. Mom’s starting to nag me because I’ve had no appetite and there are shadows under my eyes from lack of sleep. I’ve been waking up every few hours to log on to the computer, just to see if there’s a message from him, and each time I see there’s nothing, I feel like I’m falling into a deep, dark hole, my thoughts spinning crazily, wondering why he isn’t there and why he hasn’t written to me. Then I cry until I manage to sleep for another hour or so. I’m having a hard time concentrating in class, which I guess isn’t surprising because I can barely stay awake.

Meanwhile, I’ve got this date with Billy tonight. Mom’s dropping me off at his house at four thirty so we can study, then we’re going to a six fifteen movie, and after, his mom will drive me home. I don’t even want to go. I don’t want to spend that many hours away from the computer. But then Luke hasn’t been online in days. What if he got killed in a car crash? What if he found out he has terminal cancer and only has a month to live?

Or what if he decided that you’re just some stupid fourteen-year-old who isn’t worth his time? What if he decided he wants to be with a real woman instead of someone whose only
experience is kissing Roger Hunter behind some bushes at the eighth-grade picnic
?

I log on to my computer again. He’s not online. No e-mails, no messages. No nothing. Fighting off tears, I try to figure out what to wear for the date I don’t even want to go on with the boy I don’t even know if I’m that into.

Jeans and a tank top with a long-sleeved shirt over it, I guess. I figure I at least owe it to Billy to pretend I’m into this, so I put on some makeup and a little spritz of that perfume Aunt Penny got me for Christmas last year, the one that she said the woman at Sephora told her was “all the rage with teen girls.”
Great
, I thought when she told me that.
I can smell just like all the Clique Queens, woo-hoo
!

I check my computer one more time before I leave. Still nothing
. Luke, where are you? What did I do? Why aren’t you talking to me?

If I’m honest, I have to admit that Billy cleans up well. He’s wearing black jeans and a button-down shirt, and truth be told, he’s really pretty cute. I suddenly feel kind of underdressed, like maybe I should have made more of an effort for this study date. I mean WTF? It’s not like Luke is sitting around at home checking obsessively to see if
I’m
around, is it?

We sit on the sofa in his family room with our science notes, quizzing each other on convection and radiation and all the other stuff we have to know for the test. Billy’s smart; that’s one of the reasons I like having him for a lab partner. He can actually do his own homework
and
remember my name, two things Nick Peters
still
hasn’t mastered.

“What are some of the properties that characterize a living thing?” Billy asks.

“Um — it has a complex organization composed of one or more cells. It has a metabolism. Like, in other words, it has physical or chemical processes that create and use energy….” I’m ticking off on my fingers as I try to visualize all of the bullet points in the textbook. “Oh, and it’s responsive to stimuli in the external environment.”

“Good,” Billy says, smiling. “Keep going.”

“It grows by taking external materials and organizing them into its own structure. Like, I eat doughnuts and get fat.”

Billy laughs. “You aren’t fat at all, Abby. You look great.” He leans a little closer to me. “You smell pretty good, too.”

I feel the flush rise up my neck to my cheeks.

“Um, thanks.”

“Okay, back to business.” Billy grins, leaning back against the cushions. “Give me two more characteristics of living things. I’ll give you a hint: You left out the most fun one.”

Fun one? I’m picturing the textbook, responsiveness, growth, complex organization, metabolism, responsiveness … oh!

I hit Billy. “You are
such
a perv!”

“Who me? What are you talking about?”

“The most fun one?
Reproduction
? ”

“Hey, even microorganisms gotta have fun, right?”

“Well, it’s a good thing some of us are more
evolved
.”

“Ding! Ding! Ding! You’ve just won the prize for getting all the answers right!”

“So what’s my prize?” I ask Billy.

He pretends to think for a moment, but I see him glance at the time on the cable box.

“Your prize is to be escorted to the multiplex by, uh, the amazingly handsome, funny, talented —”

“And modest,” I interject.

“And
exceptionally
modest Billy Fisher.”

“Well, lucky me.” I almost add a sarcastic “NOT,” but realize that I’ve kind of been having fun with Billy, and even better, I haven’t thought about Luke in more than an hour. Except, dang, now I have.
Go away, Luke thoughts
.

Billy’s mom sticks her head in the doorway from the kitchen.

“If you guys don’t want to be late for the movie, you better start packing up the books and get in the car.”

Billy sighs.

“It’s pretty much impossible to impress your date with how cool you are when your
mom
is driving you.”

“Like you were
ever
going to impress me with how cool you were.”

He punches me lightly on the arm as we walk to the car.

“Just you wait, Abby Johnston. My coolness will hit you like a tsunami. You will be carried along by its raging power. You will be turned into a freaking icicle by the frostiness of my cool.”

I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, whatever, Iceman. Let’s just go to the movies, okay?”

If I thought it was awkward having to make conversation with Billy’s mom in the car, it’s even more weird when it’s me and Billy sitting in the back of a darkened movie theater. First, our arms touch on the armrest between us. I quickly move mine away. I wonder if he’s going to try to hold my hand. I keep my soda in
the hand closest to him so he can’t, because I’m not sure if I want him to. Then, I feel his shoulder touching mine, at first lightly, then with increasing pressure, like he’s gradually leaning closer to me. Then he moves his hand to the armrest and I’m worrying if the next stop is going to be my knee.

I can’t concentrate on the movie because I’m so busy worrying about what Billy’s next move is going to be. Although I’m trying to focus on the screen, out of the corner of my eye I see his pinkie finger dangling off the armrest an inch or so above my leg and that’s what my brain focuses on. Where will that little piggy go next?

With Luke, I never have to worry about this stuff. I always know where Luke is — he’s safely in my computer, where I don’t have to deal with real-life hands and pinkie fingers and leaning shoulders and
OMG, is he going to try
to
kiss me
? thoughts.

Except right now Luke isn’t safely in your computer. Right now you have no idea where Luke is, or if he’ll ever speak to you again
.

The thought brings a lump to my throat. I cannot and will not cry here. Billy will think I’m a total freak and I want him to like me, even if I’m not sure if I want him to
like me
, like me.

Billy’s pinkie lands on my knee, a small dot of warmth next to the cold where my soda rests. I glance at him, briefly, but he’s staring straight ahead, like he’s totally absorbed in the movie, like nothing’s happened, like his pinkie hasn’t accidentally on purpose strayed into foreign territory.

Slowly, the rest of his fingers follow his Lewis and Clark pinkie onto my knee, and I have to move my cup to the other knee (and hand) to make room for them. Which means that now my right hand is cup-less and kind of hanging around with nothing to do
and nowhere to go. It hangs in the air aimlessly for a few seconds until Billy’s hand comes over to grasp it and then they both come to rest on my knee, together, entwined.

And there I am sitting in the back of the movie theater holding hands with Billy Fisher, wondering what Luke would think of all this.

What does it matter what Luke thinks? It’s not like he cares, right? You haven’t spoken to him in days. He’s probably ditched you. You were probably some big joke to him. Like, let’s play around with some kid’s head. Let’s pretend that I’m totally into some fourteen-year-old girl and laugh my ass off about it with my friends
.

I feel angry all of a sudden, an anger that has nothing to do with the boy I’m sitting next to and everything to do with a person I’ve never met. That anger makes me want to get back at Luke. To hurt him the way he’s hurt me.

I rest my head on Billy’s shoulder, and feel him take a deep breath before he rests his head on top of mine. His thumb strokes the back of my hand, gently.
Billy, Billy, Billy
, I think.
No more Luke. Forget Luke. Delete Luke from your brain. From now on it’s Billy all the way. Well, not ALL the way. But this is okay
.

The problem is, Luke’s words keep popping into my head.

“Ur the hottest chick I’ve seen in long time … Srsly, Abby, ur really pretty. I don’t know why u don’t think so … I’d be jealous …”

Must. Shut. Him. Out. I close my eyes and will myself to think of anything other than Luke. Puppies. Flowers. The characteristics of living things. Billy. Mom better not ask me what this movie was about because I haven’t got any clue at all. I’ll have to read the summary on IMDb.com.

And then I feel Billy’s breath on the side of my face.
Oh shit, he’s going to kiss me
. Sure enough, his lips graze my cheek and then his free hand takes my chin and turns my face toward him and then he’s kissing my lips. I’ve still got my eyes and my mouth closed but he opens his mouth and I can feel his tongue pushing against my teeth.

I’d be jealous …

I relax my mouth and we’re kissing and it’s a lot nicer than it was with Roger Hunter behind the bushes at the eighth-grade picnic. A whole lot nicer. Billy’s mouth tastes like popcorn and Twizzlers, and he isn’t trying to suffocate me with his tongue like Roger did.

“You smell sooooo good, Abby,” Billy whispers when he comes up for air. “It’s driving me crazy.”

Maybe that little bottle of stuff from Sephora is Amanda Armitage’s secret. I wonder if I wear this stuff to math class on Monday, if Nick Peters will magically remember my name. I don’t think Billy’s going to be forgetting it any time soon.

We spend the rest of the movie making out. At one point his hand starts to creep upward from my knee but I put my hand on top of his and keep it locked there. I’m not ready to do anything more than kiss.

When the movie ends and the lights start to come on, I pull away from him.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” I say, and I trip over people in our row who are sitting there like lumps just reading the credits.
What’s so important, dude? Do you really need
to know
the name of the key grip and the best boy
?

My reflection in the bathroom mirror doesn’t look any different, except my lip gloss is totally kissed off, but I feel strange
and I’m not sure what I’m going to see in Billy’s face when I come out of the bathroom and what he’ll see in mine.

What I see is him standing there with his hands in his pockets, and his face smiling this cute, shy smile that gets really bright when he sees me.

I wonder if he can sense the confusion I’m feeling right now. If he knows that while I was feeling his lips on my mouth I kept hearing Luke’s words in my head. No, he can’t know that. If he did, he wouldn’t be smiling at me like that.

“Hey,” he says, taking my hand.

“Hey.”

“Good movie, huh?”

I look at him and roll my eyes.

“Um, yeah. What little I remember of it.”

“Well, I took the precaution of reading up on the plot,” he says. “You know, just in case.”

I pull my hand away from his.

“What, you
expected
this to happen?”

Billy’s cheeks flush red. “Of course not, Abby! Jeez. But … I mean … I
hoped
. You can’t blame a guy for hoping.”

I guess I can’t.

“Okay, so what was this movie we just saw all about, exactly?”

Unfortunately, my parents are in the family room watching a movie when Billy’s mom drops me at home, so I get the third degree.

“How was your date, honey?” Mom asks.

“She had a date?” Dad says. “How come I didn’t know about
this? I’m supposed to meet the boy first with a shotgun in hand to scare him off.”

“OMG, Dad, get a life!”

“Yes, Rick dear, get a life. The Cro-Magnon era ended years ago.” Mom laughs. “So, Abby, tell me about the movie.”

I repeat everything Billy told me about the movie, and fortunately Mom and Dad sound convinced that I actually saw it.

“He took you to see
that movie
on a date?” Dad says, shaking his head. “I tell you, kids these days …”

“And how did it go with your young man?” Mom asks, nudging Dad to be quiet.

“Good, I guess. And will you stop with the my-young-man stuff?”

“That’s it? That’s all we get? ‘Good, I guess’?” Dad complains.