What Happens Next (21 page)

“See, so you do like him!” Paige says, finishing off her Tots, all proud of herself, thinking she’s won something.

And even though I’m a bit rattled that she’s caught me red-handed, I say with all the condescension I can muster, “Yes, Paige. I do like Corey, as a
friend
. That’s what friends do, they
like
each other.”

Then we all sit and pout for a second.

“He is too a rocker,” Kirsten finally says, smiling deviously. “I asked Stacey Kelly about him in history; she dates one of his friends. Turns out he used to play guitar before he got sent to juvie. She said his mom hocked it when he left. To pay for her drugs.”

“Well, aren’t you just full of information,” I say. “A regular one-woman detective agency.”

And I say this in a tone like I couldn’t care less, but inside, I’m all over these little scraps, filing them away for later, for when I’m alone and able to obsess in peace.

“Yep,” she says. “Stacey said the guitar was worth a lot of money, but his mom only ended up getting a hundred bucks for it. He tried to get it out of hock when he was released. Pawn broker wouldn’t budge. Said he had to pay full price. Someone finally came along and snagged it.”

“Oh, man,” Paige says, her eyes going big and gloomy. “That’s so sad.”

“Put him on your prayer chain at church, Paige,” I say.

“Hey, be nice now,” she says, wagging a finger. “But seriously, if it’s true, it’s really sad. Who’d do that to a kid? I mean, no wonder he’s a dealer.”

The bell rings. I stand up and smooth out my jeans, adjust my shirt.

“Yep, a regular gangster, that Corey Livingston,” I say. “Spends all his time running kilos around Lakewood. Well, in between the macaroon tarts and clothespin cookies, I mean.” I point a finger upward. “Oh! And the daily eight hours of high school he has to attend.” I squint and nod extra hard. “Those drug dealers… they’re big on education.”

“All right. We get it. You win,” Kirsten says, shoving me playfully as we walk into the building. “We’ll lay off. Right, Paige?”

Paige smiles. “Yeah, fine.”

“He’s redeemed!” I shout. “Praise the Lord!”

As I walk to my locker, my mind is reeling. Rumors or not, I now I have something to keep my mind occupied for the next three hours. I obsess over it all afternoon.

I want to be the first one there, and I hurry, but he has beaten me to the truck. The parking lot slants upward a little, and most of the vehicles have a bird’s-eye view of the back doors of the school. Corey is leaning against the front of the truck, talking on his cell, and I feel self-conscious as I walk down the long, long walkway toward the long, long parking lot. As soon as I hit the blacktop, I stumble a little, slipping on a rogue piece of gravel, my ankle grinding painfully sideways.

“Fucking heels,” I mutter to myself.

And the new shirt that I wore today?

Well, I tried to ignore the way it was making me feel.

I tried to get comfortable in it, because I know I look fine.

The logical, sane side of my brain knows that the shirt is fine and appropriate. Totally pretty and girly. And that is precisely why the psychotic side of my brain hates it and will never wear it again. The psychotic part of my brain ended up throwing on a button-up sweater after lunch. It’s been shoved in the back of my locker since December and was thoroughly wrinkled. But it was just there, beckoning me to cover up my big insufferable boobs. At least it sort of matches my shoes.

I’m halfway to the truck and it’s at least eighty-five degrees out, heavy and humid. I’m getting warm fast. The blacktop is sticky and the sun is beating down on the top of my head like the eye of Satan. Two weeks ago, there were snow flurries, swear to god.

“Fucking Ohio,” I mutter to myself.

Corey is warm, too. Even from a distance I can tell. He is taking off his hoodie, sliding each arm out, switching the phone from hand to hand. Underneath is a plain white T-shirt. It slides up for a split second when he pulls the hoodie over his head. He has hair on his stomach; not disgusting, wolf-man amounts, but just-right amounts. A splendid torso, indeed.

He throws the hoodie over one shoulder and pulls his T-shirt down. This is the first time I’ve seen him without multiple layers, and his shape is nice. Not like sinewy, ripped-up gross or anything, just solid. Masculine. I look away, at anything but his torso—at the trees in the distance, a blue car in the back row. I scratch my face, tuck the uneven lock behind my ear, reposition my backpack.

I honestly don’t know what to do with my limbs and body.

I feel like I’m on display. Like a fat, naked trailer-park skank shlumping down the catwalk after Gisele and Tyra just floated by. I approach the truck and force my best smile. The truck is already running. God, I hope the AC isn’t busted.

“Gotta go. Yep, I’ll get it. Mmhmm. Bye,” he says and hangs up, shoving his cell in his pocket.

“Learn anything useful in there?” he asks.

“Nope, not a thing.”

And then he leans off the truck and I realize he is walking around to my side. He’s opening my door. I start to panic.
Oh, god, please don’t let him wait next to the door until I get in and then shut it like a freaking limo driver or prom date or something…

He puts the key in, unlocks it, and then opens it a crack. I reach out for the door and take over. I pull back on it, and he looks at me and steps away to walk behind the truck and over to his side. Whew! Okay, the Open-and-Crack is fine. Totally not necessary, but not tragic date behavior either. I can live with an Open-and-Crack.

I get in and slam the door shut. It’s like an arctic deep freeze inside.

“Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he says, climbing in.

He tosses his hoodie into the backseat. I haven’t seen his arms in short sleeves until now. He has arms in addition to a stomach. I look out my window. We get in line behind what appears to be the entire faculty and student body, crawling along like mechanical ants.

“You mind if I stop off at the store quick before I take you home?” he asks.

“No, not at all,” I say, positioning the air vent so it blows directly onto my face. I close my eyes. “Man, that feels good.”

“I left woodshop a few minutes early so I could get it nice and frosty for us,” he says, but the only word I hear is “us.”

I sit up straighter.

I need something to do.

“Can I look at your CDs?” I ask.

“Sure.”

I reach into the backseat and grab his disc holder. I start leafing through them. The Rolling Stones. Green Day. The Clash. Iggy Pop. The Ramones.
Billie Holiday? Fiona Apple?
The Strokes. Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Who.

“Oh, here we go. This okay?” I say and hold up The Beatles’ White Album.

“Sid, you don’t have to ask. I’m not a radio hog,” he says.

I put in the CD. Traffic starts to pick up. Out my window, right next to us, is Lindsey Rourke’s Toyota Camry. I see Kirsten’s blond head in the backseat. Our eyes meet, and she jumps from shock, then she turns toward the person next to her. Paige sticks her brunette head in the window, too. She is practically sitting on Kirsten’s lap.

I look over to see if Corey sees them, but he is concentrating on traffic. I shoot them the stink-eye. Their window starts rolling down, so I turn away and position myself so Corey can’t see out my window.

I also turn up the music. Loud. I blast “Back in the USSR” until the windows are shaking and try to think of something distracting to say.

“So what are you making in woodshop?” I yell.

We’ve moved ahead a car length and I can see in the side mirror that Kirsten is yelling my name and hanging halfway out the back window of Lindsey’s car, waving her arms.

“What?” he yells back.

“I said, what are you making in woodshop?!”

He turns the music down and says, “I’m not a radio hog but I’m not looking to go deaf either.”

Then he sees the girls. Kirsten is leaned over the front seat beeping Lindsey’s horn.

“Do you know those girls?” he asks, glancing back at them. “They look like they’re trying to get your attention or something.”

I look back. The jig is up. Kirsten is leaning out the car window, howling my name.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Unfortunately. They’re my friends. So-called, anyway. They’re trying to embarrass me, so that’s why I turned up the radio so loud. So I wouldn’t have to lay claim to such jackassery.”

He looks back at them and grins. Then he slows the truck down so they can catch up and pull alongside us again. All four of them—Lindsey Rourke, Julianne Bell, Jackass Number One, and Jackass Number Two—are ogling like they are at a drive-through zoo.

I roll my window down.

“Hey, Sid! Hey, Corey!” Kirsten croons.

I turn around and glare at her. She is smiling and raising a single eyebrow, like
Ha! Got you now!

I smile back at her and say, “Hey, Kirsten. How’s it going?” but with my eyes, I’m saying,
I’m going to kill you, Kirsten Lee Vanderhoff. Dead Dead Dead.

“Greaaaat,” she says. “Hey, a bunch of us are going to Bearden’s for peanut burgers. You guys wanna come?”

Her eyes are like big drops of glitter. She’s so dead. The only question now is how she’s gonna go. Strangulation? Baseball bat? Chain saw? I cock my head and smile at her all sugary sweet.

“Sorry, not today. Corey has this errand to run. But thanks for the invi—”

Corey leans past me and says, “Sounds great, Kirsten! We’ll race ya there!” and hits the gas.

He makes a shrieking left through the green arrow at the main road. I can hear the girls squealing like toddlers as they peel off in the other direction.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it,” Corey says, laughing. “Besides, it might cause a clique riot. A cheerleader and a shop rat dining out? Tongues will wag.”

It makes me cringe to hear him say this. Does he think I don’t want go because I don’t want to be seen outside of school with him? Or is it the other way around—he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t want to be seen outside of school with me? I’m not sure which one it is, but either way, it bums me out that he said it; that he just slapped labels on us and tossed us into opposing clique factions so easily.

“Ah, news flash, Corey,” I say, “I’m not a cheerleader anymore. I was kicked off the squad, remember? But it means a lot to me that you still see me that way. Sid Murphy! Cheerleader! Because all cheerleaders are ditzy, popular, and fabulous in their own minds, right? All cheerleaders are future prom queens, their lives just one big ball of pom-pom sunshine.”

“Sid, I was only joking. Relax,” he says. And he seems genuinely taken by surprise.

“No. I won’t. I won’t relax,” I say, my voice tightening up. “Because you said it. So on some level you must think it. So which is it? You don’t want to go because you’re too bad-boy cool to be seen out with some snotty, shallow cheerleader? Or because you think that
I
think I’m too high on the popularity pole to be seen out with a lowly shop rat?”

He interjects quickly, “I never said lowly. You said lowly. You added that. That’s your word, not—”

“So that’s it, then. You think that I think that you’re plenty good enough to cart my fat ass to school, but not good enough to go eat a peanut burger with.”

“Whoa! I never said that, I never said you have a—” he cuts himself off.

“Sid, really,” he insists, starting over, glancing from me to the road. His eyes are really nervous now. “I don’t think you think anything. I was just messing around because your friends were giving you a hard time. I don’t even know why I said it. I didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t even like peanut burgers!”

“Well, sorry, buster, but you’ll have to get the steak burger instead! Or a bacon cheese dog or a damn milkshake or something. Because you’re going.
We’re
going. After that comment, we’re going to freaking Bearden’s.”

And my voice cracks a little and my eyes start to burn, so I turn toward the window and blink.

“Oh, man,” he says.

He reaches over and touches my shoulder. Besides that time he played referee with Starsha, it’s the first time he has ever made physical contact with my body. I jerk a little because I wasn’t expecting it, and he draws his hand back. I can still feel its weight after he pulls it away, and I’m sorry that I did that—jerked away from him, I mean. It makes me look paranoid or überpissed, and I’m not. I think I’m just… I think…

Fack.

Who the hell am I kidding? I know what I think. I totally know. And the truth is, I think I really, really like Corey Livingston. So there you have it. Sid Murphy likes Corey Livingston. And not just as a friend. She likes-him-likes-him. Ugh, I do and now I’m afraid he doesn’t like me back. I’m afraid that because I was a stupid cheerleader or I have a big butt or I’m too mouthy and obnoxious or I’m every other thing under the sun that someone might find repulsive in a girlfriend, he doesn’t like me back.

Jesus, and even if he doesn’t think
any
of these things, I’ve gone and blown it all sky-high anyway by being a lunatic. I look into the side mirror. My lunatic eyes are about to pop out of my lunatic skull—they’re all witchy and bewildered. I look like a bona fide nut job. I’m the hysterical female in every romantic comedy I’ve ever watched and hated. I’m the female who is always spouting off at the mouth, the one who always takes things the wrong way and ends up crying.