Could today get any worse?
Lili’s foot slipped on wet asphalt as she pushed against the trunk of Natalie’s car. To passersby, it looked like Smurfette and Gru from Despicable Me were pushing a green VW Bug—steered by Big Bird—off the side of the road, still fifteen blocks from Jem’s place. Or at least, attempting to push. The car didn’t budge—just like the cold wall of silence between her and Nick for the past week.
Lili’s hand slid on the slick bumper, and her eight-inch fake nose hit the trunk and squished her real nose.
Beside her, Natalie turned, blue trickles running down her face as rain eroded her body paint. “Are you okay?”
“I think I just broke Gru’s nose.”
Natalie rubbed her temples like she had a headache. “I can fix that. As long as the bird stays out of the rain, we’ll be fine. Let’s push.”
Lili returned her attention to the steaming vehicle before her, torn between praying for help and pleading with God to keep anyone she knew from seeing her.
Natalie had enlisted her mother’s and Lili’s help in an elementary school skit earlier that afternoon for Wildfire. Natalie had been freaking out at the thought of stepping out in front of the kids—apparently her public-speaking fear extended to seven-year-olds—and she’d begged Lili to help.
It had sounded great at the time—Lili had a free period at the end of the day and needed a distraction from moping about Nick.
But now with her change of clothes at home and cold water soaking through the shoulder padding that formed Gru’s figure, she wondered why she’d said yes.
Natalie threw her weight behind the broken-down car, and Lili pushed beside her. The vehicle gained some momentum, and as they pushed, Natalie’s mom steered the car onto the shoulder of the road.
Lili executed her best Gru victory dance, complete with a shuffle and stanky leg, and a truck slowed beside her and beeped its horn. She froze as Nick’s dual-cab pickup rolled to a stop.
You have got to be kidding me.
The two of them had barely spoken in a week, and this was how he found her?
His window wound down, and he peered through the rain at her. “Please tell me I can be Buzz Lightyear.”
She folded her arms and tried to look as dignified as she could in a bald cap and prosthetic nose. “What are you doing?”
“Offering the Nickelodeon channel a lift home.”
“We’re not Nickelodeon characters.”
“Nick!” Natalie’s blue face appeared in Nick’s other window.
He jolted, then grinned and lowered the glass that separated them.
“Can you give us a lift home?” she asked.
“Jump in,” Nick said with a sly glance toward Lili.
Natalie and her mom jumped into the back seat, and Mrs. Groves tried to pull the door closed.
“Your tail feathers are sticking out,” Lili said.
Mrs. Groves gathered her plumage as Lili pushed the door shut behind her. She dragged herself around to Nick’s passenger seat.
Nick exchanged pleasantries with the older women as they started off toward home, before a country music station filled the silence. Natalie and her mom started discussing Natalie’s internship, and Nick glanced at Lili. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She kept her tone neutral.
“Grace is kinda worried.”
“Why?”
“She said you failed your math test, and you’ve been acting weird. Why haven’t you told her about . . . the stuff?”
“Who says I haven’t?”
“She did. She had no idea why you’d failed or what was going on.”
Lili huffed. “She’s a gigantic blabbermouth.” A blabbermouth who’d grown increasingly snippy that Lili was keeping a secret. They’d barely even messaged this week.
“Look, I wanted to say I’m sorry about—”
“Not here,” she hissed with a look toward the melting Smurf and oversized bird in the back.
“Fine. We’ll talk in code.” Nick glanced toward the back seat, but Natalie and Mrs. Groves were engrossed in their discussion. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about blank. It’s not that I really thought you would lie, but it was just a lot to take in—she’s like my mom, you know? More than my real mom is. But, well, I asked her.”
Sitting in the truck, the massive shoulder and body padding she wore puffed up around Lili. She shrank into it like a turtle and clenched her hands together. “I don’t care.”
“She admitted it.”
She snapped her head toward Nick. “She what?”
“But she said it’s over. He ended it. The day your Mom got back from her conference. She said they were only actually together for about a week. The week Chloe was here.”
Her eyes slid shut. No. If that witch was telling the truth, that meant Dad hadn’t lied at the beginning, when he said the kiss was a one-time thing. Maybe he’d been fighting the way he felt.
It meant Lili’s behavior on the Sunday she smoked could’ve been what finally pushed him into Miss Kent’s arms.
It meant the whole shemozzle might be partly her fault.
And since Dad had still only made feeble attempts to contact her, he probably resented her for it.
“She said she’s sorry,” Nick said. “She’s been lonely for a long time.”
Lili’s jaw dropped. He was making excuses for her?
“You can take your apology and shove it blank blank blank blank blank. That blank is lying to you.” She folded her arms. “And I don’t want anything to do with anyone who has anything to do with her.” Tears pressed against her lids. She wiped her cold nose against Gru’s scarf. Hopefully everyone would think it was just rain.
Nick stayed silent for a minute, eyes fixed on the road. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he eventually said, eyes blinking at a rapid pace.
They pulled up outside Jem’s apartment and Natalie and her mom exited the car.
Nick touched Lili’s forearm as she reached for the door handle. “If this is it, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I hurt you.”
She pulled her arm away and kept her focus on her lap. “You didn’t.”
A pause. “That’s a relief, then. And I wanted to thank you. Your art tutoring really helped improve my grade. I have a college scholarship interview in two weeks. It’s a new thing Wildfire’s doing.”
“Yay for you.” Her tone said the opposite. She got out of the car. “Goodbye, Nick.”
She slammed the door shut and walked into Jem’s building without looking back.