On my way to Life Skills on Monday, I try to nurse my resentment back to health. It would be so much easier to sit next to Webster every day if I could just hate him as much as I did at that party. But my resolve keeps crumbling.
As I pull out the seat next to his, Webster drags his elbows off the countertop and straightens. He flicks a glance my way. “Hey.”
I dissect that syllable for signs of pity. I try to hear an I told you so, or at the very least an I haven’t forgotten what a bitch you were on Friday. But I don’t hear any hint of disdain in his voice. He watches me out of the corner of his eye, as though I’m a solar eclipse. Like he’s afraid if he looks directly at me, I’ll hurt him.
Which only exacerbates my problem. It’s hard to stay angry at someone who already looks like they’ve been to hell and back. And here I thought the circles under my own eyes were bad.
“Hey,” I reply, just as Miss Holloway starts class and we’re forced to face forward again.
We’re working on an accounting overview this week, which means I actually need to take notes. I flip my notebook open to a fresh page and reach for one of the handouts Miss Holloway is passing around. She starts talking us through it, but Webster doesn’t seem to pay any attention. He can’t sit still. Keeps sending me sidelong glances.
When Miss Holloway tells us to work through the first problem set, Webster leans closer. “Are you...” He seems to be choosing his words carefully. “How are you feeling about things?”
“Depends what things you’re referring to,” I say without looking up from my worksheet. “But on the whole it was a pretty shitty weekend, Webster.”
This seems to catch him off guard. “Yeah, you could say that.”
I finish the first problem before asking, “What made it shitty for you?”
“Well, Caitlin dropping me didn’t help.”
“Oh.” ...Oh. I’d kind of assumed he was in rough shape because of our fight. Which...seems embarrassingly narcissistic now. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well...” He shrugs. “Probably the right call.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just nod.
He’s fiddling with his pen, tapping it against the edge of the table. “I feel like we should talk about the other night.”
I jot down the answer to the next question. I’m pretty sure I got it wrong, but I’m having all kinds of trouble caring. “I’m not sure there’s anything left to say.”
He watches me awhile longer before he finally picks up his worksheet for the first time and chews on the cap of his pen while he reads it. But as soon as class lets out, he follows me into the hall.
“You have lunch now, right?” Webster asks. “I’ll walk you.”
I start toward the cafeteria without responding.
“Look, I’m sorry. Especially if I caused any problems...with you and Holland.”
I cough a laugh and step around him. “Yeah, sure.”
We turn the corner into the crowded main hallway, and weave through bodies in silence. The warning bell rings as I reach the line for food. “You’re going to be late for class.”
Webster tugs a hand through his hair and then drops it to the metal railing that divides the lunch lines. Finally he takes a big step back, right as the line moves forward. I get my food, pay, and then go to sit with Reese and Veronica—whom I invited to join our table when I passed her in the hall this morning—inside the cafeteria. But when I reach the entrance, Webster steps in front of me again.
I tilt my head back and blink at the fluorescent lights above us. “What do you want, Webster?”
“I want you to listen to me.”
I lower my gaze, scan the tables behind him. Maybe if I can catch Reese’s attention, she’ll rescue me.
“And look at me,” Webster amends.
I meet his eye. “My mashed potatoes are getting cold.”
“I want to tell you I’m sorry—”
“You said that already.”
He catches my arm, gently pulls me to the side of the cafeteria doors. “Aubrey, please...” His hand falls away and he lets out a deep breath. “Look, in the interest of avoiding a repeat of what happened last year, I’m just going to be up-front with you. I didn’t mean what I said at Megan’s party. I was frustrated, I took things too far, and I didn’t mean any of it. Okay?”
My grip on my lunch tray tightens. “Okay,” I say.
He hugs his notebook to his chest like a shield. “So then can we talk? After school?”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I guess.”
Webster nods once, visibly relieved. “Great. Okay, so, since we’re both dealing with recent breakups, I was thinking we could get some pie? Susie’s bakery, maybe?”
I balance my tray against my hip and squint at him. “Pie.”
“A tried-and-true bad-week cure.” Hands in his pockets and notebook tucked under one arm, he curls his shoulders in and bends his knees so we’re closer to the same height. “Couldn’t hurt, right?”
My heartbeat is in my ears. Suddenly this proposition seems bigger than what I originally agreed to. But he looks so desperate, I can’t bring myself to say anything other than: “Okay.”
“Great. I’ll meet you at your locker after sixth period.”
He leaves before I get the chance to back out. Which...I am immediately tempted to do.
We’re just going to talk, I keep telling myself over and over ad nauseam on my way to my table. But it only takes about ten seconds for Reese to pick up on my weird vibe.
“What’s with your leg?” she asks.
I lean back so I can look under the table. “What about it?”
Veronica rotates her foot an inch so that her toes land on top of mine. I realize I’ve been bouncing my heel nonstop since I sat down.
“Oh. I dunno, just kind of anxious today, I guess.”
She looks at me carefully. “What’s wrong? Are you upset about your parents? Holland?”
“No, it’s...” I twist my fork around in my mashed potatoes. “I’m fine. I had coffee this morning. It’s making me all...” I pop a bite into my mouth and shrug my shoulders to my ears.
“Okay... Well, maybe lay off the caffeine for a little while.”
“Ha, yeah.” I swallow another forkful of mashed potato, then tuck my hands under the table. “So, also, in addition to the coffee thing, Webster asked me to get pie with him after school and I have no idea if it’s a date or not and I need you to tell me what to do.”
Reese just took a huge bite of salad, so she freezes with chipmunk cheeks. She meets Veronica’s eye across the table, then covers her mouth and in a muffled voice asks, “What?”
“Yeah, he said because we’d both gone through breakups, we should get pie. And I said okay. And I need you to tell me not to go and also think of an excuse I can give him.”
Veronica laughs and tucks back into her lunch, apparently feeling compelled to stay out of this. Reese, on the other hand, drops her fork and abandons her salad. “I can’t tell you not to go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think you do want to go.”
I don’t say anything.
“Don’t you?” she asks.
“I...am not sure. Because. On the one hand, yes. But then I think about what it’s been like between us lately and how every time I let my guard down with him it backfires, but maybe all of that was circumstantial, and maybe now we have a chance to be really honest with each other.”
Reese nods gravely. “They do say honesty is the best policy.”
“Can you be serious for a second? I am in crisis.”
She grins. “I can see that.”
“Look at it this way,” Veronica cuts in. “If you get there, and you’re not comfortable, then you can leave.”
Somehow I expected Veronica to pull through and be the one to talk me out of this. “What happened to your whole, sometimes you’re better off going it alone philosophy. I mean, you wouldn’t randomly meet up with Sam to talk things out, would you?”
“Actually, I’d love to do that. I’ve tried a hundred times to get her to talk to me.” Veronica sends me a look that says, Ball’s in your court.
I chew on my bottom lip. Smoosh my potatoes with my fork.
“If you want, one of us can call you twenty minutes in and we can do one of those really transparent ‘I have an emergency!’ bailouts,” she offers.
“I guess...”
Reese pulls her salad closer again, grinning like she knows I’ve already made up my mind. “You and Webster Casey. Who could have possibly predicted this outcome?”
I shoot her an annoyed look. “So, what, you’ve converted to Team Webster?”
She bites down on her fork and wiggles her eyebrows.
I manage to force a change in subject for the rest of lunch, and once we’re all finished eating, I walk with Veronica to class. She’s been quiet for a while now, so when the first warning bell rings, I blurt out the thought that’s been circling since her comment about Sam: “It still bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Veronica looks at me. “What does?”
“Whatever happened with you and Sam.”
Veronica chews her bottom lip. She glances around the hall, but everyone is wrapped up in their own conversations. “What if I told you everything you heard about me was true? I hooked up with Andy Zomeski while he and Sam were...well. Not technically together, but close enough.”
I try to find something nonjudgmental to say. “It wouldn’t be the first time two best friends liked the same guy...”
“I didn’t like him.”
“Then...why?”
Veronica sighs. “Sam and I had been friends a long time. But we come from very different families. She has one of those perfect situations. Parents who are always there for her, and who she actually enjoys spending time with. They’re great.”
I’m not sure how this relates to what happened, so I just say, “And your parents...?”
“It’s just me and my mom. And...yeah. We’re not like that. But when I started high school, my mom tried. Except the only way she knew how to get closer to me was to act like my friend. So she let me have all these parties. And one time, Andy showed up early, and we started drinking...” She cuts a look my way. “I wish I had a better excuse. I wish I could say Sam screwed me over first, or that Andy and I were soul mates. But really I just wanted to know what it was like to be her. And maybe...I guess part of me was angry, because when we got to high school, she made other friends and had all these guys interested in her, and I felt...kind of abandoned. Not that I was thinking about any of that in the moment. But years of replaying that night have helped me figure a few things out.”
“Did you ever talk to her about it? Try to explain?”
Veronica shrugs. “She didn’t really give me the chance. Sam had already made hating me her religion. Made it her mission to spread the good word that I was a slut.” She picks at some chipped polish on her fingernail. “You don’t come back from that.”