The vision of the little girl in the snow didn’t happen again, but I searched the face of every kid I saw in town and at the Inn, hoping to recognize her or her dog. I also scoured the news to check if any children were missing. Nothing came of all my vigilance, so I tried to put it out of my mind.
Although I had decided that attempting to date two guys in order to shape myself into a viable contender for Trevor’s affections was arrogant and ridiculous, I was still irritated with Doug for telling me what I could and couldn’t do. It was bad enough when Trevor acted like my big brother. I didn’t need Doug doing it too. He thought it was funny I was giving him the silent treatment, and his smug expression is what finally made me break my stand-off. We were sitting at our table in the students’ lounge. “Wipe that satisfied look off your face.”
“Why? I did a good deed. I saved you from being used by a womanizer.”
“Isn’t that a little judgy? You don’t even know him.”
“Neither do you.”
“Well, I’m free to get to know him if I want to.” I glared at Doug with the most defiant look I could muster.
“Go ahead. You’ll just find out that I’m right. In the process, you’ll lose what you have with Steve. If you want to learn about the shitty side of dating the hard way, suit yourself. I’m just trying to save you the heartache. And the potential unwanted pregnancy.”
I shook my head, pissed that he didn’t trust my judgment. I was still squinting, and he was still smiling as Sophie walked up and sat between us. “Aw, so cute, look at my two besties getting along so nicely.”
“Doug feels I’m too naïve to make my own decisions, so I’m going to become friends with Mason, just to spite him.” I stuck my tongue out at him, then ate a spoonful of my pasta.
Doug laughed. “All right, but when it all blows up in your face I’m going to sit here and tell you I told you so.”
“Whatever. I can’t waste any more time on boys, anyway. My GPA is suffering. I need to get some homework finished.” I stood and packed my things into my bag. “I’ll see you guys later.” I left the lounge and something crashed against a locker down the hall. Then I heard Nikolai’s cartoony voice say, “Stop”. I rushed towards the art wing, where the noise had come from.
“Hey! Cut it out.” A male voice intervened before I got there.
Once I rounded the corner, I saw Nikolai sprawled out on the floor, reaching for his glasses. He tried to put them on, but the frame was twisted, and one of the lenses had a big crack across it. He was surrounded by a crowd of grade-eight and nine boys, and Mason.
“Don’t mess with him again or you’ll be laid out on the floor,” Mason said, which made the boys all scatter. “You okay, Niko?”
Nikolai nodded, but he didn’t look okay. I stepped around Mason and sat down on the floor beside Nikolai. “What happened?”
Mason leaned against the locker to listen to the answer.
Nikolai shrugged. “Same as always. They tease me because I’m small and because of my voice.”
“Your voice?” I reached over and rested my hand on his forearm. “I love your voice. It makes me happy.”
His face turned red and his big brown eyes filled up with tears. “My voice is embarrassing. I went to a speech doctor when I was little, but it didn’t help. I hate how it sounds.”
“I don’t agree. It’s unique and original. Sometimes people don’t understand how cool something is if it’s a one-of-a-kind.” I picked up his glasses and tried to straighten out the frame. “You should be proud of all the things that make you special and interesting.” I considered telling him about my brain glitch but didn’t want Mason to hear. Maybe I needed to take my own advice before telling other people what to do.
“Were you ever teased?” Nikolai asked.
“Yeah. The kids in elementary school used to tease me because of my name. They would come up with a different dairy product every week to call me—cheddar, Gouda, skim, two percent, sour cream. Kefir was one of the more creative ones. Even the teacher accidentally called me that one.”
Nikolai laughed, then pointed at Mason. “That’s Mason. He tutors me in science. Mason, this is my big buddy, Derian.”
Mason extended his arm to shake my hand and said, “Nice to officially meet you.”
“You too.” That was all I could manage to say to him because I suddenly felt insanely nervous in his presence. Instead, I turned back to Nikolai. “I’ll make you a deal. If you try to be proud of the things that make you different from everyone else, I will too.”
“Okay.”
I stood and helped Nikolai to his feet. “If they bother you again, let me know. I’ll ask Doug to talk to them.”
He raised one eyebrow and said, “They’d be more afraid of Sophie.”
The fact that he was dead serious made me laugh. She could be very intimidating if she wanted to be. “Okay. I’ll ask Sophie to take care of it if they ever bother you again.” I glanced at Mason, wishing I had the nerve to strike up a conversation with him. “I should get going. I’ll see you around, Nikolai. Don’t forget to be proud of what makes you unique.”
“You too.” He pointed at me. They both smiled, and my cheeks flushed as I walked away.
I headed to the computer room. With everything that had been going on for me emotionally, I had gotten behind on a few assignments, which was so unlike me. I hadn’t even fallen behind the year after my dad died. The fact that a bit of boy drama threw me off wasn’t something I was particularly proud of. So, with renewed determination to be a serious and focused student, I got to work.
After I typed an essay for English, I checked my email, fingers crossed, hoping Trevor had sent a reply to my message. So much for avoiding distractions.
My inbox was empty, which should have cemented my resolve to focus only on academics, but it actually made me think about Trevor more. What the hell was wrong with me?
Corrine Andrews leaned over from the computer station next to mine. “Sounds like your brother is having a wicked time.”
“What?”
“I would have been scared shitless if I was with Murphy when he ran into that polar bear.”
Polar bear? Brother? Corrine Andrews speaking to me? “Trevor’s been emailing you? I didn’t know you guys were friends.”
She chuckled in a stuck-up way. “I guess we’re not the kind of friends brothers tell their sisters about.”
“Trevor and I aren’t related.”
“You’re not?”
“No. Excuse me.” I rushed out of the computer room, got my stuff out of my locker, and kept going right out of the school. Steve was out front, throwing a football around with some of his friends.
“Hey, Deri,” he hollered.
I didn’t feel like talking, so I turned in the opposite direction, wrapped my arms around my body, and walked with my head down.
“Derian. Wait up.” I could hear him running after me, and I seriously considered breaking into a sprint to avoid him. He was going to chat my ear off as usual, and all I really wanted was to be left alone in peace and quiet. “Hey.” He pulled at my elbow to make me turn around. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m having a bad day.”
He draped his arm over my shoulder and walked with me.
“You don’t have a coat on. You’re going to freeze,” I pointed out.
“Nah, I’m a warm guy. So, are we ditching our afternoon classes?”
“I am.”
“Then I am too. I have an idea, if you’re interested.”
I really wanted to be alone, but it wasn’t fair to take my bad mood out on him when he was just trying to be friendly. He had enough to worry about without having to deal with me blowing him off too. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
We walked for twenty minutes to a strip mall. He was freezing, I could tell. He didn’t complain, though. He led me down a wide set of stairs towards the bowling alley under the strip mall. It bustled with seniors, who looked pretty serious about their bowling. The noise of balls hitting the hardwood and the tumbling pins filled the air as we rented shoes and chose balls. I hadn’t been bowling since I was about twelve. It felt a little weird to be in the same alley that my dad used to take me to. It looked and smelled exactly the same.
“Do you come here a lot?” I asked.
“Only when the girl I like is walking away from school in the middle of the day, looking sad. Do you come here a lot?”
“Only when I’m walking away from school in the middle of the day, feeling sad, and the guy who likes me follows me.”
His jaw tensed for a second, then he covered it up with a forced smile. It took a second to occur to me that his reaction was because I said he was the guy who liked me and not the guy who I liked.
“You’re up first,” he said as he handed me my ball.
We bowled for two hours. It was really fun. Afterwards, we sat at the diner counter to share an order of fries. I picked the stool my dad sat on. It made me sad to think about how those memories would slip farther and farther into the past, with no new memories to replace them.
Steve must have noticed how I was feeling. He asked, “Did you used to come here with your dad?”
I nodded and held back the emotion that built in my throat.
“I was trying to cheer you up. We can leave if it makes you sad.”
“It’s okay. I like remembering. I just wish I had more things to remember.” I dipped a fry in the ketchup, but didn’t eat it.
“The Inn must be exactly the way it was then.”
“For the most part, but my granddad is trying to sell it. If a developer buys it, all those memories will be lost forever.”
Steve nodded and ate a fry. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
“I doubt it. He’s getting older. Plus, once I leave for university, he’ll have the extra expense of hiring someone to replace me. It would be better for him if he retired to go play golf somewhere. But it breaks my heart to think the memories of my childhood and my dad will be gone forever.”
“My grandpa retired for two months, then went back to work part-time because he missed the routine and the people. Your family has lived in Britannia Beach for three generations. If there is a way financially for your grandpa to keep the place I’m sure he would rather do that. I doubt he wants to move to Florida or Palm Springs by himself.”
I looked at him and smiled because that did sound somewhat reassuring. He stole a sip of my lemonade. Then we talked about his sister and the complications she was still dealing with until a bunch of young kids came in and it got noisy. As we were leaving, I said, “Thanks. I feel way better.”
He stopped on the stairs and eased me against the wall to kiss me. His body felt warm against mine. I was kind of into it until he unzipped my coat and slid his hands up from my waist and under my sweater towards my chest. I pulled back abruptly and zipped my coat back up.
He smiled with only half his mouth. It looked like he was both disappointed and a little bit irritated at the same time. He didn’t say anything about it, though. He held out his hand, wrapped his fingers around mine, and we walked back to the school. I waited in his truck as he went to his locker to get his stuff. It was hard to tell if I was really not into Steve in a physical way, or if I was just really, really bad at the whole dating thing, or if I was hung up on the hope of dating Trevor when he got back. I still hadn’t decided which one it was when Steve climbed into the truck and drove me home.
He parked in front of the Inn and I said, “I’m sorry I’m an emotional roller coaster. I don’t mean to lead you on or be a tease. I’m just a total newbie with all this, and I keep doing everything wrong. You must think I’m so difficult.”
He chuckled. “You’re a little complicated, but that’s one of the things I like about you.”
“Would it be okay if I asked you to take it slow with the physical side of our relationship and be patient while I sort things out personally?”
“Sure, I can wait as long as you want to. Would you like to go out for dinner on Saturday night?”
“Yes.” I leaned over and kissed him. “Thanks for understanding, and thanks for the bowling, and thanks for the talk, and thanks for the ride home.”
“You’re welcome. If you want to ditch again tomorrow, I know of a cheap movie theatre that plays horrors in the afternoon.”
I tapped his shoulder with the back of my hand. “I think you’ve missed enough school this year, young man. I’ll try to be a better influence on you.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you were a little naughty some of the time.” He angled his eyebrows in a sassy way.
“I bet.” I smiled and shook my head. “Bye.”