A. You were a junior or a senior with a sibling who was in the other grade, so you got automatic VIP status. Or:
B. You were inter-grade dating (which I was not, Tyler being only a few months older than me).
Jack, clearly flustered, scratched the back of his neck, the shade of his cheeks darkening even further. “Nothing major. My buddies and I are throwing a party at my house…It’s open invite, and, ah, I was wondering…if you and your friends wanted to come. No limit.”
It at least felt like a compliment that Jack thought I had a wealth of other acquaintances close enough to invite to parties, other than Delia and Tyler. Little did he know that one of the reasons I was so good at school was because that was really all I focused on, other than hanging out with those two. The field hockey girls and I were fickle friends at best, and my shy tendencies made it kind of hard to get close to anyone who wasn’t my boyfriend; his best friend, who thus became by best friend; or my mother.
Though I doubt Jack Cameron would’ve wanted to invite me to the party if he heardthatsob story.
“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically. “I can’t tonight. I have plans.” I promised Tyler we’d have a movie night and watch the latest Marvel release, a genre I wasn’t a huge fan of until he got me into them, but seeing his face light up throughout the action sequences made it totally worth it.
Jack nodded, blowing out a tiny breath, probably relieved that the awkwardness was over. He’d flashed me a warm smile, letting me know that it was all good. “No worries, Olive. Another time. Fun plans tonight?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t look at him as I picked my pen back up and continued writing out the lab notes. “Watching a movie with my boyfriend.” I didn’t see Jack’s expression when I dropped the B-bomb on him, but I heard him shift in his seat, and he cleared his throat.
“No worries,” he said again, slightly less enthusiastic this time. “Hope it’s fun.”
The bell rang and class filtered out into the hallway. I beelined straight for Delia at her locker, which was open and vomiting nearly all of its contents out into the hallway. While Delia was a great friend, she was a terrible organizer, and the small space was crammed to the gills with crumpled-up sweatshirts, discarded pens, and dusty textbooks from classes that she hadn’t taken in years.
“D,” I breathed, afraid to speak too loudly in case the Becker High rumor mill caught wind of my exclusive invitation and the party wound up being busted before it even got a chance to start (which would ensure I never got an invite from a cool senior like Jack Cameron again). “I have to talk to you.”
“Hmm?” Delia muttered from the depths of her locker, poking her head back out with the shiny wrapper of a granola bar between her teeth. “What’s up?”
“Um, first of all, are you sure that thing isn’t expired?” I pointed accusingly at the snack still wedged between her teeth, the glimmering foil bumping up against her septum piercing. “Things kind of have a habit of living in your locker for all of eternity.”
Delia shrugged and pulled the granola bar out of her mouth, examining the label for what seemed like too few seconds before unwrapping it and giving it a bite. “A little stale, but I’ll survive.” She swallowed and eyed me. “Anyway, what’s up?”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice even further. “I just had to partner with Jack Cameron for an assignment in chemistry, and it ended with him inviting me to asenior partytonight.”
It took Delia a few extra seconds to process this, the cogs in her brain practically turning in front of my eyes. “Jack Cameron?Is that…a good thing?” She frowned. “Or is it supposed to be a bad thing?”
Right. I’d forgotten that she was accustomed to spending her weekends either at the skate park, with me and Tyler, or running pizzas around the neighborhood for Suburban Slices. (Not that I was one to judge—the fact that I was treating a measly house party invitation like a personal invite to the Met Gala was giving me away, too.) “He was actually pretty nice, and it’s a good thing, I think. That he thought I was cool enough to get invited and everything. But I told him no.”
Delia now lookedveryconfused. “Er, I’m not following you, Ol. It’s a good thing, but then you said no?”
“Tyler and I have plans tonight. That new Marvel movie that he’s been dying to see.” Delia nodded in recognition. “Also, I don’t really know if Ty would want to go in the first place, and asking him feels, I don’t know,weird,I guess.”Does it?Even though it just happened, it was already becoming muddied in my mind from the shock of getting the invitation in the first place.
“Got it.” Delia’s tone made it clear that she very much did not get it but was willing to humor me anyway. She took another bite of the stale granola bar and chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Well, how did he react when you said no? Was he a dick about it?”
“Not at all.” It was actually surprisingly refreshing, how kind he’d been. “When I told him I had plans with Ty, he said to have fun and then just let it go.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry about it.” Delia slammed her disorganized locker shut with a bump of her hip. “It’s not like you would’ve really known anyone else there, anyway. And you andTyler are going to have fun watching whatever superhero crap it is that you two are obsessed with.”
And I did. But still, that night, even as Tyler and I were curled up on the couch under one of my softest fuzzy blankets, warm bowls of popcorn in our laps, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on at Jack’s party. If he and his friends actually wanted me there. If I was really cool enough to be invited to a senior party. If I had actually brought Tyler and Delia along with me, and we’d had a good time, it may have been exciting. It may have been different. We would’ve beeninwith the cool kids, which is the kind of thing that everyone scoffs at until it happens to them, and then everything’s different.Thensuddenly it becomes an exciting invitation.
And I couldn’t shake the confusing, twisting feeling in my gut that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be there or not.
Chapter Eight
Tyler shifts in his seat awkwardly, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than on this flight with me.That makes two of us, buddy.“That’s, uh, good to know that you get along with his friends.” He doesn’t wait for me to ask about Delia. Even now, he knows an update on her would be less helpful and more a papercut to the heart.
“All right, this is getting weird,” I blurt. No time like the present to acknowledge the elephant in the too-small, very cramped room in the sky. “We’ve got a long way to go on this flight still, so why don’t we just…go back to doing whatever it is we planned on doing back when we expected our seatmate to be a complete stranger.” It feels brutal to be this blunt with him, but for both of our sanities, it’s the option that makes the most sense.
Another flush from Tyler. “You’re right. A good plan.”
The plane’s engines hum in a weak attempt to fill our awkward, uncomfortable silence. Tyler and I both do our best to ignore each other for the next hour (not that it’s working very well with the less than two inches of personal space between usin these economy seats), but there’s only so much movie watching, snacking (Tyler’s already on his third bag of plane-issued chips), and fake sleeping one can do before you finally have to succumb to making conversation. Even Cranky Lady has nodded off against the window, so we can’t ignore each other by talking to her. Instead, she’s snoring in a nature that isn’t very dignified, and I’m sure she’d have something to say about it if it was one of us.
As for Tyler and me, we both do a pitiful job at pretending to be preoccupied, eventually caving and facing each other once again.
