Not knowing how we did was gnawing at me. All I could do was sit with the tight feeling in my chest as I thought the worst.
I was also nervous about me scoring super low and Javi scoring super high. If that happened, then I would be the reason for our badly averaged score. He would blame me for bringing our average down, and that was the last thing I wanted. It wasn't even that I needed my score to be higher than his, I just didn’t want to be the one to cause our failure.
"Did you want to eat something while we wait?" He asked me.
I asked Easton for money that morning and he gave it to me. He didn't give it to me until I explained in detail why I needed it, but he gave it to me, nonetheless. But for once I didn't really want to get anything.
I rubbed my hands against my thighs. "Honestly, I'm so nervous right now that I don't even want to eat."
Javier leaned toward me. "I'm nervous too, but the test is designed to be difficult. Neither of us should expect perfect scores."
"If not us then somebody else will have a perfect score."
"Thinking like that is not going to make you feel better."
A part of me envied his positive outlook on everything. I couldn't bring myself to think like that. All I could think about was the ugly feeling of losing and everyone knowing I'm a failure. Mrs. Montgomery was going to announce our place in this round in morning announcements at school, and I would hate for her to have to announce something low like eighth place.
I scoffed. “You sound like my friends. They all tell me to think happier thoughts. I wish it were that simple.
Javier gazed into the distance. “I’ve always been a positive person, but it was Diane who got it in my head that dwelling on failure gets you nowhere.”
I wasn’t expecting that. “Really? Diane of all people?”
He nodded once. “Yeah. She’s always found the silver-lining in life, it’s who she is. I guess that’s why even after I cheated on her she wanted to make it work.”
Wait, cheated? Javier cheated on his ex-girlfriend. That must have been why they broke up, but I was utterly shocked. He was the last person I ever expected to cheat, and I couldn’t believe he was admitting it to me so casually.
“You cheated on Diane?” When Javier gave me a regretful nod, I had to hold back the urge to gasp. If he cheated then it hadto be with someone important. There was no way he cheated for a one-time fling. “With who?”
Javier’s eyes locked with mine and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, you.”
I blinked. “Me?”
“It was when I brought you home after the party. Not the Halloween party when you spent the night at mine, but the one before that. You were drunk and coming on to me.”
I lowered my head in embarrassment. My drunk-self lived to embarrass the hell out of me.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I did stop it pretty soon,” he told me. “I thought you remembered.”
I shook my head. “I don’t remember most of that night.”
“Oh. Well, you don’t have to worry about me kissing you again. Not while you’re drunk, anyway.”
I was most definitely looking forward to that.
"Do you want to come after school?" Javi asked, a hopeful glint in his eyes. "Since you're riding home with me anyway."
"I'm still grounded, remember?"
He frowned. "Still? It's been a week."
"Macy holds grudges." Not only that, but she said our punishment would last two weeks. Much to my demise, her relationship with Daniel didn't end after that night. It seemed to be going pretty well, I knew this because Macy would strut around the house with a blissful smile. Hopefully that meant that she would be in a good enough mood to give me my freedom back sooner rather than later.
But wait, Macy had a date tonight. That meant that she would be out of the house for the majority of the night.
If I went to Javier's house, then I would have no way of knowing when Macy would get back unless I asked the twins to cover for me. After the last conversation I had with them, I didn’t want to ask them for any favors, so that was out of the equation.However, if Javi came over to my place, then I could listen out for Macy. I could send him off before she figured out anyone had set foot in the house.
"But you could come over by mine," I suggested. "As long as you're okay with sneaking out. Also, my siblings might be there and depending on their mood they'll either be unbearably annoying or they will act like we don't exist."
