"You must be the older twin."
"By five whole minutes," she says. "He stopped believing me when we were ten so I had to use my tricks on other people. I didn't think it'd work but it did."
"Because you're believable. You're a good actress." I pour the packet of dressing over my salad. "But we probably can't be friends if you keep it up."
My heart races just saying those words. I'm not great at speaking up for myself but it's something I want to change. I have a new life and this is the new me. Bold. Assertive. Looking out for myself. If my mom had done that, maybe she would've confronted my dad at the first sign he was cheating and we wouldn't have been blindsided by his affair and sudden move across the country. But she's like me, or how I used to be. She's afraid to speak up. Afraid people won't like her if she does.
Looking across the table, I see Eve smiling at me. "You're not the shy quiet girl I thought you were."
"No," I blurt out, a serious look on my face. "I know what I want, and I want honesty. If you want to keep playing these games where I have to guess when you're being real, we won't be friends."
She pauses, her eyes studying me. Then she reaches her hand across the table. "Deal."
I shake her hand.
"But just so you know," she says with a smile, "it might still happen now and then. Bad habits are hard to break." She shoves her tray aside. "So...getting real, I'm guessing this rule of yours is something new. Something you just decided."
"What do you mean?”
"Making people be honest. The way you said it just now, all determined and shit, means it's something new." She laughs. "The new and improved Brook?"
I shrug. "Maybe."
She leans toward me. "Because of a guy? Did he cheat on you?"
"No." I toss my salad around with my fork. "Someone lied to me. Someone I trusted. I don't want to talk about it."
She stares at me, waiting for me to say more. When I don't, she leans back and looks at her phone.
As I go to take a bite of my salad, someone bumps my back, causing my fork to miss my mouth and scrape my upper lip before flying out of my hand and hitting my tray.
"Excuse you," I mutter, looking back to see who did it.
It's him. The Destroyer. His massive arm must've bumped me when he sat down. He's talking to his friend, like he doesn't even know he hit me, or maybe he does and doesn't care.
"Here," Eve says, tossing a napkin at me. "Your shirt."
I look down and see a dark stain on my white polo shirt. The shirt's part of the uniform for my old school but I wore it because it's brand new, and expensive. I bought it back in July, before I knew I'd be going to public school in the fall.
"Dammit," I mumble as I blot the stain. I whip around to Dean. "Thanks a lot."
He stops talking to his friend and slowly turns to me. "What was that?"
"I said THANKS." I point to the stain. "For ruining my shirt."
His friend, who is also huge, but not as big as Dean, looks at him, confused.
Dean glances at his friend, then back at me. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"You bumped me when you sat down. And not a light bump but enough that my fork went flying, along with the dressing that was on it."
He turns all the way around to face me, looking at me with those intense blue eyes. "You're yelling at me for how I sat down?"
I take a breath, trying to ignore my fear of him, which I don't really think is fear, but more like annoyance. It just feels like fear because my heart's beating out of my chest and my hands feel clammy. It reminds of how I feel when I ride a roller coaster I've never been on before, when I'm at the very top and not sure what to expect when it drops. My heart races, my stomach flutters, and my body gets all tingling because I'm up so high. That's how I feel now but I'm not sure why Dean's causing that reaction. There's something about this guy that makes my body react in strange ways.
"I wasn't yelling at you," I say, avoiding his gaze. "I just wanted you to be aware of what you did, in the hopes that you'd be more careful in the future." I clear my throat and glance over at Eve. She's got a slight smile on her face, her eyes bouncing between Dean and me.
Dean and his annoyingly handsome face lean closer to me. "You're lecturing me on how to sit down?"
