“What?” I say, feeling defensive.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Look,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “I’m just waiting on my cousin, okay?” I intend for this to be a signal. Like,hey, move along and join the party; give me some privacy. Why is he sitting in the dark, away from everyone else? He’s usurping my loner throne, and I don’t like it.
Lucky and I had one class together this semester at Beauty High: AP English. Because our teacher would do anything to avoid teaching, we watched a lot of old movies in that class—adaptations of the books we studied—and Lucky slept on his desk when the lights went out. I let him borrow my notes once; he returned them to me at the bookshop with a couple of smartass corrections in red pen. That was most intimate interaction we’ve had in the few months I’ve been in town. Unless you count all the silent staring. Staring from Across the Street. Staring fromAcross the Bookshop. Staring from Across the School Cafeteria.
If you count staring, then we interact on a regular freaking basis.
Like now, for instance. His gaze sweeps over me as if he’s playing a memory game and cataloging every detail of my outfit for points: loose, brown hair braid down my shoulder; striped top; tight jeans with a tiny hole in the left knee; red low-top sneakers.
No one looks at me like Lucky does.
It’s disarming. Way too intimate. And it makes my pulse speed like I’m running a marathon. Especially since this is the first time we’ve been alone together since I’ve been back.
I don’t want to be here, alone with him. I want to be at home, trying to figure out how I can talk my way into that magazine internship. Looking for local galleries that might let me exhibit my work. Developing a roll of film. Doing anything but enduring the never-ending thump of electronic dance music and Lucky’s honey-slow gaze.
It’s been a bad day. A bad four months. Something inside me just … snaps.
“Do you have something to say to me?” I blurt, exasperated.
“Excuse me?”
“You glare at me all day long, and you’ve barely said two words to me since I’ve gotten back into town.”
“Don’t have anything to say to you, I guess. Don’t really know you anymore, do I?”
“We used to be best friends.”You used to be my boy.
“When we were twelve,” he says, eyes narrowing. “I was on math team and building robots on the weekend. I hadn’t figured out how to disable the parental controls on my phone so I could access free porn on the internet. It was a different time.” He shrugs with one shoulder.
Wow. Okay …
“If you’re trying to shock me, you’ll have to do better than that,” I say, a little miffed.
“Thought we were besties who could say anything to each other. Can’t have it both ways, Saint-Martin.”
“My former best friend wasn’t a dick.”
“Your former best friend has been through some dark shit,” he says, face tightening into sharp planes that make the ragged scars on his forehead stand out, white against olive. “So you may want to slow down before you get all high and mighty, pointing the finger of judgment in my direction.”
I know what he’s talking about. Of course I know. I glance at the black cat tattooed on his hand. “I’m sorry about the fire and everything you went through. I know when I left town, we didn’t, uh, end things on the best of notes.…” I feel ill at ease, talking about this now. Sweat blossoms across my brow, and I have a fierce yearning to bolt out of my chair and flee this party, to never look back.
He blinks for several moments and looks at his hands. “Yeah, well, I was a stupid kid, and I was already hurting, physically and mentally. It was easier to shut you out. I guess I thought I waspunishing you, but I didn’t realize that it would punish me, too. Because when you left, I didn’t have anyone.”
I’m caught off guard by his confession. Some part of me wishes I had my Nikon with me to hide behind, because it would be easier … safer. I’m not used to anyone confessing anything to me. Ever. I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to speak to someone openly.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to communicate with a human being.
We stare at each other for a moment, then I say, “Thought maybe you hated me.”
“Don’t hate you,” he says, the tiniest of smiles lifting one corner of his mouth. “Anymore. Much. Unlessyouhateme, then I’d like to change my answer. Because youdidavoid my mom when she came to the Nook to bring food when you guys came back to town.”
Oh, right. I totally did. She showed up with a ton of Greek food, and I hid upstairs. I used to eat Sunday dinner at her house every week for years. She was my second mother. Then she was gone. “Classic coward move,” I admit. “A lot of old feelings. I wasn’t sure what to say to her, and it was weird.”
“Guess we’re both fools.”
“Maybe,” I say, “but that was your mom, and this is us. You could have said, ‘Hey, Josie, let’s settle this mano a mano.’ And we could have had a fistfight back when I first came into town, or maybe a Mario Kart race, or a few hours of D&D at the North Star—”
