It’s oddly formal. And as Oliver didn’t tell me his dad’s name, I don’t know what to call him. I’m assuming Mr. Roche? Or was he “Doctor”? I think Oliver said he was some kind of specialist. I settle for saying nothing, which is also wrong, and now the silence is awkward. Oliver’s whole demeanor has shifted, like he’s waiting for the ramifications of being found here, idling with a girl.
His dad tosses a nod in my direction out of minimal courtesy, and I feel about as small as one of the ants marching around on his balcony. I check my watch. It’s getting late in the afternoon, and I need to get back in time to meet Drew.
“N-Nice to meet you,” I stammer. I turn to Oliver. “I can’t stay much longer. I have to be somewhere by six.”
I can tell he’s deflated. The fact that he’s going to miss me is both unbelievable, after such a short time, and enthralling. And flattering, given this is Oliver Roche we’re talking about, king of everything. But there’s something else too. A sense that he wishes I could stay for other reasons, maybe. Safety in numbers?
“Oliver, can I have a word?” his father asks. He closes the French door so forcefully after his son that I feel the vibrations on the deck. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can see their body language. Oliver is a solid six feet and a rugby player. Technically he’s standing eye-to-eye with his dad, but somehow he still seems overpowered. His father is doing all the talking, and even from outside I can see Oliver’s broad shoulders dip under the weight of whatever’s being said.
As soon as the conversation is over, he comes back outside, smaller, somehow. “Do you really have to go?”
It’s a strangely vulnerable moment, and I feel like I’m being given a glimpse behind that popular, confident facade that everyone adores. I think of Drew and his mum, and his grateful expression when I agreed to our formal date. I really should go tonight. Plus, it’s obvious something major is going on with Drew. If I’m going to follow through on the offer to be friends, I need to find out what.
“Sorry, of course you should go,” Oliver says when I don’t answer. He starts looking for my bag. “I’ll just miss you, Evie.”
Emergency: he’s moved upsoclose I’m almost certain he’s going to kiss me!
This has never happened before, other than that one-sided shambles in Year Nine, and I have absolutelynoidea how to dothis. I can feel the warmth of his breath brush my skin as a heady cloud of pine-scented aftershave swirls into my nostrils. His eyes travel across my face, and he sweeps a strand of my hair behind my ear, where it refuses to stay because of myexasperating curls, but I don’t even care about that.
“Can I ask you something?” he says, pulling back. The lack of the kiss shiftskissing Oliver Rocheto the top of my bucket list, immediately knocking offget a book publishedandbe appointed to the UN. This fact disgusts pre-Pritchards’-party me, but the girl I was last week is fighting a hopeless battle against the onslaught of first-love brain chemistry.
“Ask me anything.”
“You and Drew Kennedy?”
Heat rises to my cheeks. “Oh, we’re friends,” I garble.Barely.“What’s the story between you two?”
He glances back inside the house. “That’s all my father. You know how they pick up that there’s a kid at school who might be a threat academically?”
I don’t, but I nod anyway.
“Drew got a higher mark than me on a science test in the first week of Year Seven and I made the mistake of reporting that at home.”
“But that was years ago,” I argue.
“He’s never let it go. Drew is always the one to beat.”
I feel a rush of love for my uncomplicated parents and almost feel guilty for the easy way I’ve been raised. They would never pit me against another student.
“Can I see you first thing tomorrow?” he asks, blue eyes eager behind the blond waves of his fringe.
I think of my several assignments and the in-class test I have on Monday that I haven’t started studying for, and thepromise I made to myself never to let a boy stand in the way of my grades.
Will I see him tomorrow? Or any time he wants? And every spare second?
“Yes,” I whisper.Yes.
20
Drew
I’m not even sure why I invited her stargazing. Maybe it was because the way things have been with Mum, I wanted backup.
I’ve been struggling with this for so long on my own that I’m fraying at the edges. It would be so easy for someone to pull gently at the threads of my life and unravel everything. They’d see how bad things are, not sleeping, coming home from school with my heart in my mouth, holding my breath as I unlatch the flimsy back door with holes all through the fly screen— symbolic of our life, really—wondering what I’m going to find.
“It’s nice that you’ve invited a friend,” Mum says to me now. “Or girlfriend?” She looks at me carefully.
“Mum! I only just met her.” I leave out the bit about the formal. She’ll take that and run with it.
