“Whitaker. You know I don’t touch every girl who comes near me.”
Just my mom, then?“I don’t think I’m up for a movie tonight.” I was just beginning to realize how disappointed I was by Daniel’s brush-off earlier. The last thing I wanted was to spend an evening tortured by the past and the person a part of me still blamed for it. “Why don’t you try Claire?”
“If that’s what you want. But you know if I call Claire, she’ll make you come too.”
He was right. Claire would make me come. But since the alternative was an empty house or evening spent on my roof with a full view of Daniel’s house, I gave in.
Sean pulled out his phone. “Anyone else you want me to invite?”
“Cami,” I said, because I was petty and small. And stupid.
* * *
Cami smiled at Sean and hugged Claire and me when we arrived at the theater, and without a trace of insincerity said, “Thanks so much for letting me tag along. I haven’t been to the movies in forever. I don’t even care what we see.”
Famous last words.
Two excruciating hours later—during which time I failed spectacularly in my self-appointed quest to watch the movie and not notice every time Cami grabbed Sean’s arm or tucked her face in his shoulder—not even Cami was smiling.
“Okay,” she said in response to the shell-shocked expressions Claire and I were wearing as we exited the theater. “That was officially the worst movie I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of bad action movies. Like a lot.”
“This is why I voted for the animated movie,” Claire told her. “No one would have been decapitated by a shopping cart in that movie.”
We all looked at Sean.
“That scene was in the trailer. What’d you expect?”
“Well, I have to go,” I said. “Thanks for the nightmares I’ll have tonight, Sean.”
“Happy to serve. But stay—Cami was just saying we can hang out at her house.”
I shook my head for so many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that my eye kept twitching when I looked at Sean standing next to Cami, but Claire answered before I could speak.
“We have to run early in the morning, remember?”
Cami looked like Claire had just stomped on her sand castle, but she recovered pretty quickly. “How about tomorrow if we meet earlier?”
My mind blanked on an excuse. “Maybe.”
Claire gave me a look that belonged on a motivational poster along with a slogan like Hang in There, Baby!
Cami was great. Sean was great. I just didn’t need to see them be great together. There was nothing to feel sorry about.
I took Claire up on her offer of a ride and followed her to her mom’s minivan.
“That was…fun.”
I looked at her.
“Okay, not the movie.” Claire shook her head violently.
I kept looking at her.
“I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything bad to say about Cami. I tried and the best I could come up with is that she hogged the popcorn.”
“You don’t eat movie popcorn.”
Claire threw up her arms. “I told you I couldn’t think of anything.”
