She let out a long breath. “Is everything all right?”
I shut my eyes and leaned back against the wall. “Yeah.”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Something like that,” I whispered, when I should’ve said,I need to tell you something.
But I didn’t, so Mom did what she always did when one of us couldn’t sleep—she started talking, as if we were at the dinner table. “Nicky mentioned that your Valentine’s parties are coming up,” she said. “Have you asked anyone yet?”
“No.” I stared up at the ceiling. “Not yet.”
“Well, why don’t you ask Sage?”
Sage—I needed to end this white-wedding vision of us once and for all. “Because I don’t think she’d say yes,” I mumbled. “My competition’s pretty stiff.”
Mom caught the hint and laughed, like she’d known all along. “He’s our romantic.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, relieved but then suddenly feeling my insides clench up again. I wondered if she thought of me as one too. Probably not, since I was with girls for five minutes and talked about them even less. The evidence wasn’t in my favor.
But there’s this person, I shut my eyes.There’s this person I love with everything I’ve got. And right now he’s asleep in my bed, because my voice is the last thing he wants to hear before going to sleep, and my favorite thing on earth is waking up to see him smiling at me.
We talked for about ten more minutes before the conversationwound down. “I need to tell you something,” finally slipped out when I sensed a goodbye coming.
“What is it?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, but said jack shit. I was distracted—someone was twisting a corkscrew into my heart.
“Charlie? Are you still there?”
I forced myself to speak. “Does it matter to you?”
“Does what matter to me?”
I sighed. “Who I take to this thing?”
She laughed. “Oh, Charlie, please don’t tell me it’s your economics teacher. Yes, she’s very pretty, but—”
“Mom,” I said. “I’m not kidding.”
She stopped laughing. “Relax, honey. No, of course it doesn’t matter. Ask whatever girl you want. Your dad and I understand.”
No, my eyes burned.You don’t.
I wished she would just ask, ask instead of me out-and-out telling her. It would be so simple to be questioned and then respond with a yes. But Mom didn’t know to do that, since again, the evidence wasn’t there. Which made things even worse.
“Charlie, you should get some sleep,” I heard her say. “Midterms are coming up. I don’t want you getting run-down and sick.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And we hung up after that, but I didn’t move.
I just sat there.
CHAPTER 33
