Lindsay is not, in fact, horse-faced.
BEFORE
Early September
“Your mom isnice!” Zach whispers as my mom heads up the stairs. After weeks of me hanging out with Zach, Mom has finally insisted I bring Zach home to meet her. I think she’s been fairly lenient because Caleb gave her a decent report about him and because she knows his dad.
When he came in, Zach shook her hand and introduced himself. She asked all these questions about his family, and everything was going okay until Zach mentioned that his older brother’s wife just had a child and he tried to bring out his phone to show Mom a picture of baby Russell. I could have sworn her face crumpled just a bit, and then she mumbled something about having work to do and raced upstairs. It turned out Zach didn’t have a picture on him, but I have no idea why she reacted that way. She tends, in general, to leave a wide berth around little kids at the mall and stuff, and when I ask her about it, she says it just feels like a long time ago since me and Caleb were little. Or she says kids are draining, too energetic. I know this can’t be totally true, since sometimes I catch her dabbing her eyes during diaper commercials.
Still, if Zach noticed her strange behavior, he didn’t say anything.
But he is right; shewasnice to him. I doubt Dad is going to meet Zach anytime soon. I’ve seen my father once this summer, for the joint birthday-graduation dinner, and I can’t even imagine maneuvering the here’s-my-boyfriend meeting with him. Too much awkward in one place.
“You made me think she was scary. You were freaking me out!” Zach is saying.
I laugh. “She’s both. I mean, she’s fine. But she can get weird sometimes.”
“In what way?” Zach asks, flopping down on the living-room couch.
“Like, completely overprotective. You know how I’ve been biking around the entire summer?” Zach nods, his hair falling against the brown sofa, as he stares up at me. I pop a movie into the DVD player and go back to the couch. “Two days ago, she freaked out about me ‘incurring a head injury’ while biking and why couldn’t I drive like a normal person. I don’t even have a car!”
“And isn’t driving more dangerous than riding?”
“Exactly!” I say. “I mean, I always wear a helmet. Tomorrow she’ll have a problem with driving,too,but the point is that she just up and decided it was too dangerous and I can’t do it anymore, and I was like, ‘I’ve been doing it all summer.’ I know everyone thinks their parents are a little insane. I think mine actually might be.”
Zach laughs. “And your house isn’t as depressing as you made it sound.”
“What did you expect? Black walls and emo music?”
“Pretty much,” Zach says. It’s true that the house is significantly less depressing than it’s been this summer. Caleb is even out with some friends today. I rest my feet against the center table—hoping Mom stays upstairs awhile. He rests his head in my lap.
“Hey, Zach,” I say, playing with his hair. It’s so soft I wish I was small enough to burrow in it. “About last night…”
“Sorry about making us leave in such a hurry.”
It’s okay,I’m tempted to say, but it’s not. As a rule, we don’t really talk about Lindsay. I hate thinking of Zach kissing her, doing mundane things with her. I hate thinking that Zach’s power to wake me up, make me feel special, worked on her aswell.
I texted Katy this morning telling her about Zach’s reaction to seeing Lindsay last night. Katy had never met Zach but she’d heard about him since she and Lindsay have been in community theater together forever. It was only when I texted her that she put together that my Zach is her theater friend’s Zach.
She seems nice,I said, trying to find something neutral, a gateway for further conversation that was respectful of the fact that Katy and Lindsay are supposedly friends.
Always so PC, Sullivan. I know what you meant by that was: Holy shit she’s hot af what do I do?
I texted back,That was not what I meant!…You think she’s hot af ?
She’s not my type ;)
What were Zach and her like together?
Umm…Never saw them together, but all the Meridian kids say they were joined at the hip. He was always picking her up in his super old car and stuff, and judging by how bummed she’s been about the breakup (even though SHE initiated it), he’s a good one. You’re lucky! Is his friend single???
LEAVE RAJ ALONE.
But is he???
Addie??
Ugh, you’re no fun. Whatever. I’m still texting, like, four guys I met on the road trip ;) Though I’m now concerned one of them had ringworm??!
