“Good,” he says.
“As student body president,” he begins in his familiar mocking tone. Because it’s all a stupid joke to him. “I believe in letting people make their own decisions. I’m not running an automerit system.”
I lose the battle and roll my eyes. “You mean an autocracy.”
Tyler smirks. “I believe in it so little I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “People can work wherever they want to, and all my boys happen to want to be with me.”
With that, he turns around and leaves, walking across the grass to the parking lot, where cars are starting to pull in for the car wash. About ten of the guys, including most of the soccer team, follow him like imprinting baby ducklings.
“Asshats,” I mutter as I watch them go, but the truth is I feel humiliated. Stung and small and powerless.
“You owned him,” Amber assures me, even as a few of the girls wander away too, leaving us way outnumbered compared to the car wash. A few stragglers hang out between the parking lot andour canopy of trees, seemingly unwilling to commit just yet. Penny and her group of friends stick with me.
To my surprise, Holden and Marcus shuffle forward.
“Hoo waow ioonn, cooowa,” Marcus says, yawning so hard he looks like he’s spasming.
Holden looks longingly over at the car wash, sighs, then translates. “He said, put us in, Coach.”
Marcus rolls his eyes. “She knows what I said.”
“Dude,no oneknows what you said. Except for me. Because I have ESP.”
“You two are making coffee,” I say, instead of what I mean to say, which isthank you. Thank you for not being like the rest of the other assholian boys who ran behind Tyler. I refer to the sheet on my clipboard. “Do you think you can manage that?”
When both Holden and Marcus look immediately overwhelmed, I turn to Amber. “Ambs, can you help me not regret this?”
“On it,” she says. She looks at her phone. “I’m going to text Mo again. Come on, you two.”
As she’s leading Marcus and Holden away, I can’t help but say to Marcus, “I’m surprised you didn’t follow Tyler.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I like sheep,” Marcus says, turning to go with Amber. His eyes are dancing, lighter somehow this morning than they were in the gym in our last dream. “But they’re also kind of stupid.”
My lips twitch as I hold back my smile.
Seeing Marcus takes me back to last night’s dream, to that exhilarating Jason kiss, to the floaty feeling of reliving a moment that had already happened. And I find myself wanting to talk to Marcus about it, to make him answer me this time:Why did you leave?
We can’t exactly talk about it here, so I focus on making sure everybody has their task, and by the time the first of our customers show up, our bake sale is running like a well-oiled machine.
Across the park, the car washers are playing Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.” It’s clear there’s absolutely no structure over there, and that they are bound to offend some parents, and that Principal Collins might even punish me and Tyler after all this.
“I’d really like to punch them. I think it would be very cathartic,” Mo says, voicing my thoughts when she arrives a whole hour later than our official start time and I tell her what happened. Amber is annoyed with her, but I can’t really give Mo a hard time for being late when I was too, so I just put her in front of the cash box.
It feels like the entirety of Sterlingwood comes out to support us, but there’s no sign of my mom. I remind myself that she’s busy, that she’s trying her best.
Across the park, there are more shouts from the car wash crew. I refuse to look over to see whether they are screams of delight or chaos.
I hate everyone, I think as I adjust my headband and focus on doing a good job with my part of this.
To not get worked up and to keep my hands busy, I start to set out a tray of mini tarts and allow myself to revisit last night’s dream, savoring every part of it. How in the world do I get back there? I have every intention of becoming a dream expert if that’s what it takes to keep seeing these memories. And Idointend to keep seeing these memories.
I’m not just enjoying the dreams; they are showing me things. Things I didn’t notice when the moment was originally happening.First, Jason’s hesitation at our first kiss. Second, that Marcus really was there on Kiss Cam Day. I can zoom out on the moment and see more than I saw when I lived it the first time.
Somehow, these dreams might be able to show me more about me and Jason than I ever knew. They could show me the good things, the bad things, the moment things went wrong, and they can help me figure out exactly how to fix it.
All I need is the right memory.
Thirteen
