Crash Test Love (21 page)

London wipes her nose. Maybe it’s because her oh-so-perfect exterior has been compromised, or simply because I’ve seen her show actual emotion, or because my experience knowing Garret has chipped away at my own facade, but for the rst time I don’t see her as a character in a movie who has no depth. I see her as a girl I have treated incredibly poorly.

I feel awful.

“I real y am sorry,” I say.

She looks at me with red eyes. “So are you going to tel Garret , or should I?” I know this shouldn’t feel like a threat, but it does. Clearly, the right thing to do is tel Garret exactly what happened (and why) and hope she’l forgive me. However, I also know that if I tel her I hooked up with London, there’s a (very) good possibility I wil lose her.

“I have to gure it out,” I say.

London laughs. Actual y, it’s more of a gu aw. “There’s not much to gure out, Henry. Either you tel her or I wil .”

“It’s not real y your place to say anything, London.”

“It’s not? I’m her friend.”

“I don’t know a lot of things, London, but I do know you’re not her friend. A friend would never hook up with someone who her friend is dating.”

“That sentence is so ridiculous I won’t even begin to unpack it,” she says venomously. “I’m not going to keep this a secret anymore. A week is enough. And she doesn’t even know about what happened sophomore year.”

London starts to walk o toward where we left Garret . I instinctively shoot my arm out to block her path.

“Please don’t,” I say.

London blinks at me like I’m some nearly extinct animal at the Bronx Zoo. The light from the candles in the room bounces o her hair and makes me see spots.

“Don’t tel me you have actual feelings for this girl,” she says. “You’re Henry Arlington. You don’t have feelings.” London sounds incredibly like Duke and Nigel right now—I hate it when they lecture me, and they’re my best friends. I certainly don’t need to hear it from her.

I’m about to respond with something obnoxious when suddenly, out of nowhere, I start to cry. I haven’t been able to cry for so long, and now, after tel ing Garret about my mom, I can’t seem to stop. I think about how I betrayed Garret by hooking up with London and how Garret wil never forgive me, about how I used London to make myself feel bet er about what happened with Garret —only now, I feel worse. I’m in love with Garret and I’ve ruined everything.

My whole face feels wet. London just stares at me, completely frozen. After a moment or so, her expression softens. “Wow. You do have feelings for her.”

“Yeah,” I say messily. “I do.”

“Let me get this straight: you, Henry Arlington, the king of the random hookup, who is deathly afraid of commitment … actual y want to be with Garret ? Like, for real? Like … you love her?”

“Yeah.” There. I said it. Say it again, Henry. “I love her.”

I can’t believe what I just said. Out loud. Is it true? I kind of have no idea what love is, real y, but I do know I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about Garret . She’s the rst person I want to see in the morning and the last person I want to see at night. The rst person I’ve ever talked to for more than ve minutes on the phone, who I can tel anything. The rst person I’ve been able to watch ten movies in a row with and not get sick of. The rst person who has ever understood me, who has ever tried to understand me, who I’ve told about my mom, and who has made me feel like maybe there actual y is a person out there in the world who’s my partner, who gives me joy, who I miss when she’s not there, who drives me crazy just thinking about her, let alone touching her.

Is that love? And if it’s not, what is?

Is that love? And if it’s not, what is?

I look around and see Duke and Nigel standing a few feet away.

“I love her!” I scream, pounding my chest like a maniac. “I love Garret Lennox!” DUKE

Dude.

NIGEL

Dude.

DUKE

(looking around)

Be quiet! Someone’ll hear you.

ME

That’s the point! I want people to hear me!

NIGEL

You need to get a grip, Henry. You’ve gone totally mental.

“I haven’t, though,” I say, grabbing Duke by the shoulders and looking at him—real y looking at him. “I feel more like myself than ever before.” NIGEL

Henry, you’ve been acting bonkers ever since you met this girl, and now you’re saying you love her? This is crazy talk!

“Maybe it is, Nigel, but I don’t care.” My brain is going buck wild. My heart is throbbing. Where is Garret ? I need to nd her.

“Wait,” London says, grabbing my wrist. “Listen to me.” Jyl ian and Jessica have sauntered into the room; they approach us warily, as if they can tel something serious is going down.

Nigel and Duke look as confused as I am.

She clears her throat. “It’s about Garret . There’s something you should know.” I cannot run fast enough. I blink the tears out of my eyes but can’t see where I’m going. There are wal s everywhere, surrounding me, blocking me in. There are too many rooms in this house. I push people out of the way. I feel like a stranger in my own body. What am I doing? Where am I going?

I make my way outside just in time: I can hardly breathe. I am sweaty and my hands are shaking. I trip over my own feet. Dozens of kids from school are standing in a semicircle; there are cameras everywhere. I feel like I’m on speed—everything is rushing, everything is racing—but then I see Garret and I stop. I pul her from the crowd, onto an open patch of grass in front of the party. People start taking our picture; everyone is looking at us strangely but I don’t care.

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?” Garret asks.

“What London said. Am I just a joke to you? A bet?” I am screaming now. I want to rip every single hair from my head. I want to reach inside myself and dig out my heart and hand it over for her to squeeze until it pops. “Is it true?” Duke and Nigel have materialized out of nowhere. I can see the J Squad pushing their way to the front of the crowd. There are security guards waiting to whisk us away, I’m sure, but no one seems to be making a move. Al cameras are on us. I hear some of the crew members yel ing at each other and pointing in our direction.

Garret moves her head. Not left to right, though. Up and down. “Yes,” she tel s me. That one word hurts like a mil ion bee stings. Like an electric shock. Like an explosion. “It’s true.”

GARRETT

Sometimes, the truth comes out in ways you wish it didn’t; al you can do is hope that someday you wil be forgiven, that the blemish wil be erased from the permanent record known as your soul.

The whole thing goes down like this:

Henry and I, standing, watching each other. Him waiting for the moment I wil break and laugh and say this is al one big joke.

But that moment doesn’t come. Because this is not a joke. It’s real life.

“I’m sorry, Henry,” I tel him, and even though I am, it sounds like bul shit. “I tried to tel you earlier but I didn’t have the chance.”

“When? When did you try and tel me?”

“Before, at my house, and—”

“Tonight doesn’t count,” he says. “You’ve been lying to me for weeks. How could you?” Everyone I go to school with is staring at us. Al the people I wanted to like me, I wanted to impress. Henry’s face sours and I have to turn away.

I can’t look at this person I have grown to care about so deeply and not feel like the most wretched, deceitful girl in the entire universe. Even though I never real y saw it coming until it was “Too Lit le, Too Late” (JoJo, 2006). “Honestly.”

“You lied to me,” Henry says, rocking back and forth. “You acted like you loved me, and I told you things—things I’ve never told anyone before.” He points at London, Jessica, and Jyl ian, who are standing diagonal to me. “Did you hang up the phone with me every night and then give them the scoop on how fucked I am?”

“No,” I say, reaching out for him. He inches. “Of course not. Our friendship was real, Henry. The stu we shared was real. I promise.” Duke and Nigel walk toward Henry, one on either side of him. “Let’s go, man,” Duke says, frowning in my direction. “She’s not worth it.”

“Umm, aren’t you forget ing something?” says London. Murmurs rise from the crowd as she burrows into the conversation. “You can’t just be the good guy here,” she says to Henry. “Aren’t you going to reveal your lit le secret for the cameras?” I look at Henry. “What is she talking about?”

He hesitates for a moment, and then it spil s out. “I hooked up with London. Last Sunday.” Last Sunday. Last Sunday was the day after we … Oh, right.

My stomach quivers and my eyes begin to tear. Even though I betrayed his trust, I thought I had discovered the real Henry, the Henry who is kind and sensitive and misses his mother and wants to be in a relationship. That’s why I feel so horrible about having lied to him. But this …

I should have known bet er.

“Wel , then I guess I made the right decision the night before, huh?” I say.

“It wasn’t like that,” Henry says softly.

“It’s not the rst time we’ve hooked up either,” London tel s me. Her tone is venomous and, at the same time, devastated. “Two years ago we sort of had a thing. Didn’t we, Henry?”

It al starts clicking into place. That rst day at lunch with the J Squad, when London told me that Henry was a heartbreaker, it was her heart she was talking about. Al the times she seemed uncomfortable when I spoke about growing closer to Henry. The whole idea of teaching him a lesson

—this was al for her, real y. She tricked me into doing her dirty work.

Henry looks crushed. “Garret , listen to me. I hooked up with London because—”

I hold up my hand to silence him. I think of Ben and Amy, my former boyfriend and my best friend, who betrayed me and found refuge in each other. Is Henry the new Ben, and London the new Amy?

I don’t know whether I’m actual y entitled to be this upset, but I am. I hurt Henry—that much is undeniable. My own feelings, though, surprise me. I am jealous. I am furious. I am devastated.

Why am I never enough?

Final y, I say, “Whatever your explanation is, it doesn’t mat er. You hooked up with London the same weekend you were with me. But for your information, the reason I came over to your house that night was because I’d just found out that my ex-boyfriend and my best friend are now an item. I was upset. And the only person I wanted to be with, who I thought would make me feel bet er, was you.”

“I’m sorry,” says Henry. I can see in his face that he means it, even though “Sometimes Sorry Is the Wrong Thing to Say” (Ryan Calhoun, 2008).

“If I could take back what I did, I would. But you lied to me, Garret . Is the J Squad why you got a job at Huntington in the rst place? Do you even like movies, or is my entire life some big joke to you?” His voice cracks. “Which parts of you are real and which parts of you are make-believe?”

I am about to lose my shit and I don’t want to be sobbing in front of the cameras. Also, I hear the sound of a helicopter in the distance; we are probably standing in the exact spot where Destiny is going to make her grand entrance. Hence the menacing-looking security guards closing in on us. “I got a go.”

I haven’t got en very far when I see blond hair coming right toward me to at ack. Or embrace.

“Are you okay?” Jyl ian asks me, pul ing me into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“Here,” Jessica says, taking a brownie from her purse. “This wil make you feel bet er.”

“No thanks,” I say. London is standing behind them. I wait a few seconds to see if she wil speak rst. She doesn’t.

“No thanks,” I say. London is standing behind them. I wait a few seconds to see if she wil speak rst. She doesn’t.

“This is awkward,” Jyl ian mut ers. “Can’t you two just kiss and make up?”

“Are you even sorry?” I ask London.

I watch as she thinks. “I am sorry,” she says nal y. “I thought he wanted me back, but al he wanted was you.” The tears start forming; she tries to shake them away, only it’s no use.

“I thought you were my friend,” I say. “How could you hook up with him when you knew we were together?” London chokes back a sob. “Do you hear yourself? You weren’t together. This whole thing was a game. Only you forgot how to play.” She looks at Jyl ian, then at Jessica. I watch her face go from red to purple, then back to normal. Jyl ian hands her a tissue. “If anyone messed up here, it’s you, Garret .” She blows her nose. “And this, girls, is exactly why we should never date high school boys.” London turns her back to me and walks away. J & J fol ow.

I’m not perfect. I know that Henry and I weren’t o cial y “together.” He wasn’t my boyfriend. I at-out told London I didn’t have feelings for him and that the most important thing to me was earning a spot in the J Squad. But no mat er how you slice it, that stil didn’t give her an excuse to do what she did. A real friend would’ve known bet er. But the J Squad were never my real friends. I knew that from the start. Only somehow, that knowledge got lost and I thought, maybe, things would al work out.

Wel , they didn’t.

And I guess that’s okay.

I want so much more than the J Squad. I stil want friends, sure, but not friends who are going to make me pass a test before I can hang out with them—even if they are the most beautiful, in uential girls in school. I want friends I have common interests with—excluding sabotage. Being popular, even just for a lit le while, doesn’t real y mat er. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before. It certainly would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.