In Real Life (14 page)

But suddenly I don't want to talk to him about this. It's weird, because I had wanted answers. But the answers I'm getting from him aren't the ones I want to hear. He is different in person. He told me so, but I wasn't completely prepared for it. And I don't want to hear the story of how or why he started dating Frankie, I don't want to hear how he was planning on surprising me with some more Automatic Friday T-shirts or whatever, and I certainly don't want to revisit the night of the party and how I ruined everything. I can't handle any of this, and I want it all to go away.

“We should go.” I pick up my coffee cup and stand. “They'll be waiting for us. And I … um, I think I'm going to leave, anyway.”

“Wait. Ghost.” He grabs my wrist. Not hard or anything; he doesn't yank me or pull me. But I wrench my arm away anyway because he took me by surprise, and I see his face fall. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

I shrug. “Isn't that what we just did?” And I walk back toward the roller coaster and the group, leaving this real version of Nick, and my chance at any sort of explanation, behind me.

 

CHAPTER

14

We meet the group back at the exit to the roller coaster, and they're all talking about what a blast the ride was. “I can't believe the guy working the ticket counter recognized you, Frankie,” Grace says, and Frankie waves it off with her hand like it happens every day that ends in a
Y.
Did they for real get on the roller coaster free, too? They weren't joking about Frankie being a local celebrity.

“That drop, oh my God,” Lo says, clinging to Oscar's arm. I roll my eyes at her, and she winks in return.

I notice Alex reach over and grab Grace's pinky finger, and I feel a stab of jealousy. That should have been me and Nick, not her and Alex. I'm glad to see my sister having fun; she wanted to use this little getaway as a chance to forget about Gabe for a couple of days, and it looks like she's doing just that. I know I should be happy for her, happy she's forgetting her heartbreak and flirting with a hot guy, but I find myself narrowing my eyes in her direction without even realizing I'm doing it.
She's having my trip.

Frankie bounds up to us from the back of the group. “Why don't you like roller coasters, Hannah?” She slips her arm through my elbow and leads me through the arcade.

Her friendliness takes me by surprise. I was so convinced she'd be irritated that Nick ditched her on the coaster to hang out with me instead, I can't think of anything to say for several seconds. “I … uh … they…”

“She hates the feeling of being out of control,” Nick says, coming up on the other side of Frankie. He looks at me as he says it, like he's talking to me and not her. And again, I have to struggle to keep myself in check. How am I supposed to stand here with all these emotions in me like this? I have too many feelings to function properly.

“She can speak for herself. Jeez,” Frankie says, playfully jabbing him in the ribs with her tiny elbow.

Nick shakes his head. “God, I know. I was just saying—”

Frankie doesn't give him a chance to finish. She circles her free arm through Nick's elbow, and the three of us leave everyone behind, walking through the arcade like we're just three best friends who pal around all the time. “Well, Boyfriend, that was very nice of you to sit out with her. Even though it did mean I had to ride the roller coaster all by my lonesome.”

“But I bet you got to pull the bar all the way down around your waist. You're so tiny, you'd have flown out of the car if you sat with me.”

This is the first time I see Nick being sweet and playful with Frankie, the way he always is with me on the phone, and their intimacy stings.

But why?
I can almost imagine Grace asking me this.
He lied to you. He pretended to be something he wasn't. He kept things from you. Why would you want to be with a guy like that?

How could I explain to her that despite everything that happened tonight, he is still my best friend? That I can't just turn off four years of friendship like a light switch.

I remember what Nick said a long time ago, how he is “bad at real life.” I never really understood what he'd meant, and thought it was just a thing he said to people. I mean, he dresses the part of this smooth guy, with his messy hair and leather jacket-hoodie combo and skinny jeans. But being here with him in person, I think his “look” is all part of a costume. Like he's wearing a mask, hiding behind the band and his brother. The real him is private and awkward and bad at expressing himself, just like he told me he was.

So, which Nick is my Nick?

Frankie snaps me out of my thoughts. “It looks like we lost Grace and Alex.” They've slipped into a photo booth, only their legs visible from under the bottom of the curtain. Grace appears to be sitting on his lap, and she giggles each time the flash goes off. I'm glad this isn't one of those booths that shows the photos on the outside, because the last thing I need to see immortalized on camera is Alex's tongue down my sister's throat.

“Let's take some pictures next!” Lo drags Oscar to the booth, and Frankie does her little jumpy clap.

“We can take pictures on our phones,” I say. “We don't need to pay money to take them in a booth.”

“But this is more fun, Hannah!” Frankie is trying so hard to be nice and get me to like her.

I almost feel bad when I scowl at the back of her head.

If we're all taking couple pictures, I'll be left out again. This is getting really freaking old, and I'm sick of complaining about it, but I'm also sick of it happening. Sick of being left out. Sick of following the rules and getting nothing for my trouble. Sick of being the only solo act here in a crowd of duets. I thought this trip would finally be my turn to get something to go right for me, but it looks like I'm more empty and alone than ever.

Grace and Alex step out of the booth, and their pictures pop out after a few seconds. Their heads come together over the strips and they smile, but then they both slip the strips into their back pockets, not sharing with us. Frankie pulls Nick into the empty booth after that, and I make a point to watch their legs. She's not sitting on his lap the way Grace was sitting on Alex's. But she does wrap one of her Chuck Taylors around his ankle. I try not to imagine what's going on in there, but I can't help it. My mind takes more pictures than the photo booth itself does, each image worse than the one before. Frankie kissing Nick. Nick kissing Frankie back. Of course they kiss. They've been together for three months. They've kissed a lot, I'm sure. And done other stuff.

No. No. No.

I grab Lo and yank her away from Oscar. “Do you think Nick and Frankie have had sex?” The one and only time I talked about the subject with him, he told me he was a virgin. There's no way he'd keep a huge status change like that from me. He
couldn't.

But if he could keep Frankie from me, if he could lie to me about the band all this time, if he could keep these two parts of his life so separate, then how do I know what else he's capable of hiding?

Lo looks quickly at Oscar and jerks her head over to the side, and we scoot away from the group.

“Are you freaking out right now? Keep it together, Hannah.” She wraps her hands around my arms and gives me a comforting squeeze.

“I'm trying, but I'm about to lose it. They've been together three months. Do you think they've done it?”

“Is that the kind of thing he'd tell you about?”

“He didn't even tell me he had a girlfriend in the first place!”

She gives me a light shake, and I glance over her shoulder and notice Oscar watching us.

She opens her mouth to reply, but I cut her off. “We'll talk later. They're coming out now.”

Nick and Frankie emerge from the photo booth. Well, Nick emerges. Frankie explodes. I'm noticing she doesn't do things the way a normal person does. And she must feed off my discomfort like a parasite, because the more unsettled I feel, the more she's acting like this is the best night of her freaking life.

Oscar raises an eyebrow at Lo, and they take their turn in the photo booth. Nice to see she's having a good spring break.

Frankie takes her pictures from the slot when they pop out and hands one to Nick, who is standing near me but not too near, and is moving his weight from one leg to the other and back again. “Here're our pics, Boy-friend,” she singsongs. “So cute, huh?”

I wince at Frankie's obnoxious—and totally uncreative—name for Nick as he scans the photo strip. I wince again as he smiles, then sticks it in his back pocket the way Alex and Grace, who are now tucked close together up against the back of the booth, whispering to each other, did with their pictures.

“Hello! Rude!” Frankie says, smacking his chest with her tiny hand. “Aren't you going to show Hannah?”

I'm about to tell her I'd rather ride the roller coaster naked than look at their photos when she shoves the strip in my face. Four coupley pictures of Nick and Frankie. Oh, boy. I take it from her hand, and while all I want to do is throw a polite glance at the strip and hand it back, I find myself studying it. I can't help myself. Nick looking so much like the Nick I know from our video chats and all the photos I've seen over the past few years. If I stare long enough at it, I can almost forget the Nick standing next to me, the one who kept secrets and has a girlfriend. Nick of the photos would never do that to me. Phone Nick would never lie.

Then there's Frankie. In one picture, Nick's eyes crinkle up as she kisses him on the cheek. In another picture, Frankie makes a crazy face at the camera while he laughs at her silliness. In the third one, they both have huge, over-the-top grins, eyes open as wide as possible. And in the last one, his forehead is leaned down to hers. Their heads touch and they're looking at each other seriously. It's an intimate picture. It makes me feel like an intruder.

I guess I am.

“Cute,” I say, handing the strip back to Frankie. I want to turn to look at Nick, but after seeing that last photo, I can't handle it.

Frankie takes her phone out from her pocket and snaps a photo of the strip. “I'm posting this right now.”

Nick groans. “Frankie, no. Please don't.”

“Why? It's totally Insta-worthy. Look how perfect we look. And it's a great teaser for my recap of tonight!”

“Recap?” I ask.

Nick lets out a long, tortured breath. “Anytime we go out and do something, Frankie recaps it on her blog. Every single evening is written up and posted online in great detail. Complete with pictures.”

“Even our dates!” Frankie says this like she thinks it's the best thing in the world, photographing and blogging every minute of their time together, everything she does. But one look at Nick makes it clear he doesn't share her excitement.

She's still captioning the photo on her phone when Lo and Oscar climb out of the photo booth. I wasn't even paying attention to their leg body language, but with the way Lo is blushing, I go ahead and assume there was some smooching happening in there. Great. Now I'm officially the only one not getting kissed on this trip.

Frankie doesn't even look up from her phone. “Boyfriend, you and Hannah should take some long-distance bestie pictures in the booth now!”

“Oh no, we don't need to,” I say at the same time Nick says, “Uhhhhh.”

She snaps her head up. “Come on, you guys. You have to.” Then this tiny girl actually puts her palm on my back and pushes me toward the booth. “Go.”

Nick and I shuffle over to the photo booth. “We don't have to do this,” he mumbles. But he doesn't stop walking.

I cross my arms at my chest and stare at my shoes. “It's fine.” I'm trying to come up with an excuse to get us out of it anyway, but then he clears his throat and I see he's already sitting there, waiting for me.

The inside of the booth is small, and the bench against the back wall doesn't leave much room for personal space. I can see why Grace was on Alex's lap. Nick scoots over and I wedge myself into the free space next to him, pressing my hip as close to the wall as it can go in an attempt to keep a little room between the two of us. I know how to diagram a sentence and solve differential equations and Photoshop an entire person into a club photo they were absent for, but I have no idea how to navigate being alone with Nick. Can I touch him? Should I be so close? Probably not, better scoot over more. Too bad I can't climb up the wall.

He leans forward and pushes three dollar bills through the money slot, and the directions pop up on the screen. There's a square our faces have to squeeze into so we can fit in the frame, and my deliberate space bubble means only half my head is going to show up.

“Scoot in,” Nick says. “Pretend like you like me.” I scoot toward him, and our legs smoosh up against each other from hip to knee, sending a lightning bolt through my body. Our arms smash awkwardly together, so he adjusts his shoulder, pushing his arm behind my body. I can feel him hesitate just slightly; then he moves his arm so it wraps around my shoulder and he pulls me even closer.

I die. Oh my God, I die.

“There,” he says. “Much better, don't you think?” My heart beats like crazy, and I wonder if he can feel the vibration. I know this doesn't mean anything romantic, his arm around me like this. He's pulling me against him only so we both fit in the picture.

But knowing it doesn't mean anything; it doesn't change the way his body feels when it's so close to mine. Like pulsating energy and slow-burning fire.

He leans forward and hits the
OK
button, and the countdown to the first picture begins.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“Should have thought about that before I pressed the button, huh? The pressure is on!”