The Sea of Tranquility (35 page)

“It’s an age old story,” he says flatly. “Boy meets girl. Boy asks girl to touch him inappropriately. Girl dazzles boy with her impressive knowledge and proper use of profanity. Boy and girl end up in detention together. Love blossoms. In secret. For four months.”

Sunshine looks at me for confirmation. “True story,” I deadpan. I always knew they had hooked up, but I thought it was a one-time deal. I actually just found out the rest of the story. He didn’t tell me until I laid into him the week after the infamous truth or dare dinner. But I remember there was something up with Drew during that time period and now it just makes sense.

“And?” she asks.

“And nothing. That’s all you’re getting.” He turns the TV back on.

“You suck,” she mutters.

“So do you, no doubt.”

Somehow I didn’t find that nearly as funny as the two of them.

CHAPTER 40

Nastya

Drew and I have spent the past three hours at his dining room table with dueling laptops, pulling up research and precedents for the most boring argument ever on term limits. I guess it’s better than gas taxes which we could have gotten stuck with. The county tournament is in two weeks. I don’t have to compete, but I have to attend, and my grade comes from doing prep work.

So far I’ve gotten away with being designated as Drew’s researcher. No one else really has researchers, but I’m there, and I can’t compete for myself so he gets to use me. If he wasn’t so good it never would have flown, but he performs. When Drew does well, the team does well, and when the team does well, Mr. Trent looks good, so he’ll give Drew just about anything he asks for. Which works for me, because it keeps me out of the claws of Ethan Hall, who still thinks asking me for blow jobs in the guidance office, while pretending to harmlessly flirt, is romantic.

I hand Drew the printouts and my notes and we split up the rest of the work so we can finish it tonight. I haven’t quit badgering him about Tierney yet.

“Why can’t you guys at least be friends? Wouldn’t that be better than nothing?” I’m not an expert on relationships. Not any of them. Not familial, not romantic, not friendly. Relationships require communication, which is not really my thing, so it’s a weak subject for me. I just don’t get why he has to act like he hates her when he so obviously doesn’t.

“No, it would
not
be better than nothing. It would absolutely be
worse
than nothing.”

“That’s such a cop-out. Guys always say that because it’s easy.”

“And girls always want to change the rules in the middle of the game. You can’t change the rules and think everyone else is just going to keep playing. I know what her hair smells like, but I can’t get close enough to her to press my face into it. I know how soft her skin is on every part of her body, but I can’t touch it. I know what she tastes like, but I can’t kiss her. I’m not allowed anymore; so why should I torture myself with being around her, just so I can say we’re still friends?”

“Still doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, and if you’d stop to think about it for one minute, you’d realize it. If you and Josh were suddenly not together, do you think you could still hang out with him all the time? Be in his house, but not touch him? Act happy for him when he’s going out with some other girl and she’s going to know all of the things about him that you know, but that all of a sudden you’re not supposed to know anymore? You couldn’t do it, either.”

“Josh isn’t in love with me and I’m not in love with him.”

“Sell it to someone who’s buying, Sunshine. Have you seen the way he looks at you?” I’ve seen the way he looks at me but I don’t know what it means. “Like you’re a seventeenth-century, hand-carved table in mint condition.”

“So he looks at me like I’m furniture.”

“Exactly. See? You know what I’m talking about.”

“Nobody likes a smartass.”

“Fallacy. Everybody likes a smart ass. Especially you.” He fixes his eyes on mine, and it’s obvious he won’t be done proving his theories until I concede. “Friends is bullshit and you’ll know it, too, when it happens to you. When the two of you break up, you’ll know exactly what I mean.”

“We-can’t-break-up-if-we-aren’t-together.” I enunciate every word in my most exasperated voice, but it doesn’t deter him.

“Semantics. It’s going to happen and everyone,” he gestures around the room to the audience that isn’t there, “knows it but you. One day, you’re going to get drunk and screw the shit out of each other and then you’re going to realize how incredibly, stupidly in love you are, or maybe vice-versa, knowing you two. Could happen. But anyway, you’ll be
together.
And then one day, you
won’t
. And when that day comes, I can promise you, you won’t be friends. You’ll hate each other before you’ll ever just be friends.”

“I don’t want him to love me.” Why I say this out loud is beyond me, but it’s true. I don’t want the obligations and the expectations. I don’t want to be the source of disappointment in another person’s life.

“He doesn’t want to love you either so I guess you’re on the same page.”

Talking about Josh is starting to feel like a very bad idea. “We’re supposed to be talking about Tierney.”

“We’re supposed to be talking about government term limits.”

“Alright, I’ll accept your impossible friendship theory if you tell me what happened. Maybe if I know how it ended, I’ll agree with you.” I actually am starting to agree with him, but I’m not telling him yet. I want the story.

“I was an asshole.”

“That’s a given. Quit stalling.”

“We got together.
Together, together
,” he clarifies. “Not just my version of together. Tierney didn’t want anyone to know because she refused to have people thinking she was another name on a very long and undistinguished list. She said she was better than that. And she was better than that. She never would have hooked up with me if it was nothing. But dickhead Trevor Mason kept giving me shit, so I told him. Except I didn’t tell him we were together. I just told him we were screwing. She got pissed. Broke up with me. Everybody acted like she was a loser for thinking I gave a crap about her.”

“Did you give a crap about her?”

He nails me with a look that says that I know the answer and he’s not saying it. I think the word love might sear his tongue.

“You guys don’t even have anything in common. What’s the attraction? And please refrain from listing body parts or anything involving the word oral.”

“She’s Tierney. She gives me shit, but she won’t take mine. She makes me laugh, but she laughs more. She argues with me about everything, even when she knows she’ll never win. Plus, she’s hot as hell and she can’t stand me. Is there anything else that could possibly make her more attractive?”

“It sounds like you’re giving a speech. Bottom line it, Drew.”

“Damn, you’re annoying,” he groans, but that’s what he always does when he’s going to answer anyway. “Listen, I know what I look like and I know how smart I am. Shut up. Don’t look at me like that. I know it and you know it. But I know I’m a pretty shit human being, too,” he says, sounding momentarily sincere. “Tierney made me feel like I wasn’t completely worthless as a person.”

“But you treat her like she’s worthless. You hurt her feelings all the time. I know she’s all hard-core and everything, but you do know she has feelings, right?”

“Of course I know she has feelings. Do you know how smart that girl is? No. Nobody does, because she doesn’t want you to know. She doesn’t want you to know she’s funny and sweet either – yes, I used the word sweet and if you ever mention it again there will be consequences.” He shoots me the look-into-my-eyes-and-feel-my-wrath glare before continuing. “You know who knows those things? I do. So, yes, Nastya, I know she has feelings and I know how to hurt every one of them.”

“So that’s what you do? You feel guilty for hurting her so you make up for it by hurting her more? You’re the definition of a jackhole. Why wouldn’t you have just apologized to her right after it happened? Told people the truth?” I close the laptop and push it aside.

“Because she was so pissed. She broke up with me and said I was everything she ever knew I was and that people were right, that she was pathetic for believing anything else.”

“And that was it?”

Apparently that wasn’t even close to it. He proceeds to tell me that the night Tierney laid all of that on him, he went to a party and had sex with Kara Matthews.

“Why the hell would you do that?” Nothing Drew does should surprise me at this point; but this does.

“Because I was depressed and pissed and I lost her because I was a prick so I figured I might as well act like one.”

“You know, for someone who thinks he’s such an awesome debater, your logic is seriously flawed. You hadn’t lost her. You didn’t lose her until you screwed Kara Matthews. It was a test.”

“First of all, I am an awesome debater. Second of all, it was not a test. She broke up with me for real. She hated me.”

“That’s
why
it was a test.” How is it that an inexperienced, social loser like me can grasp this and Drew Leighton cannot? “She handed you a golden opportunity to prove her wrong. Instead, you stuck your dick in Kara Matthews and proved that Tierney meant absolutely nothing and that every bad thing she ever thought about you was true.”

I can’t pretend not to know why I adore Drew Leighton. He’s as fucked up and emotionally stunted as I am, just in a different way. But, right now, I kind of hate him for being so astronomically clueless. I walk over and wrap my arms around him and put my head on his shoulder, because I know what self-loathing looks like and if I want there to be hope for me, I need there to be hope for him.

“You really are an asshole,” I say.

He sighs and rests his chin on the top of my head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

***

I end up staying long enough that Mr. and Mrs. Leighton and Sarah get home and I’m roped into having dinner with them, which isn’t such a dreadful thought now that Sarah is not my mortal enemy anymore.

Sometime after the dinner party from hell, Sarah decided she didn’t completely despise me. That whole night may have been the definition of a bad idea, but if one good thing came out of it, it’s that somehow the tension between she and I has dissipated. It’s not like we’re swapping sex stories and bra shopping together, but still. If I knew that teaching her how to knock a guy on the ground would endear her to me, I would have done it months ago. Nevertheless, things have gotten easier, maybe almost nice.

“You’d look a lot better without all that make-up,” she tells me, and I think it’s her idea of a compliment. I don’t know if I’d look better, or just different, but I’m not ready to give it up. “If you looked normal you could have more friends. You know, even with the not talking. People are kind of scared of you.”

Good. That’s the plan. The conversation is pretty one-sided, but it’s better than being scowled at, insulted and generally treated like a pariah, which is what I’m used to from Sarah.

“Not everybody can be as socially blessed as you, Sarah,” Drew chimes in. “It’s a gift being related to me.”

“No, it’s a curse,” she says and it’s genuine.

“Right. As if you’d have half as many friends or go on half as many dates if I weren’t your brother.” I think Drew is joking but it sets her off, and when I hear what she says, I don’t blame her. I feel sorry for her instead.

“You’re absolutely right! That’s the fucking problem, Drew! Girls all want to be friends with me because they think it’s a free pass
to you
. Guys want to go out with me because they figure I’m a cheap slut
like you
. You want to take credit for my social life? Go ahead. You
are
responsible for it.” She pauses because she’s so worked up and I can tell Drew is wishing he never said anything because he didn’t see this coming at all. I don’t even want to be in the room anymore. I wonder if anybody here has an invisibility cloak I could borrow, because that would be awesome.

“I
hate
being your sister!” Sarah hisses. “I would do
anything
to not be related to you!”

Drew doesn’t say anything else. No cocky comebacks. No derision. He just walks out and leaves me with Sarah, who starts to cry. I’m seriously hoping they have some ice cream here, because without words, it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve got to work with.

“I hate him,” she says through tears, and I know that she doesn’t, but I can’t tell her that.

***

Later that night, we push all the furniture to the side of the room again and offer to give Mr. and Mrs. Leighton a demonstration of Sarah’s up and coming self-defense skills. I drag Drew back into the room and offer him up as an assailant and then refresh Sarah’s memory on how to cause him bodily harm. And Drew lets her do it as many times as she needs to, even when she doesn’t pull back enough and it’s really starting to hurt. Then the last time he comes at her from behind, he whispers
I’m sorry
before wrapping his arms around her. There’s a part of me that’s hoping she’ll press her arms up and out before dropping straight down out of his grasp, driving her elbow back into him and then running like I taught her, but I’m glad she doesn’t when he apologizes again and she turns in his arms and hugs him back.

Just as he loosens up, she stomps on his instep for real, then mock knees him in the groin and Mrs. Leighton applauds.

CHAPTER 41

Nastya

“You’re destroying your hands,” Josh tells me, picking them up and turning them over to look at my palms. I pull them back, but I can’t help smiling because it’s a compliment. It’s even better than being called distractingly pretty.

“I like it,” I tell him, examining them myself. “Means they’re doing something.” I may not be able to use them the way I’d like‌—‌unless one-handed piano playing becomes all the rage, I’m SOL‌—‌but at least I can do something. Josh hates sanding. It’s his least favorite thing to do, because according to him, it’s boring. He keeps trying to get me to use a belt sander when it’s feasible but there’s just no satisfaction in that. I like sanding because it’s mindless and repetitive and it lets me think. I can smooth out all the rough edges. And at the end of the night, I can look at what I’ve done and see a pile of sawdust and feel like I’ve accomplished something. When I look at my hands, I don’t see scrapes and scratches; I don’t see injuries; I see healing.