The Thing About the Truth (26 page)

“The one whose car you wrecked?”

I nod.

“Ahhh.” She gives me a knowing look. “That story makes so much more sense now. Guys are such dicks.” She raises her eyes up to the menu above the cash registers.

I love that she’s not making a big deal of my revelation, or pushing for a lot of details. It makes me feel like she wants to know stuff about my life because she wants to get to know me better, not because she’s looking for gossip to tell her friends. It’s a nice change from my friends at Concordia Prep.

The line shuffles forward, and when it’s our turn, Chloe orders a fish sandwich, fries, Diet Coke, and a large milk shake. Wow. I have to get a Big Mac, fries, lemonade, and an apple pie to try and keep up. Anytime I eat junk food with Rielle, she usually eats a few bites and then claims to be full. Her only real food weakness is cupcakes, hence the reason I took her to Pria’s Bakery the other day. I make a mental note to put body image issues on the list of things to bring up on Face It Down Day.

“So what’s up with you and Dave?” I ask as Chloe and I sit down at a table near the middle of the restaurant. I unwrap my straw and slide it into my lemonade.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s been all awkward ever since we hooked up. I mean, he came to Isaac’s and everything, which I thought was a good sign, but after we left he took me right home. It’s like now that we hooked up, he doesn’t know how to act.”

“Well,” I say, and take a sip of my drink, “maybe it’s going to be up to you to take the lead.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, ripping open a ketchup packet.

“I mean, what do
you
want?”

“I want to be with him,” she says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then why don’t you tell him?”

“I told you,” she says. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because then everything will change between us.”

“Everything’s already changed between you guys,” I point out. “I mean, it sounds like things are really weird.”

“True,” she admits. She pulls a fry through the pile of ketchup on her tray and pops it in her mouth.

“And besides,” I say, “didn’t you just say that you hate liars?”

“Yeah.” She looks uncomfortable, and she leans back in her chair and pushes her long, curly blond hair away from her face. “But I’m not lying to him.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I mean, he’s never actually come out and asked me if I like him.”

“But lying by omission is the same as lying,” I tell her.

She nods. “You’re right,” she says, “and I do hate liars. It’s just really hard, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“But I think maybe I will tell him.” She grins at me, and I grin back.

But for the rest of lunch, all I can think about is how I told her that she shouldn’t lie to Dave. Even though I’m doing that exact same thing to Isaac.

Isaac

Over the next couple of weeks things are pretty hectic. For some reason it seems like every teacher has decided to shift into another gear and pile on the homework. Not to mention my dad’s in the midst of some big school tour, where he visits a bunch of schools, talking about the need for good teachers and a shift in educational standards. He’s been trotting me out to talk about the difference between private school and public school. I do my job, and I do it with a smile on my face, not enjoying it but not really minding it either. I look at it as just playing the game.

Besides, I’m happy. And I’m pretty sure it’s because of Kelsey. We’re spending every spare moment together, and it’s
the easiest relationship I’ve ever had with a girl. Not that I’ve had many relationships. But still. A lot of times we’ll just be hanging out at my house, doing our homework, watching TV, whatever, and it’s okay to just
be
. We don’t have to keep talking or trying to make sure the other one’s entertained or anything. It’s just perfectly natural for us to coexist.

I might be the happiest I’ve ever been.

This is what I’m thinking about on the day before Face It Down Day as I’m whistling down the hallway at school. I’m late for gym, so I’m kind of rushing. I like to meet Kelsey as soon as we’re done changing, so that we can do our warm-up run together. I know. Who would have thought that I would turn into such a sap? Doing a warm-up run together? It’s the kind of thing that used to make me roll my eyes and mime a gagging motion. But now it just seems right.

I’m debating whether it would be totally uncool to start running toward the locker room when someone steps in front of me.

“Whoa,” I say, putting my hands on the person’s shoulders to avoid barreling into them. “Sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” the person says, sounding sarcastic. I take a step back. And that’s when I realize it’s Marina.

“Hey, Marina,” I say, trying to sound polite and not give away the fact that inside, I’m kind of terrified. Marina and I haven’t really talked since that day when she stomped out of our meeting. She never came to another Face It Down meeting, and we never really asked her why. I mean, it was pretty obvious.

In fact, if you want to know the truth, Marina and I haven’t
really talked since that night at the beach last month. The night I kissed her. She sent me a couple of texts, but I never replied, and then I started dating Kelsey. I know I should have talked to her—I’ve been
meaning
to talk to her—but there just never seemed like a good time. She was always surrounded by her friends, and the couple of times I did try to approach her after her blowup at the meeting, she would see me coming and then turn on her heel and stalk away. After a little while I just assumed she was so mad at me that she didn’t want anything to do with me. Which, I’m sorry to say, made me kind of relieved.

“Hi, Isaac,” she says, giving me a fake smile. “How are things?”

“Fine,” I say, looking behind her nervously. “How are things with you?”

“Things are great with me,” she says. “I have a new boyfriend.”

A new boyfriend? I’m assuming she means new as in she just got him, not new as in I was her old boyfriend. She can’t think I was her boyfriend, can she? I mean, we only hung out once. “That’s great,” I say, deciding it’s best not to think about it. “I’m happy for you.”

“And I’m happy for
you
,” she says. “Rushing off to gym, are we? So that you and Kelsey can do your little warm-up run together?”

Wow. I wonder if anyone else has noticed we do that. “Well, I’m rushing off to gym because I don’t want to be late.” I force a little laugh and decide to leave the warm-up run part out of it.

“Is there a reason you didn’t pick me to come to Face It Down Day?” she asks.

The response to Face It Down Day has been insane. So many kids wanted to come, and we got a ton of applications. Kelsey, Chloe, Marshall, and I spent a bunch of time going through them, picking out the kids we thought were really going to get something out of it, not just the ones who were looking for a free pass out of class. We also picked a pretty diverse group because getting a good group is really important. Especially since thanks to my dad’s involvement, and the fact that he’s been talking up Face It Down at all the schools he’s been visiting, there’s going to be a camera crew here tomorrow from the local news.

“You submitted an application?” I ask, trying to look confused. The truth is, when we saw Marina’s application, we didn’t really read it. There was no way we were going to let her in.

“Yes,” she says, “and I would hate to think that I wasn’t picked just because you and I have a history. I don’t think that the NBC affiliate would like to cover that angle of the story, do you? Especially since the day is supposed to be about bringing students together, not tearing them apart.”

My mouth drops open, but I quickly shut it. Is she . . . she’s not
threatening
me, is she? Like saying that she might start some kind of
scene
or something while the reporters are here? That would be so fucked up.

“Huh,” I say, “yeah, well, you weren’t not picked because
me and you have a history. We don’t really have that much of a history.”

Her face gets all angry then, and I realize I shouldn’t have said that last part, about us not having a history. That was a bad idea. Obviously, she thinks we do have a history. And that’s all that matters. And now I’ve angered her even more.

“Really?” she says. “Because I think kissing me and then refusing to talk to me is a history. A very interesting history.” She takes a step toward me. She’s wearing these very tall black boots with a very skinny, sharp heel. They look like the type of shoes you see on the covers of crime novels about female serial killers, the kind that usually have blood dripping off the bottom.

The warning bell rings, signaling that we only have thirty seconds to get to gym. Which doesn’t seem like it’s going to be happening. I don’t want to be late, but I also don’t want any kind of
Fatal Attraction
thing to be going on here either. Keeping my life is definitely preferable to keeping my attendance record.

“I didn’t refuse to talk to you,” I say. “You, um, you didn’t seem like you wanted to talk to me.”

“When did you try?”

“A bunch of times,” I say. “I tried to come up to you, but you were always walking away.”

She leans back against the row of lockers and pouts her bottom lip. “I wanted to make really sure that you wanted to talk to me. You know, about what happened.”

“Right,” I say, “about what happened. That’s why I wanted to talk. You know, to explain.”

“So explain.”

There’s an alarm going off inside me, some kind of crazy-girl radar. And I’ve learned that in these instances, it’s best to trust my instincts. “Um, well,” I say slowly, “I wanted to talk to let you know that me and Kelsey started going out, and that I was really sorry that I kissed you that night. I was drunk, and it wasn’t right of me to lead you on like that.”

This is the truth. The complete and total truth. I
do
wish I had talked to her, I
was
drunk that night, and me and Kelsey
are
together. But obviously, honesty isn’t what Marina’s looking for.

“So you did keep me out of Face It Down Day because of our history!” she yells. “You didn’t want me around because you thought I was going to stalk you!”

“No!” I say. Although, now I
am
a little scared that she’s going to stalk me. But I wasn’t at the time. Well, not that much.

She turns and starts to stomp down the hall, but I run after her. “Marina!” I say like some sort of crazy person. “Wait!”

She turns around. “Yes, Isaac? Do you have something to say that is going to make this situation any better?”

God, this chick has really gone off the reservation. “I just wanted to say . . . um, I hope we can be friends.” This is a lie. I don’t want to be friends with her. But I’m trying to calm her down.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” she says. “I’m not friends with people who are so blatantly manipulative. My therapist doesn’t think it’s good for my self-esteem.”

Figures that she has a therapist. Not that there’s anything wrong with therapy. My dad’s always trying to foist that shit on me. But in my experience, there are two kinds of therapists. The kind that actually tries to help you and makes you work on your issues, and the kind that coddles you and doesn’t make you do any real work so that you keep coming back. I’ll bet that Marina’s therapist is the second kind, the kind that makes her feel like everyone around here is just so manipulative, and that she’s the victim in every situation.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you,” I say. “See you around.” And then I start to walk away from her. Because this chick is crazy. And also because I’m late for my run with Kelsey.

“I think the news channel is going to be really upset about all of this!” she yells after me.

I keep walking, pretending I don’t hear her. But then I remember Kelsey. And how important this is to her. How she’s pretty much banking on Face It Down Day going well so that she can get into a good college. How she really, really wants it to go perfectly, how she can’t wait for it to happen.

And so I sigh. And turn around. And I say, “Marina, would you like to come to Face It Down Day tomorrow?” I can deal with her for one day. Then after that, she won’t have any power over me—the news story will have already run.

“I don’t know,” she says, pretending to think about it just because she wants to torture me. I wonder what her therapist would think about that kind of blatantly manipulative behavior. Probably he’d tell her she was a victim. “I mean, you didn’t
want me there in the first place. I don’t want to be anyone’s second choice.”

She says it vaguely threatening, like I better not break up with Kelsey and expect her to have just waited around for me. I wonder if maybe I’m going to need to borrow my dad’s security detail.

“Oh, you’re not a second choice,” I say. “I really, really want you there.”

“Great,” she says, deciding to believe it. “Now walk me to gym.”