The Thing About the Truth (5 page)

“Hey, guys,” I say, slapping a smile on my face as I walk into the kitchen. “How were your days?”

I drop my bag on the counter and move toward the refrigerator to get an after-school snack. I haven’t eaten all day. During lunch I hung out in the library so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the whole “Where am I going to sit?” conundrum. At first it was a little depressing—no one else was in the library
except for this weird-looking freshman who was eating an extremely smelly bologna sandwich.

But the time turned out to actually be really productive, because I made a list of things I could do to get my academic career back on track so that getting kicked out of Concordia Prep doesn’t screw up all my college apps. Of course, the top three things on the list are fairly obvious: get amazing grades, figure out my class rank (apparently they do grade point averages at Concordia Public a little differently, so I’m going to have to work out where I stand—to be valedictorian or salutatorian would be amazing), and start some kind of club or group that becomes very popular but is also very important in a social or environmental capacity (not sure exactly what that could be, but I’m going to try to have a meeting with the principal to figure it out).

“My day was fine,” my mom says. She flicks the page of the catalog they’re looking through. My parents are redoing our kitchen soon. At least, that’s what they claim. They’ve been saying for years they’re going to remodel the kitchen. But the closest they’ve actually gotten to doing so is moving most of our food and dishes into the pantry in the dining room. That was a year ago.

But apparently, they’ve now gotten to the point where they’re actually picking things out, like cabinets and countertops. Supposedly, a guy is coming over soon to take measurements and the contractors are starting next week. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Everything about my parents is very methodical. They were math majors who met their junior year of college. They dated for two years, and then they mutually (well, according to them it was mutually, but in my limited experience, nothing about relationships is ever really mutual) decided that maybe they should see other people for a while after graduation. They’d read some statistic somewhere that showed that people who marry their college sweetheart without taking time to date other people had a higher divorce rate, so they thought it was a good move.

They kept in touch, though, and after a year they got back together. If you asked them, they would totally credit the success of their marriage to that year they took off to see other people. If you ask me, the whole thing sounds ridiculously unromantic. Then again, what do I know? My romantic relationships are a complete disaster. Well, my one romantic relationship.

“Did you pick out some cabinets?” I ask my mom politely. I open a bag of cookies and slide a couple onto a plate.

“Yes.” She holds up the catalog. “Do you like the cherry?”

“They look really nice.” Not that I can really tell the difference. A cabinet is a cabinet is a cabinet.

My dad doesn’t say anything, just keeps his head down, poring over the pages of a brochure. This is how it is with me and my parents now. Polite conversation. Lots of tiptoeing around each other. No one mentioning the elephant in the room. Except for when my dad gets into one of his moods and
refuses to talk to me. Which he’s apparently in right now. Then there are just long silences. And except for when the two of them decide to sit me down and have big conversations about my future and how I’m screwing everything up. Then there’s just yelling.

I pull a glass out of the cabinet and pour myself some juice. “I’m going to go upstairs and study.”

“That’s a good idea,” my mom says, her eyes already back on the pages of cabinets.

I sigh, grab my cookies, and then make my way upstairs, where I spend the rest of the night studying and trying not to think about the fact that my parents consider me a total disappointment.

Isaac

Okay, so that girl from yesterday morning, Marina? The one with the whole story about her boobs falling out? I think she might be stalking me. And when I say “I think,” I mean I’m pretty fucking sure. I wouldn’t say I’m
positive
, though, because if I’m being completely honest, I’m kind of sensitive about that kind of thing. Not to sound like a pompous asshole, but I’ve had girls stalking me before. And it’s not pleasant.

I’m not talking about the kind of stalking where you have to get a restraining order or call the police or anything psychotic like that. I’m just talking about chicks being overzealous and getting all weird. Calling you all the time. Leaving tons of messages on your Facebook wall. Somehow getting
your home phone number when you’ve deliberately only given them your cell. That kind of shit that’s ultimately harmless, but still pretty annoying.

For example.

Since I gave Marina my number in gym yesterday, she’s texted me eight times. In less than twenty-four hours. If you take out eight hours for sleeping, that’s like a text every two hours.

The first time she said,
“Hey sexy.”

Which was actually fine. Because who doesn’t like to be called sexy, especially by a hot girl, even if she does have the uncanny ability to make boob stories boring? I didn’t reply, though, because I was in the middle of biology lab.

The second time, which came a couple hours later, said,
“y u don’t reply?
” That’s when I started getting a weird feeling. So I didn’t write her back, hoping that maybe she’d get the hint and ease off. If she did, I was going to text her back.

She didn’t ease off, though. She kept texting. And last night at around eleven, she wrote,
“That’s it, I will meet you before school tmr.”

The “that’s it” part definitely wasn’t all that promising. It sounded like she was one second away from coming after me with a meat cleaver.

So this morning I’m trying to sneak into school without her seeing me.

Of course, it doesn’t work. As soon as I step off the pavement of the student parking lot and onto the sidewalk, I see
her. She’s standing in front of the school waiting for me. She’s wearing a pair of tight black pants and a black shirt. She looks extremely hot.

For a second I think maybe this could work out after all. I mean, to be fair, she didn’t text me at all this morning, so maybe she’s calming down a little. Maybe she realized she was coming on too strong. Maybe she wants to make it up to me, if you know what I mean. I could definitely use a little stress release.

“Hey, sexy,” she says. Again with the sexy. So original, this girl. But I forgive her because she’s hot. In fact, I kind of forgot how hot she was when she was texting me yesterday. Would have been better if she’d texted me a picture. If she’d done that, I probably would have gotten over the fact that she seems slightly stalkerish.

“Hey,” I say. She wraps her arms around my waist and hugs me.

“Miss me?” she asks.

In the last nine hours when you weren’t sending me text after text?

“Of course,” I say, because I’m smart enough to know that this is one of those trick questions that girls are always asking. Of course you don’t really miss them. They’re usually being pains in the ass who want to talk all the time. But you can’t tell them that; otherwise they get all pissy. It’s easier just to lie. Not that I advocate lying. It’s just that in certain situations, it’s a lot easier.

“I missed you too.” She bounces up and down. “Yay!”

“Yay!” I say back. Mostly because I don’t know what else to say. She’s bouncing so fast that I think maybe her boobs are going to spill out of her shirt.

“So what should we do after school today?” she wants to know. She reaches out and runs her finger up and down the front of my shirt. “Maybe we should go shopping. I know they probably had a different, um, sense of style at your old school.”

“Did we have plans after school today?” I ask, confused. Also, did she just insult my wardrobe? What the hell is wrong with what I’m wearing? It’s a button-down shirt with a pair of khakis. I look around. Huh. I guess everyone’s wearing jeans. Well, whatever. It’s not my fault they all want to look like slobs. This is a Burberry shirt, and my pants are from Ralph Lauren. I left my new sneakers at home, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

“Well, not specific plans,” she says, “but I was thinking that we could get together and hang out. We don’t have to go shopping. We could grab something to eat or hang out at my friend Raya’s house.”

“I’d love to,” I lie, “but I have plans.” I don’t know why I say it. I just know that I really do not want to hang out with her. In fact, suddenly I want to get far, far away from her. My crazy-girl radar is going off, big time. Going shopping together? Everyone knows that’s, like, the first thing stalkers ask you to do.

“Plans?” She frowns like she can’t possibly imagine I
would be doing something that didn’t involve her. “With who?”

I rack my brain, trying to remember the name of the kid I met in homeroom yesterday. It was some kind of last name as a first name. Mitchell? Monroe? I look around for him, trying to see if maybe, by some miracle, I’ll see him in the crowd. But of course I don’t.

Whatever. I shouldn’t be afraid of telling this girl that I don’t want to hang out with her.

“I just have plans,” I say firmly, deciding it’s best not to offer any details.

“With. Who?” Her eyes are narrowing into two slits, and suddenly I’m a little bit . . . frightened. What if she really is dangerous? Isn’t there always weird shit like this going on at public schools? This chick could be totally out of her tree. What if she really starts to stalk me, coming after me not just at school, but other places? My dad’s not going to be happy if I have to get a restraining order. Definitely not good right before an election year.

“Well, it’s not really . . .” And then I catch sight of that girl from yesterday, Kelsey. She’s stepping off a big yellow bus (who the hell still rides the bus?) and starting to walk up the sidewalk toward school.

“Kelsey!” I yell like some kind of lunatic, waving my hands in the air. “Kelsey, hey!”

She looks around, a half smile on her face, trying to figure out who’s calling her name. When she sees it’s me, the smile disappears. Jesus. What the hell is up with this place? I’m
already having issues with two girls. And I haven’t even dated either one of them.

I wave her over.

She looks toward the school like maybe she’s hoping that somehow she’ll be able to pretend that she doesn’t see me. But she must figure that she can’t, because finally she starts to walk over.

“What?” she asks.

“What?” I say playfully, deciding to pretend that she’s kidding. “That’s not very friendly. Haha.”

“Isaac was just telling me that you and him have plans after school,” Marina says. “Is that true?” Her tone is challenging, and she crosses her arms over her chest.

Kelsey looks confused. “Um,” she says, “I’m staying after school so that I can work on figuring out an extracurricular activity that I can get involved in.”

“Yup,” I say, nodding emphatically. “Me too.”

Kelsey raises her eyebrows. “You? You’re staying after school to figure out your extracurricular activities?”

“Yes.” I nod. “I need to find out about lacrosse.” This is perfect. And it’s not even a lie. I do need to sign up for lacrosse.

“That’s not what I meant,” Kelsey says, then looks toward the school like we’re keeping her from something super-important, not just homeroom. “I’m not signing up for a
sports team
.” She says “sports team” like it’s the same as joining a gang or something. “I’m having a meeting with the principal about what kind of group I can run.”

“Well, yeah,” I say, rolling my eyes. “That’s what I meant. I’m going to do that too. After the lacrosse thing.”

“You are?”

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m very political. You know, because of my family. I love being in charge of groups.”

Kelsey’s not buying it.

But fortunately, Marina is. “You guys are such do-gooders,” she says, grinning, I guess she’s relieved I don’t have a date. “Not me. I’m so not into all that stuff.” She wrinkles up her nose. “All right, well, I’ll see you later, Isaac. I’ll text you. And you better text me back this time.” She turns and walks into the school.