Chapter Seventeen
Chapter
seventeen
I RUSHED OUT OF THE conference room and then the library it was connected to after class, still seething, glad lunch was our next period, because I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on another class right now. I reached the hall, where I literally ran into the strong arm of Theo, stopping me in my tracks.
“Hey, whoa, slow down, you okay?”
“Why are you here?” I snapped, stunned by his appearance in front of me.
“Sometimes we sit in the library at lunch,” he said. “But also, you seemed upset earlier.”
“Did you hear what he said?” I looked over my shoulder, and when I saw the rest of the class, who hadn’t been as quick to the door as me, now exiting, I clamped my mouth shut.
“Come here,” he said, leading me out of the building and down the hall, then around a corner where he stopped. “What’s going on?” His look of concern, so different from his normal teasing smirk, was throwing me off.
“Jensen. My grandma texted him. He wants to visit her.”
“Your grandma texted him?”
“She keeps forgetting we broke up. She has Alzheimer’s.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yeah.” My chest was tight and my eyes felt hot.
He put his hands on my shoulders but didn’t say anything, just took a few breaths in and out. I found myself mimicking his actions until my chest loosened. “How did you do that?” I asked.
“I didn’t do anything,” he responded, but his hands still felt warm and steady on my shoulders. My hands, I realized, much to my surprise, were gripping the sides of his shirt.
I dropped them and cleared my throat, feeling emotions rise up my neck. “I’m okay,” I said, nodding once, then twice, maybe three times.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
“I am. I’m good.” I took a step back, out of his reach, swallowing hard as I looked around. This wasn’t a populated area at lunch—most people ate in the courtyard or cafeteria—but it wasn’t empty either.
“About the library the other day,” he said. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You were being stupid,” I said. “Annoying.”
“I seem to accomplish that a lot.”
“Yes, you do.”
He chuckled a little, his smirk settling back into place. “You’re mad at me.”
“No, well, sort of. You don’t have to pretend you’d listen to my podcast idea when you already told me it was boring.”
“I never said that.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “You especially shouldn’t say it right after you told your friends you’d never listen to the podcast.”
“Because Jensen is the host.”
Oh.
“An-and also, I thought we were trying to keep our distance so people wouldn’t talk. But then you tell me to work out in the library and you come to my class today.” I pointed behind us.
“I didn’t think you meant we couldn’t talk at all, just that you didn’t want anyone seeing us on the football field together.” He whispered that last part. “We can’t be seen together anywhere ? You were at one of my parties…. People know we know each othernow.”
“But that was before we had a plan. And now we can’t…we shouldn’t talk.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re pretty annoying too, you know.”
“Yeah…well…” Everything he’d said was true. I had been fine talking to him before. Didn’t think anything of it. I was overreacting. Nobody was going to make the jump that us hanging out together meant anything about Theo training me to kick unless they saw us in the act. And if they were going to make that jump, they would’ve made it already. Probably at his party.
He smiled. “No need to be so paranoid.”
“It’s just…I want this to work so bad. I need him to have some kind of consequence for what he did. And I don’t want him to see it coming.”
“I get it. But I’m not going to stop talking to you in public. At this point, I think that would be more suspicious. I will try to be more careful about the things I say if you’re worried. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Soccer Star.”
“Seriously, stop calling me that.”
“Why does it bother you?”
“Because even when I played, I wasn’t great. And you probably know that.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Plus, I quit.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“You need to work on that.”
“Getting better at soccer?”
“No, your confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re never going to get the position over him.”
“Easier said than done. Oh,” I said, pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket. I held it out for him.
“What’s that for?”
“For the burger you bought the other day.”
“Right.” He took the bill without a fight and put it in his pocket. For some reason he didn’t seem happy with this exchange. “What did Cheryl Millcreek’s daughter say?”
“What?”
“You said you messaged her. What did she say?”
“She hasn’t responded. I doubt she’ll ever see my message. It’s going to be in her spam folder, or wherever non-friend messages end up.”
“You didn’t request her as a friend?” he asked.
It hadn’t even occurred to me. “Should I have?”
“Yes!” he said. “At least that will appear in her notifications. She’ll look at your pic and think you’re her niece she never remembers the name of or something.”
“You’ve already characterized her as a terrible aunt?”
“We can only hope,” he said with a smile.
I pulled out my phone to send the request, and he shifted so he was looking over my shoulder.
I clicked on the blue button. “Requested.”
“Good,” he said.
I looked up at him. He was still next to me and our noses nearly bumped. We both took a step back at the same time.
“I better go.” He nodded toward the library, where his friends were probably waiting for him.
“Yes, of course. Thanks for…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain to him just how much he had calmed me down after the Jensen thing.
“Anytime,” he said, seeming to know exactly what I was talking about. And then he was walking away. “Oh, Finley,” he said, turning around and walking backward a few steps.
Maybe he needed to go back to calling me Soccer Star because my name on his lips set off a different kind of fire. “Yeah?”
“Publish another episode. It’s an interesting story.”
I THINK HE’S LISTENED TO my podcast! I wrote in our group chat after school that day as I was setting up to record another episode with my grandma.
Who? Lee asked.
Theo! Why would he listen to my podcast?
Because it’s good. Maxwell responded. I’ve been listening to it too. Post the one where she talks about Andrew. You haven’t posted it yet.
I sat down in my chair and pulled up my stats bar on my computer. Sure enough, my last episode now had five hits. I moved the cursor over the publish button on the waiting episode but hesitated.
“You ready for me, Finley?” Grandma asked, and I released the mouse.
“Yes, come in.”
She settled in quickly today, like she was ready to talk about Andrew. I was glad because I was ready to hear about him.
“Last I heard you lost the bet on the surfboard and so he got the privilege of taking you out. Where did he take you on your first date, and how was it?”
“We were young and neither of us had a job at the time, so he packed up a lunch and drove me down the coast to this beach with a series of caves. I’d never seen anything like it. We ate and talked, and he drew a picture in the sand with a stick that was so detailed, I didn’t understand how he could’ve done it. You’re an artist, I said. No, just someone with lots of pictures in my head, he responded. And, Finley, that was an understatement. Everywhere we went, he drew. On napkins and park benches and newspapers. Even on my hand sometimes.”
“What did he draw?”
“People, mostly. Or parts of people. Eyes or lips or ears. Sometimes hair that looked like waves with another person surfing in the locks.”
“Is that what he drew on your surfboard?” I asked.
“Something like that,” she said hesitantly, obviously still not able to recall the details.
“If you can remember anything more specific, maybe our listeners can help us find it.”
“What listeners? Are they listening right now?”
“No, I have to edit and work on the sound quality of our recording, and then I publish it. Then they listen to it.” At least, that was what I used to do. Before I stopped the last step of that process several episodes ago.
“Kind of like a radio show,” she said.
“Yes, true,” I said. “The surfboard?” I added, trying to get her back on track.
“I remember it was beautiful. And I didn’t understand how Andrew couldn’t see that he was an artist.”
“You’re right,” I said. “How couldn’t he?”
“He thought a real artist was trained and had the right supplies and a specific amount of experience and was recognized by others.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding why he might feel that way. “So he drew you a picture in the sand on your first date and then what?”
“And then we took off our shoes and walked along the waterline, leaving footprints in the wet sand, until we came to the caves. The tide was coming in, so we couldn’t explore them much, worried we would get trapped. As we stood inside that cave and the water lapped over my bare toes, he pulled me close and…”
She paused and didn’t go on.
“He kissed you?” I asked, unable to wait for her to finish her sentence.
“He didn’t,” she said. “He was going to, but I turned and pointed out to the ocean and said, Look at that otter. ”
“Why, Grandma?”
“Because I was scared. I’d never been kissed, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for my first one to happen while I was worried about the tide and the caves and getting stuck.”
“What did he do?”
“He looked out at the water too and said, I think that’s a sealion. ”
I smiled. “Was it?”
“There was no otter or sea lion.”
I gave a tempered laugh. “That was sweet of him.”
“He didn’t have to correct me,” she said.
“But it was fake!”
“Exactly.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. My mom was wrong. “You knew Andrew Lancaster. That’s so cool. You almost kissed Andrew Lancaster.”
“Oh, we kissed. Just not that time.”
My eyebrows popped up. “Oh, really? When did you finallykiss?”
“Wouldn’t this be the time you leave the listeners wanting more?”
“Are you trying to steal my job?” I asked.
“Never.” She slid the headphones off and set them on the desk. Her eyes seemed distant tonight. Far away. Maybe even a bit sad. “I love you, baby girl. Thanks for that walk down memory lane.”
I stood and gave her a hug. “Thanks for sharing it with me.”
When she pulled the door shut, I relistened to the episode.
“He thought a real artist was trained and had the right supplies and a specific amount of experience and was recognized by others,” my grandma’s voice said over the speakers.
My stomach churned. It wasn’t the same. Unlike Andrew, I’d already put myself out there. I wasn’t picked for the school podcast. And the past podcast episodes I had published were still sitting there, not listened to, proof that I was obviously doing something wrong. The publish button stared back at me as my grandma’s words continued over the speaker: “Wouldn’t this be the time to leave your listeners wanting more?”
I sighed. At the very least, my friends wanted to listen to it. I could give them that. So after a thorough edit, I pushed publish.