Chapter 11
JAHNVI
I was still shaking even after two cups of chai and being swaddled in two blankets. As soon as I’d gotten home, my mom had made a quick steaming cup so I didn’t catch a cold.
She also eyed Everett’s jacket that I was still wearing.
Speaking of Everett, all the lights in his house were off already.
The house was pitch black, so his grandma had already gone to bed.
It was all so uninviting and empty. When we’ d pulled up, I was going to invite him in for a cup of the chai I knew my mother would push on me, but he’d disappeared into his house before I could get the words out.
As usual.
After telling my mom everything that happened with his car, I was lying on my bed facing my ceiling. I was supposed to be studying for an AP Lit test, but other than opening the study guide, I hadn’t done anything.
I shivered again.
I tried to pass it off as being cold, but that wasn’t it. It definitely wasn’t the reason why, after all the blankets and chai, I was still shaking.
I knew the reason, but I really didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that Everett’s look was still on my mind even two hours later. But something about how his dark eyes almost x-rayed me in his truck made me want to shiver for the umpteenth time.
The last time I felt like this was about a year and a half ago, after our kiss. I wrapped my red ribbon around my hands, remembering the promise I’d made to myself.
Everett James is off-limits. He is as off-limits as it gets.
I had made that promise after he had broken up with Rose.
As kind and as nice as he tried acting toward me, he could be very cruel if he wanted to be.
And, I wasn’t, under any circumstances, going to get hurt by him.
He was too close in everything I did, so it would just be too awkward if we ever broke up.
I mean, this was probably all a joke to him anyway. Like he’d said that morning, “Maybe I like letting her pretend.” He hadn’t even cared that Grace was faking her whole personality. He hadn’t even cared to get to know her.
It was all a game to him.
And I really wasn’t going to play his game. I wasn’t going to be some girl-next-door trope.
I looked out the window as something caught my attention.
As movie-like as this may seem, Everett’s bedroom window was right across from mine.
When we were younger, he’d fling rocks at my window to annoy me when I was trying to sleep.
So, naturally, one day I found the biggest rock I could find to fling at his window.
Long story short, I broke the window.
Luckily, his parents were too kind to take my parents’ money for a new window and forgave me. My parents yelled at me for a whole day. Everett laughed about it for weeks, and we ended up resorting to mean notes taped on our windows.
Everett’s bedroom light was off, and the room was as dark as the rest of the house, but I could still just barely see the note he’d pasted on his window a week earlier.
Fix your car yet? it read.
Seems nice, right? Well, it wasn’t. I’d actually run into a mailbox the last time I tried to drive with my dad and broken the car’s headlights. Our white car sat in the driveway now, in all its dented glory.
There was also a car in his driveway.
Wait, a car in his driveway.
At this hour? Granted, it was only like 10:30 p.m. But definitely a bit late to have people over on a Sunday night. Not feeling a pinch of shame, I rolled off my bed and crawled over to my window. I even turned off the lights in my room on the way so I could see better.
The car was one of those small Volkswagen Beetle things. It was yellow and even had little flower decals above the tires. It was a really cute car. I definitely would’ve been jealous of it, well, if I could drive and if it weren’t parked in his driveway at 10:30 p.m.!
The car was as feminine as it gets.
I fell onto my back with my arms spread wide in a way that kind of resembled a starfish and groaned loudly. I was so loud that my dad, who was getting ready to go to bed, peeked into my room. I shook my head, and he left wordlessly.
You don’t even wanna know.
An idea popped into my head, and I sat back up. Everett always went to bed super early, so I had to finish quickly.
I grabbed a bright red marker and a sheet of paper.
“Everett James has genital herpes?” a loud voice spoke behind me. I jerked, the sudden noise jarring me. The friends sitting at my lunch table looked at him, confused. Even a few people sitting at the other broken lunch tables—our school couldn’t afford to fix anything—looked over.
I turned around and found him towering over me in his dark purple sweater and black jeans. He was so tall that I couldn’t remain sitting; I stood up, not that it really made a difference.
I smiled and blinked up at him. “That must have created a stir with your late-night visitor, huh?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I had stayed up, peeking out of my curtain, until he walked some girl out.
Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t Grace. It was someone new and someone very tall and blond. The last thing I saw was both of them looking up at the sign I’d pasted up on my window.
I’d even added a drawing of the barfing emoji to tie it all together. Even though I had to take it down before my parents saw it in the morning, it had served its purpose. The mystery girl had seen it.
“Oh, and you can take this back.” I fished out his jean jacket from my backpack and threw it into his hands. “I even washed it and everything.”
He looked down and narrowed his eyes at his jacket. Then, he slowly brought it up to his nose and sniffed his coat.
“W-what?” I couldn’t help asking, the suspense killing me.
“Pickles.” He looked back up at me, so painfully slow. It was obvious he was trying to draw it all out. “Thank you so much for giving it back. It even kinda smells like you.”
“Omg, what does she smell like?”
I whipped my head back to my friends to find them all watching me with their mouths open and eyes wide. Macey, who’d just asked the question, was looking at me like I’d told her I had made out with Chris Evans or something.
Or Everett James.
Wait, the coat I’d tossed into his hands. Oh fucking —
“Macey, right?” He looked at her, and I could swear she was blushing. “Macey, she kinda smells like cinnamon and apples. It’s like something sweet, ya know? Sweet but with a hint of something stro nger underneath. Do you get what I mean?”
“Um, I think?” She giggled and looked at everyone else. Their eyes were all still glued on me.
“ Cinnamon and apples, ” I said, mocking him. “I think you mean liquid Tide, you dramatic ass.”
“I was talking about you, J, not the detergent. You smell like vanilla and apples. It must have not washed off the jacket.”
I frowned, really trying not to show I was flustered. I hated that he was enjoying himself that much, and I hated even more that whatever he was doing was working.
Does he really know how I smell?
“I washed it pretty well.”
“That so?” He tilted his head, a corner of his mouth rising up. “Maybe I’m making it up, then. Maybe I can’t forget how you smelled last night—”
He was cut off with a collective gasp from my table.
“Oh haha,” I scoffed. “How funny you are.”
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t complimenting you.”
“Well, it sounded like a compliment.”
“Well, it wasn’t!”
“Oh, ouch.” He clutched his chest and shook dramatically, pretending to get an instantaneous heart attack.
“Your noncompliment...it...it hurts me so much!” He stopped abruptly, straightened up, and looked down at me deadpan.
“She was just a friend, and your note just made us both laugh. That was it.”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard raised voices and her car zooming off.”
“Pickles. I’m flattered. Were you up all night waiting to see how I would react?”
“It was like ten forty-five. That’s not that late.”
“Right. You’re not denying the fact that you were waiting around to see how I, little me, would react. You know, you’re acting like some jealous girlfriend right now.”
Before I could open my mouth, the bell rang and Everett was lost among the crowd of rushing students. Good thing too, ’cause I don’t know what I would’ve said.
He was right. That was very jealous-girlfriendy of me.
And all of a sudden, the lightbulb of an idea that I’d had last night seemed not so bright anymore. Especially now that I needed to explain it to my friends, who were all still looking at me with their mouths hanging open.