Chapter One Present
Present
Chapter One
The view before me is sublime.
A gorgeous girl with thick, auburn hair and cat-eye glasses sits across the café table, her eyes soft, lips parted.
Her nails trace the rim of her latte mug, tapping along to cheerful French music as it trips from the speakers.
In the background, rows of books with shiny, uncracked spines gleam on the shelves.
Everything in my vision comes together like puzzle pieces.
The girl. The coffee. The books. The girl.
It’s all making this perfect picture. But the very best part of it, the biggest piece you can’t even see, is the person who isn’t here.
I get to sit back and enjoy a world of total calm and sophistication without a certain someone—
The gorgeous girl, aka my date, Rachel, suddenly gasps.
“Is that Cam Leonardo behind you?”
I swear, even the violin in the background music shudders.
“No,” I say automatically, though I haven’t turned my head to look. I scrunch down in my chair and lift my giant mug like a mask.
No, no, no, I think. Please, God. Not again.
It can’t really be him, I reassure myself.
The Cam I know would never show his face here.
Rachel and I are parked in a corner table at Lady Business, my favorite bookstore slash coffee shop in San Francisco.
We’re early to a slam poetry reading Rachel’s performing in, and more importantly, we’re on our ever-crucial third date.
Rachel adjusts her glasses and smooths her hair, though I notice she’s staring somewhere just above my head as she does both things.
My heart sinks. While I cannot imagine what the hell Cam would be doing in a bookstore…
I know from the way Rachel’s staring that it’s him.
No one else makes girls stare the way Cam does.
I clear my throat, hoping this will remind Rachel that, actually, she’s on a date with me at the moment.
She startles and shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“Nervous?” I ask gently.
“What?” Her eyes flick up, then back down to me.
“For your performance.” I nod toward the crescent-shaped stage near the doors.
Rachel glances at the stage. She laughs. “Not really. I’ve been a performer since I was born.”
“Hmm.” I try to think of some witty response about babies and poetry readings, but every drafted sentence in my head sounds either humorless or just plain stupid.
My tongue gets stuck to the roof of my mouth.
This is the part where I’m supposed to come off as charming.
Cam used to say I could be charming, in my own nerdy little way. But that was forever ago.
I force down a sip of my latte to loosen up a little and…Rachel is already back to staring over my head.
“So, when did you know you were gay?” I ask over the coffee shop music.
Rachel looks at me, horrified, and I realize that I might have actually yelled out that last word.
“Queer,” she says, correcting me.
“Right,” I say. Although, to be honest, I don’t get what people have against being called gay. “Gay” can mean whatever you want it to mean, the same as “queer.” But whatever. “Queer, of course. So, when did you know?”
Rachel sighs through her nose. “Look, Ivy, I know you’re the head of the school’s GSA or whatever, but don’t you think queer people are allowed to talk about things other than being queer sometimes? Like, can we please be allowed to have some other interesting defining feature?”
“Your neck,” a smooth voice says behind me.
I whip around and catch Cam loitering just beyond our table.
“What?” I snap.
My hand itches to fly up to my own neck, where I’m certain Cam meant to give me goose bumps by creeping up behind us like that. But I won’t give him the satisfaction. He already has enough of an incessant, self-assured smirk as it is.
“Your neck,” Cam repeats, this time nodding specifically to Rachel. “You always look so distinguished in class. A very interesting, very elegant neck. A perfect defining feature.”
Rachel beams, her face blooming rosebud pink.
I scowl at Cam.
“Excuse you,” I say, mouth pinched. “We’re on a date here, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Cam says, then grabs a chair from the next table and swings it wordlessly to ours. Rachel’s eyes glitter as Cam scooches himself in.
He sets both forearms on the table and leans forward, slicing into my view of Rachel. She hardly seems to mind seeing any less of me, with her attention now fully on the beachy-haired, peach-fuzzed, surfer-wannabe idiot tucked between us.
Cam only seems self-assured when no one’s challenging him. And almost no one does these days. They’re too busy falling over themselves to notice that his carefully manufactured charisma is just a front. But I’m not fooled by all that fake charm for one second.
“For your information,” I say, “it’s incredibly rude to point out a physical characteristic as someone’s so-called perfect defining feature. People also tend to have a sense of humor, or hopes and dreams, or hobbies, or anything more interesting than a giraffe neck.”
Rachel’s smile drops. She glares directly at me.
Cam only laughs his stupid, easy laugh and leans toward Rachel conspiratorially.
“You can’t take this one too seriously,” he says, hitching his thumb in my direction as if I were across a football field and not sitting inches away.
“She means well. She just doesn’t have a filter when she’s nervous.
Tends to overthink things. A very Benjamin Gates type, if you know the reference. ”
With every word out of Cam’s mouth, Rachel’s glare softens. But at this point I don’t even care.
“I am not nervous!” I yell. I push my latte away and stand up. “I’m just trying to figure out what the hell my date is doing ogling the shit out of überdude Cam Leonardo twenty minutes before heading onto a stage to recite some crappy Vagina Monologues rip-off!”
Rachel stands across from me and snatches her jacket off the chair.
“Screw you,” she says. Her delivery is so crisp and biting that instantly my ears go hot. She marches halfway across the length of the coffee shop before she swings around and jabs her finger toward me. “I’m the one performing here. You get out!”
“Fine by me!” I say, even though my face feels like it’s a million degrees. I plunk my latte mug down onto the clearing tray with as much gusto as I can without spilling the vast remainder of it over the other dishes.
I yank my huge shoulder bag behind me and toss the front door open. As I storm down the sidewalk, I get into a brief boxing match with my coat as I attempt to punch my arms into each sleeve, not bothering to stop for one second to address the fact that I have the whole thing on inside out.
My heart is thumping in my ears. The tiny bit of latte I actually drank starts to churn violently in my stomach.
I pinch the bridge of my nose to keep from crying.
It’s not fair! I want to scream. Why does he have to be around all the time?
I picture a cat catching a mouse and letting it go, over and over.
I’m so tired of Cam catching me off guard every time I try to do something for myself.
I’m so tired of never being able to get away from him.
“Hey!”
As if on cue, footsteps pound down the pavement until a very winded-looking Cam catches up to me.
“What?” I say, upping my pace slightly.
“I have to…ask you…something,” he wheezes.
I stop so abruptly that Cam barges two steps past me and has to turn around. It’s nice to see his confidence waver, if only for one second.
“Let me ask you something,” I say. “What were you doing at Lady Business?”
Cam throws his arms out. “Oh, because I’m—what did you call it—überdude? Is that my new alter ego?”
I huff. “We both know you normally wouldn’t be caught dead in a bookstore. It’s like someone’s paying you to stalk me and ruin my life.”
“Damn, wouldn’t that be nice.” Cam scratches his chin and smiles. He uses every scrap of his four additional inches to tower over me. “Unfortunately, I’m not getting paid.”
“Pro bono, then,” I say, rolling my eyes. “How noble.”
“It’s not really life-ruining, though, is it?” he asks.
“Is what?”
“Missing a poetry reading.” Cam nudges his toe against the sidewalk. “I mean, if anything, I saved you from a terrible afternoon.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d wonder if there was a hint of sincerity in his voice. Why would Cam care if my afternoon was terrible or not? He wouldn’t, of course. He’s not sincere when it comes to me. At least, not anymore.
“Thanks for your service,” I mutter. I dart around Cam to keep walking, but he catches my arm. His hand feels uncomfortably hot, and I’m relieved when he immediately lets go.
We both stare past each other, not quite making eye contact.
“What do you want?” I ask, adjusting my bag.
“V, come on,” Cam says softly. I absolutely hate it when he shortens my name, like we still know each other well enough to shorten names. Like we still know each other at all.
He looks at me and asks point-blank, “Why else would I be in that bookstore?”
His eyes are so warm, his posture so open and exposed, that my glare slips a little. Is it actually possible…Is he trying to have a serious conversation?
“Why would you?” I ask, hating myself for how small my voice sounds.
Cam leans closer. He bends his head toward mine. For a moment I’m completely paralyzed, completely silent. I watch him, breath stopped, as his gaze drops from my eyes and down into my bag.
“Persuasion!” he shouts triumphantly. “I knew it started with a P!”
He takes an enormous step back and claps a hand to his chest. “I totally forgot what book Mr. Kuh assigned for next week. But I knew you’d already have it on you. You always do!”
Cam pivots back to the bookstore, now practically skipping down the pavement. A sliver of air finds its way into my lungs. I pull out Persuasion from the top of my bag and hug it tightly to my chest. He just wanted a book. It’s always about some stupid book.
I watch my ex–best friend pull the door to Lady Business open. He throws his head back and laughs as he strides inside, already striking up some charming conversation with a stranger. Or maybe with Rachel. It doesn’t make a difference, really.
“Asshole,” I murmur.
I take a long, rattled breath, then turn for home.