Chapter 9 #3
“In theory.” I shrug. “My parents have a big collection of Talavera pottery—mugs, plates, planters. So many planters, you should see our yard. It’s a hot mess of color. I always wondered if I could make something like that. So I’m going to try.”
“Filmmaker, actress, artist. By my count, that makes you a triple threat.”
I roll my eyes at his compliment. “Truth be told, I expect to massively suck at all these subjects. It’s just for fun.”
“Not possible. You could never fail at anything,” he says confidently. Having that confidence aimed at me—about me—unsettles me in a way I can’t describe.
“You’ve barely known me a day,” I remind him.
“Hold on. You forced me to eat a sea insect on Saturday—”
“No one forced you, you insisted.”
He continues without acknowledging my interruption. “And it’s now Wednesday. By my count, that makes five days.”
“Oh, my bad. Five days. Just enough time to know a person well enough to make sweeping statements about their capabilities.”
“Exactly,” he says. “And I expect to learn a lot more about you on our date Friday.”
As if the universe is mocking me—and hell, based on what I’ve experienced, I’m not in the position to count that out as a legitimate possibility—the moment he says that, I glance up and see Ellie walking in our direction, backpack slung over one shoulder.
I’m so jolted by the sight of him that I stumble. Alex grabs my elbow to help me keep my balance. I smile up at him gratefully, but I can’t help glancing back to Ellie, wondering if he saw.
If he did, he’s pointedly looking away now as he passes us.
I look up to see Alex following my gaze with an unreadable expression before he turns to me and asks, “You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just lost my footing.”
We resume walking to class in silence. I’m so in my head that it takes me several moments to remember what Alex was talking about before I saw Ellie. Our date.
I’m flooded with guilt.
Guilt that it took two seconds of seeing Ellie to erase Alex and our date from my mind.
Guilt at the thought of leading him on. Guilt that, as lovely as he is, I’m not sure I will ever be able to separate him in my mind from the man he becomes.
Guilt that, while he has this unshakable confidence in me after knowing me only a few days, I keep thinking of him as nothing more than a distraction.
This boy deserves to be more than just a distraction.
And then there’s the flipside of my guilt: Is a crush really all it takes to erase fourteen years of history with Ellie? No. Definitely not.
“About our date…” I trail off, eyes focused ahead, trying to word this gently.
“Oh no, you’re bailing,” he says.
Shocked, I snap my eyes to his, catch his resigned expression.
“Am I that obvious?” I ask, grateful I don’t have to say it out loud but disappointed to get away with such cowardice.
“Honestly, kudos for doing it in person. I probably would have just sent a text.”
I stop walking and step over to the side of the path so we can have a modicum of privacy as students walk past. Alex follows me.
“It’s not—” I start.
“Please don’t say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ ” he begs, and I laugh.
“But it really isn’t you.” Okay, maybe a little bit. But I can’t exactly say, It’s you, but in the future. So I try a different side of the truth. “I just got out of something.”
“A relationship?”
“Not quite,” I admit. How to put this without sounding pathetic? “Worse than that. I had my heart broken, and I’m still not over it. It isn’t fair to lead you on. I don’t want to hurt you, because I do really like you.”
There. Heartbreak. Easy. No need to explain that I still hope to get Ellie back.
“You really like me,” he repeats, a confused smile tilting his lips.
I think of his words on Saturday.
I like you too, Joey Vasquez… No maybe about it.
“I do,” I admit. Yet again.
“But no date.” His brow is furrowed, but he seems more confused than upset.
“I’m not ready for anything serious,” I explain.
“Who said it has to be serious?” he asks, pulling me up short. When I don’t immediately respond, he adds, “It’s a second date. I’m not asking you to fall in love with me.”
I feel… insulted, maybe? I’m the one trying to cancel our date, but he’s dictating what it means. But also—if he insists it’s casual…
It’s not like I didn’t warn him.
“Okay, then. As long as we’re both on the same page,” I say slowly. Trying to decide if this is okay. If this makes me a monster.
“So the date’s back on?” he clarifies.
I nod. “The date’s back on.”
We start walking again. I glance at him, and only now do I realize what makes this Alex so different from the Alex I knew. And it’s silly, really, but I can’t help but comment.
“You can vape if you want to, you know. You don’t have to refrain on my account.”
He shoots me a guilty look but tries to mask it. “I don’t need to vape all the time. It’s not like I’m addicted or anything.”
I laugh because the Alex I knew was definitely addicted.
“Besides, I’m thinking of quitting,” he says, shocking me before I remember that this is par for the course where Alex is concerned. He loves resolving to break bad habits.
“That so?” I ask dubiously.
Actually sticking to those resolutions? I’ll believe it when I see it.
“Yeah,” he says. “A little birdie told me those things’ll kill me.”