Chapter Twenty-Seven
While not many, there are in fact a few benefits to your best friend ignoring you, namely that you get entire lunch periods to yourself to make lists of potential binding objects your mom’s psycho ex is currently using to torture her, and by extension ruin your own love life.
It doesn’t exactly feel like a win, but I’m desperate enough to count it as one.
So far, from what I can remember seeing inside Austin Taylor’s locker, possible binding objects include:
The flora guide – After high school, my mom famously went to Amsterdam explicitly for the purpose of learning about magic mushrooms. While there, she took so many, she hallucinated she was Eleanor Roosevelt for three straight days.
It’s why she still can’t bring herself to eat cream of mushroom soup.
The crystals – God knows that woman never met a crystal she didn’t immediately ‘feel a connection’ to.
The cauldron – I can one thousand per cent imagine my mother finding it in the Salvation Army and thinking it would make a quirky cooking pot. But how do you smash an iron pot? I’d have to do some research on the Liberty Bell.
Twigs??? – Maybe my mom used them to tie up her hair? Objects I’ve seen her use to tie up her hair include an eyebrow pencil, duct tape, a belt and tinfoil, so really, a stick would be one of her more normal choices.
They’re all equally as plausible as they are straight-up ridiculous. Taking a bite of my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, I cross out twigs, the scratch of my pen on the thin notebook paper too loud in the silent library.
Since our fight last week, Sam hasn’t spoken to me once, partnering up with Julian in American lit, blanking me in the hallway.
I’ve been eating lunch in the library by myself.
I even changed my phone screen background to a picture of me and my mom from Christmas last year, because every time I looked at the photo of me and Sam as Bridget Jones, my lungs felt like they’d been wrapped tightly in cellophane.
And it’s not like I can have any kind of meaningful human interaction at work either, not when things between me and Max are still so weird.
Every time I go on break, I disappear into the bathroom or hide out in the Big Cats exhibit until it’s over.
Max has tried texting me a couple more times too, but I still can’t make myself answer, not when any time I so much as look at him, I can feel the exact shape and pressure of his fingertips against my skin.
‘A-ha,’ a voice says from above me. ‘Found you.’
Elliott is standing beside my table with his backpack still looped around his shoulders and an open bag of Funyuns in his hands. Instinctively, I cross my arms over my notebook, hiding my list.
‘Can I join?’ he asks.
‘Oh,’ I say, suddenly feeling flustered. ‘Yeah. Of course.’
I flip my notebook closed and slide it into my backpack as Elliott shrugs off his bag and drops into the chair beside me. He holds out the bag of Funyuns to me, wafting over a salty, pungent smell. I take a couple and smile my thanks.
‘Are you gonna get in trouble for talking to me?’ I say. Despite me trying to keep my voice light, I can hear that it sounds nervous. Julian has been ignoring me all week too, as though acknowledging my presence would be like double-crossing Sam.
I drop a Funyun in my mouth. I forgot how vinegary they were, the sharpness making my tongue sting.
‘Julian’s an idiot,’ Elliott says frankly. ‘He’s just trying to impress Sam. It’s all part of his long game.’
His bluntness makes me bark a startled laugh, but it eases a pressure in my chest too, if only a little. At least I’m not completely alone.
‘Speaking of long games,’ I say, crunching down on my last Funyun. ‘Maya Lincoln, huh?’
I try to form a picture of Elliot’s prom date in my head, but it’s patchy. Maya moved to DC from Pennsylvania a few years ago, has short black hair. Likes horses, maybe?
Elliott laughs this time. ‘I don’t know if you’d call that a long game,’ he says, his cheeks stained an unmistakable red. It’s sweet.
He offers me the bag of Funyuns again but I shake my head.
‘I guess I just never really thought about her like that,’ Elliott says, rolling the bag up and putting it in his backpack. ‘Until one day I was like, huh. She might be cool.’
‘Do me a favour and never tell her that was your romance origin story, okay?’ I say.
He tips his head from side to side, as if to concede. ‘It’s better than what I used to think about her, which is just that she sucks at physics.’
I point at him with my pen. ‘At least she doesn’t have anything to do with clown stuff, though.’
Elliott folds his body over the table, head collapsing into his hands. ‘Oh God,’ he moans as I cackle. ‘My mom went out with him four times last week.’ He drops his hands and blinks at me, wide-eyed. ‘Four. I’m counting down the days till my flight to Seattle.’
‘Maybe she actually likes Clown Guy,’ I say.
‘Kinda hard to tell, when she averages like, twelve crappy boyfriends a year.’
Like me, he’s trying to laugh but there’s a bite to his voice. A swell of sympathy rushes through me.
‘Have you ever talked to her about it?’
A burst of air that’s all scoff fires from his mouth. ‘Yeah, right,’ he says. ‘We don’t have that kind of thing, me and her. I mean, she probably thinks we do, but she has no idea what it’s actually like to be a guy right now.’
My brows instinctively pinch together, though Elliott is technically right. Like me, he was born into the chaos hurricane that is our mothers.
‘What about your dad?’ I say.
Elliott shrugs. His hair falls across his forehead and the image of Max, impatiently trying to tame his curls, slips into my head unbidden. I squeeze my eyes shut, banishing it.
‘My dad kind of gets it. He knows my mom is cringe, but when I stay with him, it’s like, I get this break from everything.
So, I don’t really want to talk about all her lame boyfriends with him.
I want to forget.’ He cracks his knuckles against the table’s surface.
‘Julian and I kind of used to talk about that stuff, but now that he’s hanging out with Sam …
’ He shrugs again. ‘I don’t know, things are different. ’
‘Yeah, I feel that,’ I say. ‘You can always talk to me, you know. Seeing as both our best friends are in the process of ditching us.’ I chuckle, but like Elliott’s, it sounds hollow.
The corner of Elliott’s mouth turns up.
‘Can we revive Wall Code?’
‘Wall Code?’ I look at him blankly.
His mouth drops open. ‘You seriously don’t remember Wall Code?’ When I don’t answer, he lets out an incredulous laugh. ‘The language we made up for knocking on our walls when we were kids,’ he elaborates. ‘So we could talk after bedtime.’
Now that he says it, I kind of recall having some kind of secret code thing with him. Our rooms are right next to each other, which means we share a wall. Mostly I just remember feeling baffled.
Elliott curls his right hand into a fist, raps his knuckles against the table in a series of staccato knocks.
‘Was that supposed to mean something to me?’
He shakes his head. ‘I just called you lame.’
‘Rude,’ I say, snapping a hand to my chest.
‘I actually kind of hate you a little bit for forgetting Wall Code,’ he says. ‘I still have the full language guide under my mattress.’
I snort. ‘You are incredibly embarrassing.’
The bell chimes overhead, signalling the end of lunch. Elliott stands and swings his backpack on. When I don’t join him, he stares at me expectantly.
‘I have fifth period free, so I’m just gonna stick around,’ I explain, my brain already shifting focus to more potential curse objects.
One of the candles, maybe, or even the picture of Austin and my mom.
Then again, when I’d held it, there hadn’t been any kind of magical hum like the book talked about.
Elliott makes his way towards the double doors. ‘You’re still invited to my house tomorrow,’ he calls out. ‘For the prom … afterparty … thing. I’ve been listening to a lot of Joy Division lately and you’re right, they’re not completely awful. Maybe I’ll convince Julian to put them on the playlist.’
He looks so genuine, standing there with his fingers looped around his backpack straps, that I can’t bring myself to say no. I attempt a smile instead. Elliott gets close enough to the doors that they whoosh open, but before he crosses into the hallway, he pauses and turns back around.
‘Indie?’ he says.
I glance up. ‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks.’