Chapter Three
I speed walk around the perimeter of the school so that I don't
keep my friends waiting for lunch. They all leave through the
entrance near the gym since it's adjacent to the student lot, but I
still can't bring myself to walk past the locker rooms. I see Carl
and Tina in the distance standing by her car waiting on me, but I'm
startled by the male figure huddled behind the steps leading to the
lot.
"Dave?" I ask when I reach
him and realize who it is. He spins to face me.
"Shh!" he replies, looking
a bit panicked. I raise my eyebrows in question.
What the hell is he doing? But then I follow his gaze to Chelsea's white BMW, where she
and a couple of her friends, including Lily, are
chatting.
"You are
not hiding from Lily
right now…"
His expression tells me
that that is precisely what he is doing. I start cracking up, and
I'm vaguely aware that it's probably the first time I've really
laughed since Miami.
"Either get lost, or get
back here and hide, Pine!" he loud-whispers.
I really have to get to
Carl's car, but I join Dave for a minute and mimic his position
crouched behind the concrete steps, still laughing.
"Did you see her? Was she
looking this way?" Dave asks anxiously. It is incredibly
comical.
"She's just standing
around by Chelsea's car," I assure him. "What happened? You two
were getting along so well over break." Actually they were hooking
up over break, and I'm pretty sure Lily was hoping for it to
continue.
Dave raises his eyebrows at
me. I deflate. Of course, they're not the only ones who were
getting along especially well in Miami. I almost hate it when Dave
has these random moments of wisdom—I prefer his usual role as the
comic relief in our group. Compassion marks his features, and maybe
a little regret. I don't think he meant to wipe the amusement from
my face so quickly and completely.
"She's fine, you know, but
I'm not looking to marry the girl," he murmurs.
"I don't think—"
"Or have a relationship of
any kind. Or hook up with her again either, for that matter," he
clarifies.
I frown. I like Lily. And
I know she really likes Dave. His rejection is going to
sting.
"Don't look at me like
that, Pine. It was just a hookup. I'm just not that into her, or
whatever that line is. We can't all be Andy and Tina. Or Tuck and
Carl now, apparently." Dave shrugs. I guess I can't blame him for
not returning Lily's feelings. He's entitled to feel how he feels.
Though it probably would've been better if he'd considered his lack
of feelings prior to sleeping with her.
"Well that's all up to
you, Dave, but you can't just hide from her every day. Just tell
her the truth."
"Dude, I did. I totally
told her I didn't wanna continue seeing her, and I fucked Lisa last
week—"
"Jesus, Dave!" My laughter doesn't
make me sound too serious though.
"Whatever, Pine, you're
one of the guys, it's cool," he says dismissively, waving me off.
How am I always one of the
guys?
But Dave really has become
a friend. He was there that night Robin came after me in Miami, and
he's one of the few people who knows my attacker wasn't a stranger.
I knew that Carl, Tucker, Tina, and Andrew would keep it to
themselves, but I did have doubts about Dave. I feel guilty about
that now. Sam, on the other hand, was confident that Dave could be
trusted, and time has proven him right. At least so far. I've come
to realize that after Tuck, Dave is probably Sam's closest friend,
and he has grown on me quite a bit. I trust Sam's judgment
implicitly, and the more I get to know Dave, the more I warm to
him.
"She wants me to take her
to prom. I think she just wants a varsity shirt to wear on Senior
Monday. But even asking her to prom wouldn't give her the right for
that! It's not like we're a couple. She dropped hints about prom
over break, but I ignored them, because, you know, I was just
looking to get laid. But now she's enlisting her friends! Girls are
fucking crazy, man!"
"Thanks," I say
sarcastically, but he dismisses me again, like I'm not even a girl
at all.
"She had Carl tell Tuck to
get me to ask her, and had Tina push Andy about it, too. I never
gave her a reason to think I wanted all that."
"Well—"
"Fucking crazy, I'm
telling you."
"So your plan is what? To
hide for a few weeks until she forgets about you? Out of sight, out
of mind?" I tease.
Dave blinks at me. "Um,
yeah. Kind of, actually," he deadpans, and I burst into another fit
of laughter.
Dave smiles.
"You could just give in
and ask her. You know, go as friends. People do that, don't they?
If they're not in a relationship?" I ask. That was standard back
home. No one stayed home from prom. You either went with the guy
you were dating or went with a guy friend. Only a few ever went
stag.
"I could, but she'd take it the wrong
way. Anyway, that'd probably get in the way of my plan to get in
Sara's pants," he admits, and my laughter returns. "You going with
Cap?" he asks, and my brow furrows.
I shake my head. "I don't
really do school dances… not that he asked me."
Dave looks confused. "You
have to come to senior prom. I mean, it's senior fucking prom," he
says matter-of-factly, but I just shrug. The truth is, I'm pretty
sure a school dance, even prom, could be a real dangerous trigger
for me.
But I've only been at this
school since February, so it doesn't really feel like
my senior prom
anyway.
"Well I'd say you and I
should go as friends, it'd probably get Lily off my back, but it
would also get Cap to knock me the fuck out, so you're out of luck,
Pine," Dave teases.
"Ha. ha." I reply
humorlessly. "I told you, Sam didn't ask me. We're just friends. He
wouldn't care if I went with someone else, especially as a friend.
But like I said, I don't do school dances."
Dave eyes me dubiously and
I wonder what he's not saying.
"Shit," he loud-whispers
when we see Chelsea's car zoom past our hiding place and out of the
student lot just as my phone buzzes with a text from Carl asking
where I am. "Do you think they saw us?"
I shake my head. "You're
ridiculous," I tell him, as I stand and begin to make my way to my
friends. I glance back as Dave climbs cautiously from his spot,
looking around to make sure the coast is clear, and I shake my head
again. He is too funny.
We decide on frozen yogurt
for lunch, so it's just Carl, Tina, and me. The boys are presumably
at the diner, and I don't know if I'm more relieved to not have to
fake just friends with Sam, or disappointed not to be near him.
I never knew you could
miss someone while you're right next to them. But that's the
phenomenon my situation with Sam has created. And it freaking
hurts.
But not as bad as losing
him would hurt.
Tina starts talking about
some dress she saw in Bergdorf Goodman last weekend when she was
shopping with her mom in Manhattan. It's ridiculously priced for a
prom dress—or any dress in my opinion—but Tina is hell bent on
convincing her parents to agree to let her buy it. Carl had already
purchased a dress, but now that she and Tuck are a real couple, she
wants to get something more special. I supply my cursory smiles and
ignore their pushes to get me to agree to attend the stupid dance.
It seems like its the only thing anyone can talk about these
days.
"So, did Tuck give you his
varsity shirt yet?" Tina asks teasingly.
Carl—completely out of
character for her—actually blushes as she nods.
"I bet you never thought
you'd be wearing a guy's varsity shirt on Senior Monday, huh, Ms.
Independent?" Tina is enjoying this, whatever it is she's referring
to. I can only assume Carl wasn't exactly the relationship type
pre-Tuck. I only really know her as being in love with Tuck. Even
before she would admit it. Of course, the last time I'd seen her
before I moved back here this past February, we were both
twelve.
"What… and what?" I remind
them that I'm still fairly new here and have no idea what the hell
they're talking about.
"Oh. Yeah. It's tradition.
Senior Monday is the last Monday of school. There's an assembly and
whatever, and it's like a proclamation. For couples. If a girl
wears her guy's varsity shirt it's like saying they're not just a
high school relationship—that they're staying together. Obviously
it's only for varsity athlete's girlfriends. Back in the day girls
used to wear their boyfriends' class ring. But no one gets those
anymore," Tina explains. The tradition surprises me. It's the kind
of thing that would be normal back home, but here… I'd expect
people to be more progressive.
"So you wear your
boyfriend's varsity tee shirt and it's some grand proclamation of
commitment?" I ask.
"Pretty much," Carl
replies, and we all three giggle at the ridiculousness of
it.
"So if your guy doesn't
give you his shirt, or if he does and you don't wear it that
Monday, it's what? Just a big fuck
you?" I ask.
"Pretty much," Carl says
again. "Kind of a way to say 'you were good enough to date in high
school, but I'm keeping my options open'."
"Well that's fair, isn't
it? I mean, how often is it that people find their future husbands
or wives in high school these days?" I ask casually, but Tina and
Carl just blink at me.
I've hit a nerve. With
myself, too, I realize. I'm not sure either of them could quite
imagine a future without their guys. Certainly not any more than I
could imagine wanting to be with anyone other than Sam. But I can't
be with him. And I realize that means I end up alone.
But if it gets Sam the
future he deserves, then I can handle that, I remind
myself.
Thankfully, Tina changes
the subject to some popular bar in the city that we're apparently
all going out to Thursday night. Friday is another "senior
activity"—Senior Sleep-In. At first I thought it must be some kind
of Lock-In where the students all spend the night in the gymnasium,
but it isn't.
Apparently the last Friday