Chapter Four October 2
Chapter Four
“Thanks for coming on this walk with me,” Georgie says, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie. The autumn leaves crunch beneath our feet; the sun has already set. There’s something about a Sunday night. The anticipation—or is it the dread?—that makes it feel like a ticking time bomb.
“I didn’t have any homework so no excuse to say no,” I reply, a bit too honestly. But it’s Georgie. She doesn’t require my forced politeness.
“Fresh air is good for you.” She nudges me with her elbow as we turn the corner. “So, Andie seems really nice.”
I bend down to pick up a bright red maple leaf, struck by its deep color and smooth texture. “Yeah. She is. I’m not sure if Mom and Dad like her, though.” I pass the leaf to Georgie, who looks at it briefly before smiling at me.
“They probably weren’t expecting the first friend you brought home from high school to be so beautiful. And loud. She can also really shovel back the food.”
We both let out a small laugh.
“They’re the ones who want me to have friends, and then when I finally find someone I’m excited about, she doesn’t meet their impossible standards.” I quiet for a moment, my angry and accusatory words twisting around in my stomach. “It’s not like they said that to me, but…”
“Their faces say it all.” Georgie’s glance flicks to mine before she releases what is either an exasperated breath or a defeated one. “Besides, they’ll never think anyone is good enough for you. Friend or lover.”
“Lover?” I shudder at the word. “Gross.”
Georgie smirks as she passes the leaf back to me. “Aside from some quality time with Andie at the retreat, did you make any other connections?”
“Is this your way of asking if I have any crushes yet?”
“Maybe.” Her smile widens. “Nobody crushes like you, Lennon. It’s been a while, though.”
“That’s because I went to school with the same kids for ten years. The novelty wore off by sixth grade.”
“And now? New school. New options,” she says.
“Maybe.”
“No one on the trip caught your eye?”
“No one in ninth grade.”
“An older boy?” She stops walking to look at me, eyes brimming with excitement.
“He’s in tenth grade. We only spoke for a few minutes. And he has a girlfriend. A really beautiful girlfriend.”
“What’d you talk about?” she asks as we circle back to our street.
“Nothing really, but the thing is, it didn’t feel like work, you know? Which was nice.”
“Maybe he can be a friend.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
A friend.
“So, listen,” Georgie says as our street comes into view again. A cool breeze whizzes by and more leaves fall off the trees as we walk beneath them. “I’m not coming back to school tomorrow.”
My feet halt and Georgie traces her steps back to where I’ve stalled.
“Why?”
She lets out a deep breath. “I’m not ready. I’m finally starting to feel better physically, but mentally I can’t handle the looks and the questions. They all know. Everyone knows.”
I shake my head. “How do they know? I don’t tell them when they ask me.”
“It got out. Somehow.”
“Zach?” I say, a coolness to my tone.
“Maybe.”
“Are you two still together? Because I saw him talking to that redhead last week. The one he dated before you.”
Georgie rolls her eyes. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Georgie always does this. She asks me to go into detail when I’m recounting an event. She doesn’t realize that I know the real reason she does this is because she doesn’t think I can read situations correctly. But I can. From a distance, anyway.
“They were standing face-to-face. And then he said something that she must have found funny because she kept throwing her head back and laughing like this,” I say, and I demonstrate.
“She’s such a pick-me.”
And he’s such an asshole. But I keep this to myself.
“To answer your question,” Georgie says, cutting through my thoughts. “Yes. We’re still together.”
I nod, and she points her chin ahead of us. We begin walking the final steps until we’re back home.
“Would you choose him again?” I ask once we’re at the foot of our driveway. All the exterior lights are on, and our house looks like a model home: you can look but don’t touch. Deep-red bricks. Black-framed windows. Three-car garage. Meticulous lawn. Not a stray leaf in sight.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter anyway.” Then a tiny grin appears. “How about this?” she says. “When people ask you where I am, tell them I’m being homeschooled. In Switzerland. With our rich aunt. And that I send you selfies with the French Alps in the background. Daily.”
“Okay. But if you’re in Switzerland, it would be the Swiss Alps.”
“My mistake.” Georgie chuckles before wrapping her hand around my wrist and pulling me up the driveway with her. I release the red leaf in my hand and allow it to fall to the ground. An imperfect speck on an otherwise pristine canvas.
A couple of days later, I’m crouched, searching through a pile of novels at the bottom of my locker.
I need something to keep me and my falafel sandwich entertained for the next forty minutes.
Andie’s off with Dean, the guy she’s been “talking to” since the retreat, but I don’t really mind.
It means I can spend my lunch in the library, reading. And, more importantly, decompressing.
“Lennon.”
I look up at the sound of the familiar voice. Zach.
“Yeah,” I reply as I make my selection and stuff the book into my backpack.
“We need to talk.”
I sigh before bolting up and slamming my locker door shut. “What is it?”
Zach glances around before clasping my arm and moving us to a quieter spot in the hall. I twist out of his grasp, narrowing my eyes at his. To think I will now be tied to this person for the rest of my life. No one asked me. No one ever asks me.
“Are you telling your sister that I’m flirting with other girls?
” he asks, his blond hair hanging in front of his face.
Every time he comes over, my dad stares at the diamond studs in his ears.
Neither of us understand what Georgie finds appealing about him.
When Georgie first showed me his picture, I thought he was cute enough, but then I met him.
He’s not funny. He’s not smart. He’s just some mediocre guy who got my sister pregnant.
“No. I said that I saw you flirting with a girl. Not girls, plural.”
“Lennon.” Zach exhales a heavy breath as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t go around making up lies. Are you trying to break us up?”
“I wasn’t lying. I told her what I saw. You and that redhead were talking over there,” I say, nodding my chin to the bank of lockers down the hall.
“Right. We were talking. Not flirting. Just because a guy and a girl talk doesn’t mean they’re into each other. Grow up.”
“You grow up, asshole,” I shout. Then I push him away.
“What the fuck, Lennon?” He doesn’t respect the boundary I tried to enforce and returns to where he was, looking down at me.
“You’ve ruined my sister’s life,” I say, through gritted teeth. “And you’ve ruined my life. Just go away.”
Zach straightens, surveying the hall. He steps even closer then and says, in a quiet but stern tone, “You’re causing a scene. Your sister doesn’t want everyone to know. Keep it down.”
“You’re right. She didn’t want everyone to know, but somehow, they do. Tell me, Zach. Why is that?”
His eyes lower to mine as a frown appears on his face. “I’m not the one telling people.”
I huff out a laugh. “Well, it’s out there, and people know, and now she doesn’t want to come back. And you’re to blame. For all of it.”
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“Fair?” I say, feeling my eyes bulge out of their sockets. “You want to talk about fair? Georgie is at home, alone, missing her senior year, while you get to pretend, at least for seven more months, that everything is normal.”
“You don’t think this affects me too?” he asks, pointing a finger to his chest.
“I don’t care how it affects you,” I retort, my voice rising with my words. People are slowing down around us, and it freezes me in place, but not enough to stop the words from coming out of my mouth. “You’re nothing to me.”
Zach shakes his head and gets in my face. “You may want that to be true, but it’s not. And telling your sister lies isn’t going to make me or the baby go away. You’re not a kid anymore. Stop acting like one.”
“Go away.” My hands form into fists. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to shut my eyes so tight that when I open them I’m back in my room, away from Zach, away from school, and away from all these bystanders witnessing my very public meltdown.
“You heard her.” A voice cuts through the silence and I open my eyes. John. He’s standing in front of me, blocking Zach from getting any closer. “Leave.”
Did I just dissociate long enough that I conceived this moment? Because how could this be happening?
“Whether you like it or not, I’m in your life,” Zach says to me.
“Leave,” John repeats. He continues to stand in front of me like a shield, even after Zach has walked away. When the small crowd that has gathered begins to disperse, he turns around, and I immediately look away.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice just above a whisper.
“Who is that guy?” John asks. When I don’t answer, he cups his hand around my arm, lowering his gaze and forcing me to meet his eyes.
“My sister’s boyfriend.”
“He shouldn’t speak to you that way.”
I nod.
John looks down, sees he’s still holding my arm, and lets go. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
Except I’m not. It’s hard enough to deal with rehearsed interactions, but being confronted by Zach took me completely by surprise. Even before the baby news, I never let myself get close to him because I figured he was temporary. Add that to the list of things I was wrong about.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” John says, somehow knowing the exact perfect thing to say.
Unsure how to reply, I don’t, and I adjust my backpack instead, almost losing my balance.
“Do you need help with that?” he asks, seemingly fighting a smile. “What have you got in there? Bricks?”
“Books.”
“Are you taking extra courses?” he asks.
“Not textbooks. Just books. To read. For fun?”