“Where else would I be?” Erin bends down to hug the grinning kid. He’s so happy to see her, the way kids always get around Erin. She’s been a babysitter for like half the town. “Chris,” she says, “you know Jason, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Chris goes. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jason says. He’s not exactly getting a hug from Chris.
“And this is my friend Lani,” Erin says. “I’m mentoring Chris,” she tells me.
Erin just started mentoring at the middle school with Jason. He’s been mentoring since last year and kept telling Erin she’d love it. It was a no-brainer for her. The only reason it took her a while to commit to it was that she had to figure out how to cram it into her schedule. Especially since her schedule increasingly consists of quality time with Jason.
“How’s the math going?” Erin asks.
“Nowhere,” Chris says. “The math part of my brain doesn’t work.”
“Yes, it does. I’ll help you some more. You’ll see.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So where’s your family?” Erin asks.
Chris points to an area jammed with little kids. His mom is simultaneously trying to get a baby to stop crying, keep two little boys from killing each other, and tie a bow in a girl’s hair.
“Why don’t you go help your mom?” Erin says. “I’ll see you Tuesday, right?”
“Yeah!” Chris goes. “Bye, Erin!” Then he runs back to his mom.
“I’m getting a snow cone,” Erin goes. “Who wants one?”
“I’m good,” Jason says.
I go, “I do.”
“Cherry?” Erin asks.
“Of course.”
And then it’s just us.
Jason scratches his knee. “Are there any apples in there?”
“Umm . . .” I check the cooler. “There’s one left.”
“Nice. Can I have it?”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s yours?”
“Yeah. I called it like an hour ago. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Not really.”
“Tough break.”
“I’ll rock-paper-scissors you for it.”
“You’re on.”
We get our fists ready. Jason goes, “Rock paper scissors say shoot!” I throw a scissors and he throws a paper.
“Ooh,” I say. “Another tough break.”
“Two out of three.”
“You didn’t say that before.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“It doesn’t count now. You have to say it before.”
“Says who?”
“Those are the rules. Don’t you know the rules?”
“Oh,” Jason says, “I am the rules.”
We drink our water.
“When’s your birthday?” I go.
“October first.”
Of course Jason’s a Libra. He’s charming, agreeable, easy-going, and idealistic. All classic Libra characteristics. I was hoping he’d be a sign that’s compatible with Taurus and incompatible with Leo. This is really interesting. He’s actually not compatible with either one of us.
Okay, what am I even thinking? We’re just friends. I’m happy for Erin. Life is good.
“Why?” Jason says.
“I was just wondering. My birthday’s coming up, so . . .”
Sunlight hits Jason’s eyes in a way that makes it hard to look at him. He has these amazing green-blue eyes.
Must. Stop. Looking.
Jason’s like, “Where’s Blake?”
“He’s not as fascinated by kites as I am.”
Jason does this contemplative nodding thing I’ve noticed before. Kind of like, Someone’s not fascinated with kites. Wild. “So . . . he’s at home, or . . . ?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
Jason drinks his water. “It’s cool how you’re not one of those couples that has to do everything together. You know?”
Oh my god. Jason thinks Blake is my boyfriend? Where did he get that?
“Blake’s not my boyfriend,” I say.
“He’s not?”
“No.” I want to explain. But of course I can’t.
“Oh.” Jason smiles a little. He drinks more water to hide it.
One thing I’ve learned about boys? Is that when they ask if you have a boyfriend (or they say that you have one, so you either end up confirming that you do or you don’t), it means they’re interested in you and they’re trying to find out if you’re available. There’s no way Jason is interested in me, though. He likes Erin. Erin and I are so different that he couldn’t possibly like us both. Plus, if he liked me instead, he would have asked me out.
Right?
11
I’ve been sitting with Jason at lunch all week, ever since the kite festival. Sitting together shouldn’t be a big deal. People should be able to sit wherever they want.
Of course, it’s not that simple.
My friends are acting like I insulted them. The Golden Circle keeps glaring at us. Bianca seems particularly aggravated. She blatantly stares at us as if it’s acceptable behavior. Which just makes me more determined to do what I want. I refuse to let them control me with their negativity.
Over at the Golden Table, Greg gets up. He smiles at us. He waves.
Jason ignores him.
“Greg’s waving at you,” I say.
“No, he’s not.”
“Um, I think he is.”
“That’s not a real wave. It’s a sarcastic wave.”
“How can you tell?”
“He’s been giving me a hard time about switching tables. You’d think it was a federal offense or something.”
“My friends don’t like it, either. I think they’re insulted. But it’s not like we’re not friends anymore! I’m just sitting somewhere else. Why does it have to be a monumental deal?”
There’s no way I can be in here with Jason and not want to sit with him. I’m hoping he feels the same way, because he’s the one who asked if I’d sit with him. But it’s not like I could just go over and sit with him at the Golden Table. And he wasn’t about to come over to my table and sit with a bunch of girls he never talks to. So we had to stake out new territory.
Jason’s like, “This sucks.”
“I know,” I say. “I can’t wait for next year.” Seniors get to leave campus for lunch. They can go home or over to the lunch counter or the pizza place. We’re stuck in cafeteria hell for the rest of the year. “It’s so unfair. Look how nice it is out!”
“This blows.”
“I thought it sucked.”
“Dude, it’s doing both. It’s out of control.”
“I am so going to the lunch counter next year.” The lunch counter is this old-school sandwich place that’s been around for, like, a hundred years. You go in and it’s just this long counter you sit at on one of these retro diner stools. Their sandwiches are really good and cheap. It’s fun to pretend you’re stuck in 1960-whatever for a little while.
Bianca is staring at us. Again.
I block out her negative vibes.
Jason’s like, “Here’s something.” He takes out a notebook. His notebook is actually pretty neat for a boy’s. There aren’t any pages sticking out, all crumpled.
“Nice notebook,” I tell him.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s not falling apart.”
“Oh! That. I try to apply organizational notebook skills whenever possible.” Jason rips a page out. Some fringies fly out of the spiral part. “Do you like codes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good answer.”
“What do you mean by codes?”
Jason laughs. “I like to make up codes so no one can figure out what I’m writing.”
“Like for passing secret notes and stuff?”
“Exactly.”
“I love that!” I don’t know how he does it, but Jason always comes up with these fun, b
izarre activities. So far during our week of sitting together, he’s shown me how to:
• Watch a conversation from across the room and invent dialogue for it.
• Use grapes and string cheese as an abacus.
• Apply Farmer’s Almanac weather forecasts to predict teachers’ moods.
I glance at my usual table. Danielle is talking with some other kids from One World, half turned away from me, eating the baby carrots she always brings for lunch. I watch her fidget with her glasses. She always fidgets with her glasses when she’s stressed. I wish Danielle would look at me. I’d smile so she’d know I’m not ignoring her or anything. She wasn’t exactly understanding about me leaving the table. I had no idea she’d be so sensitive about it. I mean, we still see each other every day. We’re still good friends. Just because I’m sitting at a different table doesn’t change any of that.
Bianca’s still staring. I don’t know why the Golden Circle finds us so fascinating. There’s zero drama here. Erin knows we sit together. She says it will give me a chance to find out what Jason thinks about her, so she’s fine with it. I’m not sure if she’s assuming we’re just sitting together for a few days as a temporary thing, but the year is almost over so I really don’t think it matters.
“So with this one . . .” Jason digs a pencil out of his bag. “The first letter of every word represents one letter in your message. You use periods to separate words. So like—” He writes something on the paper. “Here.”
He passes me this:
Heaven inside. To helicopters everywhere riding elephants.
I’m like, “Helicopters can ride elephants?” Clearly, I’m not the most adept code-breaker.
“It doesn’t matter what it says,” Jason explains. “The sentences don’t have to make sense. It’s all about the code.”
“Okay . . .”
“So what does it say?”
I take his pencil and write the first letter of each word below what he wrote. When I see how easy it was to get “Hi there,” I’m embarrassed I wrote anything down.
Jason’s handwriting is fascinating. I learned about graphology all the way back in October, but I still remember some things. He has this whole forward, upward slant to his writing. This indicates emotional expressiveness and optimism. I also notice that he uses a lot of pressure when he writes, which means he’s intense.
“Sweet,” I go. “Did you invent this yourself?”
“Can you believe how brilliant I am?”
“Not really.”
“Now you go.”
There are some things I really want to tell him. But it’s not like I can actually say any of those things. So I just write:
Cucumbers on our level. Can one decide enough?
I pass it over to him. “I wasn’t sure if you’re allowed to use question marks.”
“Oh, you’re allowed. If they go with your coded sentence.”
“This one goes.”
Jason looks at the paper for a minute. “One more.” He writes something and passes it over.
Really intense guys have trouble.
“Hey!” I go. “This actually makes sense!” It’s so weird how I just analyzed that he’s intense and here he is writing about it. Not that I’m going to share that information. I don’t want him thinking I’m some creepy girl who goes around analyzing people’s writing or anything.
“Yeah. You get bonus points for that.”
“So, what kind of trouble are you having?”
“How do you know it’s referring to me?”
“Because you’re an intense guy.”
“Ah, but am I a really intense guy?”
“I can’t tell yet.”
“This code works on a few different levels. Like every time I say right, it could actually mean this.”
“Handy.” I can already tell that Jason is really intense. He gets things average boys don’t. He seems more aware than other people. You can see it in his eyes. I can definitely see it when he looks at me. Especially when the color of his eyes changes. Sometimes we’ll be talking or laughing and suddenly it’s like a switch flips and he gets all serious. That’s when his eyes change from their normal tropical ocean green-blue to a much darker green.
When that happens, it’s definitely intense.
“Does every intense guy have trouble?” I ask.
“Only when they’re in difficult situations.”
“Like what?”
Jason gets his serious look. His eyes go dark green.
I press my fingers against my tourmalinated quartz. It hangs from a silver chain I always have on, even if I’m wearing other necklaces. Tourmalinated quartz has balancing powers. It grounds me when I’m feeling unstable.
Fricking busted tourmalinated quartz.
I go, “You mean . . . like when your pizza gets cold and you don’t want it anymore?”
Jason looks down at his cold slice of pizza.
“Right,” he says. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
We both know it’s not.
Or maybe I’m the only one feeling these things. Jason made his choice. I’m not it. So I need to just accept that being friends with him is going to be hard, but I’d rather be friends than nothing at all.
12
Today’s my birthday. It’s really cool how astrology totally determines who you are. Like when I learned about birth charts, here’s what I found out about my inherent attributes:
may 5
• Revolutionary
• multitalented
• Clever
• Progressive
• Original
I also discovered that my moon sign is Aquarius. I think my moon-sign characteristics are more accurate:
moon in aquarius
• attraction to astrology
• Supports great causes
• Strong ideals
• True humanitarianism
• Eccentric interests
The moon and the stars know us. More proof that everything is connected.
Erin and Blake are coming over tonight. Erin wanted to bring Jason, so he’s coming, too. I didn’t invite anyone else. I hate big parties if they’re for me. I was thinking about inviting Danielle, but when I mentioned it to Erin, she sort of convinced me not to.
I was like, “I might invite Danielle.”
Erin went, “Oh,” in that way where someone’s partially repulsed by something.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. It’s just . . . do you think that’s the best idea? I mean, she doesn’t really know us.”
“She knows me.” Erin has issues with Danielle. It bothers her that Danielle and I became good friends after I broke away from the Golden Circle. If Erin had her way, nothing would have changed. Danielle and fun aren’t exactly synonymous in Erin’s mind. They’ve never hung out, which is fine by Erin.
“No offense,” Erin went, “but it’d be way better if it was just the four of us. You’re the only one she knows. Don’t you think she’d feel left out?”
Erin had a point. Inviting Danielle might be awkward for her.
So I decided not to invite Danielle. When she asked what I was doing for my birthday, I told her I just wanted to chill alone because I really needed some Me Time. I hated lying to her, but I had no idea what else to say.
One World threw me a party during our meeting yesterday. Danielle even made a cake. No one was mad about my lunch table switch. Actually, things only feel weird with Danielle at lunch. When we hang out like we usually do, everything seems the same as always. Mom did a huge birthday breakfast spread this morning. As part of their gift, my parents are spending the night in the city so we can have the house to ourselves. It seems more like a gift for them, but whatever. We’re going to order in and watch movies.
I’ve been thinking about what happened at lunch the other day with the note code. I’ve decided it was nothing. Jason does not like me. I cannot like him.
It’s obviously nothing.
/> Blake doesn’t agree.
“She’s bringing him here?” Blake thinks I’m mental for hanging out with Jason while Erin’s in the same room. He couldn’t believe that Erin didn’t figure out that Jason likes me when we were at the kite festival. I tried to explain that the reason Erin didn’t figure it out is because there’s nothing to figure out. He’s convinced I’m in denial. And not just about Jason liking me. Blake thinks I like him back.
“What’s the big deal?” I go.
“The big deal? Seriously?”
I’m digging through the kitchen drawer with all the miscellaneous stuff, trying to find the take-out menus. We hardly ever use them since my mom cooks almost every night.
Blake goes, “It’s obvious he likes you—”
“Can you not?” I interrupt.
“Can I finish?”
I go back to digging through the drawer.
“As I was saying,” Blake continues, “it’s obvious he likes you. And it’s obvious you like him.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Why do you keep denying it?”
I stop digging.
Blake goes, “You know how some people’s feelings are written all over their faces?”
“Yeah?”
“You should see yourself when he’s around. It’s like you guys had this instant connection.”
“Just because two people connect doesn’t mean they like each other.”
“No. But you do.”
“If it’s so obvious, then how come Erin hasn’t said anything?”
“Please, you know how that one is. She’s wrapped up in her own world. True, it’s a fabulous world, but she pretty much just sees what she wants to see.”
It was one thing for Blake to joke about the way Jason looked at me when we all went out for pizza. It’s a whole other thing for him to mean it. He’s probably just picking up on my vibes and projecting them onto Jason. He also seems to be confusing having things in common with attraction. They’re two totally different things.