“Studying on a Saturday night?”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.” My tone is light, joking, careless; my heart is in my throat and my palms are clammy. “It’s Physics,” I decide to add, and I shrug despite the fact he can’t see me. “You know how bad I suck. I have to catch up somehow.”
I’m not technically lying. It’s just not the whole truth.
“Yeah,” he says with a heavy sigh. “I guess. Still. Sucks for you.”
“Um, okay.” But I’m not so sure it does, really.
“I wish I could be with you right now,” he says, lowering his voice to an intimate level.
I shift from foot to foot. “I miss you too” is all I manage to reply.
“Tomorrow you’re free, though, right?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Then tomorrow, you’re all mine.”
I expect to feel my cheeks heat up, but instead I just feel awkward. I can’t think what to reply to him. Luckily I’m saved because one of the guys yells in the background, asking Bryce where the heck that darn popcorn is, and he apologizes and says he has to go.
“Sure thing. Have fun.”
“Have fun studying,” he replies.
“I will,” I reply, and I hang up first. Then I put my phone on silent and toss it into my bag. I smile sheepishly at Dwight, but before I can offer up an apology, he shrugs and shoots me a small smile.
“Sure you’ve got time to work on this with me if you’re so busy studying?”
He looks so downtrodden making that joke, we both have to laugh.
Chapter 24
Dwight’s mom breezes into the room about an hour into our work on the project, saying, “Dwight I have told you a billion times not to shut Gellman outside—you know it upsets him.” She stops short on seeing me with Dwight. “Oh!”
“Hi, Mrs. Butler,” I say timidly, smiling politely to her.
She looks … I don’t know how to describe it exactly. She’s obviously quite young, and her hair is a dark auburn with some graying strands, but her face looks so much older; it’s like she’s worn down. Tired.
She’s slim, and wearing jeans and a pink sweater. Her hair’s tied back in a ponytail and her cheeks are flushed. I heard the front door open and close a minute ago; I guess she’s been out somewhere.
“I didn’t realize we had company,” she says apologetically to me, and shoots Dwight an irritated look. “You must be Madison, right?”
“Right,” I say with a broad smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“You’ll have to forgive me for being such a bad hostess; Dwight didn’t say you were here. You’re staying for dinner, though, aren’t you?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble … I don’t want to intrude.” I mumble it slightly, but I’m still smiling at her. Like her son, she just radiates friendliness, and an easygoing nature.
“Of course not!” She waves both her hands around dismissively. “How’s the project going?”
“All right,” we answer unanimously. I glance at Dwight, and the corner of his mouth tweaks up at me.
“Good. I’m Teresa, by the way. Right. I’ll leave you kids to get on with it! There are plenty of snacks in the pantry if you want anything, but just try not to spoil your dinner!” She glides back out after giving us another smile.
“Sorry about her,” Dwight mumbles to me as I turn back to my notebook and laptop. “My mom can be a little … scatterbrained, sometimes.”
“She seems really nice!” I reply honestly. “She seems a lot like you.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “You think?”
“Yeah. You don’t look like her too much,” I admit, “but she seems to act like you do. Same smile.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just—everyone’s always said I’m like my dad.”
“Oh …” I say it quietly because we both know I’m never going to be able to make that comparison. But then, before the silence can grow awkward, I go on, “You’re still like your mom, though.”
He laughs. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“A good thing.”
“I’m inclined to think otherwise,” he says, but there’s a smile in his voice that makes me sure he agrees with me. Then he glances down at his textbook—an old one he dug out from the bookshelf. “What was I looking for again? Oh, yeah …”
Teresa pops her head around the door a while later to tell us dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. But we carry on working hard until she yells from the general direction of the kitchen that dinner is on the table and getting cold.
Dwight and I tidy up out stacks of notes and save the documents we’ve been working on. I follow him to the kitchen, and someone barrels down the staircase loudly. I look over my shoulder and see a girl of about thirteen wearing a bright pink shirt with bright purple shorts. She’s got braces, and a visible gap between her two front teeth, and her auburn hair hangs in a braid down her back.
She blinks at me, and I shoot her a quick grin.
The kitchen’s not very big. Or maybe it is, and it’s just cramped. I think it’s the latter: what with the dog basket and mess of doggy toys, and the big round table that’s large enough to easily fit six people, any space would seem small.
I wait for Dwight to sit down before I pick a seat. I choose the empty seat on his left, and his little sister sits opposite me. Their mom sits between Dwight and his sister, placing a giant bowl of salad on the table as she sits, to go with the plates of grilled chicken and fries in front of each of us.
We begin to eat, and after a couple of minutes, Dwight’s little sister says, “You’re that girl Dwight likes, aren’t you? The one from Maine. Madison.”
“Uh …” My eyes flit quickly to Dwight, who’s rolling his eyes. “Yeah, uh, that’s me. Hi.”
“I thought so. You’re really pretty.”
“Oh.” I blink, completely taken aback. Then I smile and reply, “So are you.”
She grins back at me.
“Feel free to ignore Cynthia,” Dwight tells me.
“Don’t be so mean to your sister,” his mom chides, but she’s smiling a little. “So, Madison,” she says then, turning to me, “how are you liking Florida so far?”
“It’s great,” I answer instantly, smiling. “I love it here.”
“And school?”
“Aside from being stuck in Physics, it’s good. I’m really enjoying History.”
“Is that what you think you want to do at college, maybe?”
I wobble my head—an uncertain yes. “I think so. I’d like to be able to. I’ve always liked history. And English is okay too, I guess.”
“Not much of a science person?” she says with a slight laugh in her voice.
I laugh, snorting a little as I do so. “Not at all. I mean, biology’s not totally terrible. I’ve never liked chemistry, though, and I just don’t do physics.”
“Dwight said they messed up your transcripts. That’s got to be annoying. There’s really nothing you can do about it?” I shake my head, grimacing. “That’s awful.”
Conversation flows quite easily: a lot of small talk and nothing of great importance. I don’t know if maybe Dwight told his mom before that I don’t like to talk about myself much. I think he must have—not once does she ask me anything about my life or my school or anything like that before I came to Florida.
But I’m most certainly not complaining.
When we’re all finished with dinner, I help clear the plates before Teresa can tell me not to.
“You don’t have to do that, honey!” she objects. “Cynthia can do it.”
“It’s fine, really.” I smile. “I don’t mind.”
She grins at me. “Well, thank you very much, Madison. Dwight, this girl’s a keeper, you got that?”
“Mom.”
My stomach gets a funny sensation in it, but I shake it off.
“Come on,” Dwight says to me, dumping the mostly empty
salad bowl down beside where I put the plates. He touches my elbow, and starts out of the kitchen.
I follow him, but shoot a smile and say, “Thanks for dinner, it was great,” to his mom, with a little wave to Cynthia.
“I apologize for my entire family,” Dwight mutters to me as we sit back at all our work.
“I like them. They’re nice. Your sister’s nice.”
“Mm,” he says in a tone that disagrees with me.
I click my laptop back to life. Dwight’s working out the intricacies of the project and the experiments we’re going to do. I’ve done some reading on Newton’s life, his work, and his inspirations, and I’m putting together the presentation about it all on my laptop. It seems like a fair division of the work: I do the stuff that doesn’t require as much knowledge of Physics, and Dwight does the complicated stuff.
We’re both happy with that, actually.
We work until it gets dark outside, which is around nine-thirty.
I don’t even notice the time flying past, though. Even though we’ve somehow gotten tons of work done, we’ve been joking around all evening, chatting away about all kinds of meaningless things, like that time he went to a Muse concert, and when Jenna broke her arm falling off her bike.
It’s strange how calm I feel, and how easy it is to be around Dwight.
But it’s a nice strange.
I’m not worrying that I sound like an idiot when I snort, or if he’ll think I’m a dork if I tell him this or that story. I’m not conscious of how I’m being. He’s good company—a good friend.
I smile at that thought. Dwight throws down his pen. I’ve started to get a bit distracted by this time, switching between a blog about one of my favorite bands and a Wikipedia tab.
“That’s it, I’m done for the night.” Dwight sighs heavily. “How ’bout you?”
I nod, saving the PowerPoint I was working on. “Heck yeah.”
Dwight closes his notebook, organizes a few papers he’s scattered around him and closes the documents on his computer. I follow suit.
“Do you have to leave yet, or …?” He trails off, not quite meeting my eyes. Like he’s almost afraid to ask me to hang out, I think—or, no, I only hope that’s what it is. What he probably means is that he wants me to go but is just too polite to say so.
“My mom said she can give me a ride home whenever, really,” I say. “If you want me to go, I can give her a call.”
I don’t want to go; I want to hang out with Dwight, with or without the Physics project. But one thing I haven’t considered is that as much as I consider him a friend, he may not see me the same way: I could well just be someone he puts up with because he has to.
“You can stay and watch a movie or something if you want,” he offers, smiling. It’s a hesitant version of his lopsided grin.
“Sure,” I say, smiling back—and not just because his smile’s so infectious. “That sounds good.”
“Cool.”
“You can pick the movie,” I tell him. “Consolation for having me for a lab partner.”
He laughs, shaking his head at me. “Strange as it may seem, I actually don’t mind having you for a partner, Dice.”
I don’t know if it’s what he just said, or if it’s because he called me Dice, but whatever it is washes away every shred of doubt I had as to whether he likes me or if he’s just been polite all this time. I can’t keep the huge grin off my face.
“Still, you pick,” I instruct him.
“All right,” he laughs. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
He heads out of the room and I hear him walking up the stairs. I start to tidy my things up and put them away in my backpack. I leave the laptop out, but set it on hibernate, and wrap up the charger.
I’m still grinning like a total idiot when Dwight comes back with Lord of the Rings, the first movie.
“Good choice,” I say approvingly. “The books are better, though.”
“You’ve read Lord of the Rings?”
He sounds so shocked that my reply is hesitant. “Uh, well, yeah … I mean … Yes. I read them. Multiple times, actually.”
His dark eyebrows pull together before relaxing, and he fixes me with those sea-green eyes. “You’re very surprising, Madison Clarke.”
“And you have very good taste in movies, Dwight Butler.”
It’s late when I call my mom to pick me up from Dwight’s house. His own mom had already stuck her head into the room to say, “I’m heading to bed now, kids. Dwight, make sure you let Gellman out before you come up to bed. It was great finally meeting you, Madison.”
“Nice to meet you to,” I said with a smile.
“Okay,” Dwight had replied.
We’d made it through a giant bowl of popcorn and a couple of glasses of diet soda by the time the movie ended. Dwight takes the glasses and empty bottle of soda out to the kitchen, and I decide to follow him with the popcorn bowl. A few kernels rattle around at the bottom.
I set the bowl on the counter near the glasses. When I look up for Dwight, I see him unlocking a sliding glass door farther down the room that leads to the backyard.
Gellman barks quietly and clambers out of his doggy basket, padding over to the open door. He licks Dwight’s hand and then jumps onto the small strip of patio outside and over onto the grass, his nose to the ground, hunting for a place to do his business. I stand next to Dwight and we watch the dog.
The night air is cold, pinching my cheeks. I steal a glance at Dwight and see him rubbing his hands together a little against the chill.
My eyes trail back to Gellman, and then drift around the garden. My subconscious seems to know what it’s looking for; I don’t realize until I see it.
“Is that the tree house?” I blurt, not thinking. My voice is hushed, tentative. I look back to Dwight, watching his face carefully.
Dwight’s eyes trail reluctantly to the tree house, nestled in the branches of a huge tree I can’t quite define in the dark. He nods slowly. “Yeah.”
Gellman pees and trots back into the house.
Dwight pulls the door shut and locks it.
That’s all we say about the tree house.
Chapter 25
October is crisp and bright, and all anyone can talk about is the party Bryce is organizing for Halloween. When I say it is all anyone can talk about, I do mean that literally. It’s surreal, though, actually being involved in all the chatter about it. I’ve always been on the fringes, and witnessed the hype over things like this, but I’ve never seen why it was such a big deal. A party, so what?
But now I understand.
Because what the heck am I going to wear?
I went shopping with the girls. Tiffany was going as a fairy, which meant she had a pink tutu and a skimpy, skintight pink corset-style top to match. Summer was going as a “bunny rabbit”—a little black dress with white bunny ears and a bunny tail. Melissa was going as Catwoman, in a leather-look jumpsuit. And from what I’d heard all over school, the majority of girls were turning up in skimpy, sexy outfits.
But no way in heck was I going to do that; I just wouldn’t feel comfortable.
I’ve shoved that to the back of my mind, though, since I still have two weeks until the party and that’s plenty of time to think about my outfit.
It’s a Wednesday, before lunch period. With a sigh, I wander out to the field for gym class. Last night I had track till six, and my muscles are still a little sore. But on the bright side, Coach thinks I’ll be able to compete for the school in the summer, which is going to be great for my college applications.
I hate gym class. Although that’s nothing new. I always have. Recently, I’ve taken to hiding out underneath the bleachers whenever Coach’s back is turned long enough for me to slip away.
I used to be the kid who was picked last; even my own team was against me. Dodgeball? Living hell. Soccer? I’d be thrown in goals and bombarded with practice shots. And don’t even get me started on the number of times I got “acc
identally” whacked in the back of the head with a badminton racket.
It isn’t like that here. This isn’t Pineford, and I’m not Fatty Maddie anymore. Here in Midsommer, I am Madison Clarke, girlfriend of star soccer player and school heartthrob Bryce Higgins, friends with Tiffany Blanche and Co. I am a somebody. Now, I’m one of the first names called when teams are being picked.
In AP Physics on Friday, Dwight suggests we meet up and do some more work on the project.
“Well, I’m free tonight,” I tell him. “Bryce is going out of town for the weekend to visit his grandparents, and I was only going to have a lazy night in with my parents anyway. I can’t do anything tomorrow, though: Jenna’s down for the weekend.”
“Oh, that’s great!” he says, enthusiastic for me. “Is she bringing her boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “My parents cannot wait to meet Henry, Mr. Sexy Brit.”
Dwight laughs. “Well, Cynthia’s at a sleepover tonight, so my house will be free, if you want. I think my mom’s out for dinner with some friends too, so it’ll be quiet. Well, as quiet as it can be with Gellman.”
“It’s a date. No! I mean—not a date, just … You know what I mean.” I laugh sheepishly.
He grins at me. “I know what you mean.”
So later that evening, I’m at home, packing my textbooks and laptop into my backpack, holding my cell phone between my shoulder and cheek as I speak to Tiffany.
“I can’t,” I say. “I promised Dwight we’d work on the project tonight.”
I probably don’t sound half as sad as I should be that I can’t hang out with everybody down at the beach instead of doing my Physics project.
“You’re giving up your Friday nights to work with him on your Physics project? Madison! Come on, you have to come! We haven’t been down at the beach in, like, forever.”
“I’m sorry, Tiff, I really can’t.”
“Why don’t you just ditch him? He won’t care. He can play video games or Dungeons and Dragons with the rest of his nerds like I bet they do every weekend. Come on, Madison!”
I pause from packing my things and hold my cell properly to my ear with my now free hand. “I can’t just ditch him like that, Tiff. I won’t leave him to do the whole thing on his own.”