M or F?

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  >

  Okay, how much was I loving Jeffrey right now? Talk about giving all the right answers. This was Not Alienating the Best Friend Jeffrey, my favorite so far. At the same time, though, I could feel myself slipping more and more of my own agenda, or thoughts, or whatever into the conversation. I needed to pull back a little, I thought. But before I could respond, Patricia interrupted.

  “Knock, knock, knock.”

  With a flick of the mouse, I switched the screen over to Word, then turned to see her standing in my door wearing a skirt and a blue lace bra.

  “Patricia!” I looked away again.

  “Oh, lighten up, sugar. It’s just like a bikini top. You wouldn’t get embarrassed about that.” I didn’t bother to correct her. “Anyway, Frannie’s on the phone.”

  My chest tightened. “What? I didn’t even hear it ring.”

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You want this?”

  I looked over at Patricia just long enough to take the phone. “Thanks.” I waited for her to leave the room, then quickly nudged Jeffrey off.

  >

  >

  I closed my door, took a deep breath, and put the phone to my ear. “Hey.”

  Frannie’s voice was tinged with stress. “Jeffrey’s talking to some other girl online.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognized how ironically funny this would be . . . if it were happening to someone else.

  “I was watching him in the chat room, but then he just dropped out,” she said. “Now he’s been gone for a long time without logging off.”

  “He could be doing anything.”

  “Well, exactly.”

  “Did you send him a message?” I asked, praying that the answer was no.

  “Uh, hello? Not my department. That’s why I’m calling you. Can you come over?”

  Could I? Should I? It was hard to concentrate on anything but the problem itself: Do not let Frannie find out that she has just been chatting with Jeffrey.

  “Why don’t we just do it over the phone, like always?” I said. Yes, that was good. “I’ll try sending him a message right now if you want.”

  Frannie paused. It was almost eerie. “I’ll come to you,” she said. “See you in a second.” The click on the line was her goodbye. I sat there with the phone still on and my tongue against the roof of my mouth, which was as far as I had gotten toward saying, “NO!”

  Factoring in the distance between Frannie’s house and mine, along with her usual driving speed and the adrenaline that was no doubt pumping through her system, that meant I had . . . zero time to figure something out. A few options crossed my mind:1. Tell Jeffrey there’s a rampant computer virus spreading around and he needs to shut down his system indefinitely, or at least for the rest of the night.

  2. Turn off all the lights and pretend no one’s home when Frannie gets here.

  3. Fake it.

  Option number three won out by default. Before you could say, “Auuuughhhh! Help me, help me, somebody help me!” Frannie was in my room and panting over my shoulder. I logged back into the RBHS chat room as slowly as I could without seeming weird about it.

  “There he is.” She put her finger to his name on the screen. “See if you can find out who he was talking to.”

  “You don’t even know for sure that he was talking to someone,” I said, which was true but still felt like a lie.

  “Just go,” she said, starting to rub my shoulders. “Go, go, go.”

  I typed in Franno and hit enter.

  “Um, okay, that’s good,” she said. “Like Jeffo. Cute.”

  “All right,” I said. “We’re just going to ease in here.”

  >

  >

  “Welcome back?” Her fingers stopped rubbing. I held off a nervous laugh.

  >

  >

  “Oh, that’s good, right?” she said. “Now ask him if he was talking to someone.”

  “Not so fast,” I said.

  >

  >

  Frannie didn’t say anything, but I could feel the gears turning in her head. I wished she would sit down and stop looking over my shoulder. I’m pretty sure my face was turning red.

  >

  >

  >

  >

  “Wha-at?” Frannie’s voice had that faraway quality. So did my brain. I couldn’t think of a thing to type and Jeffrey kept going.

  >

  Any other time, I would have thought that was sweet. Right now, though, Frannie was staring at me in a way that could have blocked out the sun, much less any deluded little crushes in the room.

  “What have you been. . . ?” She didn’t have to finish asking. She already knew. “How much have you been talking to him?” she asked instead. Her face was perfectly still. I couldn’t read her expression at all.

  “Frannie,” I fumbled, “I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Has it been you the whole time . . . posing as me? Or something else?” Her voice got higher as she said it.

  “It’s always been me as you,” I said. “I would never—”

  “Ha!” She cut me off. “Don’t even.”

  I turned in my chair to face her as she walked away from me. “No, I’m serious,” I said. Even now, it bothered me she would so quickly assume I had forgotten our friendship. “I know how this might sound,” I told her, “but I would never do anything against you.”

  “Oh, really?” she said. She looked over at the computer for a second and then right into my eyes. “And you told him things are sketchy between us? Why would you do that?”

  The fact was that I hadn’t said that to Jeffrey. He had interpreted it from our conversation, but somehow that distinction felt meaningless right now. This was only getting more complicated as it went on.

  Then the computer toned with another line of chat coming in.

  >

  Frannie groaned with frustration. “Just tell him—” but then she changed her mind. “Just . . . get up for a second.” The bossiness of it hurt, and she sat down at the computer like I wasn’t even there anymore. The lump in my throat started to ache.

  >

  >

  >

  Even Jeffrey’s little XO—the one she never would have seen if this hadn’t happened—felt incriminating. I said the only thing I could think of.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She ignored the apology. “Tell me something. How many times have you talked to him?”

  “Not that many.”

  “How many?”

  I had to think about it, and she saw that right away.

  “More than you can say. Unbelievable.” She went to the door but stopped with her hand on the knob. “I feel so stupid,” she said. “I feel so, so stupid.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why?!”

  Maybe it was a dumb question, but I honestly didn’t know the answer.

  “Mostly because I trusted you,” she said. “But also because this makes me even more of a . . . whatever. An idiot, as far as Jeffrey is concerned.”

  “He doesn’t think that, Frannie. He likes you. A lot.”

  “Thanks for the update. Anything else I should know?”

  “I didn’t do this to hurt you,” I said, trying not to sound aggressive.

  “Yet look what happened. Funny how
that works out.” She was getting heavy into the sarcasm, and it was starting to piss me off. I think more than anything, I was mad at the situation, but right now it felt a lot like being mad at Frannie.

  “For the record,” I said, “this all started with you.”

  “What does that have to do it?”

  “Maybe not everything, but it does have something to do with it.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with it. For the record.” She practically spit it at me.

  “You’re not even trying to understand where I’m coming from,” I told her.

  She pointed at the computer again, as if that closed her case. “Understand what? I didn’t make you have those conversations behind my back, Marcus.”

  “That’s right, Frannie, you didn’t,” I told her. It was all starting to spill out of me, including some things I hadn’t realized until I said them. “You stayed at your usual safe distance and did everything you could to make sure I’d help you without ever really being responsible for anything yourself. Just like always.”

  Frannie looked stung, and I got a jolt of guilt, but it just blended with the anger. “I only wish I had your problems,” I went on. My voice was shaking. “I’d trade places with you in a minute, and the thing is, you’d never want to be me. Has that ever occurred to you?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” she said. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “It’s about you. How could I forget? Okay, fine. Let me tell you something else, then. You don’t even know Jeffrey.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. I was all over the map and we both knew it. I couldn’t help myself, like everything I had never said was going to come out all at once or not at all.

  “You don’t know him—you don’t really know him,” I told her. “And that’s because you’ve never really tried, and that’s because you’ve never had to, as long as I’ve been around.”

  “Or maybe you’ve never given me the chance,” she shot back. “Maybe . . . no, not even maybe. You’ve been keeping him to yourself. Don’t you see that? You tell me I don’t know Jeffrey; well, guess what? You don’t even know yourself . You can’t even see what you’re doing here.”

  “What I see is how much of this you take for granted. Just like you take everything for granted.” And because I just wasn’t going to have any crying right now, I fought it back by yelling even louder. “This was all about you! Why do you think I’m even doing this?!”

  Ten

  “Right, Marcus,” I snapped, “why are you doing this?”

  We just stood there, staring at each other for a full minute, the words hanging in the air like a strange scent. Everything was silent. From its place on Marcus’s desk in the corner of the room, I could hear his computer hum and whir. Marcus’s chest rose and fell with his breathing.

  “I’m—I’m doing this for you.” Marcus’s voice had a strange, strangled quality. “Of course.”

  “You don’t actually believe that, do you?” My voice was quiet. I hardly knew what I was saying, what I was feeling. I was furious, sure. And sad. Marcus was my friend. But he’d been hitting on my boyfriend . . . pretending to be me? My throat tightened. The whole situation had this ugly quality—like Marcus had been making fun of me, laughing at me behind my back. But there was another feeling washing over me too, taking over the others. Was it—pity? What for? I felt dizzy; I couldn’t think straight.

  Marcus’s narrow nostrils flared in fury. “Maybe I actually like Jeffrey,” he growled. His face was contorted in anger—for a moment, I didn’t recognize him. “Because I actually know Jeffrey, because I actually talk to Jeffrey.”

  “Right, you talk to him—behind my back!” I spat. “Only you aren’t really talking to him, are you, Marcus? Someone who doesn’t exist is talking to him!” I let out a little barking laugh. “You’re so desperate, you’re trying to seduce my boyfriend, but you don’t even have the guts to do it for real.”

  The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to call them back. I felt them reach out and claw Marcus across the face—he looked like I’d slapped him.

  “He’s not your boyfriend, Frannie,” Marcus said finally. His voice was low and dangerous. “You can’t talk to each other. He’s never once tried to kiss you.” Marcus’s hazel eyes narrowed as he hissed, “Face it—he doesn’t want you. Even with me at your back, you managed to blow it. As usual.”

  In the next moment, his face blurred. All I knew was that I had to get out of there. I was practically blinded by tears, but I managed to find my way out of his room. I stumbled down the hall and out the front door and didn’t even break stride when I heard Marcus calling my name. He was supposed to be my best friend. How could he have hurt me like that?

  I don’t even remember fumbling for my keys or turning the ignition. All I remember is finding myself peeling down the street, wiping the hot tears from my cheeks as they streamed down my face. I turned on the radio and pumped the volume all the way up as I merged onto the highway. I had no idea where I was going. All I wanted to do was drive.

  An hour later, I finally had to admit that I wasn’t really going anywhere—I was just avoiding going home. I just couldn’t face it. For one thing, I was totally afraid that Marcus would call, and then I’d have to figure out what to say to him. And for another thing, I was even more terrified that he might not call. Then I’d have to decide whether or not I wanted to do the reaching out.

  Screw that, I decided as I hit the turn signal and headed toward my house. I can’t just drive forever. I’ve got to go home. But I’m not calling Marcus. He’s the one who owes me an apology, not the other way around.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Mom called from the living room as I walked in the back door.

  Taking a deep breath, I managed to shout, “Hi.” But that was about all I could handle. I had to resist the urge to go into the living room, put my head on my mom’s shoulder, and cry until her sleeve was soaked through. I just didn’t see how I could explain the whole situation to her when I didn’t even really understand it myself. So I snuck up the back stairs and skulked into my room.

  What happened?

  That was the question that had been screaming in my brain the entire drive. I shoved a pile of books to the floor and sat heavily on the edge of my bed. Okay, so Marcus had a point. It wasn’t like Jeffrey and I exactly had flow . . . . and maybe I’d been asking too much by having Marcus be my conversational crutch for so long. But that didn’t give him the right to just start pretending to be me. Especially when I’d asked him not to. I mean, who knew what he’d been telling Jeffrey all this time? Besides, I’d only asked for Marcus’s help because it was just so much easier for him to talk to Jeffrey.

  God, why is that? I wondered. I guessed it was because he wasn’t nervous, for one thing. I was always just so paranoid that I’d mess up and look stupid or say the wrong thing. It was easy for Marcus to be himself around Jeffrey. Okay, I didn’t think Marcus had any idea about Eritrea, either, but for whatever reason, that wouldn’t have made him feel like a moron. . . . He could just talk to Jeffrey about something else.

  But that wasn’t really the million-dollar question. No—the big question was, how could Marcus do this to me?

  Looking down, I realized that my hand was hovering over the phone. Tears welled up in my eyes. Usually, whenever I had a problem, Marcus was the first person I called. But I’m not calling him on this one, I thought bitterly. He is the problem.

  Okay, and Jeffrey was out, obviously, because that would require way too much explanation of stuff I wasn’t sure I wanted explained to him . . . ever.

  So I punched in Belina’s number and pressed talk. “Come on,” I murmured into the receiver as the phone rang four times.

  “Hey, it’s Belina. I’m not here, but my voice mail is. Talk to it.”

  I hung up before the beep. I couldn’t leave a message. I needed to talk to a real person. I decided to try Jenn.

  “H
ello?” Jenn’s voice sounded breathy.

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s me.”

  “Oh, hey!”

  The mere fact that she sounded so happy to hear from me made me feel a little better.

  “I was just thinking about you,” Jenn said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah—I’m watching this movie about King Arthur, and everyone is dressed in armor, and it reminded me of you at the carnival. I know the movie is supposed to be romantic, but I just can’t stop laughing!” Then, as if to prove her point, Jenn burst into hysterical giggles. “Ooh, they’re attacking the castle!” I could hear the clash of sword on armor in the background.

  I took a deep breath, wondering why in the world I’d ever thought it was a good idea to call Jenn. “Okay,” I told her, “I guess I’ll just let you watch your movie.”

  “No—wait a minute.” The movie noise went silent. I guess Jenn had clicked it off. “Is everything okay?”

  Her tone was really gentle. I couldn’t help it; my eyes got hot and teary again. “No,” I admitted.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I gave a weak little sniffle-laugh. “What gave it away?”

  “You sound really sad,” Jenn said simply.

  For some reason, that broke my heart.

  “Tell me,” she urged.

  So I did. I told her the whole story about how Marcus had been helping me get to know Jeffrey—and how Marcus had started talking to Jeffrey behind my back, and how those two seemed to get along better than Jeffrey and I ever had. I told the whole thing really badly, because thoughts were whirling around in my brain the whole time like evil flying monkeys, so Jenn had to interrupt me a few times and ask me to clarify what had happened. I explained everything as well as I could, but I realized that I really had about as many questions as she did. At the end, we were both quiet for a long time.

  It was Jenn who broke the silence. “Wow.”

  Sighing, I leaned back against my bed pillows. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Wow.”

  “Why would Marcus do that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” I picked up Molasses, a stuffed animal in the shape of a cat that I’d had since I was four, and hugged him to my chest. None of the answers I’d come up with seemed to fit: Marcus was jealous of me, he was afraid that he was losing me to Jeffrey and he had to put a stop to it, he was desperate enough to throw away our friendship for some weird vicarious action, he didn’t care about me. . . .