Something Real

  I’m not sure if that means please don’t eat lunch with me, or what. It’s not like I was planning on doing anything other than hiding out in my car.

  “Cool. See you,” I say. I open my locker and shove a book into my bag. I don’t even know which one it is, I just have to do something with my hands.

  There should be a class on where to put your hands during awkward moments. Like, no other animal has to stand around with these ridiculous appendages that make everything worse. Hands are awkward as hell. I watch Tessa disappear down the hall, belonging, being absorbed into the crowd.

  I feel disoriented trying to get to class. People are staring, a few obnoxious guys shout “Bonnie™!” as they bolt down the hall to their classes. I don’t even know them. It dawns on me that I’m living my worst nightmare. I literally have had almost this exact dream. Except that just when I would reach the feeling of total panic that is beginning to poison my system right now, I would always wake up. Sweating and shaking, I would look around my room and smile into the familiar shadows. But here, now, I don’t get to breathe that sigh of relief and fall back against my pillow.

  Who am I kidding? I can’t do this. I’m about to turn around, back toward the entrance and the student parking lot beyond that, when I see him walking toward me. I can’t help it—I stop dead in the center of the hallway, the bodies around me parting like the Red Sea. If this were a movie, Patrick would stop too. We’d stare at each other, breathless, with longing in our eyes.

  But he doesn’t stop.

  I look down and turn around, walking fast. I know he’s caught up to me only when I feel his hand slip into mine. I jump, startled by the unexpected touch, but he doesn’t let me stop. Instead, he kind of drags me down the hallway, and I stumble after him, confused and a little bit ecstatic because he’s holding my hand.

  “Um. Patrick?”

  He looks at me for a second, but he doesn’t say anything. I can’t get a read on him because his eyes dart away too quickly. The hallway is emptying out, and I keep waiting for a teacher to yell at us to get to class, but just before we reach the door that leads outside, he makes a sharp right, into a tiny hallway I’ve never noticed before. Probably because it’s dark and the door off the side of it says STAFF ONLY.

  Patrick opens the door and pulls me inside, shutting it behind us. We’re in the kind of darkness that obliterates everything in it, and my heart is doing all kinds of uncomfortable things, and I can hear my blood pumping in my ears, and what is going on? I hear a chain pull and then the little closet flickers with wan light from an overhead fluorescent tube. As the light sputters, it kicks slivers of incandescence around us, some of them cutting into Patrick’s face and eyes. When he lets go of my hand, cold air hits my palm. It’s important to note that I don’t ask why we are in a janitorial closet. Actually, I don’t ask anything at all. My voice seems to be malfunctioning.

  “So this is what you meant in the park when you said ‘it’s complicated’?” he asks.

  I nod. We stand there, sharing air, listening to the scurrying outside in the hallway. It smells like bleach and Pine-Sol and mold.

  It’s heaven.

  “Should I call you Chloe or Bon—”

  “Not the other name.” It would feel like defeat, if this boy called me by my MetaReel namesake. “I hate…” I shake my head. “Just Chloe. That’s my name. I mean, to me. It’s my name to me.”

  He sets his backpack on the ground and leans against a big sink that takes up a third of the closet.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice quiet. Serious.

  Outside, I hear a locker slam, then it’s silent. I wonder if he saw the 911 episode or read the articles about me getting my stomach pumped.

  “I’m fine,” I say, smiling a little. I’m an “I’m fine” kind of girl, after all.

  I can tell he remembers our conversation from last week, because his lip turns up and he gives his head a slight shake.

  “Those paparazzi seem rather malicious,” he says.

  “They’re brazen, that’s for sure.” I want to find a way to work in paperweight, but I can’t.

  Are we flirting? Where’s the moment when he remembers he’s supposed to totally ignore me? Heels click on the linoleum outside, and Patrick puts his finger to his lips. I immediately tense up, but the sound of the possible teacher or other adultish person fades away.

  “I have three questions,” he says.

  I slip off my backpack and rest against the wall, next to a huge shelf filled with cleaning supplies.

  “I might have three answers.” I feel my walls go up, higher than usual.

  “Fair enough.”

  Okay, I need to mention that he’s wearing this flannel shirt that’s rolled up to his elbows, and he’s got this soft gray beanie that gives him a collegiate I Just Got Out of Bed look, both of which really increase his hotness factor.

  “One.” He holds up a finger. “Why did you leave after I kissed you?”

  “Wow. You couldn’t start with something easier like, What’s it like to be on a reality TV show?”

  I’m stalling, and he knows it.

  “Well,” he says, “I assumed that a girl who likes her eggs over easy wouldn’t really dig being on a reality TV show,” he says. “So…”

  It’s quiet and warm and dim, and I really don’t care that it smells weird. This is the safest I have felt in weeks. I’m totally off the radar—MetaReel has no idea where I am.

  “I left because…” I look up at the ceiling. Oh my God, why am I always almost crying around him? “Because, it’s … I didn’t want to lie to you, and it felt like, um. Like you were kissing someone that wasn’t who you thought you were kissing?”

  Patrick straightens up and walks the two steps it takes to get to me. I make the mistake of looking into his eyes, and the tears trickle out, tickling my cheeks as they slip down. He wipes them away with the backs of his fingers, and I become this soft, malleable thing under his skin.

  “Question number two,” he says, almost whispering. I nod. “If I kissed you now, would you A) kiss me back, B) run away, C) tell me this isn’t going to work because you’re famous again, or D) all of the above?”

  “What was A?” I ask. Because I’m now wondering if my mind has created a defense mechanism wherein I invent alternate realities in order to escape the pain of my existence.

  “Kiss me back.”

  “I choose A.”

  He moves closer and then we’re kissing, and for a little while I forget that my entire life is completely insane. I just let myself fall into him, and there’s only our breath and the soft sound of our lips and the slight drip of the faucet. My third kiss ever, even better than the first two.

  I pull away first. “What was number three?”

  He blinks, then leans his forehead against mine. This is better than the kiss. This is the kind of thing that says, I really like you, I’m not just trying to get in your pants.

  “Number three: I’m not into bullshit relationships—”

  “That’s not a question,” I say.

  His lips find mine, quickly. Kissing Patrick Sheldon is better than a grande mocha from Starbucks. Better than the best Radiohead song. Better than just about anything. He pulls away, his lips only centimeters from mine.

  “I know,” he says. “It’s a preface to my question. I’m not into bullshit relationships. By which I mean, I don’t want to play games. And I know these past few weeks you’ve been dealing with unjust amounts of craziness, so maybe what seemed like games was really just confusion. But I really … I’ve been wanting to ask you out for a while now, and I wish I’d done it earlier, before all this happened, but I wasn’t totally sure … I mean, one minute I’m convinced you feel the same way, and the next you hardly talk to me. But that day you ran out of class, all I wanted to do was follow you. I couldn’t handle seeing you upset like that. Um.”

  He kisses me again. I think this officially qualifies as making out. I am making out with Patric
k Sheldon in a janitorial closet. After a while, he pulls away, but slowly, like he doesn’t want to, but time is of the essence.

  “Sorry. What was I saying?”

  “You wanted to follow me.”

  This is the best day of my life. Which is weird, because it was maybe the third worst about five minutes ago.

  “Right. So. My question is, how do you feel about boyfriends?”

  Best. Day. Ever.

  “I feel … do you mean boyfriends in general or specific boyfriends?”

  “Very specific.”

  “Isn’t there an order to this? Aren’t there steps that we’re skipping—”

  “Screw steps. I want to be with you.”

  I grin. I mean, there is just no one like Patrick Sheldon. I reach my hands up and trace the tips of my fingers along his jawline. I open my mouth to say YES YES YES! but then my life comes crashing back down on me. I imagine his picture on the cover of US Weekly, or MetaReel trying to make an episode out of my parents meeting him.

  “You don’t want to be with me, Patrick.”

  “Funny, because I’m pretty sure I just said the opposite.” He smiles, like he knows he’s already won.

  I let go of him and walk to the sink, keeping my arms crossed.

  “You saw the paparazzi out there, right? And MetaReel knows where I am twenty-four, seven. So when we were at the park, imagine that on camera, for all of America to see. I mean, you can’t even call me. My phone is bugged. What kind of girlfriend has a bugged phone? It’s worse than a dad with a shotgun.”

  Patrick’s lips form a thin line, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. “What about your brother and Matt? What are they gonna do?”

  I stare at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Chloe. I’m not an idiot. Unlike most people around here, I actually pay attention to what’s going on.”

  Wow. Not even Tessa or Mer have guessed that one.

  “Besides,” he adds, “Ben and I are friends. We talk. They know I know.”

  I make a mental note to WHAA? to my brother next time we’re alone.

  “I don’t know what they’re doing,” I say. “I mean, I can’t imagine Benny without Matt. It would kill him if…”

  “Is it that you don’t trust me? Like, do you think I want to be some kind of pathetic B-list celebrity and I’m going to leech onto you—”

  “So you think I’m pathetic? Or my family is?”

  This is the thing: I can talk shit about my family, but no one else is allowed to.

  Patrick’s quiet for a minute and then he puts his hands on my shoulders and leans down so we’re eye to eye.

  “I’m not going to let you do this.”

  “Do what?” I ask.

  “Push me away so I’ll get angry and give up.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not trying to!”

  “So you don’t trust me, is that it?”

  “It’s just … I feel like, so much is happening, and I have liked you for, I mean ever since I got here, right? And I’m freaking out because I’m so used to people only being nice to me because I’m famous. So I feel…”

  Suddenly he wraps his arms around me so that the warmth of him seeps into the coldness of me. He smells like dryer sheets and pine needles again.

  “I don’t want to push you,” he says.

  “Yes you do,” I say, my voice muffled against his shirt.

  It occurs to me that I am living out my fantasy, right here, right now. Minus the janitorial closet. Maybe this is the universe’s way of making things up to me: Patrick in exchange for a messed-up childhood.

  “Okay, you’re right. But only because I know we’d be great. And I don’t want to wait for you to figure it out.”

  I think about the night at the park. How he’s the only person who’s ever asked me how I liked my eggs, except for waitresses.

  “So what are the responsibilities of Patrick Sheldon’s girlfriend?” I ask.

  I can hear the smile in his voice. “She has to be willing to jump into janitorial closets at a moment’s notice. This is absolutely essential.”

  I laugh. “Okay…”

  “She has to trust him and know he will never, ever screw her over and that he has absolutely no aspirations for fame. More on that later.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She has to sometimes be willing to do totally insane things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like ditch school all day today. I’ve instructed Ben and Matt to meet us behind the gym in five minutes, by the way.”

  “How—”

  “Just say yes.”

  “To what?”

  He kisses my forehead, then his lips move to my ear. “Are we together?”

  I shiver. “Do you promise never to Google me? I mean, I’m sure you already have, but, like, never again?”

  “I didn’t Google you,” he says. “My mom read about your family somewhere and asked me if I knew the famous girl who was hiding out at my school. I’ve never seen your show.”

  I bite my lip. “So you don’t know about. Um. There was something that happened, a few years ago—”

  “And you can tell me about it if you want to.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “You can’t convince me to be un–into you.”

  In the dim light I can see hints of the feeling in his eyes. I know that if I want to understand what it means to let someone in, someone other than Benny, I’ll have to take a risk. I have to hope that he won’t let me down. That he can be a person who is a place—a place where I can go and call a time-out on all the uncertainty and awfulness of my life.

  “Okay. Yes.”

  He tilts his head to the side, unsure.

  “I’ll be your damn girlfriend.”

  He doesn’t even try to hide the excitement in his voice. “Excellent.”

  I narrow my eyes. “So when you set things up with Benny, you were pretty confident that you could get me to agree to this in ten minutes?”

  He frowns. “I was hoping five, but Ben said you’d put up a fight.” He checks his watch then gives me that crooked smile I love. “But we still have two minutes.”

  “Hmmm … what’s a girl to do with—”

  Patrick doesn’t let me finish the sentence.

  SEASON 17, EPISODE 13

  (The One with the Pepsi Freezes)

  “You are scarily good at evading school officials,” I tell Patrick.

  It had taken the four of us a while to surreptitiously cram into his car, but we’re finally moving. I’m currently lying in a fetal position in the backseat of his mom’s SUV, hiding from the Vultures. Matt’s in the front seat with Patrick, and Benny’s hunched up on the floor next to me, his knees drawn up to his chest.

  Patrick looks at me in the rearview mirror, and his eyes crinkle up a little as he smiles. “It’s all about the execution. You just have to act like you’re supposed to be doing whatever it is you’re doing, and few people question it.”

  “I fully recognize that I’m already enjoying the fringe benefits of your relationship with my sister,” says Benny. “However, I draw the line at you turning her into a criminal mastermind.”

  “Damn. I thought we were all going to rob a bank or something,” I say.

  Patrick laughs. “Oh, that’s for this weekend.”

  “There are a million dudes with cameras out here,” Matt says. “You guys really are famous.”

  I can’t see, but we must be turning out of the parking lot. Thank God Patrick’s mom opted for tinted windows.

  “They probably want to get a picture of my alcoholic self,” Benny mutters. “So much for getting into a decent university.”

  Ever since he saw the “intervention” spot on MetaReel’s website, Benny’s been freaking.

  “Everyone loves a reformed sinner,” I say.

  He snorts. “Matt, be a dick and take a picture of them with your camera phone—let them know how it feels.”

  “Don’t these guys have anyt
hing better to do?” Patrick mutters.

  I hold my breath as the car turns out of the lot. I can picture the paparazzi out there, with their long black telephoto lenses and their cigarettes and cups of gas station coffee. They were the first thing I saw when I pulled out of my driveway this morning. They’d followed us to the drive-thru at Starbucks, then finally camped outside our school. Fifteen photographers, shouting my name whenever they saw me. Which, I smile to myself, is not right now.

  “Okay, we’re out,” Patrick says. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s following.”

  “Benny, did you turn off your phone?” I ask, my voice panicked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Um. MetaReel tracking us with GPS?”

  “Shit. It’s like, it’s in my…” Benny struggles to get it out of his back pocket. He bangs his elbow against the door. “Ow. Okay, got it. Off.” He rolls his eyes, and I nod as if to say, Yeah, I know.

  Patrick does something with the radio and then old-school Weezer comes on—the song, “Island in the Sun,” is the perfect soundtrack for our little adventure: We’ll run away together.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  Patrick risks a look back at me and smiles. “Where do you want to go?”

  It doesn’t take me too long to think of a first stop. “Can we get Pepsi Freezes?”

  “Your wish is my command,” he says, turning onto Summit Avenue.

  “Side note: I love Pepsi Freezes almost as much as I love Matt,” says Benny.

  “Excuse me?” Matt turns his burly Abercrombie-esque body around. “Pepsi Freezes are not about to frolic with you in a media shit storm, Benton™ Andrew Baker.”

  I’ve never heard them be so open about their relationship with anyone but me. It’s beautiful and disorienting, and I’m just going to burst with how amazing this day is becoming.

  “Yo! Turn around! You have to keep up appearances,” Benny says, shooing at Matt with his hands. “Remember, two members of the Baker family are not lying in extremely uncomfortable positions in the backseat of a pseudoanarchist’s car right now.”

  “Pseudo?” Patrick says. “I resent you pseudo-ifying me.”

  “Oh, you’ve been … whatever you just said,” Benny says.