My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,43
current plan. Possibly junior college in the next year or two, if I can swing it. I’ll be working so it might be tough. My schedule changes every week,” I tell him. I don’t want to share that I also probably can’t afford it. I’ve heard all the scholarship talks from the counselors, but I know my dad is counting on the extra money I will bring in once I can bump up to full time.
Mr. Vaughn’s face falls. He sees through my bullshit. “You show a lot of promise, Hank. You should stick with your studies.”
Nobody has ever told me that before.
He gives Peyton the stack of papers and sighs deeply. “All right. Back to the unruly masses. We’re bound to be missed. Me especially.” We all laugh at that. “Hey, you by chance have an extra stick of that gum?”
Peyton roots out the pack and hands him one. He pops it in his mouth, salutes, and says, “Thanks. I’ll let you two lovebirds finish your moment. Sorry to interrupt.”
My jaw involuntarily drops and I want to insist that it’s not like that—we’re not making out or even thinking about exchanging bodily fluids of any sort—but his back is already to us.
“I guess we looked like a couple,” she says.
“Yeah, well, he was high. Now we know why he’s always asking kids to bring him cheeseburgers if they ditch, right?”
We stand up, and she kicks at the rear tire of Jergensen’s car with the graffitied toe of her Converse high-tops and says, “Would that have been such a crazy thing?”
“What?”
“If we were a couple.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She straightens and digs her hands in her pockets. “You basically did. I mean, you said he thought we looked like a couple because he was high, as if the idea was completely ridiculous.”
It is, but because I can’t imagine what she would want with a guy like me. She should be with someone who can take her to nice places, make her laugh, and give her gifts to show her she’s special. I can’t offer her a damn thing.
“It’s not that. It’s just…now there’s this thing going on between you and Nick. He’s my friend.” My hands start to get clammy. It’s weird to be talking about this kind of stuff with her.
She casts her gaze toward the doors where everyone is filing back into the school. “You’re right.”
“So…it’s working out between you guys then?”
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“He’s a decent guy. You can’t really do much better than him.”
She raises her eyebrows and cocks her jaw. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I realize how that sounds. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t do any better. I merely meant he’s a stand-up guy. You two are good together is all.”
She hugs my comic to her chest and stares at me. “You think?” I can’t read her expression. She deserves someone who has his shit together, someone with options in his life who can make her happy. Someone like Nick.
The way she keeps looking at me makes me start to feel dizzy. It’s probably the secondhand smoke, but for a moment, I can see past her frizzy hair and baggy clothes straight to her soul, and I swear she’s so beautiful. Here we are, only a few inches separating us, and all I want to do is lean over and kiss her. I wonder if she’d push me away. I don’t even know why I’m thinking crazy like that.
It’s as if she can read my mind because she takes a step closer to me. It would be so easy to kiss her, but Nick likes her, and that would be a shitty thing to do. So I clear my throat and step back, saying, “So, um, earlier. What did you mean when you said you were in the hospital?”
She faces away and doesn’t answer me.
“Were you sick or something? Was it serious?”
“Forget I said that. It was nothing.”
“How can it be nothing if you were in a hospital?”
She pulls at a loose thread on her shirt. “I did something stupid, and I had to stay there for a little while until I got better. It’s not that big a deal. I don’t really want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay.” I’ve definitely hit a nerve. I can tell that pressing her is only going to upset her. I shift topics despite having a million questions. “Oh, guess what? I made the cut on that Amanda thing. Turns out I had the right answers. Who knew?”
Our moment, whatever