The Code for Love and Heartbreak - Jillian Cantor Page 0,2
empty, and I sigh a little, thinking about Izzy on another coast, basking in her sunshine. With the three-hour time difference, I wonder if she’s even had lunch yet.
“You want to come in?” George asks, as if he’s contemplating the same thing I am. “We can order a pizza. Brainstorm some more.”
I’m about to say no, because George and I don’t usually hang out outside of school. Last year I would’ve gone home on Friday night after coding club, boiled pasta with Izzy and argued over what to watch on Netflix until Dad got home and then Izzy and John would go out to see a movie and I’d go up to my room to work on coding or homework. Until this year, Izzy was not only my sister, but also my friend, my escape and my best excuse. I never had to worry about who to talk to or what to do or where to go on weekends, because I had her. I didn’t need anyone else.
But this first week of school, going home every night to a dark, empty house—the quiet has unnerved me, and even working through my calculus equations and practicing piano hasn’t calmed me down. I wonder if George has felt it, too? I wonder if, unlike me, he has other friends, other people he hangs out with aside from John. But maybe that’s not the same? And now, with our siblings on another coast and our workaholic parents always at work, George and I have something besides school and coding club in common: we’re both stranded here in Highbury for one more year, just waiting for our real lives to begin.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” I finally say. “I like pizza.” And I turn off the car and follow George inside his house.
* * *
I’ve only been inside George’s house a few other times before, most recently for John’s graduation party last June, which Izzy forced me to attend with her. Then, the house was packed with people I either didn’t know or didn’t like, and they all talked so much and so loud it made my head hurt. I’d told Izzy I was getting a migraine and had taken the car and left after an hour.
But now, the inside is so quiet I can hear the dull buzz of the refrigerator, and hum of the A/C unit as I step inside. It reminds me oddly of the art museum in here: there’s a large antique grandfather clock in the entryway, a formal glass dining set to my right and, to my left, a very formal living room with a large oriental rug, and expensive-looking velour-lined couches. In contrast, our house is what Dad refers to as “lived-in.” We still have the same blue reclining couch and love seat in our living room that Mom picked out before she died, and even though they’re worn, I don’t think Dad will ever get rid of them. Which is fine with me.
I’m afraid to touch anything, and I stand very still as George takes out his phone and orders a large pizza from Giuseppe’s: half mushroom and olive for me, half pepperoni for him. He knows my pizza preference without asking, from all the times we stayed late at coding club last year and ordered pizza in, and he never fails to make a face when he orders it, or comment on how mushrooms and olives only ruin a good pizza, while his pepperoni enhances it. He does it now, too. I shrug, and say, “Agree to disagree, George. Agree to disagree.” He shakes his head and shoots me a funny smile. I’ve been a vegetarian since sixth grade when I accidentally watched a documentary on slaughterhouses on the Discovery channel, and that happened to be the year George and I first met, too, the first year of middle school.
George finishes ordering and offers me a seat at the kitchen table, which is slightly less formal than the rest of the house: just a plain oak table, much like the one in our kitchen at home. He gets us two glasses of water and hands one to me. I gulp mine down, not even realizing how thirsty I was. George refills it for me at the fridge, and then sits down at the table with me.
“It really is way too hot today. And I was only half kidding about solving global warming,” George says, pausing to drink his own water.