driver calls, “You guys waiting for a Lyft? Last name McGintee?”
“Yes!” May darts away. I watch her go, trying to pull myself together before I follow her to the car.
* * *
—
The next morning, I wake early. Normally on Saturdays I sleep until at least ten, but this morning all I want to do is lie here in bed and think about last night. Some people (Conor) might call it obsessing, but I feel like hanging out with May shifted something inside me. I spent so long turning myself off in every way possible, letting people like Matt control me. I feel alive for the first time in months. I even got the courage to ask for her number before the Lyft dropped her off last night, and I’m way too proud of myself for it.
I pull my phone off my bedside table and see that it’s seven a.m. Before I can think better of it, before I can consider that it’s still practically the middle of the night, I type out a quick text to May and hit send.
What’re you up to later?
I refuse to think that she didn’t feel what I felt last night.
I don’t care if she thinks she’s broken.
I know she’s not.
I wake up at the butt crack of dawn. I always do now. Sleep and I don’t get along, not anymore.
My nightmares last night weren’t as vivid as they are sometimes, plotwise. Instead they left a trail of colors in my mind—reds and reds and more reds.
And after the colors have started to fade, my first conscious thought of the morning enters my head: Jordan would have liked Zach.
I don’t know where it comes from. It’s stupid. Not just for me, for Zach. I could tell, standing there on the street waiting for the car to come, that something was happening between us, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. That’s what I told myself, over and over, last night on the way home: I don’t care.
And now this thought, straight from my traitorous brain.
I grab my phone to see what ungodly hour it is, and a text from Zach pops up. I throw the phone back on my bed like it burned me. What is he, psychic? I cover my eyes with my hands, and a few minutes later, when I peek out, the text is still there. It hasn’t magically disappeared, which is really just rude of it.
Crap.
A second later, a (2) pops up next to Zach’s name. Another text. This is getting out of hand. To stop my phone from buzzing again, I read them.
The first message asks what I’m doing tonight, and the second apologizes for sending the first one so early.
I sigh, click to my Instagram, and see he’s sent a request to follow me. Jesus. He’s all up in my business this morning. There’s not much to see on my account—I deleted all the dumb pictures I had posted over the last couple years of me and Chim and Miles partying together, leaving behind a few relics of Lucy playing the drums and Jordan playing the guitar. I can’t help myself, though; I accept Zach and then click on his name and see that his page isn’t private (who doesn’t have a private account? Creeps, celebrities, and Zach, apparently). He hasn’t posted many photos recently, but when I scroll down to his posts from last year, it’s like the page of a very different person. There are pictures of him and Matt; him at Conor’s shows hanging with the band; him with that girl I keep seeing with the band, kissing her on the cheek and making goofy faces. (Excuse me? Who is this girl?) In all of them, he’s…happy. His smile doesn’t have that sadness around its edges that it does now. A sadness most people would miss but that I recognize because I’ve seen it in the mirror, on my own face.
Goddammit. Now I feel sorry for the guy. It really isn’t his fault that his mom is such an asshole. He doesn’t deserve everyone’s hatred. It’s not