He’s exasperated. “So why didn’t you tell them? Jeez, Lola. What if something happened to you? No one would know where you were!”
“I told Lindsey I was here.” Well, I told her later. I push the Parmesan shaker away. “You know, you’re starting to sound like my parents.”
Cricket hangs his head and runs his hands through his dark hair. When he looks up again, it’s sticking up even taller and crazier than usual. He stands. “Come on.”
“What?”
“You have to go home.”
“I’m eating. You’re eating.”
“You can’t be here, Lola. I have to take you home.”
“I don’t believe it.You’re serious?”
“YES. I’m not having this on my . . . permanent record.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means if your parents find out you’ve been here without their permission, they won’t like me very much.”
Now I stand. He’s nearly a foot taller, but I try to make him feel as small as possible. “And why are you so concerned about my parents liking you? Is it necessary to remind you—AGAIN—that I have a boyfriend?”
The words are cruel, and I’m horrified as soon as they leave my mouth. Cricket’s blue eyes become startlingly angry. “Then why are you here?”
I’m panicking. “Because you offered to help me.”
“I was helping you, and then you just showed up. In my bedroom! You knew I was coming back next weekend—”
“You didn’t come back last weekend!”
“And now I require your permission to go somewhere? Do you take pleasure in knowing I’m over there . . . pining for you?”
I throw my half-finished slice in the trash and flee. As always, he’s on my heels. He grabs me. “Lola, wait. I don’t know what I’m saying, this conversation is moving too fast. Let’s try again.”
I yank my arm from his grasp and resume my race toward the train station. He’s beside every stride. “I’m going home, Cricket. Like you told me to.”
“Please don’t go.” He’s desperate. “Not like this.”
“You can’t have it both ways, don’t you get it?” I jerk to a halt and sway. I’m talking to myself, not to Cricket.
“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying so hard.”
The words shatter my heart. “Yeah,” I say. “Well. Me, too.”
Confusion.
And then . . . “You’re trying? Are you trying in the same way as me?” His words rush out, toppling over each other.
Life would be so much easier if I could say that I’m not interested, that he stands no chance with me. But something about the way Cricket Bell is looking at me—like nothing has ever mattered more to him than my answer—means that I can only speak the truth. “I don’t know. Okay? I look at you, and I think about you, and . . . I don’t know. No one has ever so completely confounded me the way you do.”
His difficult equation face. “So what does that mean?”
“It means we’re right back where we started. And I’m back at the train station. So I’m leaving now.”
“I’ll go with you—”
“No. You won’t.”