“That was Earl.” He motions to a large object he is carrying on his back.
“Earl?”
“My guitar,” he says.
“Your guitar is named Earl?” I ask, which is probably the least relevant question to the matter at hand. I should have asked for some ice or a bag of frozen peas, at the very least a Tylenol. I can already feel a lump forming.
“Yup. Are you sure you’re okay? I whacked you hard.”
“I’ll live.” He puts out his hand and helps me stand up, and I find I’m more stable on my feet than I would have guessed.
“I’m really sorry. Totally my fault.” He pockets his phone—maybe he was walking and texting too?—and puts his guitar down against one of the stacks. There’s a WHVS sticker on his case. Ah, now I place him. Of course. He was witness to my very first, but not last, Wood Valley humiliation. The guy who interned at Google and traveled around India. He looks different in this context.
“Just thought of some lyrics and wanted to get them down before I forgot.”
“Wait, you’re Liam, right?” I ask.
“That depends on whether you’re planning to sue me,” he says. Now that I’ve put two and two together, I can see his mother in his face. The same generous grin. I wonder what kind of music his band plays. I bet it’s something folksy, and that they’re not half bad. Surely he should practice more.
“Nope.” I smile.
“Well then, what can I do for you? I clearly owe you one.”
I hear Scar loud and clear in my head: Be undeniable. And so I am.
—
“I got a job!” I announce when I get back to Rachel’s later. I’m so excited that I have to tell someone, even if that someone is my disinterested stepbrother, who would never lower himself to do something as mundane as work. I find him on his bed, playing with his laptop. “And before you throw another fit, it’s not at Ralph’s. It’s a place you and your friends will never, ever go. So don’t you worry.”
“I’ve never seen you so animated. It’s kind of adorable,” Theo says. “So where will I never ever go? Oh wait, let me guess.”
He puts down his laptop and puts his hands to his head, as if he’s thinking very hard.
“KFC?”
“Nope.”
“The batting cages?”
“Nope. But I like this game.”
“The ridiculously delicious pretzel place.”
“Not even close.”
Rachel sticks her head in the door, and I feel that squeeze in my stomach that always accompanies an interaction with her. I’m smart enough to know it’s not really her fault, that my feelings toward her probably have little to do with the reality of who she is, but still, I can’t help it. I don’t want to know her, don’t want this random person my father has inexplicably chosen to marry to be an integral part of my life.
“What happened? I heard happy squeals!” she says. She can’t help herself; she looks from Theo to me and me to Theo, and her smile is so emphatic that I can see the fillings in the back of her mouth. She is almost thinking out loud: Maybe this whole thing will work after all.
“Nothing,” I say, and when her face falls, I feel guilty. I don’t mean to cut her down, but I just don’t have it in me to give her this. To hand over the one good thing that has happened since I moved here.
“Sorry. I’ll leave you guys to it!” she says, as always too loud, and continues down the hall. I wonder if I’ll hear about this later from my dad, if she’ll tell him that I was rude and he’ll ask me to be nicer.
I should be nicer.
“All right, I give up. Tell your big brother,” Theo says, not at all seeming to notice how I talked to his mother, or maybe not much caring.
“Ew, that sounds so wrong.”
“I know, right? Okay, so where?”
“Book Out Below! You know, the bookstore?”
“Ah, how appropriate. But I actually have been there, if you must know. I am highly literate.”
“I’m sure you are,” I say, which is the truth. Theo recently beat me on a physics quiz, even though I know for a fact he didn’t study the night before. The kid is smart. It seems, with the possible exception of Tweedledee and Tweedledumber, everyone at Wood Valley is smart, or at least motivated. Here it’s cool to try, which is funny, because trying is why I wasn’t particularly cool in Chicago. By the transitive property