Tragedy Girl - Christine Hurley Deriso Page 0,8

snorts. “Yeah. Then I climbed Mount Everest and cured cancer. Just crossing off the ol’ bucket list, one item after the other.”

“Ask him out,” I scold. “Seeing as you’re officially friendless since I left town, it’s time you broadened your horizons.”

We laugh some more, then I nibble a fingernail. “So there’s a guy at my school … ” I say slowly.

Sawyer sucks in his breath. “Oh god. You’re mentioning a guy on the second day of school?”

“It’s nothing,” I insist, squeezing my eyes shut and wondering why in the world I brought this up. “I barely even know him. His locker is next to mine, and we chatted a few minutes this morning, and … ”

“ … and you’re in love?”

I roll my eyes and tsk at Sawyer. “He’s just really … sad. He had cancer when he was younger, and his girlfriend died over the summer … ”

“Wow. You squeeze in a lot of chit-chat at your locker.”

“No, no,” I say, waving a hand through the air. “I just learned a few things about him from other people. But really, isn’t that sad?”

“Mmmmm. How did his girlfriend die?”

“Drowned,” I reply in an appropriately reverent tone. “And he was there. He tried to save her, but he couldn’t.”

Sawyer pauses, then says, “Hey, E?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking you need to take things kinda slow. You’ve been through a lot lately.”

Okay, that was annoying.

“I was just mentioning an interesting person I happened to meet,” I say in a tight voice.

“C’mon, E, don’t get pissed,” he cajoles. “And don’t pretend there’s not some vibe going with this guy. This is me you’re talking to. If you just happen to drop one into a conversation on the second day of school, then—”

“Oh my gosh! Wouldn’t you consider it a little conversation-worthy if you met somebody whose girlfriend just died tragically?”

Sawyer is silent for a moment, then says, “Don’t try to be somebody’s savior right now, E. You need some time to get steady on your feet again.”

I thrum my fingers against my bedspread. “You know what’s weird? My Aunt Meg wants me to see some therapist. If only she knew that you were already covering that base.”

Sawyer laughs gamely. “Go ahead and project all your frustrations onto me,” he says. “I can take it.” But then his voice is somber again:

“Just be careful.”

Five

“Not again.”

I laugh lightly. “This is starting to seem personal.”

Blake has accidentally bonked my shoulder with his locker door every day this week, and now that it’s Friday, the joke has become shorthand.

“Time to take out a restraining order?” I ask.

“Time to sue the locker manufacturer,” he replies.

“It would be nice to get through one day of school without bodily injury.”

Blake steps in front of me. “Tell ya what: slug me back. Come on, I can take it.”

I simulate punching him, and he reels comically.

“Okay,” he says, his dark blue eyes sparkling. “We’re even now.”

“We’re even when I say we’re even,” I say, feigning another punch.

He winces, then leans in closer. “I’ve got an idea,” he says, his voice low. “Let me make it up to you.”

I study his dark blue eyes, stalling for time. Am I reading him right? Yes, this would clearly qualify as flirting from any other guy, a guy whose girlfriend hadn’t died just a few months earlier. I’m not sure what to think.

“How?” I ask tentatively.

He offers a hint of a smile. “The school’s having some lame kickoff party for football season tonight,” he says. “Come with me?”

Oh. I guess I was reading him right.

“Um … ” I say, still stalling as I press the wedding rings under my shirt against my chest. “I think I kinda made plans to go with my friends … ”

Friends. Do Melanie and Lauren count as friends yet? Does Blake’s invitation count as a date? I lived in the same house my whole life before my parents died; I never had to wonder where I stood about anything. Now, suddenly, everything seems vague, ambiguous, rife with the potential for embarrassing misinterpretations.

“Melanie and Lauren?” Blake asks, and I nod. I guess he’s seen us sitting together at the lunch table all week.

“So maybe we can all go together ?” he ventures, cocking his head a bit to the side, a gesture that somehow disarms me by making him look little-boyish. Little-boyish in a tall, incredibly cute kind of way.

“My friend Jamie is coming too, and maybe my brother,” he continues. “So, you know, we could go as a group … ?”

“Um … ”

“Just