You Say It First - Katie Cotugno Page 0,31
tell her friends when they were being sort of dickish for fear of starting an argument. The one who held a little bit of herself back all the time.
Except, of course, with Colby.
Who she couldn’t even properly defend.
“I’ve gotta go to my locker,” she said, slinging her backpack up over her shoulder and feeling like the worst kind of coward. “Congrats again, Mase.”
“Thanks, dude!” he called back, all boy-king smiles. Meg closed her eyes.
Her car was six weeks overdue for its inspection—her dad always used to take care of that stuff, back when her parents were together, and she and her mom weren’t great about remembering—and the following week Meg finally got her act together and dropped it off at the mechanic, which meant she had to walk home from school after seventh period. Normally, she would have gotten a ride with Emily, but Emily had a dentist appointment and had taken off early that afternoon, on top of which Meg had gotten an acceptance letter and scholarship offer from Temple the other day, which meant Emily had been on her all week to call Cornell and find out why she hadn’t heard from them yet. “How are you not freaking out about this?” she’d asked Meg today, over lunch at the hipster salad place. Meg had shoved a forkful of arugula into her mouth and mumbled something about rolling admissions.
The whole thing was ridiculous; it was beyond ridiculous, really.
But that didn’t mean Meg had any idea what to do about it.
She was only about half a block from school when a car pulled up beside her, its driver honking the horn a little obnoxiously. When she turned, she saw it was Mason in his bright orange Forester. “Hey,” he said, rolling down the passenger-side window. “You need a ride?”
Meg blinked at him for a second, remembering all at once why she’d fallen for him in the first place, with his messy black hair and his million different podcast subscriptions and his one crooked canine tooth because he hadn’t worn his retainer after he got his braces off. Still, as she stood there in the afternoon sunlight she was surprised to realize she could remember the not-so-good things now, too: how annoyingly competitive the two of them got about grades in the classes they shared with each other, and how he could be a little bit of a snob. Maybe Emily was right: maybe it hadn’t actually been a love connection to begin with. If given the choice, Meg thought for the first time since he’d broken up with her outside Cavelli’s, she didn’t actually think she’d want Mason back.
Still, it wasn’t exactly like she was looking forward to hoofing it all the way home, so she opened the door and settled herself in the passenger seat. “Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”
“So what’s up with you, hm?” Mason asked as he pulled out into traffic. The car smelled the same: like the inside of a Starbucks. On the stereo was Fleet Foxes, who they’d seen last year downtown. A half-eaten PowerBar she’d bought and forgotten about before spring break still nestled in the door niche on the passenger side. It was weird to think that PowerBar had outlasted their relationship. “I feel like we haven’t talked in a while.”
That’s kind of the point of breaking up with someone, right? Meg thought but didn’t say. “Just been busy, I guess.”
Mason nodded. “Avery keeps asking about you,” he confessed. Avery was Mason’s little sister, a viola player with a mouth full of braces who, improbably, had become one of the most popular girls in her grade by writing excessively overwrought fanfiction about a series of fantasy books that none of her classmates could get enough of.
“Aww,” Meg said. “Tell her I miss her, too.”
Outside her house the lawn was still winter scrubby, last fall’s dead leaves clogging up the gutters. One shutter on the upstairs window was coming loose. The garbage cans had blown over in the driveway, rolling back and forth a bit like a pair of athletes injured on the field. Meg glanced over at Mason, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“Yeah, no problem.” Mason took a deep breath, long fingers curling around the steering wheel like he was gathering his courage. “Listen, Meg,” he said, the words coming out in such a rush they nearly jumbled together. “You’re, like . . . good, right?”
Meg laughed a little, not entirely sure what he was getting at. “Yeah,