Being Friends With Boys (26 page)

We step up to order our burgers and some fries to share. There are too many toppings on this menu, so I stick to the basics: onions, tomato, lettuce, and cheese. And then, at the last second, I remember no onions. Because probably we are going to kiss.

As we take our seats, Benji’s eyebrows toggle up and down. “Big slice of meat, eh?”

Which makes me laugh, for real.

While we wait for our food, and then after it arrives, we talk nonstop. About music, our families, people at school. I find out that he, like me, has a sister who’s in college, though his is older than Jilly. He tells me about the book he’s reading. I tell him about writing songs. We keep talking on the way to the movie, the jokes and the back-and-forth continue, and as we walk up to the theater, I link my arm through his again. A group of people from school are coming out of an earlier showing, and when we see them we wave. All of it is perfect, in every way.

Until we step up for our tickets, and I reach for my wallet. Benji puts a hand out to stop me.

“You paid for dinner,” I protest.

“I got this.” He frowns, like I’ve insulted him.

I want to tell him he’s being stubborn and stupid, but instead I say, “Thank you,” both of us awkward again.

We decide to skip snacks. Taking our seats, Lish’s squealy voice careens through my head, but I squash it. While I’m kind of excited, the brief formality of getting our tickets makes me realize there’s no going back to being just friends after this. Even if Benji’s the type who can be friends with his exes, there will never not have been this between us. I will never be able to see him and not think,
I kissed that mouth. He put his hands
— But at the same time, I’m not totally sure I don’t want to find out what kissing him is like, whether it kills the Oliver rumor or not.

As the movie starts, I push my hesitation aside and execute proper I Like You behavior: leaving my arm conveniently on the armrest between us, my hand dangling down so that it’s almost touching his knee. When the movie gets intense, I let my fingers clutch at his sleeve. Eventually his hand is entwined in mine, and then our palms are pressed together—warm and close.

But we don’t kiss. After what I heard at lunch today, I’m pretty surprised, actually. I don’t know if it’s because we both get into the movie, or because Benji’s nervous too, or because he doesn’t want to kiss me, or what, but it doesn’t happen.

“So . . . it was funny, right?” he asks in the car back to my house.

I look at him. “You mean the part where he realized his best friend killed his dad? Or the part where his girlfriend drowned?”

He frowns. “Well, not those parts. But . . . you know . . .”

I don’t.

“It wasn’t anything like the comic,” he tries again.

“I didn’t know it was a comic,” I admit.

So he dissects the differences between the two for me. While he talks, I nod as though he’s right, even though I don’t really read comics.

“I thought the fight scene at the end was cool,” I say when he’s done.

We are both polite, considerate of each other’s points of view.
We are both afraid to make the other think we might be laugh-ing—in the wrong way—at anything the other one says. It’s a completely different dynamic, and it makes me realize that kissing him is probably not worth it if it turns us into
this
.

By the time we make it back to my house, I feel like this was a bad idea. But leaping out of the car at this point probably wouldn’t improve anything.

I touch the top of his sleeve. “Thank you for everything.”

“You going to the Masquerade tomorrow night?” he wants to know.

I nod. But then I remember Dad. “Unless I’m grounded for the rest of my life.”

“Report card?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “Though you saved my Twentieth Cen. grade, that’s for sure. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

And I do mean it. Mean it so much that when he says, soft brown eyes focused directly on my lips, “You’re welcome,” I’m suddenly not afraid of what will happen.

He moves close enough for me to lean in too. Our mouths meet. And it doesn’t feel at all awkward or fake. His lips are half parted, and mine don’t land quite squarely on his at first, but it’s sweet. There’s some pecking, a poke or two of tongue. Nice.

“I’ll text you,” I say, pulling back and trying to sound normal, “about Masquerade. It’d be great if we could go.”

There’s an expression on his face that I can’t read. “Sure.”

“I’m glad we did this,” I tell him.

“My pleasure,” he says softly.

And because I don’t know what else to do, I get out of the car.

Though my date with Benji was confusing, there’s nothing unclear about Dad’s disappointment down in the kitchen the next morning.

“So,” he says, lowering the screen of his laptop.

I pour a bowl of Corn Pops at the counter. I’m not hungry, but I want to keep my back to him. I know my grades are bad. I don’t need his disapproval on top of it.

“Just say what it is you have to say, Dad,” I grumble.

“Well, obviously I’m not pleased with the report card you brought home yesterday.”

I lean against the counter, facing him, decide I’ll eat my Corn Pops standing up.

“And I think it’s plain that you’re not spending enough time or energy on your studies,” he goes on.

“I’ve had practice. You never got on to Jilly about that kind of thing.”

“That’s because Jilly never let her after-school activities interfere with her grades.” He frowns at the table. “I’ve tried to be supportive. But obviously you’ve let things slip.”

The calm, slow way he handles everything is maddening.

“It’s not like I decided to, Dad. I just lost track. I’ve had a lot going on.”

“I understand that you have. Hannah and I can hardly keep up with all the fellows lately. Which is why you obviously need us to step in now and reduce the number of things you’re involved in.”

The tiny amount of sarcasm he uses when he says “fellows” like that just sends me over the edge. I see my life the way he and Hannah must: three afternoons a week at Oliver’s house, plus long phone calls with Trip, and then Fabian showing up with rides home and what they could only interpret as Saturday-night dates. And now this business with Benji. That Dad thinks, like everyone else, I’m
dating
all these boys—that not even my own father understands it isn’t like that—well, it makes me furious.

But because screaming is Jilly’s jurisdiction, I try to start out as calm as him.

“Maybe I am distracted, Dad.” I breathe through my nose. “But it isn’t like you think. The rehearsal I have this afternoon? That I’m going to no matter what you say? It’s with
girls
. Girls who think I’m cool. And did you even know that I’m singing with Sad Jackal now?”

His face is surprised, but I don’t pause.

“No, you didn’t. Because you were too busy counting how many guys were coming in and out of here to pay attention to your own daughter. Well, I am. I’m singing. Me. So yeah, I’m a
little distracted—I’m distracted doing something I love, something I want to do more of.”

“And we support that. Just not at the demise of your other—”

“I’m never going to be good in school!” I shout. “It’s not my friends that are the problem; it’s that I’m just not
Jilly
.”

“That’s a silly card to try to play right now, don’t you think?”

His being right makes my anger even more uncontrollable.

“This is something I’m good at,” I holler, on the verge of tears. “And I’m not going to let you keep me from doing it. I’m not going to let you hold me back, the way you held back Mom.”

It’s like somebody turns all the sound off in the room. I can’t hear the coffee machine, the hum of the refrigerator—nothing. My eyes can’t make themselves blink.

But then Dad clears his throat and the ability to move returns to us. He looks down at his hands, now both flat on the table. “I wasn’t aware that was how you felt.”

I wasn’t aware that was how I felt, either, until it was out. And now that I’ve said it like that, I’m not exactly sure it is how I feel. But this isn’t a piece of paper I can crumple up and throw away. They aren’t words I can cross out to start over. Now they’re out, and I know they’ll hang here, between us, maybe forever.

“Taryn and Sylvia want me to come over at two,” I say. “They can come get me if I can’t have the car. And if, you know, I can still go.”

“Have you checked with Gretchen?” he asks, still looking at his hands.

“No, but I can.”

“If you two can work something out, it’s fine.”

“Dad—”

He lifts the edges of his fingertips, just barely, to stop me. “I think we should be done talking to each other for right now.”

Which is worse than the yelling. Worse than getting privileges taken away. Worse than anything. If he would just let me say I’m sorry . . .

But he won’t look at me. So I walk out of the kitchen, upstairs, to see if Gretchen’s awake yet. I leave my cereal bowl on the counter. I’ll clean up the soggy remnants later, when I know Dad has left.

Gretchen’s still asleep, though, and who knows when she’ll get up. I go ahead and call Taryn, ask her for a ride to rehearsal.

Since there’s time to kill before she arrives, I think about texting Benji, but Darby would probably tell me that I’m supposed to make him text me first. The thought of him, last night, both the yes and the no of it . . . I decide to examine the wreckage of my schoolwork instead. I pull out my folders, all the random assignment sheets and notes, and start to make a list of what I need to make up, what’s coming next week, and what it’s too late
to really do much about. While I’m doing this, I hear Dad and Hannah talking downstairs, and then him leaving for his clients. I pause, frozen at my desk, to see if he hollers up the stairs to say good-bye, but he doesn’t.

It’s not until almost three fifteen when the doorbell rings. I’ve brought my psych reading downstairs, so I can be ready as soon as my ride arrives, but it’s been hard to concentrate, checking my phone every few minutes to see if anyone’s called or texted—even though they haven’t—not Taryn, about being late, and also still no Benji, which bums me out more than I expect.

When I open the door, it’s Sylvia.

“Sorry,” she says, only half sounding it. “Taryn didn’t tell me you needed a ride until I was on the way back from the farmers’ market. And her directions weren’t exactly the best.”

It’s annoying, but I can see Sylvia already feels that way. “It’s okay. I had homework anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a paper too,” she says.

As we drive through Decatur and over toward Emory I ask her what she’s working on, the classes she’s in. I’ve never heard of sociology before, but by the time we get back to their house she’s told me enough to make me curious. It might be something I’ll want to take, if I can get in anywhere. I help Sylvia with her grocery bags, and when we go inside, there’s an amazing smell
coming from the kitchen. Taryn, their roommate Veronica, and Freckle Face from the other day are in there, talking. Taryn’s in a ruffled apron, bending over the open oven.

“Perfect timing!” she says, pulling out a tin of blueberry muffins.

“Those smell fantastic,” I say.

“I thought we didn’t have any food.” Sylvia holds up the grocery bags.

“I found some blueberries in the freezer!” Taryn chirps.

“Great,” Sylvia grumbles, unloading her bags.

Taryn puts the muffins on a plate, and we take them downstairs to eat while we practice.

“Let’s start with the stuff we sang Wednesday,” Sylvia says, picking up her guitar. “So at least we have that down.”

“I found that new one, though,” Taryn says. “Wait, let me get the CD.” She runs back up the stairs. We can hear her bouncing all the way to the second floor.

“Super,” Sylvia says under her breath.

“Do you not want to do it?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Tee just gets excitable sometimes.”

Taryn comes pounding back down, waving pages over her head.

“Lyrics.” She pats me on the head. I see that this is a song I actually know.

But I don’t want Sylvia in a bad mood during practice.

“What if we do one from the other day first,” I try, glancing at Sylvia, “to warm up?”

Taryn pokes out her lips for a second. But then, just like that, she grins. “Okay!”

The bagpipes from Taryn’s synth begin. Veronica and Freckle Face come down to listen, parking themselves on the couch and tucking their legs underneath them.

I lean forward, start.

For the most part, it goes pretty well. Before we can do it again, though, a phone starts bleeping from the big glass coffee table. Taryn lunges for it.

“Sorry, I just . . .”

She looks at the screen, holds it so Sylvia can see. “It’s Erin. I really need to take this but just for a sec, I promise.” She doesn’t even wait for Sylvia or me to answer, just presses something and says, “Hey,” real quiet. We watch as she puts her finger to her other ear, goes up the steps.