Complete Nothing (4 page)

“Don’t bother. I’m used to it,” I told Peter, rolling my eyes with a smile. Nothing was going to bring me down today. Not even Lester’s relentless mocking of me and my boring life and straight As. After almost a year and a half of being Peter’s girlfriend, I
was
used to it. And besides, today was the big day. I was going to find out if I’d gotten the audition at the Lafayette School of Dance. I was so excited I’d had to use the bathroom between every single class. If I got that audition, my future was practically set. Then we’d just have to figure out Peter’s.

“Are you ready for your meeting with Mr. Garvey tomorrow?” I asked him.

His leg started bouncing under the table, just like it always did whenever the subject of college came up.

“Um, yeah. I think so.” He fiddled with the straw in his soda cup.

“Did you fill out the general application?” I asked. “Because if you want, I can come over after ballet and help you with it.”

“What’re you, his mom?” Lester asked.

Gavin kicked him under the table. We heard the pop, and then Lester bent over, rubbing his shin.

“It’s cool. I got it,” Peter said.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because he said he wanted you to have it done before you met. It’s no problem if you want me to—”

“I said, I’ve got it,” Peter snapped.

I looked down at my salad, feeling as if I’d been slapped. Every time I offered to help Peter with his applications or his school search, he got tense with me. I just didn’t get it. Didn’t he understand that I was trying to help? That I wanted to be part of his decision and his future? I loved him and I wanted him to have the life he deserved, but it seemed like he didn’t want me involved. At all.

Maybe he didn’t feel the same way about me as I felt about him.

“So, what does a booster do, exactly?” Orion asked me, putting his phone away. I could have kissed him for breaking the awkward silence. Except then Peter would have pounded him. Except, then again, maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, I decided it was safer to spear a cucumber slice with my fork. Peter, meanwhile, wolfed down another slice of sausage pizza as if nothing had happened.

“We basically make you feel like a superstar,” I explained, and Orion grinned. “I’m sorry you got stuck with that klepto, though. What was she even doing in the bleachers during practice? Stalking you?”

Orion shrugged and glanced out the window at the packed parking lot. “I don’t know, I kinda like her. Did you know that she randomly kissed me this morning? Out of nowhere?”

My jaw dropped. “See? Freak!”

Orion laughed and blushed, reaching for a pizza slice. I wished him luck with that one. What kind of person just takes something out of your bag when you don’t even know them? And then she didn’t apologize when I confronted her about it. Weird.

I finished off my water and checked my watch. After our awkward moment, I was longing for some fresh air. And besides, the sooner I got to the Studio, the sooner I’d find out my fate.

“Do you mind if we head out?” I asked Peter. “I’m dying to get over there.” A shadow crossed his face, and my heart stopped once more. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Yeah, no problem,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I turned to Lester, who was, as always, oblivious to what was going on around him.

“Excuse me?” I said politely, lifting my bag off the floor.

“What?” he asked.

“Dude! Move!” Peter ordered.

Lester instantly shot up. “You guys’re leaving already? What’s up?”

“Claudia has to get to class, and I gotta pick up Michelle,” Peter said, dropping a few dollars on the table.

“You are such an old married couple, picking up the kid and running errands,” Lester groaned. “What’s next, grocery shopping? Are you guys gonna watch HGTV tonight, then not have sex and go to bed?”

“We’re not
your
parents,” I joked.

“Oh!” Peter and Gavin shouted, high-fiving. Then Peter raised his hand for me to slap as well. Just like that, the tension lifted. The moments when I felt like I belonged among Peter’s friends were few and far between, but when they happened, I reveled in them. I think Peter kind of did too.

“Burn!” Peter shouted in Lester’s face.

We turned and headed out the door, and I suddenly couldn’t stop smiling. Whatever had gone wrong between us back there, I’d set it right. Now I just had to survive the drive to the Studio without peeing in my pants.

*  *  *

“Will you come in with me?” I asked Peter when he pulled his old secondhand Buick up in front of the Studio. It was a large storefront on Maple Street, just off Main, and it was the place where I’d spent most of my life for the past thirteen years. Usually walking through that door was like walking into my own home, but today, I was crazy with jitters.

“Why?” Peter asked.

“Because! I’m nervous! What if I don’t get in?”

Peter huffed a sigh and looked through the windshield. For a second his hands worked the steering wheel, his knuckles red, then white, then red, then white. What was going on with him today? Was he angry at me about something?

I was about to ask, but then, suddenly, he turned to me and squeezed my hand. “You’ll get in.”

I grinned. “You think?”

“Let’s go find out.”

He got out of the car, then jogged around and opened my door for me. Together we walked into the brightly lit studio. The reception area was empty, but a dozen dancers worked out on the wide wood floor of the rehearsal space, stretching out and laughing and chatting at the barres. I waved to Lauren, whose heel rested on the barre near the corner. Her black curls were up in a high bun, and she wore a light-pink leotard and skirt that perfectly complemented her latte-hued skin. She widened her eyes toward Madame Helene’s office.

“Lance is in there!” she mouthed.

The butterflies in my stomach were straining to bust out. Peter put his hand on the small of my back, and we walked over to the open office door together. Madame Helene, a short, robust woman with gray hair in curls around her pretty face, stood at the center of the room in front of her desk, talking in hushed tones with my friend and frequent dance partner, Lance Turska. Lance had applied to the Lafayette School as well, and we were both finding out about our auditions today. He stood tall and straight, as always, his shoulders back in his tight white leotard and black tights. I couldn’t see his face. Was he happy? Sad? What?

“Madame?” I said tentatively. I could feel Peter’s heat behind me, and it made me feel brave. Both Madame and Lance turned to face me. Lance’s whole face broke into a smile.

“We did it! We got the auditions!” he announced.

“We did?” I cried.

Lance crossed the room in one long stride and took me up in his arms, spinning me around. I felt as light as air, and I laughed into his shoulder.

“Both of us?” I asked Madame Helene as he replaced me on the floor.

She smiled as if she’d known this would happen. “My star pupils.”

I turned to Peter and moved to hug him, but his face had turned to stone. I stopped and even took a step back at the sight of it. He looked so untouchable. I glanced over my shoulder at Lance, whose smile faltered. Peter had always been a little bit jealous of him, because we spent so much time together at rehearsal, but there was nothing going on between us. There never had been. Lance was like the big brother I never had.

“Peter?” I said, confused.

“Congratulations.” He stoically looked Lance in the eye. “Both of you.”

Then he turned around and walked out of the office.

“Peter!” I called after him.

But he didn’t stop. He shoved open the door with the flat of his hand and was gone.

“And then Kendall was all like, you can’t make me head the ball, and Coach Tarkisian was all, if you don’t want to learn the game, then why are you here? And Kendall was like, what do you know about soccer? You run a dry cleaner! And Talia completely freaked out and went all
TMZ
on her butt.”

I pulled the car into the driveway and hit the brakes. “What does that even mean?”

It came out nasty, as if I was mad at her or something, and suddenly I felt worse than I already had, which I didn’t think was possible. I took a deep breath and tried to blow out my anger, but I couldn’t stop seeing the way Claudia had thrown herself at Lance back at the studio. I knew she wasn’t interested in him. I did. But he was basically the perfect guy for her, and I’d spent the last year and a half waiting for her to see it. Now they were going to go to that audition together, get into the dance program together, and spend the next four years hanging out. While I was . . . where? Here? Taking classes at the community college and going to LCH football games on the weekends, trying to relive my glory days?

God. I was such a loser.

Michelle, meanwhile, didn’t seem to notice my tone. She looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive. “You know, like on
TMZ
how they’re always showing celebs kicking the paparazzi’s ass?” She unhooked her seat belt and pushed open her door. “Talia was
not
cool with Kendall insulting her dad. She totally ripped the back off Kendall’s practice jersey.”

I smirked, trying to focus on my fairly awesome sister instead of my own lameness.

“Seriously?” I said as I got out of the car. “Sounds more violent than
my
practice.”

“Eighth-grade girls’ soccer is not a cakewalk, bro,” she said, widening her blue eyes as she shook her head.

I laughed and ruffled her hair. “I might have to come be your bodyguard next time.”

“Are you kidding? Talia takes Krav Maga!” Michelle joked, nudging my side. “She could take you with one hand tied behind her back.”

“Ha ha.” I got her in a choke hold and gave her a noogie. Not a hard one, though. More like a love-noogie. At least if I stayed home next year I’d get to hang out with my mom and Michelle. That was a bright side.

“Get off! Get off me! Foul! I call foul! You’ve got a hundred pounds on me!” I let her go and she straightened her hair and huffed. “You are
so
immature.”

“My apologies, princess.” I raised my hands in surrender. “What do you think Mom’s making for dinner tonight?”

“I hope fried chicken,” Michelle replied with a jump, forgetting how fed up she was with me. “We haven’t had fried chicken in forever, and she said she was going to try some new seasoning or something.”

She pushed open the door and we both paused. The house was
full of the scent of frying food. Even though I’d just eaten half a pizza, my stomach grumbled. My mom, who was a paralegal by day and a food blogger by night, was rushing around the kitchen, her semi-wet blond hair pulled up into a high ponytail, an apron strapped on over her sweats. Every day she came home, showered, and got right to work on some random recipe she’d try out on us. Then she’d write about our reactions for her blog, “Kid Tested.”

Which was why I’d been my sister’s chauffeur ever since I’d gotten my license. But I didn’t mind. I liked the extra alone time with Michelle. And at least my dad had left behind his old car when he’d bailed on us eight years ago. My mom had kept it in good condition, so that I’d be able to use it as my own one day. She called it my dad’s “parting gift.”

“Hi, guys!” she called out happily. “How was your day?”

“Good,” I lied, considering the way it had ended.

“Better now!” Michelle added, hopping over to the stove.

I put my bag down and was about to go grab one of the onion rings off the paper towel where they were draining on the counter, when something in the dining room caught my eye. Great. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. On the table were stacks of college brochures—dozens of them. My mother must have raided my room, and from the looks of it, she hadn’t left a drawer unsearched, a pillow unturned, or a garbage can unemptied.

“What’s that about?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I plucked an onion ring.

“You and I are going through those tonight, together,” she said, and gave me a serious stare. She checked the temperature on her oil, which popped and sizzled. “If you’re meeting with your guidance counselor to narrow down your choices tomorrow, I want my two cents in.”

“But Mom—”

“No buts, Peter.”

Michelle giggled.

“But I have volunteering tonight,” I improvised. I wasn’t scheduled to work, but they could always use help. It wasn’t like Marcy Fiore, my church’s middle-aged soup kitchen ministry adviser, was going to turn me away if I showed up at the door. “I can’t miss that.”

“Then we’ll do it after,” Mom said. “This is your future we’re talking about, Peter. You have to start taking this seriously.”

I felt that pressure—the pressure I always felt when Claudia brought up college—like someone was grinding a rock into my chest. The onion ring found its way into my mouth, even though my stomach didn’t really want it anymore.

“Are there any schools near Princeton?” I asked, trying to lean back against the counter casually. “I mean, like, schools I could get into?”

My mom and Michelle exchanged a knowing glance.

“Well, there’s Rowan,” my mom said, carefully placing a chicken leg into the oil, then wiping her fingers on her apron. “And Rutgers is about an hour from there. But Rutgers might be . . .”

“A long shot. I know.” I swallowed hard, feeling like a tool. What kind of moron couldn’t even get into his own state school?

“Peter, listen, I understand what you’re trying to do, but you can’t decide your future based on where Claudia’s going,” my mother said, adding a wing and then a thigh to the oil. “We love Claudia as much as you do, but it’s a high school relationship.”

The onion ring turned to rock on its way to my gut. “Mom, don’t.”

“I’m just saying! You don’t see her trying to make her plans around you.”

I stared at the floor. The swirly pattern on the tile blurred in front of me. Never had I felt the way I felt right then. It was like my mom had taken out a bat and swung right at my chest as hard as she could. My own mother.

“Oh, hon. I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, reaching for me.