Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better (21 page)

“In the middle of what?” I ask suspiciously.

“I’m just . . . uh, I’m out. At a work thing.” Yeah, right. Work thing my butt. Sounds like he’s out with Stephanie. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but what choice do I have? I can’t get ahold of my mom, so it’s either having my dad come to pick me up, or going back into the dance. Which I so do not want to do.

“Dad,” I say, pleading.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes? Where is he, Antarctica?

I stand outside, wondering if I’m going to be able to get out of here before Mel or Lexi realize I’m gone. Once I get in my dad’s car, I’ll send them a text letting them know where I am so they don’t worry, but for right now, I don’t really want to talk to anyone. I walk around in circles a little bit, trying to stay warm.

“Devon.” I hear his voice before I see him. Luke. Calling my name from behind me.

“Oh,” I say, turning around. “Yeah?”

“I saw you run out here, and I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.” The door to the school shuts behind him, and he moves a little closer to me.

I almost laugh. “Yeah, like you care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Luke, it’s fine,” I say. “I get it. You and I broke up, and now you’re getting back with Barelli. You don’t
have to come out here and try to make me feel better. I’m perfectly fine, and in fact, I’m only going home because my stomach is bothering me.” I put my hand on my stomach to make it a little bit more believable.

“You’re going home?” he asks.

“Because my stomach is bothering me,” I repeat. “Now please, just go away.” I turn my back on him, walking a few feet away, and hoping that I don’t start crying while he’s out here.

“Go away?” he asks incredulously. “You want me to go away? Devon, you’re the one who wanted to talk to me after the dance.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, whirling back around. “So now you decide you’re ready to talk to me, so I’m just supposed to be super excited about it? After you ignored me for over a week? Sorry, Luke, I can’t just go back and forth that easily.” I cross my arms, daring him to come closer.

“
You’re
mad at
me
?” he asks. “That’s really great. You go off hanging out with your ex-boyfriend without even telling me, and
you’re
mad at
me.
”

“You were in there dancing with Bailey!” I throw my hands up in the air and point to the gym. “And it looked pretty intense. After you
said
that we were going to talk after the dance!”

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes flashing. “And the only reason I started dancing with her is because she said you were getting back together with Greg. Which I already
knew,
since I saw you two at the mall after you lied about being at your grandma’s.”

“She said what?” I gasp. God, can that girl get any more up in my business? And why would she say that? Up until this point, she’s just been super annoying, but I guess it was only a matter of time until she started lying about things. Those types always do. Then I remember running into Bailey and Kim that day in the dressing room, while I was getting my dress. How Bailey said she’d heard I’d gotten back together with Greg, and how I hadn’t bothered to correct her, because I didn’t want her to think that I was heartbroken over Luke. Oh, for God’s sake.

“He’s not my ex-boyfriend!” I say, the words tumbling out into the night air before I can stop them. “He’s just a guy who was pretending to be my ex-boyfriend.”

“What?” Luke takes a step back, looking confused.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I say, throwing my hands up into the air. “I made him up!”’

“You made
what
up about him?” Luke still looks confused, his eyebrows knit together in concentration as he tries to wrap his mind around this new bit of info.

“No,
him
,” I say. “I made
him
up. I’ve never had an ex-boyfriend, Luke. He’s one of Lexi’s friends, a guy she knows from her old school.”

“And you hired him to pretend to be your boyfriend?” Luke asks incredulously.

“Not exactly,” I say, swiping at my tears with the back of my hand. “He did it for free.”

“Why would you do something like that?” he asks, and the way he says it makes me feel like he thinks I’m crazy. Which, I guess, looking back on it, I kind of am. I mean, it
is
pretty crazy to do something like that. Just make up that you have an ex-boyfriend. Especially when it isn’t even the
first time
you’ve done something like that. I have more fake boyfriends than I’ve had real boyfriends.

“Because of Barelli,” I say. “You guys were passing notes back and forth and texting and the four-wheeling!”

“The four-wheeling?” He’s confused. “Yeah, the four-wheeling! At her uncle’s farm, where apparently you two would hang out on the weekends and just have so much fun.”

“Devon, we went there like twice.”

“And how was I supposed to know that?” I ask him. And now I’m crying, tears streaming down my face,
and I’m cursing myself for not paying the extra money for waterproof makeup, but honestly, who could have foreseen this? Not me.

“Maybe if you’d asked me, if you’d—”

“You should have told me! You should have made me feel better! I was your girlfriend!”

“I would have if you asked. And it doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me.”

My dad pulls up then. I haven’t noticed, but it’s started drizzling, and the wipers of the car are making little squeaky sounds on the windshield.

“It doesn’t matter now,” I say sadly, looking down at my hands. In my heart, I know what I want him to say. I want him to tell me it does matter, that we can work it out, that he’s not mad at me, that he forgives me for lying, that he doesn’t like Bailey. And then I’ll go and tell my dad I don’t need a ride home after all, and he’ll be kind of annoyed, but it won’t matter, because Luke and I will be talking and I’ll be able to talk to my dad about it later.

But all Luke says is, “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t.” And then he turns around and heads back into the dance, and I turn around and head for my dad’s car.

“Is everything all right?” my dad asks as I hop into the
car. The drizzling outside has made little drops on the skirt of my dress, turning the fabric darker.

“Fine,” I say, looking out the window. No way I’m going to be confiding in my
dad
after what just happened. I mean, hello. He’s lying to our whole family and definitely
not
my favorite person right now. I decide I hate all men.

“Does this have anything to do with Luke?” my dad asks.

“No,” I say. “I told you, I don’t feel good.”

“So it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Luke was just standing outside with you, and the two of you looked like you were involved in a very serious conversation?”

“No,” I say again. “It has nothing to do with that.”

“Okay.” There’s silence, and so I reach over and switch on the radio, then look out the window and feel sorry for myself.

“Devon,” my dad says. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?”

“Are you sure there’s nothing
you
want to talk about?” I counter. Because at this point, you know, I’ve really had it.

“What do you mean?” he frowns.

“Just what I said,” I say. “Do you want to tell me
anything?” And even though I know a lot of this has to do with how upset I am about Luke, and how upset I am at myself for not learning my lesson the first time, it feels good to finally confront my dad.

“No,” my dad says. He seems very confused.

We’re pulling into the driveway now, and part of me just wants to let it go. But as I’m getting out of the car, I turn around and say, “I know about Stephanie.” And then I calmly shut the door, head up to my room, and stay in bed for the rest of the night.

For some reason, I wake up at eight o’clock the next morning. Eight o’clock! On a Sunday. I never wake up that early. Ever. I don’t like to get out of bed before ten. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a weekend? I’m about to roll over and go back to sleep, when the events of the night before come rushing back to me. Luke dancing with Bailey. My confession in the rain. The ride home with my dad. Me telling him I know about Stephanie, and him not denying it.

I know I’m not going to be able to get back to sleep, and I sigh. The sun is shining through my window. Ugh. I am so not in a sunshiny mood right now. From downstairs, I can hear the low sounds of my parents’ voices, and dishes clinking. They must be
having breakfast. And from the way they’re talking in low voices, I can tell they’re talking about something serious.

Is my dad confessing everything? Oh, God. This is so not what I want to deal with today. I decide to stay in my room for the whole day. And then I remember I’m supposed to be going on that mock trial field trip this afternoon. Ugh. I pull the covers over my head and close my eyes. I’m drifting in and out of sleep, and the next thing I know, I hear that the TV in my room is on.

I open my eyes to find Katie sitting on my floor, the TV turned to MSNBC.

“What are you doing in here?” I ask.

“Watching the news,” she says. “Today is the big day!” She gets up off the floor and twirls around in a circle. She’s still wearing her pajamas, light blue with pink dogs printed all over them.

“What big day?” I ask.

“The day they decide about the big Olympic scandal, Devon. Don’t you watch the news?”

“Not really,” I say, pulling the covers back over my head. “I have my own problems. Why aren’t you watching it downstairs, like a normal person?”

“Because Mommy and Daddy are down there, talking about very important grown-up things.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll bet they are.”

“But they are not,” Katie reports, “using harsh tones.” She does another little twirl. Poor, deluded little Katie. She has no idea that even though my parents aren’t using harsh tones, they are in very big trouble. Maybe they’ll send me to live with my grandma again. That actually wouldn’t be so bad. I could start school out there. I would even know Greg/Ryan. How ironic would that be? If I ended up becoming BFF with the guy who basically ruined my life?

“Are you waking up now?” Katie asks.

“No,” I say.

“You seem like you’re awake,” Katie insists.

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” I say. “A lot of things seem to be what they’re really not.”

Katie wrinkles up her nose. “I don’t like that,” she says. “It seems like a riddle.”

My cell phone rings from the nightstand next to me, and for a second, my heart hopes that it’s Luke. But it’s not. It’s Mel.

“Devon!” she says. “Oh, thank God, I’ve been so worried!”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Didn’t you get my text?” Last night after I was safely in my room, I texted Mel and Lexi to let them know what happened, that I’d gone
home with my dad, and that I was okay.

“Yes,” she says. “But I was still worried. What happened?”

“Nothing I really want to talk about,” I say. I get down under the covers so that Katie won’t hear me. “But Luke and I broke up, and I confronted my dad on his affair.”

Mel gasps from the other line. “What happened?!” she asks.

“Nothing.” I say. “Yet.” I snuggle down deeper into the covers. I wonder if I can just stay here forever. Probably not. Especially since I can feel Katie down at the bottom of the bed, sticking her hands under the covers and grabbing my toes. I curl my legs further up into the bed.

“What do you mean, ‘yet’?”Mel asks.

“They’re downstairs, probably just waiting to have some big talk with me.”

“Yeah, well, join the club. My mom is about to have some big talk with me, too, about how I’m off to private school.” She sighs, and I feel guilty for a second. All this stuff going on with Luke and my dad, and I totally forgot about Mel being shipped off to private school.

And then I have an idea. “Hey,” I say, sitting up in bed. “What are you doing this afternoon? Can I come
over before my mock trial thing?”

“Sure,” she says. “Although it’s not really that fun around here right now, what with my mom being mad at me and all.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “That’s actually good. And what about Dylan? What happened last night?”

“Wellll,” Mel says slowly. “It was a little bit awkward at first, you know, because I didn’t exactly know what I should talk to him about.”

“Right,” I say.

“But then I just started talking to him about radio, and then we started talking about school stuff, and I told him about how my mom wants to send me to a private school, and he was sooo understanding.” There’s a long pause. “And then, um, you know, we went back to Lexi’s after, and I could swear he was going to kiss me, but then my mom showed up to pick me up, so I don’t know.”

“Mel, that’s amazing!” I say. “Do you think—”

“Devon!” my mom calls from downstairs. “Could you come down here?”

Of course the moment Mel gets to the good part, my mom has to call me down for a conversation which I definitely do not want to have. I sigh and tell Mel I have to go.

“Can I stay in here?” Katie asks. She’s sitting cross-legged on my floor.

“Yes,” I say. “Just don’t mess anything up.”

Katie jumps into my bed and into the covers, and I head downstairs. My mom and dad are sitting at the table, looking serious. Ugh. I really wish we did not have to have this conversation. In fact, I wish
everything
that happened last night didn’t happen.

“Good morning,” my mom says, smiling at me. How can she be smiling at a time like this? “Would you like a waffle?” I notice a big plate of waffles on the table. They actually look delish.

“No thanks,” I say, sitting down on the chair across from her. The floor is cold under my feet, and I realize I’m only wearing one sock. How did that happen? I pull it off so that one foot isn’t colder than the other.

“So, your father says you know about Stephanie,” my mom says. She takes a sip of her orange juice, and suddenly, my throat feels dry.

“Yes,” I say. I reach across the table for the juice and pour some into my glass.

“I want to ask how you found out, but something tells me I might not like what you have to say,” my dad says. Obviously he thinks I did it by spying and treachery,
which is pretty much true. But is he upset that I spied, or is he upset that he got found out?