How to Say I Love You Out Loud (2 page)

Alex throws his head back and laughs, his full belly laugh, the one that always makes me feel like tiny seeds in my heart are blooming. His laughter nurtures some kind of longing that has no
business being rooted there. His arm around Leighton’s waist makes those little sprouts of wistfulness wilt and topple as quickly as they sprang up.

“Please tell me you were a backup dancer for him at least.”

“Absolutely.” I smile in spite of myself, in spite of the Leighton-shaped elephant in the room, and shake my head. “You know me so well.”

“Did Petersen show up really drunk again?” he asks, referring to the president of the club. “Hit on any of the lifeguards who aren’t even legal yet?”

Leighton tugs on the bottom of Alex’s shirt before I get a chance to answer. “Hey, listen, I need to talk to you about some Athletic Council stuff real quick and I’ve got to
run to the ladies’ before homeroom, so can we . . .” She’s talking to Alex but looking at me, waiting for me to make myself scarce.

“Yeah, sure, babe.” He nods quickly, the word sounding even more wrong coming from his lips than hers. Alex tightens his grip on her and turns in the direction of the side hallway,
where there’s some space. He talks over his shoulder as they walk. “We’ll catch up in history, okay, Michaelson?”

I nod, ignoring the tightness in my throat. Before, his use of my last name used to feel intimate. Now it reminds me that I’m a buddy and nothing more.

This is what you wanted
, I remind myself as I turn away from the train wreck and walk back toward Erin, who’s talking with our friend Tanu.
Just friends, right? You’re
lucky you walked away with that much.

But I guess I’d thought . . . I guess I’d thought that somehow, by keeping him as a close friend, I could still call Alex mine. It was easy enough last year when he wasn’t
dating anyone. Having Alex as a best friend was an acceptable consolation prize when I couldn’t have anything more. I’d grown comfortable with the idea and never given much thought to
how things might change.

I sneak a quick peek over my shoulder. Leighton’s back is against the wall and Alex has one arm above her head, keeping her in place, his body pressed against hers. I wonder what Athletic
Council business has anything to do with their mouths mashed together like that.

Erin is much less discreet. She gapes, openmouthed, at the happy couple. “Wow, Leighton and Alex, really? When did that happen?”

“Oh, sometime this summer. Someone posted a picture on Facebook,” Tanu says.

I wonder how many hours each day Tanu spends on Facebook. I also wonder if I’m the last person to know
everything
.

“It was this superhot picture,” she continues, causing the sick feeling in my gut to flare up. “He’s in his football jersey and she’s all blond and tan.
They’re like . . . Tyler and Caroline from
Vampire Diaries
, that’s what it makes me think of. Or more specifically, you know when Tyler and Caroline kissed for the first time?
Season two, episode twelve?”

“No, I don’t know.” Erin laughs. “We don’t all have a photographic memory like you do.”

“Anyway, that’s what the picture looks like. They look so good together. And I want a boyfriend.”

Now Erin is frowning again. “Me too. The two of them are just so perfect. That really makes me miss Bryce.”

I square my shoulders and bite back my irritation. “Let’s talk about something else.” If campus is a beehive, Leighton is definitely its queen. And maybe I secretly call Alex
Mr. Perfect. Somehow it doesn’t translate into them being perfect
together
. At least not to me.

I engage them in other mindless gossip, trying to keep my thoughts away from the truth of the matter, which is that the sight of Alex and Leighton kissing really makes me miss someone, too.

But how can you miss someone you never really had?

What right do you have to miss someone when you were the person who walked away from them?

We continue on toward our respective homerooms.

I became friends with Erin and Tanu last fall, when we were all in the same English class together, and they’re my best friends here at Valley Forge High School. But I’m not the kind
of girl who shares every little detail about herself, even with my closest friends. School and home are two separate parts of my life, and as long as it stays like that . . . I don’t know how
“close” my girlfriends will ever really feel.

“Considering how humid it is today, does one of you have time to drop me off before practice? I really don’t feel like walking.”

Hockey practice is a bit of a sore subject with Tanu. She was also looking for a sport to complement the impressive academic and artistic sections of her résumé, but she
didn’t make the cut after tryouts in July.

Erin shakes her head, strawberry-blond curls flying. “Oh, hell no. You know I would if I could, but I’m not going to be the person walking onto the field late. Leighton would have my
ass. She thinks it’s really important for us to be on time.”

Most things that are important to Leighton are important to Erin. Leighton is sort of her role model. Maybe even her idol.

“It’s, like, a six-minute round trip!”

“Still. I don’t feel like chancing it. Leighton says . . .”

I clamp my lips together to keep from groaning. Erin, God love her, starts way too many sentences with “Leighton says.”

“. . . everyone always takes the guys’ sports teams so much more seriously than the girls’. If we want to be taken seriously, and given as much credit for our hard work, we
have to take
ourselves
seriously.”

I consider offering Tanu a ride myself, but truthfully, I don’t want to end up in Leighton’s line of fire, either. Even if I find her intensity a little dramatic and largely
unnecessary.

I wave good-bye to my friends as the bell rings. I’m alone again, and without the stream of chitchat to distract me, the scary feeling returns—like I’m slipping out to sea, as
the one person I counted on to keep me anchored around here is now tied to someone else.

My morning passes in a quick blur. Homeroom. A.P. Psychology and Sociology. English Literature. I’m anxious to get to Advanced Placement U.S. History, even though the
size of my textbook rivals that of a med school anatomy reference book and the essay tests are rumored to be a bitch. At least I’ll get to talk to Alex. Alone. He’ll give me some kind
of explanation for that scene in the lobby. He has to, right?

I pick a desk in the front left corner, pull out a fresh notebook, and wait. Just before the bell rings, Alex ambles in, book bag hanging loosely from his shoulders. I perk up without meaning
to; at the sight of him my heart drops into my stomach, where it flutters around like a happy butterfly.

He’s not yours
, I berate my poor, delusional organ.
Silly for you to act like that.

But it’s hard not to react, and my chest constricts with something like pain as I study him. The best part of his arrival has nothing to do with how good he looks, or how good he smells,
for that matter. It’s the
way
he looks, which is right at me, like no one else is in the room. His eyes brighten and crinkle at the edges, his easy grin blooms, and he makes a
beeline for the empty seat behind me.

“M.J., thank goodness.” He slides into the seat and taps the back of my chair with his foot. “What’s happening? How’s your day been since I saw you last?”

“It’s been good. Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Missed you in Spanish. It was boring without you.”

“I don’t feel bad for you. I don’t know why you don’t just test out.”

Alex’s full name is Alejandro and when he forgets to downplay it, his accent is spot-on. Last year he entertained himself by capturing our teacher and classmates in perfect caricature on
my paper textbook cover.

“It’s alright. I like having
one
class where I can actually coast.” His brow wrinkles in confusion as he stares at my notebook. “Didn’t you get your
iPad?”

“Oh, right.” I shake my head, because I don’t think it was really necessary for every student in the building to be issued a brand-new iPad for school use. I hold up my
notebook before swapping it with the iPad in my bag. “I was actually going to use a
notebook
to take notes. Silly me.”

Alex chuckles as he powers up his own device. “Here’s what I don’t get.” He glances up at me, dimple flaring in his right cheek. “I mean, if you’re going to
be sitting
right
in front of me taking notes, why wouldn’t you just e-mail me the file? Just seems to make more sense, right?”

I cock my head and smile. “I’m not taking notes for you.”

Then Alex stares at me for a minute, all thoughtful like, like he’s seeing me for the first time that day. My flat-ironed hair, carefully made-up eyes, and the brand-new sundress/cardi
combo I wear with my own designer flip-flops, just because
everyone
is wearing this brand of designer flip-flops.

And in case I haven’t mentioned it, I greatly prefer not to stand out. Even if I think sixty dollars is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for rubber shoes.

“Hey, you look really nice today. I like your hair like that.”

“Nice try. I’m still not taking notes for you,” I repeat, turning around as I notice Mr. Carr working on projecting the syllabus onto the screen of the smartboard.

I stare down at my desktop, taking a deep breath to steady myself, unnerved by Alex’s compliment. He offered it so easily, like it’s something he would say to anyone. Like
there’s no reason he should hesitate at all in complimenting me, because after all, we’re just friends.

Like last summer wasn’t last summer. Sure, all last year, we managed to ignore it. But now it feels like the night of the staff party has been ripped right out of our own personal history
text.

Mr. Carr continues to have technical difficulties, and I brace myself and spit the question out without bothering to turn around. “How come you didn’t tell me about
Leighton?”

Because someone has to acknowledge her, for crying out loud. If we are actually going to go on being, you know, friends.

I hear his breathing catch and then nothing but silence. I have to turn around and confront the topic head-on, even though I really don’t want to. Only he’s not looking at me
anymore.

“C’mon, Jordyn,” he mumbles, tracing mindless patterns on his desk with his fingertips.

“C’mon what?”

His fingers still and finally he looks up at me. His eyes are hesitant, expression unguarded, and for just a second we’re not pretending. No one’s forgotten about last summer.
“It feels weird to talk about it with you. I just . . . couldn’t.”

Everything feels like it’s unraveling at once, and way too quickly, so I force a bright smile and shake my head. “We talk about everything, Alex. When did you two start . . .
whatever?”

Alex rubs at his jaw, uneasy, and can’t hold my gaze as he answers. “We’re working together on the Athletic Council. Because I’m captain this year, I’m
automatically on the committee. So after some of the meetings in August, we just ended up hanging out. People were always over at her house, swimming and stuff.”

Something inside of me crumbles, because Alex has never hung out at my house and probably never will. I hope the internal demolition isn’t written all over my face.

“Oh. That’s cool. Sounds like you had a fun end of summer.”

Then he’s looking right at me again, like maybe he doesn’t buy a word of it, but luckily Mr. Carr has had a breakthrough and clears his throat to get the attention of the class. I
whirl around like the model student I am, relieved the conversation is out of the way, convinced I was convincing.

Even though I’m used to working nine to five during the summer and heading straight to practice afterward, I feel ten times as tired as I did last week with the prospect
of hockey practice looming. My feet drag and my shoulders are slumped under the weight of the textbooks in my book bag as I head toward the locker room to change for our first after-school
practice. I drop my gym bag on the bench next to Erin’s and we exchange nothing but weary hellos as we change into our sports bras, gym shorts, T-shirts, shin guards, and cleats.