Keep Holding On (6 page)

Every time I open my locker, I see all these cool things I taped up. Pictures of me and Sherae. A mini mobile with shapes in primary colors. A postcard of
Bird in Space
. The first cootie catcher Sherae and I made this year.

But when I open my locker this time, all those things are ripped into tiny pieces and scattered over my books.

Awesome.

There’s no way I’m going to let my frustration show. Carly is watching from down the hall. I’m sure she’s loving this. She can’t wait for a reaction.

I’m not going to give her one.

Carefully keeping my expression unchanged, I take what I need out of my locker. Some bits of ripped pictures fall to the floor. I leave them there. I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me pick them up. How did she even get my combination?

Whatever. I’m going out with Matt tonight. I just need to keep focusing on how being his official girlfriend will make all of this go away.

I’m actually smiling when I close my locker.

Sherae and I have this thing where we meet up at her locker before second period. It’s tradition.

“Things are looking up,” Sherae reports. “No pathetic note from Hector today. And he finally stopped leaving me messages.”

“Ooh, that
is
an improvement,” I agree.

“Plus! You know that heinous English test I’ve been stressing? It got postponed!”

“Sweet!”

“Okay. You’ve been smiling since you got here. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Why do you think something’s up?”

“Please. Since when are you happy at school?”

“I’m not.”

“We’re not leaving until you tell me.”

I desperately want to tell her about Matt. I
have
to tell her about Matt. Everyone’s going to know we’re together after tonight anyway. And I’ve been waiting for this moment for a really long time.

“I have a date,” I announce.

“Oh my god!” Sherae gasps. “With who?”

“Matt Brennan.”

“You know Matt Brennan?”

“We’ve been …” The bell for second period rings. “It’s a really long story. I’ll tell you later.”

We branch off in separate directions. It’s not until I’m at my desk in English that I realize I didn’t tell Sherae not to tell anyone about Matt. But of course she won’t. That’s why she’s the only person in the whole world I can trust.

Getting ready for my date with Matt makes it glaringly obvious that I’m in desperate need of a shopping trip with Sherae. Why didn’t I ask her to go to the mall this week? I could have gotten a cute top that actually fits. It might be time to rethink this whole baggy look.

This date is already a disaster and I haven’t even left my apartment yet.

Sherae drove me home after school and I told her all about Matt. She was not liking our secret status. But I said that not all boyfriends operate on the same schedule. Matt just needed more time. I explained how everything will be out in the open after we’re seen together at the mall tonight.

There’s no way I was letting Matt pick me up here. He’d probably want to come in. That was not happening. So we’re supposed to meet outside Friendly’s. Taking the train is my only way to get to the mall. The good news is that the mall is like half a mile from the train station. And there’s a back way I can walk between them so no one will know I took the train to get there. Sherae said she’d drive me, but that would be lame.

I write a quick note saying I went to the mall with Sherae. Then I leave before mother can get home and ruin date night with her toxic negative energy. I’m excited just to be going somewhere. Unless I’m hanging out with Sherae after school, I never go anywhere. And even then we pretty much only do stuff before dinner. This is the first time I’ve been out at night in forever.

When I get to the mall, I walk the long way across the parking lot. This makes it look like I drove here and I’m just coming in from my parking spot. No one takes the train to the mall. No one walks half a mile.

I sit on the bench outside Friendly’s and wait. The mall is a world that never changes. No matter what’s going on outside, you can always rely on the same overplayed music, bad lighting, and irritated shoppers inside.

Waiting for someone shouldn’t be hard. All you have to do is sit there. But it’s actually one of the hardest things. When you’re sitting by yourself at the mall, you might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign that says
LOSER
. I try to make it as obvious as possible that I’m waiting for someone. I exaggerate the motions of looking around. I check the time by throwing an exasperated glare at the big clock on the center island. I want anyone who might be watching or passing by my bench to know that alone is just my temporary state. There’s a person who wants to be with me. A person who will be here any minute.

Five minutes of waiting turns into ten.

Then twenty.

Half an hour later, Matt still isn’t here.

He said Friendly’s, right? Did he mean somewhere else?

Matt is thirty-seven minutes late when the worst thing ever happens. A group of kids grabs a window booth at the Olive Garden across from Friendly’s.

Of course they’re kids from school.

Of course Warner Talbot is one of them.

There has to be a way to hide. The second they look over here, they’ll totally see me. Alone on a bench outside Friendly’s on a Friday night. Waiting for my secret boyfriend who’s almost forty minutes late.

I concentrate on the polished floor. People’s shoes walk by. If I don’t look up, maybe Warner and those guys won’t notice me.

A loud popping noise makes me jump. I turn to see what it was. There’s a minor commotion at the candy stand over a big
balloon popping. From his booth at the Olive Garden, Warner sees me through the window. His eyes get big. His mouth opens wide. Then he’s saying something to his friends and gesturing out the window.

They all turn to look at me. They see me see them.

One of them says something.

They all laugh.

I check the time. Matt is forty-five minutes late.

Maybe something happened. Maybe he was in an accident. He could be in the hospital right now. There’s no way for me to know because I don’t have a cell phone. I’m not about to call him on the pay phone with everyone watching. Or maybe there was some other emergency. He could come bursting in any second now, saying he’s sorry and explaining everything and feeling horrible that I had to wait so long.

Or not.

I wait for over an hour. Shoppers filter on and off of the center island, taking breaks on the benches. They check their devices. They make calls. These two girls have been staring at me. I’m sure they’re speculating why I’m still sitting here alone. A disgruntled middle-aged guy has been sitting there for a while. Bags are spread out on the bench next to him. His wife stops by to add three big bags to their collection, then takes off to do even more shopping. The poor guy looks miserable.

Warner is eating and watching me like I’m a movie. One of the girls in the group blows her straw wrapper at him. She says something. The whole table cracks up.

I can’t take the humiliation any longer. I get up to leave. Which means that I was officially stood up. And those kids from school saw the whole thing.

As soon as I get home, I check my messages.

There aren’t any.

I check my email.

Nothing.

Then I call Matt.

It goes straight to voice mail.

I kept thinking
Matt would call.

He never called.

That was the longest weekend of my life.

I left a message when I called him Friday night after I got home. It wasn’t an angry rant or anything. I just said that I waited a long time for him and that I hoped he was okay and please call me back. When he kept not calling all weekend, I kept wanting to call him again. I wanted to keep trying until he picked up.

But I didn’t. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk to me.

I’ve gone over everything a million times. I can’t figure out what I did wrong. What made him change his mind about me?

Am I really that impossible to love?

When I was in ninth grade, the captain of the football team asked me out.

I know. It seems impossible. The most popular guys don’t ask out the most unpopular girls.

Unless one of those guys doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

It was the first day of high school. I was terrified. But for Trevor Burke, it was just the beginning of yet another awesome year of his consistently awesome life. He wouldn’t become captain of the football team until the following year, but you could already tell he’d get it. Some people’s destiny is understood.

Our algebra class was mainly sophomores. I was ahead one year in math. Trevor was one year behind. That’s how he ended up sitting behind me in algebra on the first day of school.

“You’re cute,” he whispered to me.

Of course I didn’t respond. He was just setting me up to believe he actually thought I was cute. Then he would humiliate me in front of the entire class.

I waited for the teasing to continue.

It didn’t.

“Can I get your number?” Trevor whispered.

He was serious. I decided to save him some time.

“Ask about me,” I whispered back.

“What do you want me to ask?”

“Just ask around. They’ll tell you.”

“Who?”

“Anyone who knows me. You’ll see.” I’d given up any hope of being with a boy like Trevor Burke. He existed on a whole other level. The all-American, sun-kissed, handsome football star. The
kind of boy parents hope their sons grow up to be.

When Trevor came to class the next day, he didn’t look at me. He didn’t talk to me ever again.

We belonged to two very different worlds. Even though he sat behind me in algebra.