Seven Ways We Lie (14 page)

It hits me why he seems disarming: this air hovers around
him, and I only recognize it because it's familiar. He's one of those kids who, like me, has zero friends. Nice to know my superpower is detecting social failure.

I make a peace offering. “So, how about that assembly? What a waste of time, huh?”

“Waste of . . .?”

“One email, and they go batshit crazy? It was probably someone trolling.”

“If that's what you choose to believe,” he says, an air of superiority cloaking him so thickly, I can almost smell it. He goes back to his cylinder, silent at last.

“I'm Kat Scott,” I say. “So, why'd Norman put you on cleaning duty?”

“He didn't. I offered.”

“Best buds, huh?”

“Well, we ate lunch together today, if that qualifies.”

I eye him. “That's, uh.”

“You think it's strange.”

“I mean, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong.”

“Yes, well.” Valentine shrugs. “It was raining, so I couldn't eat outside.”

“And you couldn't just go to the cafeteria because . . .?”

His nose wrinkles. “I don't particularly enjoy the company of my peers.”

“. . . right. That didn't sound rehearsed at all.”

“Well, it's true. I just don't do it. The last time I ate with someone my age was four hundred and ten days ago.”

“Um.” I look over at him. He doesn't seem to register exactly
how bizarre that sentence was. “Why do you remember that?”

“I don't know. I like keeping count of things, and . . .” He frowns. “Yep.”

Holy shit, that is sad. After a long minute of searching for an appropriate response, I go back to washing graduated cylinders. I can't imagine a torture more excruciating than eating lunch with Dr. Norman, that condescending prick. I'll take being roasted over a slow flame any day.

Then again, how long has it been since I had lunch with anybody? I sure as hell don't keep track, but my score is probably in the hundreds, too. My corner of the courtyard is my lunchtime sanctuary, and when it gets too cold, I resort to empty classrooms or the back section of the library. No company needed.

I can't remember the last time I sat down to dinner with Dad and Olivia, either. Eating alone seems so
sad
on Valentine. Is that what I look like from the outside? Some pariah, doomed to sit, untouchable, away from the rest of the world? I hope to God people can tell it's my choice.

Valentine finishes his bucket first. But he doesn't leave or find some reason to move away from me. Instead, he stands there, looking like the embodiment of everyone who has ever been awkward.

I tuck the last graduated cylinder into the overhead cabinet and shut the door, checking the clock. “Great.” The bus is always long gone by four fifteen, and it's raining today. If I catch pneumonia walking home and die, I hope Olivia sues the shit out of Dr. Norman.

As Valentine takes the empty buckets up front, I head to one of the windows and look down at the junior lot. It's a pleasant surprise—Juniper's car is still sitting there. I shoot my sister a text.
Hey, missed the bus. Can you wait for me? Be down soon.

Valentine stops by the window, shrugging his backpack on. He breathes on the glass and draws an indifferent-looking face in the fog. “Is something out there?”

“Just, my sister's still here. So I have a ride.” I point out through the drizzle at the silver Mercedes. “That's her.”

Valentine's finger freezes over the fogged-up glass. “
Oh
,” he says, packing more meaning into that one syllable than I would've thought possible.

“Oh?” I repeat.

“Nothing. Just, oh.” He seems to have lost the ability to blink, staring down at Juniper's car. “The blonde, I assume?”

“Nah, my sister's the brunette. The blonde is Juniper Kipling. She's a friend. Why?”

“No reason,” he says too quickly.

I lean against the wall. “What, you have a crush on one of them or something?”

“I don't do those.”

“Do what? Crushes?”

“Yes, those,” he says. “And no. I don't.”

“What are you, one of those love-is-a-social-construct people?”

“I don't know about that. I just don't get crushes.” He gives me a flash of his laser eyes again. “What, do you think it's a construct?”

“Spare me,” I say. “Don't change the subject. What's your deal with Juni and my sister?”

His lips form a thin line. “No deal. Nothing.” He shoves his hands into his jacket, turning away. “I have to go. Bye.” He walks out fast, head down, staring deliberately at the ground.

As he shuts the door, I lean against a desk, drained by the interaction. I wish I were one of those androids from Electric Forces VI. I could stick a plug into myself to recharge.

I slouch out of the room, steeling myself for a weird drive home.

THE SIGHT OF OLIVIA AT THE STOVE THAT EVENING
gives me a strange, sinking feeling. Most days, I move to my room the second she walks into the kitchen. Today, though, something keeps me at the table as I play Mass Effect. I glance at her every so often. She stands with one hip shifted out, her hair tied back in a messy stream. She hums a tune that sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Dad opens the door at a little past seven, his glasses spattered with beads of water. His usual five-o'clock shadow has grown out to a layer of gray-black stubble, making the gaunt peaks and valleys of his face seem rockier than usual. Dad's all bones, a six-foot-five skeleton man with kind eyes.

“Hi,” he says, shutting the door. He shrugs off his raincoat, revealing the plastic name tag on his button-down, emblazoned with the Golden Arches.

I lift a hand, and Olivia says, “Hey, how was work?”

Dad doesn't seem to hear. As he meanders toward the stairs, all he says is, “Horrible weather.” His voice barely makes it to my ears, quiet and reedy.

“Yeah, it's gross out,” Olivia says. “Dinner's going to be ready in about ten, okay?”

“Thanks.” He vanishes up to the second floor, leaving silence
except for the simmering hiss of hot water. As I look after him, Valentine Simmons's miserable
Four Hundred and Ten Days of Eating Alone
statistic scratches at the back of my mind.

“You want me to set the table?” I ask, pausing Mass Effect.

Olivia turns, her eyebrows raised. “Yeah, that—that'd be awesome,” she says. “You eating with us, Kat?”

I nod. “Smells nice.”

A big smile lifts her cheeks. Two words, and she lights up like a lantern—I forgot how transparent Olivia can be. “Great!” she says. “Dad'll be really happy.”

If he is, though, I can't tell. When the three of us sit down, he eats slack-faced and quiet, despite Olivia's attempts to draw conversation out of him.

I sneak glances at my sister and my dad throughout dinner. Their presence crushes me in. How do I talk to them? They feel so far away, like distant island countries. God knows what's going on inside Dad's head, and I hardly know anything about Olivia anymore. She, Juniper, and Claire are as inseparable as always, and she goes out every weekend. That's all I know, besides the music she listens to in her room.

“What's new, Kat?” Olivia says, meeting my eyes.

I look down at my lap and scramble for words. “Nothing much. Um . . . Dr. Norman made fun of me in chemistry today.”

“Why?”

“ 'Cause he's a dick.”

“Language,” Dad mumbles. I've never heard a more half-assed chastisement.

“No, he is, though,” Olivia says. “All last year, he used to make
fun of my height. And I was, like, yeah, I know I'm tall—thanks for the constant reminders.” She takes a swig of orange juice. “What'd he say to you?”

“I was asleep. So he, you know. Made an example.”

“Oh,” Olivia says. I wait for some preachy
Maybe stay awake next time
remark, but she just shrugs and says, “Yeah, dude's voice could put a dolphin to sleep. Amazing.”

“What, is that impressive?”

“Dolphins—fun fact—actually don't sleep,” Olivia says through a mouthful of noodles. “They only rest part of their brains at a time, so they're always sorta conscious. Also, they're evil. They, like, kidnap people and drag them off to their dolphin lairs.”

I laugh before I can help it. Olivia looks at me with this mixture of astonishment and delight, as if I've handed her a winning lottery ticket. Dad glances between the two of us, looking confused, which is fair—I'm a little confused, too. I forgot Olivia made jokes and offered people sympathy. I forgot she did anything but tell me to deal with my responsibilities.

When we finish dinner, Dad stands. “I'm exhausted, girls. Might call it an early night.”

“Sure,” Olivia says. “I'll wash up. Don't worry about it.”

“Thanks, Olly.” He gives her an absent-looking smile before trudging upstairs.

“Shit, he's quiet,” I say, looking after him. Dad was never loud, but back when we were in elementary school, he and Mom would bounce jokes off each other at dinner until they both teared up from laughter. Mom coaxed a gregarious side out of him. Around her, he acted out. Trying to impress her, maybe—or keep a hold of her. Maybe he knew the whole time that trying to hold on to
her was like trying to hold on to ice—a wasted effort that was only going to leave him cold.

Olivia gathers our plates, looking grim. “Yeah, work wears him down so much, there's not much he can do but crash when he gets home.”

I trace a stain on the table. God knows I understand that feeling, not that I have the right to. A thousand kids at our school do the same thing I do every day, and they still have energy and motivation. I've got no excuse. Sick of the feeling of self-pity, I stand. “Night,” I say, and I head for the stairs. My sister gives me a smile, but it hardly registers.

ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MATT PICKS ME UP, ALONG
with my bundle of project supplies. His car smells like he's growing marijuana plants in the trunk. The space in front of the passenger seat is so filled with paper, bottles, and trash, it's like a handy cushion for me to prop up my feet.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, not sounding in any way sorry about the mess.

“All good,” I say, glancing into the backseat, which is even worse. It looks as if somebody mistook it for a landfill.

Matt doesn't turn the radio down, so I hum along with various bad pop songs all the way to his house. At one point I think I hear him singing along to Avril Lavigne, but when I glance over at him, his mouth is firmly shut.

My eyes linger on him for a second. As if he's trying to look like as much of a stoner as possible, he's wearing a maroon beanie pulled low over his forehead, tufts of hair sticking out from beneath. He drives one-handed, relaxed and silent, but his expression gives me the sense that something's brewing under the surface.

We didn't talk in English yesterday. Didn't even look at each other, in spite of our phone conversation Thursday night, or maybe
because of it. Sitting two feet from him now, I can't help imagining his mother, a discontented scientist frustrated by small-town Paloma, and his father, resentful and underappreciated. But as for Matt himself . . . after Thursday night, I don't know what to think about him. He changed over the phone, showed me a new face.

I look out the window, up at the flat blue sky. The way my sister acted last night at dinner—giving me a glimpse of how she used to be—made me think that maybe she can change, too. I hadn't heard her laugh in so long. Hearing it pulled up a well of memories, even nostalgia, like hearing a song I might have had on repeat during a bittersweet summer.

“Here's me,” Matt says, turning down the radio. We pull up outside a small white house with black shutters. He parks at the curb.

I sling my backpack on and follow him up a weed-trimmed path. The porch paint is flaking off, and bugs have gnawed holes in the window screens. I shiver, waiting as he unlocks the door with a stained silver key.

Finally, Matt wedges the door open. We enter his living room, a nest of warmth and color. A squashy-looking couch is upholstered in red, scattered with stitched pillows. Above it, a magnificent painting of the sun stretches across the wall, its orange rays lighting the ridges of a mountain range. A deeply scored mantel holds three different cuckoo clocks and a row of intricate crucifixes, and a television sits on an end table. Quilts and blankets and clutter cover every surface. The Jackson household clearly does not go for the whole minimalism thing.

“We can work in here or the kitchen—whatever,” Matt says, giving the door a firm shove with his shoulder. It slides back into its ill-fitting frame with a muffled bang.

I look around. The coffee table, like the rest of the room, is overflowing, filled with magazines and half-melted candles. “Do you have a kitchen table we could use?”