Shuffle, Repeat (13 page)

Until now.

Now I'm struck by how good-looking he is—and not just objectively, but how good-looking he has become
to me.
And how nice and complicated and interesting. And I'm reminded that although Oliver hasn't defied society's expectations, he has defied
mine,
and maybe that's a thousand times more compelling.

And a million times more dangerous.

Because I'm already there, and because this moment is fleeting and fragile, I take a tiny step further into the danger. “You know my castle of supposed stability?” I ask him. “It's surrounded by a moat.”

“What's in your moat?” Oliver asks.

Insecurity. Self-doubt. Fear.

But I've already said too much. I look at my wrist like I'm checking a watch and then gesture toward the Ping-Pong table. “We're going to be late for school.”

Oliver gazes at me, his eyes roving over my face, before he pulls away and turns forward. “Let's get moving,” he says, and swings our imaginary car back onto our imaginary road.

We're in the kitchen again, completing the re-bundling so Oliver can walk me home. “Ready?” he asks.

“Almost.” I pull my jacket sleeves over the cuffs of my mittens.

We're heading toward the foyer when we hear Marley calling for us to hold on. She scurries into the kitchen and sees us stopped under the arch. “Oh, good. You're still here. June, I have something for your mom. Wait just a second, okay?” She darts off before I can answer.

I look up at Oliver. “It's not going to be a sewing machine or a pair of heavy bookends or something, is it?”

“If so, I will carry your burden,” he says in a (bad) British accent and then he bows, which I think is intended to be gallant. I laugh, and when I do, I catch sight of what's hanging above us.

Mistletoe.

Oliver sees two things: my glance and also the way my laughter cuts off abruptly. I start to step backward, out of the minefield, but he takes hold of my upper arms and I allow it. I let him keep me there, under the mistletoe, looking down into my eyes while my boyfriend is in Florida and Oliver's girlfriend is…

Actually, I have no idea where Ainsley is.

Oliver must see the turmoil on my face, because he gives me the gentlest of smiles. “It's okay, June.” He leans over and grazes my cheek with his lips. They're softer than I would have guessed. Warmer. Sweeter.

I suddenly realize I've closed my eyes, and I pop them back open. Oliver's smile morphs into a grin. “Nailed it.” My eyebrows rise in a question, which he answers. “Tradition.”

He's turned it into our playlist. Lightened the mood. Changed the meaning of the moment.

It's the right thing to do.

“Mistletoe is an American cultural tradition,” I inform him, playing along. “Not a high school one.”

“Still,” he says, and I relent.

“Fine. You can have a song.”

“Cutting Crew or Heart?” Oliver taps his chin in mock consideration, and I give an overly dramatic sigh. “I'm torn. What do you think?”

“I found it!” Marley rushes back in, waving a paper at me. “It's the gift certificate for a massage that I traded your mom.”

I tuck it into a pocket. Apparently Oliver's mother also dabbles in the gypsy ways. “Thank you for having me over,” I tell her, and then I follow Oliver away from the mistletoe and out into the snow.

I thought about talking to Mom about this whole Itch dilemma, but she's so flushed and cuddly about Cash, it makes me not want to drag her back down to earth with my problems. That's why I'm sitting in the passenger seat of Shaun's hatchback, riding straight into the mouth of Saint Nicholas. Luckily for Shaun, a warm front came in this week after the snowstorm, so he was actually able to convince his parents that he should be allowed to visit his favorite place in the whole world: Frankenmuth.

Frankenmuth is a little over an hour north of us and is self-heralded as the “Little Bavaria” of Michigan. The tiny town is riddled with covered bridges and wooden cottages and inns decorated with towers and clocks and balconies. During the winter holidays, it looks like Christmas vomited on it.

Shaun and I coast up Main Street under the blinking white star lights hanging overhead. On all sides of us are shops selling ornaments, breweries selling wheat beer, and restaurants selling sausage.

“We should have left earlier,” Shaun grumbles. “We could have taken the pretzel-rolling class.” He slides into a parking spot between a Buick and a horse-drawn carriage (currently missing the horse). He's out of the car and opening my door before I've even unfastened my seat belt. He grabs my hand and pulls me onto the sidewalk. “First up: the world's biggest Christmas store!”

Minutes later, we're browsing a row of plastic candy canes. I point up at the two-story ceramic Santa Claus looming over us. “If that fell, we would be dead.”

“But at least we'd go out happy.”

“Speak for yourself.” We watch a lady in a red apron wind up a tiny reindeer and place it in front of a customer's toddler. The reindeer clatters over the floor toward the kid, who claps and giggles before stomping on it. The kid's mother gasps and I burst out laughing. Shaun drags me around a corner, out of sight.

“Rude!” he tells me.

“Come on, that was funny.”

His lips twitch. “Fine. It was funny. So you know you have to dump him, right?”

“Non sequitur much?”

I talked to Shaun about my problems with Itch on the drive up here, but he stayed mostly quiet, only asking a question here and there before turning on music (
decent
music!) and humming along for the rest of the drive. Now I find out he's actually been thinking about what I said.

“You can't keep dating someone you don't like anymore,” Shaun tells me. “That's a recipe for tragedy.”

“It's not that I don't
like
him. It's that I don't like him the way I used to like him. Or maybe I don't like him the same way he likes me. Or as much. Or…” I trail off, because I know Shaun is right. “I need to break up with him, don't I?”

Shaun nods. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” I pick up a red glass ornament and see myself, looking small and lost and confused, reflected in its shiny surface.

“Hey, June?” Shaun is looking right at me. “Is there someone else?”

Of course Oliver flashes into my mind, because—duh—I just hung out with him a couple days ago, and there was that whole thing with the mistletoe and the imaginary car and the hot cocoa. It's only because he's the one boy I spend time with besides Shaun and Itch. It's only because we carpool together and listen to music together and argue philosophy together. It's only because, objectively speaking, he's an attractive guy. That's all. That's it.

“Nope,” I tell Shaun. “No one else.”

He regards me before picking up a Mrs. Claus puppet and sliding it over his hand. Mrs. Claus tilts her head at me and bobs up and down. “That's what I thought,” she says in a funny voice that sounds very much like Shaun's.

Two days later, I end it.

“Why?” Itch asks.

We're back at Cherry Hill Park, but this time I'm the only one sitting on a swing, my bare hands wrapped around the metal chains and my boots sliding across the patch of ice beneath me. Itch stands facing me with his arms folded across his chest. His eyes are hard and angry.

“I'm sorry,” I say from my seat. “It's not about someone else, and it's not really even about you.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Maybe it's because we're halfway through the year and real life is on the horizon, I don't know. Whatever it is, we're not working anymore.” I wait but he doesn't respond, so I pull myself up from the swing. My fingers are cramped, frozen from the cold of the chain and the tension in my body. I shake my hands and rub them together, then step closer to Itch. I look up into his hazel eyes, and I remember how I used to think he looked like he was daydreaming, and how touching his flop of almost-curly hair used to make me warm inside.

Used to.

“Do
you
think we're working?” I ask him. He looks down and scuffs at the hard ground with the toe of his sneaker. “Adam. Are you actually happy when you're with me?”

Maybe it's his first name, or maybe it's the question itself that elicits a reaction. Itch shakes his head and steps backward. He puts space between us, looks at me from across a distance that might as well be acres and acres of land. “You know what's crap?”

“My timing. I know, I'm sorry.” And I truly am. “I didn't want to have this conversation at school tomorrow. I thought we could—”

“No, June. Your timing is fine. Perfect, in fact. Couldn't be better.” His eyes narrow. “What's crap is you making me drive all the way the hell out here and pick you up at your house and say hello to your mom and drive you to a park just so you could have the pleasure of choosing the location of our breakup. That is some epic crap.”

I blink at him, shocked. “I'm sorry,” I finally manage to get out. “You're hurt, I get it. I'm—”

“I'm not hurt, June. I'm
pissed.
Your timing doesn't suck. It's
you
that sucks. You need to grow some already, learn to freaking drive and…” He stops, shaking his head again. He runs his fingers through his hair, that messy hair that is no longer mine to touch, and I suddenly wonder if there's a chance this is all a horrible mistake, merely a flash of stupid teenage insecurity or desire for drama. I reach a hand toward Itch but he pulls back.

“Never mind,” he says. “It's done.”

This morning when I was working out what I'd say to end my relationship with my boyfriend, it didn't occur to me that I might be the one to cry, that it would be me dissolving into tears before him.

And yet now here I am.

“I'll call my mom,” I say through sobs. “You don't have to drive me home.”

Itch glares at me. “I'm not leaving you alone outside in the winter. I'm not an asshole.” He points to where he parked when we arrived at Cherry Hill, when he thought we were coming here for a make-out reunion, before he knew I was dumping him. “Get in the car, June.”

So I do.

I hear Oliver's horn outside as I'm shoving my feet into boots. “Hold on!” I yell in his direction, even though he can't hear me through the door.

When I make it out to the porch, I find him standing right there, waiting for me. “Hello?” I say it like a question and am shocked when the answer comes in the form of a giant hug that lifts me off the ground. “What are you doing?” I squeal as he sets me down and then bounds toward the behemoth.

“Picking you up!” he yells back. “Get it?
Picking you up.
”

“That's terrible.” I follow him across the driveway, not acknowledging the way something inside me lit up when he held me. “It's not a pun. It's not even a joke.” I reach the car and climb inside. “I can't believe you get this excited about school.”

“I am a man of high emotion.”

“You are a boy of great ridiculousness,” I tell him as we pull onto Callaway Lane.

The thing I'm dreading doesn't come up until we're halfway to school.

“How was the rest of break?” Oliver asks me. “Did you see Itch?”

“Fine. We got together yesterday.”

I can't put my finger on exactly why I'm not ready to tell Oliver about breaking up with Itch, although I know it's at least partially because I'm ashamed. I feel bad that I made Itch angry, and I hate how he shined a giant glaring light on the ugliest parts of me.

But that's not all of it.

The idea of talking to Oliver about Itch—of letting him know I'm single—something about it makes me feel…nervous. It's too intimate. It exposes me. Leaves me raw and open. It makes me available.

It makes me an option.

So instead, I change the subject. “Do you guys have a new terrible plan for the stupid senior prank?”

“Well, since you asked so sweetly, yes we do,” says Oliver. “The day before spring break starts, we're going to cover the teachers' cars with birdseed.”

“No.”

“Perhaps you don't understand.” Oliver switches to a slower, more pronounced method of speaking. “We'll put the seed out in the morning, and by the time the last bell rings, all their cars will be covered in poo.”

“Oh, I understood fine,” I assure him. “It's still awful.”

“Theo thinks it's genius,” Oliver argues.

“We've already established what I think of Theo.” I point a finger at him. “That amount of bird poo will wreak havoc with the paint on the cars. Do you comprehend how little teachers make?”

“I can't win with you.” Oliver gives a rueful laugh. “You know that, right, Rafferty?”

I come out of the environmental sciences classroom and automatically turn in the direction of the stairwell, but I take only a couple steps before I remember that I don't go there anymore.

It's weird and also a little sad.

I know Oliver is probably still in family sciences and I could say hello or hang with him during the break, but instead, I walk past Mrs. Alhambra's room quickly, with my head down.

I could go to physics early, but then I'd be sitting in my seat when Oliver and Ainsley came in, and the thought of trying to make conversation while avoiding any mention of Itch makes me feel tired. So this time I
do
go to the stairwell, because I figure that's the last place my ex-boyfriend will be. There I edge my back into a corner and I ignore all the students bustling past me in an effort to get upstairs or downstairs. I don't want to see Itch and I don't want to see Oliver. I don't even want to see Shaun, because he'll ask how it went, and then I'll have to relive the breakup by telling the story of it. There's only one guy I want to talk to right now, but he's on a very different schedule from me. I send a text anyway, just in case—

hey, are you there?

—and he answers right away.

yep, on way to work. what's up?

itch & i broke up.

u ok?

I pause before writing back but decide to go with the truth.

i'm sad

There's a pause before his message appears on my screen:

sorry, hon. he's a fool if he can't see how beautiful you are. best girl in the world. hands down.

I could clarify. I could explain that I'm the one who did the breaking up, that I'm only sad because it's the end of something, because change is hard, because change is scary. My heart doesn't have to be broken to ache.

But all that is too complicated, so I just type back two words:

thx, dad

I eat lunch in the library. We're not supposed to have food in here, because they think we'll drop a pizza in the books or something, but I huddle in a study desk and hide my sandwich behind a magazine.

No one bothers me.

When Darbs enters Spanish class, she makes a beeline for my chair and pokes me in the shoulder. “First day back and you're already sitting with the pom-poms?”

“No,” I tell her. “I ate in the library.”

“We're not allowed to eat in the library.”

“Since when do you follow the rules?”

“I don't,” Darbs says. “But you do. What's up?” She slides into the chair beside me, ignoring the huff of annoyance from Zoe Smith, who had been about to sit down.

“Itch and I broke up.”

Darbs nods in a way that I think is supposed to imply infinite wisdom. “Now it all makes sense.”

“Why? Did he say something at lunch?”

“He didn't show, either. Why'd you do it?”

“Why do you assume I was the dumper and not the dumpee?”

“Come on, June.” Darbs tilts her head at me. “For a one-note guy like Itch, all that poser crap—eating lunch with the jocks and listening to you talk about football games—it was a lot. He was bending over backward to try to make you happy.” I blink at her and she gives me a compassionate smile. “But you checked out a while ago.” I nod and she reaches across the aisle to hug me. “It's okay, Junie. Having a change of heart doesn't make you a bad person.”

I feel a lump rise in my throat and I swallow it back. “How are things with you?” I ask so we can stop talking about Itch. “Any news on the Yana front?”

“Nope,” says Darbs. “But I made out with Ethan Erickson over winter break.” I almost choke on my gum. Darbs whacks me on the back, and after a second, my coughing morphs into laughter. “What's so funny?” she asks when it's clear I'm not about to die.

“I made out with Ethan Erickson over
summer
break.”

She stares at me and then she's cracking up, too. When the bell rings, we're still laughing so much that Señora Fairchild gives us a stern stare from the front of the room and refuses to start class until we calm down.

“How was your weekend?” Oliver asks once I'm strapped in and we're heading onto the road.

“Great. I caught this punk band at a warehouse in Ypsilanti. The cover charge included a free download, so fear not: you'll be hearing them multiple times just as soon as I prove to you yet once again that I am right and you are wrong.”

“Are they loud and screamy?”

“The loudest and the screamiest.”

“Awesome. Who'd you go with? Itch?”

Oh, right. This.

It's been a full week—one in which Itch has avoided me like the prom, and in which I still haven't told Oliver that Itch and I broke up. It just doesn't seem relevant anymore. Or at least, it doesn't until Oliver mentions him and I remember he still thinks we're together.

Crap.

“No,” I tell Oliver. “It was a girls' night. Just Lily and Darbs and me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Lily likes punk?”

“Lily tolerates punk,” I tell him. “But she loves punk
boys.
”

“I would not have guessed that,” Oliver says, shaking his head. “People are so interesting.”

“Totally.”

The next day, I decide to take action. At least in one area of my life.

I sprint out of world history when the bell rings, and I somehow make it into the adjoining building and to the second floor just as Itch is coming out of Ms. Jackson's class.

“Hey,” I say to him.

“Hey.” He doesn't break his stride. I have to whip around and jog to catch up to him.

“Slow down,” I say. “Please.” Itch does, but not very much, so I grab his sleeve. “Actually, can you stop walking? I just raced here from the main building and I kinda need a second to catch my breath.”

He stops, shaking free from my hold. “What do you want, June?”

“It doesn't have to be like this,” I tell him. “This thing where we avoid each other and make it weird for everyone else.”

“Everyone else is fine.”

“I'm not fine. I miss you.” Itch's expression doesn't change, but his shoulders tense and the rest of him goes still. “I miss you as a friend,” I clarify.

A puff of air escapes his mouth and he presses his lips together hard. “The thing is, I already have friends.”

“Really? Because I thought we had the same friends, and apparently they don't see you, either. All I'm saying is come have lunch with us again. We are all evolved people. We aren't cretins who can't handle a shift in our interpersonal dynamics.” I nudge his arm. “Besides, I think maybe they miss you, too.”

Itch looks down at me for a long moment. “Were you lying? The part where you said there's no one else. Was that a lie?”

“No,” I say immediately. “Not a lie. I am one hundred percent single and I don't see that changing anytime in the foreseeable future.”

“All right.” Itch starts walking down the hall away from me.

I watch him go for a second before calling after him. “Wait! Itch, hold on.” He doesn't stop, so yet again, I find myself chasing him down. This time, I fall into stride alongside, although I use the word “stride” loosely, as I'm taking two steps for every one of his. “Where are you going?”

“To the cafeteria. Our friends are probably already there.”

I stop in mid-step and then have to run to catch up with him again. “You're right. They probably are.”

We walk there together.