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“See there!” Casey cried. “You’re gri
“Okay, maybe you’re kind of right,” I admitted. It was sort of true. I had Casey and Jessica back. Things were normal again with Dad. Why complain?
“I always am.” She leaned forward and changed the radio to some shitty Top 40 station. “So, what’s up with you and Toby? Anything gossip-worthy?”
“Not really. He’s coming over this afternoon.”
“Ooh!” She sat back in her seat and winked at me. “Sounds gossip-worthy to me. You’ve picked up some extra-large condoms, right?”
“Shut up,” I said. “It’s not that kind of thing, and you know it. He’s just coming over to work on our editorials for AP government. It’s—”
I was cut off when my cell phone, which was lying in the cup holder, started vibrating and playing loud music. My fingers instantly clinched around the steering wheel. I knew who I’d set that ringtone for, and those few chords were all it took to derail my entire afternoon.
“Britney Spears? You have ‘Womanizer’ as a ringtone, seriously? OMG, B, that song is so, like, two thousand eight,” Casey laughed.
I didn’t say anything.
“Aren’t you go
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t wa
“Who?”
I didn’t respond, so Casey picked up my cell phone and checked the ID. I heard her let out a knowing sigh. A few seconds later, the music stopped playing, but I couldn’t force my body to relax again. I felt stiff and anxious, and it didn’t help that Casey had her eyes glued on me.
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“No,” I muttered.
“Since the day I picked you up from his house?”
“Mm-mm.”
“Oh, B,” she sighed.
The car became quiet—well, except for the a
“What do you think he wants?” Casey asked when the song ended. She sounded a little bitter.
“Knowing Wesley… probably a booty call,” I grumbled. “It’s never anything more than that.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing you didn’t answer.” She tossed my phone back into the cup holder and folded her arms over her chest. “Because he doesn’t deserve you, B. And you’re with Toby now, and he’s perfect for you and treats you the way you should be treated… unlike the douche bag.”
Part of me wanted to stop her. To defend Wesley. He hadn’t really treated me badly. I mean, yeah, he’d called me Duffy to no end, which was a
I didn’t tell Casey this, though. I didn’t say anything at all. She didn’t know about that last night with Wesley, how he had been my friend for about twelve solid hours. She didn’t know about Dad’s relapse, or the way Wesley had stood up for me. Those were things I could never tell her.
She was getting pissed at him only because she was scared. Scared I’d run back to him and forget about her and Jessica again. Defending Wesley wouldn’t have helped put that worry to rest.
Toby had gone from geek to hero in Casey’s mind in a matter of days. Simply because he hadn’t taken me from her. I wasn’t spending every afternoon with him the way I had with Wesley. I didn’t really want to. Sometimes that scared me, but I figured that that was normal. This was a healthy, nonescapist relationship, unlike what I’d had with Wesley. And at the moment, I was really happy to be spending some time with my friends.
I turned into Casey’s driveway and hit the automatic unlock button on my door. “Don’t worry about me. You’re right. Toby is awesome, and he’s made it so much easier to move on. I already have. Things are going well for me, so don’t worry.”
“Okay,” she said. “Good. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, B.”
“Bye.”
She climbed out of the car, and I drove away, wondering whether I’d just lied to her. Honestly, I wasn’t sure.
On the way home, Wesley called again.
I ignored him.
Because things were going well for me.
Because I was moving on.
Because talking on a cell phone and driving at the same time just isn’t safe.
I pushed Wesley out of my mind when I saw Toby’s car already parked in my driveway. Dad wasn’t home from work yet, so he sat on the front porch steps with a book. The sun glinted off the rims of his glasses, making them look extra sparkly. Like he was a trophy.
I got out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk toward him. “Hey,” I said. “Sorry. I had to take Casey home.”
He looked up at me with a smile.
Not a crooked grin…
I had to shake myself. I wasn’t going to think about Wesley. I wasn’t going to let myself miss him. Not when I had Toby. Sweet, normal, sparkly-smiling Toby.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m enjoying the weather. It’s so unpredictable in the spring.” He stuck his bookmark in the pages of his novel. “It’s nice to have a little bit of sunlight.”
“Brontë?” I asked, seeing the cover of his book. “Wuthering Heights? Isn’t that a little girly, Toby?”
“Have you read it?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “I’ve read Jane Eyre, which was definitely full of early feminism. I’m not saying that’s a problem. Personally, I’m a total feminist, but it’s a little sketchy for a teenage boy.”
Toby shook his head. “Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë. Wuthering Heights is Emily. The sisters are very, very different. Yes, Wuthering Heights is usually considered a love story, but I disagree with that. It’s almost a ghost story, and there’s more hate than romance. Every character is atrocious and spoiled and selfish…. It’s kind of like watching an episode of Gossip Girl in the eighteen hundreds. Except, of course, much less ridiculous.”
“Interesting,” I muttered, chagrined that I secretly watched Gossip Girl on a regular basis.
“It isn’t a favorite of most boys my age, I guess,” he said. “But it’s a page-turner. You should read it.”
“I might.”
“You should.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Are you ready to go in or what?”
“Absolutely.” He snapped the book shut and got to his feet. “Lead the way.”
I unlocked the door and let him walk inside ahead of me, where he immediately took his shoes off. Not that we live like pigs or anything, but no one ever does that in our house. I couldn’t help being impressed.
“Where will we be working?” he asked.
I realized suddenly that I was watching him and looked away. “Oh,” I said casually. “Um… my room? Is that okay?” God, I hope he doesn’t think I’m a stalker freak for staring at him like that.
“If it doesn’t bother you,” Toby said.
“No, it’s cool. Come on.”
He followed me up the stairs. When we reached my bedroom, I pushed the door open a crack, checking quickly for embarrassing items (bras, panties, et cetera) that might be lying on the floor. Sure the coast was clear—and praying I hadn’t been too obvious—I swung the door the rest of the way open and gestured for Toby to walk inside.
“Sorry it’s a little messy,” I said, looking down at the pile of unfolded, clean clothes that always stayed on the floor at the foot of my bed and trying not to think about the last time I’d had a boy in my room and how he’d laughed at my neurotic clothes folding. What would Toby think of it?
“It’s fine.” Toby moved a stack of overdue library books out of my chair and placed them on the desk. Then he sat down. “We’re seventeen. Our rooms are supposed to be messy. It wouldn’t be natural if they weren’t.”
“I guess not.” I climbed onto my bed and sat with my legs crisscrossed. “I just didn’t want it to bug you.”
“Nothing about you could bug me, Bianca.”
It took everything I had to ignore how cheesy that sounded. I smiled anyway and looked down at my purple comforter. I’d never received so many compliments from one person, and I wasn’t very good at accepting them. Mostly because I was always too busy mocking how mushy they were. But I was working on that.