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I shrugged out of his hold and said, "I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice."
"Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?" the girl asked.
Conrad said, "Don't even think about leaving with that guy."
"Con, chill out," Jeremiah said. "She's not leaving. Right, Belly?"
He looked at me, and I pursed my lips and nodded. Then I gave Conrad the dirtiest look I could muster, and I shot one at the girl, too, when I was far enough away that she wouldn't be able to reach out and grab me by the hair. I walked back to the bonfire, trying to keep my shoulders straight and high, when inside I felt like a kid who'd gotten yelled at at her own birthday party. It wasn't fair, to be treated like I was a kid when I wasn't. I bet me and that girl were the same age.
Cam said, "What was that all about?"
I was choking back tears as I said, "Let's just go."
He hesitated, glancing back over at Conrad. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Flavia. But I'll stay here with you and hang out for a while. The whales can wait."
I wanted to kiss him then. I wanted to forget I ever knew Conrad and just be there, existing in the bubble of that moment. The first firework went off, somewhere high above us. It sounded like a teakettle whistling loud and proud. It was gold, and it exploded into millions of gold flecks, like confetti over our heads.
We sat by the fire and he told me about whales and I told him about stupid things, like being secretary of French Club, and how my favorite food was pulled pork sandwiches. He said he was a vegetarian. We must have sat there for an hour. I could feel Conrad watching us the whole time, and I was so tempted to give him the finger--I hated it when he won.
When it started to get cold, I rubbed my arms, and Cam took off his hoodie and gave it to me. Which, was sort of my dream come true--getting cold and having a guy actually give you his hoodie instead of gloating over how smart he'd been to bring one.
Underneath, his T-shirt said STRAIGHT EDGE , with a picture of a razor blade, the kind a guy shaves with. "What does that mean?" I asked, zipping up his hoodie. It was warm and it smelled like boy, but in a good way.
"I'm straight edge," he said. "I don't drink or do drugs. I used to be hardcore, where you don't take over-the-counter medicine or drink caffeine, but I quit that."
"Why?"'
"Why was I hardcore straight edge or why did I quit?"
"Both."
"I don't believe in polluting your body with u
I liked Dr Pepper too. I was glad I hadn't been drinking. I didn't want him to think badly of me. I wanted him to think I was cool, like the kind of girl who didn't care what people thought, the kind of person he obviously was. I wanted to be his friend. I also wanted to kiss him.
Cam left when we left. He got up as soon as he saw Jeremiah coming over to get me. "So long, Flavia," he said.
I started to unzip his hoodie, and he said, "That's all right. You can give it to me later."
"Here, I'll give you my number," I said, holding my hand out for his phone. I'd never given a boy my phone number before. As I punched in my number, I felt really proud of myself for offering it to him.
Backing away, he put the phone into his pocket and said, "I would have found a way to get it back without your number. I'm smart, remember? First prize in oration."
I tried not to smile as he walked away. "You're not that smart," I called out. It felt like fate that we'd met. It felt like the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me, and it was.
I watched Conrad say good-bye to Red Sox girl. She gave him a hug, and he hugged her back, but not really. I was glad I had ruined his night, if only a little bit.
On the way to the car a girl stopped me. She wore her blondish-brown hair in two pigtails, and she had on a pink low-cut shirt. "Do you like Cam?" the girl asked me casually. I wondered how she knew him--I thought he'd been a nobody just like me.
"I barely even know him," I told her, and her face relaxed. She was relieved. I recognized that look in her eyes--dreamy and hopeful. It must have been the way I looked when I used to talk about Conrad, used to try to think of ways to insert his name into conversation. It made me sad for her, for me.
"I saw the way Nicole talked to you," she said abruptly. "Don't worry about her. She sucks as a person."
"Red Sox girl? Yeah, she kind of does suck at being a person," I agreed. Then I waved good-bye to her as Jeremiah and Conrad and I made our way to the car.
Conrad drove. He was completely sober, and I knew he had been all along. He checked out Cam's hoodie but he didn't say anything. We didn't speak to each other once. Jeremiah and I both sat in the backseat, and he tried to joke around, but nobody laughed. I was too busy thinking, remembering everything that had happened that night. I thought to myself, That might have been the best night of my life.
In my yearbook the year before, Sean Kirkpatrick wrote that I had "eyes so clear" he could "see right into my soul." Sean was a drama geek, but so what. It still made me feel good. Taylor snickered when I showed it to her. She said only Sean Kirkpatrick would notice the color of my eyes when the rest of the guys were too busy looking at my chest. But this wasn't Sean Kirkpatrick. This was Cam, a real guy who had noticed me even before I was pretty.
I was brushing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom when Jeremiah came in, shutting the door behind him. Reaching for his toothbrush, he said, "What's going on with you and Con? Why are you guys so mad at each other?" He hopped up onto the sink.
Jeremiah hated it when people fought. It was part of why he always played the clown. He took it upon himself to bring levity to any situation. It was sweet but also kind of a
Through a mouthful of toothpaste I said, "Um, because he's a self-righteous neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie?"
We both laughed at that. It was one of our little inside jokes, a line from The Breakfast Club that we spent repeating to each other the summer I was eight and he was nine.
He cleared his throat. "Seriously, though, don't be so hard on him. He's going through some stuff."
This was news to me. "What? What stuff?" I demanded.
Jeremiah hesitated. "It's not up to me to tell you."
"Come on. We tell each other everything, Jere. No secrets, remember?"
He smiled. "I remember. But I still can't tell you. It's not my secret."
Frowning, I turned the faucet on and said, "You always take his side."
"I'm not taking his side. I'm just telling his side."
"Same thing."
He reached out and turned the corners of my mouth up. It was one of his oldest tricks; no matter what, it made me smile. "No pouting, Bells, remember?"
No Pouting was a rule Conrad and Steven had made up one summer. I think I was eight or nine. The thing was, it only applied to me. They even put a sign up on my bedroom door. I tore it down, of course, and I ran and told Susa