“I drove around in my GMC Sierra, wearing the best clothes money could buy, plenty of cash in my wallet, thinking even if I wasn’t living my life, I was living a damn good one, you know? How could I complain about feeling pressured when my dad had done all this before me? He was perfect. The perfect lawyer, perfect dad and the perfect husband.
“I bought into the bullshit. But I’m done. I was done the moment my mom told me the affair had been going on for years. Some woman in his firm. She had a family, too. Fucked us all up when they died together. A nightmarish cliché.” He swiped angrily at the tears in his eyes and glared at my ceiling. “And then my mom told me she was moving us here. I didn’t want to at first, but then I realized it was good. Because here I can be anything I want to be. I can be me without being the me my dad wanted me to be.”
Hurt squeezed my chest tight as I stared at this boy who was so kind to me when he himself was in so much pain. I found myself desperate to save him from losing who he really was. Even if it made him lash out at me. “Is that what you’re doing?” I said it gently, trying not to antagonize him. “Hanging out with Stevie and his friends who don’t seem to care about anything. Not handing in homework on time. Mouthing off to teachers. Taking mean verbal swipes at kids who probably have their own crap going on. Is that what you’re doing, Tobias? Are you being yourself now? Because I don’t think you are.”
He stared at me and I braced myself. I hoped he saw my question for what it was, and not an attack. Finally, after what felt like forever, he said, “When I first got here, I didn’t want to care about anything. I didn’t care about anything.”
His use of the past tense made my breath falter. “And now?”
“Now...” His gaze burned into me. “Maybe you reminded me that I didn’t just care because my dad wanted me to care. Maybe...I just care.”
THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG
12
If our friendship means being your dirty little secret,
You can keep it.
—CC
Without having to say the words out loud, Tobias and I agreed that something changed in our relationship that night. Some deeper connection was formed out of the already thriving friendship between us.
Which was probably why I got pissed off enough to cause our first argument.
It was just after we returned to school from the October break. We’d had two weeks off and I was tired of dodging Vicki’s and Steph’s questions about what I’d been up to on the days I wasn’t with them. Maybe I was a terrible liar, I don’t know, I just knew they were suspicious I wasn’t being honest and hadn’t been for a while.
I didn’t want to keep my friendship with Tobias from them. Or from anyone. I was proud that he was my friend and I wanted him to be proud to be my friend, too. Yet, somehow I had silently agreed that we would keep our friendship just between us, even though I didn’t know why. Since he talked happily with me in class, I’d assumed that Tobias wouldn’t have a problem with me talking to him in the lunch line.
Vicki and Steph were already seated when I entered the cafeteria, and I was giddy to note that Tobias was at the back of the food counter line with Stevie. Anytime I saw Tobias I was giddy, addicted to his presence.
“Trying to decide between the ‘dinner ladies may have urinated in it’ pea soup and the ‘they went one process too far on this leathery beef patty’ burger?” I joked, as I came up behind him.
Both he and Stevie turned around. Stevie was somewhat confused by my sudden chattiness but he chuckled, “Aye, I know, right?”
Tobias, however, seemed startled by me making conversation. So startled that he just gave me a vague nod and turned his back on me again. Thankfully, Stevie had already turned away, because I think I must have turned fifty shades of red.
Hurt and mortification swirled inside me and I found myself glaring at the back of Tobias’s head. As though he felt my heated stare, he rubbed the back of his neck. By the time he was being served, I’d imagined our interaction happening over again with many different endings. Half of them involved Tobias declaring his undying love for me in some fashion, and the other half involved me taking epic verbal retribution for his public snub.
Once they’d paid for their dinners, he and Stevie began to walk away, but as his cousin wandered in front of him, weaving through the tables, Tobias looked over his shoulder at me. His expression was remorseful.
I turned away, snubbing him right back.
By the time lunch was over and I was sitting in English class, I’d worked myself into a fiery mass of anger. How dare he—the boy who knew more than anyone how much I didn’t need any more rejection in my life—snub me.
As he strode into class, head and shoulders above most every other person, his gaze flew directly to me and he seemed to pick up stride. He slid gracefully into the seat, shifting it closer to mine. “Comet.”
I stared straight ahead at the whiteboard, ignoring him and the urgency in his voice.
“Comet, don’t,” he snapped.
Snapped? At me? He was mad at me?
I glared at him, outraged to find him glowering back at me. “You gave me the cold shoulder.”
“I was surprised,” he hissed back, flicking a look over his shoulder as if to see if anyone was paying attention.
“Afraid people will find out you’ve been spending your nights with a loser?”
“Don’t say that about yourself,” he bit out.
“Why not? That’s how you made me feel.”
“Afternoon, everyone.” Mr. Stone strolled into class and placed a cup of coffee on his desk so he could pick up a pile of papers. “We’re taking a break from the book today to work on your poetry assignments for this term.” He handed me a worksheet, and just like that my argument with Tobias was put on pause.
It wasn’t until halfway through class, when Mr. Stone left the room to deal with a query from another teacher and the noise level rose, that Tobias continued where we’d left off. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. But I thought we were just keeping...us...on the down low.”
I narrowed my eyes, still hurt. “Because you’re ashamed of me?”
“God, no.” He leaned toward me, and my gaze dropped to his mouth. “Look, you’re right about Stevie’s friends. Some of them aren’t great guys. Stevie’s been friends with them a long time and he doesn’t really want to hear it. So while I’ve got Stevie’s back, I’m stuck hanging around not-so-good guys. Just because I have to doesn’t mean you have to. And I don’t think you should.” He rubbed a hand over his head, looking uncertain as he stared at our desk instead of at me.
How was it possible that Tobias could make me feel so hurt and dejected one minute and then make me feel like I finally had someone watching over me?
Was this love?
Was this how it felt?
This whirlwind of emotions—of certainties and uncertainties, of hopes and fears?
Was this me? In love? With Tobias?
My breath faltered at the thought and I found I could not speak.
Tobias’s gaze flew to mine. “Comet? You still mad at me?”
I shook my head. No! I’m in love with you, you big idiot.
Of course I didn’t say that. Instead I swallowed past the massive lump of realization that was lodged in my throat, “No. But I don’t think you should be hanging around people you’re not comfortable with. You should try harder with Stevie, make him see he deserves better friends. Then maybe we can all be friends?”
If Tobias was surprised by my offer to be friends with Stevie, I was even more so. But Tobias saw something good in his cousin and I trusted Tobias.
He visibly relaxed. “Believe me, I’m working on it.”
I nodded, worried that Tobias was martyring himself for his cousin and hopeful that Stevie was worth the trouble.
* * *
Although things between Vicki, Steph and I were a little better, they weren’t anywhere close to perfect. My friends were still working hard together on the school show, growing closer to one another every day. I felt like an outsider in our little threesome, but I guessed it was karma because I’d never bothered to think how Steph must have felt when Vicki and I left her out of things.