I ignore the little voice in the back of my head saying, Well, actually…
My sister takes a noisy breath, her lips pressed together, and I realize with a jolt of discomfort that Giselle—whose moods are usually limited, much like a panther’s, to sleepy, hungry, and bitey—seems worried. Serious. Uncertain. My heart twists. Then she destroys my sympathy by being a complete prat. “Contrary to everything you just said, Celine, I know for a fact that you are very smart.”
I glare. Violently. “I will not deign to respond to that.”
“I believe,” she says, “that if you think about this situation, you’ll reach a logical conclusion. I believe in you.”
That would be a very nice speech if she wasn’t technically insulting me. “Would you stop? This isn’t a big deal. It’s just a ball.” I know I’m ignoring a huge chunk of the conversation we just had by saying that, but God. I’m exhausted. Sometimes talking to Giselle is like having an angel on each shoulder while the devil lives between your ears.
“Just a ball?” she repeats. “No, Celine. No, it’s secret. It’s a lie by omission. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have hidden that bloody leaflet. You’re sneaking around.”
My throat cinches tighter with every calm accusation my sister throws. “That’s not…I’m not…” I can’t finish my sentence.
Giselle sighs. “And even if it was about the ball: aren’t parents invited to this thing? How do you think Mum’s going to feel if she shows up and sees him, and you could’ve told her, but you didn’t?”
I…hadn’t thought that far ahead, possibly because imagining that scenario makes the bottom fall out of my stomach. I was always going to tell Mum eventually. It’s not that big a deal. I just haven’t figured out how to, you know, phrase it, how to explain.
“Yeah,” Giselle says flatly. “I want you to think about this plan of yours.” Her expression sours on the word. “And about what you really want from your life. Because it is your life, Cel. No one else has to live it.” She opens her mouth like she wants to say more, then shakes her head and leaves, closing the door behind her.
I curl up like a bug and roll onto my side, staring up at my Steps to Success board. Giselle doesn’t get it, that’s all. If she got it, she’d…well. She’d get it.
Except there’s this annoying sickly feeling in my stomach that I’m desperate to turn away from. My phone vibrates, and when I glance at the screen, I see Brad’s name. For the first time since we became friends last month, my mood doesn’t lift in response.
Instead, I remember him calling me avoidant, and I remember that he’s right.
BRAD
By December, Donno has kept me and Jordan off the pitch for so long, I’ve started to seriously consider jogging.
“Bruh.” Jordan’s disgust is loud and clear through my headphones. “Jogging? Not to be dramatic, but I’d honestly rather die.”
“What?” I’m lying on my bed （wearing my inside clothes, obviously）， studying the smooth, perfect white of my ceiling. Wintery, afternoon sunlight makes the whole room fresh and bright, and Jordan’s cracking me up as always. “Come on, man. It’s basically football, just fewer people and no ball.”
“It’s soulless and painfully boring,” he announces.
“We have to think of our cardiovascular health!”
“That’s future me’s problem. I am too young and sexy for pointless exercise. Give me a trophy or get out of my face.”
Incredible. “I hope you know how ridiculous you sound.”
“Always,” he assures me.
My smile fades. “I’m sorry, by the way, that Donno’s taking this out on you. It’s basically my fault he’s pissed.”
Jordan snorts. “No, it’s his fault he’s pissed, so let him stew. I could give a good goddamn about Max Donovan and his stank-ass attitude. I only joined the soccer team ’cause I needed to make friends over here, and look: I have friends.”
That’s a great point. Why did I start playing football?
Because Dr. Okoro said getting out of my head and into my body would be helpful, and she was right. So, who cares if Donno won’t play me? Maybe I’ll jog after all.
While I’m having Very Important Realizations, Jordan’s still ranting. “Anyway, you had nothing to do with me finally telling him about himself. He can’t speak to people like he speaks to Celine. You know, she’s basically my homegirl now.”
My eyebrows fly north. “How is Celine your homegirl? She barely says two words to you.”
“Yeah, and? She’s shy.”
I want to bust up laughing at the idea of Celine as shy, only…she kind of is. In a really weird way. She’ll cuss out a complete stranger if she thinks it’s warranted, but it usually takes her thirty business days of acquaintance to feel comfortable with the question, Hey, how are you?
I catch myself smiling and realize that I find her suspicious nature dreamy and adorable. This crush is a sickness. A sickness, I tell you!
“Plus,” Jordan continues, oblivious to the steady degradation of my brain cells, “she’s best friends with Minnie, and I like Minnie.”
Oh yeah; it turns out Michaela Digby is indeed gay, so Jordan has transformed his interest into general hero worship. The past month or so, it’s usually me and him and Minnie and Celine hanging out between classes. Sometimes Sonam and Peter are there, chattering about a New Year’s party; sometimes a few guys from the team come over and Celine glares at them like they might be hiding deadly weapons in their socks. It works pretty well.
“And then,” Jordan finishes grandly, “there’s the fact that my best friend is in love with her—”
I swallow my spit the wrong way and come very, very close to choking to death on a Sunday afternoon with my bedroom door wide open. My obituary would be tragic. “What?” I croak, sitting bolt upright. “I am not— What are you—”
“Man,” he says. “Come on. What do you think I am, stupid?”
“Jordan,” I say. “Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. I don’t…It’s not…” I glance furtively at the door because Mason’s home, for once, and he has ears like a bat. “I’m not in love with—” Celine, I mouth.
“What?” Jordan says. “I think you’re breaking up.”
“I just…have the teeniest, tiniest crush on her,” I say. “That’s all. It’s so small. Sooo small. It’s microscopic!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes,” I say, relieved that he’s being so reasonable about this. “Absolutely, yes.”
“Huh. See, usually when you have a crush on someone, you’re mad obvious about it,” Jordan says, “and you tell me right away—you don’t shut up about it—and then you spend a couple months spacing out while you daydream about your converted loft and your kitchen garden and your seventy-five adopted children—”
“Jordan,” I groan, flopping back onto the bed. What is he, a bloody modern history book? “Stop dredging up the past. I’m very nearly a mature adult and I only did that with, like, five people.”