“It’s different with Rory.”
“Because he’s a guy?”
“Because Rory used to be my best friend.”
Chloe’s head whips around.
“What? When?”
“Back in middle school,” Smith says, still focused on the lucky cat’s waving paw, “when I first started at Willowgrove. We had the same homeroom, and we clicked, I guess. Him and Summer were the first two friends I made. And then I joined JV football, and Rory decided he was too cool to be friends with a dumb jock or whatever, and we kind of drifted. We haven’t really talked since. It sucked.”
“Does Shara know? About the two of you?”
“She was there the whole time,” Smith says. “Rory’s always had a crush on her. And he’s still pissed that I’m dating her, even though all that stuff was a million years ago. Like, you should have seen his face the first time he looked out his window and saw me picking Shara up for a date.”
“But she picked you,” Chloe says. “Why does it matter?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Smith says. His brow pinches. “I haven’t talked to him since we were fourteen, but I haven’t been able to get rid of him either. It’s like he was always gonna come back to mess things up for me, and now he has.”
The whole thing sounds kind of dramatic to Chloe, until she remembers the feeling in her gut the first time she saw Shara, like the universe had dropped a personalized time bomb into first-hour world history. Maybe some people are supposed to hate each other.
“I guess that’s fair,” she says.
Something settles into the air between them, an unsteady truce. They have almost nothing in common outside the fact that they’ve both kissed Shara Wheeler, unless there’s something else.
After he climbs out the passenger side, Chloe rolls down the window and yells, “Hey!”
Smith pauses on the curb. “What?”
“You forgot this,” she says, shrugging out of his jacket and holding it toward him. He leans back through the window and takes it. “Card’s in the pocket.”
“Thanks,” he says.
“Congrats on being the only member of the football team I would save in a fire.”
Smith folds the jacket over his arm and laughs. It’s a warm sound, like sunbaked earth under bare feet. She doesn’t have to wonder what Shara sees in him. It’s objectively obvious.
FROM THE BURN PILE
From Georgia’s composition book for Creative Writing, junior year Assignment: Describe a person with one word
There’s a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else’s backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is. So, the word I would choose to describe her is “deliberate.”
Annotation by Chloe: Who is this about????
8
DAYS SINCE SHARA LEFT: 8
DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 35
“Sorry,” Chloe’s mom says, folding her arms across her chest. She leans against the side of the truck, where the logo of her welding company is painted in black. “You went to a party where last night?”
This is how it always goes with Chloe’s moms. They talk about everything, so every secret feels huge. She lasted until Sunday morning, then folded on the ride to the Birmingham airport.
“Dixon Wells’s house.”
“Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Because he’s a douchebag of nuclear proportions. I’m sure I’ve complained about him before.”
“And this was when you said you were with Georgia?”
“No,” Chloe hedges, “I said I was going out with a friend. Which was true because I went to the party with a friend. Well, technically I met him there, but we went together.”
“Playing pretty fast and loose with the concept of truth there, junior. Do you want to tell me why you went to the house party of an atomic asshole?”
“Nuclear douchebag.”
“Sure.”
Since she knew she’d end up breaking, she already has her story. The whole hunting-down-her-academic-rival thing is too complicated to explain, and if she claims she wants to make peace with the Willowgrove elite as a graduation goodwill gesture, her mom will probably rush her to the ER for a head injury.