Pain rips me up from the inside. “So this is what you do? You pretend to be my friend, and then you say this kind of stuff behind my back?”
The splotches on his neck intensify, but he sounds so cold when he says, “I just don’t get it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t get why you like him so much. Why you try so hard to make him like you.”
My head swims. I stagger backward, holding the phone to my chest. “Get away from me, Jamie. Get away from me right now.”
He kicks at the ground, and a few clods of dirt explode into the air. “I am getting away, remember? I’m going to the States, and then I’ll be in boarding school, and you weren’t even going to say good-bye, were you? Because you were too busy flirting with David.”
“You know what?” I shout. “I’m glad you’re leaving! At least now you’ll stop following me around like a sad, pathetic puppy dog all the time!”
His expression hardens. “You mean the way you do to David?”
“Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” I shove him. My cheeks are warm and wet, and I know I sound totally crazy, but I want to hurt him as much as he’s hurt me. “Do you think I’m completely oblivious? I know you like me, Jamie. I know you’ve LIKED me all year. But nothing was ever going to happen. You’re a loser. A twitchy little loser who hides behind Mika because you can’t make friends for yourself—”
My last breath is a sob, and it seems to wake him up from a spell. His wide-open eyes fill with sadness, but he doesn’t apologize. It’s starting to rain, and he tugs at his curly hair. His stupid, curly hair that always sticks out.
I pull something from my messenger bag. A collage of pictures of us I downloaded from my phone and edited together. In the middle, I wrote, “I’LL MISS YOUR NERDY WAYZ. COME HOME SOON.” I ball it up and drop it at his feet, and I think maybe he’s crying or maybe he just can’t look at me anymore.
I turn around and run away without looking back. Without even saying good-bye.
CHAPTER 4
SUNDAY
JAMIE WAS RIGHT BELOW ME ON THE STAIRS. There were people moving around us, into the station, out of the station. But we were standing still.
“Hey,” he said. His hey sounded different. Warmer somehow and slower.
“Hi,” I said. “I was looking for you.”
“You were?” He quirked up an eyebrow and smiled. Same overlapping front teeth, same green-gold eyes. But he was taller now. Not David tall, but taller. And he had broader shoulders and thicker arms. His hair had grown just past his ears, and it was less curly. Although I couldn’t say that for sure. He was wearing a knit maroon hat that covered most of his head.
A hat. In this heat.
“We’re blocking the way,” I said, and turned around before he had a chance to respond.
“It’s cosmic destiny!” David said when we were standing in line for a karaoke room. The karaoke place was busy for a Sunday night. Workers in red shirts moved briskly from the bar to the nearby elevator bank, balancing trays of drinks on their shoulders. Loud J-pop played from speakers built into the walls.
“It wasn’t cosmic anything,” I said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Thousands of people walk through that station every day!” David said. “What are the chances you’d find Baby James for us?”
“There aren’t that many people with blond hair,” Caroline said, smiling generously at Jamie. “We stick out.”
“Or orange hair.” David tapped the braids on the top of my head. “Don’t forget the orange-haired people.”
I was ignoring Jamie. At least I was trying to, but I kept failing spectacularly. Ignoring him was like trying to ignore a solar eclipse. And besides, no one else was ignoring him. They were all cooing over him and lavishing him with attention like it was his freaking birthday or something.
“Are you excited about being a senior?” Caroline asked him. She had her arm linked through mine and kept squeezing it encouragingly whenever I said things. I was cordial and didn’t try to strangle her in return.
“He’s not going to be a senior,” Mika said.
David pointed at Jamie with a cigarette. “Baby James here is in the year below. A mere junior.”
“Yeah. Thanks for clearing that up.” Mika shot an annoyed look at David, who gave her a broad smile in return.
The line moved forward.
“So.” Jamie nodded his head. “Karaoke. I’ve really missed this.”
“Yeah?” Caroline said. “I only moved here last year. My friends in Tennessee think it’s weird that I go to karaoke all the time. They think it must be super embarrassing.”
“I like that,” he said. “The embarrassing part. I tried to bring karaoke to the dorms of Lake Forest Academy, but I wasn’t successful. My most recent roommate was really against it. Very low threshold for public humiliation. Or for music. Or for me, if we’re being brutally honest about the situation…”
He was rambling like a crazy person. Which actually made me feel a whole lot better. He might have been taller and broader and theoretically more attractive, but at least he wasn’t cool now. He was still awkward, nerdtastic Jamie. Ridiculous hipster hat or no ridiculous hipster hat.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re back.” Mika punched his shoulder.
Jamie beamed. “Well, I am.”
David rubbed one of Caroline’s hands between his. “You’re back. Sofa’s leaving. The world giveth, and the world taketh away.”
“Totally sad!” Caroline said.
“Sofa?” Jamie said, acknowledging my existence for the first time since the station.
I took a sudden interest in the front of the line. Two TV screens behind the counter played the exact same music video of girls in frilly dresses dancing in a hot-pink room. “It’s my nickname,” I said.
“A lot has changed since you left, James,” David said.
Mika sighed and rolled her eyes.