She flipped her hair behind her shoulder and gave me one of her impish smirks. “I hope you never get chased by a psychopath with a knife, because you suck at running.”
I gave her a playful shove and followed her to our usual spot on the bleachers. “Lucky for me knife chases aren’t a regular occurrence.” I pressed my hand against the metal bleachers to test the temperature. They were hot, but not too hot to sit on.
“You never know,” she said, plopping down next to me and angling her body toward the field where the soccer team practiced. “No offense, but you are definitely the slowest seal. And everyone knows the slowest seal gets eaten.”
“If it’s by one of them,” I inclined my head toward the field where the varsity soccer team was running drills, “I might not mind so much.”
Sunny raised an eyebrow at me and tipped her head back so the sun could warm her face. “And what would Logan say if he heard you talking like that, hmm?”
I shrugged and readjusted my gym shorts. The thick polyester had inched up my thigh and was giving me a wedgie. As usual, Sunny rolled the waistband of her shorts up so many times that the full length of her tanned legs was exposed. You could almost see her thong. I tugged my shorts down lower, trying to hide as much of my pale skin as possible.
“You guys are, like, official now, right?”
I didn’t need to look at her to know that she glared at me expectantly, but I didn’t feel much like answering. Answering made it real. Answering made it final. And I hadn’t decided whether or not I wanted him to be my boyfriend yet.
It’s not that I didn’t want to be with Logan. He was like one of those cardboard picture books with huge block letters and primary colored illustrations that needed no interpretation. He liked me, and it was a nice change from the enigma that was Justin Cobb. But no matter how much I wanted to say yes, I couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling I got in my gut whenever he said the word girlfriend, like the word was covered in rocks and once he attached it to me I would sink to the bottom of the ocean, drowning in the fact that he was not Justin Cobb.
Sunny ignored my silence and snapped the piece of gum she chewed in my direction.
“Look, now that you’ve got a boyfriend or whatever, I think it’s time I let you in on a secret. But you can’t get mad, okay? I mean, you kind of gave up your right to get mad once you started seeing Logan.”
The sun was bright in the afternoon sky, and I had to raise my hand over my eyes to block the glare so I could get a better look at Sunny. There was something in her eyes I didn’t like, something dark and threatening that only crossed her face when she wanted something.
“I’ve been watching Justin recently, you know, since you point him out all the time.” As she spoke her jaw worked feverishly at the piece of gum in her mouth, like she was sharpening her teeth on the pink gluey surface. “And I totally get why you’ve been obsessing over him. I mean he’s hot. Like, hot hot. Plus, he hangs out with all those guys at the water tower, and that’s kind of our scene, so it only makes sense that one of us starts dating him. I know you’re probably not completely over him yet, but now that you’re seeing Logan, it kind of makes him fair game. So I was thinking that maybe I could take a crack at him. You know, try to hang out with him or whatever.”
She blew another bubble as she watched me curiously, and I had to sit on my hands to keep myself from plucking the gum from her mouth and throwing it in her hair. If I were a cartoon character the speech bubble above my head would’ve read, “!!!” Because I couldn’t seem to form the words to tell her what a terrible, horrible idea it was.
Sunny answered my silence with a wide-eyed and innocent nonverbal plea. Then she sighed and held up her hands as if she was about to catch me in a trust fall rather than steal my man. “Look, I knew you weren’t going to be happy about it, and I debated whether or not I should tell you, but I just didn’t feel right keeping it from you. And I know this is going to make me sound like a bitch, but it’s not fair for you to call dibs on all the cute guys in the school. You can’t date Logan and claim Justin. You have to pick—do you want to keep the cake or do you want to eat it?”
I hated that saying. Why wouldn’t I eat cake if someone gave it to me? It was stupid. Almost as stupid as Sunny’s interloping crush announcement. I narrowed my eyes at her, irritation bubbling underneath my skin as she popped her gum at me again. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she popped it to piss me off.
“I never said Logan was my boyfriend,” I whispered, glaring at her so she would know she was getting on my last nerve. “And it shouldn’t matter anyway. You know how I feel about Justin. How could you even want to date him knowing how much I like him? And when do you even see him enough to have a crush on him? He’s not in any of your classes. I mean, you barely know the guy.”
She looked back at me thoughtfully, her green eyes flashing in the sun. “I see him enough. Plus you point him out, like, every single time you see him and give me a play-by-play of every single one of your conversations. How could I not have a crush on him when you’re constantly selling me on how great he is? You can’t be mad at me for agreeing with you.”
I made a humph noise so I wouldn’t have to agree with her. Maybe it wasn’t fair for me to contemplate dating one guy while clinging to the idea of another, but I couldn’t help it. It was the way I felt, and I couldn’t snap my fingers and wish away my feelings.