What Happens Next (23 page)

—and now my circles are revolting on me.

They are overlapping into a Venn Diagram Apocalypse.

I want my separate circles back.

I can manage separate circles; a life of overlapping circles calls attention. People—my mom, Kirsten, Paige, Corey—might start noticing something’s wrong if they’re all thrown together into one big circle. And I guess by saying this, I’ve up and admitted that there is, indeed, something wrong with me.

Enough.

This is nonsense.

I get up and splash cold water on my face. I wet my fingers and paste the uneven lock—the missing ski-trip lock, the
stolen
lock—behind my ear before I walk out of the bathroom and down to the backyard.

No problem. There is no problem. No problem here at all.

“Sid!” My mom beams when I step outside.

She walks over and stands next to me with her face positively aglow. We watch Corey dangling Spider-Man by a rope. He waves to me, I wave back. Ronan barks at me from his pen and then settles back down to work on his treat. He has been sequestered because Vince’s mother, who has never even laid eyes on Ronan, is afraid of him.

“Is this too high?” Corey yells to us from the tree branch.

“About a foot lower!” Mom yells back to him, looking up and shielding her eyes from the sun.

She mumbles to me through a big smile, “You’ve been holding out on me, young lady.”

“So it would seem,” I mumble back, looking at Corey, shielding my eyes and smiling too.

I give Corey a thumbs-up and he ties off the rope.

“Rides to school. Early morning trysts. I thought we were closer than this, Sid.”

“You did not just say the word tryst.”

“Tryst, rendezvous. Whatever you want to call it.”

“You’re cut off, Mom. Really. No more bodice rippers.”

“They’re called historical romance novels, Sid.”

“Bodice ripper, historical romance novel. Whatever you want to call it. The point would be that you’ve read one too many. We’re just friends.”

Corey climbs down out of the tree and brushes his shorts off before heading toward us. He is getting tanner by the second and smiling from ear to ear. I think his teeth could blind someone. The only phrase that I can conjure up is the one that is written all over my mom’s face:

Man candy.

“Friends. Righhhht…” she says, before stepping inside.

Liam runs up behind Corey and tries to jump on his back just as Corey reaches me. Corey bends down a little and hooks his arms underneath Liam’s legs, hoisting him up. Our eyes lock. Corey is studying my reaction.

“I like Corey!” Liam says. “He showed me a trick!”

“Oh, yeah? What trick is that?” I say, turning my eyes to Liam.

Liam leaps down and pulls out a pack of miniature playing cards from his back pocket. They are supposed to be part of the loot bags, but he’s already busted into his.

“Cut ’em, then pick a card,” he says.

I cut the deck and pick a card, holding it so neither of them can see what it is—the two of hearts, of course.

“Now slide it back in,” Liam says.

I slide it back in and Liam reshuffles the deck. He flips through them and then plucks out a card—the two of hearts.

“Hey, that’s pretty good. How’d you do that?” I ask, looking from Liam to Corey.

Corey grins and nods to Liam.

“You wish, loser,” Liam says, and takes off running.

Yes, young Liam’s studies are coming along nicely. With Corey’s help, we may make a smart-ass out of him yet.

“Well played,” I say to Corey.

We both smirk with pride as Liam runs toward the house. People are starting to arrive. We stand in the yard for a second. I look up at Spider-Man, dangling.

“Well, I’d introduce you, but I can see that my mom’s skipped the formalities.”

“Should I leave?” he asks, looking at me with a grin, knowing full well I wouldn’t dare let him.

“No, but you’re helping with the games. We’ve got Hang-Spider-Man-From-A-Tree-And-Bludgeon-Him-With-A-Stick-Until-Candy-Falls-Out-His-Butt Game. We’ve got Break-Your-Face-Sack-Race. A wet T-shirt contest disguised as a water balloon toss, annnd…”

I squint, trying to remember the list I’d made.

“… Pass the Orange.”

“Pass the Orange?”

“You know, put it under your chin and pass it to the person next to you without dropping it or using your hands.”

“You playin’?”

“I have to. None of these kids know a single thing about games. Unless, of course, it involves a big-screen TV and a hand controller.”

As if driving my point home, Liam and a few of his classmates come tearing out the back door, across the patio, and onto the lawn. One blond kid wearing a designer polo shirt and swim trunks stops cold, looks around at the yard, and whines, “No pool? Aw, man!”

Another kid grumbles and kicks up dirt, saying, “You don’t even have a trampoline.” Liam looks over at me, his little face twisted into a panic. Corey crosses his arms and glares at the brats.

“I’m in,” he says. “The little fuckers won’t know what hit ’em.”

At four, when the parents come to pick up Liam’s classmates, they are all hanging on Liam and Corey like sunburned, Gymboree-clad barnacles. Corey organized a Capture the Flag squirt gun war that lasted for two hours.

And Liam is a rock star.

I sit on my bed and think of Mr. Hero.

No, not Corey. The fast-food joint.

After the party, my stomach and heart and every last nerve ending were lit up like a nuclear bomb Christmas tree. When Corey pulled out of my driveway, I felt like I might blast off into space or explode into a million stars. I was so dizzy with happiness and freaked out by how great I felt that I immediately threw on my sweats and went running. I needed to burn the slap-happy-stupid out of me. I was running down Detroit, and that’s when I saw him. Mr. Hero. He was just there, beckoning to me with his neon sign and heavenly vapors.

I should never have brought money with me.

But I had to fill a prescription for my mom’s sleep aids, and there was nearly twenty bucks left over, and all I’d eaten all day was a thin slice of Spider-Man cake, which was so good, but hardly a meal. I couldn’t decide what I wanted; it was between the Hot Buttered Cheesesteak and the Romanburger. I got up to the counter and stood there forever. The cashier and the people behind me were growing impatient, so I just ordered both. Since it was cheaper in the long run to get the value meal, I got the drink and large Potato Waffer fries too. And it wasn’t even a diet—I got a real Pepsi. Oh, and a slice of cheesecake.

Now I’m home, lying on my bed like a disgusting, sweaty pig. I turn on my laptop and google a website called
FastFoodKills.com
and calculate the calorie damage.

Hot Buttered Cheesesteak: 669 calories.

Romanburger: 860 calories.

Potato Waffer Fries: 428 calories.

Large Pepsi: 280 calories.

Cheesecake: 280 calories.

For a grand total of 2,517 calories.

WTF?!

I can’t believe it. All that from one damn meal? Ugh. And even though I ran six miles afterward, I know that the majority of the calories are still there, booking a one-way trip to my ass.

I get up and head to the bathroom. I mean, the food has been swirling around in my stomach for almost two hours. So it’s not like I’m starving myself; I’m just trimming off some of the excess. I walk into the bathroom and I promise myself it will only be this one last time.

22

It’s Friday night
of the last weekend before the last week of school. None of the seniors have classes next week, so the partying starts tonight. The Callahans are kicking the graduation season off with their usual kegger. Only this time, they’ve rented two giant hot tubs rolled in on flatbeds.

We head out of my house, Kirsten hanging on to Justin Biceps. Paige can’t come because her mom found a copy of
Macbeth
stuffed under her mattress and flipped out, so they’re at a prayer intervention with some wackjob minister at their new church. They left their old church because the youth group held an Easter egg hunt for the younger kids last month and Paige’s mom decided that because there are no Easter egg hunts or magic rabbits in the Bible, the High Hopes First Assemblage of God must be dabbling in paganism. Their new minister isn’t even a real minister; he bought his license online and holds services in an out-of-business hair salon that rents by the month. Paige’s English teacher even called Mrs. Daniels to tell her that Paige was reading
Macbeth
for a term paper and that the play is actually considered to be a text of Christian allegory. It didn’t matter. When Paige’s mom pulled out that book and read the first line—
Thunder and lightning. Enter three
witches.—that was it. God help her if they ever find out about her Warcraft account.

So no Paige, which makes me the third wheel tonight.

The Callahans live about six blocks from my house, so we walk it. I keep about five feet ahead of the lovebirds so as to keep their constant kissing and tender glances out of my direct line of sight. I love Kirsten, but when she gets a boyfriend, it can be nauseating for the first few months. I don’t blame her, I guess. He’s good-looking if you like the military thing—hair buzzed off, shirt tucked in, all squared away nice and neat. Plus, he seems really sweet and genuinely interested in Kirsten, so I’m trying my best to be happy for her, even if, deep down, I’m pretty jealous about the whole thing. She’s had like five or six real boyfriends in her life, and I’ve never even been on a real date, just awkward pairings glued together by Kirsten. Some friend of whomever she’s dating and I will tag along to the Berea Fair or the Metroparks. It never works out. Either he’s too short or I’m too fat or he’s too boring or I’m too bossy. Whatever the case, we both end up miserable thirty seconds into the date.

It’s a nice night—not too hot, not too cold—and I’m looking forward to this party. Mostly because everyone—geeks, jocks, burnouts, goths—will be there, including Corey and his friends. The Callahan kegger knows no prejudice. We turn onto Magnolia and the road is lined bumper-to-bumper with cars and their front yard looks like it’s been turned into a parking lot. People are filtering down the street and we join the crowd that is headed toward the loud music. When we get to the backyard, the first two people I see are Starsha and Amber, splashing around in string bikinis on top of the Rub-A-Dub Hot Tubz flatbed.

“Figures,” I say.

Kirsten holds on a little tighter to her man.

“Skanks,” she mutters.

The line to the keg is about twenty deep and looped around the patio. It’s a nice yard, pretty big by Lakewood standards, and completely enclosed with a privacy fence. The place is filled end-to-end with kids from school, and there’s a small bonfire going near the back with people sitting around it in lawn chairs. About five or six beat-up picnic tables are placed around the lawn, and music is being blasted out a third-story window, which is really just an attic converted into a bedroom.

Pat’s bedroom.

Or
the lair
, as Kirsten now calls it. It’s where she and Pat first hooked up last year, and where they spent most of their time before he broke up with her.

I scan the crowd for Corey, but don’t see him or his friends anywhere. Tate Andrews and Hunter Brady stumble past us, shirtless, their swim trunks dripping wet. They cut to the head of the line, completely ignoring Celinda Monroe and Natalee Flowers, who are patiently waiting their turn along with everyone else. Tate fills his cup and turns around a little too quickly, slopping beer foam down the front of Natalee’s shirt. She jumps back and starts wiping at her chest. Tate doesn’t even apologize; he just stumbles away laughing. I grab a red cup and get in line.

“Babe, would you get us a plate of something?” Kirsten says, looking up at Justin. “I didn’t eat dinner and I’m starving. I’ll get your beer for you.”

“Sure, babe,” he says and then leans down to kiss her good-bye, like he’s heading off to hunt for wild boar and not just walking over to the Callahan garage for some cheese cubes and crackers. Bleck. I make a quick promise to myself never to call anyone “babe” or send them to fetch me cheese cubes. As soon as Justin’s out of earshot, Kirsten leans in.