Galgorithm (20 page)

45

I TRUDGE BACK TO MY
locker. The next period has started, and the senior hallway is empty. I open my locker and just stare into it blankly. The day has already been a whirlwind.
Only a few more weeks of this,
I try to reassure myself.

I can't sit in a classroom right now. I also don't want to be alone. I want to text Jak and see if she'll cut and meet me to hang out. Then I reconsider. Seeing her but not being with her is just too painful. My head is spinning. I should really go to class. My truancy has become chronic, even for a senior.

I close my locker and then literally jump and grab my heart. Tristen is just standing there, out of nowhere, like in a horror movie.

“What the!” I yelp.

“Hey,” she says.

“Tristen, you scared the crap out of me.”

“You've been avoiding me.”

“It's not avoiding if I told you directly that I can't see you anymore.”

“You didn't mean that.”

Oh boy. I have been doing my best to end things with ­Tristen amicably. I've really been giving it the ol' college try. But she refuses to let me go. Yes, I may have slipped up a little bit in the parking lot. But I quickly came to my senses and told her we were through. Since then I've been making sure I'm not giving her the wrong impression. She just keeps coming back, like a hot zombie.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I just wanted to see how your eye was.”

“Well, now you can see: It's swollen and gross.”

“I actually think it's really sexy.”

Of course you do.

Sometimes I hate myself. After all, 99.99 percent of me knows that Tristen isn't right for me. But even after everything that's happened, there's
still
that .01 percent saying,
Hey, listen, Jak is out of the picture; why not?
I hate that .01 percent of me. I hate the testosterone that courses through my body, over which I seem to have no control.

“You wanna sneak into an empty classroom?” she asks.

I pause, but quickly gather myself. “No, Tristen. I don't
want to sneak into an empty classroom. Please. I'm begging you. Leave me alone.”

Tristen does not leave me alone. Instead she moves in closer and starts caressing my bruised face.

And just when I think that this already terrible moment, in this absolutely dreadful month, of this totally disastrous year, in my increasingly meaningless life, could not get any worse, I see
him
: my sworn enemy, Harrison, fully clothed this time, walking toward us down the hall.

I briefly consider using her as a human shield, but I pry Tristen off me instead.

“We just have a way of bumping into each other, don't we, Chambliss?” Harrison says when he gets to my locker. “I'm glad I was running late for class.”

He doesn't look very glad. I don't say anything.

“Hey, Tristen,” Harrison says.

“Hello,” she replies.

She puts her hand on my arm.

I make a calculated gamble and say, “Tristen, Harrison is the one who did this to my eye.”

Who knows? Maybe she'll kill him. That could work.

She caresses my face again. “You did this?” she asks ­Harrison. “Why?”

“He doesn't know how to mind his own business,” he says.

“That's a lie,” I say to Harrison. “I've done nothing
but
mind my own business. Rebecca is gone. Let her go. I'm not the problem.”

“Oh yeah?” Harrison says. “How about the fact that I sprained my hand and couldn't pitch? I almost lost my scholarship.”

“Really? You're gonna blame
me
for punching me in the face and hurting your hand?”

“Yeah, that's just crazy,” Tristen adds, being an expert herself.

Harrison grits his teeth and begins to crack the knuckles on his good hand.

Witnessing me about to get pummeled turns Tristen on, because what doesn't? She holds me closer.

And that's when, by the grace of God, I have two epiphanies:

One, Tristen and Harrison are both bullies.

And two,
they belong together
.

How could I have been so dense? Here we have two of the most attractive people in school. They keep running into each other. They're both obsessed with me. They both have a few screws loose. They both want to save the world. Tristen, for all her psychosis, is still a good person deep down—and she must be lonely. Harrison, despite his bloodlust, is really just nursing a broken heart (in addition to a sprained hand). It was meant to be!

I peel Tristen off me once more and try my best to keep Harrison at bay.

“Guys,” I say, “I want you to hear me out. I think, maybe, what you're both looking for is right in front of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Harrison bristles.

“Tristen here may seem like just a pretty face—” I say.

“Thank you,” she interrupts, mistaking this for a compliment.

I continue: “But this summer she's doing both Habitat for Humanity
and
helping dolphins in the Congo.”

“Technically Gabon,” she says.

“Technically Gabon,” I clarify.

“And Tristen, you may only know Harrison as the star of our baseball team, or former star.”

Harrison growls.

I press on: “But he is actually quite committed to conserving natural resources. Right?”

There's a moment of silence . . . but then Harrison engages.

“Did you know those dolphin-safe labels on cans of tuna aren't regulated?” he says to Tristen. “They basically don't mean anything.”

She perks up. “No, I didn't know that! I love tuna fish. Does that mean all those cans of tuna are hurting dolphins?”

“You're probably fine,” he says. “But after you finish with the cans, I hope you—”

“Recycle them,”
they say simultaneously.

A spark flies.

“I hate dolphins
and
recycling,” I interject for emphasis. It's ignored.

“Of course,” Tristen says to Harrison, “I always recycle. I have like six bags of soda bottles in my trunk I'm gonna recycle after school.”

“Really?” Harrison says, as he steps toward Tristen and I slowly back away. “Do you want company? I can carry everything.”

Tristen glances at Harrison's biceps. Then they lock eyes.

“But what about Shane?” Tristen asks, suddenly turning and remembering little old me.

“Who, me?” I reply from halfway down the hall. “Don't worry about me. You have my blessing. Please.”

Tristen, incredibly, is satisfied by this, and turns back to Harrison. He, on the other hand, is now glowering at me.

“Are we even?” I ask.

Harrison loses focus and sneaks a peek at Tristen's cleavage. Total kryptonite.

“Even,” he mumbles, and I can sense he's already forgotten his own name.

I backpedal the rest of the way down the hall.

They are lost in each other's eyes and are finally out of my hands.

Sweet relief.

46

IT'S A BREEZY BUT WARM
Saturday night. The kind of night that should be filled with parties and hijinks. I always figured my senior year would wind down in a haze of booze, girls, and fun. Instead, none of those things are present and I'm driving around aimlessly with Reed.

My eye has finally healed enough for me to show my face in public outside school. But things with Jak are still frayed, and everyone else seems to be busy with their significant others or scrambling for prom dates or cramming for finals. I've given up on it all. Reed told me he had news, so I figured I would pick him up and we'd make a night out of it. Some night. Reed has mostly been silent as he sits in the passenger seat of my Jeep.

“We've been driving in circles for half an hour,” I say. “Either tell me the news or let's pick a destination.”

Reed takes a deep breath. “I've been talking to Marisol,” he says.

“Oh,” I say.

Reed has been pretty mum about Marisol ever since I tried to inspire him to win her back. He never brought it up, so I just assumed the worst.

“I decided to end things,” he says.

I cock my head. “What do you mean
you
decided to end things?”

“Well, after I explained to her what the Galgorithm was really about, and she had a chance to let it all sink in, she forgave me.”

“Nice.”

“She said that she was actually flattered that I had gone to such great lengths to win her over. I told her I would have followed a thousand Galgorithms if it meant we could be together.”

“So she's not mad.”

“Nah. She said everyone at school kinda got worked up about it, and she just got swept up in that. She wanted to give it another try.”

“So what do you mean
you
ended it?”

“Well, I decided I'm not ready to be in a relationship. Now that I know what it's like, I mean. Marisol was my first girlfriend. And it was amazing. But I told her she'd be better off with someone else.”

“Why on earth would you say that?”

“Because I feel like I've found a higher calling.”

I glance over at Reed in the passenger seat. He's adopted a middle ground between his mom-certified wardrobe and the more fashionable attire I picked out for him. He looks good now. Upbeat and comfortable in his own skin. Even his posture looks better.

“A higher calling?” I ask. “You're gonna become a priest?”

“No,” Reed says. “Even better. I'm gonna become you.”

“Huh?”

“I wanna be your successor.”

I do a double take.

“My successor?”

“Yeah. I want to take over where you left off. I want to use everything you taught me. I want to help people find love. I wanna reboot the Galgorithm.”

A million thoughts cross my mind, and I struggle to process them while continuing to drive in my lane.

“But Reed, you know as well as anyone that the ­Galgorithm isn't real. That thing Mr. Kimbrough created was a joke. I never wrote down any of my
actual
methods.”

“But I did.”

Reed holds up his little notebook.

Of course.

“I've been keeping notes from day one,” he says. “Including some stuff you told only me. What I have in here is more
exhaustive and more accurate and more secret than anything that's online. This is like Galgorithm 2.0. And the world deserves to see it.”

I shake my head and smile in disbelief.

“I was also thinking,” he continues, “that this doesn't just have to help guys. You have plenty of tips that will work for girls, too. Especially if it's all about confidence and being present. There's no reason why I can't offer girls a ‘secret formula' into
our
minds.”

“So . . . ,” I say. “Like a
Guy
gorithm.”

“Yes!
Guygorithm.
I need to write that down.”

He scribbles in his notebook.

“Are you sure you're ready for this, Reed?” I ask. “Being known as a dating expert is a lot of pressure.”

“Well, maybe it's not so much about advising and coaching. Maybe it's more of a matchmaking service. You know, finding the right girl and the right guy and bringing them together. Plus relationship advice. You did all of that, too, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “True.” I choose not to mention the times this went horribly awry, or, in the case of me and Jak, the time it failed completely.

“How about this,” he says. “‘Reed Wanamaker: Teen Matchmaker.'”

He lets that hang in the air for a moment.

“I must admit,” I say, “that does have a nice ring to it.”

“I gotta get business cards.”

“Rebecca Larabie has a guy who does that. I'll get you the info.”

Reed nods. “Noted.”

“Just promise me you won't get in over your head,” I say.

“I promise. But listen, I'm only gonna do this if you say it's okay.”

“Are you asking for my blessing?”

“Come on, Shane. You're graduating, not dying. I would never want to do anything without your permission. What if you want to get back in the game in college?”

“Oh no. One thing is certain. I'm retired for good. Never again. You have my blessing, Reed. Just don't make the same mistakes I did.”

“Tell me.”

“Dealing with people's emotions is an art. Not only do your clients need to know that, but
everyone
needs to know that. It's very easy for outsiders to misunderstand what we do. Er, what you're gonna do.”

“I'm gonna be completely transparent,” he says. “I'm even gonna charge. I'm offering a real service; why shouldn't I get paid for it?”

That's a fair point.

“Well, then,” I say, “I'm happy to pass the torch to you. Welcome to the love business, Reed.”

I pat him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Shane. I really appreciate it. Also . . . remember when the Galgorithm was exposed and all those people messaged you asking for advice?”

“Yeah . . .”

“You think maybe you could forward them on to me? Those are potential clients.”

I laugh to myself.

“Sure thing.”

We continue driving as Reed, perhaps the unlikeliest of protégés, jots down notes about his new endeavor. I wish him well.

He finishes writing and closes the notebook.

“So what's the latest with Jak?” he asks.

Lately, Reed has also become the unlikeliest of confidantes. I've pretty much kept him up to speed on all the Jak drama. He's proven to be quite the listener.

“There is no update,” I say. “Each day is worse. I just can't get her to take a chance on me.”

“Huh,” Reed mutters to himself. “I guess doctors do make the worst patients.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it's funny how you can't take your own advice.”

“Oh yeah, this whole thing is just hilarious.”

“Shane, will you do me the honor?

“Of what?”

“Of being my first client. No charge, of course.”

“Please,” I say dismissively. “By all means.”

“Okay,” Reed says, “I will only tell you what a wise man once told me.”

I wait for his sure-to-be sage advice.

And then he looks at me with a knowing grin on his face.

“Be different. Notice her. Tell her.”