Geek Girl (25 page)

“I know Trevor pretty well,” I explain, exasperated. “I know his expressions better than I know my own. He was really angry.”

“Okay. But before he was angry?” she prompts. “Did he look?”

I guess my expression gives her the answer because she squeals triumphantly and gives me an exuberant hug.

“I knew it! I knew he would look.”

“Well, he couldn’t really help but look. I was right in front of him.”

“But it is
how
he looked that matters.”

“He looked delicious, as always,” I say. She smacks me on the shoulder.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Tell me everything, every little detail.”

I do, trying not to let her contagious enthusiasm affect me. She’s reading far more into this than I am. It’s nice to have someone fuming along with me over the audacity of the little mouse—who would probably be one of Jane’s close friends if I hadn’t infected her with disdain for Mary Ellen before she had a chance to befriend her.

“He’s remembering,” she says.

“What?” Her words bring me up short.

“He’s remembering how it was when he first saw you, when you first turned your attention on him.”

I want to argue, tell her she’s wrong, but I can’t. She’s right. I recognized it in his eyes, but I can’t afford hope, can’t afford the possibility that he will always hate me.

Suddenly my mind floods with the memory of the dance, the first time I had made myself known to him. I had honed in on him, stalked him—made sure he knew that I was completely available to him. He had looked at me then the way he had looked at me today. He had been angry then too. Angry because I had made him look, made him notice me. He’d told me that later.

Could that be why he had been angry today? Because once again I had made him look, made him notice me, whether he wanted to or not. Only this time it was with the knowledge of just how good things
could
be between us.

I look at Jane with a soft gasp. She sees the change on my face, the recognition of the truth, and a slow feline smile—one that definitely doesn’t belong on her—widens her cherubic face.

“So, tomorrow we start again?” she practically purrs.

I smile, optimism filling me once again.

“Tomorrow we start again.”

The picture collage hanging in my room—the origins of which still remain a mystery that no one has owned up to—is something of a torment to me. It’s not the pictures of me and my new family; those make me happy. It’s all of the ones of me and Trevor, or me and Todd—even the one of me with Trevor and his parents.
These
are the ones that torment me, make me cry.

Mom wanted to take them down when Trev and I first . . . I don’t even know exactly what to call it. Broke up? Separated? World collapsed? But I threw a big enough fit that she finally relented and agreed to let me keep them as long as it was “healthy” for me. This means I have to be really careful not to let her see me when I stand in front of them, staring at them, pretending like nothing happened and we’re still together.

A knock on my door sends me scurrying quickly to my bed, belly flop down, legs up and crossed at the ankles and the magazine that had been sitting there quickly pulled up to my face as if this were my previous endeavor before I call out to invite Mom in.

“A bet, huh?”

I flip over at the sound of Tamara’s voice, surprised at how genuinely glad I am to see her. I grin at her, then quickly wipe it away.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in—a has-been cheerleader.”

“But the
best-looking
has-been cheerleader on campus.” She walks in, eyes roving over the picture collage that I had been staring at. She waves a hand at them. “Into self-torture, are we?”

“I already got the lecture from Mom. Don’t need it from you also.”

She plops down onto the bed next to me, pulling the magazine out of my hands. It happens to be open to an advertisement page about a fabulous new feminine hygiene product, which helps you to feel your very freshest.

“Does Mom fall for this I’m-just-fine-and-I’ll-prove-it-by-reading-about-maxi-pads?”

I give her a dirty look, then stand up and walk away from her—but only to close my door. I turn back toward her, leaning back against the door with my hands tucked behind me.

“Of course she does. She really wants me to be happy.”

“Huh,” Tamara says, surprised.

“What?”

“There was no sarcasm in that sentence that I could detect.”

“That’s because there wasn’t any. I
know
she truly wants me to be happy, and because she’s taken me in and given me a home and family, I’m going to give her what she wants.”

“You know,” she says, closing the magazine and running her hand across its glossy surface, watching the movement, “when you first came here I resented you.”

I laugh at this. “No kidding? I couldn’t tell.”

She smiles back at me, shrugging.

“I’m sorry I was so awful. But I didn’t really like the idea of another daughter. I guess I kind of felt like I was being replaced. And for it to be someone who so obviously didn’t want to be here . . .” She holds out a hand to me and pulls me to sit on the bed next to her when I take it. “But I am really happy that it is you. I like having you for my sister.”

“Oh, great,” I say in loud exasperation. “I finally get my emotions under control and here you come, blowing them all up again.” I look at her and see tears in her eyes also. I lean my head down to her shoulder, letting the tears have their way, and she wraps an arm around me.

“I had a boyfriend once who broke up with me because he found someone he liked better. It hurt.” She squeezes me. “But I didn’t love him the way that you love Trevor, so I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

“It’s so horrible,” I whisper. “I should have told him, as soon as I realized that I really liked him, when it changed from being a game to something more.”

“Are you sorry?”

I think about this for a minute, wiping my nose with the tissue she hands to me. I sit up and look at her.

“No, I’m not.” Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “It sounds bad, I guess. But I can’t be sorry for the thing that put me and Trevor together. I’m only sorry that now he hates me.”

“Hate is a pretty strong emotion. And one I don’t think Trevor Hoffman is capable of.”

“Strongly dislikes me, then.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

“Have you been talking to Jane?” I accuse.

“Ah, the famous Jane. Mom
raves
about her every time I call. So what does this mysterious, magical Jane have to say?”

“She did the Jen makeover.”

“She did a good job. You look really good. Even with the runny mascara,” she teases, wiping a finger beneath one eye.

“Thanks, but I’m still no cheerleader.”

“Well, we can’t all be perfect.”

If only a few months ago anyone had told me I would be
joking
around with my
sister
,
the
cheerleader
, I probably would have laughed—and not in the ha-ha, that’s funny way but more like the yeah-right-that-isn’t-happening-in-this-lifetime way. Guess you never can say never.

“She says I have to make him notice me again, make him want me back.”

“Hmm, well, she’s on the right path. But Jen, Trevor’s about more than looks. I mean, he was with you when you looked like the queen of the living dead.”

“Thanks,” I mutter.

“
I
couldn’t even turn his head then. Proof he’s not about looks.”

Tamara is being facetious, and I laugh at her. She’s so not what I had thought her to be when I first came to this house.

“You need to remind him of the other reasons he wanted to be with you.”

“But that’s the thing. There really aren’t any good reasons.
Why
was he with me?”

Tamara shakes her head.

“You have got to work on your self-esteem.”

“You’re the second one to tell me that.”

“Then it must be true. Listen, Jen. You’ve spent your life being told you’re worthless by a bunch of people whose opinions shouldn’t matter. Time to stop listening to them and start listening to people who actually love you.”

“Yeah, well, easier said than done, you know?”

“Don’t keep acting like your life is over. It’s pathetic and won’t help you in your campaign. Be happy, show him that you’re happy and you don’t need him. Flirt with some other boys. Show him you’re not just waiting around for him. That’ll get his attention.” She gives me another one-armed hug and stands up. “If Trevor is half as nice as I think he is, he’ll forgive you. Then he’ll be begging you to take him back.”

“Thanks, Tamara. Who knew a cheerleader could be so helpful? I actually feel a little better now.”

She smiles at me. “What’re sisters for?”

⊕⊗⊕

It’s the third Saturday. Senior center night. I missed the last one. I should miss this one.

I’m not going to, though. I miss all of the people there, Mrs. Green in particular. I think about her sitting there waiting for someone to come see her, and no one showing up. I can’t be yet another person that lets her down.

That’s the official excuse, and genuine as it is, there is of course another—the pull of Trevor, of being near him. So I hurry out the door before I can chicken out.

Mrs. Green is happy to see me. She doesn’t remember a lot, but she remembers that I wasn’t here last month. Before I can make up an excuse that at least
sounds
truthful, Trevor walks in. My heart stops as I watch him make his cheerful circuit. He hasn’t seen me yet.

Eventually though, he makes his way around to where I am. He stops short when he sees me sitting there. He stares at me, disbelief and anger warring on his face.

Anger wins.

“What are you doing here?” he bites out tightly.

“She came to see me,” Mrs. Green informs him sharply.

He looks at her, and immediately his features smooth out. Figures his innate politeness would extend to everyone but me.

“How are you today, Mrs. Green?” he asks kindly.

“Better now that Jen is here,” she answers, patting me on the knee.

That reminds him, and he turns hard eyes back on me. Before he can chide me again, Joshua, the guy who’s in charge of all the volunteers, hustles into the room.

“Hey, Trevor, you’re here,” he calls as he walks past us. “Glad to have you back, Jen. We missed you.”

Trevor’s jaw ticks twice before he turns abruptly away.

“I see why you weren’t here last time,” Mrs. Green mumbles. “That boy needs to learn some manners.”

I choke out a laugh at that. If there is one thing Trevor definitely doesn’t need, it’s a manners lesson. He avoids me after that. He is
über
nice to everyone else, a contrast to the absolute silence he subjects me to.

When it comes time for his playing and singing, he does so with only slightly less enthusiasm than usual. His eyes keep flicking my way, and I’m very aware that my presence is an annoyance to him.

Maybe I won’t come next time.

Maybe I will.

I’m still not sure how it came about, but somehow because of my every-other-day sitting with Brian and the others at lunch, and Brian’s obvious infatuation with Jane, the in-between days soon find us all sitting at the same table.

This is incredibly awkward.

Trevor sits at one end of the table, and I sit at the other. My stomach churns the entire time, and while I studiously ignore him, I am constantly watching him. He is overly attentive to the mouse, and I am insanely jealous. She spends most of lunch shooting daggers at me. Who knew she had it in her?

Brian seems to be the go-between. Mark and Jim tend to stay at Trev’s end, though Mark has been drifting a little more toward center. I dread these lunch days when I have to face Trevor, pasting a smile on my face and pretending his presence doesn’t affect me.

I also look forward to them more than anything. Paint me a masochist.

⊕⊗⊕

“So, what do you want to do this weekend?”

Jane and I are standing near her locker, which I now share. Using my own, the one I shared with Trevor, is too hard, so it sits empty since he also no longer uses it.
Probably shares with the mouse,
I think with a pang.

“You know me, I’m up for anything,” I say, though we both know that’s a lie.

“How about if I stay at your place on Friday after you get home from your family thing, then on Saturday—” She abruptly stops, her eyes moving past me to freeze on someone behind me. My stomach clenches. There aren’t too many people who would have this effect on her, and only one pops into my mind. I slowly turn around, cheeks flushed.