It’s silly to think something like kissing Quinn can change everything when everything changed anyway, two years ago.
I take one more sniff of Diorissimo before backing out of the room and closing the door.
James texts back.
James doesn’t reply, but I know that before Mom was gone I was hardly eager to talk about my parents’ love life, either.
I frown at my screen because I don’t necessarily think that it is. This feels like huge and major news, and I might as well have told James I got a good-not-great grade on my latest humanities project for all she’s reacting.
Is that how James sees it? How James sees me?
I hear the front door open and close. Dad is home.
I make a face at my phone and then creep down the hallway and into the living room. “Hey.”
He looks up with a start at me. “Hey, you’re up late.”
“Dad, it’s, like, ten thirty.”
“Sorry, guess it is. Is your homework done?”
“Of course,” I say. “How was the woman? Terrible?”
Dad sighs and shakes his head. “She’s . . . pretty nice.”
“Oh,” I say like a balloon popping, but then I recover. “That’s super great. I’m so glad.”
“Well, you should probably get to bed,” Dad tells me, as if we haven’t just discussed the fact that it’s too early for that. But I say good night anyway because if I think about this not terrible woman too much I might burst into tears right in front of him.
I manage to make it to my room before I do.
Quinn texts in the morning to see if she can walk with me to school. It’s not that we haven’t walked to school together before—lately almost every single day—but I know it’s all different now, sort of. It’s also the same because she hasn’t stopped being the most exciting person I’ve met in a long time.
“Ainsley helped me with my homework,” she tells me as I walk out of the house. “I think I know what I’m doing now. More, at least.”
“Isn’t your sister, like, fourteen?” I ask.
“Fifteen, and she’s”—Quinn makes air quotes—“‘gifted.’ Also my sister doesn’t wildly distract me with her good looks.”
“I don’t”—I make air quotes, too—“‘wildly distract’ anyone.”
“Mmmhmm.”
I take her hand and lace my fingers through hers, feeling in my fluttery heart how long it’s been since someone held my hand for the first time. Matty and I were in the cafeteria and I needed to rush to my geometry class, and even though we’d known each other since middle school, suddenly he was a boy I’d been kissing. And then, just as suddenly, everyone knew.
So I know that Quinn and I might be only hours into whatever this is, and hand-holding is a statement for the rest of the world. But I’m totally ready to make it.
We swing by James’s, and I see how her eyes go to our hands and then swiftly away. Should I have texted her that Quinn was walking with us today? Logan was also in walking distance of school, unlike Matty, and so up until he graduated he was always part of our morning routine.
I wonder if it’s weird that I miss Logan. I think about texting him, to yell at him for dumping James, to see if he’s OK, to ask what college is like and if he misses our weirdly quaint little neighborhood. He’s been a huge part of my life, and now he’s just gone. I unfollowed him on social media in solidarity for James, but I sort of wish I hadn’t.
Also I wish that Quinn and James would become amazing friends, and I can already feel that it’s not going to happen. Quinn isn’t going to be to James who Logan was to me, and it’s strange to know something sad so deep in my heart.
“So humanities class is kinda dorky, right?” I ask, and even though I’m hoping they’ll both jump in with examples, they just nod.
“Quinn, did you know that James runs T&F and is, like, super fast?” I ask.
“My friend Gretchen’s on the team, so I did know that.”
I wait for more, but they’re both quiet.
“OMG, James, when Quinn made this lasagna for us, the top got all browned and crispy like you see on famous foodie Instagrams.”
James nods. “Yeah. You literally posted that on your Instagram.”
I keep throwing out facts as we get closer to school. I’d love to successfully force a friendship on Quinn and James, but I know it’s something else, too. I’m obviously choosing to be this visible with Quinn, almost before I even know what’s going on with us, but the visibility feels like a bigger thing the closer we get to school. Staying distracted is easier than, well, not.
My fingers automatically find my necklace and pull on it like it might bring Mom a little closer. I wonder what she would think of Quinn, but I don’t, really, because Mom would like the lasagna and like that I was happy and like that no one would ever describe Quinn as a douchebag.
I think Dad feels that way, too, he just doesn’t know how to say things sometimes.
“We don’t have to do this,” Quinn whispers to me, letting go of my hand as we arrive on campus, and James heads off to her locker.
I grab her hand right back. “We do have to do this. I mean, you’re out, right?”
“I was never really . . . in.” She gestures to herself. “I think people just assume. I’m not well-known enough for it to be a topic of interest, though.”
“You’re known,” I say, which makes her laugh.
“You barely knew me when this year started,” she says, but she keeps hold of my hand.
There are eyes on us, for sure. I’ve sort of had a roller coaster of visibility at school. I guess I’ve never been invisible, but being in a relationship with Matty made me the most conspicuous I’ve ever been, especially at the beginning, when I was the girl that made Matty Evans settle down.
But, of course, that was nothing compared with having a very public breakup in a school hallway. Two months ago, it felt like I was all anyone could see. Matty was the one who ignored the rules of our relationship—of most relationships—but Kat Rydell was the one people wanted to watch afterward. It was like if you were lucky enough, you might get to see me tear another alleged door off of another alleged locker.
I feel eyes slide past me, and eyes focus on me, and while no one says anything to me, I can hear whispers. Is this because of Matty? and Of anyone I wouldn’t have guessed Kat Rydell and That girl does have great hair.
“I think this is what it’s like to be famous,” Quinn murmurs to me. “But maybe it’s always like this for you.”
“It is definitely not always like this for me,” I say, though I guess it is, a little. “And I hope you know this—us—isn’t because of Matty. But, duh, you do have great hair. That rumor is true.”
She smiles almost a little smugly. “I’ll see you in third period, OK?”
I hug my arms around her tightly. “Why do you always smell like chai, by the way? I’ve never even seen you drink even, like, generic tea.”
Quinn pulls a tube of lip balm out of her pocket and shows me that it’s chai-flavored. “Now you know my secret. I don’t naturally just smell that way.”