Maybe Andrew had noticed her even then, had been fascinated by her like I had, but in a different way. Maybe he’s been drawn to her sunlight for years, has always been rotating in her orbit.
“Of course they know each other,” I repeat to Hannah.
“No,” Hannah says, her voice insistent. “They don’t. They only know, like . . . the polished versions of each other. But that’s not really knowing someone. Party Andrew isn’t really Andrew—you know that. You guys know each other without the bullshit. What Andrew and Danielle have is all bullshit.”
“But isn’t that what keeps it exciting?” I ask. “The not knowing?”
“Maybe it’s exciting, at first,” she says. “It’s the thrill of the chase, the thrill that someone might like you back. Getting that attention from someone is a rush. But that’s not love. Love is when your weirdness matches up with someone else’s weirdness. When you’re comfortable being exactly you.” One of her hands falls to her neck, to the spot where Charlie’s necklace used to be, and she drums her fingers softly, absently, against the hollow of her throat.
“Yeah,” I say, turning back to the mirror. I feel weirdly like I might cry, which makes no sense at all. I take some deep breaths, turning away from Hannah so she can’t see. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
“Are you getting that dress?” Hannah asks. “You look amazing. What’s Dean wearing?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer. “We haven’t talked about it.”
The dress feels important all of a sudden, something I need to get right so that the rest of my night with Dean goes the right way too. But how am I supposed to know what Dean wants? I don’t even know his favorite color.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING at school, I spend most of my energy Not Looking at Andrew, which is next to impossible because he seems to be everywhere. I’ve never noticed how much of my day I usually spend with him, how I’m always aware of him in my peripheral vision the way I’m aware of my feet and hands and nose.
Now I’m aware of his presence in a different way. Every time he comes into a room, I can feel myself tense, like the wires inside of me have been pulled tight and electric. When he walks into study hall and sits down at my table, I flinch. I force myself to look up at him and try to smile. I can be a normal, functioning human. I have to be, if I want my friend back.
“Hey,” I say, tapping my pen against the top of my desk.
“Hey,” he says back. He’s wearing a dark green shirt that brings out the green in his eyes, and I shake my head, feeling stupid for noticing his eyes at all. Friends don’t notice the color of their friends’ eyes. Especially not the eyes of friends who are in love with Danielle Oliver.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” he asks.
“It was fine,” I answer.
“I’m so tired.”
“Monday sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Great, now we’re talking like strangers.
Every time I look at him, the events of the weekend come tumbling back to me: the feel of his lips against mine, the condom in his hand, Danielle’s fingers running through his hair at dinner, Danielle smirking at him, pouting her lips. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle.
He loves her. Right now, slumped at his desk and complaining about Mondays, he loves her. He’ll love her when he raises his hand for attendance, when he walks down the hall on the way to lunch. It’s a constant—an underlying buzz that will never go away. Danielle is part of him now. Isn’t that what love is? Another person attaching themselves to your brain, eating away at your heart, your soul, consuming you entirely? Love is just a parasite.
I realize I’m staring at him and I look quickly away, pretending to rummage through my bag so I look busy. He turns away from me and starts drumming his pencil against the top of his desk.
I’m worried Danielle is going to turn him into Party Andrew forever, that she’ll take the parts of him that make him unique and interesting and wonderful and ruin them, that she’ll flatten him under her power. But I have to accept it. I have to let them be together if that’s what he wants. It’s just going to take a little while to get used to.
* * *
• • • • • •
“Did you and Andrew get in a fight?” Hannah asks me later on the way to lunch. “You guys have been acting so weird.”
Andrew is behind us at the end of the hallway with Chase, and he hasn’t called out to say hello to us, hasn’t even acknowledged he’s seen us. I feel guilty I haven’t told Hannah I went through with the Plan, but I try to push it aside.
“We’re fine.”
“Is this about the Danielle thing?”
“It’s just weird now,” I say. “You won’t tell her, will you? That he loves her?”
“Of course not!” Hannah says. “That’s his situation.” She peers back over her shoulder to where Andrew and Chase are laughing about something. “If Andrew’s in love with Danielle, I don’t know why he’d be friends with Chase.”
It didn’t occur to me until now that Andrew might have been upset at his party when Chase got with Danielle. He was so flustered when Danielle apologized to him at school. I guess Cecilia was his second choice that night. Someone else got the girl he wanted and then he got in trouble. But people don’t just stop being friends with Chase Brosner, not even over a girl.
Well, he has the girl now. Or, almost. He just has to tell her.
Danielle and Ava are already at the lunch table, matching green cups of coca-kale-a in their hands.
“That was so fun Saturday night,” Danielle says when Hannah and I sit down. “James Dean is très chic.”
“You guys hung out on Saturday?” Ava asks. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“It was a double date,” Danielle answers. “You would have been an odd number.”
“I could have found a date. I’m not a leper.”
“Hey, lepers can still find love,” I say.
“Lepers in Love,” Hannah says. “I would so watch that reality show.”
“Sure, Ava. I’m sure you could have found ten dates,” Danielle says. “That’s your specialty.” She rummages through her bag for her phone. “But not everything revolves around you. Maybe Collins and I wanted to hang out together.”
A small mewl escapes from Ava’s mouth, like she’s an injured kitten, and she leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.