Текст книги "Just Listen"

Автор книги: Sarah Dessen

Соавторы: Sarah Dessen
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"We're dropping you off first," he told her.

"Why?" she said.

"Because," Owen told her as we moved through an intersection, turning off the main road, "I have to go by the station, so Mom said to bring you by the store."

Mallory sighed, sounding pained. "But Owen—"

"No buts," he said. "It's already decided."

Another thump as Mallory slumped, dramatically and dejectedly, against the seat behind her. "It's so not fair," she said a second later.

"Life isn't fair," Owen told her. "Get used to it."

"R and R!" she said.

"No," Owen said. Then he reached forward, nudging up the volume on the radio, and the chirping started up again.

We drove along with just the Mayan chants for a few minutes, long enough for me to actually start to get used to them. Then, suddenly, I felt breath in my ear. "When you did that commercial," Mallory asked, "did you get to keep the clothes from that?"

"Mallory!" Owen said.

"What?"

"Can you just relax and listen to the music?"

"This isn't music! This is crickets and screaming." To me she said, "Owen is a total music Nazi. He won't let anyone listen to anything other than the weird stuff he plays on his radio show."

"You have a radio show?" I asked Owen.

"It's just a local thing," he told me.

"It's his life," Mallory said dramatically. "He spends all week getting ready for it, worrying about it, even though it's on when normal people aren't even up yet."

"I'm not playing music for normal people," Owen said. "I'm playing music for people who are—"

"Enlightened, we know," Mallory said, rolling her eyes. "Me personally? I listen to 104Z. They play all the top-forty stuff, lots of good songs you can dance to. I like Bitsy Bonds. She's my favorite singer. I went to her concert last summer, with all my friends? It was so fun. Do you know her song 'Pyramid'?"

"Um," I said. "I don't know."

Mallory sat up straighter, tossing back her hair. "'Stack it up, higher and higher, the sun's above, it's full of fire, kiss me here so I'll know you did, baby I'm falling, pyramid!'"

Owen winced. "Bitsy Bonds isn't a singer, Mallory. She's a product. She's fake. She has no soul; she doesn't stand for anything."

"So?"

"So," he said, "she's more famous for her belly button than her music."

"Well," Mallory said, "she does have a great belly button."

Owen just shook his head, clearly bothered, as he turned off the main road into a small parking lot. There was a row of stores to the left, and he turned into a space in front of one that had a mannequin in the front window wearing a poncho and some flowing earth-toned pants. The sign on the door said Dreamweavers. "Okay," he said. "We're here."

Mallory made a face. "Great," she said sarcastically. "Another afternoon at the store."

"Your parents own this place?" I asked.

"Yes," Mallory grumbled as Owen picked up her phone from the center console, giving it back to her. "It's so unfair. Here I am, obsessed with clothes, and my mom has a clothing store. But it's all stuff I wouldn't ever wear in a million years. Not even if I was dead."

"If you were dead," Owen told her, "you'd have bigger problems than what you were wearing."

Mallory looked at me then, her expression grave. "Annabel, seriously. It's all, you know, natural fabrics and fibers, Tibetan batiks, vegan shoes."

"Vegan shoes?" I said.

"They're awful," she whispered. "Awful. They're not even pointy."

"Mallory," Owen said. "Please get out of the car."

"I'm going, I'm going." Still, she took her time gathering up her bag, undoing her seat belt, and unlocking the door. "It was really nice to meet you," she said to me.

"You, too," I said.

She slid out, shutting the door behind her, and started into the store. As she pushed the door open, she looked back, then waved at me excitedly, her hand blurring. I waved back, and then Owen was pulling away, back to the main road. Without Mallory, the car seemed smaller, not to mention quieter.

"Again," he said, as we slowed for a red light, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I told him. "She's cute."

"You don't live with her. Or have to listen to her music."

"104Z," I said. "All the hits, with less of the lip."

"You listen to that station?"

"I have before," I said. "Especially when I was in middle school."

He shook his head. "It would be different if she had no access to good music. If she was deprived of culture. But I've made her tons of CDs. She just won't listen to them. Instead, she chooses to fill her head with that pop crap, listening to a station where they pretty much just play the occasional songs between commercials."

"So on your show," I said, "it's different."

"Well, yeah." He glanced over at me, shifting gears as we headed back onto the main road. "I mean, it's community radio, so there aren't commercials. But I think you should be responsible about what you're putting out there for people to hear. If it can be pollution or art, why wouldn't you choose art?"

I just looked at him. Clearly, I had really misjudged Owen Armstrong. I wasn't sure who I'd thought he was, but it wasn't this person sitting beside me.

"So where do you live?" he asked me, switching lanes as we approached a stoplight.

"The Arbors," I said. "It's a few miles past the mall; you can just—"

"I know it," he said. "The station is just a couple of blocks from there. I have to stop in there for a second, if that's okay."

"Sure," I said. "That's fine."

The community radio station was in a squat, square build-ing that had once been a bank. There was a metal tower beside it, as well as a somewhat droopy banner hanging across the front entrance, wrus it said in big black letters, community radio: radio for us . There was a big window in front, on the other side of which I could see a man sitting in a broadcast booth wearing headphones and speaking into a microphone. There was a lit-up sign in the corner of the window that said o air: apparently, the N was burned out.

Owen pulled into a space right up front, then cut the engine before turning around in his seat to pick through some CDs on the floor. After gathering up a few, he pushed open the door. "Back in a sec," he said.

I nodded. "Okay."

Once he disappeared inside, I started checking out some of the handwritten names on the CD cases, none of which I recognized: the handywacks(assorted), jeremiah reeves(early stuff), truth squad (opus) . Suddenly, I heard a beep, then turned my head to see a Honda Civic pulling into the spot next to me. Which wouldn't have been noteworthy, really, except the driver had on a bright red helmet.

It wasn't the kind football players wear, exactly, but something a little bigger, with more padding. The guy wearing it looked to be about my age and was dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. He waved at me, and I waved back, tentatively, and then he was rolling down his window.

"Hi," he said. "Is Owen inside?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. His eyes were big, blue, and long-lashed in the small cutout of the faceplate, and his hair was past his shoulders, pulled back in a ponytail that was poking out from under the helmet. "He said he'd be back in a second."

He nodded. "Cool," he said, sitting back in his seat. I was trying not to stare at him, even though it was kind of hard. "I'm Rolly, by the way," he said.

"Oh. Hi. I'm Annabel."

"Nice to meet you." He reached down to his cup holder, picking up a paper cup with a straw poking out of it and taking a sip. He was just putting it back when Owen came out of the building.

"Hey," Rolly called out to him. "I was just driving by and saw your car. I thought you had to work today."

"At six," Owen told him.

"Oh. Well, that's cool," Rolly said, sitting back in his seat with a shrug. "Maybe I'll come by or something."

"Do that," Owen said. "And Rolly?"

"Yeah?"

"You know you still have your helmet on, right?"

Rolly's eyes widened, and he lifted up his hands to his head, carefully. Then his face flushed, almost as red as the helmet. "Oh," he said, pushing it off. Underneath, his hair was matted down, and there were creases across his forehead. "Yeah. Thanks."

"No problem. I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay." Rolly put the helmet on the seat beside him, smoothing a hand over his head as Owen climbed back behind the wheel. As we backed away, I waved at him again, and he nodded, smiling, his face still slightly pink.

Once back on the main road, we drove for a moment before Owen said, "It's for his job. Just so you know."

"The helmet," I said, clarifying.

"Yeah. He works at this self-defense place. He's an attacker."

"An attacker?"

"The one people practice on," he told me. "You know, once they learn the techniques. That's why he has to wear padding."

"Oh," I said. "So… you guys work together?"

"No. I deliver pizzas. This is it, right?" he asked as we came up on the entrance to my neighborhood. I nodded and he put his blinker on, then turned in. "He does the radio show with me."

"Does he go to Jackson?"

"Nope. The Fountain School."

The Fountain School was an "alternative learning space," also known as the Hippie School. It had a very small student body and an emphasis on personal expression, and offered electives like batik and Ultimate Frisbee. Kirsten had dated several somewhat crunchy guys from there, back in the day.

"Left or right?" Owen asked as we came up to a stop sign.

"Straight. For a while," I told him.

As we headed farther into my neighborhood, not talking, I got the same feeling I'd had that morning with Whitney, like I should at least attempt to make conversation. "So," I said finally, "how'd you end up with a radio show?"

"It's something I've always been sort of interested in," Owen said. "And right after I moved here, I heard about this course they have at the station where they teach the basics. After you take it, you can write up a show proposal. If they approve it, they give you an audition and, if they like what you do, a time slot. Me and Rolly got ours last winter. But then I got arrested. So that put us back a bit."

He said this so nonchalantly, as if he was talking about a vacation to the Grand Canyon, or attending a wedding. "You got arrested?" I asked.

"Yeah." He slowed for another stop sign. "I got in a fight at a club. With some guy in the parking lot."

"Oh," I said. "Right."

"You heard about it?"

"Maybe something," I said.

"So why'd you ask?"

I felt my face get hot. Ask a bold question, you'd better be prepared to answer one. "I don't know," I said. "Do you believe everything you hear?"

"No," he said. Then he looked at me for a moment, before turning back to the road. "I don't."

Right, I thought. Okay. So I wasn't the only one who had heard some rumors. It was only fair, though. Here I'd had all these assumptions about Owen based on what had been said about him, but it hadn't occurred to me that there were stories about me out there as well. Or at least one.

We drove on in silence through two more stop signs. Then, finally, I took a breath and said, "It's not true, if that's what you were wondering."

He was downshifting, the engine grinding as we slowed to take a corner. "What isn't?" he said.

"What you heard about me."

"I haven't heard anything about you."

"Yeah, right," I said.

"I haven't," Owen said. "I'd tell you if I had."

"Really."

"Yeah," he said. I must have looked doubtful at this, because he added, "I don't lie."

"You don't lie," I repeated.

"That's what I said."

"Ever."

"Nope."

Sure you don't, I thought. "Well," I said. "That's a good policy. If you can stick to it."

"I don't have a choice," he replied. "Holding stuff in doesn't really work for me. Learned that the hard way."

I had a flash of Ronnie Waterman going down in the parking lot, his head bouncing off the gravel. "So you're always honest," I said.

"Aren't you?"

"No," I told him. This came so easily, so quickly, it should have surprised me. But for some reason, it didn't. "I'm not."

"Well," he said as we approached another stop sign, "that's good to know, I guess."

"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyway."

"How'd you mean it, then?"

I was digging myself a hole here, and I knew it. But still, I tried to explain myself. "It's just… I don't always say what I feel."

"Why not?"

"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

"I don't…" I said, then trailed off, not sure exactly how to put this. "I just don't like to hurt people. Or upset them. So sometimes, you know, I won't say exactly what I think, to spare them that." The ironic thing was that saying this out loud was actually the most honest I'd been in ages. If not ever.

"But that's still a lie," he said. "Even if you mean well."

"You know," I replied, "I find it really hard to believe you're always honest."

"Believe it. It's true."

I turned to face him. "So if I were to ask you if I looked fat in this outfit," I said, "and you thought I did, you'd say so."

"Yes," he said.

"You would not."

"I would. I might not say it that way, exactly, but if I thought you didn't look good—"

"No way," I said flatly.

"—and you'd asked," he continued, "I'd tell you. I wouldn't just offer it up, though. I'm not a hateful person. But if you asked for my opinion, I'd give it."

I shook my head, still not believing him.

"Look," he said, "like I said, for me, not saying how I feel when I feel it is a bad move. So I don't do it. Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face."

"Are those are the only options?" I asked.

"Not always," he replied. "Just sometimes. And it's good to know your options, right?"

I could feel myself about to smile, which was just so strange that I turned my head as we came up to another stop sign. There was a car parked on the street ahead, halfway down, facing us. A second later, I realized it was mine.

"Still straight?" Owen asked.

"Um, no," I told him, leaning closer to the glass. Sure enough, it was Whitney behind the wheel. She had a hand to her face, her fingers spread to cover her eyes.

"Then… what? Right? Left?" Owen asked. He dropped his hand from the wheel. "What's wrong?"

I looked at Whitney again, wondering what she was doing so close to home, parked. "That's my sister," I said, nodding at the car.

Owen leaned forward, looking at her. "Is… is she okay?"

"No," I said. Maybe not lying was contagious; this reply came out automatically, before I could pick other words to explain. "She's not."

"Oh," he said. He was quiet for a second. "Well, do you want to—"

I shook my head. "No," I told him. "Take a right."

He did, and I slid down slightly in my seat. As we passed Whitney, it was clear she was crying, her thin shoulders shaking, her hand still pressed to her face. I felt something catch in my own throat and then we were moving on, leaving her behind.

I could feel Owen watching me as we reached the next stop sign. "She's sick," I said. "She has been for a while now."

"I'm sorry," he said.

This was what you were supposed to say. What anyone would say. The weird thing was, after everything he'd just told me, I knew Owen meant it. Honest, indeed.

"Which is yours?" he asked me now, as we turned onto my street.

"The glass one," I told him.

"The glass—" he began, but then stopped, as it came into view. "Oh. Right."

It was the time of day when the sun hit the glass just so, the golf course reflected almost perfectly in the second story. Downstairs, I could see my mother standing at the kitchen counter. She'd started walking to the door when we pulled up, then stopped when she realized it was just me and not Whitney. I thought about my sister, sitting two streets over, and my mom, worrying here at home, and felt that familiar pull in my stomach, a mix of sadness and obligation.

"Man," Owen said, looking up at it. "That's really something."

"People in glass houses," I said. I looked back in at my mother, who was still at the counter, watching us. I wondered if she was curious about Owen or too distracted to even notice I was in a car she didn't recognize, much less with a boy. Maybe she thought it was Peter Matchinsky, that nice senior from my gym class.

"Well," I said, reaching down for my bag. "Thanks for the ride. For everything."

"No problem," he said.

I heard a car coming up behind us, and a second later, Whitney was pulling into the driveway. It wasn't until she parked and got out that she looked up and saw me and Owen. I lifted my hand, waving at her, but she ignored me.

I knew already what would happen when I went inside. Whitney would be stomping around, ignoring my mother's cheerful, leading questions. Eventually she'd get fed up and go upstairs, slamming her door, and then my mom would be upset, but pretend not to be. Even so, I'd worry over her until my dad got home, at which time we'd all sit down for dinner and pretend everything was fine.

Thinking this, I looked back at Owen. "So when is it?" I asked. "Your radio show."

"Sundays," he replied. "At seven."

"I'll listen," I told him.

"In the morning," he added.

"Seven in the morning?" I asked. "Really?"

"Yeah," he replied, picking at the steering wheel. "It's not the ideal time slot, but you take what you can get. Insomniacs are listening, at least."

"Enlightened insomniacs," I said.

He looked at me for a second, as if I'd somehow surprised him, saying this. "Yeah," he said, and smiled. "Exactly."

Imagine that, I thought. Owen Armstrong smiling. In a bizarre day, this was the most surprising thing yet. "Well," I said, "I guess I should go."

"Okay. I'll see you around."

I nodded, then reached down, undoing the seat belt. Sure enough, one click and I was free. Harder to get in than out, like so little else.

As I shut the door behind me, Owen put the car into gear, beeping the horn once as he drove off. Sure enough, as I turned to look up at my house, Whitney was climbing the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. My mother was still at the kitchen island, staring out the back window.

I don't lie, Owen had said, with the same flat certainty someone else might tell you they didn't eat meat or know how to drive. I wasn't sure I could even fathom it, but I still envied Owen his easy bluntness, the ability to open himself out into the world instead of folding deeper within. Especially now, as I headed inside, where my mother was waiting for me.

Chapter Six

"Okay, girls, quiet down. Attention here, please! We're getting ready to start, so listen for your name…"

I'd been doing Lakeview Models since I was fifteen. Every summer, tryouts were held to pick sixteen girls for mall promotions like posing with cub scouts at a Pinewood Derby event or handing out balloons at the Harvest Festival Petting Zoo. The models also appeared in print ads, did fashion shows, and were part of the annual Lakeview Mall calendar, which was distributed along with the new phone book every year. That was what we were shooting today. We were supposed to have been done the day before, but the photographer was slow, so we'd all been called back now, on a Sunday afternoon, to finish.

I yawned, then sat back against the potted plant behind me, taking a look around the room. The newer girls were all together in a corner, talking too loudly, while a couple of people I knew from previous years were gossiping about some party. The only two seniors sat apart from everyone else, one with her head back, eyes closed, the other flipping through an SAT

prep book. Finally, across the room from me, also sitting alone, was Emily Shuster.

I'd met Emily at the last calendar shoot. She was a year younger than me and had just moved to town. She didn't know anyone, and while everyone was waiting around, she'd come and sat down next to me. We started talking, and just like that, we were friends.

Emily was, in a word, sweet. She had short red hair and a heart-shaped face, and when I'd invited her out with me and Sophie that night after the shoot, she'd been thrilled. When I pulled up to her house, she was already outside waiting, her cheeks pink from the cool air, as if she'd been there awhile.

Sophie was less enthusiastic. Plainly put, she had issues when it came to other girls, especially pretty ones, even though she herself was gorgeous. Whenever I had Lakeview Model stuff, or landed a big job, she always got a little moody. There was stuff about her that bothered me, too. Like how she sometimes snapped at me and acted like I was stupid, and often wasn't nice to other people unless she had a reason to be—and sometimes, not even then. The truth was, my friendship with Sophie was complicated, and at times I wondered why she was my best friend, when more often than not I was either tiptoeing around her or having to ignore one barbed comment or another. But then I'd remember how much things had changed for me since we'd started hanging out—from that night with Chris Pennington on, so much had happened that I never would have experienced otherwise. And really, when you came down to it, I didn't have anyone else. Sophie made sure of that, too.

The night I met Emily, we were going to a party at the A-

Frame, a house just outside of town that was rented by a few guys who'd gone to Perkins Day, the local private school, a couple of years earlier. They had a band called Day After, and after graduation they'd stuck around, playing club dates and trying to get a record deal. In the meantime, they had parties almost every weekend that attracted a mix of high-school students and various locals.

From the moment the three of us walked into the party that night, I could feel people looking at Emily. She was a beautiful girl, but being with us—especially Sophie, who was well known not only at our school but at Perkins Day, as well– made her suddenly that much more noteworthy. We weren't even halfway to the keg when Greg Nichols, an obnoxious junior, made a beeline for us.

"Hey, guys," he said, "what's up?"

"Go away, Greg," Sophie told him over her shoulder. "We're not interested."

"Speak for yourself," he said, completely undeterred. "Who's your friend?"

Sophie sighed, shaking her head.

I said, "Um, this is Emily."

"Hi," Emily said, flushing.

"Hel-lo," Greg replied. "Let me get you a beer."

"Okay," she said. As he walked off, glancing back at her, she turned to me, her eyes wide. "Oh my God," she said. "He's really cute!"

"No," Sophie told her. "He's not. And he's only talking to you because he's already hit on everyone else here."

Emily's face fell. "Oh," she said.

"Sophie," I said. "Honestly."

"What?" she said as she picked some lint off her sweater, scanning the crowd. "It's true."

It probably was. But that didn't mean she had to say it. This was typical Sophie, though. She believed everyone had a place, and it was her job to make sure you knew yours. She'd done it with Clarke. She did it with me. And now, it was Emily's turn. But while I'd just stood by all those years earlier, this time I felt I had to do something, if only because I was the reason Emily was even there in the first place. "Come on," I said to her. "Let's go get a beer. Sophie, you want one?"

"No," she said curtly, and turned away from me.

By the time I got a drink and went to look for her, she'd disappeared. So she's pissed, I thought. That's nothing new, I'll smooth it over in a second. But then Greg Nichols had reappeared, and I didn't want to leave Emily alone with him. It took us twenty minutes to extricate ourselves, at which point I left Emily with some girls she knew and finally went looking for Sophie. I found her on the back porch, smoking, alone.

"Hi," I said, but she ignored me. I took a sip of my beer, looking out over the swimming pool below the deck. It was empty and covered in leaves, a lawn chair parked at the bottom.

"Where's your friend?" she asked me.

"Sophie," I said. "Come on."

"What? It's just a question."

"She's inside," I said. "And she's your friend, too."

"No," she said, snorting. "She's not."

"Why don't you like her?"

"She's a freshman, Annabel. And she's—" She stopped, taking another drag of her cigarette. "Look, if you want to hang out with her, go ahead. I don't."

"Why not?"

"I just don't." She turned, looking at me. "What? We don't have to be joined at the hip, you know. You don't have to do everything I do."

"I know that," I said.

"Do you?" She exhaled, a stream of smoke billowing out between us. "Because, really, you've never done anything without me. From the day we met, I'm the one who's gotten all the guys, found out about all the parties. Before you met me, you were just sitting around passing tissues to Ca-larke Rebbolds."

I took another sip from my cup. I hated when Sophie was like this—nasty, all sharp edges. I hated it even more when I thought it was my fault, which clearly this was. "Look," I told her, "I just invited Emily along because she doesn't know anyone."

"She knows you," she said. "And now Greg Nichols."

"Funny."

"I'm not being funny," she told me. "I'm just telling it like it is. I don't like her. If you want to hang out with her, go ahead. I'm not interested." Then she dropped her cigarette on the deck, grinding it out with her boot, turned around, and went inside.

I felt uneasy watching her go, nervous. Like maybe she was right, that without her I really would be nothing. A part of me knew this wasn't true, but there was this small sliver of doubt, nagging like a splinter. With Sophie, it was always all or noth-ing. You were either with her—or, more specifically, following her—or against her. There was no in between. So while being her friend was often hard, being on her bad side would be much, much worse.

I glanced at my watch, realizing Emily had to be home soon, and went to look for her, working my way through the party until I found her talking to a girl from the models. I hung out with them for a while, letting Sophie cool down. By the time we had to leave, I figured her little mood had passed.

When I went to look for her, though, she'd disappeared again. She wasn't outside. Or in the kitchen. Finally I turned down a hallway and spotted her at the other end, opening a door. She saw me, then turned away, slipping inside. I took a deep breath, then headed toward it, knocking twice.

"Sophie," I said. "It's time to go."

No answer. I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest, and stepped closer to the door. "Okay," I said, "I know you're mad at me, but let's just go, and we can talk about it later. All right?"

Still nothing. I looked at my watch again—if we didn't leave soon, Emily would be late for curfew. "Sophie," I said, reaching down for the knob. It wasn't locked, so I turned it, slowly, pushing it open and starting to step inside. "Just—"

I stopped speaking. And walking. Instead, I just stood there, in the half-open door, staring at Sophie, who was leaning against the wall opposite, a boy pressed against her. He had one hand under her shirt, the other moving down her thigh, and his head was ducked down, his lips on her neck. As I jerked back over the threshold, startled, he turned and looked at me. It was Will Cash.

"We're busy," he said, his voice low. His eyes were red, his lips inches from her shoulder.

"I—" I said "—I'm sorry…"

"Go home, Annabel," Sophie told me, moving her hand up into his hair, her fingers moving through where it curled, just barely, over his collar. "Just go home."

I stepped back, shutting the door, and just stood there in the hallway. Will Cash was one of the Perkins Day guys. He played guitar in the band and was a senior that year. While he was cute—very cute, the kind of guy you couldn't help but notice—he also had a reputation for being sort of a jerk, as well as a serial dater, at least in the short term. He was always with one girl or another, but never for long. Sophie, for her part, preferred jocks and clean-cut types and hated anyone even slightly alternative. Clearly, though, she was making an exception. At least for the time being.

That night, I tried to call her several times, but she never answered. The next day, around noon, when she finally called me, she didn't even mention Emily or what had happened between us. All she wanted to talk about was Will Cash.

"He's amazing," she told me. She'd given me the barest of details before announcing she was coming over, as if this subject was too big for a simple phone discussion. Now, she was sitting on my bed, flipping through an old Vogue. "He knows everybody, he's this amazing guitar player, and he's so freaking smart. Not to mention sexy. I could have kissed him all night long."

"You looked happy," I said.

"I was. I am," she said, turning a page and leaning in to examine a shoe ad. "He is just what I need right now."

"So," I said, keeping Will's hit-and-run reputation in mind, "you're gonna see him again?"

"Of course," she said, like this was a stupid question. "Tonight. The band's playing at Bendo."

"Bendo?"

She sighed, reaching up to pull her hair back behind her neck with one hand. "It's a club, over on Finley?" she said. "Come on, Annabel, you have to have heard of Bendo."

"Oh," I said, although I hadn't. "Yeah."

"They go on at ten," she said, flipping another page. "You can come, if you want."

She wasn't looking at me as she asked this, and her voice was flat, no intonation. "No," I said. "I can't. I have to be up early tomorrow."

"Suit yourself," she said.

So that night, I sat at home, and Sophie went to Bendo to see the band, after which, I heard later, she went back to the A-Frame and slept with Will. Despite all her bragging and talk, he was her first, and from then on, he was all she cared about.

For me, though, it was difficult to see the appeal. While Sophie claimed that Will was sweet and funny and hot and smart (as well as a million other adjectives) none of these things really came to mind whenever I found myself face-to-face with him. Will was good-looking and incredibly popular. But he was also hard to read, the kind of guy who is just attractive enough that a warm personality is almost required to make him approachable. Will didn't have that. Instead, he came off as standoffish, as well as eerily intense, and whenever I found myself having to make conversation with him—in the car, when Sophie ran in to pay for gas, or at parties, when we both were looking for her—I felt nervous, entirely too aware of how he stared at me or let long silences fall between us.