I could feel Jeremy staring after me as I walked away. I could also feel those ugly splotches of red start up my neck, and tried to calm myself.
When I got to her table I just stood there behind the chair across from her, awkward.
“Why don’t you sit with me today?” she suggested through a wide smile.
I sat down automatically, watching her expression. Was this how the joke ended? She hadn’t stopped smiling. I found that I still didn’t care. Whatever got me more time this close to her.
She stared back at me, still smiling. Did she want me to say something?
“This is, uh, different,” I finally managed.
“Well,” she said, and then paused. I could tell there was more, so I waited. The rest of it followed in a rush, the words blurring together so that it took me a minute to decipher the meaning. “I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly.”
I kept waiting, thinking she would explain, but she didn’t. The silence got more uncomfortable as the seconds passed.
“You know I don’t understand what you mean, right?” I asked.
“I’m counting on it,” she said, and then her eyes focused behind me. “I think your friends are upset that I’ve stolen you.”
Suddenly I could feel all their eyes boring into my back. For once, it didn’t bother me at all.
“They’ll survive.”
She grinned. “I may not give you back, though.”
I swallowed too loud and she laughed.
“You look worried,” she said.
“No.” I stopped to swallow again, hearing the edge of a break in my voice. “But surprised, yes. What’s this all about?” I gestured toward her and the rest of the empty table.
“I told you—I’m tired of trying to stay away from you. So I’m giving up.” The smile was fading, and her eyes were serious by the end.
“Giving up?” I repeated.
“Yes—giving up trying to be good. I’m just going to do what I want now, and let the chips fall where they may.” The smile disappeared completely, and a hard edge crept into her silky voice.
“You lost me again.”
It looked like she found that funny. “I always say too much when I’m talking to you—that’s one of the problems.”
“Don’t worry—I don’t understand anything you say.”
“Like I said—I’m counting on that.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds, but the quiet wasn’t awkward this time. It was more… charged. My face started to get hot again.
“So,” I said, looking away so that I could catch my breath. “In plain English, are we friends now?”
“Friends…,” she murmured. She sounded like it wasn’t her favorite word.
“Or not,” I offered.
“Well, we can try, I suppose. But I’m warning you again that I’m not a good friend for you to have.” Her smile was brittle now, the warning real.
“You say that a lot.” Funny how my stomach was rolling. Was it because I was hungry after all? Because she was smiling at me? Or because I suddenly almost believed her? I could tell that she believed what she was saying.
“I do, because you’re not listening. I’m still waiting for you to hear me. If you’re smart, you’ll avoid me.”
Then I had to smile, and I watched as her smile automatically got bigger in response. “I thought we’d already come to the conclusion that I’m an idiot. Or absurd, or whatever.”
“I did apologize—for the second one, at least. Will you forgive me for the first? I spoke without thinking.”
“Yeah, of course. You don’t have to apologize to me.”
She sighed. “Don’t I?”
I didn’t know how to answer—it sounded like a rhetorical question anyway. I stared down at my hands wrapped around the lemonade bottle, not sure what to do. It was so strange to sit with her here—like normal people. I was sure only one of us was normal.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
I looked up. She was staring again, her gold eyes curious and—like the first time I’d seen her—frustrated. Once again, my thoughts refused to pass through the appropriate filter.
“I’m wondering what you are.”
Her smile tightened, like her teeth were suddenly clamped together, but she held it carefully in place.
“Are you having much luck with that?” Her voice was casual, like she didn’t really care about my answer.
My neck got hot and—I assumed—unattractively blotchy. During the last month I’d given it some thought, but the only solutions I could come up with were completely ridiculous. Like Clark Kent and Peter Parker–level nonsense.
She tilted her head to the side, staring into my eyes as if she was trying to see through them, right into my brain. She smiled—inviting this time, impossible to resist.
“Won’t you tell me?”
But I had to try to resist. She already thought I was an idiot. I shook my head. “Too embarrassing.”
“That’s really frustrating,” she complained.
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. “Like… someone refusing to tell you what she’s thinking, even if all the while she’s making cryptic little comments designed to keep you up at night wondering what she could possibly mean… Frustrating like that?”