She’s pushing me away out of spite. There’s no good way of dealing with her when she’s like this, except to give her what she wants. “So, um, talk to you tonight?”
“Go,” she says.
I sneak another glimpse at Cricket before leaving. I wish I hadn’t. He looks tortured. As if he’d do anything to stop me, but he’s being held back by his own invisible demons. I mumble my goodbye. As I walk to the meadow, I take off the wig. I don’t have a purse—Lindsey never carries one—so I drape it on the branch of a Japanese maple. Maybe someone will find it and add it to their costume. I shake out my hair, unbutton the top of my shirt, and roll up the sleeves. It’s better, but I still don’t look like me.
Actually, I look
more
like me. I feel exposed.
Max is leaning against the first-aid station, and his shoulders relax when he sees me. He’s glad I’m alone. But when I lean up to kiss him, he hardens again, and it sends a chill down my spine. “Not now, Lola.”
His rebuke stings. Is it because of how I look?
“You’re still hanging out with him,” he says.
No, it’s because he’s jealous. I’m sweating again. “Who?” I ask, buying time.
“Grasshopper. Centipede. Praying Mantis.”
It makes me cringe to hear Max mock his name. “That’s not funny. And that wasn’t nice what you said to Lindsey earlier either.”
He crosses his arms. “How long have you been seeing him?”
“I’m not seeing him. We just bumped into him and his sister, I promise.” His silence intimidates me into blabbering. “I swear, Lindsey and I ran into them, like, three minutes before you showed up.”
“I don’t like the way he stares at you.”
“He’s just my neighbor, Max.”
“How many times have you seen him since Amoeba?”
I hesitate and decide to go with a slant truth. “Sometimes I see him through my window on the weekend.”
“Your window?Your
bedroom
window?”
I narrow my eyes. “And then I close my curtains. End of story.”
“Lola, I don’t believe—”
“You never believe me!”
“Because you lie your ass off all the time! Don’t think I don’t know you’re still hiding things from me. What happened at Muir Woods, Lola?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Nathan was trying to get you to tell me something at dinner. He was there, wasn’t he? The neighbor boy.”
“Ohmygod, you’re crazy. It was a family picnic. You’re getting paranoid, and you’re making things up.” I’m panicking.
How does he know?
“Am I?”
“YES!”
“Because one of us is getting pretty worked up right now.”
“Because you’re accusing me of horrible things! I can’t believe you think I’d lie to you about something like that.”
Oh God, I’m going to hell.
I’m crying. “Why are you so convinced I’m ready to cheat on you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve never seen the same you twice. Nothing about you is real.”
His words stop my heart.
Max sees he’s taken it too far. He jerks forward as if a spell has broken. “I didn’t mean that.You know I love the crazy outfits.”
“You always say what you mean,”
I whisper.
He rubs his temples for a long moment. “I’m sorry. Come here.” He wraps his arms around me. I hug him tightly, but it feels as if he’s vanishing. I want to tell him that I’m sorry, too, but I’m scared to tell him the truth. I don’t want to lose him.
When two people are in love, it’s supposed to work. It
has
to work. No matter how difficult the circumstances are. I think about the sweet songs he’s written, the ones he plays in his apartment, the ones for my ears only. I think about our future, when I’m no longer tied to my parents. Costumes by day, rock clubs by night. We’ll both be a success, and it’ll be because of each other.
Our love should make us a success.
Max kisses my neck. My chin. My lips. His kisses are hungry and possessive. Max is the one. We love each other, so he
has
to be the one.
He tears himself away. “This is the real me. Is this the real you?”
I’m dizzy. “This is me.”
But it tastes like fear on my lips. It tastes like another lie.
chapter twenty-two
I’m discussing Max with the moon, but it’s supremely unsatisfying. Her beams are casting an eerie luminescence on Cricket’s window. “Max doesn’t like it when I dress down, but he throws my usual appearance into my face when we fight. I’m never what he needs me to be.”
The moon darkens by cloud cover.
“Okay, I’ve lied to him. But you saw how jealous he gets. It makes me feel like I
have
to. And I shouldn’t have to defend my right to be friends with another guy.”
I wait. The sky remains dark.
“Fine. The you-know-who situation is weird. Maybe . . . Max and Calliope aren’t so far off. But if I’m never given Max’s trust to begin with, how can he expect me to trust him in return? Do you see what I mean? Do you see how confusing it is?” I close my eyes. “Please, tell me. What do I do?”
The light behind my lids softly brightens. I open my eyes. The clouds have moved, and Cricket’s window is illuminated by moonlight.
“You have a sick sense of humor,” I say.
Her beams don’t waver. And without knowing how it happens, I find myself removing a handful of bobby pins from my desk. I chuck them at his panes.
Dink! Dink! Dink dink!
Seven bobby pins later, Cricket opens his window.
“Trick-or-treat,” I say.
“Is something wrong?” He’s sleepy and disoriented. He’s also only wearing his boxer briefs, and his bracelets and rubber bands.
OHMYGOD. HE’S ONLY WEARING BOXER BRIEFS.
“No.”
Cricket rubs his eyes. “No?”
DON’T STARE AT HIS BODY. DO
NOT
STARE AT HIS BODY.
“Did you go anywhere fun tonight? I stayed in and handed out candy. Nathan bought good stuff, name-brand chocolate, not the cheapo mix he usually gets, you know with the Tootsie Pops and Dots and those tiny Tootsie Rolls flavored like lime, I guess you got a lot of kids at your house, too, huh?”
He stares at me blankly. “Did you wake me up . . . to talk about candy?”
“It’s still so hot out, isn’t it?” I blurt. AND THEN I WANT TO DIE.
Because Cricket has turned into stone, having realized the practically naked situation his body is in. Which I am not, not, not looking at. At all.
“Let’s go for a walk!”
My exclamation unfreezes him. He edges out of sight, trying to play it cool. “Now?” he calls from the darkness. “It’s . . . two forty-two in the morning.”
“I could use someone to talk to.”
Cricket pops back up. He has located his pants. He is wearing them.
I blush.
He considers me for a moment, pulls a T-shirt over his head, and then nods. I sneak downstairs, past my parents’ bedroom and Norah’s temporary bedroom, and I reach the street undetected. Cricket is already there. I’m wearing sushi-print pajama bottoms and a white camisole. Seeing him fully dressed again makes me feel