Me, I was wearing a white T-shirt. With a bright orange bra underneath. And no smock.
I was soaked in ginger ale.
"Nice rack, Oliver," said Neanderthal Darcy from the table on the other side of us.
"Heh heh heh," chuckled obnoxious Josh, his eyes glued to my boobs. "This is the best Chem class all year."
I looked at Noel. He was drenched too, but he was wearing a navy blue hoodie over a black T-shirt. And his eyes were going exactly where Josh's and Darcy's were.
My anchor coat was in my locker three stories down, and I knew if I ran out of the room I'd end up making the whole debacle more dramatic than it already was. I looked at Ariel and Katarina, hoping one of them would have a sweater handy and take pity on me. They were both wearing their smocks, so I couldn't see their outfits, but neither one was taking any action.
Fleischman was oblivious. He was talking to a table of kids whose ginger ale hadn't exploded properly.
Should I run out of the room and get my coat?
Or walk over to the closet and put a smock on?
Should I brazen it out and let everybody see my bra?
Don't panic.
"You could stop traffic with those, Oliver," said Darcy. "The color's bright enough."
"She could stop traffic without the bra too," chuckled Josh.
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"Excuse me," I said. "I'm wondering: Did your mothers raise all of their children to be sexists, or were you two singled out specially?"
"Don't get offended," Darcy said. "Orange is a good color on you!"
Josh nudged him. "Check it out. She's cold."
I crossed my arms over my chest.
"How could you tell?" Darcy asked.
Josh cupped his hands in front of his chest, then wiggled his pointer fingers. "You can tell."
I couldn't think of anything snappy to say, so I turned to leave the room for my coat when I saw--Noel. Holding out his damp hoodie to me. Keeping his eyes steadily on the floor so they wouldn't rest on my boobs anymore.
I took it silently, flushed with gratitude and embarrassment, put it on and zipped it up. It smelled like green apple hair gel and laundry soap.
We finished the lab in silence, wiping ginger ale from the stools and floor, then writing up our observations and listening to Fleischman talk about bubbles and surfaces and I don't know what.
I kept thinking, I'm wearing his hoodie. I'm wearing his hoodie.
No guy, not even Jackson, had ever given me his clothes to wear. And even though it was wet, it was incredibly warm.
***
Right after class, I was in a bathroom stall wringing the ginger ale out of my bra and T-shirt when Kim and Cricket came in together.
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"Just act like she doesn't exist," Cricket was saying. "Like Jackson doesn't exist. Neither of them are worth your time to even think about."
Were they talking about me?
They were talking about me.
"I can't believe he's hanging around her like that, sitting at her bake sale table, after everything that happened," Kim answered.
"She's always wanted him back, you know that," said Cricket. "Erase the whole thing from your mind. Those people do not exist."
Kim sighed. "That's harder than you think."
My stomach twisted. I wanted to bust out of the toilet stall and explain that I wasn't doing anything with Jackson and he was just doing the Parents' Day Handicap at our table, and couldn't we keep the truce we'd settled into before Kim and Jackson broke up? Because really, truly, I meant no harm.
Only, I stayed where I was.
Besides the fact that if I came out they'd know I'd been hiding with my feet tucked up on the toilet seat, listening to their conversation, nothing I wanted to say was entirely true. I had been flirting with Jackson. I did have moments of wanting him back, now that he was single and talking to me.
What kind of person was I? Pretty awful, I had to admit.
I mean, if I was Kim, I would hate me. And if I was Cricket I would hate me.
How did I become someone I myself would hate?
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"Come to my house after school," Cricket told Kim. "We'll rent movies and eat cheesy popcorn. I'll get Katarina, Heidi and Ariel to come too."
"Nothing romantic," said Kim. "I can't watch romantic movies in my current state of mind."
"Of course not."
"And no anime or I'll think about Jackson."
"Would I ever intentionally watch anime?" Cricket asked.
"No," Kim admitted.
"Action," promised Cricket. "Action where guys take their shirts off. That'll make you feel better."
Kim laughed. "Not Troy again."1
Maybe it was the mention of Troy. Cricket had convinced us to rent that movie so many times in ninth grade. It made me sad to think of them watching it again (because of course they would, despite what Kim said)--eating the popcorn Cricket always used to make with Cheddar, Parmesan and pepper.
Without me.
Thinking about it, I panicked. There in the toilet stall, my breathing grew short, my heart pounded, I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. You don't need another description. Same horror show, same channel. I stayed in the toilet stall through my whole lunch period, holding on to Noel's hoodie for comfort.
I kept thinking: I can't go on hanging out with Jackson at the bake sale table.
***
1 Troy. Basically, lots of war and shirtless men.
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I can't go on liking Gideon a little and liking Noel a lot.
I can't keep pretending to help Nora get Noel while secretly wanting him myself.
***
After school, still wearing the hoodie, I convinced Nora to drive me to Dick's Drive-in so I could make up for the calories missed at lunch. We got milk shakes and three orders of French fries with tartar sauce and mustard and leaned against the hood of her car to eat, even though it was chilly out.
"Noel saved me," I said, having explained the debacle with the ginger ale and the orange bra.
"Just goes to show," said Nora, her mouth full of French fry.
"What?"
"Skin color is the best color for underwear. It never shows through your clothes."
"That's not my point," I told her.
"Bright orange bra is just asking for disaster," Nora went on.
"Really," I told her. "I have a point, and I want you to hear it."
She looked surprised. "Okay."
"My point is-" I didn't know the best way to say it. I took a slurp of my milk shake to buy time. "Noel rescued me like it meant something. Like he wanted it to mean something."
"Oh." Nora's face fell.
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"And maybe I wanted it to mean something too," I said.
Our fries were gone, so Nora crumpled up our greasy squares of paper and threw them in the garbage.
"What do you want me to say to that?" she asked as she came back.
"I don't know."
She twirled a strand of her hair on her finger and sighed. "You know I've liked him for a long time."
"Yeah, I know."
"You told me you were just friends."
"We are just friends," I said, not wanting to lie but wanting to say what she wanted to hear. "I'm just trying to be honest with you."
Nora was silent for a moment. "Let me be honest back, then," she said. "You don't know how it is to like someone for a long time. To keep thinking he might like you back, and thinking he might like you back, and never being sure. Every day you think something might happen. Every day you tell yourself, probably not-but maybe. And then every day it doesn't. It's hard."
I nodded.
"So-it's just not fair for you to suddenly decide you like Noel just because he loaned you his hoodie, when I've been liking him for months," said Nora. She looked at me plaintively, then opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat. I got in next to her.
"There's more," she said.
"What?"
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"Like, with you and Meghan. It's hard being friends with you sometimes."