“Is it Pepper again?”
If there was any blood left in my body, I’m sure it would drain from my face. “What?”
“Did she tweet something?”
Right. Twitter. My head must make some kind of involuntary nod.
“So much for her being done,” says Ethan, rolling his eyes.
My mom walks in from Grandma Belly’s room, holding a mug full of tea. “Pepper? Isn’t that the name of the girl you were hanging out with the other day?”
The other day feels like a year ago. I try to think back on the last few weeks, the last few months, of talking to Bluebird and talking to Pepper, scrambling to untangle them in my head. What have I told Bluebird? What have I told Pepper?
“Yeah, that one,” Ethan confirms.
And more important, what is Pepper going to think? How many things did she say to me on the app that she wouldn’t want Jack Campbell, Twitter adversary and senior class disappointment, to know?
My mom beams. “And she saw that write-up of you on Hub Seed and asked you out, hmm?”
By some short-lived miracle, I finally find my voice. “Not exactly—”
“Pepper’s the one tweeting from the Big League Burger account,” says Ethan.
“Wait, what?”
I didn’t even realize my dad was in the kitchen, just out of earshot, until suddenly he’s standing in the doorway with a pan and a dishrag in his hands. He looks at me and then at Ethan, like he’s not sure where to aim the question.
“Pepper Evans,” says Ethan dismissively. “Goes to school with us. Her family owns the whole Big League Burger operation.”
My mom frowns. “I thought it was some girl named Patricia?”
“Her real name’s Pepper,” I say. “No, her real name is Patricia, but her name is Pepper.” Or Bluebird. Or Girl Who Is About To Be Pissed Off At Jack All Over Again. Take your pick.
“That woman.”
If I hadn’t watched my dad’s mouth moving, I might have convinced myself I imagined him saying it. A shadow of an expression crosses his face; he lowers his head to look down at the pan so I won’t see, but it’s too late. I glance over at my mom, expecting her to look as dumbfounded as I do, but she’s heaving in the kind of breath that can only give way to a sigh.
“What woman?” Ethan asks. Whatever is on his laptop screen has been thoroughly forgotten. When neither of them answers, he adds, “Are we … missing something here?”
My dad looks back up, his lips in a tight line. “No. Just … we put the Twitter thing to rest, right?”
“Right,” I say dumbly.
He nods. “Let’s keep it that way.”
And then, in that eerie, psychic parent way, my parents wordlessly shift from what they’re doing and head toward their bedroom. They don’t shut the door — they never do when they’re just talking — but it’s only slightly ajar, their voices too low for us to hear anything.
My phone lights up in my hand.
Bluebird
So, what about tomorrow, bakery maestro?
Tomorrow. Senior Skip Day.
Whatever small, naive, truly embarrassing sliver of excitement pushed its way through the panic is immediately crushed.
Landon.
Maybe she does, and maybe she doesn’t — but I don’t think I imagined the look on her face in the pool earlier today, or the stammer in her words. She thinks Wolf is Landon.
No. She wants Wolf to be Landon.
“What the hell?” Ethan murmurs.
I look over at him, into the sometimes frustrating sameness of his eyes. Usually in moments like this, they are more alike than ever, the same furrow, the same confused squint. My ally. My brother. The other half of a rebellious split egg. But right now I’m so far past the weirdness of our parents, they could come back out speaking German and I’d still be rooted to this spot, sinking into what is about to prove to be a very self-indulgent, pitiful hole.
“Yo,” says Ethan. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, but the tone of the yo does, and so does the way his eyes blink out of his confusion and focus on mine.
And just like that, there’s this ache in my chest, this almost irresistible urge to tell him everything. About Weazel, about Pepper, about the future and all the parts of it I equally dread and doubt. No matter how I try to outrun Ethan’s shadow, it is the shadow that understands mine best. No matter how I try to resent Ethan for the problems I’ve brought on myself, he is still and will always be my first and best friend.
It’s not because I don’t trust Ethan that I don’t tell him. It’s because I don’t even want to accept it myself. Putting it out into the open would cement the humiliation of it, give it a permanence I’m just not ready to face.
I gather up my laptop and my phone. “I gotta catch up on sleep,” I mumble.
“Yeah?”
Another opening. Ethan holds my gaze, and for a moment, it’s just us. No school, no friends, no customers or straphangers or strangers in the way. The way it was when we were little, before the rest of the world wedged its way between us. Before Ethan became every bit as much a measuring stick as he is my brother.
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
I get to my room and kick off my shoes and fall into my bed face-first, shoving my head into my pillow. I need to sleep on this. For a night or for a lifetime, maybe. But my eyes are closed and my body is sagging into the mattress, and I am still equal parts aching and wildly self-pitying and indignant, like taking a shot of coffee from the espresso machine downstairs and then promptly getting smacked upside the head.
My phone buzzes again. I ignore it. It’ll be Bluebird — no, Pepper—and still I don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do. I want time to stop passing. I don’t want to have to make a decision about this. But that’s the thing — whether I respond or I don’t, a decision is made. A domino is knocked over that in turn knocks down a bunch of other dominoes in its path.
I’m just going to be a bystander in their cross fire.
But then the phone buzzes again, and again. I blearily pull my face out of my pillow and glare at the screen, but it’s only Paul. Honestly, I should have recognized it from the rapid-fire nature of the texts; he’s never been able to condense any thoughts into just one.
Today 9:32 PM
dude. DUDE. dude dude dude dude
you have to tell me who goldfish is on weazel
i think? she is my soulmate????
or just like trigger the app to tell us both. you can do that right
I rub my palms over my eyes, scowling into the screen.
Today 9:34 PM
No. I’m not doing that
but you CAN
right???
I put down the phone again, hooking it up to the charger and setting my alarm for the morning, determined to cope with this influx of information the only way my body knows how: going the hell to sleep. Just as I turn off the light, the phone buzzes again.
Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaacckkkk
And then, finally, whatever it is I’m feeling finds a point of focus, finds a place to funnel itself.
NO. Stop asking. It’s not fair to the other people on the app and I’m not gonna be a dick just so you can cheat it
I set the phone back down with unnecessary force and flick off the light. The phone doesn’t buzz for the rest of the night.
Pepper
By seven o’clock on Friday night, I am drafting a blog post for the next Pepper/Paige creation in my head: Pepper’s Crappy Crap Day Crinkle Cookies.
Ingredients: First, add unresolved tension with one Jack Campbell, who is either out sick or out participating in the Senior Skip Day shenanigans taking place during the school day. Mix in nearly twenty-four hours without contact from Wolf, two seconds after essentially baring my soul to him by showing him the thing I am most proud of in this world. Add what is proving to be the most awkward hangout with Landon and a large group of incredibly drunk teenagers on the face of the earth. Add chocolate chips, butter, flour, salt, cocoa powder, eggs, and more embarrassment than the body of a teenage girl can possibly contain, set the oven to a bajillion degrees, and set the whole damn thing on fire.