Complete Nothing Read online

  “Um . . . well, I . . .”

  My mind went blank. They both stared at me as my face burned brighter and brighter. What was I doing here again? Why was I wasting their time? I glanced over at the doctor’s laptop, where the screen saver had started up, scrolling pictures of his children. An action shot of Keegan on the football field appeared, him pulled back in QB stance, ready to hurl the ball.

  Holy crap. Keegan Traylor. Of course! He was the starting quarterback for St. Joseph’s football team. Peter had mentioned him a few times—his stats, how he was probably overrated, how everyone was always talking about him playing ball at an Ivy League school.

  Peter would die if Keegan and I got together. He’d seriously die. True Olympia was my new hero.

  “Were you at rehearsal or . . . ?” Dr. Traylor prompted.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking at Keegan and feeling suddenly in awe. How could anybody be that good-looking, athletic, and smart? It seemed impossible. “Uh . . . yes. We were practicing leaps on Monday night, and when I came down on this foot I felt something pop behind my ankle.” I cleared my throat and imagined the back of my leg throbbing. Tried to convey the pain through my expression. But acting had never been my thing. “I thought I could just walk it off, but over the past two days it hasn’t gotten any better.”

  “I see,” Dr. Traylor said. “Well, let’s take a look. Scoot back for me.”

  I did, the paper crackling loudly, conspicuously, beneath me, my palms going slick with sweat. Dr. Traylor lifted my foot gently in his hands, and he and his son both leaned in for a better look. I hoped Keegan didn’t notice my battered toenails and the calluses covering my toes. Side effects of spending hours a week in toe shoes.

  Where was True and her diversion? I couldn’t take this much longer.

  “Okay, point your toe for me?” Dr. Traylor said.

  Come on, True. What are you doing out there?

  “Um, okay.”

  I pointed my toe.

  “Does that hurt?” he asked, pressing the tendon on the back of my leg.

  “Not . . . well, maybe a little. I—”

  A door slammed out in the lobby, followed by a ridiculous crash. It sounded like a car had smashed through the wall or something. I gripped the table at my sides as Keegan and his dad looked at each other, alarmed. Someone was shouting and there were other random noises. Papers fluttering, a loud bang, people talking urgently.

  “Dr. Traylor! Dr. Traylor! We need you out here!”

  Both Keegan and his dad started for the door, but his father put a hand on his chest.

  “Stay here. Let me see what’s up.” He looked at me. “I’ll be right back, Miss Catalfo.”

  A nurse appeared just outside the doorway. “Dr. Traylor, there’s a young man in a wheelchair who appears to be in some distress.”

  A young man in a wheelchair. Had True roped her friend Heath into helping us out today? If so, I could kiss them both.

  The furrow in Dr. Traylor’s brow deepened. “Bring him to exam room one.”

  Keegan peeked down the hall as his father and the nurse disappeared. I heard yet another slam and then he came back into the exam area, leaving the door open. Voices chattered in the next room, but the words were too muffled to hear. I tried to figure out if one of them was Heath’s until I realized I’d never actually heard him speak. He was pretty new at school—even newer than True—and we didn’t exactly hang out with the same crowd.

  “Wow,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s the most exciting it’s ever gotten around here,” Keegan replied. “I feel like I’m working in an ER.”

  I laughed. This was my moment. It was time to try to snag Keegan Traylor. But this was not my strong point either—the flirting thing. It didn’t come naturally to me like it did for some people, and it wasn’t as if I’d had to wheedle my way into Peter’s heart. He’d simply come up to me and asked me out.

  My heart ached right now, just thinking about that day. Finding Peter waiting outside the dressing room. How awkward and handsome he’d looked in that sport coat and tie. The way my heart had fallen all over itself when he’d looked at me and I’d realized that he was, in fact, there for me.

  Tears suddenly prickled my eyes. I coughed and looked down at my feet.

  “Are you okay?” Keegan asked, gently touching my arm.

  I glanced at his hand. If I wanted Peter back, Keegan was my ticket. I just had to go for it.

  Confidence, I told myself. Pretend you’re about to go onstage for your solo. Lift your chin, elongate your spine, and dance.

  “Fine,” I said, straightening my posture. “Just a little tickle in my throat. So, do you like working for your dad?”

  “It’s not bad. I get to take whatever I want out of the vending machine in the break room, I can roll in ten minutes late and no one cares.” He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. I couldn’t help noticing how the fabric of his jacket sleeves strained as his muscles bulged. “I get to meet pretty dancers,” he said in a leading way.

  A warm blush spread across my cheeks. The silence dragged out for a long minute. I knew I should say something flirtatious back, but what? I thought of that waitress at Pizza City. That sophomore chick who had basically melded her body with Peter’s this afternoon. Liza Verdanos. Even my sister, Casey. What would any of them say? It came to me in a flash, and I opened my mouth before I could lose my nerve.

  “Well, when I came here I didn’t expect to hang out with the doctor’s hot son.”

  My words hung in the air, and for a split second I was sure I’d gone too far, said the wrong thing, totally turned him off. But then he smiled.

  “We should hang out sometime,” he said, pulling his phone from the pocket of his chinos and handing it to me. His attitude oozed confidence, like he knew there was no way I was going to say no. “Let me get your number.”

  I was trembling so violently I could barely enter the info, but somehow I got through it. Then Keegan lifted the phone to take my picture, and I couldn’t wipe the proud smile off my face.

  I’d done it. I’d flirted successfully, and now I was going to go out with a guy who was guaranteed to make Peter jealous. Step one of True’s brilliant plan was complete.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Peter

  “Would you like to declare a major?” I read out loud.

  Were they effing kidding? Declare a major? Now? Who knew what the hell they wanted to do for a job when they were seventeen? Not me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do tomorrow, forget the rest of my life. I rubbed my forehead with the heels of my hands, my eyes crossing. Part of me wanted to shove these applications into a drawer and deal with them tomorrow, but I couldn’t. My mom had told me I wasn’t allowed to come out of my room until I’d finished at least two of them. I groaned and looked at my cell.

  Claudia. She would know how to fill these things out. If I hadn’t broken up with her, she’d be here right now. Or as soon as her rehearsal ended. I reached for the phone and brought up her name. My thumb hovered over the call button.

  What the hell was wrong with me? Couldn’t I even do some paperwork without running back to my ex? Maybe she was right about me. Maybe I was pathetic.

  I dropped the phone, and it clattered off the edge of my desk and smacked against the wall. The back popped off, and I was staring at the battery.

  “Dammit.”

  I got up, grabbed the phone pieces, and lay back on my bed, trying to breathe. Coach was on my case about these two applications as well, because their scouts were coming to the game this weekend. College of New Jersey and Rutgers. I wasn’t good enough to play at Rutgers, and I knew it. But I could maybe play, like, second string at CNJ. A couple of guys from last year’s squad were playing there now. It seemed like it might actually be possible. It had to be. I didn’t even want to go to college if I couldn’t play football. I’d been doing it every fall since I was seven. I couldn’t imagine life without it. If I h
ad to go somewhere, maybe CNJ wouldn’t be that bad. I could come home on the weekends easily. And if Claudia went to Princeton . . .

  “Oh my God, you loser! You broke up with her!” I said through my teeth.

  And it wasn’t like she’d come begging me to take her back or anything. She was trolling for dates for homecoming right now, a thought that hurt like hell every time it popped into my mind, which was about every fifteen seconds.

  I wanted to call her. I wanted to call her so bad. Which really pissed me off.

  I sat up again and grabbed my Xbox controller. Eff it. Half an hour. I’d give myself half an hour to play. The applications weren’t going anywhere.

  I turned on the TV and muted it so my mom wouldn’t hear the game. With her at the desk in her bedroom working on her blog and Michelle in her room reading her speech for her middle school council elections, the house was totally silent. Which was probably why I heard the car pull up outside and the doors pop. My friends’ voices were insanely loud, and I realized my window was open. I went over to it and leaned my arms on the sill. Gavin, Mitchell, and Lester were cutting across the lawn, which I really had to mow this weekend before it got completely out of hand.

  “What are you losers doing here?” I whispered.

  They stopped and looked up. “Kidnapping you!”

  “Shh!” I said, glancing toward my mom’s window. I hoped she was blasting Bon Jovi through her headphones like she did sometimes while she worked. “Where?”

  “We’re going to the diner to meet up with some cheerleaders,” Lester whispered. “Josie’s gonna be there!” He did a stupid dance, thrusting out his chest and butt like he was a girl. It just made him look more like a chicken.

  But still, certain parts of me stirred at the sound of Josie’s name. I glanced over my shoulder at the applications, then down at my busted phone. Suddenly there was nothing I wanted to do more than get the hell out of there.

  “I’ll be right down.”

  I grabbed my varsity jacket, tiptoed into the hall, and closed my door as quietly as possible. In five seconds I was out the front door and peeling out in Mitchell’s car. The future could wait.

  * * *

  “So you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?” Josie teased.

  I’d just told the table about the declaring-a-major question. Josie pouted her bottom lip as she tucked my hair behind my ear. She smelled like strawberry bubble gum and vanilla, and there was glitter dusted across her chest. Actual glitter. Like she was going clubbing in the city and not half sitting on my lap at the damn diner. It made not staring at her chest that much harder, but looking in her eyes was no picnic either. I kept expecting them to be green, not brown. Expecting to see the outlines of contacts in them. For the last year and a half the only eyes I’d looked into this closely were Claudia’s.

  “I know what I want to be,” Lester said, chewing with his mouth open. “A video game tester.”

  “A what now?” Gavin asked as he sucked down his second chocolate milkshake.

  “That’s not a real job,” Josie’s friend Jessa protested. She reached for one of Lester’s fries and munched on it. Yes, Josie and Jessa. Their other two best friends, who thankfully couldn’t make it, were named Jennifer and Jillian. Not confusing at all.

  “It is so!” Lester replied, sitting up straight in his seat. “They hire people to test out the games and find the bugs. You don’t even have to leave your house.”

  “I just got a flash-forward of you at forty years old sitting in your mother’s basement playing Madden 2040 on a cracked big screen,” Mitchell joked.

  Everyone laughed.

  “I got no problem with that,” Lester said. “My mom makes a mean pot pie.”

  “You should be a writer,” Jessa declared, gesturing at Mitchell with a french fry.

  “I should?” Mitchell sat up straight.

  “Why not? You’re hilarious,” she replied. “And that description was, like, so vivid.”

  Mitchell frowned. “Huh.”

  “So you’re the only one without a thing,” Lester pointed out.

  “Thanks, man. That’s real helpful,” I replied flatly.

  “Whatever. You’re a superstar,” Josie said, messing with my hair. “Whatever you do, you’ll be a superstar.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably. Her fingers were too jabby, and I felt hot everywhere and not in a good way. Maybe I was the shit this year at Lake Carmody High—emphasis on this year, because someone else would be next year—but I wasn’t a superstar. I was the only loser at the table who had zero interests and zero talent. I mean, I could hurl a football, but so could ten million other dudes in America. What the hell was I going to do with my life?

  The familiar pressure squeezed its way to life inside my chest. I cleared my throat and stole a fry off Jessa’s plate, trying to ignore the feeling. I wished, suddenly, that Claudia were here. She probably would have changed the subject. Or come up with fifteen careers that I’d never thought of that I could totally do.

  Why had I broken up with her again?

  The door behind Lester, Mitchell, and Jessa opened and my heart completely stopped. It was Claudia. Her hair was up in a tight bun and she wore blue sweat shorts over her pink ballet tights. A gray sweatshirt with the collar cut out hung off one of her shoulders. She didn’t see us. She was busy reading something on her phone. I moved closer to the window, as far away from Josie as I could manage. Which wasn’t far.

  “Hey, Claudia,” Gavin said, when she was almost past our table.

  She stopped. I shot him a look. She started to smile at him, but then she saw me. And Josie. And she went white.

  “Hi, Gavin,” she replied tightly. Then she looked me in the eye. “Peter.” And around the table. “Other people.”

  Okay. She was definitely pissed. Claudia was the politest person I knew. She didn’t say snotty stuff like that. She turned and walked up to the counter.

  “Takeout for Catalfo?” she said to the waitress.

  The silence at our table was bordering on painful. We heard Claudia’s phone beep, and she laughed as she read the text. The sound of that laugh sent chills right through me.

  “I should probably go talk to her, right?” I said.

  “Why?” Josie and Lester replied at the same time.

  “Yeah. It’s weird if you don’t,” Gavin said, sliding out of the booth.

  I looked at Josie. She heaved a sigh before very slowly getting out so I could move. I shot her what I hoped was an apologetic glance and wiped my hands on my thighs. Even though I didn’t know why I had to apologize. It wasn’t like we were together. I barely even knew her. And I didn’t want to get into a relationship two seconds after getting out of one. Plus, she was the one always throwing herself at me, not the other way around. Not that I minded. Technically.

  I cleared my throat and slowly shuffled toward Claudia.

  “Hey,” I said to her profile. “What’s up?”

  She sent a text and looked at me, but for, like, a second. Then she stared straight ahead toward the kitchen. “Nothing.”

  Another text came in. She read it, giggled, and blushed. My chest felt like the entire team had just stomped on it with their cleats.

  “Who’re you texting?” I sounded mad, even though I hadn’t meant to.

  She texted back before answering me. “Oh, just this guy I met today before rehearsal,” she replied. The waitress put her bag on the table and she took it, pocketing the phone.

  She’d met another guy today? Where were these dudes coming from?

  “What guy?” Definitely mad.

  For a second it looked like she was going to answer, but then her mouth clamped shut.

  “No one you know,” she said with a tight smile, looking me in the eye for the first time. “Have fun with your cheerleader!”

  Then she breezed right past me and out the door. Through the window, I saw her read another text and laugh again. I felt like I was gonna hyperventilate. So it was
true, what people were saying. Claudia really was on the hunt, or whatever. We’d only broken up twenty-four hours ago. Practically. What the eff?

  “Dude! What’re you doing? Get over here!” Lester crowed. “Gavin just told us he wants to be an astronaut!”

  “That’s not what I said,” Gavin grumbled. “I just think I’m gonna focus on science, that’s it.”

  Outside, Claudia got into her white Prius and pulled out of the parking lot. Probably headed home to keep texting this tool while she ate her usual salad. I looked at Josie. She was putting on lipstick and made a kiss toward her pocket mirror, then smiled at me in the reflection.

  Fine. If Claudia was already flirting with random guys, texting some other dude, and throwing it in my face, then fine. I wasn’t going to feel guilty about moving on either. I shouldn’t feel guilty. I was a senior. I was the star of the football team. I was out with my friends and two of the hottest girls in school.

  Who cared if I didn’t have a career mapped out or a major to declare or any applications done?

  It was well past time to have some fun.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  True

  I had been at work for about an hour when Hephaestus wheeled through the door. Instantly I tensed and started straightening the pretty, handwritten cards in the display case, bearing the names of each of the cupcakes. He rolled his chair to the counter and stopped directly in front of me. He was wearing an aqua-blue T-shirt under a brown leather jacket with the collar turned up, and he caught more than one admiring glance from our patrons. More than ten, actually.

  “So that went well,” he said.

  “What did?”

  “The thing at the physical therapist’s office,” he replied. “The guy thought I was insane, going off about tingling in my toes, but I kept him away from your girl for at least fifteen minutes. If she couldn’t close the deal in that time, she’s never gonna close it.”

  “Yeah. Great,” I said, closing the case with a bang. “I’m actually kind of busy, so . . .”

  “I don’t get a thank-you?” Hephaestus joked lightly. “Why am I even helping you?”