Complete Nothing Page 23

  And then I said, “No.”

  Peter sat up. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, but no,” I said, feeling a bit like I was about to jump off a building. “I’ve moved on.”

  Peter dropped my hand. “With Traylor?”

  I looked at him, annoyed by the accusatory tone in his voice, like he thought he might get to choose who I moved on with. “Yeah. With Keegan Traylor,” I said, my voice wavering annoyingly.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. We were together for a year and half!” he protested. “I thought that you—I thought that we—”

  I held my breath, dying for him to finish his sentence. Instead he huffed a sigh.

  “What’s so great about Keegan Traylor?” he demanded.

  My jaw dropped. “Well, first off, he’s funny. And he’s laid-back. He’s never once snapped at me for no reason.”

  Peter hung his head.

  “He’s coming to my recital on Friday, even though it’s not exactly convenient for him. He makes me feel like he actually wants to be with me, like he cares about the things I care about, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Peter stared at me. He looked deflated. “I made you feel like I didn’t want to be with you?”

  “Sometimes,” I said, faltering a bit at his naive tone. “For the last few months you just . . . I felt like you were pulling away. Every time I tried to talk to you about college, you bit my head off. . . . You walked out on me the day I got my audition. . . . It was like you were angry all the time.”

  I swallowed hard, impressed by my own bravery. I’d told him what I really thought, how I really felt.

  “Separation anxiety,” he said under his breath.

  “What?”

  “It’s a real thing!” he said loudly, like a protest. “I looked it up. You’re so afraid of someone leaving you that you push them away. It’s the subconscious exerting control or some crap.”

  “Oh.” I felt this odd sort of pang in my chest. He’d broken up with me because he was scared of losing me? Was that possible?

  He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands forming a teepee over his nose and mouth, and sighed. “I thought . . . I thought that you, like, couldn’t wait for us to graduate. I felt like you were trying to get rid of me. That there was no way for me to be part of your future.”

  He hung his head. My body felt like it weighed fourteen thousand pounds.

  “Oh, Peter.”

  It was the only thing I could say without bursting into tears. Why hadn’t he just told me this instead of breaking up with me? If we could have talked about it last week, before the pain and anger and confusion and plotting and planning and Keegan. Maybe then, things would have been different.

  Suddenly he pushed himself up and started out of the room. My heart caught in my throat. “Peter.”

  He turned to me hopefully, which made me feel like a jerk when I reached into my backpack and pulled out his class ring.

  “I should give this back to you.”

  “This isn’t happening,” he said breathlessly. His face was like stone. He didn’t move a muscle. I placed the ring on the table and got up.

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” I said clearly, almost unable to believe I was actually saying the words. “It’s too late.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Peter

  “Where are we going? I just wanna go home,” I muttered to Gavin, sounding like a big fat baby as we trudged across the football field. Practice had sucked. Of course it had sucked. Claudia had picked Keegan over me. Everything sucked.

  Of course, if I did go home right now, it wasn’t like there was anything awesome waiting for me there. My mother had finally laid down the law and said that if I didn’t finish at least three applications by the end of the night, I was grounded for two weeks.

  Did I mention how everything sucked? Somewhere in the distance, the marching band was practicing. The trumpet was louder than the other instruments and playing a mournful tune. The perfect soundtrack for my life.

  “There’s someone you need to talk to.”

  Something about the way Gavin was talking was off. He swiveled his head from side to side, wearing these mirrored sunglasses like he was some kind of FBI agent. Or the Terminator.

  “Why are you being so weird?” I readjusted my bag on my shoulder as we got closer to the Snack Shack on the home side of the field. The sun beat down on my back like an assault. I turned my baseball cap around so the bill covered my neck. “You do know this is only open on game days.”

  He just looked at me. At least I think he did. It was hard to tell with those glasses.

  “You’re really starting to freak me out,” I said.

  Then we came around this hedge line, and I stopped walking. Lauren was sitting at one of the white plastic picnic tables with True. Great. The girl who’d given me false hope about getting Claudia back, and my ex’s best friend. What was this, some kind of bizarro intervention?

  “You again?” I grumbled.

  “She’s here to help,” Gavin told me. He looked at True and removed his sunglasses, folding them carefully. “Operation Love Sack has hit a snag.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it?” True asked.

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” Lauren said, screwing her face up.

  “Yes, it does!” Gavin countered. He might even have whined.

  “How? How does that make any sense?” Lauren asked with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Because! He’s, like, the linebacker trying to get to the quarterback, and Claudia’s the quarterback trying to, you know, evade the sack.” He stopped and blew out a breath, hands on his hips. “Can we just do this?”

  “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” I demanded.

  “We’re gonna help you get Claudia back,” Lauren said matter-of-factly.

  My shoulders tensed, and I shot Gavin a death glare. He was going to pay for dragging me up here for this. “It’s too late. She already rejected me.”

  “We know,” Lauren and True said at once.

  So she’d told them. Already. Told them about how pathetic Peter tried and failed to win her back. Probably laughed about it with them, wondering how I could be such an idiot. I deflated at the thought, sitting down on the bench next to Lauren and slumping against the table.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “Well, you can’t just ask her out again, clearly,” Lauren said, shaking her dark curls back over her shoulders.

  “Clearly,” I said through my teeth. I’d always liked Lauren, but right then, she was completely getting under my skin.

  “You have to do something to make it up to her—the breakup, I mean,” True said, leaning into the edge of the table while Gavin stood over us, like our very own Secret Service agent.

  “What makes you such an expert?” I asked True.

  True narrowed her eyes. “Trust me. I have a lot of experience with this stuff.”

  I sighed. So everyone felt like being cryptic today. Cool.

  “You have to show her that you never stopped caring about her,” True said. “That you care about the things that matter to her. Her future . . . your future. Together.”

  “I tried to tell her,” I said, turning my palms up.

  “It’s not enough. You need to do something,” True said firmly.

  “Like what? What can I do? After today I’m not sure she’s ever going to talk to me again.”

  “You could come to our recital, for starters,” Lauren said.

  “When’s that?” True asked.

  “Friday night,” Lauren said.

  The girls looked at me hopefully. “I could do that. I mean, I’d have to break my pregame ritual, but—”

  “So break it,” Lauren interjected.

  “I don’t know,” True said, biting her lip. “I don’t think it’s big enough, just showing up.”

  I groaned and crossed my arms on the table, dropping my head onto them. The conversation I’d
had with Claudia earlier rang in my mind. Everything she’d accused me of was true. How I’d been snapping at her, how I’d been angry so much, how I’d bailed on her when she’d found out she got the audition—letting my own insecure crap ruin her big moment.

  Suddenly my head popped up. For the first time in my life I understood why cartoonists are always drawing lightbulbs over their characters’ heads, because that was what it felt like. My whole brain shone with an idea.

  “The audition,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  I pushed myself up, practically bursting with excitement. “I’ve got it, you guys. I know how I’m going to get Claudia back.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  True

  Peter was a genius. Once I’d heard his plan, I knew for sure that he was in love with Claudia. What I needed now was for her to remember how much she loved him. If only I’d never brought Keegan into this equation. Then there would be nothing standing in Peter’s way.

  I sat near the wall of the Studio that evening and watched Claudia’s friend Lance lift her into the air with seemingly no effort, then place her gently on her toes so she could continue her gorgeous, elegant movement across the floor. As soon as they were done rehearsing, I was going to corner Lance and talk him into helping us. Then I’d have done my part. I just wished Keegan would help me out and do his part—start acting like the jerk everyone knew he was deep down.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Lauren asked.

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  Dozens of dancers lined the walls around us, sitting with their legs outstretched or curled under them, every one of their pretty faces rapt with attention. The music swelled, a piece by Mozart that I knew very well, and Claudia executed her last set of pirouettes, finishing up in Lance’s arms. The room went wild.

  I stood up, hoping to grab Lance on his way to the bathroom or the locker room or wherever he’d go next. Instead the dance teacher, Madame Helene, intercepted him to go over a particular move. She waved Claudia off, and she jogged over to join us, tugging a bottle of water out of her canvas ballet bag.

  “How was it?” she asked.

  “Amazing as always,” Lauren replied, slapping hands with Claudia.

  She took a swig of water, then pulled out her phone. Something on the screen made her freeze. “Oh.”

  “What?” Lauren asked.

  “Nothing. Just . . . I was texting Keegan between classes about picking me up tonight and he wasn’t getting back to me. . . . But he texted me fifteen minutes ago.”

  She showed us the screen.

  CAN’T PICK UP 2NITE. SRY.

  My lips pursed. No explanation, no promise to call her later. He was blowing her off. Which was, of course, a good thing. In the grand scheme.

  “Can I get a ride home?” she asked Lauren.

  “Of course.”

  Claudia quickly typed in a text, her pale fingers trembling. I leaned right ever so slightly to read over her shoulder.

  NO PROB. GOT A RIDE. WHERE WERE U TODAY?

  She sat back as she hit send, her posture straight as she leaned her thick bun against the wall behind us.

  “So what did you think, True?” she asked, glancing down at her phone.

  Nothing. She tapped it against her light-pink tights.

  “It was lovely. This is really a great dance school,” I told her. “And you’re a beautiful dancer. I’m sure you’re going to ace that audition on Saturday.”

  She gave me a small smile. “Thanks. I’m so nervous about it.”

  Her eyes darted to her phone again. Still no response. The silence began to feel awkward, even as the other dancers on the floor started to stretch out and mess around, laughing and making up silly dance moves. Lauren turned her phone over and over and over atop her thigh.

  “Do you want to get some food after this?” Lauren asked.

  “Um, sure,” Claudia said.

  She turned her phone’s screen up and then checked it. Nothing.

  “Why isn’t he responding to any of my texts?”

  I decided to play devil’s advocate. “He did respond to one. . . .”

  “Yeah, but when he knew I was in class. When he knew I wouldn’t be able to text back,” Claudia said.

  “Well, maybe he has his phone off,” Lauren suggested.

  “Keegan? Never. He needs to be connected twenty-four-seven.”

  She looked her phone over like something might be wrong with it, toggling the switch on the side, checking some setting or other.

  “Just give him a few minutes,” I said. “He might be in the middle of something.”

  “You’re right,” Claudia said. “Sometimes I don’t hear my phone go off when it’s in my bag.”

  So we sat there. And waited. And watched the phone. And Madame Helene going through some movements with Lance. And the other dancers. Until eight full minutes had passed and Madame Helene finally clapped her hands for attention and there was still no reply from Keegan Traylor.

  “Let’s give Claudia and Lance a break!” Madame announced. “Places for the finale, everyone.”

  The other dancers scurried into place along the sides of the room.

  “I’m going to go make a call,” Claudia said, already moving toward the door.

  Lance walked past me and over to his black vinyl bag in the corner. He pulled out an energy bar and started to eat, perched on the edge of a chair.

  “Okay. I’ll be here,” I said to Claudia. But I’m not even sure she heard me. She was already pushing through the door and onto the sidewalk.

  “You gonna talk to him?” Lauren asked under her breath.

  “Now or never.”

  She gave me a conspiratorial smile, then joined her friends on the dance floor. I stood in front of Lance, and his brow knit.

  “Remember me?” I asked.

  “True, right? How could I forget?”

  “Good, because I have a favor to ask you.”

  He sat up straight, intrigued. “I’m listening.”

  “I need some information about your audition this weekend,” I told him, sitting in the empty chair next to his. “We’re planning a little surprise. . . .”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Claudia

  Twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes. That was how long it had been since I’d received a text from Keegan. The guy who I’d let take my shirt off and a lot more on Tuesday afternoon. The guy who I’d thought was now, basically, if not officially, my boyfriend. Meanwhile, I’d texted him at least a couple dozen times and called. Had he lost his phone? Had he been in some kind of coma? Had he been kidnapped by aliens? What? As I pulled my Prius into a spot in front of St. Joseph’s Preparatory on Thursday afternoon, I hoped against hope that he had a legitimate excuse. Because otherwise . . .

  I looked at my eyes in the rearview mirror and wasn’t exactly impressed by what I saw. I saw uncertainty, nervousness, and fear.

  Because, well, otherwise, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  The front doors of the school opened, and a horde of boys spilled out onto the steps with Keegan at the lead. I cut the engine, opened the door, and got out, straightening my skirt and flipping my hair over my shoulder. Somehow, flipping my hair always made me feel a tad more self-assured. I wasn’t sure why, but whatever worked.

  Keegan was laughing as he hit the bottom step, but he stopped laughing when he saw me approach. His face, in fact, fell. He knew he was in trouble. Which meant he had gotten my messages. Now I was pissed.

  “Claudia!” he crowed, his expression suddenly brightening again.

  He said good-bye to a couple of friends, slapped a hand or two, and then turned his full attention on me. I stopped about three feet away from him, clinging to my ballet-shoe key ring with both hands, so he had to step forward to envelop me in a warm, leather-scented hug. I, however, remained as stiff as a board.

  “What’s up? What’re you doing here?” he said.

  “Did you get my texts?” I
asked. “My voice mail?”

  A cloud moved in front of the sun as Keegan thought it over. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Which ones?”

  I shifted from foot to foot. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or messing with me, but either way, I felt hot and uncomfortable. “Keegan, come on. I texted you a dozen times yesterday, at least.”

  “Oh, right! Sorry. Yesterday was crazy.” He pulled his phone out and looked at it, hitting a few buttons as if that was doing anything. “And then last night, my phone was off. My parents are doing this lockdown thing, making me study for my final SAT attempt. I didn’t really check it until I got to school this morning.”

  Lies. That was the first word to pop into my head. Keegan always had his phone on. Even if his parents had taken it away from him for a few hours so he would study, he would have turned it on the second he got it back. Anyone would have. But he looked so contrite and innocent, standing there with that big, lovely smile on his face. I couldn’t muster up the confidence to call him on it.

  “So what’s up?” he asked finally. “Is everything okay?”

  His hands were in his pockets again.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, there must be something wrong if you felt like you had to drive all the way over here just to talk to me.”

  I looked away, confused and defeated, insecure and awkward. He was the one who’d done something wrong, right? So why did I suddenly feel out of line?

  “No. Not really,” I said. “I was just . . . confused.”

  Keegan blinked. The bells in the tower on the campus church began to toll, ringing long and clear from very nearby. The sound vibrated my bones and seemed to shake the ground beneath my feet.

  “Confused?” he said eventually. “Because I didn’t call you back for one day?”

  I swallowed. “Well when you put it like that—”

  Keegan turned toward the parking lot, shaking his head. I could see his blue car gleaming in the sunlight a few rows behind mine. He started to walk, giving me no other option other than to fall into step with him.