The Girlfriend Request Page 6

  I watched him curiously.

  One quick movement and he raised himself off the seat slightly so he could grab the phone out of his pocket. “I wanna check something.”

  He swiped his screen and sat quietly for a second, reading. When he was done, a ghost of a smile passed his lips as he set the phone in the space between us. Whistling now, he proceeded to buckle up and shift into drive.

  Apparently, we had to play this his way.

  I gave him a probing look. “Soooo…”

  “I just heard from her again.”

  “And?” It was like pulling teeth.

  “And, I don’t know. She’s really nice.”

  Nice. The death sentence for wannabe girlfriends everywhere.

  “She doesn’t live too far from me. I think I’m going to ask her out.” He grinned, then raised his eyebrows like he was waiting for me to say something.

  Wait. No. He couldn’t ask Kelli out already! It wasn’t time for the big reveal yet. It was way too soon.

  “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, how much do you know about this girl considering she doesn’t even go to our school and you’ve only messaged her two times?”

  “How do you know where she goes to school?”

  “Oh. Well, I mean, I just assumed since you said you just met her. And uh, if she went to our school you would have met her before you just met her.” Dear God, I had diarrhea of the mouth and sounded like a moron.

  He shot me an inquiring look, his eyebrows raised and nose wrinkled.

  But I couldn’t be stopped. I babbled on, “She could be a psycho-killer.” Or me.

  His eyebrows raised even more; his look made it clear that I was acting like a crazy person. He laughed. “Em, c’mon. What are you talking about? I—”

  A muffled ringing interrupted him.

  Oh no. Please no.

  He glanced at his phone, which lay silent. His searching gaze continued—the floor, a quick check of the back seat, before his scrutiny finally located the source of the sound. Raising his eyes from where they’d landed on my lap, his expression turned to one of amusement.

  The ringing continued.

  “Uh, Em, I think your butt’s ringing.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, yeah, I…ah, think you’re right.”

  Giving up, I reached beneath my legs to grab the phone, smiling weakly. I quickly hit answer, and gave a too-cheery “Hello?”

  I threw my hand out in the air as if to say, “What can you do?”

  The voice on the other end of the phone dispelled any embarrassment about being caught hiding a phone in an awkward spot. I pulled the receiver slightly away from my ear to prevent permanent damage from the raised voice coming through the line.

  “Emma! Where in the world are you? I got a call from your mother, and she says you’re not in class. I want to know what’s going on right now. Are you okay?”

  I tried to get a word in. “Dad, I’m fine. Just calm down a minute.”

  Flinching, I shot Eli a look, and mouthed, “They know.”

  Apparently telling my dad to calm down didn’t fall under the wisest course of action in the given situation. When a break finally came that allowed me to speak, I attempted to keep my voice apologetic.

  “Dad, I’m sorry if I worried you and Mom. We just decided to bag one day. One.”

  My forehead began to sweat a little. I was no good under fire. “I don’t even get how you knew.”

  “How is how I know important right now, young lady?”

  “No, fine, you’re right, it doesn’t matter. But we were going to be home by like 8:00 or so. It’s not like we were taking off for the night.”

  “Put Eli on the phone right now. I want to speak to him.” Dad sounded like he meant business.

  I sighed. “Hold on.” I held the phone out toward Eli. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Eli’s eyebrows shot halfway up his head, and he motioned no way, and then pointed toward the steering wheel.

  “Chicken,” I mouthed, returning the phone to my ear. “Dad, he can’t talk, he’s driving.” Sigh. “Fine, I’ll tell him…Fine…Yes, I know…I will. I promise. Okay, love you too. Bye.”

  I tilted my head and shot Eli an exaggerated fake smile before I announced, “Well, our road trip is now canceled.”

  I bent over, reached underneath the seat, and tugged hard to free my bag. “We’re due home in no more than two hours. And by the way, your parents apparently know, too.”

  He hung his head and silently looked for a turnaround.

  Chapter Eleven

  Emma

  After a substantial lecture from both my parents after Mom got home from work at 4:00, I’d retreated to my bedroom.

  Dad had gotten a call at his home office after I missed an orthodontist appointment. I never kept track of stuff like that, Mom did. She wrote everything on the giant whiteboard calendar in the kitchen. Somehow, Mom forgot to put this one on, so I was clueless to the fact that I was supposed to be at Dr. Solga’s office at 9:45.

  From there, Dad called Mom at school to make sure everything was okay, and that we hadn’t gotten into an accident or something on the way to the appointment. For a grown man, my father could tend to be a bit dramatic. It all completely snowballed after that. Mom called the dentist, who agreed to squeeze me in if I could come over right away. But when I didn’t answer the page to report to the Guidance Office so we could leave, Mom sent a note down to my History classroom for the teacher to give to me. I obviously wasn’t there to get it.

  Upon hearing this, my mother turned into full-out detective mode and apparently questioned a mass of students, finally piecing together that someone saw me crab-walking (embarrassing!) to Eli’s car earlier that morning, and someone else watched as we left the school parking lot. It didn’t take much after that for Mom to discover that Eli wasn’t in school either, put two and two together, and figure out we’d both ditched for the day.

  Sarah sent me a couple of texts while I was downstairs getting chewed out. Apparently the news of us sneaking out made the school gossip vine, clearly ranking of higher interest to everyone since there was more questioning going on in an effort to solve my absence than in an episode of Criminal Minds.

  Sighing, I crossed over to the small white futon pushed against my far bedroom wall. Sitting on it was preferable to my bed when I wanted to catch the breeze from my room’s front windows.

  I dialed Sarah’s number as I propped my feet up on an overturned purple milk crate that I used for a table. As the phone rang, I logged in to Facebook. Guess it was time for Kelli to make another status update.

  I decided to make it easy and just go with a quote. Eli would probably appreciate intellectual instead of just a breakdown of the day’s menu or a not-so-humorous cat meme.

  A sudden cheery voice asking me to leave a message startled me. Shoot. I really wanted to talk to Sarah. As I stared dejectedly at the computer screen, I obliged the recorded request. “Hey, it’s me. Where are you? We need to talk. Call me as soon as you get this. I think the plan is finally working, but there’s a slight hiccup. Call me!”

  I absently set the phone down and resumed the task of figuring out the perfect status update. It had to be one that somehow sent a message. After I googled a few ideas, I found the perfect quote.

  Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. ~Mark Twain

  It fit. Maybe a little obscure, but still. It wasn’t anything overly mushy and obvious, but still worked given the situation. Plus, I knew Twain was one of Eli’s favorite authors.

  The phone rang just as I finished.

  Forgoing the normal greeting, I started right in. “I need your help.”

  “Well, hello to you, too.” Sarah had the same calm tone as always, ignoring my hysteria. “So where’d you disappear to today? Your mom was practically leading a search party.”

  I stood up and walked over to close my bedroom door before answering. “Don’t get me started. Eli and I were just p
lanning to drive to the beach for the day and—”

  “What?” Her voice went uncharacteristically loud. “Whoa, back up a second. Whose idea was that?”

  “How did you not hear about this? I thought everybody knew.”

  “Well, I didn’t. At least not where you were going. And thanks for answering my texts earlier by the way.” She cleared her throat loudly to show her displeasure. “I only heard you took off, and didn’t sign out or whatever, and your mom was questioning half the school.”

  I tilted my head back against the wall and moaned, “I can’t stand that she works there. Seriously.”

  “Anyway…” She’d heard me whine about my mom being our school’s guidance counselor plenty of times before. “Go back to the part about you two going to the beach together. How did that happen?”

  Sarah was the only person who knew how I really felt about Eli. All of it. She constantly tried to convince me to, “Just tell him already,” and even offered to have her boyfriend, Doug, talk to Eli, and try to find out if I had a shot. But I didn’t want to do that either, so I’d sworn her to secrecy.

  “I’m still not even sure how it happened. After English, he was standing outside the classroom window with a sign telling me to meet him.”

  “Wow, total Cusack move. All he needed was a boombox over his head.”

  “I know, right? Anyway, I left school—”

  “Which I still can’t believe you did by the way.”

  “And we ended up driving for like an hour before he even told me where we were going.”

  There was a pause before she asked, “So, did you tell him about you being Kelli?”

  “Are you kidding me? No! We’ve only messaged back and forth a few times. It’s too soon. But, I’ve decided against the whole phone call thing.”

  “Because the computer thing is working so well for you.”

  A crash carried through the line, followed by loud crying. “Ugh, I have to go. I’m supposed to be watching Scotty while my mom runs to the store. He just broke something again.”

  “The kid does have a future in MMA.”

  “Cute.”

  “Okay, well call me later once you’re off babysitting duty.”

  “I still have a huge Chem test I’ve got to study for, but if I have time after that I will,” she promised.

  “All right. Good luck with your brother.”

  “Ha, thanks.” Sounds of wailing in the background continued until the call disconnected.

  I should probably get busy with some of my own schoolwork too. There was that paper to finish for Civics, and I needed to start studying for my Spanish test.

  I decided to get a drink before I got started. As I walked down the hallway toward the stairs, I stopped abruptly at the sound of my name. I leaned over the railing overlooking the family room below, and almost tipped right over when I heard, “…they’re having sex?”

  Whoa, what?

  Tiptoeing to the stairs, I strained to listen. They were too far away. I took the steps one at a time, making sure to skip the second from the top, since it creaked. I bent over as I descended, making every effort to make myself as small as possible in addition to silent. Why hadn’t I taken my shoes off?

  Voices carried toward me, slightly louder the closer I got to the first floor.

  “…not. But we can’t be sure. After all, they spend all that time together.” That was my dad.

  Silence ensued after that comment. I had to hear what exactly they were talking about.

  As I neared the bottom, I didn’t want to risk being seen, so I remained crouched down on the last step instead of moving onto the open landing. All breathing stopped as I waited for my mother’s response.

  “Well, it would probably be naive to just ignore the possibility. We have to be realistic about it. I certainly hope they aren’t, she’s just too young. But, on the other hand, if they are, I want her to know she can come to us.”

  Mom paused, and I made out the sound of ice in a glass. “Maybe I should talk to her. Or to both of them. Just be straight-forward and bring up the issue of safe sex.”

  Omigod.

  This couldn’t be happening. My parents weren’t actually sitting in there calmly discussing my sex life. Well, in reality, my non-existent sex life, but still! A shrink father and guidance counselor mom—only kids lucky enough to hit that parental jackpot would have to suffer through this.

  Yet how could they think I was having sex? I didn’t even date. Sure, Eli and I were together all the time, but not like that.

  No way would I let my mom sit Eli and me down and ask us if we were having sex. Just the thought of it made me want to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment.

  Thirst forgotten, I scrambled back up the stairs as fast as humanly possible. I needed to call Sarah back and get some advice. Hopefully Scotty went down for a nap or something by now.

  I dialed Sarah’s number. “C’mon, pick up…please pick up.”

  But she didn’t. At the sound of her voicemail, I hung up in frustration. “Super,” I muttered.

  I tried desperately to figure out what to do about the new problem at hand. Should I simply confront my parents about what I’d overheard? Just let it go and hope they dropped it? Or move out of the country in the middle of the night and change my name to Ileisha or something equally exotic? It was as if someone had dropped me in the middle of some bad after-school special.

  Since no answers flashed from the heavens, I decided that I might as well try to get some homework done before I drove myself crazy. I wanted to forget all about it for a while, so I got up and crossed over to my desk, and realized I didn’t even have all of the books I needed from school, since I hadn’t bothered to grab them when Eli and I took off earlier. Fabulous.

  Oh well, it gave me an excuse to check Kelli’s page. Like I really needed one. The screen displayed a new message from Eli. I eagerly clicked it open.

  You really surprised me with that quote. What made you pick that one? I always like using ones I can somehow relate to. Or even song lyrics. Like this one … “I feel like you know me. Well, I’ve tried to let you see me for yourself. I feel like I’m…I’m out of my head; I’ve got this thing for you.” :) E.

  Holy crap. What he wrote was the next best thing to coming right out and saying he really liked me.

  No, it was the next best thing to coming out and saying he really liked Kelli, the little voice in my head reminded me. I told the voice to shut up.

  Maybe this whole thing was stupid. I mean, if he really fell for Kelli, he was going to be so pissed when he realized I’d set it up and lied to him. The realization of how badly I was betraying his trust and friendship started to gnaw at my gut. There was nothing I could do about it now but keep it up. And believe he’d understand when the time came. I closed my eyes a second, still slightly nauseous.

  Okay, I had to say something back to him, something to let him know I felt the same. It had to be short—I couldn’t reveal too much yet. I thought for a minute, then slowly typed out, There are so many things I wish I could say to you.

  Well that was true enough.

  I hoped to see a return message right away, so I sat still, staring at the inbox. I had to keep reminding myself to stop holding my breath. I watched, and waited. And waited some more. Finally, a new message appeared.

  So just tell me the things you’d like to say. I’m listening. I’d REALLY like you to. :)

  Yeah, right. He made it sound so simple when it was anything but. Wiggling my bare toes under my chair, I finally answered,

  It’s not that easy. And you don’t even know me. Not really.

  An instant message popped up. I’d almost been expecting it this time.

  So tell me about you. The real you. Not the you that you show to people online.

  I wanted to. I really did. It would be amazing to talk with my own real thoughts, even if I had to type them as Kelli. But what to say?

  The past couple of years, I’d gotten used to
hiding pieces of myself even from him, because I was scared. I was deathly afraid that he’d be able to see through the masks I wore sometimes to keep from letting him see how much I really liked him. That it was so much more than friendship.

  He inspired me, challenged me, and made me feel good about myself. He made all the stupid, trivial things going on at different times in my life seem unimportant. I knew he believed in me, and that helped me to believe in myself more too.

  How was I supposed to say all of that to a guy I’d supposedly just met?

  Instead, I settled for,

  I can just tell you’re the kind of guy who inspires the people around him. Me? I’m not always sure of different things in my life, and I just really think that’s an amazing quality to have. You know?

  The screen showed he was typing a reply. It appeared a moment later.

  Yeah, I do. But I’d be willing to bet you inspire more people than you realize. I’ll leave it at that. I have to go, but know this, from different things you’ve said, I’m pretty sure I can see the real you. And you have no reason to be unsure of anything. Talk Soon, E.

  And he was gone, just like that.

  “Argh!” Dropping my head in my hands, not for the first time I wished that I were more skilled at the whole guy/girl thing and better at reading him.

  Yet, another part of me felt upset about how easily he seemed to relate and respond to fictional Kelli. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least to be romantically chatting it up and sending lines from songs to some girl he just met. Why couldn’t he have done that for me? Why didn’t I inspire poetry and songs?

  Emotionally drained, I rested my head on the desk, not wanting to think about it anymore. It was too depressing. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Mom called to me from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Emma, time for dinner!”

  I lifted my head just enough to check the time, and saw it was already 6:30. Wow. I must have been out for over an hour. That explained the stiff neck and damp spot along my cheek; I must have been drooling in my sleep.