Page 83 of Foolish Games

I also know Sebastian secretly loves my music, even if he says happy stuff is superior, since while we’re driving, I have to ban him from ruining all my favorite songs by wailing along with them.

I gave him my number the day I didn’t go over to Chaz’s study session, and after that, we’ve talked on the phone every night, until we’re so tired one of us falls asleep, usually sometime in the dark hours before dawn. Every time I open my locker, I’m giddy when I see a folded note from him waiting for me.

We’re still pretending to date, but I have to remind myself every day that it’s not real. Sebastian doesn’t do real relationships. I have to content myself with the fake kind and tell myself it’s for the best. After all, I’m going to Stanford next fall. I don’t even know what Sebastian plans to do for the rest of his life. We don’t talk about the future. We stay firmly rooted in the present, the physical, whatever pleasure we can derive from the current moment.

Our plan is working, so technically, we should have ended it, but neither of us mention that, either.

No one thinks I’m a loser whose boyfriend moved on after one day. The whole school thinks I’ve caught the uncatchable Sebastian Swift in my net, and they barely even speculate about how I did it anymore. I don’t feel guilty that Sebastian’s not getting anything out of it, since I haven’t just given him my body.

He may not know it, but he owns my heart too. Maybe that’s why I’m in no hurry to get back to the guy who moved on so quickly. I don’t even want to make Chaz pay anymore. He gives us looks that range from resentful to pining, and anyone who cares enough to look can see he’s not happy about the way things turned out.

I guess I won the breakup after all.

twenty-four

#1 at the Box Office: Titanic

Sebastian Swift

“Can I drive the ‘Vette tomorrow?” I ask, rolling over on my narrow bed, the phone cord wrapping around my neck like it’s trying to strangle me. Like it’s another reed in the hidden tangle that I could get caught on while swimming, that could pull me under and drown me. But if I keep treading water, keep swimming, I always manage to keep my head above water somehow. If I stop, that’s when I’ll sink like Melody.

“Not a chance,” Vivienne says.

I close my eyes and groan in frustration. “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

“Why do you always say that?”

“It’s a line from a movie? Only the greatest movie of all time,” I say, sitting up on my narrow bed. My brother glances at me from his bed across the room. “You have seen it, right?”

“No,” Vivienne says, a scowl in her voice.

“I can’t believe I’m fake going out with a control freak who’s never seen Sandlot.”

“Hey,” she protests. “I’m not a control freak.”

“Then you’d let me drive.”

“My car is very special to me,” she says. “Besides, you said you liked me driving you around, remember? You said it made you feel fancy.”

I did say that, yet another lie to add to the giant forest of lies I’m making, the underwater jungle that can snag a swimmer and pull them to their death. Apparently, once you start lying, it takes over, more and more branches sprouting from the original lie.

I open my mouth to tell her that was a bullshit excuse, and it makes me feel pathetic as fuck to have her behind the wheel all the time, driving me around like a charity case, the same way her brother does. But we don’t go that deep, so I hesitate, trying to figure out how to say it in words that fit the tone of the play we’re performing.

“So, I’ll pick you up at nine?” Vivienne asks before I can figure out how to tell her something real to go along with all the lies. “Technically, it starts at eight, but we don’t want to be the first ones there.”

I swing my legs off the bed and cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder. “Yeah, maybe I’ll ride with Billy and them.”

She pauses. “They’re not invited to this, Sebastian.”

“Oh, right,” I say, leaning my elbow on my knee and combing my hand through my hair. “This is the exclusive circle jerk for founders and their progeny.”

She doesn’t answer.

“What?” I ask. “Did I use the wrong word?”

“No.”

“Stunned speechless that I knew that word to begin with?” I ask, watching Deane transform his new toy from a car into a robot with a few twists.

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