Page 42 of My (Not So) Perfect Plan

I’m heading out of the stadium with everyone else when my eyes fall on Claire. She’s breaking down the ticket booth she had for her ticket sales. She’s working on collapsing a table, unable to see that above her head the canopy is starting collapse. It folds up all at once right as I reach it. She gasps, holding a hand to her chest, and then her eyes latch onto my arm and follow it to my face. I pick up the canopy and lay it on the ground. Without saying anything I help her finish breaking down the other table and booth. I heft both of the tables in my hands. She doesn’t say anything either, but the silence isn’t companionable. What am I doing?

“Where are these going?” I ask. My mood has my words coming out short and clipped. She flinches, which makes me feel like a jack hole, but she nods toward the field house. I bring them in for her and she follows with the money box and canopy.

After I lean them against the wall in the room she indicates, I walk away. I can feel her eyes on my back until I turn the corner and leave. I can’t jog out to my truck, but I would if I could. I know I’m running away, but I can’t seem to deal with both girl drama and ruined dreams at the moment.

Like earlier in the day, I crank some metal music and gun the truck out of the parking lot, ignoring the twinge of pain in my knee and the hollers and waves of team mates who are gathered by their vehicles watching me.

I know the bitterness is eating me up inside, but I can’t seem to stop it. It’s an early night for a Friday, but I don’t want to be around people right now. I give the excuse to my mom that my knee is hurting, but it’s a half truth. I lay on my bed and relive what it was like kissing Claire again. My heart hurts.

Over the weekend some of my friends stop by, trying to get me out of the house, but I know I won’t be good company, and they aren’t up for trying to entice me out of my emo—boy mood. I throw myself into working out and doing my exercises. My new English tutor, a freshman from UD, is tiny and cute, and flirty, but I’m just not feeling it. She’s not Claire. Apparently Claire has ruined me for anyone else, even college girls.

By the time Monday comes around, I’m sick of myself, and I know my mom is too. My dad would be, but he’s not around enough to care what’s going on with me other than my injury. The first thing I see when I drive into school is Claire’s Mazda. It’s a p.o.s. but she loves it, I can tell.

Every day I’m getting better and stronger on my knee. I can tell my muscle tone in my injured leg took a bit of a hit, but I’m working up to full strength. I won’t be able to try anythingstrenuous on it for another four months, but I’m confident in my upper body strength and I feel a ton better when I walk in to school and half the girls in the hallway are not-so-secretly checking me out. It’s petty and frivolous and conceited, I know, but it does wonders for my ego and my mood.

I’m walking behind Raven and Tamara on the way to first period when I overhear them arguing about whether or not to tell Claire something. Not that I care (but I totally do), I walk a little closer so I can eavesdrop.

“You can’t tell her. That’s all she has right now. If you tell her the venue didn’t come through, Claire’ll flip. We are already selling tickets!” Tamara says.

Raven swipes at the hair hanging over his forehead. “I don’t see that there’s a way around it. She has to know about it to be able to set something up.”

“I know, Raven, but I’m hoping to be able to handle it ourselves without getting her involved.”

I frown. Claire is going to flip. I haven’t been spending hardly any personal time with her and even I know how much this gala means to her. If the venue doesn’t work out, she’ll be devastated. An idea comes to me and I run with it before I talk myself out of it. I grab each of their elbows and use my height and body size to cut us a path through the students, ignoring Tamara’s sputtering objections. Raven looks surprised but willing to go along for the ride. I shove them inside an empty classroom.

“Dude, I think you just man-handled me,” Raven says, swiping at his hair again. I can’t tell whether or not he’s gay, but Tamara’s growl has me turning to her.

“What in the world is wrong with you, Evan? You can’t just do whatever you want to people!” She stomps for the door, but stops when I start speaking.

“I can help you.”

They both turn to look at me. “With what?”

“You said Claire will flip if she finds out the venue for the gala fell through. I can help you.”

Tamara eyes me shrewdly. “How?”

“I can get you a venue. Just tell me how many and what your needs are.”

They provide me with details and I take notes in one of my notebooks.

“I have one condition,” I say to them as the bell rings. We’re now officially late to class.

“What?” Raven asks.

“You can’t tell Claire. I mean, you can tell her that you had to change the venue, but you can’t tell her how it was changed or that I had anything to do with it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want her to know,” I say, as if that should be obvious.

Tamara shakes her head in confusion. “But why not?”

“I have my reasons.” Chief among which were that I didn’t want her thinking I’ve pining away over her when she rejected me, but they didn’t need to know that.

Raven shrugs his shoulders and nods, looking over at Tamara.

“Okay. Deal.” We shake on it and then go our separate ways.

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