Page 15 of You Belong With Me

“I can’t read your mind, Tiff. Besides, I wasn’t just going to leave Nellie out in the cold. She texted me asking for a ride, so?—”

“Oh, she texted you, did she?” Tiffany snapped. “Well, you should have said no and told her to find her own friends topick her up.”

“Iamher friend,” Sebastian said. My jaw almost dropped at the words. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard Sebastian admit to being my friend. My brother’s best friend, sure. The guy next door, absolutely. But my friend? My friend, not Dean’s friend, not his friend’s little sister—I didn’t think I would ever hear those words out of his mouth. If he said that in front of Dean, he would probably get punched.

“It was bad enough that we had to give her a ride this morning,” Tiffany said.

“We didn’thaveto give her a ride,” Sebastian interrupted. “I offered to give her a ride because her brother couldn’t.”

Tiffany scoffed again. “Just let her take the bus.”

“She can’t take the bus home,” he said. “She has swim practice after school. Same as Ainsley.”

“Then let her own brother pick her up! Why are you acting like you’re her brother too or something? It’s so weird.”

“What’s weird about it? I told you, she’s basically part of my family.”

And there were the words that I was dreading to hear. Because I didn’t want to be basically his sister. I didn’t want to be in the same category as Ainsley. I wanted him to be my friend, the way that he had said it. But now I was realizing why I was so surprised at the words: because I wasn’t his friend. We had never been anything close to friends, and the fact that he saw me as a sister only confirmed that.

“She’s not?—”

“She’s the same age as Ainsley andImogen. She’s on the same swim team as Ainsley. She’s around all the time. She lives next door. I’m not going to tell her no, and if that’s going to be a problem, then maybe this won’t work out.”

Sebastian and Tiffany had broken up so many times that I couldn’t even count it on one hand, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if she said yes right then. I would have preferred it, in fact, because it might give me the chance to talk to Sebastian about what happened on Friday night without worrying about how his girlfriend would feel about it. But to my surprise, she asked in a hurt voice, “You want to break up with me over this? You want to break up with me overNellie?”

“Her name’s Nora,” he said, which was pretty much the last thing I expected him to say given that he exclusively called me Nellie. “And I’m not breaking up with you over her. If you decide you want to break up, it’ll be over the fact that you’re too jealous to see that I can be a nice guy to my best friend’s little sister.”

She scoffed again and turned away from him. “Such a pushover, Sebastian.”

“Am I?” he asked, sounding amused.

“She’s just using you. You can’t see it. She’s putting on this woe is me look, making you drive her around everywhere, making you act like her brother because her brother’s too stupid to?—”

“Don’t say anything about Dean,” Sebastian said. “He has a lot going on too.”

I wondered what he meant by that. I figured Dean wasn’t picking me up out of laziness, butwas there some other reason I didn’t know about? Or was he just referring to everything going on in our family?

“So do you!” Tiffany snapped, putting her hands on his shoulders. She almost looked like she was going to try to shake some sense into him. “With how much you have going on in your family, do you really have time to take care of somebody else’s?”

The words were like a dagger to my heart. I quickly stepped back and closed the door, not wanting to hear, not even bothering to listen for his response. It didn’t matter what he said. The words were out there, and I wouldn’t be able to forget them.Do you really have time to take care of somebody else’s family?

It hadn’t even occurred to me when I texted Sebastian today what I was pulling him away from. I hadn’t thought about how much he probably already had to do today. I knew that he had to drive Ainsley around, but what else? Did he have to drive Imogen around too? Did he need to do errands for his mom or help Lavender with her car? He probably barely had time for himself, and I’d gone and taken away what little time he did have. And who was I to be annoyed with Tiffany for wanting to spend time with her own boyfriend? They probably got no time together, with Sebastian running around ragged for everybody else.

And then here I was, forcefully taking up even more of his time. I was a terrible person.

I chucked my bag on my bedroom floor, ready to jump face first onto my bed and stay there until dinner, but my curiosity got the best of me a second time. From my window up here, I wouldn’t be able to hear what Sebastian and Tiffany were talking about, but I could seethem.

So I walked over to my window to look out. Even though they had just been fighting minutes ago, Sebastian and Tiff were now fully making out on his front porch. My lip curled in disgust and I turned away from the window again to jump on my bed like I’d planned. At least I knew that even if I caused an argument between them, they’d already made up. But that also meant that Sebastian definitely agreed with her about what she said about taking care of somebody else’s family.

I’d only asked Sebastian for a ride because he’d driven me home on Friday and to school this morning, so it didn’t feel like too big of a favor. But maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore. I wouldn’t do it again. I would find some other way, even if it meant having to walk home after swim practice (which would definitely kill my muscles).

No matter what I had to do, I wouldn’t ask Sebastian Novak for another favor again.

nine

Sebastian didn’t textme to offer me a ride the next morning and I didn’t ask. Dean still planned to go to school early, but I got up early to go with him. Even though I hadn’t seen Sebastian all day, I still felt his presence around. Just the knowledge that he was in the same school as me was enough to keep him on my mind.

I channelled all my anger towards Tiffany’s words–and myself for asking so much of Sebastian in the first place–into my swimming that afternoon. It must have made a big difference, because Coach congratulated me on how well I was doing and pointed out that everybody else should be working as hard as I was. Like me, everyone else was gasping for breath by the end of the grueling practice so I wasn’t sure that they hadn’t been working as hard as me, but nobody seemed to hold it against me. Clementine even smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I was pretty sure she was the only one of us who could feel our arms after the grueling practice we’d just been put through, but then, she always looked happy.

---