Page 18 of You Belong With Me

I’d almost forgotten Ainsley was here. I guess her being in the car probably made the whole situation a little better. It wouldn’t be Sebastian going out of his way to come get me, I would just be joining for a car ride that was already happening. Maybe that was okay, especially if Ainsley was offering for me to come along.

“Wait, how do you all know each other?” Thomas asked, his eyes cutting between us.

“They live next door to me,” I said quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea about me and Sebastian. Because even though Clementine’s idea for this had been very misguided, I also didn’t want to swear off the idea of Thomas altogether. I’d already sworn off the idea of Sebastian, and if I wanted to have another kiss in my lifetime, maybe Thomas was the guy to go after. Maybe that was what I should plan on doing anyway. My kiss with Sebastian had been my first, so I had nothing to compare it to, and maybe that was the problem. Maybe the kiss hadn’t been as magical as I thought—maybe that was what all kisses were like and I was just lacking experience. I wouldn’t know until I tried again, so Thomas could be just the guy for that.

“And her brother’s my best friend,” Sebastian said. “So, I have a bit of a protective feeling over Nellie here. You know, in case you were planning on going out with her or something—just thought you should know.”

Clementine’s grip on my wrist tightened. When I looked over at her, she mouthed, “Oh my gosh.” She looked like she was about to keel over from shock. I was pretty sure I felt the same way, but for different reasons. She was excited about what was going on here, while I was wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible. Because Sebastian had just threatened to kill this guy if he hurt me. I was pretty sure he had, and if Tiffany heard that, she was going to kill me herself. I glanced at Ainsley too, wondering how she felt about all of this but she just looked amused as she rolled her eyes at her brother. I wondered if this was how Sebastian treated all her dates too and he was just slipping into a big brother role.

Thomas gaped at him a little and said, “We’re just talking for the first time here, man. I’m not...” He glanced at me, probably realizing that he didn’t want to imply that there was nothing going on here. I was no help to him as I just stared back, waiting for him to finish the sentence. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for him to say—that there wasn’t anything going on between us because we’d just met and he wasn’t interested? Or did I want him to say that he was interested but that we hadn’t been going out for long enough to be threatened by my brother’s best friend? That did seem like something that was supposed to happen when you actually started dating instead of this early on.

“I guess I’ll see you around, Nora,” Thomas stammered out, starting to back away.

“Wait!” Clementine said. “Why don’t you give Nora your number, and that way you guys can chat a little bit more later?” She glanced at Sebastian and grinned wickedly before continuing, “You know, inprivate.”

She was trying to rile Sebastian up—I was absolutely positive from the look on her face. I just couldn’t tell why she would want to do that. And from the look on Sebastian’s face, she had been very successful. He looked downright murderous. Was she trying to make him jealous? Or trying to make me seem more desirable to Thomas somehow? I had no idea.

“Uh, sure,” Thomas said, also looking uncomfortable. “Do you have your phone?”

I quickly pulled it out and handed it to him, just wanting to get this embarrassment over with as soon as possible. But I didn’t realize that it was locked until he held it up to me and said, “I can’t…”

“0212,” Sebastian recited immediately. We all stared at him. “Her passcode. It’s 0212.”

While Thomas typed it in, I kept looking at Sebastian. “How do you know that?”

He grinned. “What, you think you’re the only one who can get somebody else’s passcode? I figured it out months ago.”

I guess I probably should have expected that. I did figure out his passcode, so it made sense that he would retaliate. Then I wondered if there was anything embarrassing on my phone that he could have found. I was never really without my phone for a long period, so I couldn’t imagine that he snooped through it much. But maybe there was something—like some secret diary entry about how much I loved him that I somehow didn’t know I wrote.

Thomas looked at me warily, unsure if he should put the number in. I waved at him to do it. He found mycontacts app easily, put his number in, and handed it back to me.

“I guess I should go shower,” he said. He backed away slowly. “It was nice meeting you, Nora.”

And then he was off, and I was positive there was no chance I was ever going to see him again, even if he had just given me his number. And when I looked at Sebastian, he didn’t seem even remotely sorry for causing the issue.

eleven

“You toldme to go out with them! Why would you say that if you—oh, walk away real mature!”

The voices carried through my closed door, a constant background noise to my homework. I’d already tried moving three times—first, the living room. Nope, all I could hear was them stomping up and down the hallway, right over my head. Then to the kitchen table, since that was under the guest room and they weren’t in there. But there were more vents in the kitchen, making every sound echo through the place. Finally, I tried moving out to the backyard, because my parents refused to argue with the windows open, but the people who lived behind us were having a party, complete with a stereo blasting some of the worst music I’d ever heard. At that point, I gave up and laid on the ground for a good five minutes before deciding I couldn’t live like this, collecting my books into my backpack and walking out the front door.

Dean had left a while ago, so it was only me left with the parents, and I wasn’t sure if they even realized I washere or if they just didn’t care. It was always hard to know with them, because their feelings on us knowing if they were fighting changed day to day. Sometimes, Mom claimed it was healthy for us to see that marriages had issues and that relationships could withstand fights. Other times, I heard her shouting at Dad to keep his voice down so he didn’t ‘upset the kids.’

I swung my backpack on my shoulder and started down the street, not really sure where I was going, but knowing I needed to be anywhere but here. I started down the street towards the elementary school in our neighbourhood. It was seven p.m. now and though the sun was still low in the sky, the school grounds were deserted, with any kids that would have played here after dinner already home by now.

But as I came around the back of the school grounds, where I knew there were picnic tables I could sit at to do work, I realized that the school grounds weren’t entirely deserted like I’d originally thought. There was one other person here, running on the soccer field. From this distance, I couldn’t make out anything about him, but I did find it somewhat reassuring that I wasn’t out here completely alone. I found a table that still had enough light on it for me to be able to read and sat down with my textbooks. The only occasional sounds from the field weren’t nearly as distracting as my parents had been, so I barely even noticed it as I got through my work.

But even my homework couldn’t keep my attention for that long and soon, my mind drifted back to my parents—and then to the Novak’s parents. How long would it take before my parents had that big fight? Theone that drove them apart permanently. Would it ever happen? Or were they too focused on maintaining the perfect image in front of everyone else that they couldn’t even see the solution in front of them?

I was still staring at my textbook, not taking any of the words in, when a distant voice called, “Heads!” It took me a little bit longer than it should have to realize that I was the only person here, so they were probably screaming at me. I immediately ducked, but then caught sight of the soccer ball, which bounced off the ground about ten feet from me, then rolled across the cement until it hit my shoes with a small thud.

I bent over to pick it up for him and when I sat back up, he was only a few feet away from me, walking toward me with a smirk on his face. It was only then that I realized he wasn’t just some random person from the neighborhood—it was Sebastian.

“Well, well, well,” he said, putting his hands on his hips as he took the last couple steps toward me. Unlike the times I’d seen him at school, he wasn’t wearing his soccer uniform. He was just dressed in a pair of black pants and no shirt, like he’d been working hard enough to keep himself warm in the cool evening air. It was everything I could do to keep my eyes on his face instead of letting them drift a little lower. “What are you doing here, Nellie?”

“Just homework,” I said, then mentally facepalmed at my stupid answer. But it was the truth. What else was I supposed to say, when he could clearly see the textbook laid out in front of me? “Anyway, here’s your ball.”

“Thanks,” he said. He took it from me and sort of passed it between each of his hands as he looked at mybooks curiously. “Why are you out here instead of at home?”

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