Page 187 of Something Rad
Ooos andahhs sound off from around the gym. Some of them are cheerleaders cheering on Denise. Some of them definitely sound like they are people reveling in the scandal of the exes being paired together for this award. Half of them are probably my friends.
I can see the swish of Denise’s blonde hair as she hops up on stage and gets her sash from Principal Whileyman. When she joins me at my side for the photo, I feel numb. My eyes are on the floor, because I can’t even look at Cooper anymore. My mind is racing through the quickly dwindling possibilities for how I can convincingly talk myself out of this and talk her down from completely shutting me out when Denise’s hand touches my arm.
“Robbie?”
I raise my head slowly to look at her. “What?”
“Well, this is fun, isn’t it?” she asks, beaming at me.
A laugh bursts out of my lips. But it’s not a humorous one, it’s an incredulous one, anexasperatedone. I promise Denise doesn’t notice the difference though. Or, if she does, she just doesn’t care. Ihaveto laugh. Because this situation is just so ridiculous. Because Denise is standing in front of me right now, and she used to be the girl of my dreams. I used to think I cared about her. I thought she made me happy. I never once thought about whether or not she made me a better version of myself. Or if she made my brain work in ways I didn’t know it could. Or if the entire universe around me could be chaos, but she could be the one to bring me back down to Earth. I never thought about those things because I didn’t eventhinkto think about them. I didn’t know they were possible. Or that they mattered. Not until I found someone that made them matter.
Someone I’m probably about to lose.
Denise giggles, squeezing my arm. “Well, let’s take this picture, shall we?”
“If we must.” I say it completely emotionless, but Denise still laughs.
I begrudgingly turn forward to face Cooper, but I don’t actually get to. She already has her camera up to her face, ready to take the picture. “On three,” she says, her voice all-business. I don’t even pretend to put a smile on my face as she begins the countdown. “One…two…three.”
“Well isn’t that just a picture perfect couple?” A voice calls from the crowd the moment the flash goes on.
Paul.
I reflexively take a step forward, looking for him.
“One more,” Cooper says, standing up straighter with her camera.
“Robbie?” Denise whispers.
I turn to look at her again. “Yes?”
“Sorry, I feel like my lipstick may be smeared,” she says, shyly. “Could you help me?”
I’m ready to tell her it looks fine so we can just get off this stage, but when she tilts her head to the side, I can clearly see her pink lipstick smudged out at the corner of her mouth. “Oh,” I mutter, not sure what to do.
“Do you see it?” she asks. “Could you just…?”
Without thinking about it any further, I reach up, swiping the lipstick away with my thumb. She freezes in place after I do so, staring up at me for a second before her smile spreads wide across her face.
“Three,” Cooper says, an edge to her voice. I turn back to face the camera in a daze, feeling physically and emotionally whiplashed from the events of the last hour.
“Two.”
What the hell am I gonna do?
“One.”
“Robbie,” Denise says.
I barely turn my head to look at her when she grabs me by the collar of my jacket and yanks me down, crashing my lips to hers the moment the camera’s flash goes off.
thirty-nine
SARA
I press the button.
The flash goes off.
