Class ends and my decision isn’t as steadfast as it was a few minutes ago. Shit. I take a deep breath and tell her the truth.
“Hudson? You’re seeing Hudson?”
I nod and shrug my shoulders. I look away from her. I don’t want to see her reaction, in case it’s bad.
“Oh, wow, that’s cool,” she says. I hear a little awkwardness in her voice, but that’s to be expected, I guess.
“I hope that’s okay,” I say. I don’t mean for it to come out as if I’m asking her permission. That’s not what I mean.
“Oh, yes of course. I mean, we’re not together. In comparison to you two, we barely dated at all. He wouldn’t even call whatever we had dating. So, it’s nothing.”
I finally look at her face, straight on. She’s telling the truth. I can see by the way her face is hiding nothing. Better yet, she seems to be genuinely happy for me. The tension at the back of my neck dissipates immediately. I take a big sigh of relief.
“I’m glad you’re okay with this,” I say.
“Yes, definitely.” She grins.
“I just wasn’t sure how you would react and I didn’t want us to lose this…our friendship. It means a lot to me.”
Tea smiles from ear to ear.
“No, of course not. No matter what, we’re not going to let a guy come in between us,” she says.
“No, of course not.” I shake my head.
“Well, let’s hang out sometime,” she says. “Okay?”
“Okay.” I nod. “I’d love that.”
Lots of people make plans to see each other soon without really meaning it. It’s just the nice thing to do. I’ve done it myself a million times. This feels different. I know that we both mean it.
11
The second week of school goes by just as quickly as the first. A little too quickly, actually. I have to make my first speech that Friday. The toast. I don’t want the day to come. I’ve been thinking about it for days but once the Monday before rolls around, I feel myself getting terrified. On Monday, I’m still able to manage the fear. I try to deal with it by convincing myself that it’ll be okay. On Monday, I believe it. Unfortunately, by Wednesday, all of my arguments stop working. I just feel like I’m going to have a heart attack every time I think about it, which is practically all day long.
On Wednesday, I decide that I need some practice. Maybe saying the words out loud will make me feel a little better. I stand up in front of the mirror. I look down at the notes that I wrote down but can’t read a thing. When I open my mouth, my voice shakes. Supposedly, I memorized the words earlier or I thought I did. Now that I have to speak out loud, just to myself, nothing comes to mind. I can’t even remember how I planned on starting.
The worst thing about all of this is that Hudson is nowhere to be found. He had promised me that we would practice together. He promised me this originally at lunch and cancelled on me all weekend. We made plans on Saturday and then Sunday and then Monday night. By the time it was Tuesday, I didn’t bother making plans anymore. He came home late that night, around 9 p.m., and said that he had a ton of Macroeconomics to catch up on.
Come to think of it, I haven’t even seen him since Wednesday morning when we waited for our Pop-Tarts to toast together. Agh, what makes me so mad is that he had promised that he would practice with me, help me. Now it’s 9:30 p.m. on Thursday and he’s still not back. He has yet to help me once. I’m angry and disappointed. Mostly, I’m scared. The speech is tomorrow and I have nothing.
“Dylan, I think I’m going to have a heart attack,” I say, coming out of my room into the living room. Dylan’s playing something on the Xbox. Without looking up, he asks what’s wrong and I give him the highlights.
“You’ll do fine,” he says, finally putting the controller down. I watch him as he walks to the refrigerator and gets a soda.
Why does everyone say that when they don’t even know what’s going on? There’s NO way I’m going to do fine. People who freeze and can’t say a word out loud don’t do fine in public speaking classes.
I shake my head. “No way,” I say.
“Well, you were going to do it with Hudson, right? So why not me?” he asks.
“Because…there’s like a million reasons why not,” I say.
“Name one,” he challenges me.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “But this is worse than being naked. In fact, I think I’d rather be naked with someone than do this.”
“Oh, really?” His eyes light up in a mischievous way. “Well, then, we can arrange that.”
“Agh, you’re a pig.” I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
“The thing is that I’m terrified. I can’t do it.” I shrug.
“But you were going to do it with Hudson?” he asks.
“I said I would, but I’m not sure I actually would have gone through with it. I think I was just going to try.”
“Well, why don’t you try for me?” Dylan asks. “I’ll help you. I’m great at speeches.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I say.
“I know, right?” He laughs. “My dad says that I’m the king of bullshitting. That’s why he wants me to go to law school.”
“Wow, that’s a
