“Aw, that's sad.”
“She hates me.”
He laughs and opens his trunk. “What'd you do to her?”
“Nothing! She used to like me just fine, a couple years ago. Maybe she just grew up evil.”
“Or you did,” he says. “And she's the only one who can tell.”
“A monster, sent to destroy Arcadia.”
He unearths the carseat from underneath a stack of plywood boards. “Help me with this.”
We untangle the straps and try to figure out how to affix the thing into his backseat. “What's with the lumber?” I say.
“Set-building,” he says.
“I thought you acted?”
“I do, in the high school stuff. I help out with tech at the middle school. It's like no money, but I get to scope out the incoming talent. Which meant more when I wasn't a senior, but at least I know this place won't completely fall apart when I leave.” He tugs on a strap. “They're doing Cinderella and they're trying to do something with pulleys under the stage to move the set pieces.”
“That sounds kind of awesome.”
“Yeah, except kids can't get out of the way and they keep almost losing toes.”
“Eesh.”
“But hey, if I didn't get something for my college applications my parents were going to give up on me completely. They already don't like me.”
“Come on.”
“I'm serious,” he says. “I think my parents honestly don't like me as a human being. I think at first they thought they were disappointed in me but then they realized that they're just actually not big fans of me.”
“That's...incredibly depressing.”
“Nah, it's okay. They still love me. And I don't really need many people to like me. I'm a solo sort of bird.”
“Well that explains the poly thing.”
“I live to be understood. Aha. Think I got this side down. Let me see yours.” He reaches his arm over the carseat to help me untwist two straps.
It's the first time we've touched since we were kissing.
I don't think he's noticed. He's busy working on the seat. But all I can think about is wow he has nice hands, and why didn't I notice them before, in the car, in this car, when we were kissing, when I thought I was allowed to notice those things. Why didn't I do it then?
They're big and calloused. He has a scratch on the top of his right hand. His cuticles are ragged because he bites his nails.
Why didn't I drink up every second of this damn guy when I had the chance?
I clear my throat and pull away a little. “Shouldn't you be an expert on how to work these things?” I say.
“I don't have the little guy in my car that often. My mother values his life too much to allow him in this thing. She likes him. Usually.”
“Then why do you have the seat?”
“Because sometimes he pisses her off and then she's like eh, go park him on a steep hill and we'll let fate decide.”
“Seems like the carseat is a waste, then. Just toss him in loose.”
“Nah, now you're leaving too much to fate. Trust me, it's a delicate balance. It's fate if I get a good part in the play. Not fate if I get a shitty grade on a test. That's all on me. So lies the logic of my mother.”
“Fun.”
He shrugs, not looking at me. “There are a million people in situations a million times worse.”
I say, “Does that make you feel better?”
“Does what?”
“Saying that.”
He looks up, now. “What, do you want me to say my mother's the reason I'm on antidepressants, I care way too much about what she thinks, and I alternate between wanting to...protect her from a metaphorical death trap of a car and parking her on a steep hill to see what happens?”
“It's definitely more interesting.”
He quirks a smile. “You're pretty unflappable, huh?”
“Truly unable to be flapped.”
He opens the passenger door for me. “Except by five-year-old stepsisters.”
“Oh, shut up.”
I show Theo the address Lucas texted me, and he knows where it is, so we start the perilous, creaky journey. After a couple minutes of the most honest-to-God comfortable silence I've ever experienced—it shouldn't be this easy, it shouldn't, not when the situation is so hard—he says, quietly, with his eyes straight ahead, “Why not?”
“Theo...”
“I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just asking why. Is it because it's weird?”
“I don't know.”
“Is it some kind of homophobia thing? Like being too close to being in a relationship with a girl?”
“Ew, what? Of course not.”
“So then why?”
I don't want to say, because I'd be a jealous shrew all the time.
I don't want to say, because I would always wonder why I wasn't enough for you to break up with her.
I don't want to say, because sometimes I don't think I like her and I'm concerned that it's not only because I'm a jealous shrew.
I don't want to say, because it's pretty easy for her to be confident sharing you when she is objectively just so, so much better than me.
But instead I say, “I think 'cause of my mom, mostly.” Which is not a lie.
“Are you just pulling that to balance out my mom-stuff? Mine is no less tragic because you have your own shit, you know. You've just taught me that.”
I smack him lightly on the back of the head. Just to touch him.
I'm awful.
“She's always made me very...aware of how my choices look to other people,” I say. “I'm supposed to pay attention to what kinds of messages I'm sending.”
“What a fun way to live.”
I shrug. “It's different. It's a Latina thing.”
“Oh, then I couldn't possibly understand!” He gives me a funny look. “What do you think I am?”
“Braaazilian? Maybe?”
