Page 24 of How to Be Remy Cameron

This guy has half-scrunched periwinkle eyes, freckled skin and a crooked smile that should be awkward, but isn’t. It’s freaking charming. He’s the worst kind of reminder that Dimiisa part of something else—someone else, Jules Littleton. I only know his name because I haven’t gotten around to unfriending Dimi on social media. That’s not because I have wicked cyber-stalking skills. Well, maybe that too.

Jules is a freshman at Georgia Tech and has Lacoste model status. It kills me to think that way. But Jules is five steps ahead of me at adulting. He’s not “clingy” or “desperate.”

Dimi’s words, not mine. It’s how he defined our break-up. “You spend more time with me than your friends. You’re always…there. Always need to hang out. Or text. It’s like—you and me and nothing else.”

The way he said it, with a choked voice and halfhearted tears, crawled into my chest, coiled around my heart, burnt the oxygen from my lungs. I was the reason we didn’t work. I wrapped myself so tightly around Dimi that neither one of us could breathe.

But I still miss Dimi: the forehead kisses and the smell of his pillow, his stupid pillow, his loud snoring after sex—

Unpopular opinion: I don’t miss the sex that much. Maybe I wasn’t any good at it? Who is at sixteen? I was always awkward and uncomfortable. I never knew where my hands should go. Was it normal to nearly give your boyfriend a concussion when he went to kiss your neck, but you were aiming for his mouth? We laughed more about how quick and clumsy it was than we worried about how supercharged it should’ve been.

On reflection, I probably did it more for him than for us—for me. But still, why we do miss the people who hurt us?

“How does one bake a spinach quiche? Are theybaked?”

I can barely follow Mom’s voice. It’s cottony fuzz in my ears. Thumbnail under my teeth, I watch Dimi and Jules. Dimi’s soccer-calloused hand palms Jules’ nape. Dimi’s lips peck Jules’ temple while they stroll through the produce section.

“Earth to Remy.” Mom again.

Dimi is taller than Jules. He beams down at him, at hisnew boyfriend.

And there it is—my heart and emotions doing a flash mob routine in my chest cavity. Thinking of Dimi is like holding an open palm to a dancing flame. You know it’ll burn, then scar, and then become this throbbing ache beneath your skin every time you see something luminous and warm. But the curiosity remains, the constantwhat ifany time you’re near the flame, the fast-beating heart under layers of warning. But what if Dimi and I had…? What if?

“Honey?”

I snap around to my mom. I’m blinking too fast. Pressure builds behind my eyelids, a dam threatening to break. Am I that person? The one that’s going to cry in the middle of Whole Foods over a guy? A stupid, insensitive, ordinary guy?

“Hey,” Mom says, too carefully. “Are you okay?”

Guilt hooks my chest. I avoid gazing at Dimi. My brain refocuses: deep, easy breaths. But it’s too late. Realization spirals across Mom’s pinched brow and crinkled nose and tight mouth. She’s spotted Dimi.

Tears nearly prick past my eyelids. Pathetic. I’m the opposite of Georgia-Tech-genius Jules Littleton.

“Well.” Mom has replaced worry with a flashy smile. “I have an idea.”

I blink at her, then Willow. It’s the first time I’ve noticed Willow squeezing my fingers tighter.

“How about some Cold Stone ice cream before we go harass your dad into watching a movie?” Mom suggests. She’s on my other side. Our shoulders touch; her warmth calms. “It’s never too early to watchIt’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

She and I share twin smiles. Summer storms. Cold Stone Creamery is unquestionably the best. And Charlie Brown holiday movies could cure bird flu, I swear. It’s just—it’s perfect. My mom is the closest thing to a divine being on Earth.

7

Rio is standing at thetop of the concrete steps that lead to the main pathway to school on Monday. I march up to her and cut off my awesome morning playlist. Her eyes are focused on the ground beneath her.

A maze of graffiti decorates the concrete. It’s a series of blues, greens, and reds. Two giant arrows squiggle in opposite directions. At the end of one, where the arrow’s tip points toward Maplewood’s main building, is a blue pill and words outlined in thick, black Sharpie: “This way to Wonderland, Alice.” The other arrow, running down the steps toward the student parking lot’s exit, is a red pill: “This way to Adulthood.”

“She’s done it again.”

I grin. “It’s a ‘she’ now?”

“Obviously.”

Rio twists and angles her phone to snap as many high-def photos as possible while other students step over and around the graffiti. A group of freshmen art geeks gawp from a distance. Three cheerleaders, ponytails swinging in tandem, scoff at it.

“How do you know it’s a she?”

Rio’s sigh exits through her nose. “This stuff is too brilliant to be the work of a dumb guy.”

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