Page 35 of Going the Distance
Chapter 10
By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was actually glad of it for once. Noah and I had talked on the phone again on Sunday, but it had been worse than usual: stilted and full of pauses and so not like it usually was. I just couldn’t figure out exactly what had gone so wrong to know how to fix it.
I was being stupid, right? There was nothing wrong, and I was getting paranoid for absolutely no reason, and things were fine. We’d just been away from each other for a while and that was why things were weird.I was being stupid.
Lee was running a little late in picking me up for school—it was his turn to drive this week—so we arrived just as everybody started pouring from the student parking lot to homeroom.
“Is it just me, or are people staring at me?” I asked him, dropping my voice and looking around furtively. Maybe it was leftover paranoia from thinking about Noah, but I wassurethat people were looking at me. And not glancing over my way and smiling, like they might on any other day, but staring at me and muttering to their friends.
I looked down at myself. Had I dropped peanut butter down the front of my uniform? Had one of my buttons popped off? Was my fly open? Was there toilet paper stuck to my shoe?
Nope.
“Is there something on my face?”
Lee gave me a once-over. “No, you’re good.”
“People are staring, aren’t they?”
“Maybe it’s me. I mean, now Noah’s gone, maybe they realize that I’m a hot piece of ass myself.” He tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. He’d been growing it out—now I realized, probably to look more like Noah. “Noah does take after me in his good looks, after all.”
“Ha-ha.” I rolled my eyes. I’d have laughed, except my heart was pounding and my palms were starting to sweat. I hated this feeling. Something between being the center of attention and missing out on something big. Whichever one it was, I hated it.
“Seriously. Please tell me I’m imagining things.”
“No, I think they’re staring. Yeah, see? That guy pointed.”
“Why? What did I do?”
I racked my brain, trying to think if I’d done anything at the party on Friday night that people would be talking about. Sure, I’d been crying, but so what? A sobbing, tipsy girl wasn’t unusual for a high school party. And I had a clear memory of the whole night and knew I hadn’t done anythingreallystupid.
We merged into the throng, not bothering to try and find the others—there was no point in trying to catch up with them now; it wasn’t long until homeroom. We’d just see them later. Lee started talking about this book passage he was writing an essay on for English class and how brilliant one of the metaphors in it was, but I wasn’t really listening.
I was too busy concentrating on what everybody else was saying.
“I feel so sorry for her.”
“Did you see her at Jon Fletcher’s? She left with that new guy, Levi Monroe. I bet they went home together. Slut.”
“You saw her leave with that Levi guy, right?”
“I heard they broke up.”
“She doesn’t evenlookupset. If that were me, I’d be devastated.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that to her.”
“He’ssucha dick. I mean, she’s such a sweetie. How could he?”
“I heard she hooked up with Levi Monroe. I know, right? He couldtotallydo better….Do you think they broke up?”
It was only when Lee pushed me in front of him into homeroom that I realized he’d had his hand on my back and had been guiding me here the whole time, and I’d totally zoned out. Now I froze, and he pushed me again, gently. I stumbled, feeling like Bambi on ice.
When we took our usual seats, Rachel leaned forward immediately. “What the hell, right?”
“Huh?”
“All these rumors going around. They’re crazy.”
