Page 31 of So Not My Thing
“You know.She’s so not my thing. And make that same face.”
Miles gave him a polite smile. “That was a long time ago, man.”
Dylan snorted. “It’s every day for Gabi.”
I closed my eyes and froze, wishing Dylan would disappear. Or I could disappear. Or Miles. I’d take any one of those options if it meant this conversation could die right now.
“Gabi?” Miles repeated, sounding even more confused.
“Gabi. Ellie,” Dylan corrected himself. “My sister. Your brunch date.Her.” He pointed at me as if Miles might not realize he had another human being sitting in front of him.
Miles still looked confused.
“You don’t know,” Dylan said, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh, dang, Gab. You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Now Miles sounded frustrated.
“Go away, Dylan.” I added a glare for good measure.
“Go get something from the kitchen,” Miss Mary ordered him, trying to help.
“Like what?”
“Find something,” she said between gritted teeth. “Anything.”
“What’s going on here?” Miles asked.
“Come with me, my man,” Dylan said, beckoning to Miles. Miss Mary tried to grab Dylan’s shirt and snatch him back, but he danced out of reach.
“It’s okay,” I said, resigned, and she hesitated, looking toward me. “Let him go.”
“You coming?” Dylan called to Miles, heading away from the kitchen toward the hall leading to the restrooms instead.
Miles shot me a look that asked if he should.
“Go ahead.” I felt a slight nausea, but what Dylan was about to show Miles had always been inevitable.
Miles climbed out of the booth and followed Dylan around the corner. The second they disappeared from sight, I headed for the front door.
“You good?” Miss Mary called after me.
I waved behind me, not wanting her to see the humiliated tears waiting to fall. “Add it to my tab, Miss Mary. I’ll drop a tip by for Kendra before she cashes out.”
I sped outside and around to the back stairs, took them two at a time to my apartment, shoved my face in a sofa pillow, and screamed.
Freaking Dylan.
My brother was not a mean guy. But it hadn’t been easy coming up a grade behind me in school as the brother of one of the most popular memes in internet history. He’d been annoyed with my Miles Crowe obsession through the wholeStarstruckseason, bemused when I lived in a state of hysteria for the week before his hometown show, and flatly irritated when I’d had a week of being viral for my meltdown. There had been no playbook for what to do when the average person suddenly became famous overnight for doing something that didn’t deserve fame.
It had been disruptive, especially for Dylan. The whole situation had turned him sour for a few years. Publicly, he defended me. Privately, he resented me for having made such an idiot of myself.
I got it. I did.
But there was no excuse for him to drag Miles down that hallway. I knew exactly what he’d brought him to see: Miss Mary had lined it with pictures of her family working in the café over the years, and she had a picture of me manning the hostess stand. I was fifteen, still in my frizzy hair/glasses/braces/acne phase.
I imagined Dylan pointing to the girl in that picture and saying, “That’sElle,” and Miles’s face as recognition sunk in.
I rolled onto my back and clutched the pillow to my chest, staring at the ceiling. The tears that had threatened downstairs hadn’t fallen, but a dark and ugly feeling sat in my chest. Shame, maybe. I’d worked so hard to outgrow those awkward years, but it was impossible to put it behind me when that meme wouldn’t die.
