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I’m bored.
And I know that’s not very nice, so I keep it to myself and pretend I’m having a good time, and wouldn’t rather be hanging out with Jeremy in his room, watching X2, and reading his new comics together.
Izzy got a karaoke machine for her birthday. She and Kasey, a girl from our class who lives down the road, are singing to “Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne in the corner of the garage where everything’s been set up. I got my turn earlier, after we ate pizza, but no one seemed to like the song I picked, not like they’ve been loving what she and the other girls have been choosing.
Izzy only invited a couple of other boys, aside from Will, Waylon, and me, and I’ve never really talked to either of them. They’re nice, I guess—TJ and Shane. They play football, so they’re the popular kids, and all the girls here seem to be wanting to impress them. Even Izzy, when she’s with Kasey and her friends, gets weird when they’re around.
Right now, they’re standing over by the snack table, watching Izzy sing.
They better not be making fun of her. She can’t really sing that well, but it’s okay, because she’s really good at piano. Way better than me, which makes me jealous a lot. But I know I sing better, so I guess we’re even.
Still, I don’t like this. She’s my friend, not theirs. They don’t even know her, not really, not like Waylon and me. Not like Jeremy. I wish she didn’t even invite them—I wish we just kept it to the four of us, like it was for Jeremy’s party earlier. Then he could’ve stayed, and wouldn’t have felt like he had to go be alone in his room.
Well, Will can be here. He’s cool, and I think even Jeremy would like him if he gave him a chance. Will likes good music—Tom Petty and AC/DC are some of his favorites—and he’s funny. Even Waylon likes him, and Waylon doesn’t like anybody.
Except for Izzy and me and Jeremy, of course.
And the only reason he stopped hating me, is ’cause one day after school, not too long after I moved here, when we were hanging out here at the Montgomery’s, he’d bumped into a table and broken a vase.
He looked like he was gonna cry or puke—maybe both—so when Izzy’s mom rushed in to see what happened, I took the blame, and Izzy backed me up, saying it was an accident. Which it was…
But Waylon was clearly scared he’d get in trouble anyway.
Later that night, after Waylon had gone home, Izzy told me his dad’s a lot stricter, being a cop and all. She said Waylon gets grounded a lot.
And she wasn’t wrong. He almost couldn’t come over today because he failed a test last week. But Mrs. Montgomery called his dad and talked him into changing his mind.
In the garage, I twist around, looking across the table to where Waylon sits now, scowling and red-faced. Next to him, Will is making funny, exaggerated faces as he sings along to the song.
Waylon mutters something under his breath, and Will pauses to stick his tongue out at him, before continuing, this time singing it to Waylon.
I snicker as Waylon curls inward, trying to hide, and I start singing it to him too, belting it as loud as I can go. He shakes his head, and hides his face in his arms on the table.
When the song fades, and some girl’s yelling out another song title, one I don’t know, but instantly recognize the beat of when it starts playing a second later—it’s a song that plays on the radio all the time—I glance over at Will and Waylon. They’re no longer paying me any attention, so I push away from the table and make my escape.
I feel around in my pocket, making sure the small, wrapped bundle of tissue paper is still there.
Inside the house, in the kitchen, Mrs. Montgomery is washing dishes. She turns around when she hears me come in through the sliding glass doors.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Hi,” I say.
“Heading upstairs?”
I nod, and she smiles.
“Here. Take this up.” She turns toward the island, and cuts two small pieces of Izzy’s cake, plating them.
I tell her thanks, and head for the stairs.
It’s quiet. Not even the music from the garage can be heard from up here. Light peeks out from Jeremy’s room, the first door on the right, where the door is cracked open.
Not having any free hands, I shoulder it open, not bothering to knock. “Hey.”
Jeremy whirls around from where he was sitting at his desk. He slams his sketchbook closed. It’s the blue one. He never lets anyone see what’s in that one, not even me.
“Hey,” he says so quietly, I barely even hear it. Standing up, he comes over, sucking his cheeks in as his eyes dart between the cake in my hands and my face.
