“You wouldn’t sabotage your opponent, then?” One of her brows arched. No doubt she was referring to the ornaments and how he’d kept rearranging them.
“I wasn’t sabotaging you,” he assured her.
“Then what were you doing?”
Shoot. Time to change the subject. He turned to the screen. Pointed to a random spot. “What’s this?”
Her gaze narrowed as she tried to find his imaginarythis. When she looked back at him, laugh lines crinkled around her eyes. “There’s nothing there.”
He shrugged. “Weird. I could’ve sworn I saw something.”
She shook her head at him, but the invisible cloak she always seemed to wrap herself in had finally slipped off her shoulders.
11
I am so confused. And I don’t mean the confused you felt as a kid after being spun around the merry-go-round for a solid five minutes by your friend’s older brother. You finally step off and you’re standing still, but everything else is still spinning. You don’t know up from down, left from right, and you only wish everything would juststop spinning.
Okay, there is a lot of that going on. I’m definitely merry-go-round disoriented. But I’m talking more the confused when a stranger from another country comes up to you and speaks a foreign language. Not Spanish or French, because there’s a slim possibility you might understand a word or two of those languages. I mean you have no earthly idea what’s coming out of the other person’s mouth. As if they were speaking Silbo Gomero, which doesn’t even have verbs or nouns, or any spoken words, for that matter. Just different pitches of whistles to communicate in the mountains of an island off the coast of Spain.
I’m whistling-Silbo-Gomero confused.
A week ago, Jeremy Fletcher was everything I ever wanted in a guy. Confident but not in a cocky way. More self-assured and comfortable in his own skin. Like he knew his place in the worldand wouldn’t apologize for it. He walked with his chin up and could hold anyone’s eyes in a room. His confidence was commanding. Everyone knew they could count on him; a natural-born leader.
He was kind. He always actively listened whenever anyone spoke to him. And I’d never heard him make a single cutting or rude remark. He gave his time and energy. He didn’t think he was above other people. I’ve even seen him help an elderly man cross the intersection a time or two. People seemed to matter to him more than things or ambitions.
He was easy to admire from afar. My favorite way to admire a person. It was easy to let myself dream, let my imagination run wild. In my mind, he always said the perfect things and made me feel warm and mushy inside.
From afar he was ... well, perfect.
“You look like you’re five and someone’s just told you Santa isn’t real.” Keri glances at me from behind the wheel before returning her focus to the road.
She’s not wrong. That is a bit how I feel.
“Come on. Tell me what’s going through that head of yours.”
“I thought you could read my mind or face or whatever.” Yes, I’m being a bit sullen, but I’m also trying to reorder my perceptions of the world.
“Unless you want us to wreck, you’d better find the words so I can pay attention to the road and the crazy drivers on it.”
I sigh. I know she won’t let up. She’ll hound me until I finally crack. She always does. But as much as I hate it because she pushes me out of my comfort zone, I also feel better knowing there is someone I can talk to. Even if talking is hard.
“I’m just really confused,” I admit out loud.
Keri nods but doesn’t say anything.
“I mean, last week I thought Jeremy was this one guy, and this week he turns out to be someone completely different.”
Her lips push to the side. “Is he, though?”
I blink. “Is he what?”
“Completely different.”
“Yes!” The word explodes from my mouth. “My Jeremy would never have said those hurtful things about me—or anyone, for that matter.”
Her gaze flicks to me for a second, and I see her half smile. “YourJeremy?”
“Shut up. You know what I meant,” I grumble.
