I cringe a little.Way to out yourself as a creepy stalker, Natalie.“I’m at work,” I say, trying to explain. “I saw you guys walk by earlier, and then I just saw her leave alone. She looked kind of pissed.”
He stares at me, his eyes flitting from my left eye to my right one. He doesn’t say anything so I get flustered and keep talking. “I’m not a stalker. I just—well the store—we have like no customers most of the time. My mom owns The Magpie in case you didn’t know?” I point back toward the boardwalk. Sweat drips down my neck and it’s not from the heat. “It’s a gift shop,” I explain, trying to remember if I ever told him about this. I think I did. He’s still just looking at me though, not saying anything, and I can’t stop talking. “It’s a store and it’s never busy so I was just sitting there bored staring out the window and I saw you guys.”
I take a deep breath and stare out at the ocean. “Then I saw her leave and well—actually no, I wasn’t, like,stalkingyou or anything. I was going to get smoothies for me and my mom and I saw her.”
“Where’s your smoothie?” he asks, squinting a little as he looks at me because the sun is so bright.
“I, uh, well I haven’t gotten it yet. Um, I—” I stare down at my flip flops, now covered in sand. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
“She must have looked really pissed,” Jonah says, still watching me. For the first time since I’ve met him, he’s actually staring at me, not glancing over and then looking away shyly. His stare feels like it’s penetrating into my soul, like maybe he’s trying to decide to forgive me or not.
I swallow. “What happened?”
He gives a little shrug and looks down at my hand, which is resting on the rock next to his.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say, feeling like a total idiot for coming out here. “I guess I just wanted to find you and tell you I’m sorry for the other day. And well, I’m sorry for everything. I wouldn’t have been all stupidly flirting and messing with you during tutorials if I knew you had a girlfriend. I was just mad that I even had to do tutorials in the first place, so I tried to make it into a joke.”
As the confession pours out of me, I realize it’s all true. “Anyhow, I’m sorry, Jonah. I didn’t know you have a girlfriend. I’ll be nothing but professional at tutoring from now on.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says. A gust of warm wind sends a strand of his hair falling into his face. “I have an ex-girlfriend, which is who you saw.”
“Did you just break up?”
He shakes his head. “I broke up with her a couple months ago. She was just kind of a horrible person. Selfish. Rude.” He shrugs and inhales a deep breath. “She ignored me for like a month and then she started texting and calling and saying she wanted to get back together.”
I’m dying to know more. I want every single dirty detail, but I know better than to ask. Jonah shuts down easily and I should be grateful I’ve been told this much.
“That sounds hard,” I say stupidly, just for something to say.
A tiny little bug lands on top of my finger on the rock and Jonah shoos it away. “I was open to trying to get back together, but I told her things had to be different. She couldn’t be so rude all the time. She acted like she agreed with me, but every time we hang out, it’s the same old stuff.”
He kicks his foot and sends a wave of hand skittering across the shore. “Last week she makes this big deal about telling all our friends that we’re not dating officially and that we’re justhanging out. She doesn’t want me to hold her hand but she wants to be doted on. And then we come here and I don’t immediately offer to buy her food and she gets pissed. Call me crazy, but if we aren’t officially dating, why should I buy her food?”
“You shouldn’t,” I say.
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, which only makes more of it flip over to the side. I bite the inside of my lip because right now the boy looks like a freaking cologne model about to do a beach themed photoshoot.
“I don’t even know what the hell she got pissed about just now,” he says. “But she got mad and stormed off. She wants me to chase after her because she thinks that kind of drama is romantic or some shit.”
“No, that kind of drama is screwed up,” I say.
He grins. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks that. I just want a real relationship that’s not based on these fucking games.”
“So dump her,” I say. “You shouldn’t waste your time on a drama queen like that. Quit answering her calls and let her find some other poor guy to screw with.”
He looks up at me again, and this time there’s a sadness in his eyes. “I can’t do that.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,Natalie,” he says, saying my name like I’m a child. “Guys like me have to take what we can get. It’s not like there’s a line of girls waiting around to date a pathetic nerd. You of all people should know that.”
Chapter 15
April covers her face with her hands. She shakes her head slowly and I feel her embarrassment for me just as strongly as I feel the morning breeze in my hair. “Oh my God,” she says, uncovering her eyes. She’s still shaking her head. She looks down at the sidewalk and kicks a rock. “Oh my God.”
“Is that all you have to say?” We come to a stop at the intersection before school and I give her a look. “I could use a little…I don’t know, support.”
She barks out a laugh. “Natalie, I don’t know. That’s just…” She shakes her head quickly. “So sad. And cringey. And—”
