“Yes, I’ve given it some thought,” I say. “But I haven’t decided on a question yet. It may take a few years.”
She smiles at me, and I look at her for a second too long and soak it in.
It’s almost comical how easily I convinced myself that I was completely over her. That, indeed, I found her obnoxious. I guess I wanted to believe it was true. The mind is capable of great feats of self-deception.
“All right,” she says, leaning back in her seat and settling her arm against the window. “In that case, we can discuss our secret fake relationship. They’ll have questions, and we need to get our story straight.”
“Oh, joy.”
“We met in high school,” she begins.
“Try elementary school.”
“We never had a single interaction back then, so it doesn’t count. It was when you told me that I had pepper between my teeth that you really made an impression on me.”
I groan as I stop at a red light, because I’ve unfortunately relived that moment dozens of times. “I was an idiot. Sorry about that. But my mother always got upset when she walked around for half the day with spinach or something in her teeth, so I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I didn’t want to have pepper in my teeth, obviously. I just thought…” She shrugs. “Anyway, back to our story for Pansy.”
I steal a glance at her. “How’s this? I had a hopeless crush on you in high school, but I didn’t know how to talk to women, so I didn’t say anything.”
She inhales sharply, then nods. “Yeah, that’s good.”
No need to tell her it’s true.
The light turns green, and I start driving again. “And wewere thrown back into each other’s lives when our parents started dating. I wasn’t happy at first, because?—”
“Of your robot,” she finishes.
“Indeed. But then we saw each other at that party my dad threw, and you looked just like you had in high school. Obviously, I’d seen you around town before that, but it was the first time I’d seen you up close after all those years. Everything about you was exactly the same.”
“Splendid. Everyone wants to hear they haven’t changed since high school.”
“At least you didn’t change for the worst. Have you seen your ‘dreamy’ Justin Greene?”
“Be careful, Cormac,” she says in a teasing tone. “I might start thinking you’re jealous.”
Heat floods my face. I’d hoped I wasn’t being obvious.
“Good, it’ll help with the act, because your boyfriend would be,” I bluster. “Anyway, you looked exactly the same, and I knew it was time to tell you what I hadn’t been brave enough to say all those years ago. So I admitted I used to have a crush on you. I expected you to blow me off, but you…” I trail off, at a loss. “Help me out. What happens next in our secret relationship?”
“I admitted that I used to have a small crush on you too. Before the science fair incident, obviously.”
“That’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”
“That a woman would still be into you after you told her she had pepper in her teeth and acted like she was stupid?”
I clutch the steering wheel more tightly. “I’ve never, not once, thought you were stupid.”
“Not once?”
“Maybe when I saw you making out with Justin Greene. He thought an ‘elective’ meant you could ‘elect’ whether you wanted to go to class or not.”
She laughs, pressing a hand to her chest, so fully capturing my attention that I almost plow into the car in front of mine.
I return my focus to the road, giving the driver of the other car a wave. He flips me off in his rearview mirror.
“I’ve never thought you were stupid,” I repeat. “Never.I just didn’t know how to talk to women. Or…anyone really.”
