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“You think I don’t know that?” My head snapped up, and I was suddenly angry. Maybe because I felt like a fool. Or judged. Or . . . “Trust me,” I added, “I’m well aware. And it wasn’t all that long ago that you were the culprit. Just because you’re no longer the main instigator, doesn’t make you any better.”
His face turned to stone, and when he glanced away, I wished I hadn’t said anything.
“You’re right. Even laughing along is wrong, but I know you now and . . . I’m trying to be different. Better.”
“Why? Why now?” I blurted. My thoughts shifted to Julie. Was all of this because of her? Because he wanted to change her mind and take her to Homecoming? Did she make him want to be a better man? God, what a cliche. And why did that bother me so much?
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair until it stuck up at an odd angle. Then he shook his head, pulled his knees up to his chest, and lazily draped his arms over them. “Never mind. Forget it.”
I watched him a moment—the way his jaw tightened and his mouth turned down at the corners. He really did look sorry, and hadn’t it just been this morning he stuck up for me? Hadn’t he just asked if we could be friends? So why was I giving him so much crap?
I blew all the oxygen out of my lungs, taking my time as I said, “Sorry.” I felt his gaze on me. “I don’t know. I just . . . sometimes I think of all the things I would say. I think of a million ways I can stick up for myself and tell them off. Then when they do something stupid like today, I just . . .”
I fisted my hands in the grass beside me.
How could I describe it? This debilitating shyness? The desire to simply disappear?
“I clam up. My heart races and my body turns to fire and I want to open my mouth to speak, but instead of words, there’s only silence, and all I want is for the world to swallow me up, so I no longer have to exist or think. All I want in that moment is to be invisible.”
Topher glanced away. His throat bobbed, and he picked at a blade of grass between his legs before his blue-violet eyes met mine again. “But, these last couple weeks, during these sessions, you’ve spoken your mind. You haven’t taken my crap, and we’ve talked. I swear before this week I thought you were mute.”
I barked out a laugh, even though it really wasn’t funny.
“What’s changed?” he asked.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. It was a good question, one I didn’t have the answer to. Maybe I was just tired of sitting idly by while people tore me down. But even I had to admit there was something about having to face Topher one-on-one that finally allowed me to say my piece.
“I don’t know,” I said, but a part of me wondered if it was that very first text I sent to him in the bathroom stall that liberated me. Like somehow, that gave me the courage I needed.
“Well, I think you should speak up more often, let people get to know you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like you know me so well,” I said, even though he actually did. But he didn’t know that. The girl he thought he knew was Julie, not me.
“I know enough to get that you’re super smart and funny. You know your Shakespeare,” he said, bumping me with his shoulder. “You have good taste in music, and you can be as good at dishing it out as you are at taking it.”
I glanced down at my lap, hiding my grin. “Well, thanks.”
“No thanks needed. It’s the truth.”
I kept my gaze lowered as I asked, “Now can I ask you something?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here,” he said, repeating my words from the other night.
My stomach tightened, and I lifted my head, my eyes flickering to his. But his smile told me he knew nothing, and I chastised myself because that’s what lying did. It made you paranoid, and all it would take was one fly ball to get socked in the face.
“You asked me why I don’t speak up. But why are you so different than you let on?”
This time, it was he who glanced away. “What do you mean?” he asked, even though I had a feeling he knew exactly what I meant.
“With your friends and Gabby. You act like a totally different person than when it’s just the two of us.”And when you talk to Julie.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said with a sigh.
“Try me.”
He leaned back on his hands and stared out into the courtyard, where the cross country track team warmed up. “It’s just that when you’re in the spotlight all the time, people make assumptions about you. They think they know you, and before you even realize what’s happening, you become the version of yourself they expect you to be, instead of the one you really are. Even if you change. Even if you’re different and you’re no longer that guy.”
“So why not be you instead of the version of you everyone has come to expect?”
