Just Friends Read online

  I took a piece, glancing at the calendar tacked to the wall. It was color-coded with homework, track practices, training schedules, and college application due dates. Lance never let anyone but me and Omar see it.

  “The cheerleader didn’t stay?” I asked, sweeping the room to make sure. If she had, Lance would’ve strewn some clothes around, covered the calendar with an 80s hair band poster, and opened the window to clear out the previous girl’s perfume.

  His window was shut, the calendar exposed, his clothes neatly hung in the closet—organized by color. Lance didn’t have much control over a lot of things in his life, but whatever he could, he did.

  “We never made it back here,” he said. “Her dad called while we were still on the couch.”

  I grunted as a response before I flopped into the outdoor lounge chair next to his queen-size bed.

  “Soda in the fridge,” he said, and I got back up and got two Coke’s out of the mini-fridge in his closet. I threw one to him, and he clicked his remote to set up the movie.

  I’d just cracked my soda and relished the burn of carbonation in my throat when Lance said, “Sorry about the reporters.”

  I choked, mostly because I never drank carbonation during track season—if Coach Braeburn knew, he’d be pissed—but also because Lance hardly ever apologized.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t see the news?”

  “No TV in my room, remember?”

  Lance cut a look at me. “They did a little feature tonight. Just a few minutes, but I looked like the biggest dick. Laughing and talking and cutting you off.” He shoved the last bit of crust in his mouth and chewed. “Sorry, man. Won’t happen again.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, though I hated drowning in Lance’s limelight. It should’ve been something we both basked in, though I’d never said as much to him. “I don’t know what to say anyway.”

  “Yeah, but you should be able to say something. Next time.”

  “If there’s a next time.”

  He relaxed into his headboard and put his hands behind his head. “Oh, there will be a next time.”

  I shook my head at his cockiness. “Whatever.”

  “You go out with Jade?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I heard Ivy caused a scene.”

  “Heard?” I repeated. “Heard what, from who?”

  He twiddled with his phone, which only made me want to lunge for it. I knew he’d been texting Drew too, and I wanted to see what they’d been talking about.

  “Lance,” I warned.

  “Holly called.”

  “She called?” I wasn’t sure why that surprised me. Maybe I didn’t know she and Lance were so close. Maybe I was pissed she was talking to him and not to me. Or maybe a little of both.

  “Yeah, she said you smoothed everything over real nice. She may have even said you did what I would’ve done.”

  “She’s crazy,” I said. “She has no idea what I did or didn’t do. She wasn’t there.”

  “Do you want her to be?”

  “No,” I said, but both Lance and I knew I really meant yes. He knew I missed Holly. He knew everything about the two of us—including how we were just friends, and that I pretty much relied on her for everything girl-related.

  “Too bad she was wearing her warm ups,” he said, finally clicking over to his Blu-ray player. The theme music for the movie filled the background.

  I exercised great control to keep from rolling my eyes. “Not that again. We’re friends.” Or at least we were. Had been. It hurt to think of Holly in the past tense.

  Lance clicked and clicked and clicked, and the tension I held in my shoulders dissolved. Finally, we were going to get to the movie, and I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.

  “She said Jade wasn’t your type.” Lance’s statement made me startle, which caused Coke to spill on my jeans. The cold seeped through to my skin, matching the ice now pumping through my veins.

  “Holly said that?”

  “I agree with her.”

  I stood up, crinkling my soda can in my fist. “I—you guys don’t get to tell me who I like. I don’t need your advice.” His, especially, of all people’s. The guy hadn’t had a real relationship with anyone. And Holly… Holly didn’t get to call and tell him anything. I knew Jade better than she did.

  “I thought we could just hang out,” I said. “No talking required. If I wanted to discuss everything to death, I would’ve gone out with Ivy.” I dropped my mutilated can on his desk and headed for the door.

  “Hey, come on.” He got to his feet and collected my can before the sticky soda could defile his piled textbooks and labeled binders.

  “You don’t even know what my type is.” I didn’t even know that—how could Lance? Or Holly?

  He wrapped the pop can in a napkin and took it into the bathroom. “I know you like nice girls.”

  Leaning in the doorway, Lance looked deadly serious in a calm, freaky way. My fists clenched at my sides, and my stomach felt like it had snakes writhing inside. “Jade is a nice girl.”

  Lance raised his eyebrows and folded his arms. He regarded me a moment past comfortable before he said, “She dated Johnny Durango.”

  Equal parts disbelief and horror warred in my mind. Finally, I managed to scrape my voice together enough to say, “No way. Durango is like, twenty-two.”

  “Graduates from college next year,” Lance said evenly. “Track captain when we were freshmen. Jade Montgomery’s boyfriend until he left for KU.”

  The music from the movie suddenly blared. The air in Lance’s house was too hot, too full of smells and accusations. “That can’t be true.” She would’ve been his girlfriend while she was a freshman and he was a senior.

  “Holly said—” Lance began, and I cringed. I was so sick of hearing sentences that began with “Holly said.”

  “—that Jade told her that she used to come to track meets all the time. To watch him. Cheer for him. He was the—”

  “—Fastest man at Stony Brook,” I interrupted. “I know.”

  Johnny Durango could fly—that was what I’d thought as a freshman. His time in the 1500 meters hadn’t been broken in the three years since he’d graduated, and I didn’t think it ever would be. Rumors floated around Bellvue about his collegiate training, and how he’d try for the Olympics next summer.

  Durango was certainly fast on the track. As I left Lance’s I wondered how fast he’d been with freshmen girls.

  Sunday after church and our traditional family luncheon, Drew baked sugar cookies while I sat at the bar and leafed through the three newspapers where I had been featured. Lance had brought them over while we were gone to church.

  The stories were life pieces, with photos of me and Lance posing with our hands on our hips like we might take off in flight at any moment. Superhero stuff. I thought I looked a little stiff, but Lance had his smile turned all the way up. He really did overshadow me in every way—except that I’d won the race.

  “Maybe we could double date,” Drew said without looking at me. “You know, me and Omar and you and Jade.”

  “No,” I said.

  “But Mom won’t let me go out with Omar alone,” she complained.

  “Not my problem,” I said. “Maybe you shouldn’t be dating a freaking senior.” My thoughts automatically flowed to Jade and Durango. I flipped to the next page in the newspaper, ripping it with my harshness.

  Drew put her hand on mine, and I looked up into her eyes. She seemed almost apologetic, like what she was about to say would sting. “Jade told Mom all about how she used to come to meets all the time to cheer for her ex-boyfriend.”

  I wanted to fling curses to the ceiling. How could everyone know about Durango before me? Of course, Jade and I talked about school and not much else.

  “She told Mom?”

  “All about it. I finally asked her who the boyfriend was. Turns out he was a senior.” Drew looked more satisfied than sorry now.

  I couldn’
t believe it. Was Jade trying to tell my mom it was okay for Drew to date Omar?

  At the time of the track meet, she didn’t know how I felt about my friends chasing my sister. She still didn’t really know, though my pythonic grip on her fingers surely spoke volumes.

  “Mom didn’t really ask for details,” Drew said. “And she told me I still couldn’t go out with Omar alone. Please, Mitch. I’ll do your dinner chores for a week if you’ll double with us.”

  Mom walked into the kitchen at that moment. “Mmm, are you making cream cheese frosting? Why aren’t you wearing an apron?” She reached into the pantry and pulled one off the hook. Drew scowled as she put it on.

  After she finished the cookies, Drew scampered away as if Mom might drape her with heavy denim and never allow her to show another inch of skin.

  Jade texted me all afternoon. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say when all I wanted to do was ask about Durango. Did her three-year-old relationship with him matter? Something inside said it did.

  Ivy slid me a folder at lunch on Monday. I eyed it warily as I passed her my salad and took her chocolate milk. “What’s that?”

  “My assignments folder for geometry.” She popped a dry piece of lettuce into her mouth. “Actually it’s your assignments folder for geometry.” She grinned, and her teeth looked lethal.

  I snatched the folder and shoved it in my backpack. “Fine. What days do you have geometry?”

  “A-Day,” she said. “And I have an assignment due tomorrow.”

  “You know you’re going to fail the tests if I do all your homework.”

  “Don’t care,” she singsonged.

  “A-Day,” I grumbled, but it could’ve been worse. I had AP history—a crap-ton of work—and AP biology—a little homework if we weren’t doing labs—on A-Days, but English lit didn’t take much more than reading, and metal shop had zero homework. I could handle Ivy’s geometry for two weeks. Hopefully.

  I was pretty sure I’d bombed this week’s history essay. I’d never written one without Holly either sitting across from me at my kitchen table or lounging in her living room with the TV on. She brainstormed with me, and she usually showed me her outline—she actually outlined her essays—before I wrote a single word. This week, I’d hunched over my desk and spewed out a bunch of crap that was a slight rewording of the textbook. I’d turned in the essay this morning—something Holly always did for me—but I’d wanted to leave my name off so Mr. Thompson wouldn’t know it was mine.

  I was dreading A-Day tomorrow, on all levels.

  Especially since I hadn’t spoken to Holly in person or via text since walking away from her at the track meet. She hadn’t texted either. I wondered about Scott, and if he’d gone back to school or if he’d been shipped off to Kansas City to live with his dad. Now that Omar was preoccupied with Drew, I couldn’t count on him to attend youth group. I wondered if Holly and I would go like we normally did, or if that would be abandoned too.

  I felt stuffed with words, with no one safe to speak them to.

  “Mitch?” Ivy waved her hand in front of my face to get my attention. I snapped out of my mind and focused on her. “I’ll meet you at your locker to get the homework tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. She smiled at me hesitantly and looked like she was going to say something else. Then she decided against it.

  Meatball Monday, Jade texted just as the bell signaled the end of lunch. I shoved my phone deeper into my backpack as I headed to my gym locker. I was beyond ready to run. But this time, the driving force was Jade and a conversation about Durango I didn’t want to have.

  I left practice half an hour later than usual. Coach Braeburn had called me into his office and shoved packet after packet of college applications at me. “UCLA, Florida State, KU,” he said. “They’ve all called today, and they all want you.”

  Surprised, I took the packets and dumped them on top of my homework. Calculus, Ivy’s geometry, French, even a worksheet on the respiratory system for health. I wouldn’t be coming out of my room tonight. It would be a miracle if I finished my homework before midnight.

  “Have you given much thought to college, Mitch?” Coach asked as I zipped the application packets into my backpack.

  I shook my head. I knew I was smart. I earned good grades—really good grades. I figured I could go anywhere, but I didn’t know where that was. Bellvue was a tiny little speck in the middle of corn fields, with Kansas City about three hours away. Lance and I had discussed leaving Bellvue for bigger and better things. He was ready—he’d been ready since eighth grade—to get away. I hoped Coach had called him in here and given him a stack of college applications.

  Sometimes I thought of moving to the big city, attending KU, coming home on weekends when I needed my laundry done. Other times, I thought of myself living thousands of miles away from anyone I knew, and scrounging under my couch cushions for quarters so I could do my own laundry at some run-down Laundromat like they show on TV. That idea appealed to me too.

  “Well, you have a lot of options, son,” Coach said. “With a time like yours in the 10K, any college will be happy to have you. And they’ll pay you to go there.” He continued to ramble about his college days at Ohio State, and how he didn’t know what had gotten into me, but he liked it.

  I knew what was seething inside, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what to do about it. Or how to make it settle back into something normal.

  By the time I got home, dinner was underway. “Sorry,” I said. “Coach kept me late.”

  “You have a phone,” Mom said, that edge in her voice that meant she had more to say.

  “I turned it off before track.”

  “So you couldn’t turn it back on after track?” Mom asked. “What if you’d been in an accident? Driven off the road into a ditch?”

  “Mom, there are no ditches between here and the high school.” I looked to Dad for back-up.

  He pointed his fork at me. “You should’ve called.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Aren’t I allowed one mistake?” I dumped my backpack by the door and kicked off my shoes.

  “Don’t leave those there,” Mom warned. “Why did Coach Braeburn keep you late?”

  I could hardly believe the phone lecture had ended already. She hadn’t said, “I don’t pay hundreds of dollars a month for cell phones so you kids won’t use them.” Or “A text? You can’t send a text? It takes four seconds!”

  “He gave me some packets.” Dutifully, I shoved my shoes and backpack in the closet and sat down at the table. It was, indeed, Meatball Monday. I hadn’t invited Jade—or even responded to her texts. Omar sat next to me, but he barely stopped eating as the conversation progressed.

  For a flash of time, a frozen second, I wanted to be him. Able to go to someone else’s house, and listen to someone else’s parents rail on their kid for being late, not calling, and dumping their shoes on the floor. I wanted to be able to eat on the couch, leave my stuff wherever I wanted, and not have a single person to answer to.

  Omar had all of that. Why did I feel suffocated by my life, when he was here night after night absorbing it?

  The moment was broken by Dad’s voice. “Packets,” he said in a way that sounded like he’d said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “That’s not vague or anything,” Mom added.

  I loaded my plate with potatoes and gravy and meatballs. “Scholarship stuff, I guess.”

  Suddenly, I wasn’t an idiot for not calling. Mom and Dad smiled and gushed and congratulated me. “Where are you thinking of applying?” Dad asked.

  I shrugged and kept my mouth full so I couldn’t answer. I darted a look at Omar, but he was no help, his eyes scampering away from mine the second they locked.

  “You don’t have to know right now,” Mom said.

  Good. Because I don’t, I thought. As the conversation progressed into whether or not Drew could dye her hair blue for Halloween, and how Omar was looking for a part-t
ime job and maybe Dad could get him on at the hospital, I tried to imagine myself living on a campus somewhere. I tried to imagine eating dinner alone, without any questions or lectures about my cell phone usage. It was strange and wonderful at the same time.

  The next day, I arrived at English lit with Ivy, but she hadn’t linked her arm through mine. She hadn’t really spoken much during lunch. Surely something was wrong, but I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to get involved with her any more than I already was. As far as I was concerned, a silent Ivy was just as dangerous as the yappy version.

  Jade smiled when I entered the classroom, but I found I had a hard time returning it. I hadn’t seen her since Friday night, and I couldn’t chase away Lance’s words. Holly said she’s not your type.

  I didn’t even know what that meant. I’d leaned on Holly for relationship advice for years, and while I didn’t want to admit it, what she said was almost law for me.

  Looking at Jade, I couldn’t come to any conclusions. What type of girl was Jade? How was exotic, smart, and funny not my type? Did Holly mean she thought Jade was too good for me? Maybe Holly really meant that I wasn’t the type of guy Jade normally went for—meaning I was the loser here.

  Jade had sent several text messages since my conversation with Lance, but I hadn’t answered any of them. Especially after I found out that she’d been talking my mom up about coming to the track meets to watch Durango. Now I slid into my seat behind her, and I couldn’t avoid her anymore. “Did you have a senior boyfriend?”

  “What?”

  “Lance said you dated Johnny Durango—when he was a senior.” I drew a deep breath. “So I want to know. Is that really true?”

  She didn’t need to respond. I saw the answer in her eyes. “Great.” I slumped back in my seat, as far away from her as I could get. “Now my sister is convinced her thing with Omar is legit.”

  “I-I didn’t know the deal with Drew.”

  The bell rang, saving me from saying something I’d probably regret later. Jade whipped around to face the front of the classroom. Her shoulders were square and stiff for the few minutes I watched her. Then I dropped my gaze to my book and followed along with Mrs. Nordstrom as she ironically droned on about the literary theme of honor in Huck Finn.