The One That I Want(29)
Author: Jennifer Echols

I hardly dared to ask, because he might make fun of me, but I needed to know. “Robert, are you asking me out on a date?”

He spread his hands. “Duh! What did you think?”

I was quiet. I wanted to shout, What I thought was, you sent me a sympathy card right before majorette tryouts last April. But I didn’t.

Then I remembered Max saying I only wanted relationships that weren’t complicated. If I told Robert how I felt right now, things would get complicated.

And so I told him. “What I thought was, you sent me a sympathy card right before majorette tryouts last April.”

“That was a joke!” he exclaimed. “We always used to send each other cards like that.”

“No, not like that, Robert,” I told him sternly. “Not sympathy cards. Not before an important tryout. You shouldn’t have done that. A good friend wouldn’t do that. Then you sent me a text message that I’d sold out. And then you stopped speaking to me.”

He pointed at me. “You stopped speaking to me. The day after you made majorette, you sicced Delilah Allen on me in history class.”

“I did not sic her on you,” I said, almost laughing at the thought of tiny Delilah scaring the bejesus out of a full-grown guy. “I told her about the card. She must have taken it upon herself to tell you what she thought of how you treated your so-called friend.”

Robert furrowed his brow and shook his head like this did not compute. “You stopped talking to all of us, not just me. You lost weight, you made majorette, and you became a different person.”

He was wrong. I had been very careful not to become a different person. And I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “You wouldn’t know whether I became a different person or not,” I pointed out, “because you stopped speaking to me.”

He blinked at me in surprise, then tossed his hair out of his eyes again to give himself time to think. He had never seen this Gemma before, Gemma Who Bites Back.

He put his hand on my hand. “I miss you,” he said quietly. “I think up these jokes that nobody would get but you, and I don’t have anyone to tell them to.”

I looked into his big gray eyes. I missed him, too. I missed his jokes. He was funny—very funny. He was a lot like Max, except that Max was even quicker, and a whole lot cuter, and bore no malice.

Usually.

And Robert was right. Just because Carter and I had been on a date and had planned another did not mean we were dating exclusively. I could go out with Carter tonight and Robert tomorrow. Then the school would really talk about me. I would be That Majorette Who Dates a Lot. I took a breath to tell Robert yes.

But my stomach twisted at the thought of going out with Robert, just as it twisted at the thought of going out with Carter again. What was I doing, exactly? Aiming for quantity, not quality?

My cell phone vibrated with a text message. I started and pulled my hand away from Robert. The text was from Max. With a sidelong glance at Robert, I read it.

7:30 tonight? No more of my theories, promise.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Driving to the theater with Max sounded a lot more fun than a date with Robert and a date with Carter combined. I might not ever have Max, but I could do better than Robert.

I texted Max—See u then—and clicked my phone off. “Robert, you’ve told me before that you just wanted to be friends. I think that’s best for us.” I didn’t give him time for a bitter comeback. I plowed ahead, “But I miss you, too. We could go out as friends. I have a lot to tell you. I went to see the Dolly Paranoids last week.”

“You did?” Surprise and admiration overtook the defensiveness in his voice, at least for a moment.

The band director called through the megaphone, telling us to return to our places and run the drill again. I stood, pocketed my phone, and picked up my batons. I spent the rest of the period lost in twirling my batons and my own swirling thoughts, proud of myself for standing up to Robert and wishing seven thirty would come right now.

I was worried about what I would wear, though. I knew I had no chance with Max, but I still didn’t want him to see me in my MARCHING WILDCATS T-shirt again. Addison had thrown down the gauntlet with her boob-baring blouse last Friday. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

As the debutante ball approached, Addison had more meetings to attend after school. Lately my mom picked me up. I could ask her to take me to my favorite vintage clothing store, which I hadn’t visited since I’d started losing weight. She didn’t understand why I wanted to wear used clothes, but she didn’t want to argue with me about it either. She would sit in the car and wait for me, as usual.

As I made this plan, I felt a pang of loneliness. I wished I had a girlfriend to go shopping with. I longed for last year when Addison had been available to shop with me. But as the majorette line turned left for a high toss and I watched her drop her baton, I realized I didn’t miss her. She would turn up her nose at every top I picked out. I wished for company, but she was not the one that I wanted.

The majorette line faced right for another high toss, which Delilah caught expertly. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew her grin was confident while the stadium was almost empty. We saw each other every school day, but I hadn’t checked in with her lately about our first performance next week and her battle against stage fright. I would have loved to ask her to take me shopping that afternoon. We would get a chance to talk one-on-one. I couldn’t suggest it, though, because Addison would get jealous and act pissed off.

With one more turn to the left, gazing at Addison’s back, I decided I was not going to let her petty jealousies control me. As I’d told her at majorette tryouts, I could have more than one friend. On the way out of band practice, I would ask Delilah to go shopping with me.

My girlfriend life was going to get as complicated as my boyfriend life.

So be it.

“None of that is going to fit you,” Delilah advised me as I pushed through the curtain, into the fitting room, with an armload of clothes.

I had my doubts too. When we’d first arrived, the sales chicks had gawked and squealed over me because I looked so different. They had always set aside cool pieces for me in bigger sizes, but this time they’d warned me these would be too big for me. They’d said the store was full of clothes that would fit me better.

Obediently I’d browsed the regular racks and found the coolest pink bowling shirt with the name GLADYS embroidered in cursive on the pocket—exactly the top I’d been hoping to find. Max would laugh out loud when he saw it. It looked tiny, though. I’d put it back.