The back door slams, and I look and see it’s Ellis.

“What do you do out here all the time?”

“Just watch the sky, I guess. Think. Dream.”

“Can I talk to you? About stuff?” she asks.

“Sure.”

“Why doesn’t Mom come to my hockey games? Or go anywhere, really?”

I think about this. “She goes out with you all the time on your Mommy and Me trips, right?”

She’s silent. Probably wasn’t a good time to say that. But I really don’t want to talk to perfect Ellis. She should be happy in her bubble. And let me be happy out here on my picnic table.

“Mom says you lie here because it’s what you do to feel normal.”

“What’s normal?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Moms who watch their kids play hockey, for one thing.” She frowns in thought. “And I don’t think you’re that abnormal,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“So? What do you do when you lie here?”

I sigh. “Nothing really. Just watch the sky, like I said.”

“Huh,” she says. She looks at the sky for a minute and then goes back inside.

23

JEFF THE LEG JIGGLER TALKS, TOO.

MONDAY MORNING SUCKS. I mean that specifically—not a general comment about how all Monday mornings suck. I’ve always been a fan of Mondays because Mondays get me out of the house and away from Claire. Claire-who-is-beginning-to-make-me-paranoid now that Ellis told me she talks to Jeff’s mom.

The minute I see him, I ask Jeff what movie he told his mom he saw.

“She didn’t ask,” he says.

“Well, I told my mom your car broke down.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I panicked.”

“But my car didn’t break down,” he says.

“Yeah. I know. But if your mom talks to my mom, she might say something about it, and I wanted you to be prepared.”

“Okay,” he says. He has a goofy look on his face—mixed with annoyance. Thank God. Maybe he wants out of this as much as I do.

“I had a lot of fun on Saturday night,” he says. “Are we on again for next weekend? Midnight movies? For real this time?”

“Can’t do it. Next weekend is out for me.” A sad smile forms across his lips. I feel instantly guilty. “But maybe the weekend after that?”

He smiles. Why do I do this to him?

It’s been two weeks since I dropped trig, and I’m still aware of it every minute of fourth-period study hall in the auditorium. I stare into space and picture those poor students still stuck up there in room 230, learning about triangles. I think about the theorems and the equations I will never have to do. I think about the way Mr. Trig’s ass looked in those plaid suit pants—how flat it was. How I used to picture it as some sort of foam insulation sprayed atop his blocky pelvis.

Seriously. I think of all those things. And I smile and smile and smile.

“You thinking about your boyfriend?” Stacy Koch asks.

“What?”

“I said are you thinking about your boyfriend? You look all happy and shit.”

Stacy has never talked to me before, so I have no idea what to say. She and her twin sister, Karen, are grinning at me. They are cheerleader types. Not real cheerleaders, but close. I think Karen might twirl a baton.

“Oh. No. I was, uh—” I can’t tell her I was thinking of Mr. Trig’s ass in plaid suit pants. “Yeah. I was. Can’t help it.”

“He’s a catch,” she says. “Isn’t he, Karen?”

Karen leans forward and nods. Stacy adds, “He’s like a little brother to us.”

Before lunch, I hear two interesting tidbits.

Astrid Jones is a prude. Jeff Garnet says she doesn’t even kiss yet.

I hear one of the Koch twins has it bad for him, too.

Life was so much easier being an honest nerd who didn’t do anything.

On Tuesday I realize I am a horrible person. I am a horrible person for doing this to Jeff Garnet. And to whichever Koch twin is in love with him. I should set him free.

But I don’t.

I tell Kristina at lunch about how Ellis saw Jeff walking around Unity Valley on Saturday night, and she says, “So?”

“So didn’t you make him promise not to blow the cover? Why are we using him if he’s just going to mess everything up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it was your plan,” I say.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, dude. You are the master of your own destiny and all that,” she says. She’s a little cold or something. I can’t put my finger on it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what you learn in humanities?”

I think about what Frank S. would say. But I say nothing.

It’s Friday. I’m reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave during lunch.

This week kinda sucked all the way through. From hearing rumors about prude Astrid Jones and being the only reader who showed up for lit mag on Wednesday and doing all the work myself to having to take a European history test yesterday that I forgot to study for. Plus, Kristina is still acting weird. So, now is not really the time for me to see Jeff Garnet.

He sits across from me the minute I’m done with my Caesar salad. I made it four whole days avoiding him—taking different staircases, using different hallways, only going to my locker during lav breaks.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks.

“No, why?” I ask, completely nonchalant, as if I wasn’t hiding in the girls’ room two periods ago, waiting for him to pass by.

They say: I don’t know why she’s stringing him along. Maybe it’s a pity thing, like Tim Huber.

“Astrid?”

“What?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“No. Sorry. I was spacing out. What did you say?”

“Stacy told me that she heard you were avoiding me.”

“Huh.” I shrug. “Well, she’s wrong. I’m not avoiding anyone,” I say.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Uh. Still not free this weekend?”

“Nah. I gotta do some family stuff. Bleh, you know?”

“Sure. So, how about you, uh—you know—just, uh—” he says as he awkwardly half stands so he can lean across the table to kiss me. As he’s doing this, I pretend I don’t see it, and I turn to my stack of books, pick them up and walk out of the cafeteria.