knew that Taylor meant wel . She thought she was doing me a favor. Giving up her platform sandals for the night was altruistic, for Taylor. But I was stil mad.
It was just like the thing with Cory. Taylor did what she wanted to do, and she didn’t care what I thought about it. She never cared what I thought about it. It wasn’t just her fault though, because I let her.
After I brushed my teeth, I put on Taylor’s pajamas and got into bed. I was deliberating over whether or not to read a book before I went to sleep, one of the old paperbacks on my shelf, when someone knocked on my door. I pul ed the covers up to my neck and said, “Come in!”
It was Jeremiah. He closed the door behind him and sat at the foot of my bed.
“Hey,” he whispered.
I loosened the grip on my covers. It was only Jeremiah. “Hey. What’s going on? Did you talk to him?”
“Not yet. I’m gonna ease up on him tonight and try again tomorrow. I’m just trying to lay down the groundwork first, plant some seeds.” He gave me a conspiratorial look. “You know how he is.”
I did. “Okay. That sounds good.”
He held his hand out for a high five. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”
I high-fived him. “We’ve got this,” I repeated. I could hear the doubt in my voice, but Jeremiah just smiled like it was already a done deal.
chapter nineteen
JEREMIAH
When Bel y got up to go to bed, I knew she wanted me to stay and try to talk to Conrad about school. I knew it because when we were little kids, we used to practice ESP on each other. Bel y was convinced I could read her mind and she could read mine. The truth was, I could just read Bel y.
Whenever she was about to tel a lie, her left eye squinted a little. Whenever she was nervous, she sucked in her cheeks before she spoke. She was an easy read, always had been.
I looked over at Conrad. “Wanna get up early and surf tomorrow?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said.
Tomorrow I would talk to him about school and how important it was to go back. Everything would work out.
We watched some more TV, and when Conrad fel asleep on the couch, I went upstairs to my room. Down the hal , Bel y’s light was stil on. I went over and stood outside her door and knocked softly. I felt like such an idiot standing outside her doorway, knocking. When we were kids, we just ran in and out of each other’s rooms without thinking. I wished it was stil as simple as that.
“Come in,” she said.
I walked in and sat at the edge of her bed. When I realized she was already in her pajamas, I almost turned right back around and left. I had to remind myself that I’d seen her in her pajamas a mil ion times before, and what was the big deal?
But she used to always wear a big T-shirt like the rest of us, and now she was wearing some skimpy pink top with little straps. I wondered if it was
