THE RULES ARE: YOUR HOUSE is a safe zone. School is a safe zone, but not the parking lot. Once you step out the door, it’s all fair game. You’re out if you get hit with a two-hand touch.
And if you renege on your wish, your life is forfeit. Genevieve comes up with that last part and it gives me shivers. Trevor Pike shudders and says, “Girls are scary.”
“No, girls in their family are scary,” Peter says, gesturing at Chris and Genevieve. They both smile, and in those smiles I see the family resemblance. Casting a sidelong glance at me, Peter says hopefully, “You’re not scary, though. You’re sweet, right?” Suddenly I remember something Stormy said to me. Don’t ever let him get too sure of you. Peter is very sure of me. As sure as a person could be.
“I can be scary too,” I quietly say back, and he blanches. Then, to everyone else, I say, “Let’s just have fun with it.”
“Oh, it’ll be fun,” John assures me. He puts his Orioles cap on his head and pulls the brim down. “Game on.” He catches my eye. “If you thought I was good at Model UN, wait till you see my Zero Dark Thirty skills.”
I walk with everyone out front to their cars, and I hear Peter tell Genevieve to get a ride with Chris, which they both balk at. “Figure it out amongst yourselves,” Peter says. “I’m hanging out with my girlfriend.”
Genevieve rolls her eyes and Chris groans. “Ugh. Fine.” To Genevieve she says, “Get in.”
Chris’s car is backing out of the driveway when John says to Peter, “Who’s your girlfriend?” My stomach does a dip.
“Covey.” Peter gives him a funny look. “You didn’t know? That’s weird.”
Now they’re both looking at me. Peter’s confused, but John gets it, whatever “it” is.
I should have told him. Why didn’t I tell him?
Everyone leaves soon after, except for Peter.
“So are we going to talk about this?” he asks, trailing after me into the kitchen. I’ve got the trash bag with all the ice cream wrappers and Capri Suns, and I refused his help carrying it down. Almost tripped going down the ladder with it, but I don’t care.
“Sure, let’s talk.” I spin around and advance toward him, trash bag swinging in my hand. He lifts his hands up in alarm. “Why did you bring Genevieve here?”
Peter grimaces. “Ugh, Covey, I’m sorry.”
“Were you hanging out with her? Is that why you didn’t come early to help me set up?”
He hesitates. “Yeah, I was with her. She called me crying, so I went over there, and then I couldn’t just leave her by herself… so I brought her.”
Crying? I’ve never known her to cry. Even when her cat Queen Elizabeth died, she didn’t cry. She must have been faking to get Peter to stay. “You couldn’t just leave her?”
“No,” he says. “She’s going through some shit right now. I’m just trying to be there for her. As a friend. That’s it!”
“Gosh, she really knows how to work you, Peter!”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s always like that. She pulls the strings and you just…” I dangle my arms and head like a marionette doll.
Peter frowns. “That was mean.”
“Well, I feel mean right now. So watch out.”
“You’re not mean, though. Not usually.”
“Why can’t you just tell me? You know I won’t tell anyone. I really want to understand it, Peter.”
“Because it’s not for me to say. Don’t try to make me tell you, because I can’t.”
“She’s just doing this to manipulate you. It’s what she does.” I hear the jealousy in my voice, and I hate it, I hate it. This isn’t me.
He sighs. “Nothing’s happening with us. She just needs a friend.”
“She has a lot of friends.”
“She needs an old friend.”
I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. Girls understand each other in a way boys never will. It’s how I know this is all just another one of her games. Showing up at my house today was just another way for her to exert dominance over me.
Then Peter says, “Speaking of old friends, I didn’t realize you and McClaren were so buddy-buddy.”
I flush. “I told you we were pen pals.”
Raising his eyebrows, he says, “You’re pen pals but he doesn’t know we’re together?”
“It never came up!” Wait a minute—I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at him right now, not the other way around. Somehow this whole conversation has flipped around, and now I’m the one flailing.
“So that day you went to the Model UN thing a few months ago, I asked you if you saw McClaren and you said no. But then today he brought up Model UN, and you clearly did see him there. Did you not?”
I swallow. “When did you turn into a prosecutor? Sheesh. I saw him there but we didn’t even talk; I just handed him a note—”
“A note? You gave him a note?”
“It wasn’t from me—it was from a different country, for Model UN.” Peter opens his mouth to ask another question, and I quickly add, “I just didn’t mention it because nothing came of it.”
Incredulous, he says, “So you want me to be honest with you, but you don’t want to be honest with me?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I cry out. What is even happening here? How did our fight get so big so fast?
Neither of us says anything for a moment. Then, quietly, he asks, “Do you want to break up?”
Break up? “No.” All of a sudden I feel shaky, like I could cry. “Do you?”
“No!”
“You asked me first!”
“So that’s it. Neither of us wants to break up, so we just move on.” Peter sinks down on a chair at the kitchen table and rests his head on it.
I sit across from him. He feels so far away from me. My hand is itching to reach out and touch his hair, smooth it out, to make this fight be over and in our rearview.
He lifts his head; his eyes are sad and enormous. “Can we hug now?”
Shakily I nod, and we both get up and I wrap my arms around his middle. He holds me tight against him. His voice is muffled against my shoulder as he says, “Can we never fight again?”
I laugh a shaky kind of laugh, shaky and relieved. “Yes, please.”
And then he’s kissing me; his mouth is urgent against mine, like he’s searching for some sort of reassurance, some kind of promise only I can give. In answer I kiss him back—yes, I promise, promise, promise, let’s never fight again. I start to lose my balance, and his arm locks around me tight, and he kisses me until I am breathless.
