Life by Committee (14 page)

I look right in his bloodshot, squinty eyes. I am not his charity case. I am his daughter. I don't care how much he's had to smoke today. I don't care how many awesome scuffed-up books he gets me. I don't need to take it from him. Not anymore.

“I didn't ask you to take care of me. I don't need your fake niceness. I'm all set. Trust me,” I say. And maybe leaving Tea Cozy would make more of a point, but he
wants
me to leave. So I stay.

I stomp away from Paul and grab my laptop and my coffee. I sit in one of the armchairs near the fire. I want to write about what happened with Devon, and maybe post a secret about Mrs. Drake, that I've seen her get wasted. Maybe I'll get a crazy Assignment to take down Mrs. D in some sizzling, scandalous way. I'm ready for whatever Zed and the rest of the group throw my way. Look at me: I'm on fire.

Then I see a post from Roxie.

I wait for an onslaught of judgment, but instead there is support. Love. Understanding. She's done a terrible thing, but we aren't here to make her feel worse about it. We're here to get her on some new, exciting, better path.

That's what Zed says, anyway.

And I think I agree.

I discard all the little, unimportant secrets I thought I might tell. I decide to write out a real secret instead. The kind of secret that is bigger than me and Joe and ridiculous Sasha. Bigger than Mrs. Drake. Bigger than anything Lucky15 might have said before she failed and left the group. I won't get kicked out. I won't let my secrets float around on the internet, without any point. I won't risk these brave, exciting, boundaryless people turning on me. I won't become some girl who does nothing and is nothing and lives a nothing life.

I tilt the screen down in case anyone's peeking. Paul changes the music to Metallica, and the Tea Cozy vibe shifts dramatically away from morning sleepiness and the calming sound of people turning the oversize pages of the
New York Times
. People sigh and tense up and jiggle their feet. Couples who were just sitting there splitting the paper start arguing. And Paul's king of it all, frowning
even as he serves his favorite regulars. He sings along with the chorus. He keeps looking over at me like he's expecting me to be gone. Like he's
wanting
me to be gone. Like Metallica is enough to get me to do whatever he wants.

Like I'm weak and predictable. Except I'm not. Not anymore.

I wait until he looks at me for the tenth time, and I slam my coffee mug down and raise my eyebrows, like
if you have something to say, come over and say it
. He waves his hands, like I'm a mosquito and not his daughter, and I make the
come over here
look even bigger, more obvious on my face.

He does finally come over.

“Seriously. What's the point of your guidance counselor if she's only going to make it worse?” he says. “I thought you liked her.”

I can't quite process what he's saying. “Mrs. Drake? No one likes Mrs. Drake.”

“You can't hate everyone, Tabby,” he says. “I thought she could help.”

“That was you? Telling her to talk to me?” I say. I know Jemma and Alison said something too, but Paul must have made it way worse.

“I made her coffee. She had some concerns. I told her she should chat with you. You've become some teenager
who hates everything and can't talk to anyone.” Paul rubs his eyes and then his hair and then his scraggly beard. And I know he's not doing so hot. But I also don't care.

Maybe I am the angry teenager. But maybe I have a reason to be angry. I give him a dagger-stare and a sigh so loud, it makes people turn to look at us.

“That. Is. So. Messed. Up,” I say. I think I growl a little. Paul takes a step back, then another. He throws his hands up in the air and stomps away. I'm pretty sure I hear him dropping a mug and yelping from burning his hand on something, but I don't care.

I. Don't. Care.

I bang on my keyboard.

I can't say this to anyone I actually know—I'd never want the town buzzing about Cate and Paul. I almost don't want to say it to myself. But in the anonymous world of LBC, I can say anything.

I can get solutions to problems I'm scared to admit I have. I can change the bullshit things I've accepted lately.

I can do something about Paul.

I almost don't know it's true until it's written there, until I've made it public to Agnes and Brenda and Zed and the rest of them. Whoever they are. They're mine.

After the secret is out there, I decide I can leave Tea Cozy and go to school and forget about Paul for the rest of the day. It's out of my hands.

My heart's a little fluttery, but I'm getting used to that. I'm maybe even starting to like it.

I have my afternoon free period, and the student
council is selling baked goods in the large foyer where we all hang out, off the main hallway, so there's a crowd at the table where we usually play hearts. Alison is on student council—as one of the peons, not one of the elected officials, of course. But I want a brownie so that I'll have something to do while I wait for my Assignment to come through.

“Will you get me a brownie?” I say to Elise as she's flying by to make it to math class. She gives me an in-motion hug.

“You're not scared of that girl. She's scared of you,” she says in my ear, and it helps, but it's a drive-by bit of encouragement, and I need the kind that comes from a sit-down and a mug of Cate's hot chocolate and extended eye contact. But it's enough of a boost to get me to the table.

“Brownie,” I say to Alison. Her face shifts from smile to scowl before I get to the second syllable of the word.

“Three,” she says, because I guess we are now speaking in only one-word sentences.

I'm scrounging through my pockets for the last dollar and Alison sighs and shifts in her seat.

“I've got it,” Joe says, appearing next to me. The tips of his fingers sort of grab my elbow, which isn't the height of affectionate gestures exactly, but it feels good. More than good, it's like a kiss between two other body parts, a
nonlips kiss, and I think he feels it too.

“Hey there,” I say. It doesn't sound like me—not the words, and not the tone of voice I'm using to say them.

“I owe you, remember?”

“I do seem to recall that.” We are both grinning, stupidly, and in a way that Alison definitely doesn't miss.

“You want to get something for Sasha?” she interrupts, her words jumping up between us.

“She's out today, actually.” Joe gives a huge smile that looks like it takes a lot of effort.

“I'm sure she'd love you to bring a brownie by her place after school,” Alison says. She's getting desperate.

“Oh,” Joe says, and his fingers jump away from my elbow. “Yeah. Sure. Two brownies, I guess.”

I hate that he is getting us the same thing.

“Tabby, yours is on the house,” Alison says. “Years of you hooking us up at Tea Cozy, right?” She's smiling, with her mouth only, and I'd forgotten how goddamn smart she is. The three of us could all hold our own with good grades and devouring books and witty comments, but Alison has a quiet cleverness that used to impress me.

“Right. Thanks,” I say. I try to make eye contact with Joe, but he won't turn his head in my direction, and I kind of can't believe Alison defeated us so easily. “And thanks
anyway, Joe,” I try. If I say his name, he has to look up at me, right?

And he does. I think it's a reflex, rather than a decision, but his eyes find mine while Alison gets his change, and there's that spark between us again. He shrugs, and his fingers reach for my hip bone, feathering against it so that I can feel the tiny gesture no one can see.

Then I'm all full from the sensation, and I don't care what my Assignment is, because I can do
anything
.

I go to the stall in the bathroom that is becoming my LBC stall. It has an inoffensive air freshener and less graffiti than the other stalls. It's been only a few days, but checking the site is already becoming a habit—like checking email or eating.

There's no Assignment, just Elfboy saying he wishes he had a dad who smokes weed, and Star talking about rehab programs. I guess Zed hasn't gathered enough information yet.

Roxie says:
Gutsy.

I'm not sure if she means Paul for smoking up all the time, or me for telling everyone about it.

There are updates on my conversation about Joe, since Star and Agnes both seem to love a good romance.

Someone comes in and washes her hands. I think she peers under the stall doors to see if she's sharing the bathroom with anyone, and I make a throat-clearing sound so she doesn't think she's alone and therefore smoke or have some kind of illicit phone conversation or anything. I sort of can't handle any more secrets.

Agnes's question is the kind that requires actual honest-to-goodness thought. Because with Joe I'm acting on deeply instinctual feelings, and I've never had to explain them to anyone before. Or, really, I've known not to. There's all kinds of things Joe says to me that he'd never say to anyone else. With his friends he talks about hooking up and drinking beer and maybe on occasion whether a particular class or teacher sucks. I don't think he gets a chance to say much of anything when he's with Sasha.

The hockey guys don't participate too much in Headmaster Brownser's bonding and intimacy and trust activities. They don't meditate on the lawn outside the gym or
read the assigned reading or keep up with the Gratefulness Journals that we have been forced to keep since we could write.

But Joe isn't a normal hockey guy. He has secrets. Secrets he's told me. Secrets I can tell them, to make them understand.

I picture his face. His hands and his mouth. The
ding
on my computer when he comes online. The searching way he looks into my eyes. That shining feeling that comes from really loving someone spreads in my chest, and I'm ready to speak a tiny bit of truth.

And then I'm soaring. It doesn't matter that Joe is going to bring a brownie to Sasha after school. It doesn't matter that Alison and Jemma and Elise and maybe the whole school kinda-sorta suspect something's up with us. It only matters that his fingertips feel like fireworks on my skin.

Three o'clock hits and Zed's said nothing about my secret.

When classes end, I catch sight of the red exclamation point that signifies an Assignment. My heart stops when I click on it. But it doesn't lead me to the page where I posted about my father and his smoking. It leads me back to the conversation about loving Joe.

ASSIGNMENT,
Zed's written underneath the conversation.
Still mulling over your other secret, Bitty, but where there's passion, there's usually the need for action. So a follow-up Assignment with your guy.