Free Something Real by Heather Demetrios Page A

the book.
    “What part are you at?”
    He flicks his hair out of his eyes (want want want him) and says, “I might spoil it for you—where are you at?”
    “The first time Winston and Julia go to the apartment.”
    “Kills me.”
    “Right? It’s like you just know it’s not going to end well. I mean it can’t, but I love how for a little while, they just don’t care,” I say.
    “Have you read it before?”
    I shake my head, and he pulls a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum out of his front pocket.
    “Man, are you in for it, then,” he says.
    “That bad, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    He offers me a piece. As I reach for it, our fingertips brush against each other, like two dogs touching noses. It’s only for the span of a heartbeat, but my blood instantly turns fizzy. I stick the gum in my mouth and busy my hands with folding and refolding the wrapper.
    We’re silent for a minute, but it’s a good silence. I can hear Tessa and Mer murmuring at the back of the store, no doubt theorizing on what our body language suggests about the potential for coupledom. I gasp when Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host” comes on.
    Patrick nods his head to those first shivery opening chords: a slow, melancholy dance between bass and guitar. “It’s a good one, huh?”
    “It’s been in my head all day—this is so weird.” The first line is I want to, I want to be someone else or I’ll explode. So, yeah. In my head all day. “It’s one of those songs that make me stop whatever I’m doing and just…”
    “Yeah. Yeah.”
    So we listen for a while, me leaning against the counter, Patrick lightly tapping its surface in time to the music with his finger. Thom Yorke’s wild, crazy, beautiful voice serenades us, and I think, Not bad, Chloe. Not bad at all .
    “Chloe.”
    “Hmm?”
    “Yesterday in class … I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but … are you okay?”
    I think the noise I make is a nervous laugh, but I’m worried it might sound more like a bray. Then I start talking, because I have to answer, right? And it’s like I’m on speed, each word rear-ending the next in its haste to spew out of my mouth because I want to skip over the me in this and just be a normal girl talking with this boy who gets under her skin in the best kind of way, but it’s unavoidable, what I did, and I wish I could go back and undo it, but I can’t. And so that’s why Patrick Sheldon will never, ever be my boyfriend and I hate, just completely hate, my life. I want to be someone else or I’ll explode.
    I say, “So stupid, huh? I had to get out of there, and it seemed like a dramatic way to, uh, ditch. I was thinking about that dumb yearbook picture Jason took and was sort of like, agh ! And then Schwartz was waiting for an answer, and I thought, Hey, what the hell—it’s true, isn’t it?”
    “What?” he asks, eyebrows drawing together, so so cute.
    “That it would feel like shit. To be on camera all the time.”
    “Oh. Yeah. Definitely.”
    Shut up, Chloe aka Bonnie™, shut up. But I can’t. I have to fill the dead air between us, because the silence is dangerous now.
    “I mean, hypothetically true,” I say. “Obviously I don’t know know, I just—”
    “Chlo, ready for some lunch?”
    Saved.
    I turn around and flash Tessa a grateful smile. “I’m starving. You got what you needed for your, er—”
    I can’t remember the excuse she gave and, apparently, neither can she. Her eyes widen, and my stomach jumps into my chest. There’s a scary five seconds in which I’m certain Patrick’s going to be all, Oh. She likes me. Poor girl . But Mer saves us.
    “Sheldon. My house—tonight—eight P.M. My parents are out of town, ergo party . Are you free?”
    My heart starts beating a say yes, say yes , but I know that even if he comes, I’ll probably get nervous and avoid him. What’s the point when in a few weeks’ time, everyone will know what a freak I am?
    He looks over at me. “Are