Free The New Guy by Amy Spalding

normally accompanies my realization that I might have been wrong about something, I still feel like me.

    We work together again at Stray Rescue on Wednesday. After, we hit Donut Friend; and after that, we walk along York past the clusters of shops and restaurants.
    “My mom wants to have you over for dinner,” Alex tells me. “She just says we have to unpack more first.”
    “I don’t mind if you aren’t unpacked,” I say.
    “Mom does,” he says. “Warning, if it’s not obvious: My parents aren’t as cool as yours. Dad teaches some advanced mathematics thing I don’t even understand, and Mom teaches kindergarten.”
    “I’m sure they’re fine,” I say. “And you saw mine at their very coolest.”
    “I guess I feel like mine are still…” He takes a pause. “Trying to make stuff up to me.”
    I turn to look at him. “What stuff?”
    “The whole Chaos 4 All thing…” He shrugs. “It was a weird life.”
    “Everyone loved you.” I try to say it with a smile he can hear. “The world did.”
    “Our music,” he says. “Our one song, which we didn’t even write. Not so many people cared about the next one, and by the third single… Most people don’t notice that the world isn’t revolving around them, but once it feels like it does, it’s hard to go back. And there was other stuff, which I don’t even want to talk about.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    “I’m fine now,” he says. “But then it was hard, I guess. No one tells you how to suddenly
not
be famous.”
    “No one tells you how to be famous either,” I say, and he laughs.
    “Nah, people are
hired
to teach you how to be famous. Media training, publicists, all of that. I was good at it. I could teach you how to be famous if I wanted.”
    “If
you
wanted?”
    He turns and kisses me. “If
you
wanted. But I wouldn’t do that because it’s bullshit and fake, and it’s all behind me now. Also, you’d be bad at it.”
    “What?”
    “We’d have to call in the best media-training team in the world,” he says. “Your face shows
everything
. You couldn’t smile at a dumb entertainment journalist. You made, like, seven different weird faces just in the last thirty seconds.”
    “Sometimes I feel like my face just does its own thing,” I say.
    “It’s cute,” he says. “Don’t gain control of your face. I’d miss all your weird looks.”
    We’ve made the full loop around and are back at my car. “I should probably go home,” I say. “There’s so much calculus.”
    “Sounds scary,” he says with a grin. “You should go conquer calculus.”
    I take Alex home and—after losing plenty of time kissing while parked down the street from his house—head home. Mom’s almost finished making dinner, and even Darcy’shome before me, and I wait for a lecture on how late I am as they carry the salad, sole, and quinoa to the table. But it’s just a normal dinner.
    After we eat, I stack my textbooks on the kitchen table and realize I have more homework than usual, and I should have started hours ago. I feel guilty for ignoring it for the extra time I spent with Alex, and then I feel guilty for regretting any moment with him, and then I’m back to feeling like an underachiever, and it just keeps circling.
    “Do one thing at a time,” Darcy tells me gently after I’ve shooed them off again and again. “It’s not even that late, kiddo. You’ll be fine.”
    “Why aren’t you disappointed in me?” I ask while flipping through my economics textbook. “I’m throwing away my academic career for a boy.”
    “You lost your afternoon because you were spending time with someone you like,” she says. “It isn’t a crime.”
    “Brain food,” Mom says, bringing me an orange she’s already peeled and segmented for me. I don’t think oranges are considered brain food by any experts, but the gesture is so nice I just thank her.
    “I don’t understand why I’m not in trouble,” I say. “I’m not responsible.”
    I