Free Of All the Stupid Things by Alexandra Diaz

more than ever. I take a deep breath. It shouldn’t be any different than talking to Tara and Whitney Blaire, except he would know what guys think.
“Okay, say there’s this girl,” I start, but I say it more to the cookies than David. “And she calls you a couple times. But you don’t call her back. Why not?”
“You’re asking why I wouldn’t call a girl back?” He lifts up a glass to see if it’s clean. “Oh, I get it. You want to know why some guy hasn’t returned your call.”
“No, not me,” I correct quickly. “It’s purely a hypothetical question, for a friend. Why don’t guys call girls back?”
“I don’t know. Is she pretty?”
“Normal, I guess.”
“Maybe he lost the number.”
“I leave it every time I call, and sometimes say it twice.”
David looks at me with his eyebrows raised. “How many times have you called?”
“A couple times.” I can feel David still staring at me. I fumble with the cookie bag. “Okay, I’ve called nine times, but I’ve only left three or four messages. And the last time I called him at work, but he didn’t come to the phone even though I didn’t say who I was.”
David shakes his head. “Pink, you’ve got to give the boy a break. You’re scaring him away.”
I think about Nash, the smartest person I know, being scared of a girl calling him. “Would getting lots of calls from a girl scare you?”
“If it was Whitney, first I’d be psyched out of my mind, then I would think that someone was playing a sick joke. If it was anyone else, especially someone I didn’t like, then yeah, I think I’d be a bit weirded out, thinking that she was obsessed and desperate.”
I let that sink in. I know I come across as a bit obsessive (but really it’s just me being genuinely concerned), and when I don’t hear back from people, I always imagine the worst. I don’t want to be this genuinely concerned, but it’s very easy to imagine people dead. Especially since people die all the time.
But desperate? I’m desperate to know why he’s not calling, but I’m not desperate for him, am I? Is that what Nash thinks of me? Some desperate high schooler who thinks getting winked at and kissed in parking lots means something? Or maybe he thinks that I’ll think he’s desperate if he calls back quickly? Is that why it’s taking him so long?
“Stupid.” I rearrange the cookies when I realize there are more vanilla ones than chocolate. Now the pattern goes chocolate, vanilla, vanilla, chocolate. “I think if you like someone and want to talk to him, you should. Why wait for a later time when some unwritten law says it’s okay to call? I mean, the other person should be flattered that you were thinking about him and that you didn’t want to wait another moment to talk to him.”
David finishes setting up the cups and leans against the table. “Who’s this guy anyway? Maybe I’ve heard something or can ask around.”
“Uh.” I slip a broken cookie into my mouth. “I don’t want to say.”
“You’re not like Whitney with this weird denial thing for Brent, are you?”
I almost choke on the cookie. “Eww, go—gosh no! Gross.”
“All right then, just making sure. So who is it?” he insists as he helps himself to a cookie from the plate. I replace the one he took so that the pattern isn’t broken.
“No really, I can’t.”
“It’s Nash, isn’t it?”
I don’t answer and I know that tells David everything.
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why Nash? Is it because he’s older?”
“No, of course not,” I answer quickly. But then I realize that I’m not fooling either one of us. “Okay, maybe a little, but it’s mostly because he’s so amazing. He’s really smart and knows so many things. He’s funny, he gives great hugs.” And his kisses are out of this world, but David doesn’t need to know that.
David shakes his head like he doesn’t believe me. Or doesn’t want to. “You can do better. Nash is a phony.”
“He is not!” I say, and