Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [37]
Jack spun the football on the coffee table. “We thought you were just pissed off. But today at the game … Logan, you’re not doing meth, are you?” He wasn’t kidding. That was a serious question.
“No, I’m not on meth.” I was too embarrassed to pretend to be indignant. “I guess I really went nuts back there.”
Tim smiled, just a bit. “I wouldn’t go back to the game next month if I were you. Listen, Logan. We know what’s bothering you.”
I had been getting up to get some sodas, but I froze. They can’t possibly know.
“So she lied to you,” said Tim. “You’re not the only guy that’s ever happened to.”
I leaned against our entertainment center, trying to act like I wasn’t bracing myself. The trailer suddenly looked unfamiliar, like this was all some sort of post-enchilada nightmare I was having. Jack and Tim wouldn’t look at me. They knew Sage was a guy. They thought I was gay. Now I was going to have to run off and join the navy so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life living this down.
“Who told you?” I shrieked.
Tim suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Jack did. It’s not exactly a secret at school.”
I was about to cry. Everyone knew Sage was a boy. She must have told. Or they’d figured it out.
“Logan,” said Jack in a tone like someone trying to communicate with a drunk. “She’s not worth it! I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Brenda wasn’t even all that pretty.”
They aren’t talking about Sage. They think this is still about Brenda.
I managed to smile, my first real smile in over a week. “Yeah. I know. Listen, thanks for being worried. But I’m not on drugs, and I promise I’ll try to calm down. And, um, you know. Thanks.”
After Jack and Tim made their escape, I propped my feet up on the table. Sage was gone, and my problems were more in my head than anywhere else. The solution was never to think of her again. In a few months, I’d leave Boyer forever, and she’d be less than a memory.
Mom was working the lunch shift. She arrived home at about six looking like she’d spent the past ten hours slopping pigs. In a way, she had; I’d eaten at Ron’s before.
It took Mom a minute to compute that the dishes on the table weren’t just a mess I’d left for her. For my first attempt at cooking dinner, it didn’t turn out too badly: slightly burned burgers, undercooked vegetables, and rolls that didn’t look nearly as fluffy as the picture on the can.
“What’s all this?” asked my mother warily. She was torn between her joy that I’d cooked and her fear that I must have done something really bad.
I finished tossing the salad, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I’d accidentally made it with cabbage rather than lettuce. “Dinner,” I replied, and she left it at that.
We didn’t talk much as we ate, though several times I caught Mom looking at me with a mixture of relief and curiosity. I hoped this made her realize that her drug fears were unfounded. Things were finally returning to normal.
chapter fourteen
JANUARY WAS a good month. I stopped hanging out in the shed and got back to work. I earned so much money shoveling snow and doing odd jobs that I was able to pay for the repairs when the trailer’s furnace died. Mom hated to take the money, but … well, you know. I think the fact that I was working and showing responsibility again was what convinced her I didn’t have a drug problem.
As for Sage, the only time I ever saw her was in the halls. I’d look away every time. She never made an effort to talk to me, either. I’d see Tammi, too. She’d usually sneer at me, but she never said anything.
I wanted to banish Sage to the corner of my mind reserved for those I hated, along with Hitler, Bin Laden, and whoever stole my weed eater last year. But I found myself remembering her at odd times, wondering what she was doing and what she was thinking about me. Whenever I caught myself, I’d mentally replay that scene in her living room. I had to remind myself of how she had betrayed and deceived me.
Still, I couldn’t help but