Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [52]
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you that happy,” he said.
This was so Marcus to just come over here, on a totally random night, after barely speaking to me for nine months, and just pick up where he had left off, messing with my mind.
My heart.
I couldn’t say anything because I was using all my energy to stay grounded—one hand clutching the headboard, the other clasping the quilt.
“I didn’t plan to come over here tonight. Pure impulse. I was on the way home from band practice and I saw your lights on. I stopped the car, got out and knocked on your door, talked politely to your parents. Then I walked up the stairs and opened the door and here I am.”
He paused and examined my bookshelf, which, sadly, is filled with more DVDs than actual books. Then he read the fine print of the cast and credit lines on my Sixteen Candles poster. I held on for dear life, afraid to float up, up, up and get hacked into little pieces by my ceiling fan.
He turned his attention back to me.
“Can I sit down?”
I nodded furiously, still holding on for dear life.
As he pulled out my desk chair, I did a quick once-over in the mirror. My hair was stuffed under a Williams baseball cap, a souvenir from the campus visit. My gym shorts were safety pinned at the waist. Low-riders are the thing right now, but since I’ve lost my appetite, mine have a tendency to slip beyond plumber’s crack. Thank God I was sitting down, so Marcus couldn’t see the word BOOTYLICIOUS printed across my nonexistent ass—the butt billboard was a gag gift from Hope. Worst of all, I was wearing my favorite ribbed tank top, which was practically see-through from too many machine washings. I quickly grabbed a dictionary off the floor and held it to my also-nonexistent chest, hoping it would both cover me up and weigh me down.
Marcus turned the chair around so he could straddle it instead of just sitting like a normal person. He looked at my murky, gray-over-pink painted walls—the result of Hope’s and my DIY project gone horribly wrong.
“Did you know that the color of your walls changed the world?”
I was too preoccupied by the fact that I was hovering an inch in the air above my quilt to respond.
“Mauve,” he said.
An inch and a half up. Did he notice?
“The invention of that hue in 1856 inspired the creation of new dyes which, in turn, led to numerous scientific breakthroughs.”
Two inches . . .
“Funny how something so insignificant can have such a dramatic effect on history . . .”
He let his comment hang—like me—in the air.
“That was kind of a joke,” he said.
“I got it,” I replied.
“I was harkening back to when we first started talking to each other.”
“I know.”
“And I would throw out a question.”
“I remember.”
“As a conversational construct.”
“Right.”
“To facilitate a discussion.”
“Uh-huh.”
He was going to make me ask the more pertinent question that needed asking.
“Why are you here?”
He clapped his hands together—smack!—and I came crashing back down on the bed.
“I’m here because there are two things I need to tell you. I’ve decided to tell you these things because not telling you has led to the current state of our nonrelationship, which consists of me not telling you anything anymore and vice versa.” He paused, resting his chin so it hung over the back of the chair, which was now the front. “Is this making any sense?”
“Uh . . . no?”
He ran his fingers through his rooster tufts, making them stand up at insane angles all over his head.
“I didn’t tell you that I knew a lot about you because I had eavesdropped on your conversations with Hope when I was hanging at her house with Heath. And when I told you last New Year’s Eve, it was too late in our relationship for such a confession, so you told me to fuck myself, which I did.” He raised an eyebrow. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Literally speaking, that would be quite a feat.” And he paused, no doubt imagining himself