Faking Normal Read Online Free Page B

can’t be going out with Dane Winters and have nothing to tell.”
    Bodee lies on the other cheek. He’s facing me, but he looks asleep and uninterested. “Heather set it up,” I say to Maggie. “We’re going to the soccer game, and we’re not dating.”
    “So there’s nothing between . . .” Her eyes dart between Bodee and me.
    I give her my best Do I know what 4,678 times 7,543 is? look.
    “Good. O-kay. Awkward,” she says, drawing her own conclusion.
    Maybe there is something between Bodee and me. I just don’t know what it is.
    And it totally freaks me out.
    School happens for the next three hours without my noticing. That psych test I invented in homeroom was prophetic: pop quiz on post-traumatic stress disorder. But I pass with flying colors. Finally, my personal knowledge of stress is useful.
    The desk is my saving grace.
    There, below my neat handwriting from yesterday, is the tight script of his I’ve been waiting twenty-four hours to see.
HOLD ON TIGHT
AS I LOSE MYSELF AGAIN
    Then, a couple of spaces down, I see he’s printed today’s new lyrical challenge.
CAN YOU SEE ME ON THIS WALL?
A FAIRY TALE ABOUT TO FALL
    I feel warm all over as I grip my pencil. He got mine right, and this new one is easy. No research required.
    “I guess he’s on it,” Heather says, seeing my smile.
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “What did he leave you? Sinatra?”
    “That was last week.” I take out my phone and show her last Friday’s picture of the desk before the custodian cleaned it, pointing to a section on Old Blue Eyes. “He’s gone more folk this time.”
    Nice genre switch. I’m humming as I write.
Won’t be horses
Won’t be men
Put my soul back again
    “Maybe you two do deserve each other,” Heather says. “’Cause that’s crazy. I’ve never even heard that song.”
    “Do you think Dane can do this?” I ask.
    “Nobody can do that. At least not without the internet.”
    I’m between a lyric high and a Bodee low for the rest of the day. Dane barely registers on my radar. He doesn’t even bleep the screen until I’m in the bathroom of our local pizza place and I realize I’m not wearing the right bra for my date shirt.
    “What’s taking you so long? The boys are already at the field,” Heather says.
    Forgoing the bra is not an option. Kayla will be at the game, since Craig helps the soccer coach on nights there is no football. She’ll pitch a fit if I show up in a “Heather” outfit when I could have shopped in her closet.
    And I might need her on my side tonight at the family meeting.
    Heather pounds the stall door. “Alexi, it can’t be that bad. Let me see.”
    There’s no choice. I can’t wear a black bra under my white shirt. I’ll have to wear the polo I wore to school. Time to face Heather.
    “Not what I suggested,” she says. “But it might get chilly in that.” She points to the discarded peasant shirt.
    “Yeah, that’s what I was worried about.”
    Sometimes the lies I tell Heather aren’t little and white. They’re a dab of honey-beige foundation applied to the blemishes of my life.
    The upside of this night with Dane is that I don’t have to pay for the soccer game. The downside is his hair. He’s got all these corkscrew curls that fuzz. Most of the girls think they make him look look hot, but I can’t get serious about a dark-headed Annie guy.
    “You want a popcorn or something before we sit down?” he asks.
    I’ve never actually seen his hands out of his pockets, so I’mtempted to say yes. The guy likes to use girls to carry his books instead of a backpack. Which begs the question: since he can have any of the giggly chicks, why did he decide to go out with me?
    “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
    “Are you sure? I don’t mind paying,” Dane says.
    The offer is nice, but I shake my head. Maybe the next two hours won’t be so terrible.
    “Suit yourself,” he says.
    Then he spends twenty-four dollars on concession-stand food for himself. I carry two hot dogs