Rachel

My heart was pounding frantically in my chest the entire time Tobias was in my bedroom. I knew Marco could hear every word we were saying, every time we moved on my bed. As soon as Tobias seemed convinced that there was nothing strange going on, I moved him out the door as quickly as possible.

We didn't talk much as we walked down the street holding hands. Tobias and I have always been kind of quiet like that—we can usually tell what the other person is thinking without having to say too much. I hoped he couldn't tell what I was thinking about today, because it all revolved around Marco and what had just happened in my bedroom.

How had I become the girl with my boyfriend on top of my bed, and the guy I was cheating on him with hiding under it?

When I was talking with Marco in my room, I decided that we had to stop. I had to end the entire thing. I even told this to Marco. But for some reason, my decision only lasted about 30 seconds before we were kissing on my floor.

Kissing Marco is so different from kissing Tobias. With Tobias, everything is so slow and caring, and I feel how much he loves me and needs me. But with Marco, things are harder, more desperate, more passionate, and I can feel how much he wants me.

Tobias squeezed my hand and I smiled at him. This was it. This was how it was supposed to be. I had known it all along, but I had just been confused for a minute. Obviously I was just missing some passion between me and Tobias. I had known this for a while—it had led to the purchasing of the now infamous leather outfit, in fact. But the solution was definitely not to fool around on the side with Marco of all people.

So that was that.

"You look upset," Tobias said.

I tried to smile more convincingly. "No," I said. "I was just thinking about school. I have a lot of homework that I should be doing."

"Sorry," Tobias said. He let go of my hand so he could wrap his arm around my waist and pull me closer to him. "Let's go back to your house. I'll let you finish your homework."

We walked back to my house and up to my bedroom. Tobias kissed me good bye, and when we kissed he did this thing I love where he puts his hands on my neck underneath my hair and rubs my neck gently. I started to melt and tried to make the kiss deeper, but Tobias pulled away.

"Do your homework," he smiled at me. "I'll come see you again tomorrow."

When Tobias left, I dragged out the trig homework I had and started plowing through it. Sometimes I actually like math homework. It can be tedious and sometimes confusing, but there is an undeniable satisfaction to working through a tough problem, and then checking the back of the book and discovering you found the right answer. Math is comforting in its logic and certainty. There are rules that cannot be broken or even bent.

After about half an hour of trig and twenty minutes spent typing an absolute travesty of a summary on the chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird that I had read for English, my mom knocked on my bedroom door and interrupted me in the middle of my work on the baby log that was supposed to be Marco's job (but that I didn't really believe that he would do right).

"Yeah?" I called through my still-closed door.

My mom came in. "Rachel, I got a call from your school saying that you ditched your last two periods."

"Oh." My mom had, I assumed, been getting regular calls like this from the school for the last three years. I had no idea why she was choosing today to crack down on her parenting skills.

My mom sat down on my bed, right where Tobias had been sitting two hours ago. "Did you skip school to hang out with that boy?"

"What boy?" I asked.

"Rachel, cut the bullshit," My mom said. Sometimes it sucks to have a lawyer for a mother. Playing dumb never works. "You know exactly who I am talking about. Your cousin Jake's friend. You may remember that he was responsible for giving you a bloody nose only yesterday."

"Right. Him. No, Mom, I did not skip school to hang out with Marco. They guy who gave me a bloody nose yesterday."

My mother folded her arms across her chest. "Then where were you?"

There was only one answer. "I was at the mall. They were having a sale at Forever 21."

My mom looked around my bedroom. "I don't see any shopping bags."

"I already put everything away. Can we please skip the cross examination?"

My mom stood up, walked over to me, and put one of her hands on my shoulder. "Rachel, I'm just worried about you."

I turned back to the baby log. "You don't need to be."

"Your first therapy session is after school tomorrow."

"I know, Mom."

My mom started walking out of my room, but she stopped at the door and turned to look back at me. "I know we don't get to spend a lot of time together. But I hope you know that you can talk to me if you need to."

"I thought that's what the therapist was for."

My mom left. I tried to shrug it off, but I felt bad. She was worried about me. Unfortunately, I could never explain to her what was going on—with me, with my love life, with my epic battle against aliens. Sarcastic comments were easier than trying to confide without giving away any of my secrets.

My phone rang, making me realize that I had been staring at my computer screen for fifteen minutes thinking about everything. I answered it quickly. "Hello?"

"Rachel?" It was Marco.

"Yeah, this is Rachel," I said. I had been hoping he wouldn't call me and that we could just leave it at what I had said earlier. And that we could forget about the part where, immediately after telling him that I wasn't interested, I had started kissing him again.

"I just wanted to know how Mildred is doing," Marco said. "You know, I really think that she is starting to grow on me. I might even miss her when she is gone. Only four very long days from now."

"Look, Marco, I want to clear something up. I meant what I said earlier. I am with Tobias. You and I are just stuck doing this Baby Think-It-Through project together, and that's it." I fiddled with the pencil I had used to do my math homework. Did I sound firm enough? Or was I being too mean? I squared my shoulders. I should be meaner. That would make things easier. "I messed up. I don't know what the hell was wrong with me."

Marco was silent.

"I don't want you hitting on me or making any of your comments anymore," I continued. "It's embarrassing. Everyone notices. I need you to leave me alone."

Marco finally spoke. "I called to ask about the baby log. I want to get started on it, but I needed some information from you."

I couldn't read his voice at all. He sounded like regular Marco. Had I hurt him? Did I care? I needed to avoid hurting Tobias, and if I had to hurt Marco to avoid that….then that was how it had to be.

"Yeah, I already got started on that," I said. "I can email it to you so you can work on it."

"Don't bother, my internet is out right now," Marco sighed. "Never mind, I can just do it tomorrow."

I spun my desk chair around. "No, I can bring it to you right now. I have it on a flash drive."

"Don't worry about it, I can get it tomorrow—"

I was already out of my desk chair and slipping into my ballet flats. "Let me bring it over. I really need a walk. I'll be there in 10 minutes."

I hung up the phone and ran down the stairs and out the front door. I yelled over my shoulder to my sister Jordan that I was running to our cousin Jake's house to work on a project for school and I would be back soon.

It had just started to get dark and the air had just the right amount of coolness in it. I walked fast, because I knew that if I slowed down and thought about what I was doing, it would sink in that it was not a good idea for me to be going to Marco's house. I had the flash drive in my hand, but it was a flimsy excuse at best. I was going to Marco for a different reason, although I wasn't totally sure if I wanted to kiss him or beat the crap out of him.

I stopped when I got to his front door. On a scale of 1 to 10, how unhappy would his dad and stepmom be to see me on their doorstep? Screw it. I rang the doorbell.

"I got it!" I heard Marco yelling through the door. He flung it open. "Dad, Jake's here, and we're going for a walk!" Marco yelled as he shut the door behind him, grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me off his porch. He continued dragging me at a fast pace until we were several houses away. Obviously Marco thought they would be pretty close to a 10 on the unhappiness scale.

"Here's the flash drive," I shoved my excuse into his hand. He put it into his pocket and we continued walking in silence.

"You know," I said after we had been walking for a few minutes. "I don't even like you."

"You walked all the way to my house just to tell me that?"

Evidently. "Yeah. I wanted to make it clear."

Marco shoved his hands into his pockets. "Well, then that really sucks for me. Because I happen to like you a lot. And if you don't even like me, then you're being a real asshole by messing around with me."

Angry Marco was much better than Hurt Marco. "I know. I was curious, and now…now I am not curious anymore. I was just messing around. I didn't realize that you would take it so seriously."

Marco grabbed my arm. "Look, Rachel, if you are doing this out of some twisted effort to make things easier for me, you can cut it out. If you want to pick Tobias, just tell me. I can handle it. I can understand."

I stepped in front of Marco so that I was looking him in the eyes. "Marco, get it into your tiny little brain. I am not interested in you. We kissed a couple of times, and it was kind of fun—and I will deny that under oath, so don't bother repeating it to anyone—but that's it. I'm not picking Tobias, because there was never any contest."

Marco nodded. "Yeah. Okay," he said. He turned away from me. "I'm going to go home now."

As I watched him walk away from me, I realized that I had no idea whether I had been lying or not.