Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

034. The Biggest Mistake

034. The Biggest Mistake

At Aquino High, the truth comes from the most unexpected places.

Liam is back in school the next day, and to the average person he seems like he's 100% better.  He sits in Physics next to me, his laptop lid open so that he's watching hockey videos while half-paying attention to Mr. Shapiro's lecture.  He smiles and laughs when he's supposed to, and the only souvenir from his trip to the hospital are the sunken in parts underneath his eyes.

I watch him more carefully, though.  I see that the bright sparkle in his eyes is duller than usual, that he takes a little longer to react to a joke and doesn't talk quite as loudly.  When Mr. Shapiro ends the lecture and lets us loose to work on our homework in pairs, he shuts his laptop lid without a word of protest.

"Feeling better?" I ask him tentatively—the first time I've brought up the incident since I saw him last.

He shrugs easily, a casual rise and fall of his broad shoulders.  "I guess," he says.  "Honestly I'm sort of pissed.  My parents are trying to make me stay home Friday night."

I lower my voice in case Mr. Shapiro's hearing is as good as it seems.  "I thought your parents didn't care that you drink."

"They don't until it's a 'problem for my health.'"  He makes air quotes, rolling his eyes.  "It's stupid.  You're right—they've never cared before.  Why now?"

I don't have a response to this, so I just open my textbook to the problem set we're supposed to be working on.  It occurs to me that Liam and I have an unlikely friendship—he does everything I don't, and to be honest his carefree attitude about alcohol bothers me most days.  But I can't deny that he's a good person deep down, and he's one of the only people who's stayed beside me throughout everything.  

Liam taps his pencil against the back of my hand, getting my attention.  "Check out problem twelve," he says.  "I'm totally doing this next time I want to impress a girl."

I drop my gaze to our physics textbook and scans the problem, which asks us to find an angle so that a driver turning a car can slide a "romantic interest" closer to him in the backseat.  Scoffing, I say, "That seems like a lot of work just to impress a girl."

"I'm so smooth I make it seem like no work at all."

"Yeah, just bring a calculator and pencil on your date and spend five minutes figuring out the angle and radius of the curve first," I say, pulling out my own calculator.

He runs a hand through his hair, clearly contemplating.  "I guess you're right," he says thoughtfully.  "It does seem a little extra.  By that point I'm usually in their pants."

Pressing my fingers against my temples, I say, "Liam Alvarado, sometimes you are the most inappropriate person I know."

"But that's why you love me."  When I don't reply, he nudges me with his shoulder and presses, "Right?  You're Miss Goody Two Shoes and you like having a friend who's on the wild side, right?  Tell me I'm right."

"If you want to be right, then sure."

He does a little happy dance in his chair, but then seems to think of something and abruptly changes the topic.  "Why weren't you at dinner last night?" he asks.  "Everyone except Cassidy was there.  We missed you."

I bite down hard on my lip, as if it's an excuse for me not to say anything.  There were several reasons I chose not to go out with my friends last night.  The first was that I didn't want to deal with stress: seeing Brynn and trying to keep her secret while simultaneously wondering which of my friends was betraying me.  And while I wasn't twirling spaghetti around my fork at an Italian restaurant, I was cozied back in Taylor's living room with a carton of Chinese takeout, a blanket pulled up to my chin as he kissed me between bites and made me forget about all my problems.