It's breakfast time, 8:15 a.m., and the culprit, AKA Martin, didn't show up. According to Aunt Sugar, he spent the night at some dude's house; someone from the soccer team, but I can smell that kind of bullshit from miles away. Which just proves that, yes, he talked to Vee despite all my pleading.
Speaking of Vee, we exchanged no further messages last night; a sure sign she's pissed. I'm in for some decent trouble now; of that I'm certain.
"No point in letting it bother you now, Little John," Alex says quietly as he sips his coffee.
"You can say that again."
"It had to happen eventually, John."
"I know, I know..." I take a sip from my milk, but my stomach is tied up in knots. "I just wasn't ready for this yet."
"Would you ever be?"
"Well, no." I push my plate of toast towards Alex, and he digs in.
While he chews, he looks thoughtful. "Did you consider she might want to talk about some other important thing?"
"There's no chance of it," I say, and then I explain all the empiric evidence to him as I force down the remains in my cup.
"Well, you never know, right?"
And that's so true; I never know a damn thing. The one thing I DO know, though, is that if I manage to show up before her mother goes to work, it might make the first blow a little bit softer. That's why I'm out of the house after brushing my teeth, hoping for some miracle, even though previous experience suggests miracles don't really happen, so I'm not exactly holding my breath.
At 8:40, I'm lifting my hand to ring the bell on Vee's front door. But I don't want to. Knowing what's waiting for me inside is making me queasy. I fight the urge to run away: something the 'old' John would have done. But I stay on the doorstep, even though I have no strength left to ring the damned bell. And then, to my surprise, the door swings open; both Candace and I surprise each other.
"Oh, John!" she says, clearly happy to see me. "I was just about to leave for college."
"Good morning, Candace."
She looks over her shoulder. "Ronnie, John's here!"
I hear Vee's voice from another room. "Let him in."
And so, she does, but not before holding my face in her hands and placing a noisy smooch upon my cheek. Then she's out of the house, and my plan to cushion the first blow disappears with her. There's no sign of Eliza around, so I'm willing to bet she's gone already.
Vee's focused on the TV, playing Zombie League, but she still manages to play one-handed and pats the sofa beside her, inviting me to join her. I grab the second controller from the coffee table, and we play in absolute silence for a little while. After clearing the first stage, she offers me Fruit Loops from her bowl, but there still hasn't been a word spoken between us. I pick a few crunchy loops from her bowl and munch carefully, but the crunching sound seems louder than the game for some reason.
It's an excruciating wait; I don't know what to expect from her right now, or what kind of storm is brewing within this cereal-infused cloud.
Finally, after beating stage three, Veronica's crystal voice fills the room above the fanfare. "Just so you know, I'm not angry with you"
Wait, what? "Um? You aren't?"
"I should be, but I understand why you kept everything from me."
I stare at the TV screen because I can't manage to face her, even though I know she wants some serious eye contact.
My face flushes with shame. "I didn't mean to keep it a secret from you forever."
"I would have found out eventually, right?"
"Right." But somehow, Vee being OK with this, makes me feel even worse. Because I didn't do the right thing. I feel guilty, sad, and angry at myself for not trusting my wonderful girlfriend to be able to handle this from the get-go. She's the strong one; not me. "I should have told you myself," I say sheepishly.
"Shhh... I don't want you to beat yourself up about it, John." She leans on my shoulder, and I lean back against her. "It's not your fault."
But that would depend. The whole moving thing might not be my choice, but my reaction and subsequent behavior, was definitely my fault. "So, I guess it was Martin who told you?"
"Yes. He sent me a message last night and we went for a little walk. And that's when it happened." She throws a fruit loop into the air and attempts to catch it in her mouth, but misses, hitting her forehead instead. She laughs for a little while and, I can't help myself; I chuckle along with her.
This is all sorts of weird. This isn't what I expected at all. I expected her to be angry, frustrated, sad... Yet she's chill, the way I pretended to be all week now.
"I'm so sorry, Vee."
"Would you stop that already?" She cups my face in her hands and forces me to look at her, giving me a slightly amused smile. "It's all good. We're all good. Understood?"
I study her grey eyes, the dark rims of her irises. There's no hesitation there. Not even a trace. Then her warm lips are on mine.
"It's going to be fine, John. You're going to have fun at that camp with your cousins. Just make sure you don't do anything stupid while you're there."
Wait. WHAT? Camp? With my cousins. Sure, that makes sense. I mean, right! It's a road trip with my cousins! Tents, barbeques, biting insects. Nature.
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!
"Promise?" Vee says, her head cocked to one side.
"Yeah, uh... Sure thing!"
Electric jolts shoot from my brain and travel throughout my body, urging me to get an actual grip on the situation already and start functioning like a real human being instead of an unmoving rock. But instead, I say, "Well, Alex is going to be there, so he won't let us do any crazy shit." Because whatever Martin said to Veronica last night also included Alex, right? BOOM! I'm back to square one, back to pretending, and back to lying. Back to feeling like an even bigger piece of shit.
And then, out of nowhere, the lips I don't really deserve are kissing me again, washing away my doubts, my lies, my guilt and even my need to piece together Martin's lie.
After a while of Vee kicking my butt again on Zombie League, eating dry cereal, and making out, we get to school just in time to receive our final history grades, which are no big surprise.
There's still one thing bothering me, though, and for once, it doesn't have anything to do with Veronica.
It's about Martin.
He's skipped classes yet again.
In fact, he's completely MIA.