Me & My Invisible Guy (27 page)

He sang.

“I have been to California,

I’ve flown across the sea.

I’ve watched the sun rise up on the shore,

and seen the mountains majesty.

I’ve seen more beauty in this land

than I ever wished to see;

but sitting right here next to you,

well, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.

Because inside all that beauty

Is a treasure deep inside.

Its worth is measured in smiles,

And I want it to be mine.”

The music stopped and I stared at him, allowing a tear to drip down my face. He reached over and wiped it away.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

I caught his hand as he brought it back down. I shook my head, feeling like I must be dreaming the moment. But the sun felt warm on my skin, and his hand was strong in mine. And I could almost still hear the music in the air. He squeezed and leaned forward.

“My secret is—I think I’m in love with you, Mallory Dane.”

My heart swelled, and I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. He leaned forward and kissed me. Soft and sweet.

When it was over—too soon—he smiled at me and shook his head. “I have a theory about you.”

“You do?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows who you are. Except
maybe Tess. She might know. But everything else. I think it’s all just decoration hiding the real you. I can see it in your eyes.”

How could he see something like that? When I looked in the mirror, I just saw Mallory the cheerleader, the daughter, the friend. Nothing more. Just me.

“What do you see?”

“I see a girl who wants to be free.”

I did want to be free. Of Todd. Of the lies. “I don’t understand. I am free. Now.”

“You see my dreams easily enough,” Liam said. “What about your dreams?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You must love something besides cheerleading.” Liam kept strumming the guitar now and then. “Your dad showed me that photograph you took. The one in your living room? Pretty amazing.”

“I guess everything has been so wrapped up with Darby, I stopped thinking about it.”

“I can see that. But maybe now it’s your time to find out. Brian says Darby is doing great and that her faith is strong. Don’t worry. Brian’s a good guy.”

“I hope so. ’Cause if he hurts her, I’m coming after him.”

Liam laughed.

“But you’re right about Darby. She’s more… alive… than I’ve ever seen her.”

“I’ll tell you another secret. Brian told me a long time ago that he wasn’t going to date anyone until after he finished medical school. He wanted to stay completely focused. Then he met Darby and realized that God had other plans for him.”

“You really believe God has plans for everyone?”

“Absolutely. That’s why I think you should find your dreams.”

“So, do you think God plans for you to be in the military? Is that the dream he put inside you?”

Liam looked like a balloon that had been popped. He stopped strumming and grew very still.

“No,” he whispered. “No, it’s not.” He set down the guitar and put his face in his hands. “I’ve just been too scared to admit it. To him.”

“How will he take it?”

Liam just shook his head. “It won’t be pretty.”

We made plans to go out that night, and he kissed me at the door, a little longer than he ever had before. I watched him climb into his car and go, then turned to see my mom leaning against the wall, watching me.

“Mom, you scared me. How long have you been there?”

She shrugged and walked into the kitchen. “Long enough.” Her voice was flat. She was dressed in her yoga pants and a T-shirt. Since the interview, she had done little more than simply exist in the house with us. Darby had made several attempts to talk to her, but she still seemed unhappy. I knew, without a doubt, that I was the root cause.

I hovered nearby, allowing the physical distance to buffer me. “Mom, can we talk?”

She shrugged, and it made me ache inside. I hated that things weren’t right between us.

“I’m really, really sorry. For everything. But… well, it’s just that Darby seems really happy.” I didn’t add that most of
the changes that had happened were good ones—Darby and her new joy, Dad stepping up, me not pretending anymore.

“I know,” she said, barely above a whisper.

I felt something rise up inside of me. I wasn’t going to hide anymore. I was free. And I wanted to stay that way. “Then can you forgive me?” I asked.

Mom nodded, but it wasn’t the kind of forgiveness that I needed, the kind that would let me run back into her arms. Then the phone rang, and anger flashed in her eyes. She picked it up and clicked it twice to hang it up. She held out the phone at me.

“Have you been hearing this? It hasn’t stopped ringing all morning.” Mom tossed the phone onto the counter and left.

I was relieved when Tess came bouncing through my doorway a few hours later.

“What’s up with your mom?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “She’s still upset that Darby went public.”

“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense.” Tess shook her head. “Can you still work on the posters even though you’re having mom problems?” Tess put her hands together and gave me her puppy dog eyes.

“Of course. They’re almost finished. But can you clear the junk on my profiles? I can’t bear to look at it.”

Tess sat down at my computer, and after a few minutes she looked at me. “You didn’t read any of these?”

I shook my head.

“Good. I’ll leave the nice ones. People are so stupid.”

I cleared out the texts on my phone again. It was more of the same, but there were a few particularly nasty ones.

“Jace is saying I slept with him? Eww.”

“I got that one, too,” Tess said. “All done.” She moved over to the cushioned bench that sat underneath my window while I sat in front of the computer to start on the poster.

“Okay, it has to pop. People have to really notice these posters,” she said.

“It’ll pop.” I took Tess’s notes and spread them out on the desk and opened my design program. Dad always bought multiple user licenses so I could use his programs. Of course, I had mostly used them for creating Todd.

I told Tess everything that had happened with Liam while I worked. Every once in a while she pointed at something for me to change.

“So then he asks me what I love and I’m, like, I have no idea and…”

“Can you make the date bigger?” Tess pointed at the line.

“Yeah.” I highlighted it and made the font larger.

“Perfect.”

“All right. Let’s take this design and make a simple website so we can put it on the posters.” I opened my web builder program and started transferring the design. “Anyway, I told him I didn’t have any idea what my dreams were or what I’m passionate about, and…”

“What?”
Tess stared at me as if I were crazy.

“What’s wrong?” I looked at the screen, trying to figure out what she was looking at.

“What do you mean you’re not passionate about anything?”

“I thought I was passionate about cheerleading, but I’m not sure about that anymore. It’s really all I’ve done. I’m not some brainiac. I don’t have any hobbies. How sad is that?”

“Duh. Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t. I mean, I like cheerleading and all that, but I…”

“You can’t be serious, Mallory.”

“I’m dead serious, and he thinks…”

“Stop.” Tess pointed at the screen. “Look at that.”

“What about it?”

Tess laughed. “Mallory, that’s an amazing poster, and now you’re making a flipping website like you’re just brushing your teeth.”

I looked back at the screen, not seeing what was so amazing about it. “But that’s so simple.”

“For you. ’Cause you’re good at it. I couldn’t pull that off. Why do you think I’m always begging you to do this stuff for me?”

“So you don’t have to do it.”

“Well, yeah. But you’re great at it. Do you like doing it?”

I sat back in my chair. “Yeah. I guess I do. It’s fun to take the different elements and then layer them within the fields so that you create something completely unique.”

“See? I have no idea what you’re talking about. People make a living at this stuff.”

I paused, and my mind drifted to Samantha and the redesign. I told Tess about it.

“You’d be perfect for that,” she said.

“Really?” I spun my chair around and looked at her. “But I couldn’t work at the paper and do cheerleading. Cheerleading takes up too much time, and then the weekends…”

“Look. Cheerleading is great and it’s fun and it gives me a chance to force a little more community service into the squad. But it’s not everything. It’s not like either of us is planning to cheer the rest of our lives or coach or open up our own gyms. You’re suspended, anyway, so it can’t hurt to see if you’d like working on the paper. Maybe you can even make it into something people actually read.”

I laughed, but I couldn’t really argue with the logic. I had the time to explore, so why not explore? “You think the real me is a computer geek?”

“No. More like an artist but with graphics… and elements or whatever.”

I did feel comfortable in front of my computer. “Sometimes my dad will get a client who wants really artistic photos, and he’ll let me create an album of shots for them to look through.”

“My point exactly. You should see your face right now. You’re all lit up and stuff. As a matter of fact…”—Tess pulled me to my feet and in front of my mirror—“that’s what passion looks like.”

I squinted at myself, trying to see what Tess saw. What Liam saw. I just looked like me. But I did feel happy. Maybe I did have passion.

I couldn’t wait to tell Liam.

Darby busted through my doorway before Tess and I had finished up.

“You will not believe this.” Darby held out her phone. “You’ll never guess who just called. Oh my, I don’t know. It’s crazy—I mean, like, totally crazy.”

“What is it?” Tess and I asked, jumping up at the same time.

“It was a producer. For the
Mandy & More Show
,” Darby said.

“I love that show,” Tess said. “‘Tough love for today’s woman.’”

“They want to fly us to New York tomorrow to be on the show Monday morning.”

“Because of…,” I started.

“Because of the story last night. The producer, Adrian something, must have seen it, and they were already going to do a show on talking to your teens about sex, and now they want to have us on it. Can you believe it?”

“Us?” I sank back down into my chair, suddenly feeling sick.

“You don’t have to do it, but I’m going. How could I say no?”

“You just say the word
no
. It’s easy. One syllable,” I said.