You Win

I’d never woken to the smell of bacon before. My mom avoided the stove at much as possible, so she never even made it. Carter could make it, but he usually woke up later than me. I usually woke to the smell of the fabric softener I had used with my sheets.

That morning, after the movie, I woke up to the smell of bacon. I opened my eyes to see Luke still sleeping on the couch beside me. I heard noise coming from the kitchen, then voices. Carter and Maggie, probably.

“Luke,” I whispered.

He didn’t move. Obviously I’d have to do more than whisper his name to wake him up.

“Luke,” I said louder, reaching out and touching his shoulder a little.

He still didn’t wake up.

“Luke!” I shook his shoulder, and he shot up, awake instantly.

“What?” he asked groggily.

I realized I didn’t have a legitimate excuse for waking him up. I had just wanted him to be awake.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes and yawned. “Hm… Is that bacon?” His voice was laced with sleep and his hair was sticking up all over the place. I tried to ignore how adorable he looked.

“I think so.”

“Mm… let’s go,” he said, his voice still weighed down with sleep. It was probably the sexiest sleep voice I had ever heard—and I hated the word sexy. It was just a weird word. But damn. Sexy.

“Uh, yeah. Yes. Sure. Let’s go.” I stood up and saw my reflection in the mirror on the wall across from me. I widened my eyes and discretely tried to wipe away my smudged makeup. I casually brushed a hand through my hair as Luke stood from the couch and stretched. My eyes widened again as his shirt lifted up a little and—oh God—

He put his arms back down and looked at me. I quickly looked anywhere else.

“Come on,” he said, nodding his head toward the kitchen. We followed the scent of bacon into the kitchen where Carter was standing over the stove and Maggie was setting the table. It was probably the weirdest thing I had ever seen. Plus, Carter was wearing an apron.

“What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

“What is this, the Brady Bunch?” Luke looked from Carter to Maggie and back again.

Maggie hopped around the table toward us. “We’re making breakfast!”

“I’m making breakfast,” Carter corrected.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she mumbled. She snapped right back into her perky mood, grabbing my arm and yanking me toward the table. “Sit!”

Luke dodged out of her way when she grabbed for him. “Don’t worry. I’ll sit.”

Maggie scrunched up her nose at him as he made his way to the end of the table opposite of mine.

“Wait! I’m sitting there!” she shrieked suddenly.

Luke gave her a weird look. “No you’re not. You’re standing right there.”

“That’s where I’m going to sit. You sit there.” She pointed to the spot next to me, of course. Her motives were so blatantly obvious, it made me want to hide under the table and never come out.

Luke did what he was told and we sat like good children until Carter came with eggs and bacon.

“I’m glad you at least have one useful talent,” I said.

“One more than you,” he said cheerfully, sitting down next to Maggie and across from me.

“This is the best bacon I’ve ever tasted,” Maggie said, piling more onto her plate. “Is this real? Where did this even come from?”

She continued eating happily, and everyone else followed suit. I wasn’t really hungry, but I ate anyway. My mind wandered to yesterday and how close I’d been to Luke—and then how far away he had seemed just a little while later. I wondered about that scrap of paper he’d pulled from his pocket. It would have been insignificant, if he hadn’t acted like it was some huge secret. What could it have been?

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered when we would “talk and stuff” since we hadn’t last night. I wondered why he had so casually avoided “talking and stuff”. I wondered if he was scared, confused, stupid, or just plain cruel.

Maggie was silently enjoying her food until she suddenly perked up. I saw a lightbulb go on over her head.

“Hey, Luke,” she said innocently, and I groaned internally. “What are you doing this weekend?”

I glared at her, but she ignored it.

“I’m going to this party Friday night, but that’s it, I think. Why?”

She smiled sweetly. “You should come to a bonfire with me and Caroline!”

He looked skeptical. “When is it?”

Maggie looked at me for help.

“Saturday,” I said quietly, looking down at my plate of food and avoiding all eye contact.

“So? Do you want to go?”

Before Luke could answer, Carter piped up. “I’ll go,” he offered.

Maggie shot him a look. “You can’t invite yourself.”

“You can’t invite Luke and not me.”

“I can do whatever I want—”

“Okay!” Luke said, cutting her off before they started yelling at each other. “I’ll go, and I’ll bring Carter. Everyone’s happy.”

Maggie grinned. “Especially Caroline.”

I widened my eyes at her. What was she thinking? Saying that out loud? What was wrong with her?

“I do love marshmallows,” I said awkwardly.

I could feel Luke’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look at him. If I did, my face would’ve turned bright red and I probably would’ve said something stupid or melt into a pile of mush. Either one.

“Where is it?” Luke asked.

“Tulip Leevy’s house,” I mumbled.

He hesitated. “Oh.”

I looked at him then, without any difficulties. My defenses were up, just because of that little word—that disappointed, hesitant little word. “Is that a problem for you?”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “No, it’s fine.”

The look on his face said otherwise. I knew what people thought of Tulip at school. Kids made fun of her relentlessly. Don’t ask me why, because I had no clue. They needed a constant target to release their pent up teenage emotions, was my best guess. And Tulip was an easy target, with her ever-changing hair color and the rumors that never seemed to fully leave her. Over the years, the past had been blurred and twisted until people believe Tulip never tried to commit suicide—it was just something she had started for attention.

There were so many different versions of the story, that I didn’t blame Luke for not knowing the truth—though it did make me mad. Tulip’s name would never be cleared. It seemed that there would be people making fun of her the rest of her life. People at school loved making fun of her. They called her an attention whore and a Jesus freak. They’d ask to see her wrists for knife marks, or worse—the holes from a nail, driven through the wrist. That was the worst one. Been nailed to the cross lately, Tulip?

I cleared my throat softly, trying not to think about the kids at school that bullied her. It only made me uselessly angry.

“If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to,” I said to Luke. “If you’re not comfortable with it, I’m not going to make you go.”

It was a challenge, and I was sort of being a bitch about it. Of course he was uncomfortable with the prospect of going to Tulip’s house—I could see it in the way he shifted in his seat, the way his mouth twitched a little before he spoke. But he wouldn’t admit to it, because he knew I would think less of him. So he really had no choice but to go along with it.

“No, I’ll go,” he insisted, then turned back to Carter, putting up a wall between us effortlessly. “I think I’m going to leave soon. I have to get home to take Lily to her friend’s house or something. You wanted to show me that thing?”

“Oh yeah,” Carter said, getting up from the table. The two exited the kitchen and I heard their heavy footsteps going up the stairs.

I stared at my plate of food, ready to give up on Luke completely. It was hopeless. I never knew what he was thinking or feeling, and I would probably never know.

“Have you ever wondered if they’re secretly gay?” Maggie asked suddenly, bringing my attention back to her.

I shook my head and tried not to laugh as I replied. “It would make sense. I mean—” I flipped my hair over my shoulder dramatically “—why else wouldn’t Luke be completely in love with me?”

“Right,” Maggie said with a laugh. “That’s why.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Caroline. You can be a total bitch to him sometimes. Just saying.”

I sighed heavily. “I know, but it’s just—I hate it when people think Tulip has leprosy or something. She’s just a normal girl. I don’t see why people are so hesitant to get to know her.”

Maggie dodged an explanation—because that had been directed partly at her—and kept the subject on Luke. “Whatever. I just don’t want to put all this effort into something that you’re just going to throw away.”

“Effort?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair. “Yeah. Do you know how hard it was to get Carter out of the living room last night so you two could have your little sleeping time together?”

“What’s up with you two anyway?”

“Nothing,” she huffed. “Stop asking.”

“Fine.”

Maggie couldn’t stay mad at someone for very long and I knew that. She couldn’t hold a grudge to save her life, and it was probably one of the reasons we were still friends. It was also probably why she was suddenly happy with Carter. So I let it go.

“What do you think they’re doing up there?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling like I would be able to see through it.

Maggie shrugged. “Who cares.” She stood from her seat and went to the counter to get some more bacon.

“I think I left my phone in the living room,” I said, standing up and sliding across the floor on my socks. I left Maggie to her bacon and creeped into the living room. My phone was in my pocket and I knew that, but something in the living room had been calling me all morning.

Luke’s pants.

He had put on some of Carter’s athletic shorts after his had gotten soaked by the rain. I found his pants in pile at the end of the couch and picked them up, reaching into the front pocket and pulling out that scrap of paper—the one that I had been wondering about in the back of my mind since he had pulled it out of his pocket the night before.

As soon as I saw it up close, I knew what it was. The newspaper. Those forty simple words. In his pocket—like it was completely normal being there.

I shoved it back and threw his pants across the room. Why was he so confusing? I fell back onto the couch behind me and tried not to rip out every single hair on my head. It was so frustrating. I had no idea what was going on, what he was thinking. I didn’t even know what I was thinking.

What did it mean, that he had kept it in his pocket? Was it a fluke or did he always keep it there? And if he always kept it there, what did that say about him?

“Maggie!” I called.

We had things to discuss.