Watch Me Disappear

me to just drop her off in front of her house. If my parents are watching, I’ll have to explain myself, but I’m tired, too, so I agree.
    “Thanks,” Maura says, getting out of the car.
    “Sure.”
    “No, really,” she says, leaning back into the car. “There was no one else I could have called today.”
    I want to say, “You know that’s not true,” but instead I just say, “No problem.”
    “See you in the morning,” she says, shutting the door.
     
    *          *          *
     
    “Lizzie, you had a visitor while you were gone,” my mother says when we sit down to dinner that night.
    A visitor? Who the hell would be visiting me? The only time my mom ever invokes my name and the word “visitor” in the same sentence is to ask me euphemistically if I have my period.
    “Well, don’t you want to know who?” she asks, spooning pasta onto my plate.
    “Okay, who?”
    “Paul,” she says, looking triumphant.
    Paul had visited me? Paul hasn’t been to my house in months. He didn’t even call to tell me he was coming, unless he called when I was out with Maura and my phone didn’t have reception. But he would have left a message or something.
    “I invited him to stay for dinner,” my mom continues, “but he said he couldn’t.”
    I shrug and stuff a bite of spaghetti into my mouth. That way I don’t have to reply.
    “So you two have mended your little rift?” she asks.
    I wish my stupid father would say something. He is reading a magazine, ignoring us altogether.
    “What little rift?” I answer. I figure if I play dumb, she’ll have to spell out what she thinks transpired between me and Paul or she’ll have to drop it.
    “Well, I hope he starts coming around again,” she says. “I like that boy.”
    You and everyone else, I think. But my mind is racing. Why had he come over? Probably to tell me how upset Missy was that I ditched her last night. Why else would he even bother? Still, he had come over. I don’t want to feel giddy about it, but I can’t help it. I miss him. I miss being the one in the passenger seat of his car on Saturday nights. I promise myself I’ll talk to him at school tomorrow. We had been friends for a little while. Why can’t we be friends again?
     
    *          *          *
     
    Because I am in love with him. That’s why. And that’s what I remember Monday morning when I find him at his locker. He has on a dark green fleece and cargo pants, like he is about to take a hike or chop wood or something, and he smells good. He always wears nice cologne, not that cheap Axe stuff most of the guys wear. I lean up against the locker next to his.
    “Hey,” I say.
    He turns. His big brown eyes with their little flecks of amber take me in. He shuts his locker and then mirrors my pose, leaning up against the locker and studying me.
    “Well?” I say.
    He shrugs.
    “My mom said you came by.”
    He nods. Why won’t he talk? It’s infuriating. He drove across town to my house to talk, but now he’s mute. I feel my face turning red and my palms getting clammy. “You didn’t, like, leave a message or anything,” I say, bringing one hand to my mouth and chewing on my fingernails. My heart is racing.
    “I shouldn’t have bothered,” he says at last.
    “What? Why would you say that?”
    “I just made a mistake, that’s all.” He runs a hand through his hair.
    “Well, what did you want?” I am getting impatient. I hate when people are purposefully cryptic.
    “I was wrong about you,” he says. “I thought you didn’t care what people thought about you, you know? I thought you were really an individual. But that was just your brave face I guess, because lately you’ve been acting like Maura’s little toadie. She’s not your friend, Lizzie. Not like Missy.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I’ve known Maura a lot longer than you have.”
    “Whatever,” I say, pushing away from the locker. “I figured you came because Missy told you to.”
    “Seriously? First of all, Missy doesn’t tell me what to do. I came because I like you and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
    “So Missy didn’t tell you how I left her house the other night?”
    “Of course she did,” he says, “and she was upset, but she certainly didn’t ask me to run interference.”
    “You want to talk about hypocrites, what’s this about your telling Missy you’re waiting for that special someone?” I shouldn’t have