Perfect Couple

“Oh, now, wait—” Kaye tried to interject.

“You sound like you’re breaking up with me.” Brody’s voice was rising.

Yep, he was going to make this difficult, all right. I said, “I am.”

“You are?” Kaye asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

I widened my eyes at her. Breaking up with Brody was hard enough without Kaye acting like I wasn’t doing the right thing. I was sorry she felt guilty about the mistake. It truly wasn’t her fault. But she must have guessed the news would break up Brody and me.

In a rush, Brody stood. The sudden shift of his weight bounced the truck and jolted me as he said, “I should have known.”

“Known what?” I slung back at him. Sure, we’d been ridiculously mismatched from the beginning. I had sensed this, and he had too. But he didn’t have to yell at me about it, as if I was beneath him because I wasn’t more like him.

He glanced angrily at Kaye, then held out his hand to me. “Come here.”

Reluctantly I let him lead me away from his truck, into the empty center of the parking lot. Pretty much all the football players had headed home, leaving only the vehicles of a few coaches, Kaye, Sawyer, and Brody. He looked at the fast-moving clouds in the overcast sky. Then he said, “You’ve felt like you were being daring to go out with me. I’m not safe like the guys you usually date.”

He heaved a pained sigh. “But that wasn’t it at all, was it? Going out with me was the safest thing you could do, because our class picked me for you. At least, you thought they did.” He was very close to me now. “The second you find out I wasn’t preapproved after all, I’m not worth the trouble!”

My heart was hammering, and I couldn’t catch my breath. His words rang true. He was absolutely right.

Sawyer walked up beside us. “Larson. Can you take a step back?”

Brody faced him. “This is none of your business, De Luca. I’m not threatening her.”

“You’ve got eight inches on her. It looks bad.”

Brody blinked at me, as if he saw me for the first time. He stepped backward and put both hands up. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I breathed.

He laughed. “If we can apologize, this is nothing like my parents fighting.”

“Mine, either.”

Sawyer eyed me, then glanced back at Brody. “Don’t make me come over here again.” He sauntered toward Kaye, who still sat on Brody’s tailgate.

“Anyway,” Brody told me, “I don’t know what else there is to say. Nice knowing you?” He followed Sawyer.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I called after him, irate for the first time.

He turned around and kept walking backward. “You broke up with me.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I crossed the space between us. “You know, it was just a shock. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out why we would be paired together. When I found out we weren’t, that made so much sense that my gut reaction was we shouldn’t be together. But . . .”

He shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s not going to work,” he said. “You’ll always be on the verge of breaking up with me. You’ll assume it won’t work between us, and therefore it really won’t, all because the senior class hasn’t given you permission. We don’t look right together, so we must be wrong for each other.” He started backing up again. “I don’t want to second-guess everything between us because you’re too afraid to take a chance.”

He walked swiftly toward his truck, pausing only to mutter something to Kaye and Sawyer. They slid off Brody’s tailgate, and Sawyer slammed it shut. Brody cranked the engine and took off across the parking lot.

There were no screaming tires and burning rubber. That would have made me feel better. I would have known he was angry, and therefore he cared. This calm acceptance meant he was really done with me. He wouldn’t ask me to reconsider. He wouldn’t make me jealous to try to get me back. Our entire relationship had been a mistake.

Kaye waited for me, leaning against her car next to Sawyer, tears streaming down her face. I could see them glinting in the sun even at this distance. I knew she felt awful, even though it wasn’t her fault. I walked over.

“Kaye won’t tell me what the problem is,” Sawyer said. “It’s some huge secret.”

“It is,” I said.

“Then I don’t understand why you won’t tell me,” he said. “I am the best at spreading rumors. I could unburden you and let the whole school know in a matter of hours, and you wouldn’t have to worry about people finding out anymore. You would feel so much better.”

“Sawyer,” Kaye bit out. “Damn. It! ” Her last syllable echoed sharply against the school.

Kaye and Sawyer had picked at each other constantly since he moved to town two years ago. She often seemed exasperated with him, but she was rarely genuinely angry.

And I had never seen him fed up with her. He shouted back, “O-kay!” and stomped to his truck.

Watching him go, I leaned against Kaye’s car in his place.

“I am so, so sorry,” she said through her tears.

“It’s all right, Kaye, really. It’s better that we know. Brody’s right. We never would have worked out.”

“But you were having so much fun together,” she protested. “You said you were happy. I could see you were happy. Your faces lit up at each other.”