I simultaneously roll my eyes and shake my head at my friend, but inside I know that she’s right.
And maybe about more than just Matt.
seventeen
Matt must have rushed out of school after the 2:50 bell, because he walks in the house at 3:07. Of course he doesn’t look hurried; he’s laid back, as usual.
“Hi!” I say—perhaps a touch too enthusiastically—when he comes into the living room, where Audrey and I are zoned out on an afternoon talk show. I try to control myself, but I’m sure the look on my face is pure sap. Before he arrived, I was in a vegetative state; now, as he strides across the room, I’m buzzing.
“Hey,” Matt says, smiling at me. “Hey, Aud,” he says to his sister with a slight wave. He drops his book bag on the floor and falls into the squishy chair. He scrunches up his dark eyebrows as he looks at the TV. Teens are confronting their parents about the adults’ bad habits, like smoking, doing drugs, and dating twenty-year-olds.
“What are you watching?” Matt asks.
“Quality TV,” Audrey murmurs. “Watch for five minutes and you won’t be able to look away.”
Mrs. McKean comes into the room wearing one of those mom sweat suits that works for the gym or the grocery store. She’s rubbing her hands together like she just put on lotion; I can smell its lemony scent.
“Audrey, did you forget about your appointment?” she asks.
“Huh?” Audrey says, struggling but finally pulling her eyes away from the on-screen train wreck to look at her mom.
“You have a checkup at four, and we need to leave at three thirty to get there on time,” Mrs. McKean says. She glances at the time on the DVR before looking at me. “Daisy, we can drop you off on the way if you’d like.”
“I’ll take her,” Matt says, his eyes still on the TV. I hold my breath.
“Great, thanks, Mattie,” his mom says. “Audrey, please go get dressed.”
Audrey looks down at her outfit. At three in the afternoon, she’s in pajamas; that’s what she elected to put on after we went to the pool.
“Fine,” she says. “But I feel great. I don’t know why we have to go today.”
“You know Dr. Albright always wants to see you after a trip to the ER,” her mom says.
Audrey rolls her eyes and stands. “I’ll call you later,” she says to me before leaving the room. Mrs. McKean follows her out. Matt stands up and turns off the TV.
“Wanna go?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, a little bummed that he wants to get rid of me so quickly.
I’m in my head the whole ride to my house, so much so that it feels like we’re pulling into the driveway only seconds after we left. I put my hand on the door handle and am opening my mouth to say goodbye when Matt surprises me.
“Can I come in?”
“Uh… yes?” I sort of say/ask.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I say, recovering. “Of course you can come in.” My gloominess immediately fades: Maybe he wants to hang out at my house for a change.
We park and Matt grabs my weekend bag out of the backseat. We walk up to the front porch, and I unlock the door and swing it open. The house is stale after being uninhabited for a few days. Right away, I move across the entryway and open the windows in the dining room. Matt sets my bag just inside the front door.
“When are your parents coming back?” he asks, looking around at the living, dining, and sitting rooms, all visible from where he’s standing.
“Not until after ten,” I say. “Maybe later.”
I watch him scan the main level and try to see it as he might. The living room’s five-piece furniture grouping looks as if it’s brand-new even though it’s probably eleven years old. There’s a brown leather couch, love seat, and chair set, and matching glass coffee and side tables. Everything is positioned over a muted patterned rug. There’s a TV armoire on one wall, and an ornate mirror over the fireplace. The walls are covered in floral paper that was probably trendy when it was glued on and is now either cute or hideous, depending on your stance on vintage wallpaper.
The small sitting room contains nothing but three walls of books and two oversized toile wingback chairs with footstools in front and a side table between them. The only visible wall is painted forest green, while the bookshelves are a deep brown, making the whole room too dark for reading.
The dining room is furnished with an antique set: an eight-person table that I’m guessing has never seated more than four, an ornate sideboard, and a massive china cabinet with a hutch that I used to be afraid to walk in front of as a kid because I thought it was going to fall down and crush me. Hanging low over the table is a pretty chandelier that came with the house; underneath is a Persian rug.
As I look around now, I realize how meticulous the advance team was when positioning the furniture here. The house is decorated to be pleasant, but not eye-catching. To feel warm, but not make you want to rush out and replicate it. The only miss is…
“There aren’t any photos on the walls,” Matt observes.
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, we only moved in a couple weeks ago. My mom hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“I thought maybe your parents weren’t into that,” Matt says. “You know, the humiliating baby photos and stuff. I was going to say you were lucky.”
“No,” I say, playing it off. “Unfortunately not.”
I make a mental note to tell Mason that we have to get some baby photos on the walls, stat, and then offer to give Matt a tour of the rest of the house. We sweep through the kitchen—me ignoring the door that leads downstairs, because Cassie would blow a fuse if I took my boyfriend into her lair—and head upstairs. Only when I reach the creaky step at the top do I think about what’s happening right now: I’m taking a boy—maybe a boyfriend—to my room.
I don’t have a lounge area in my bedroom like Audrey does, so Matt walks over and sits down on the foot of my bed. I stop in the middle of the room and consider my options, then go and sit down next to him, leaving a couple feet of space between us.
“Cool room,” he says as he eyes the walls. He points to an Arcade Fire poster and smiles but doesn’t say anything about it.
“Thanks,” I say. “I like to decorate.”
“You and my sister,” he says with a small laugh. “But you’re pretty decent at it.”
Though I’m sure Matt doesn’t notice, I’m aware of my tiniest body movements. My knees tip, my shoulders turn, and my chin tilts toward him, like I’m a potted plant on a windowsill, shifting positions to find the brightest ray of sunlight. The right side of my body—the side closest to Matt—actually feels warmer than the left.
“So, what did I miss in English today?” I ask, basking.
“Nothing much,” Matt says. “Mr. Jefferson gave us a bunch of new vocabulary words to look up, so it was basically busywork all period.”
“What were the words? Let’s see if I know any of them.”
“Okay, um, if I can remember any…” Matt lies back and stares at the ceiling. It feels weird to be sitting up when he’s lying down, so I do the same. I’m careful of where I put my inside arm, totally aware of how close it is to Matt’s.