Jay Asher - The Future of Us

“I can’t do this,” I say.

Graham spins a drumstick between his fingers. “Can’t do what?”

“You and me. Not anymore.”

“Is this because Josh saw us the other day? If you want, I can talk to him.”

“No.” I take a deep breath. “This has nothing to with Josh. I just need to be on my own for a while. It’s nothing you did, but I—”

“Okay.” Graham runs his hands over his prickly scalp. “I’m not going to try to change your mind. We always said we were going to keep things low-key.”

Graham smiles sadly, and then holds out his arms like he’s waiting for a hug. As I lean in toward him, I notice how similar this feels to my breakup with Dylan, and even with Kyle. Unlike other people’s breakups, I never have too much drama. When Josh and Rebecca Alvarez broke up, he moped around in his room for weeks. When my mom and Erik divorced, she must have cried for a month. And when Tyson dumped Kellan—

Kellan!

I need to tell Josh about her pregnancy as soon as possible. I should have told him this morning. This isn’t something I want to handle on my own.

I SPOT JOSH in a crowded hall between third and fourth periods. I call his name, but he doesn’t respond. He’s standing with a sophomore girl and they’re both laughing. They turn and begin walking down the hall.

“Josh?” I shout again, but he still doesn’t respond. Or maybe he’s ignoring me? One call from Sydney and this is what happens!

I stand on my toes and watch them walk away. A few steps later, he reaches over and touches her back. That is so not something Josh would usually do.

“Emma?” a voice says.

I know that voice.

Slowly, I turn around. Cody Grainger is walking toward me.

SOMETIMES I’LL HEAR a song on the radio that launches my mood into a higher orbit. Even though I’d happily erase the moment Emma burst in on me in my underwear, “Walking on Sunshine” has been looping through my head all morning. It plays when I walk down the halls, sit in class, and say hi to people at their lockers.

When I answered the cordless phone this morning, no one responded. But then I heard Sydney’s distant voice say, “He must be on his way here” before hanging up.

She called me from her cell phone! I haven’t seen her yet, but that call has lit my path with sunshine all morning. I absorb it through the soles of my feet and it tingles up my legs, across my chest, shoots down my fingers… and don’t it feel GOOD!

The sunshine is magnetic, too. All morning, guys who’ve never said more than What’s up? have stopped to talk to me. And the girls! Between my morning classes, three girls have walked with me, keeping my pace… and I have long legs.

Like Anna Bloom right now. After history, she caught up with me as I headed for the door. I ended up walking to her third-period class even though I have gym on the opposite side of school.

“If you ever want to work on history together,” she says, “feel free to give me a call.” She writes her number on the corner of my folder.

Anna smiles up at me and then heads into her classroom. I try not to be obvious, but I can’t help checking her out as she walks away. She’s cute! Then I turn and look down the hall. I swear someone had been calling my name while I was talking to Anna. It was distant, but it may have been Emma.

And there she is, at the far end of the hall, talking to…

Cody Grainger?

Good for her, I guess. Cody’s a conceited dick, but whatever makes her happy.

CODY SMILES AT ME.

He’s wearing a dark blue T-shirt with DUKE written across the chest. Everyone in track knows he was accepted there with a full athletic scholarship. As usual, he looks relaxed with his spiky blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a faint shadow on his jawline.

“How’s it going?” he asks.

My hands start to tremble. Kellan thinks I hold Cody up on a pedestal, but he totally deserves to be there.

“Great.” I shift my books from one hip to the other. “So… what’s your next class?”

“Photography,” he says.

“That sounds fun.” I fidget with the E on my necklace. “I’ve got World History.”

There’s a brief silence. I remind myself that one day I will have a respected career and a life-saving husband. Even though Cody’s presence turns my brain into mush, I attempt to channel the confidence I will someday have.

“Are you going to track later?” I ask. “I missed it yesterday.”

He nods. “So that’s why I saw you running in the park.”

“You saw me?”

I went running soon after Josh left. I couldn’t stand sitting in my room with the computer right there, not being able to check Facebook because I promised Josh I wouldn’t. It turned out to be a kick-ass loop. I did my best time yet, and even sprinted for a half-mile.

“You looked great,” Cody says, combing his hands through his spiky hair. “I was working out on the nautilus course and you ran right by me. I called your name, but you must not have heard.”

“I was listening to my Discman,” I say, unable to control a grin. Cody said I looked great!

“What were you listening to?” he asks.

“Yesterday? Mostly Dave Matthews. Hootie and the Blowfish. A little Green Day.”

“Green Day?” He nods approvingly. “‘Basket Case’ was the first song I learned on guitar.”

“You play guitar?”

Cody tells me about teaching himself to play, and I nod in all the appropriate places. I am so glad I ended things with Graham today.

“We should go running sometime,” he says. “Do you live near the park?”

I happen to know that Cody lives on the east side of the park, about ten minutes from my house. To be more precise, he lives in a one-story house with purple lilac bushes and a striped mailbox.

“I live near the playground,” I say.

“Great. I’m over by the baseball field,” he says.

“I used to play Little League there.”

“Me too,” Cody says. “Hey, if you like Dave Matthews, you should come over sometime. I have a live bootleg tape from a show in Vermont.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’d like that.”

Cody touches my shoulder and smiles. “Well, okay then.”

As I watch him walk down the hall, I realize this is yet another ripple brought on by Facebook. If Josh hadn’t ditched me yesterday to babysit his phone, I wouldn’t have gone for a run and Cody would never have seen me, prompting him to approach me today. And not just approach me… invite me to his house! I wonder if this ripple affects my future with Kevin, a man I don’t even know yet.

For Cody, I might be okay with that.

TYSON AND KELLAN are already at the lunch tree. I try not to read into this, but they hardly ever arrive before me. It’s been even longer since they got here first together.

“Hey, guys,” I say.

Kellan drops a ketchup-soaked french fry into her mouth.

“How’s it going?” I ask, removing my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich from my bag.

Tyson smiles at me. “Groovy.”

The only time Tyson says “groovy” is when he’s feeling abnormally awesome, like when he nails a kickflip on his skateboard. But I still refuse to read into this. If Tyson and Kellan are getting back together, they’ll tell me when they want me to know. But when Emma shows up, they’d better be more subtle or she’ll flip.

“Well, that’s groovy,” I say, laughing as I bite into my sandwich.

According to Emma, Kellan fell way too hard for Tyson, which is why the breakup nearly wrecked her. I think that’s just Kellan’s personality, but Emma warned her to be more careful about love from then on.

Kellan drags another fry through the ketchup. “Anyone want to hear some gossip?”

“Sure,” Tyson says. “But you need to eat more than just fries.” He removes the top piece of bread from his sandwich, peels off a slice of ham, and offers it to Kellan. “Here, have some of my meat.”

Still not reading into this.

“I haven’t seen Emma to confirm this,” Kellan says, folding the ham in half before putting it in her mouth, “but apparently, in band this morning, she dumped Graham.”

What? Why didn’t I hear about this?

Tyson takes a huge bite of his sandwich. “Good for her,” he says while chewing. “That guy’s smarmy. Did you see how he shaved his head?”

“‘Smarmy’?” Kellan swats his arm. “Where are you coming up with these words?”

This morning, when Emma and I were talking about relationships, she never said she was going to dump Graham today. If she did this because of something she saw on Facebook, there’s no telling what ripples she just caused. We’re supposed to talk to each other about this stuff!

“I don’t know if this is true,” Tyson says, “but some people think Graham and those other guys shaving their heads together was some sort of gay pact. Did you hear about that, Josh?”

A lump of bread catches in my throat. Why does he think I’d know about a gay pact? My eyes begin to water, and Kellan shoves her Sprite at me. Have people known my brother was gay but never told me about it? While I start coughing and gagging, Tyson laughs so hard he puts his hand against the ground for support.

“Are you okay?” Kellan asks, leaning close to me. “Nod your head if you need me to give you the Heimlich.”

I wipe the tears from my eyes. “I’m fine.”