The Art of Insanity by Christine Webb

Author:Christine Webb [Webb, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

After dinner, Ty comes over to study with Brent. I’m finishing my homework in my bedroom and watch his Jeep park in our driveway. I want to go down and say hello, but I’m supposed to be getting over this crush. Recovering from a crush does not entail running down the stairs the second that the crush shows up at my house. Still, I can’t help peeking out the window and watching him walk to the door. The top of his baseball cap is blue. He’s wearing the Birkenstocks. Don’t his feet get cold? He rings the doorbell and looks up toward my window.

I duck down. Did he see me? I smack my palm to my forehead. If he did see me, then he just saw me freak out and dive out of sight. It would have made way more sense to wave. My heart pounds. Why can’t I act like a normal human being when he’s around?

I hear Brent greeting Ty, and now I’m definitely not going down there. My face flushes. We’ll pretend that didn’t happen. Back to studying.

I’m too distracted, so after a while I decide to study in the living room. Maybe a change of scenery will help. It’s about the scenery. Not about the fact that Ty might take a study break and wander through the living room, where I could then have a nonchalant and totally suave interaction that might erase my previous idiocy.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good thing to run into him. Maybe this crush is like certain types of allergies, where repeated, limited exposure to the allergen can help you overcome the allergy entirely.

I’ve been studying on the couch for about twenty minutes before Ty comes upstairs. My stomach does its now-familiar flip. He looks surprised to see me, but almost too surprised. Like maybe he’s faking it.

“Oh, sorry, Nat, I didn’t know you were up here. I came to get a drink.” He hurries to the kitchen.

The basement is right under the living room. He absolutely would have heard me come down here. Mom isn’t home, so it had to be me.

He comes back in with his water and sits on the arm of the love seat. “What are you working on?”

“Literature homework.”

“Fun.”

“It’s Shakespeare, so not really.”

“Ah, but which Shakespeare? Because I agree with you if it’s Julius Caesar, but Twelfth Night is freaking hilarious.”

I hold up my book. “What are your thoughts on Hamlet?”

He holds out his cup of water and talks to it as if it’s another character onstage. “ ‘To thine own self be true.’ ” He takes a drink. “That was the best line in the whole thing, mainly because it’s full of irony. The rest kind of sucked.”

I’m impressed. “You know a lot about Shakespeare.”

He smiles to himself. “Yeah. My dad hates Shakespeare. To be honest, it’s probably the only reason I read it so much. I’m not proud of that, but there you go.”

“Why does your dad hate Shakespeare? My mom practically worships him, even though I’m not sure she’s ever read any of his stuff.

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