The Other Me by Sarah Zachrich Jeng

Author:Sarah Zachrich Jeng [Zachrich Jeng, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593334485
Google: -kYIEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0593334485
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2021-08-09T23:00:00+00:00

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IT WAS MY seventeenth birthday. We were headed to the school parking lot after soccer practice—me, Katie, Alicia, and Nicole—planning to go over to Katie’s, since her parents didn’t get home until after five. I was feeling a little flat, had felt that way all day, because my birthday hadn’t felt as special as when I was younger, but as with most of my negative emotions I covered it up and pushed through it.

We were walking to Katie’s Jeep, bullshitting as usual, when suddenly Eric Hyde was in our path. I remember noticing how stiffly he held his body. I’d veered to one side to let him pass before it registered that he intended to speak to us, that that had been his purpose all along. Idly, I wondered what he wanted. I didn’t know him well, and he wasn’t the type to walk up to a bunch of girls and start shooting the shit. Nice enough guy, but painfully shy.

“Hey,” he said.

Katie, who’d already started to go around him, turned back and eyed him suspiciously. Alicia and Nicole looked at him in surprise. He was looking at me; he was talking to me. So I smiled, summoning Sweet Kelly, Homecoming Princess, and greeted him in return.

“Are you . . .” He swallowed. “Are you having a good birthday?”

“It’s been all right.” I was surprised he knew it was my birthday. Earlier, in history class, he’d hardly even acknowledged me, let alone wished me happy returns.

“Um, good.”

Katie let out a snort. Eric’s head jerked at the sound, and a dart of irritation shot through me, aimed at him more than her, perversely. Why was he keeping us here? Why couldn’t he either spit out what he wanted to say or let us all get on with our lives?

“So, when’s you guys’ next game?”

It was Katie who answered. “Tuesday.” Her voice a hammer strike, hard and scornful.

“Oh, cool.” Eric’s mouth stretched into a grimace. In my peripheral vision I saw Alicia and Nicole exchange glances.

“Did you, um . . . so what are you guys doing for prom?”

“I think we’re just going as a group,” I said. A horrible suspicion had taken root in my mind, planted by Eric’s refusal to look in Katie’s direction and her general status as one of the more lusted-after girls in school. Why couldn’t he have a crush on Alicia? I fretted. At least she’d be nice to him.

“Or we might not go at all,” Katie put in.

Eric chuckled. It came out as a choked rasp. “Yeah, prom’s kind of cheesy.”

“How would you know?” Katie fired back.

“Uh, I don’t— I mean, I was just—”

“Jesus, Katie, be more of a bitch, why don’t you,” I snapped. I’d grown less patient with her in the past year: her superior attitude, her need to exclude and put down anyone who didn’t come up to her esoteric standards. It was so juvenile. And I was ready to be done with this martyrdom of a conversation. Eric was obviously in misery, and I wanted to put him out of it.

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