The Van Pact

28: Stevie

I sat next to Valerie on the bus ride back to school. I don't know why. I guess it's because Carla was frenching Jan in their seat in the back and I don't have any other friends. Valerie had enough sense to realize that her plan to set me up with Jesse must not have panned out, because she took one look at me in the bus channel and her face went serious and pale. I couldn't say anything to her, so I didn't. I just watched my phone light up with increasingly pathetic apology messages from Jesse. As if I were stupid enough to believe that I was too beautiful for him to consider a date with.

It wasn't until we had gone to the bathroom, changed out of our uniforms, and nearly finished our trek to Gus, did Valerie say anything to me.

"So he turned you down?" she asked.

I shook my head.

She looked puzzled at me.

"It didn't get that far," I managed to say. "I mentioned homecoming and he asked me whether I thought you'd go with him."

"Me?" Valerie's eyes widened and her lips parted.

"Yeah, you," I kicked a pebble near my sneakers.

"But I don't understand," Valerie blinked several times, like there was a systems malfunction in that android brain of hers, "he liked you."

"No he didn't," I pulled my phone out of my pocket, "he liked you." I opened Jesse's texts and handed it to her. By now we had reached Gus. I walked to the front passenger door and waited for Valerie to unlock the damn van. I wished I wasn't getting a ride with her. I would have called my dad to come and pick me up, but then I'd have to explain to him why I couldn't stomach the sight of my heretofore best friend. I guess that was just too much to bother with right now.

Valerie looked up from my phone. Her eyebrows had jolted high into her forehead, and she wordlessly opened and shut her mouth. I pulled on the locked door handle. She noticed, and pressed the automatic unlock button on her keys.

We got in.

"Sorry," Valerie handed me my phone over the center console. "I had no idea."

I didn't say anything.

***

"At least he let you down gently," Valerie said, after a few more minutes of silence. This was not what I wanted to hear.

"Why don't you go and date him, then?" I couldn't look at her. "I'm obviously not a threat."

"A threat?" Valerie chuckled. "Steve, I don't want to date him-"

"You sure?" I crossed my arms, "You flirt with every guy that moves."

"I don't even know how to flirt," Valerie scrunched up her face.

"You know how to flirt," I didn't care if I sounded ridiculous. I was ridiculous. I was a big joke. "Why else does everybody like you so much? You make them feel like they've got a chance."

"I get that you're angry," Valerie tapped the steering wheel, "and that's totally reasonable, but I don't think you should project your anger onto me."

"Yeah, it's your fault any of this happened." I scoffed.

Valerie looked incredulous at me.

"I was perfectly fine living my wormy existence and you had to go and convince me that I could have something better," I didn't realize how loud I had gotten until then. My throat started to hurt. "I can't have anything better, Val!"

"You can," Valerie looked back at the road. "So, it's not Jesse, there's plenty of fish in the sea."

"Fish that will fall in love with you before they notice me."

"I'm sorry," Valerie was unperturbably calm. "I misjudged the situation, I made a mistake, that's what erasers are for."

"You can't brush this off," I insisted. "You ruined my life!"

"Steve," Valerie said, "I didn't know that Jesse liked me. I don't know what you expect from me, I'm sorry. I'm not perfect-"

"You are." I spat.

"What?" Valerie again glanced over her shoulder at me.

"You are perfect," I said. "The golden girl who's never once had a bad thing happen to her in her entire life. You've never felt any real pain."

There. I couldn't believe I said it. Everything I had kept bottled in from probably the day we first met. When she could flawlessly serve a volleyball in fifth grade gym class, and I couldn't get it over the net. When she never got a single zit in middle school, and I had bleached most of my bedsheets with Clearasil. She was Valerie DiPaolo, and I was forever relegated to being Valerie DiPaolo's best friend. I didn't know what Valerie would say to that. I didn't want to know what Valerie would say to that. But it was too late. I'd find out anyway.

Turns out, Valerie didn't say anything. But she did clench the steering wheel. I watched her knuckles turn white. And then, I watched her pull over to the side of the road. She put Gus in park, then yanked the key out of ignition.

"What're you doing?" I asked.

"I'll wait," Valerie leaned back in her seat.

And all of a sudden, I had nothing more to say.

"Are you done?" she asked.

I didn't speak. I assumed she'd turn back on the engine and drive us home.

"Okay, good," she said. Her voice was icy. Icy was never an adjective I thought I would ever use to describe Valerie. It took me by surprise. I don't know exactly what I was expecting. Maybe I wanted some more remorse? Sympathy?

"Bad things have happened to me," Valerie put the key back into ignition, but didn't turn it. "I've had bad things happen to me."

"Name one," I said. "Your parents love either other too much?"

"I had cancer," she said. "I almost died a couple times."

"What?" I thought maybe she was joking, but the way her eyes rounded as she spoke suggested otherwise. I couldn't bring myself to believe it. And right then I thought about every single time I had watched her lie and get away with it. How she figured out what people wanted to hear and how she gave it to them, her eyebrows lifted in aww-shucks honesty. And then I thought about Grandma O'Shaughnessy and how gaunt she looked when she died. And then I got very, very mad. I wasn't Mrs. Moore or Pam the medical secretary or doofy Dr. DiPaolo or that moron Jesse. I knew Valerie. And I wasn't going to be suckered this time.

"You fucking sociopath," I said. I was too angry to scream. "Don't try to make me believe you had cancer. That crosses a line. That's a real dick move."

"Fine," Valerie exhaled. "Think whatever you want."

She turned the key in ignition. But Gus wouldn't sputter on.

***

A/N: Thanks for reading, voting, and commenting! Next update in a few minutes because both of these are pretty short and I think are better if read in one sitting (or as close to one sitting as possible).