rendered someone speechless with my baking?” he asks. “That may be a first.”
“Don’t be so quick to flatter yourself. Chelsea doesn’t talk,” Asha explains. “She’s taken a vow of silence.”
Okay, now I’m blushing. I hate having to explain this. People probably think I’m just being an attention whore, and it is so not about that. Or people just think I’m a freak. Which…maybe I am. But I’m still not comfortable with letting my freak flag fly, so to speak.
But Dex doesn’t miss a beat. “Very cool,” he says, not sarcastically at all, then to Asha, “Sam’s pulling stock from the freezer, and Andy should be here in an hour or so. I’m going to hole up in the office and make some calls to vendors, so come back and grab me if you need me.”
“Sure thing,” she tells him, walking around behind the counter. “It’s cool if Chelsea hangs out?”
“As long as she doesn’t break anything,” he says with a wink, and then disappears down the side hall.
I sit down on one of the stools and sling my bag onto the counter as Asha smoothes her long hair back into a ponytail.
“I’m going to go load up the dishwasher,” she tells me. “We don’t really have one specific person who buses, so whoever has a minute just takes care of it. Noah was usually the one…”
She trails off, and at first I’m confused, but it takes only a second to put two and two together. Noah must have worked here, too. That explains the other day, when they mentioned that guy having to cover kitchen. And he’s Sam’s best friend, it’s no surprise they’d work together.
This has to be a joke. Maybe I’ve underestimated Asha, and the only reason she’s been friendly to me is that she’s setting me up for humiliation. I can think of no other possible reason why she would invite me to Noah’s workplace, a place full of people who know and, presumably, care about him. And anyone who cares about him likely hates me.
I grab my whiteboard and write furiously.
Why did you invite me here?
She frowns. “So I can help you with your homework. We talked about this.”
This was a bad idea.
“Why?”
You know why.
“What do you mean?” she asks, but in a careful way that leads me to believe she knows exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to have to spell it out for her, literally.
How much do you know?
She hems and haws before she answers me. “I heard what you did at the party,” she admits. She can’t look me in the eye as she says it. “Did you know what would happen? When you—told people what you did?”
I shake my head, because it’s true that I didn’t, but I don’t know how that makes any difference. I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have been such an idiot to not realize what would happen.
Why are you being nice to me?
“I don’t know.” She goes quiet for a minute. “I guess I just… I don’t think you are what people say you are.”
How would you know that?
“You turned your friends in to the cops,” she says. “That’s something.”
Yeah, but what she doesn’t know is that I question my decision every day. I busy myself with rubbing my board clean so I don’t have to look at her and see that hope in her face, the hope that I’m this good person she imagines me to be, when I know the truth.
Asha’s face flushes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be upset,” she says. “You can leave if you want.”
She disappears into the back, leaving me there to stay or go. Staying is a bad idea, I know. I start to grab my backpack so I can leave, but then I think of what Asha said, how she doesn’t think I’m the person other people say I am. Her words gnaw at my gut. I know I’m not that person, but it’s comforting to know someone else sees me as something more than a bitch or a backstabber.
Besides, I can’t deny the fact that I could really, really use her help with my homework.
I sit back down and slide out my geometry book from my bag. It couldn’t hurt
“Don’t be so quick to flatter yourself. Chelsea doesn’t talk,” Asha explains. “She’s taken a vow of silence.”
Okay, now I’m blushing. I hate having to explain this. People probably think I’m just being an attention whore, and it is so not about that. Or people just think I’m a freak. Which…maybe I am. But I’m still not comfortable with letting my freak flag fly, so to speak.
But Dex doesn’t miss a beat. “Very cool,” he says, not sarcastically at all, then to Asha, “Sam’s pulling stock from the freezer, and Andy should be here in an hour or so. I’m going to hole up in the office and make some calls to vendors, so come back and grab me if you need me.”
“Sure thing,” she tells him, walking around behind the counter. “It’s cool if Chelsea hangs out?”
“As long as she doesn’t break anything,” he says with a wink, and then disappears down the side hall.
I sit down on one of the stools and sling my bag onto the counter as Asha smoothes her long hair back into a ponytail.
“I’m going to go load up the dishwasher,” she tells me. “We don’t really have one specific person who buses, so whoever has a minute just takes care of it. Noah was usually the one…”
She trails off, and at first I’m confused, but it takes only a second to put two and two together. Noah must have worked here, too. That explains the other day, when they mentioned that guy having to cover kitchen. And he’s Sam’s best friend, it’s no surprise they’d work together.
This has to be a joke. Maybe I’ve underestimated Asha, and the only reason she’s been friendly to me is that she’s setting me up for humiliation. I can think of no other possible reason why she would invite me to Noah’s workplace, a place full of people who know and, presumably, care about him. And anyone who cares about him likely hates me.
I grab my whiteboard and write furiously.
Why did you invite me here?
She frowns. “So I can help you with your homework. We talked about this.”
This was a bad idea.
“Why?”
You know why.
“What do you mean?” she asks, but in a careful way that leads me to believe she knows exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to have to spell it out for her, literally.
How much do you know?
She hems and haws before she answers me. “I heard what you did at the party,” she admits. She can’t look me in the eye as she says it. “Did you know what would happen? When you—told people what you did?”
I shake my head, because it’s true that I didn’t, but I don’t know how that makes any difference. I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have been such an idiot to not realize what would happen.
Why are you being nice to me?
“I don’t know.” She goes quiet for a minute. “I guess I just… I don’t think you are what people say you are.”
How would you know that?
“You turned your friends in to the cops,” she says. “That’s something.”
Yeah, but what she doesn’t know is that I question my decision every day. I busy myself with rubbing my board clean so I don’t have to look at her and see that hope in her face, the hope that I’m this good person she imagines me to be, when I know the truth.
Asha’s face flushes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be upset,” she says. “You can leave if you want.”
She disappears into the back, leaving me there to stay or go. Staying is a bad idea, I know. I start to grab my backpack so I can leave, but then I think of what Asha said, how she doesn’t think I’m the person other people say I am. Her words gnaw at my gut. I know I’m not that person, but it’s comforting to know someone else sees me as something more than a bitch or a backstabber.
Besides, I can’t deny the fact that I could really, really use her help with my homework.
I sit back down and slide out my geometry book from my bag. It couldn’t hurt
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