Odd One Out: Chapters 16–20

Just like with Thanksgiving, Daddy and I get invited to participate in the inviolable Charity-Sanchez-Cooper Christmas countdown: “C minus five days” is the twenty-four-hour cookie bake—we all get together and bake literally hundreds of cookies that on “C minus four” will be delivered to three different children’s shelters across the city...

Once the door is closed and she turns to face me, my guess is she can see my shock, because she blanches.

And Daddy is smiling like he’s feeling the sun on his skin after a lifetime in a crepuscular cave.

“Why are you here?’’ shoots out of my mouth with enough potency to punch the joy right out of her smile, but there’s no use doubling back to stuff the anger like I normally would.

“Oh, so you pop up after half a decade to ‘surprise’ me like we’ve been sororal sweethearts from a distance this whole time?”

My guess is that he responds nonverbally, but I don’t know for sure because I can’t look at him, either. What remains of my composure will blow to smithereens if I do.

“I still hate you a little,” I say, squeezing her tighter. “Even though I missed you. Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve almost unfollowed or blocked you because I see you online living your best life without me or Daddy, and I get all maudlin.”

I’ve been covertly crying every night that Bess has been here, though the why behind the weepiness remains an enigma.

I’ve been covertly crying every night that Bess has been here, though the why behind the weepiness remains an enigma.

Pure speculation, but it seems the idea of me knowing something about Courtney that she doesn’t is...well, in my head, I see an image of the planet Jupiter’s red spot—which apparently is a massive, angry squall—churning a bit more intensely.

Pure speculation, but it seems the idea of me knowing something about Courtney that she doesn’t is...well, in my head, I see an image of the planet Jupiter’s red spot—which apparently is a massive, angry squall—churning a bit more intensely.

The way Jupiter Charity-Sanchez is now staring at the poster on her closet door—flushed cheeks, moist eyes, closed mouth—makes me want to absquatulate into a crevasse somewhere and perish.

The way Jupiter Charity-Sanchez is now staring at the poster on her closet door—flushed cheeks, moist eyes, closed mouth—makes me want to absquatulate into a crevasse somewhere and perish.

“So why are you looking at me like that?” And why do I sound like a petulant papoose?

The instant rift is so acute, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover a chasm in the floor between us.

And when the flame catches, I really do feel an atmospheric permutation.

Courtney watches her go, his expression mired in confusion.

“She likes me better, right, Rae-Rae? You and I have inimitable rapport."

“She likes me better, right, Rae-Rae? You and I have inimitable rapport."

I just laugh, all vestiges of relational conflict shoved aside for the moment.

I get it: she doesn’t want to be anyone’s test subject, and I shouldn’t have done what I did. But she leapt to a repugnant conclusion about me without considering that my feelings could be genuine.

I guess at the end of the day, it’s all moot: she made it clear she’s not interested in being more than friends.

Her apology is...discomfiting.

Yes, I was fairly incensed last night, but looking back, shouldn’t I be the one apologizing for what I did to her?

No matter how much we hobnob, there’s an air of artificiality in this reimagined best-friendship.

I have this unfathomable depth of access to her insides, but her outsides are off-limits.

But it makes our interactions feel disingenuous.

I'm sure the physical distance is her way of making it undeniably clear that she and I are just friends, but I can’t figure out if the tactile embargo is for my sake or for her own.

I spend the rest of the walk taking clandestine pranayama breaths, and soon Courtney’s opening the door of a place called the Shepherd’s House.

The spot where Courtney’s hand cups my waist feels like it’s on fire, and his sinewy forearm against my lower back makes me want to melt into him, as ridiculous as that sounds.

It’s safe to say this is going to be a cataclysm.

Some of the questions are gross, but all are fairly innocuous: Would you rather spend the rest of your life a little too hot or a little too cold?

I wish he wouldn’t say or do these types of things. It ratchets up the difficulty level of keeping all these feelings in check.

This is exactly the type of asinine assumption Jupiter hates. “First of all, no she’s not,” I say. “And second, that’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?”

I roll my eyes to feign annoyance, but inside, my bodily fluids are bubbling to a boil.

“I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m giving it to you anyway. For Jupiter’s sake. You need to be up-front with her, Rae-Bee.” And Bess walks out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Of course I don’t heed her admonition.

But the thought of Courtney figuring out how I really feel before I’m ready for him to know is scary enough to make me do all manner of unscrupulous, people-not-pleasing things to maintain my cover.

I also run downstairs and make a bowl of popcorn, and grab and chug half a twenty-ounce bottle of tepid ginger ale.

“What are you sorry for, Rae?”
“For”—using you, lying to you by omission, flirting with him behind your back, thinking about him pretty much every second that I spend with you—“not being up-front about it.”

"I was thinking maybe the week after, I’d just come right out with it, you know? Pull a little derring-do and ask if he wants to go on a date.”