Hide and Seek

“What?!”

“This is amazing. You’re amazing.” Zach is cackling at my panic, while Tori’s mouth hangs open in shock. “So,” he continues between laughs, “have either of them said anything since?”

“No,” I grumble, burying my head in my hands.

We’re in Tori’s VR gaming space, both of them leaning over my crumpled form as I curl up into one of the oversized bean bags. In real life, I’m on my bed. After I kissed Nico, I freaked out and ushered him out of the house, babbling apologies as the impact of my actions finally hit me. And now I’m here, having called an emergency friend meeting.

My embarrassment is insurmountable, but apparently it was the push I needed to admit everything to them—the rejection, the kiss, the shame of it all.

“I can’t believe Petra has kissed two people, and I’ve kissed nobody,” Zach sighs.

“I don’t know,” Tori says dryly. “Is it really that surprising?” She looks him up and down disapprovingly. He’s in another gaming shirt, with another stupid baseball cap on his head. He doesn’t even play baseball.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a total catch!”

Tori shakes her head and turns to me. “Who do you like better?” she asks matter-of-factly. As if any of this is simple.

I uncover my face to glare at her. “I don’t like Nico.” But I’m not sure if I still like Sol either.

I mean, to some degree, of course I do. Yet at the same time…

“Nico is obviously the better choice,” Zach says. “He probably would have asked you out if you hadn’t shooed him away. I mean, he basically said so, didn’t he? That he would ask you out after your first kiss?”

“He did say something like that,” I mumble. “But it was hypothetical.”

Tori rolls her eyes. “Please. Nico is… weird. Sol’s smart, hot, hardworking—and he’s an Earthling. Pet wants to go to earth. It just makes sense.” I wonder if Tori still thinks Nico might have killed his parents. If Adrien’s words have been taken as law.

Because there’s no way he would have done that. No way.

“But anyway,” Tori continues, “it doesn’t matter what we think. All that matters is what Petra thinks.”

She and Zach both turn to me expectantly. I blink. “I don’t know,” I squeak.

They both sigh in unison.

“Just give up on both of them,” Zach says with a shrug. “Go back to your old plan of finding someone when you’re a hundred or something.”

Tori and I both ignore him, though the idea of going back to not dating or kissing anyone does sound like a welcome relief right now. Tori tilts her head at me. “So,” she says, “what are you going to do?”

What I do is avoid them.

I avoid both of them for an entire week. Sol texts me the next day, asking if I still want to spend time together, and I ignore him completely. He texts a few more times, then gives up.

Nico doesn’t say a word, thankfully.

So instead of being distracted by boys, I spend my week working on my original song, practicing piano in VR, and watching Lunar Lovers with my mom.

“Gerald.”

“Hunter.”

“Where’s Josephine?”

“Why would I tell you? So you can steal her away again?” The two men are circling each other. Gerald’s blue eyes narrow dangerously at Hunter, who maintains his lackadaisical air as if this conversation is beneath him. It’s all very dramatic. A bit like one of those super old-timey westerns.

“Ha,” Hunter says, a devilish smile cutting across his face like a scythe. “You don’t know where she is, do you? It seems we have both been left out in the cold.”

“What then, Hunter? What do you propose?”

I look over at my mom, who is completely focused on the show. The light from the holo reflects splashes of color in her dark brown eyes, giving them artificial life, while the rest of her remains completely still. I lay my head down on her shoulder, which must have surprised her, because I feel her hand patting my thigh reassuringly.

But she doesn’t say anything. Work makes her too tired. At least, that’s what she told me once.

We end up falling asleep on the couch together. It’s still early, so my Do Not Disturb isn’t on, and I’m awakened in the black of night to the ping of a message—no, a calendar alert.

Tutoring?

I shift uncomfortably. Great. What am I supposed to say to him? I should just go back to sleep…

But Nico gives me no time to decide, because suddenly he’s materializing in my living room. I sit up slightly in surprise as the hologram of him glitters before me, forming from the feet up. When it reaches his face, I see that he looks as tired as I feel, but his scowl falters a bit at the sight of my mom asleep on the couch beside me. Then his eyes flick to mine.

“You know,” he says, “it’s not very nice to ask someone if they like you, kiss them, and then ignore them for a week.”

What?! No way am I letting him berate me right now. But I don’t want to wake up my mom. She needs her rest.

I carefully extricate myself from her sleeping form and motion for him to follow me up to my room. When we get there, I open my mouth to say something sassy back, but as I take in the downward curve of his lips, the twinge of hurt in his eyes, no words come, and all I can think to say is “sorry.”

He seems startled for a moment, then crosses his arms. “It’s fine,” he grunts. It’s definitely not fine though. He’s doing a very poor job hiding the fact that I probably hurt his feelings. A lot.

I realize then that, in a way, what Sol did to me, I did to Nico. Though I’d like to think the circumstances are pretty different.

Still, I’m not sure if said differences mean I’m worse or better than Sol.

“For what it’s worth,” I mutter, “I didn’t ignore you. You didn’t reach out.”

He guffaws, a look of obvious offense flashing across his face. “You didn’t reach out either!”

“Why am I the one who was supposed to reach out in this situation?”

“I don’t know,” he says, his eyes widening with exasperation. “But I kind of put myself out there, and now I feel stupid. So…”

Okay, yep. I did exactly to him what Sol did to me. And in a weird way, I find myself empathizing with Sol as I look up at Nico’s injured expression. “I’m sorry,” I whisper again.

After another stunned pause, he shakes his head, his dark hair flopping about. “It’s… fine. I didn’t expect you to like me back or anything. I haven’t exactly given you reason to.”

“Reason to?”

He sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “You know what I mean. I haven’t been nice or whatever. Haven’t put in much effort to make you like me.” He pauses, then frantically adds, “Not that I want to make you like me. I just mean—”

“No, no,” I interrupt. “I understand.” I sit down on my bed and sigh. “You said you liked me a long time ago. What did you mean by that? We never really talked until recently.”

To my surprise, he turns a bit red. “Oh. You, um… You’re bringing that up, huh?” He crosses his arms across his chest and gives a weak little shrug. “Well, uh, we had a class together freshman year. You sat in front of me. And you just… knew all the answers. And you would play with your braid a lot. And it was… distracting.”

We had a class together? “I don’t remember that.”

He huffs. “Well, I’m not lying, if that’s what you’re tryna say. I was behind you, so you probably had no reason to notice me.”

“Plus you skip class a lot,” I add.

He shakes his head. “Not that class.”

It’s my turn to be stunned into silence. Because… I was in it?

It hits me that there’s never been a better time to ask. To try to really understand him. Because he’s opening up. And despite everything, a part of me does want to understand this strange, all-black-wearing boy who for some reason likes me.

Of all the people he could have fixated on at school—why me? Who is this guy?

“I don’t really understand you,” I admit. “You skip school until you’re failing, you spend your time… messing with your Linx for who knows what reason, and you don’t talk to anyone. But now, what? You talk to me, follow me around, and like me? Just because I sat in front of you in class one time?”

“It’s more than that,” Nico mutters.

“Then tell me.”

He frowns, his eyes raking over my face, as if uncertain whether I’m being serious or not. I feel a sudden tightness in my chest, not the butterflies I felt with Sol but… some kind of lingering anxiety. Because I don’t want to have this conversation—though I feel like I have to. Finally, he says, “What do you want to know?”