33

JOSH HAS A NEW GIRLFRIEND: Liza Booker, a girl from his comic-book club. She has frizzy
brown hair, nice eyes, big boobs, braces. She’s a senior like Josh, smart like Josh. I just can’t believe
he’s with a girl who’s not Margot. Next to my sister, Liza Booker’s nice eyes and big boobs are
nothing.
I kept seeing a car I didn’t recognize in Josh’s driveway, and then today, when I was getting the
mail, she and Josh came out of the house and he walked her to her car and then he kissed her. Just like
how he used to kiss Margot.
I wait until she’s driven away and he’s about to walk back inside his house before I call out to
him. “So you and Liza are a thing now, huh?”
He turns around and at least looks sheepish. “We’ve been hanging out, yes. It’s not serious or
anything. But I like her.” Josh comes a few feet closer, so we’re not so far apart.
I can’t resist saying, “There’s no accounting for taste. I mean, that you’d pick her over Margot?” I
let out a huffy little laugh that surprises even me, because Josh and I are fine now—not like before,
but fine. It was a mean thing to say. But I’m not saying it to be mean to Liza Booker, who I don’t even
know; I’m saying it for my sister. For what she and Josh used to be to each other.
Quietly he says, “I didn’t pick Liza over Margot and you know it. Liza and I barely knew each
other in January.”
“Okay, well, why not Margot then?”
“It just wasn’t going to work out. I still care about her. I’ll always love her. But she was right to
break things off when she left. It would only have been harder if we’d kept it going.”
“Wouldn’t it have been worth it just to see? To know?”
“It would’ve ended the same way even if she hadn’t gone to Scotland.”
His face has that stubborn look to it; that weak chin of his is firmly set. I know he isn’t going to say
anything more: It isn’t really my business, not truly. It’s his and Margot’s, and maybe he doesn’t even
fully know, himself.