The phone rings for a long time and Jamie considers hanging up before Alexandria finally picks, cheerfully greeting him. “Jamie? I placed a bet with myself to see if you’d call and you did! Too bad I’m broke. Oh, I am not funny.”
“Not really,” he answers, and she snorts.
He doesn’t know what to talk about. He doesn’t want to talk about school because that’s typical, and he doesn’t like talking about himself. He doesn’t want to mention Jean and his offer, but it’ll come up eventually, so he might as well tell her now.
“Jean works at this record shop. It’s in Eastport. He says we should drop by some time, and . . . we can get stuff or something,” he fumbles, glancing at his door and wondering if he’s talking too loud, if Zack can hear him if he turns the TV down just enough.
Girlie never hears anything. Zack shouldn’t as well.
“Did he?” asks Alexandria, and Jamie can picture her lying on her bed, twirling her hair. “Jean’s cute.”
“Oh.”
“But I don’t dig him. I’ll play along for a little while though.”
The blur between whether or not he should like her increases. “Why?”
“Because it’s fun. And he thinks he’s all that when he’s really not.”
“You don’t know that.” Defensive and offended, as if he’s Jean himself. “He’s not bad.”
“You don’t seem to know him any better than I do. So he could be.”
That ends the conversation of Jean before Alexandria invites Jamie to her house for the weekend and moves on to another topic.
YOU ARE READING
Psyche
Teen FictionJamie's other name might as well have been Silent. He went to school, visited his therapist, daydreamed about Jean Paul, and tried to never be alone when his aunt's boyfriend was in the house. He kept to himself. He was fine with that pattern till A...
