The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  “It’s not like that,” Peter said. “I mean, it’s kind of one-sided.”

  “I bet she’s just as nervous as you are.”

  He grimaced. “Mom. She barely even registers my existence. I’m not . . . I don’t hang out with the kind of people she hangs out with.”

  Lacy looked at her son. “Well,” she said. “Then your first order of business is to change that.”

  “How?”

  “Find ways to connect with her. Maybe in places where you know her friends won’t be around. And try to show her the side of you that she doesn’t normally see.”

  “Like what?”

  “The inside.” Lacy tapped Peter’s chest. “If you tell her how you feel, I think you might be surprised at the reaction.”

  Peter ducked his head and kicked at a hummock of snow. Then he glanced up at her shyly. “Really?”

  Lacy nodded. “It worked for me.”

  “Okay,” Peter said. “Thanks.”

  She watched him trudge back up the hill to the house, and then she turned her attention back to the deer. Lacy would have to feed them until the snow melted. Once you started taking care of them, you had to follow through, or they just wouldn’t make it.

  * * *

  They were on the floor of the living room and they were nearly naked. Josie could taste beer on Matt’s breath, but she must have tasted like that, too. They’d both drunk a few at Drew’s—not enough to get wasted, just buzzed, enough so that Matt’s hands seemed to be all over her at once, so that his skin set fire to hers.

  She’d been floating along pleasantly in a haze of the familiar. Yes, Matt had kissed her—one short one, then a longer, hungry kiss, as his hand worked open the clasp on her bra. She lay lazy, spread beneath him like a feast, as he pulled off her jeans. But then, instead of doing what usually came next, Matt reared over her again. He kissed her so hard that it hurt. “Mmmph,” she said, pushing at him.

  “Relax,” Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach.

  It wasn’t the way it normally was, but Josie had to admit that it was exciting. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer.

  “Yeah,” he groaned, and he pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs.

  “Wait,” Josie said, trying to roll away beneath him, but he clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.

  Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her. Matt framed her face with his hands. “Jesus, Josie,” he whispered, and she realized that he was in tears. “I love you so goddamn much.”

  Josie turned her face away. “I love you, too.”

  She lay in his arms for ten minutes and then said she was tired and needed to go to sleep. After she kissed Matt good-bye at the front door, she went into the kitchen and took the rug cleaner out from underneath the sink. She scrubbed it into the wet spot on the carpet, prayed it would not leave a stain.

  * * *

  Peter highlighted the text on his computer screen and deleted it. Although he thought it would be pretty cool to open an email and automatically have an I LOVE YOU message written over and over on the screen, he could see where someone else—someone who didn’t give a crap about C++—would think it was just downright strange.

  He’d decided on an email because that way if she blew him off, he could suffer the embarrassment in private. The problem was, his mother had said to show what was inside him and he wasn’t very good when it came to words.

  He thought about how sometimes, when he saw her, it was just a part of her: her arm resting on the passenger window of the car, her hair blowing out its window. He thought about how many times he’d fantasized about being the one at the wheel.

  My journey was pointless, he wrote. Until I took a YOU-turn.

  Groaning, Peter deleted that, too. It made him sound like a Hallmark card writer, or even worse, one that Hallmark wouldn’t even hire.

  He thought about what he wished he could say to her, if he had the guts, and poised his hands over the keyboard.

  I know you don’t think of me.

  And you certainly would never picture us together.

  But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it up with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste better when there was pepper. And what’s the point of butter without bread?

  (Why are all these examples FOODS!?!?!??)

  Anyway, by myself, I’m nothing special. But with you, I think I could be.

  He agonized about the ending.

  Your friend, Peter Houghton

  Well, technically that wasn’t true.

  Sincerely, Peter Houghton

  That was true, but it was still sort of lame. Of course, there was the obvious:

  Love, Peter Houghton

  He typed it in, read it over once. And then, before he could stop himself, he pushed the Enter button and sent his heart across the Ethernet to Josie Cormier.

  * * *

  Courtney Ignatio was so freaking bored.

  Josie was her friend and all, but there was, like, nothing to do. They’d already watched three Paul Walker movies on DVD, checked the Lost website for the bio on the hot guy who played Sawyer, and read all the Cosmos that hadn’t been recycled, but there was no HBO, nothing chocolate in the fridge, and no party at Sterling College to sneak into. This was Courtney’s second night at the Cormier household, thanks to her brainiac older brother, who had dragged her parents on a whirlwind tour of Ivy League colleges on the East Coast. Courtney plopped a stuffed hippo on her stomach and frowned into its button eyes. She’d already tried to get details out of Josie last night about Matt—important things, like how big a dick he had and if he had a clue how to use it—but Josie had gone all Hilary Duff on her and acted like she’d never heard the word sex before.

  Josie was in the bathroom taking a shower; Courtney could still hear the water running. She rolled to her side and scrutinized a framed photograph of Josie and Matt. It would have been easy to hate Josie, because Matt was the über-boyfriend—always glancing around at a party to make sure he hadn’t gotten too far away from Josie; calling her up to say good night, even when he’d just dropped her off a half hour before (yes, Courtney had been privy to a display of that very thing just last night). Unlike most of the guys on the hockey team—several of whom Courtney had dated—Matt honestly seemed to prefer Josie’s company to anyone else’s. But there was something about Josie that kept Courtney from being jealous. It was the way her expression slipped every now and then, like a colored contact lens, so you could see what was actually underneath. Josie might have been one-half of Sterling High School’s Most Faithful Couple, but it almost seemed like the biggest reason she clung to that label was because that was the only reason she knew who she was.

  You’ve got mail.

  The automaton on Josie’s computer spoke; until then, Courtney hadn’t realized that they’d left the computer running, much less online. She settled down at the desk, wiggling the mouse so that the screen came back into focus. Maybe Matt was writing some kind of cyberporn. It would be fun to screw around with him a little and pretend that she was Josie.

  The return address, though, wasn’t one that Courtney recognized—she and Josie, after all, had nearly identical Buddy Lists. There was no subject. Courtney clicked on the link, assuming it was some kind of junk mail: enlarge your penis in thirty days; refinance your home; real deals on printer ribbon cartridges.

  The email opened, and Courtney started to read.

  “Oh my God,” she murmured. “This is too fucking good.”

  She swiped the body of the email and forwarded it to [email protected]