Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (ereader with android txt) 📕

I don’t even wait until we’re upstairs. I trail behind Brandie and Ryan, frantically typing.

ANDY YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.

I’m just

I think Ryan has an actual crush

ON BRANDIE

This is not a drill

Brandie and Ryan head into my room, but I pause in the doorway, peering down at my phone. No response. Which is fine. It’s not like I’m about to explode all over Mom’s hardwood floors. You just take your sweet everloving time, Anderson Walker.

Brandie takes her usual spot on my bed, but Ryan wimps out and goes for the desk chair. So I stick my phone in my pocket and settle in next to Brandie—but I barely last a minute before I whip it out again to check. Nothing.

I scoot out of Brandie’s screen-reading range.

Anderson where are you???

Andy he’s helping us rehearse. And hanging out with us voluntarily. RYAN!!!

Like THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. He’s been hanging out with me so much more than usual and NOW I GET IT

He’s IN LOVE.

Are you getting these??

No response. No ellipses. Just nothing. A giant box of nothing.

Scene 57

Anderson doesn’t write back for hours, and even then, it’s just a halfhearted lol. Not even an LOL with exclamation points. I’m sorry, but that has to be the most severe underreaction in all of human history. It makes me feel like I’m being punched in the face every time I look at my phone.

It’s just so totally not like him. It’s the antithesis of Anderson.

Unless, of course, he’s mad at me. But why? I keep reading and reading the whole series of texts, trying to crack the code. Like, did I say something creepy? Or problematic? Is he just opposed to the Good Ship Bryan? Maybe Andy’s got Ryan pegged as a fuckboy. Maybe he loathes Ryan the way I loathe Eric Graves.

So I try to steer us back to neutral with a link to some irresistible content about Disney prince hotness rankings. But Anderson never writes back, and I honestly feel a little sick about it. I spend all of Sunday on tenterhooks, practically magnetized to my phone.

I text him again after dinner, and I swear, I actually feel shy. Which is more than weird. It’s unnerving. I spend ten minutes tweaking the wording to make it sound extra chill and casual.

Hey, am I still riding with you tomorrow?

He writes back instantly. Of course!!

Followed by a full line of emojis.

So gloriously normal, I could weep.

Matt’s not quite back from Alabama, so it’s just Andy and me this morning. The OG duo. My triumphant return to the passenger seat. And maybe Anderson’s a little subdued, but at least I don’t get a vibe that he hates me.

So we’re good. Normal ride, normal Monday, normal us. I mean, it’s approximately normal. Round-up normal, at least as long as I keep doing most of the talking. By the time we reach Hardscrabble Road, I’ve already walked Anderson through my theory that Ryan and Brandie have been secretly texting for weeks.

“I’m getting to the bottom of this.” I press my lips together, nodding. “Maybe if I photograph Ryan’s phone screen and zoom in, I could make out the name—”

“Or you could just ask him,” says Andy.

“He’ll deny it.”

My phone buzzes, and the sound alone makes my heart flip. I guess I spent so long obsessing over texts yesterday, my brain got stuck there. But then again, maybe the heart flip is justified. Because the text is from Matt.

Hey, I’m so sorry if that was weird on Friday. I shouldn’t have just shown up.

I grin down at my screen. There are ellipses. He’s still typing.

A moment later: I feel so bad!

OMG, don’t feel bad! I write back. You’re fine. How’s Alabama??

Ehh. It’s

Oh no! I’m so sorry!!! You okay?

I look back up at Andy. “Yikes. Sounds like Matt’s not having the best weekend.”

“Yeah . . .”

My phone buzzes again. I’m fine. My dad’s just a lot. One more night. I’ll be back by rehearsal tomorrow. We’ll talk this week, okay?

As promised, Matt arrives around dismissal on Tuesday, just in time for rehearsal. He plops into the seat beside me. “Hi.”

I smile up at him. “You made it.”

“So glad to be home.” Home. I like that when he says that, he means Roswell. He means us.

“Did things get any better with your dad?”

“I mean, not really? My dad’s kind of . . .” He trails off, smiling, like he always does when he talks about his dad. Over Matt’s shoulder, I see Anderson enter through the far side auditorium door, cutting straight to the front row of seats.

Which is weird. I’m sure he saw us. It’s not like we’re hidden.

So maybe Anderson really is mad at me. I’ve been going back and forth about it all day. In history class, he just seemed quiet. He didn’t show up to lunch. And now this.

My eyes keep drifting toward him, but he seems to be pointedly ignoring us, thumbing through his script like he’s practicing his lines. Even though we all know Anderson’s had the whole play memorized since the first week of rehearsal.

“—missed the game,” Matt says—and only then do I realize he’s been speaking this whole time. I look back at him with a start. “But it is what it is,” Matt says, and I nod my head vaguely.

My brain’s on a loop. Anderson’s mad at me, Anderson’s mad at me, Anderson’s mad at me. He’s not supposed to be mad at me, per the ground rules. But I think he is. I’m almost positive. And it’s giving me that verge-of-explosion feeling in my throat.

I guess if I were a perfect friend, I’d nip the Matt issue in the bud. I could end the whole thing right now. He’d have to understand, right? Matt would never want to come between my friendship with Andy. Though if I even mention Andy, that’s basically telling Matt to his face that Andy has a crush on him. Which would be