The Fill-In Boyfriend by Lindsey Osorio, Lindsey Osorio, Lindsey Osorio, Lindsey Osorio (macos ebook reader .TXT) 📕

A voice began talking on the machine, leaving a message. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery, this is Professor Hammond at UCLA calling about your son, Drew.”

I snatched the phone up, anxiety tightening my chest. “Hello, hello, I’m here.”

“Oh, hello. I was just leaving a message.”

“Is Drew okay?”

“Okay? Oh yes, of course. I’m one of his teachers and I just wanted to let you and your husband know about an award your son is winning for a short film he made.”

“I’m his sister.”

“Gia?” he asked.

Drew’s teacher knew my name? My heart swelled. I shouldn’t have felt so proud about that but I did. It meant he’d talked about me at least once. “Yes.”

“Ah, good to talk to you. Can you let your parents know? And you should come too, of course. He’ll be receiving his award and showing a small piece of his film at a banquet this Saturday. Your parents should’ve gotten an invite in the mail a couple of weeks ago, but I’m calling all the award recipients’ families just to make sure they received that. It included four tickets. It’s really a special honor. I’m sure he’d appreciate the support.”

“That’s great. Thank you for calling. I’ll let my parents know.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you Saturday.”

I hung up the phone and went to put it down but changed my mind. I dialed Drew’s number.

“Hello.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hi. What’s up, G?”

“I just got a call from your professor. Congrats on the award.”

It was silent for three breaths. “Oh. Thanks.”

“I’m coming to the banquet.” I had just made that decision.

“I already talked to Mom and Dad about this. My teacher is making this into a bigger deal than it is. It’s not worth the three-hour drive at all. I’d rather you all come to a film festival the school is putting on next month. I have an entry in it that I’d love for you all to see.”

“I don’t mind coming twice.”

“Gia, really. It will be so boring. They’re only showing a three-minute clip and between driving here and back and then sitting through a two-hour awards ceremony, your whole day will be wasted.”

My happy feelings from before were deflated. “Okay.”

He must’ve heard the disappointment in my voice because he said, “I was just down there.”

“But we hardly saw each other.”

“I’ll make you a deal. Next time I’m down, we’ll go out, just the two of us.”

I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that. “Okay.”

“Good. See you next month.” He hung up the phone. He was right. It was probably pointless to go all the way to LA for a three-minute highlight.

My parents came in carrying bags that they set on the counter in the kitchen.

“You’re home,” my mom said.

“I am. You went to the grocery store for your date night?”

“No, we just stopped by on the way home.” She unloaded a gallon of milk. “How was your day?”

“Fun.”

My dad tousled my hair. “Did the surfer dude teach you anything good?”

“He taught me never to call him a surfer dude.”

My dad laughed.

“Drew’s professor called about an award he’ll be getting on Saturday.”

“That was nice of him to call.”

“Are you going?” I asked even though Drew had assured me they weren’t.

“We were going to, but Drew told us it wasn’t worth it. He wants us to come next month.”

“We should go anyway,” I said. “Surprise him. He probably just doesn’t want to inconvenience us.”

My dad pointed to the cupboard above the fridge. “I still have the tickets they sent.”

“I scheduled some open houses for Saturday,” my mom said, unloading vegetables into the fridge.

“Oh.” My eyes drifted to my dad, thinking about suggesting a father/daughter outing, but he shrugged as if he had accepted my mom’s excuse.

“We should probably honor Drew’s wishes.”

“But like I said, maybe he was just saying that to be nice but really wants us to come.”

“I don’t want to argue about this, Gia,” my mom said.

I stopped midbreath. “I wasn’t.”

“The decision has been made.”

“Right.” I sighed. “I’m going to go clean my room.”

“Thank you,” my mom said as I headed out of the kitchen.

But when I got to my room, instead of cleaning it, I sank to the bed. My prom dress still hung over my desk chair, stirring up a longing I didn’t like to feel.

On a whim I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text: I was trying to be a better person today but the world isn’t cooperating.

Hayden texted back almost immediately: Uh-oh. What happened?

I sighed. I wanted to support my brother, who won an award, but my parents don’t want to go. And he doesn’t want us to come anyway.

Instead of the chime of a text I was expecting, my phone started ringing. I jumped then smiled when I saw Hayden’s number on the screen.

“Hello.”

“What kind of award?” he asked as if we had been talking all along.

“I guess he did some sort of short film. He takes a couple of filmmaking classes.”

“You should go anyway,” he said.

“That’s what I said, but my parents didn’t agree. My mom has to work and my dad was quick to use that as an excuse.”

“You don’t need them.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I do. I don’t have a car. It was like pulling teeth whenever I wanted to borrow it to visit Bradley. And since my mom has to work, that’s not happening.”

“I can take you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I owe you and I’m working on being a better person.”

I laughed. “You do not owe me. We’re even now. If you did this, I would owe you.”

“Bec would probably come too. She loves that artsy film stuff,” he said as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “It would be fun. An adventure.”

I pulled at a loose string on the bottom of my jeans. “I don’t know. My brother was pretty insistent about us not coming.”

“He probably just didn’t want to pressure you. I know that I hate to have people go out of their way for me.”

“You’re right. He’d probably be happy we came. Maybe he even wanted my parents to insist on coming.”

“He probably did. You said you two aren’t very close, right?”

“Right.”

“This is like you showing him that he’s important to you. That you support him.”

It felt weird making Hayden drive me three hours, but he was right, this would be a good show of support. I remembered the conversation I had walked into the middle of between Hayden and Spencer. How Spencer implied that Hayden was too nice, did things without thinking about himself. I hoped this wasn’t one of those times. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll give you gas money.”

“If you want to.”

“Thank you, Hayden.”

“You’re welcome, Gia.”

“Don’t get any ideas.” It was the first thing Bec said to me when I sat down in Government the next morning.

“About what?”

“About you and my brother. He’s too good for you.”

“I have no ideas.” Well . . . maybe I was getting a few ideas, but I was trying not to let them linger. If Hayden was in my life for real, I had a lot of explaining to do to my friends. I had a lot of explaining to do anyway. I needed to come clean. Especially since Jules seemed be unwilling to drop her suspicions.

Bec blinked once, lowering her brow like she’d heard my thoughts, then said, “I’m going with you on Saturday to keep an eye on you. Not because I want to help you or anything.”

“I thought maybe we were friends now,” I said.

“I’m not friends with anyone who won’t acknowledge my existence in public.”

“You didn’t acknowledge me at the beach either.”

She laughed. “Not with the pleading stares you were giving me to keep my mouth shut.”

“That’s more about prom than anything. They can’t know it was you at prom.”

“Right. Keep telling yourself that.”

It’s true, I wanted to insist. If my friends knew it was her that Hayden had fought with at prom, the whole story would’ve blown up right there on the beach. In front of everyone. I wasn’t sure why I needed her to believe this. She really wasn’t my friend. I should’ve been able to brush it off and move on.

But I couldn’t. “Hey, I helped you out yesterday. They wouldn’t have left you alone.”

She let out a single bark of a laugh. “Are you for real? You really thought you did some sort of good deed, didn’t you? Saving us from the snobs you hang out with. You’re practically a saint.” With that she turned back around.

I couldn’t shake off the conversation with Bec all day, so when Claire and I were walking to the parking lot for lunch and I saw her, I said, “Hi, Bec.”

She did a double take then just shook her head with a smile. “Touché.”

“What was that about?” Claire asked after we passed. “Who was that?”

“That was Bec. She’s the one I was telling you about the other day who set me up with her brother.”

“Her?” she asked, obviously shocked.

“Yes.”

“She’s . . .”

“Really cool,” I said before she could fill in an adjective I didn’t want to hear.

“So are you two friends now?”

“I don’t think she wants to be my friend.”

Claire grunted. “Don’t you have that reversed?”

“No, I don’t.” My backpack dug into my shoulder so I shifted it to the other one.

“Is everything okay, Gia? You’ve seemed different lately. Distant.”

I took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I guess I’m just feeling reflective. We’re about to graduate and I’m wondering what I’ve really accomplished.”

“You are one of the most popular girls at school. When people look back ten years from now, they will remember your name. They’ll know who you were.”

How would other people know who I was when I didn’t even know that?

She nodded her head toward where Bec had been. “She won’t even enter their minds.”

“So, being remembered? Is that what life is about?”

“Better than being forgotten.”

“I guess I’d rather be remembered for something, though.”

“Like what?”

“I have no idea.”

I looked at Bec’s retreating back. Maybe a lot of people from high school wouldn’t remember Bec in ten years, but the people who did would remember she was loud and confident and sometimes mean but always knew exactly what she wanted.

We reached Claire’s car, where Laney and Jules were already waiting.

“Where are we going for lunch today, girls?” Jules asked.

Laney and Claire looked at me like it was my decision. “I don’t care. You guys pick.”

Claire and Laney exchanged a look like I’d never said that before. I was sure I’d let them pick our lunch spot before. Although now that I thought about it, I remember often declaring I was in the mood for certain things. I hadn’t thought that was a demand. More of a suggestion.

“How about Las Palapas? I feel like Mexican food,” Jules said.

For some reason, Jules picking made me want to make a suggestion after all but I didn’t. “Sounds good.”

When Claire drove, I sat in the passenger seat. When Jules drove, Laney sat passenger. It’s just how it worked, how we always did it. So when I rounded the car after Claire had unlocked the doors and I saw Jules walk straight for the passenger door and open it without a pause,