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all their bluster over how much they loved Whit, it was just that-- bluster. They found him amusing, but they weren't really his friends. If they were, he would have been with them tonight.
I knew what that was like. I had spent plenty of birthdays with no party, no friends, no one around but my brother and my father, who had to be there, my mother an ever-?ominous presence. There was nothing worse, in my experience, than a miserable birthday.
With a deep breath, I made a decision. Old-?fashioned or not, condescending or not, Whittaker was basically a good guy. And he deserved a good birthday. As of now, it was my job to make that happen.
“I'll have the filet mignon, medium,” I told him.
Whittaker smiled and sat up a bit straighter. “Good choice. Appetizers? Dessert?”
“It's your birthday,” I said. “Your night, your choice.”
193
HEARTBREAKER
'Yes! Another winner!" I cheered, raising my fists in the air as Whittaker pulled his car through the security gate at Easton. It was pitch-?dark outside and the security guard waved us through without even looking up from his mini television. For the first time all evening I realized that I was reluctant for the night to end. Once I had relaxed and decided to treat the whole thing as a night out with a friend who just wanted a good birthday, I had actually started to have a good time.
“How much?” Whittaker asked gleefully.
“Two dollars and fifty cents,” I said, holding up the scratch-?off card. “Told you this was a good investment.”
The entire car was littered with scratch-?off lottery tickets. On the floor at my feet were dozens of useless cards, while stacked on my lap were the few winners. Five dollars here, twenty dollars there--it was all adding up.
“You may even make your money back,” I told Whittaker, picking up the last card. He'd dropped a hundred dollars at the
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convenience store on the highway. The guy behind the counter had looked at us like we were nuts, but had patiently counted off one hundred of the tiny game cards.
“Lottery tickets. I never would have even thought of that,” Whittaker said, downshifting as we climbed the winding hill.
“Really? This is the first thing everyone at home does on their eighteenth,” I said. Of course, I guessed people like Whittaker never played the lottery. I should have been surprised that he even knew the lottery existed. I scratched off the last square. The symbol there didn't match any of the others. “Nothing,” I said, tossing it on the floor.
“So, what's the final tally?” he asked.
I reached up and turned on the overhead light so I could see better. Quickly I flipped through our winning cards and did the math in my head. “One hundred two dollars and fifty cents,” I announced. “You made a profit.”
“Wow. Good for me,” he said.
'You just have to take them to a lottery dealer to cash them in," I said, straightening the pile in my lap.
“You keep them,” he said.
“What? No,” I said. “These are your birthday tickets.”
“Yes, but it was your idea,” Whittaker said as he pulled the car into the circle that fronted Bradwell and the other underclassmen dorms. “I insist.”
An unpleasant warmth spread through my chest. A hundred dollars. That was a lot of money. To me. Clearly, to him it was
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chump change. Throwing it out the window was no problem for him.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Thanks.”
He pulled the car to a stop at the curb and put it in park. Instantly the vibe in the car went from silly and celebratory to serious and loaded. This was it. The moment of truth. End of the date time. I had already decided hours earlier that if he tried to kiss me, I would let him. It was what he wanted, that much was obvious, and it would be a small price to pay for everything he had given me, everything he could give me. But now that the time had come I wondered if I could go through with it. The more time I spent with Whit, the fonder I was of him, but not in the way he wanted me to be.