Chapter 12 The Problem With Caring
PENNY POV
She did it at nine forty-seven last night.
She knows the exact time because she checked her phone right before she pulled the essay out of the trash and thought, seriously, Penny, it is nine forty-seven at night, you should be in bed, not going through a boy's garbage.
She did it anyway.
She smoothed the paper out on the kitchen table. She read it once. Then she sat there for a full minute just looking at it because what was on that page was not what a D minus looked like. A D minus was lazy writing, or no effort, or someone who didn't care. This was someone who cared too much and didn't know how to make the words behave. The ideas were there, real ones, honest ones, the kind that don't come from googling and copying but from actually feeling something. He wrote about losing things before you understood their value. He wrote it badly, but he meant every word.
She got a pencil.
She told herself she would just fix one paragraph.
She fixed all of them.
She slid the folder under his door at six-fifteen and went back to bed and told herself it was a completely normal and non-weird thing to do.
Second period. Penny sits in her seat and knows it was not a completely normal and non-weird thing to do.
She pulls out her notebook. She writes the date. She underlines it. She tells herself she is going to focus on the lesson and not spend any mental energy on Jake Mercer's essay or Jake Mercer's handwriting or the things Jake Mercer was trying to say about loss that were so honest they made her chest ache a little.
She focuses on the lesson.
For about four minutes.
Then the girl in front of her turns around and says, in a low voice, "Did you see the post?"
Penny goes still. "What post?"
The girl, whose name is Sofia, has never spoken to Penny before in three years of sitting in front of her, and slides her phone under the desk. The screen is angled toward Penny.
It's the side-by-side image. The one Penny found last night. She and Jake are at the sink. The caption is still there. Forty-seven likes have become one hundred and twelve.
"That's you, right?" Sofia says. Not mean. Actually just asking.
Penny looks at the image. She looks at it for three seconds. She hands the phone back.
"That's me," she says.
"Do you know who posted it?"
Penny picks up her pencil. "I have a guess."
Sofia looks at her for a moment. Something moves across her face that might be sympathy or might be curiosity; it's hard to tell. Then she turns back around before the teacher notices.
Penny opens her notebook.
She writes: Evidence folder. Photo through the window. Add to screenshots.
She underlines it twice.
She pays attention for the rest of class.
She does not think about the essay all day.
She does not think about it in the third period when her mind wanders to the part where he wrote I didn't understand what it meant until it was already gone, and meant it about his mother, even though the essay was technically about a book.
She does not think about it at lunch when she sits alone in the corner and reads and gets through six whole pages before she accidentally thinks about the margin notes she left him and whether he would understand why she made each change.
She does not think about it when she picks up Lily from aftercare, and Lily immediately starts telling her about a disagreement she had with a boy named Tomás about whether robots could be sad.
"Can they?" Lily asks seriously.
"Depends on how you define sad," Penny says.
Lily thinks about this the whole walk home.
Penny does not think about the essay.
She hears Jake's truck at five-twenty.
She is at the stove. She does not turn around. She hears the door. She hears his bag drop. She hears him say, " Hey, " to Lily, who is drawing at the table. She waits for him to come into the kitchen properly, to say something, to do the thing where he leans against the counter and acts normal while being very not normal.
He goes straight upstairs.
Footsteps. Hallway. His room. Door.
Penny stirs the pot.
Fine. Normal. He got the folder this morning, and he hasn't said anything, and maybe he won't say anything, and they will both just pretend it didn't happen, and that is actually the best possible outcome, and she is completely fine with that.
She is completely fine.
She makes dinner. Pasta again because Lily likes to stir, and stirring keeps her at the counter and not drawing on the walls, which happened once and was a whole thing. She lets Lily stir. She cuts the bread. She sets the table.
Jake comes downstairs at six.
He sits at the table. He helps Lily put her drawing away. He does not look at Penny. She does not look at him. They eat. Lily talks about the robot sadness debate and whether Tomás was right that robots are just pretending.
"You can't pretend to feel something you don't have," Lily concludes.
Penny looks at her plate.
Jake says, "That's actually really smart, Lily."
Lily shrugs as she knows.
After dinner, Lily goes to watch her show, and Jake washes, and Penny dries, and it is Tuesday, but it feels different from last Tuesday. There is something in the air between them that has weight. Penny keeps her eyes on the dish in her hands.
Jake finishes the last pot. He hands it over. She dries it.
He leans against the counter.
She puts the pot away.
"Penny," he says.
"Don't," she says.
"I haven't said anything yet."
"I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?"
She turns around. He is looking at her with an expression she doesn't have a category for. Not grateful exactly. Not embarrassed. Something more complicated. Something that makes her want to look away.
She doesn't look away.
"It wasn't a big deal," she says. "Your ideas were good. The structure was broken. I fixed the structure. That's it."
He is quiet for a moment. Then: "Why?"
She blinks. "Why what?"
"Why did you do it? You don't even." He stops. He starts again. "You don't owe me anything. I haven't exactly been" Another stop. His jaw tightens. "Why?"
Penny looks at him. She looks at him for a long, honest moment, and then she says the truest answer she has.
"Because it felt wrong to let something real get a D minus."
The kitchen is very quiet.
Jake looks at her like she just said something in a language he's been trying to learn for a long time.
Then his phone rings.
He looks at the screen. His whole face changes. Not Brianna this time. Not Marcus. He shows her the screen like he can't help it, as he needs her to see.
Dad.
One word. His father is calling from whatever time zone swallowed him this week.
Jake looks at Penny.
Penny says quietly, "You should answer it."
He answers it. He walks to the living room.
She can hear the conversation from the kitchen, not every word, but enough. His father's voice is thin and distant through the speaker. Jake's voice is flat in the way that means he is being careful with it.
She hears his father say: I'm going to miss regionals. The trip got extended.
She hears Jake say: Okay.
Just okay. Like it isn't the third time this season. Like it doesn't cost him anything to say it that calmly.
Penny puts the dish towel down.
She goes to the cabinet. She gets the kettle. She fills it. She turns it on.
She gets two mugs.
She doesn't ask. She doesn't wait to be invited.
She just puts the kettle on.
And when Jake comes back to the kitchen two minutes later, phone in his hand, face carefully neutral, he stops when he sees the two mugs on the counter.
He looks at them.
He looks at her.
She looks at the kettle.
"Sit down," she says quietly. "It's almost ready."
He sits down.
And Penny stands at the counter and waits for the kettle, and tells herself she does not have feelings for Jake Mercer.
She has never been a worse liar in her life.