Turning Tables
Sam

It’s funny how the tables can turn on you. One second, all you can think about is the person you can’t have, even though you know it’s never gonna happen. You keep telling yourself it’s a brand new school year and well past time to just get over it and move on, but you don’t know how, because you can’t imagine anything or anyone else filling that space. Then, a second later, they’re not even a blip on the radar because all you can think about now is the totally hot foreign exchange student that just walked in the door, and he actually seems to like you, and he’s Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian, and a goth, and where has he been all my life?

Seriously, I don’t think I’d ever been so instantly attracted to anyone. Even my crush on Danny—my biggest and most serious thus far—had been a sort of slow-burn thing. But Gregor? It was more like a flash fire. He was tall and lean, with pure white hair spiked straight up, just the slightest hint of a goatee on his chin, dark glasses, and a small, gold hoop dangling from each earlobe. Not classically good-looking the way Danny was, but more... unique. Definitely my type. So much so, that I actually started babbling when I introduced myself: “Sam Manson. It’s short for Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. You can call me Sam, too. Why am I still talking? I’m such a spaz!”

But he found it charming. Me. Charming.

I was so taken by that—by him—that I barely even noticed the ghost attack. Gregor seemed to take it in stride, which was another point in his favor. While Tucker went out to check on Danny, I offered to show Gregor around a bit. It was late, so we just walked around the area of town near the Nasty Burger and the Park, but he asked if I’d show him more tomorrow, and I was more than happy to oblige. Tucker joined us at some point, letting me know in his trying-too-hard-to-be-subtle way that Danny said he didn’t need any help, and Gregor entertained us both with stories about Hungary, the Euro-goth scene, and how he’d decided to go Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian. Definitely an interesting and funny guy.

I got to show him around school the next day, and he reminded me I’d promised to take him around town that night. “It’s a date,” I replied, then blushed when I realized what I’d said. “Er, not a date, date, I mean...”

He smiled, his teeth the most brilliant white I’d ever seen. “Why not a date?”

I was so taken aback, I think I actually giggled. Either something was lost in the translation, or a hot guy had just asked me out. Not Paulina. Not Valerie. Me.

That night, I made a special point of dressing the way I always dress, and wearing my hair the way I always wore it. I so was not going to be one of those girls that had to go through fifty different outfits and obsess about my hair and makeup just for one little date. And it’s not like it was some big romantic candlelit dinner or anything. It was just me, showing a foreign exchange student around Amity Park. But as we walked, he held my hand, and I thought I was going to die on the spot. God, I hope my palms weren’t sweaty.

We didn’t have any real plan; we just sort of went wherever the mood struck. We went to the park and skipped stones in the pond. We went to see some cheesy romantic comedy, which normally would make me wanna hurl in my popcorn, but when he put his arm around my shoulders as the hero and heroine kissed for the first time, I decided maybe cheesy romantic comedies weren’t such a bad thing after all. We went to the mall afterwards and shared a plate of vegetarian spaghetti, which somehow seemed even more romantic than a candlelit dinner would have been.

The only thing that marred what otherwise would have been a perfect evening was the occasional niggling at the back of my brain that kept making me think of Danny. Everywhere we went, I thought I saw him—at the movie theater, at the mall... It was frustrating because I wanted to be able to let myself enjoy being with someone else. Someone who actually thought of me as dating potential. The last thing I needed was to stay stuck in a crush on a boy that was never, ever going to like me that way, so when I thought I saw his shadow on the movie screen, or heard his voice at the mall, I made a deliberate effort to push him from my mind and concentrate on the guy in front of me.

Not that it was a hard thing to do. Besides being easy on the eyes, Gregor shared a lot of my interests. We liked to surf the same websites, listen to the same bands, read the same authors. I promised to take him to the Skulk and Lurk some time, and he flashed me another one of his brilliant smiles. “Are you free tomorrow?”

Tomorrow, the day after, the rest of my life. “Yeah. I think I’m free tomorrow.” And it was another date.

After dinner, Gregor offered to walk me home, so we headed across the parking lot toward my house. As we walked under a streetlight, he grabbed my hand and stopped me. “Wait, Sam. There is something I must tell you, right here and now.”

My heart started pounding. “O-okaaaay. What?”

He leaned toward me and took my chin in his hand. “You have little tiny strand of spaghetti hanging from your lip right... here!”

And then he kissed me.

At first, I froze, completely shocked. A guy was kissing me. Not just some fake-out make-out, but a real kiss. An actual, ohmygod he’s kissing me kiss. My head starting spinning. Ohmygod, he really is kissing me, and I think my brain is going to explode and, wow, this is really nice and... Closing my eyes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew closer, letting myself get lost in the moment. His scruffy goatee scratched my chin, but his lips were soft and tasted like marinara sauce and something more exotic I couldn’t quite place. It was completely different than kissing Danny who, even though I’d only ever kissed him in his human form, still had a sort of cold, otherworldliness to him that gave me shivers, and—

My eyes flew open as I realized with horror where my mind had gone. Straight to Danny. Again. Even though I was kissing someone else. Someone I could really see myself falling for, maybe, eventually. But this was way too much, way too soon, and so not fair to Gregor.

Blinking, I put my hands on his shoulders and gently pushed myself away from him. “Whoa. Easy there, big fella. Don’t you think we’re rushing this a bit?”

He looked sheepish. “Ah, yes, yes. I forget. The American girls like to... take it slow.”

“I’ve just... got some things to figure out.” Like whether or not I actually liked Gregor for Gregor, or whether I just liked the idea of him as a shortcut to getting over Danny.

“Of course. I respect this.” And he took my hand in his, not the least bit upset or put off by my semi-refusal.

I looked from our joined hands to his face and smiled, relieved that he understood, and enjoying going back to the much less complicated pleasure of holding his hand. But as we started walking again, I could feel my smile fade, pushed out by an uneasiness in my heart as I held hands with this boy who was not Danny.

That night, I had a hard time sleeping. I kept reliving the kiss, comparing it to the two fake-out make-outs Danny and I had shared. It was ridiculous, comparing a real kiss with someone who actually liked me to two fake kisses with someone who never would, but I couldn’t stop my mind from going there. From remembering how each kiss felt, and how each kiss made me feel. I wanted to let it go, to let Danny go, so I could be happy with this new guy I really did like. But even contemplating cutting off my feelings for Danny was like trying to imagine cutting off my arm. He was a part of me in so many ways. How could I just let that go?

Because it isn’t real. Your friendship, that’s real, but anything else is just a false hope. It’s a... a ghost. A ghost of a future that will never be.

Still, it was my ghost, familiar and almost... comforting, in its own, dysfunctional way. And until I could exorcise it completely, I could never really move on. Not with Gregor, or anyone else.

That was my task, then. To exorcise the Ghost of Futures Not Meant to Be and free up room in my heart for other, more tangible possibilities. And Gregor seemed willing to let me set the pace, so maybe it was doable. Maybe if we took it slow, and I got to know him as well as I knew Danny, it wouldn’t be so hard or seem so out of reach. Then, maybe, I’d be ready to kiss someone who wasn’t Danny.

School the next day was awkward. I wasn’t sure how to act around Gregor, but I didn’t see much of him before lunch, which helped.

I was even less sure how to act around Danny, especially at lunch, when we had time to actually talk. He seemed bent on finding out exactly how I’d spent my evening, but no way was I going there with him. Not yet. So I tried to deflect his questions about what I’d been doing. “I don’t know. Just hung out.”

“With Gregor?” He sounded almost angry.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Tucker told him, a hint of warning in his voice.

I scowled, irritated with the both of them for bugging me about a subject I wasn’t ready to discuss. “Why is that any of your business?”

Danny got up from his seat and came around to my side of the table, where he got completely in my face. Surprised, I jerked away from him. “What are you doing?”

He returned to his own seat with an innocent shrug. “I don’t know. Just, uh, checking for pimples, dimples...” He paused, giving me an accusatory look. “Spaghetti sauce.”

What the heck? “Spaghetti—?” I gasped as it hit me. He wasn’t just fishing; he knew. “Were you spying on me?”

Tucker answered for him. “I told you it was a bad idea to spy on her.”

Danny shot him a nasty look. “Niiiice.”

I could feel the fury building in me. The shadow on the movie screen... his voice at the mall... “You used your ghost powers to spy on me?” It wasn’t me. It wasn’t because I was obsessing on him. He’d been there. Spying on me. Rising to my feet, I curled my hands into fists and glared down at him. “You’ve really crossed the line!”

“Not you! I was spying on Gregor! He’s so obviously working with the Guys in White!” Danny climbed to his feet to face me.

I could have cheerfully strangled him. “Oh, so that’s it! The only way a boy could like me is if it was part of a plot to get you? Ha! Ego, much?” Just because he didn’t think of me as girlfriend material didn’t mean

no one else could. And who was he, of all people, to pronounce judgments on my dating life, anyway? The guy whose crushes included the shallowest girl in the school and the ghost hunter who wanted to kill his alter-ego?

I’m not sure what I would have done next, had Gregor not chosen that moment to appear. “Hey, Sam, you want to—?”

“Whatever it is, yes!” Because if I didn’t get away from Danny, I was going to kill him. Turning on my heel, I grabbed Gregor’s arm and stomped away from the table, dragging him behind me.

Back inside the school, Gregor wrenched his arm free from my grasp. “Sam, stop! You are—how you say?— dislocating my shoulder. Something is wrong, yes?”

I took a breath to calm down. “No, Gregor. Nothing’s wrong. I just... needed a breath of fresh air.”

He looked puzzled. “For breath of fresh air, you come indoors?”

I stopped, unable to suppress a chuckle. “No. It’s just an expression. What were you going to ask me, anyway?”

“Yes, yes. I wanted to ask you what time I should pick you up tonight.”

I frowned. “Tonight?”

“You said you would take me to goth bookstore tonight.” He tilted his head. “You are still free, yes? Or do you have other plans. Perhaps with your friend Tucker? Or Danny?”

Just the mention of Danny’s name made my blood start to boil again. “No. I definitely do not have plans with Danny. We’re still on for the bookstore.”

He smiled. “Good. It’s a date, then?”

I swallowed at the word date. Part of me really, really liked the idea. But another, louder part was afraid of getting back into the same situation as last night, where Gregor was nothing more than a convenient alternative to Danny. It didn’t help matters that I was furious with my so-called best friend for trying to tell me who I could and couldn’t date and was just itching to flaunt my... whatever-this-was with Gregor.

Sidestepping the question altogether, I offered him a small smile in return. “Why don’t you come by my place at seven?”

By the end of the school day, I was beginning to think that going to the Skulk and Lurk with Gregor was a huge mistake. The more I thought about being alone with him, the more I thought about our kiss the night before, which in turn made me think of Danny spying on us, which made me get mad at him all over again, which made me want to kiss Gregor again even more, which made me feel guilty for using Gregor to get at Danny, which made me angry at Danny... Lather, rinse, repeat. I was considering finding Gregor and begging off, maybe offering to take him later in the weekend when I’d cooled down about the thing with Danny and my feelings about that weren’t so tied up in my feelings about Gregor.

Then, a reprieve came in an unlikely form. Tucker.

“Hey, Sam!” he called out, catching up with me after school. “Gregor mentioned you guys were going to the Skulk and Lurk tonight. Mind if I tag along?”

I raised my eyebrow. “Since when do you like going to the Skulk and Lurk?”

“I like the Skulk and Lurk. They have great graphic novels. And Gregor’s really cool. So, can I come along?” Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrow at me. “Or is this, like, a date or something?”

I almost wanted to tell him that yes, it was a date, so he’d go back and tell Danny. Let Mr. I Don’t Want You But Nobody Else Can Have You Either chew on that for a while. But in truth, the thought of having someone else there so I could get to know Gregor better without obsessing over whether or not I was doing it for the wrong reasons was a huge relief, so I told Tucker he was welcome to tag along. Besides, it made for an even better thought for Danny to chew on: the difference between asking to tag along and spying.

Fortunately, Gregor didn’t seem to mind Tucker’s company. In fact, when Tucker suggested that the three of us hang out together over the weekend, Gregor readily agreed.

I, on the other hand, was beginning to have second thoughts. Not only was Tucker being even more obnoxious than usual, he seemed to take great delight in getting between me and Gregor whenever he could. Any time I got within three feet of the guy, or even started to feel at ease with him and think that it would be nice to be alone with him, Tucker was there, telling some lame joke, or going on about how cool Gregor was. At first, I thought it was some sort of bromance thing, what with all Tucker’s fawning, but then I began to wonder if maybe Danny hadn’t put him up to it. I wouldn’t put it past him, after all the spying and the accusations about Gregor working with the Guys in White.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. By the time I saw Danny at school on Monday, I was convinced he’d talked Tucker into trying to sabotage my relationship with Gregor, and I was angrier than ever. At lunch, I made a point of sitting with Gregor on the opposite side of the cafeteria from Danny. When Tucker not only sat with us instead of him, but made a point of inviting himself along with us—again—when Gregor asked me if I’d go with him to Amity Park Observatory that night, I knew I was right.

After lunch, I was finally able to corner Tucker. “What do you think you’re doing? Did Danny put you up to this?”

He was all innocence. “Put me up to what?”

“Hanging around me and Gregor all weekend, putting yourself between us whenever you could and, now, inviting yourself to the observatory with us tonight. Is this some sort of sick control thing with him? He got caught spying on us, so he got you to do it for him? I swear, if he put you up to this, he’s gonna be all ghost by the time I get through with him...”

“Sam, hold up.” Tucker put up his hands to stop me. “It was my idea to hang out with you guys, okay?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why? Because you think he’s a spy, too? That he couldn’t possibly be spending time with me just because he likes me?”

“No, I don’t think he’s a spy. I just think he’s fun to hang with. And he definitely likes you.” This went a long way toward improving my mood, but Tucker gave me a pointed look. “So, do you think maybe you can cut Danny a little bit of slack?”

So much for improved moods. “Why should I? He spied on me, Tucker. He used his ghost powers to spy on me and Gregor that first night we went out.”

“As opposed to, say, using a pair of high-powered binoculars?” He crossed his arms and arched his eyebrow at me.

I scowled at him. “That was totally different!”

“How is it different?”

Because Danny didn’t want me the way I wanted him. He didn’t want me, but he didn’t want anyone else to have me either. I was the ego boost when Paulina turned up her nose at him, or Valerie decided her vendetta was more important than her feelings for him. He didn’t want me, but he liked that I wanted him, and it was galling. That’s how it was different.

But I couldn’t say that to Tucker, who was just looking for an excuse to ride me about my feelings for Danny. And the truth was, he wasn’t wrong. It was different, but it didn’t excuse how I’d acted when Danny and Valerie had gone out. I’d had no more right to spy on him than he had to spy on me, even if the reasons weren’t the same. But I couldn’t say that to Tucker, either. “It just is,” I said, cringing at my own lameness.

He kept giving me that look. “Mm hm.”

I sighed. “All right, I get it. People in glass houses, yadda yadda ya. But he shouldn’t have done it, and he deserves to suffer a little for it, don’t you think?”

“He’s suffering a lot for it, Sam.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You haven’t talked to him for three days. How would you have felt if, when Danny and Valerie were going out, you not only had to see him with someone else, but he’d stopped speaking to you, too?”

“It’s different,” I said, but with less conviction this time.

“It’s only different because you didn’t get caught.”

That wasn’t true, and Tucker knew it. There was no way seeing me with another guy could possibly cause Danny as much pain as seeing him with another girl had caused me. But after school, as I headed off campus hand-in-hand with Gregor (at least Tucker wasn’t standing between us this time), I could almost feel Danny watching us. I looked over my shoulder to shoot him an angry glare, but something in his face stopped me. Instead of the smug, self-righteous look he’d had on Friday when he’d first accused Gregor of working with the Guys in White, he looked almost... lost. It made me think of what Tucker had said, He’s suffering a lot for it, and I began to wonder if maybe Tucker wasn’t right.

All afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about Danny and that look on his face, and I realized how much I missed him. We’d never spent this much time apart, not since we first became friends in the seventh grade, and not even the excitement of getting to know Gregor and exploring a new more-than-friends relationship could fill the space that Danny would always occupy in my heart. Even if we weren’t meant to be more than friends, we were best friends, and I missed that. I missed him.

Besides, Tucker was right about one thing—I was a hypocrite to be so mad at him for spying on me when I’d done the same thing to him. The reasons were different, but that wasn’t enough to give me the high ground, and it was well past time for me to forgive him. I tried calling him to patch things up, but his cell phone went to voice mail, and I didn’t want my first words to him in three days to be pre-recorded, so I hung up without leaving a message. I tried his house, too, but his mom said he wasn’t home from school yet.

I wasn’t feeling any better when I met Gregor (and Tucker, of course) at the observatory. Tucker seemed to be having fun, checking out the night skies in the various telescopes they had set up on the observation deck, but I was miserable, wishing I’d had a chance to set things right with Danny and just talk to him again. And what exactly did that say about me, that I could be out under a beautiful, starry sky with a gorgeous guy, and all I could think about was Danny?

That was, until Gregor pulled me aside, telling Tucker, “I wish to have a word with Sam. In private.” Then, all I could think about was the way my stomach was rolling as the same conflicting feelings came crashing back. Gregor was holding my hand again, and that I liked, but I was still nervous about being alone with him, especially after having spent an entire day thinking about Danny. It didn’t help when he turned to face me, taking my hand in both of his. “I will not mince words, Sam. I like you. And I would like to go steady.”

Conflicted or not, I felt a thrill down my spine at his words. This wasn’t just some look or gesture I could read too much into. He’d actually said it directly. He liked me. This totally fascinating, hot guy liked me, enough to ask me to go steady. I smiled in spite of myself. “With me?”

“With you. And not your losing friend Tucker.”

That quelled the mood. “It’s ‘loser,’” I corrected without thinking.

“Then, you agree!” He flashed one of his famous smiles, which suddenly didn’t seem so appealing.

Tucker chose that moment to do his interruption routine. “You two really have to see—”

Ignoring him, I started in on Gregor. “No, I don’t agree. Tucker may be annoying, but he’s one of my best friends.” I crossed my arms, definitive. “He’s part of the package.”

Tucker looked from me to Gregor. “Uh... am I interrupting something?” When neither one of us answered him, he waved his hand in front of Gregor’s face. “Gregor, dude? Hello!”

I watched as the cool dissolved from Gregor’s face, replaced by impatient rage. “Dude! Do you ever stop talking?”

I gaped at him. Gone was the Hungarian accent and the halting English, replaced instead by what sounded like typical, middle-American, teenage boy. Not even noticing my look of surprise at the sudden change, he continued his tirade at Tucker. “Do you even know how obnoxious you are, with your stupid jokes, and your lame-o technology? Idiot!” It was only then that he remembered me. Turning and, no doubt, seeing the anger in my expression, he faltered. “Uh, I mean...” The accent was back, and he threw his arm around Tucker’s shoulders. “Is nothing. Uh...” He stopped the act again as soon as he saw it wasn’t working. “Oh, darn it.”

Finally finding my voice, I lit into him. “Wait a minute. You were faking it? The accent, and liking Tucker, just to get on my good side?”

He sighed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Uh, I’m a guy. Hello! I mean, I really like you, but...” He waved his hands in Tucker’s direction. “Come on.”

Tucker flashed me a look: Can you believe this guy? And the answer was no, I couldn’t. Crossing my arms, furious, I glared at Gregor. He watched me a moment, then scratched his head, chagrined. “We’re... through, aren’t we?”

I couldn’t believe he even had the gall to ask. “Oh, beyond.”

Then, as if the whole act and everything he’d said about Tucker weren’t bad enough, he actually had the nerve to shrug. “Oh, well.” And when Starr and Ashley walked by, giggling, he leered after them. “Cheerleaders! Better adjust my pitch.” He caught up with them and, in a voice that sounded like a bad imitation of Dash Baxter, oozed, “Hey babes! You like football?”

I thought I was going to throw up. Had I actually liked this lying, sleazy jerk? What kind of idiot was I, to not see through the act?

Tucker looked even angrier than I felt. “Can I hit him for you?”

For an instant, I considered telling him to go for it, but before I could even answer, a high-pitched shriek behind us caught our attention, and we turned to find something in the sky streaking toward us. We dove in opposite directions, and the thing—was that a missile?—shot between us. Climbing back onto my feet as quickly as I could, I was just in time to see the thing, definitely a missile, plow through the observation deck railing behind Gregor and the two girls. I glanced at Tucker in shock. “Thanks, but I think that’s covered.”

That’s when we saw the jet. The white jet. It roared by overhead, then seemed to stop in mid-air, hovering over us like a helicopter, close enough that I could see the two pilots through the cockpit window.

The Guys in White.

And they were getting ready to fire another weapon.

Tracing their angle of trajectory, I could see right away who they were aiming for. “Gregor!” I called out. “Although I think you’re the world’s biggest jerk, run!”

Still on his knees from the earlier near miss, Gregor looked up when I called him. He managed to dive out of the way just as the jet shot at him with some sort of blue ray, and my mind whirled as I tried to make sense of what was happening. Why would the Guys in White go after Gregor? Danny had been accusing him all week of working for them, but if that were true, they wouldn’t be attacking him. But why would they go after him? They only went after ghosts, like Danny—

Danny, who’d been dodging them all week as they’d closed in on him in tighter and tighter circles, almost as if they knew he were human. Danny who, until this past week, always hung out with me and Tucker. Danny, who wore black and white, and had white hair...

As Gregor ran, screaming, trying to dodge the jet’s weapons, I turned to Tucker. “I think they think he’s Danny Phantom!”

Tucker shook his head. “Oh, man. He’s toast! At least Danny can defend himself.”

“We’ve gotta do something!”

“But what?”

Still screaming, Gregor dove to the ground and slid past us, coming to a halt under the giant globe over the doorway to the observatory. The jet hovered above us, firing two more missiles, which detonated on either side of the supports holding the globe aloft. I heard Tucker breathe Gregor’s name, and then he was gone from my side, diving after Gregor and knocking him out from under the globe just before it crashed to the ground where he’d been moments before. Gregor looked up at Tucker, stunned. “Dude! You saved my life!”

“Yeah, but I despise you now.”

The jet was still there, however, and it started firing at them once more, forcing them both back onto their feet in an effort to get away. Then, without warning, the firing stopped, and the jet crashed into the mountain not far from the observatory.

Danny, Tucker mouthed at me, and I nodded in agreement. He somehow must have figured out what was happening and gone after the Guys in White.

In front of us, Gregor watched as the jet burst into flames. “This town is too crazy for me! I’m going back to Michigan!”

Michigan?

Tucker called out after him as he ran back toward the doorway. “Don’t you mean Hungary, Gregor?”

As he disappeared through the door behind the fallen globe, he shouted back to us. “My name is Elliot!”

I blinked. Elliot? Even his name was a lie?

Everything was a blur after that. Someone—Starr or Ashley, probably—had called 911, and police and a fire crew arrived. While the firefighters worked on putting out the small blazes left in the wake of the missiles and other weapons the Guys in White had fired at Gregor, the police officers gathered me, Tucker, Starr, and Ashley and began questioning us. I’m not even sure what I told them. Mostly, I just shared what I’d seen and claimed ignorance as to who had been shooting at us and why. They called our parents, and mine showed up wringing their hands in worry. Finally, they let us all go home, and I managed to avoid too many questions from my parents by telling them I was tired and needed to go to bed.

Once in bed, however, I found it impossible to sleep. Gregor—no, not Gregor, Elliot—had been lying to me the whole time, and I’d bought it. All of it. The accent, the Euro-goth garbage, the vegetarianism. Was I really that desperate for someone—anyone—to like me as more than a friend that I couldn’t even see through a shallow act? And I’d been worried about using him to get over Danny.

Danny. He’d been right the whole time. Not about Gregor... Elliot... whatever... working with the Guys in White, maybe. But he was a fake. Danny had called it, and I’d gotten mad at him for it. Didn’t speak to him for three days over it, and he was right all along. God, I felt like dirt. And I just knew he was never going to let me live this one down, either. What would happen the next time someone took an interest in me? Would he feel justified in spying on me, now that I’d proven my own judgment was completely lacking? Never wanting me the way I wanted him, but never letting anyone else close to me, either, because he was overprotective and I was an idiot?

It wasn’t a pretty picture, but I didn’t know how to make things better.

I saw Tucker at school first. He came up to me, all sympathy, and put his arm around my shoulders. “How’re you doing?”

“Other than feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, you mean?”

“Hey, I was right there with you. He fooled us all.”

Not all of us. “Not Danny.”

“Pfft.” He did the “Gregor” wave thing. “Danny’s just as big an idiot as the rest of us. He just wanted to believe there was something wrong with Gregor.”

“Right. Because he’s overprotective and doesn’t think I’m smart enough to pick my own dates. And guess what? He was right.”

He snorted. “Please. That is so not what his problem was.”

“Okay, so what was his problem?”

He gave me an odd look, but Danny arrived before I could question him further. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the confession I owed him. Before I could even open my mouth, however, he started talking. “I am so sorry about last night. I can’t believe those morons actually shot up the observatory looking for me.”

I nodded at the confirmation of what Tucker and I had suspected. “Then it was you that took them out? We kinda figured, but...”

Danny then went on to explain how the Guys in White had shown up at his house earlier in the afternoon, questioning his parents about Tucker’s “associates.” Apparently, they’d captured Skulker earlier and had found Tucker’s old PDA wired into his suit. Danny finished the story with another apology.

Tucker shook his head. “Not your fault, dude.”

“Yeah, it’s not your fault,” I admitted, more than a little chagrined. “And you did stop them before they could hurt anyone.”

“Thankfully. Gregor’s okay, too, then?” Danny looked around, as if noticing for the first time that “Gregor” wasn’t with us. “Where is he, anyway? I didn’t see him at the observatory last night.”

Just hearing his name stirred up several feelings in me—rage, disgust, and a good dose of self-reproof among them. “He’s fine. Ran off when the shooting started.” I couldn’t keep the revulsion from my voice.

Tucker’s face darkened. “Good riddance.”

Danny looked from me to Tucker in surprise. “What’s going on? Did I miss something? I thought you guys loved Gregor.”

I gritted my teeth. “Apparently, that’s not his name.”

“What?”

Tucker filled Danny in, his voice as dark as his expression. “He lied. He’s not from Hungary, he’s from Michigan. And his name is really Elliot. The accent, the sucking up to me—it was all to impress Sam. So I guess you were right about him not being on the up and up, even if he wasn’t a spy for the Guys in White.”

I cringed, waiting for the I told you so I knew I deserved. But instead, Danny sighed. “No, I wasn’t. I was wrong.” His eyes met mine. “And you were right. It wasn’t any of my business in the first place. So, I’m sorry. I never should have betrayed your trust by spying on you and... your boyfriend.”

I almost blinked in surprise that, far from gloating, Danny was actually apologizing to me, but I was too disgusted by his last two words to think much beyond that. “Ugh. He’s not my boyfriend. I dumped him as soon as I figured out that you were right about him being a phony.” Then, anger gave way to something more like dejection. “Apparently, that is the only way a boy could like me.”

Tucker rallied at my side. “That’s not true!”

“That’s totally not true,” Danny added. “There are a million reasons a boy could like you. I mean, you’re smart, you’re fun, you’re cool, you’re prett—” He stopped before getting the whole word out, but I couldn’t help but blush. It was probably just talk to cheer me up, since I knew I wasn’t as pretty as girls like Paulina or Valerie, but I was pleased by the compliment anyway. He even looked a little embarrassed, almost like he really meant it, and started talking really fast to cover. “Why am I still talking? I am such a spaz. Still friends?”

I smiled at him, linking my arm in his, and imitating “Gregor’s” fake Hungarian accent. “The best.” And that was that. Fences were mended, and Danny and I were back on track. As friends. Like we were meant to be. Even better, he wasn’t giving me grief about how easily I’d been taken in by a smarmy liar. It was a small victory, considering the fact that my crush on him was as bad as ever, while he’d be drooling over Valerie again the next time he saw her. But I’d take whatever victory I could get.

A funny thing happened later that day, though. Danny, Tucker, and I were eating lunch outside when Valerie walked by. She waved at Danny, and he waved back. But it was an absent wave—absent of drooling, mostly. I knew it was too much to hope for him to have actually gotten over his crush on her, but the fact that he was at least considerate enough not to completely fawn over her in my presence was another small victory. Everything was back to the way it had always been—no Gregor, me crushing on Danny, Danny not crushing on me—and yet, something had changed. Something I couldn’t name, but it was definitely a change for the better.

It’s funny how the tables can turn on you.