All Our Worst Ideas

by Vicky Skinner

  “I’m drunk crying in my boss’s bedroom. Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?” She gives a wet kind of laugh. “I feel like I’m going to hurl. You?”

  “Same.”

  Her foot bumps mine. “Oops. Sorry,” she whispers, and I sort of wish I could kiss her. But there’s her ex, and her tears, and the fact that as much as I’m starting to feel about her, we still don’t really know each other.

  We fall into a long silence, and I finally say, “Are you okay?” This time, there’s no way she can mistake what I mean.

  She shifts and sets her head back on the edge of the mattress. “Just feeling overwhelmed, but yeah, I’m okay. You don’t have to stay with me.”

  “I know I don’t have to,” I tell her, my voice quiet. I want to stay with her as long as she’ll let me. Anything she has to say is way more interesting than anything anyone else has to say.

  “Oliver,” she whispers. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  Because the girls I like often want to get back together with their exes doesn’t seem like a very reasonable answer. “I’m not good with people.”

  “Everyone here seems to like you. You’re funny and nice.”

  “I’m anything but nice.” I think the term my mother often uses to describe me is prickly.

  “You’re nice to me.”

  A sliver of light highlights her dark brown eyes, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I’m nice to her because I’m fairly certain I’m developing some pretty serious feelings for her.

  But I don’t say it.

  Instead, I say, “What does it say about how nice I am that my best friend is my boss?”

  I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t. “What does it say about me that my only friend is my mom?”

  I feel a little shaken. “I guess I don’t get it. If you’re such a social pariah, why did Jackson, popular guy extraordinaire, date you?”

  Her eyes finally break away from mine. “When we first started dating, the fact that I’m so driven was the reason he liked me. He thought it was cute how serious I am. But I guess that changed. I guess I’ve gotten a little … intense. He just wants to have fun.”

  Her voice drips with loneliness, and it makes my stomach ache. “Is that what he said, that you’re not fun?”

  “Yeah,” she finally whispers. Her voice cracks. I’m just about to answer, but before I can, she talks over me. “But I still love him. No matter what I do, I can’t stop.”

  There are so many things I want to say, so many ways that I want to tell her that if he can’t see how amazing she is then he doesn’t deserve her, but it’s like someone bricked over my mouth, sealing all the right words in, until she finally sends me a little smile.

  “I think maybe we should go back to the party.”

  We struggle to our feet, both of us a little off-balance. Amy steps up onto her tiptoes and kisses me on the cheek. “Thanks for hanging with me, Oliver.”

  I stand there for a long time after she’s gone.

  AMY

  I FEEL LIKE shit Monday morning. It feels like someone is periodically trying to get a nail through my temple with a baseball bat.

  “Where the hell were you?” someone demands as I try to remember the combination to my locker, and if I’m being honest, if we weren’t in school, I would probably clock the person currently shouting in my ear.

  “Fuck,” I groan. “Where was I when?”

  Petra, looking even more assassin chic than usual grabs me by one shoulder and spins me around to face her. I stumble into the locker next to mine.

  “Move,” the girl who owns the locker growls, and if one more person demands something of me in a haughty tone, I’m going to lose it.

  I straighten up, and Petra looks at me, her mouth hanging open. “Um, hello! Student council meeting at seven this morning? Did you seriously forget? We were supposed to be finalizing prom decorations. Where were you?”

  I flinch. Yep, now I remember.

  “Fucking fuck,” I say instead of actually answering Petra. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

  Petra’s mouth is hanging down so low I think it might actually touch the floor. “You forgot? What the hell, Amy? Since when do you forget anything? Don’t you have a photographic memory or something?”

  “God, Petra, would you shut up?” I shout before I can stop myself. “If I had a photographic memory, I wouldn’t have a fucking B in calculus.”

  Her eyes go wide, and a few of the people walking by slow as they pass, probably trying to figure out if this is about to descend into a fight. I can’t look at any of them. I feel like I’m going to puke.

  “Are you—” Petra starts. She leans into me, examining my face. I swat her away. “Are you hungover?”

  I groan, pressing my forehead to my locker door. After the game of Drunk Truth last night, there were many more cocktails to be had, gleefully prepared by Brooke, until I eventually had to call Mama and tell her I was sleeping on Brooke’s couch. Of course, I didn’t tell her why. “Just leave me alone, Petra, okay? Look, just—can you just send me the notes or whatever you need me to do for prom setup, okay? And just leave me alone?”

  I walk away from her, leaving my calculus book behind in the locker I can’t open.

  “Amy, wait,” Petra calls out after me, and then I feel her hand on my elbow again, yanking me back. Dear God, why won’t she just let me go? “Come here.”

  I don’t really have the strength to fight her, so I let her drag me down the hallway, and then I’m very confused when she sits me down on a bench in the courtyard and starts digging around in her huge purse.

  “Petra, can you just—”

  She holds up a hand to shush me and then pulls a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of pills out of her purse. She thrusts both of them at me. “Take four if the headache is really bad,” she says, crossing her arms.

  And then she just watches me. Until I finally open the Gatorade, shake four ibuprofen pills into my hand, and throw it all back. The Gatorade is strawberry-lemonade flavored, and that doesn’t even surprise me.

  When I’ve gulped down the entire bottle of Gatorade, Petra takes it from me, tossing it into a recycling bin close by before stuffing the bottle of ibuprofen back in her bag.

  “Thanks,” I say, which, I realize, is the first time I’ve ever thanked Petra for anything. She doesn’t say anything back at first, and I’m reaching for my bag that I dropped on the ground beside my foot, when she says, “you’re slipping.”

  I turn wide eyes on her. “I am not. What, just because I got a bad grade on a test and missed a StuCo meeting?”

  “I thought this stuff was important to you.”

  “It is,” I say. I can’t believe she’s even saying any of this to me. “Why are you on me right now? It’s none of your business what I do with my life.”

  She stands, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’m not interested in winning against someone who isn’t even trying.”

  All I can do is stare up at her. Ever since Petra and I discovered two years ago that we were at the top of our class, it’s always been her and me. We’re the ones who volunteer the most, do all the extra credit, take extra summer classes. It’s always us.

  She looks at me for a long moment, and then she turns and leaves me sitting there, my head still pounding.

  OLIVER

  I LAUGH WHEN Amy walks into the shop that afternoon, her eyelids sagging, wearing a They Might Be Giants T-shirt for band shirt night, and looking like she hasn’t slept in a month.

  “Would you shut the hell up?” she growls at me, which just makes me laugh harder.

  “You’re cranky. How are you still hungover?”

  She stops at the counter to glare at me. “I’m not still hungover. I’m just really tired.” Brooke comes out of the office, whistling, and Amy points a deadly finger at her. “And you. I blame you for this.”

  Brooke grins. “Why, hello, sunshine. Is someone having trouble handling
the consequences of their life choices?”

  Amy groans and leans against the front counter. “I hate both of you.”

  Brooke shakes her head. “You can work in the stockroom today. Try to stay upright.”

  Amy rushes into the stockroom and slams the door behind her, and I don’t realize I’m smiling until Brooke slides past me, sending me a knowing look as she passes. I bite back my smile.

  It isn’t until an hour later that the phone rings. Brooke is in her office and Amy hasn’t emerged from behind the closed door of the stockroom, so I reach for the cordless.

  “Spirits. This is Oliver. How can I help you?”

  There is immediate screaming, and it takes me a shocked second to realize that it’s children in the background of the call.

  “Hello?”

  Then a woman’s voice finally breaks in. “Cállate, niños! Sorry about that. This is Amy’s mother. Can you tell her that her stepfather is on his way to get the car? He needs it.”

  I’m already moving toward the stockroom door. “Sure, I’ll just let you talk to—”

  “No, no. Just give her the message. She’ll have to take the bus home.” And then she hangs up, just like that.

  I stare down at the phone in my hand and then at the closed door in front of me. I can hear music playing behind it, and when I push it open, Amy, looking more full of life than she did when she came in, is bent at an awkward angle, looking sideways at a shelf of old CDs that are about to be put on clearance.

  “Amy?”

  She pops up quick and smacks her head on a shelf above her.

  “Shit,” we both say at the same time, but oddly, after she’s recovered, she smiles at me. “Hey. Do you need me out front?”

  I lean against the door and shake my head. “No. But your mom just called. She said your stepdad is coming to get the car.”

  She looks at me, her face blank. “Seriously?”

  “I could take you home.”

  Amy’s eyebrows go up, her mouth taking on a funny shape. “Really?”

  I shrug. “Sure. Why not?” It’s not as if I have anywhere else to be, and even if I did, would I care? Why would I let Amy take the bus home when I have a perfectly good vehicle?

  Her eyes seem to smile, along with the rest of her. “Okay. Thanks, Oli.”

  I try to ignore the way my heart pounds when she calls me that.

  AMY

  I WAIT FOR Oliver on the sidewalk. I glance over my shoulder at the tutoring center. It’s been closed for hours, the lights off behind the big front windows. I turn back around in time to see Oliver waving to Brooke, letting the glass door fall shut behind him.

  We walk to his truck in silence, and when we climb in, I immediately have a flashback to that night, to his father unconscious in the back seat while Oliver tries desperately to pretend he isn’t there. He hasn’t spoken about his dad since, and I’m too terrified to ask.

  Oliver cranks the ignition, the heater blasting, and before he even puts his seat belt on, he roots around in his console for a CD. After a second, he closes the console and reaches over and pops open the glove box, also stuffed with CDs. And then he leans into the back seat and produces a box from the floorboard and opens it to reveal even more CDs. I suddenly have an image of him sleeping in a bed made of stacks of thick jewel cases.

  “Oh! I have the Amber Run album!” I say just as he’s getting ready to put a CD in the stereo, and I almost feel bad that he went through all that trouble. Before he can say anything, I’m digging around in my bag, pulling out my favorite Amber Run album and shoving it at him. “Put this in.”

  He doesn’t seem offended by my command, just takes the CD from me and pops it into the stereo. “So, what are you reading?”

  For a second, I’m not sure what he means, until I realize I took my copy of Ethics out of my bag when I was rooting around for the CD. Oliver adjusts the volume on the stereo low so we can talk over it, and then puts the car in drive.

  “Oh. It’s Plato. I’m writing an essay on it for this scholarship I’m applying for at Stanford.” I lean my head back against the seat, looking over at him. “Have you ever heard of Plato’s Cave?”

  I see his hands grip the steering wheel and release it again. “I don’t think so. Tell me about it.”

  “Well, there are these people who sit in a cave, facing a wall. There’s a fire behind them, and the only thing they know about reality are the shadows that are projected onto the wall in front of them from the cave mouth behind them. And when they’re introduced to the real world, it’s scary. They don’t know what’s real and what’s fake. To them, what’s fake is reality. The shadows.”

  Oliver lets out a little rueful chuckle. “Makes sense.”

  I look over at him, his hair ruffling slightly in the breeze through the barely cracked window. He’s so cute, his red hair and the dimple in his chin and the freckles scattered across his nose. Those freckles travel all the way down his arms, peeking out at me from where he’s shoved the sleeves up on his hooded sweatshirt all the way to his elbows.

  One hand over the other, he takes a wide turn. “This song is nice.” He reaches out to turn it up, but I almost don’t want him to. I want to ask him a million questions about his home life, mostly because the only thing I know is that his mother is maybe nicer to strangers than anyone else I’ve ever met, and that his father might be passing out in his back seat on a regular basis.

  We drive in silence for a little while. I direct him toward my house and watch downtown Kansas City fly past as Amber Run’s smooth melody flows through the cab. The song reaches a crescendo, and my heart starts to beat loud in my ears, adrenaline pumping through me. I feel like I’m alive inside the song.

  I feel a strange flutter in my stomach at all the sensations together—the cold biting my cheeks, the heat pressing against my fingertips, the open, clear sound of the electric guitar.

  We stop for a long time, too long, and I open my eyes—when did I close them?—to see that we’re sitting at a stop sign. There’s a honk behind us, and when I look over, Oliver looks away from me and slams on the gas, rocketing us forward so fast, my stomach flips.

  The song ends as we’re pulling into my neighborhood, and I don’t know what comes over me, but I say, “I’m not ready to go home. Can we just keep driving?”

  For just a second, the truck slows, coasting right past my front door, but then we’re moving forward again, turning at the end of my street onto the intersecting street, the music still playing loudly over us.

  We drive as the guitars continue, and I think maybe I haven’t been this happy in a long time, this content. We drive all the way back to the shop, moving through downtown Kansas City as the sky goes from pink to purple to black.

  Oliver looks over at me sharply, and then, without warning, he yanks the steering wheel, and we pull over in front of a closed bank.

  “Why did you pull over?” I ask, worried that we were about to run out of gas or lose a tire or something.

  “This requires a lot of attention,” he says seriously, turning up the music.

  Pride bursts in my chest. “You like Amber Run, huh?” I demand, my heart racing. I’ve never known anything like this before, this utter excitement at knowing that there’s someone else in the world who loves the same bands that I do.

  We sit there for the entire rest of the album, both of us staring out the front window as cars drive by. From where we sit, I can see the glowing sign of Spirits down the road, a red beacon in the winter night, like a buoy on the ocean. I smile and close my eyes, listening until the last song ends.

  Without a word, Oliver pulls back onto the road. The album starts over again, and we move in the direction of my neighborhood. When we slow again in front of my house, Oliver reaches forward to take the CD from the player, but I reach out and put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Borrow it.”

  Oliver hesitates, his eyes sliding down to where I’m touching him. I pull my hand back and his eyes find mine across t
he expanse between us. “You sure?”

  I nod. “I trust you. Return it when you want.”

  He doesn’t say anything as I turn, climb out of his truck, and slam the door shut behind me.

  AMY

  I KNOW I’VE run out of options. I don’t like giving up, and I don’t like surrendering, admitting when I can’t handle something on my own. As far as I’m concerned, I can handle everything on my own. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

  But when I get my calculus exam back on Friday, and see that I got a C, I know I have to get some help or it’s all over for me, my pride be damned.

  That’s how I end up standing outside the tutoring center on Saturday afternoon, trying to make myself go inside. I glance over my shoulder at Spirits, and I can’t help but feel like everything’s all wrong now that I’m on the other side of the street. This side doesn’t feel right anymore. It feels like switching lives with someone.

  “Why are you just standing out here?”

  I whip around. I shouldn’t be surprised to find Petra standing in front of me, holding the door of the tutoring center open with one arm and leaning out onto the sidewalk.

  I’m not about to tell her that the reason I’m standing out here is because I’m way too nervous to go in. “I need calculus help,” I finally tell her.

  Petra’s eyes narrow. “Are you serious?”

  I turn to leave. I’m not going to stand here and be berated by Petra because she thinks she’s better than me.

  “Wait,” Petra says. “I know you got a C on the calc exam.”

  I turn back to her, feeling anger vibrate in my jaw like a dentist’s drill. “How do you know about that?”

  She shrugs. “Someone in StuCo saw your paper and sort of told everyone else. Everyone … everyone was sort of making fun of you at the meeting.”

  I feel sick to my stomach. It’s no secret that no one at school likes me. To everyone, I’m a brownnoser and a teacher’s pet and whatever else they have to throw at me. But I had no idea that people were keeping tabs on my academics. I figured that was just Petra.