by Cameron Lund
“Jordan,” I say, coming into the room and sitting down on the edge of the bed. I glance behind me and see Olivia hovering in the doorway, watching. There’s a peal of laughter from downstairs, someone telling someone else to “shut up.” I want to close the door. I want Olivia to leave. But I want to fix things with her, so I don’t say anything.
“Jordan,” I say again, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. He groans, shuffling around under the sheet, and then jerks awake, his eyes flashing back and forth between Olivia and me before settling firmly on my face.
“Penny,” he says in a gust of air. “What are you still doing here? I thought you went home last night.”
“No, I . . .” I trail off, not wanting to fill him in on the rest of the details. I’m holding my breath, waiting for something else to go wrong. “I’m so sorry about last night . . . if something happened.” I don’t know what I’m apologizing for, but it seems like the right thing to do.
“Penny doesn’t remember anything,” Olivia says, taking steps into the room. “She has amnesia.”
“I just drank too much.” I turn back to her, the tang of the piña coladas, margaritas, and daiquiris still sharp and sweet in the back of my throat.
“You were a mess.” Jordan sits up, and the sheet falls down around his waist.
“I know,” I say. “I know, and I’m sorry.” Are we okay? Do you still love me? That’s what I really want to ask. Jordan has always been too good for me, our relationship so tenuous.
“Come on, Penny,” Jordan says. He reaches out like he’s going to take my hand for a second and then pulls back, clearly mad at himself for doing it. “This is seriously unfair. You do something fucked up, but you don’t remember it, so then you don’t have to feel guilty?” His words cause a flare in my stomach, the feeling like I’ve lost control of my car on the freeway.
“What happened, Jordan?” I’m trying to keep my voice steady. “I love you.” How can I make him believe it? I repeat the words in my mind, like I’ll be able to imprint them on Jordan’s heart. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Olivia sits down next to me on the bed. “Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you made out with my boyfriend.”
“What?” For a second I think Olivia must be joking. It’s a well-known fact that Olivia’s boyfriend, Kai, and I don’t get along. And besides that—I would never do anything to hurt Olivia.
But then, there’s a flash of memory—I’m leaning into Kai, my hands in his hair, a feeling of want pooling in my stomach. I instinctively shake my head to make the image go away. It’s not a full memory, not exactly, just a flicker of feeling. It’s like what we learned last year about Plato’s cave; I can’t see the image, just a shadow of the image reflected onto the wall.
“Do you need me to repeat it?” Olivia asks.
“Jordan.” I turn to him. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t do anything with Kai. I don’t even like Kai.”
“Olivia walked in on you guys kissing,” he says. “In the laundry room.”
And I know it’s true. I can see the basket of folded clothes upturned on the floor, can feel my back pressed against the washing machine, can remember leaning in to kiss him, trying to convince him I wasn’t that drunk, him pulling away. It’s all there in my memories—a horrible movie reel of terrible decisions.
No no no no no. It doesn’t make any sense. Last night was supposed to be special. I’d been planning it for weeks. Why would I ruin that? Why would I ruin that with Olivia’s boyfriend?
“I’m . . . sorry,” I say, my voice weak. I know sorry doesn’t cover it. I know there isn’t anything I could actually say to make this better. I’m the worst person in the entire world.
I remember lying with Olivia on her bed last night before the party, the conversation drifting from Jordan and the questionable Cosmo sex advice over to Kai. “I just can’t figure him out right now,” she’d said, unsure. “I feel like we’re drifting apart.”
“What if you stuck an ice cube down his pants?” I’d suggested with wiggling eyebrows, referencing one of the stupider tips we’d read.
“Yeah, that’ll win him over.” She’d laughed and then we’d moved on, like the conversation hadn’t even happened. And I’d made everything so much worse. She’d been upset about things with Kai and instead of being a good friend, I’d kissed him.
“I think you should probably leave,” Jordan says now. “I don’t really want to do this anymore.”
“Do this like . . . this conversation?” I ask softly. “Or, like . . . us?”
“I mean, I don’t think we should be together.”
I feel bile rise at the back of my throat, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I have to get out of here before anything gets any worse. I can’t cry in front of everyone. Worse—I can’t throw up. Pukey Penelope will not be making another appearance. I’ve worked so hard for this, to be here in Jordan Parker’s bedroom, best friends with Olivia Anderson, to finally be a girl everyone else wants to be—a girl with friends who make her feel like she matters.
There’s no way they’ll still want to be friends with me. I wouldn’t want to be friends with me.
“Did anything happen last night with you and Olivia?” I ask Jordan, working at a hole in his sheet with my fingernail. It’s the question that’s been nagging at me, a sliver of unease in the back of my mind. It’s the way her hand is still on his shoulder, how she’s sitting on his bed like she belongs there. This problem with Jordan is fixable—I know I can get him back, so long as Olivia hasn’t gotten to him. In a competition against Olivia, anyone would lose.
“Anything going on with me or Jordan is none of your business,” Olivia answers. “You lost the privilege to know anything about us when you stuck your tongue in Kai’s mouth.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, even though I know it’s not enough. “I don’t know why I kissed him. It doesn’t make sense. I love you guys.” I shake my head, trying to clear the memory away, like if I can forget it happened, everyone else will too. I know that’s why I couldn’t remember it when I woke up. It was self-preservation.
My mind flashes again to the way Kai’s hair felt between my fingers, his hands on my back before he pulled them away. I wish I could make this all his fault, but I know it’s not. He’d tried to stop me, but I’d kissed him. And I’d liked it. That’s the worst part.
Because besides the horrible fact that he’s with Olivia, there’s also this: Kai ruined my life in elementary school. And yeah, maybe we grew up and were forced to hang out, but I’ve never quite gotten over it.
According to chaos theory, a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado all the way across the world, events flowing outward like ripples on the surface of a lake. All of this started when Kai moved to our town from Hawaii in fifth grade—Pukey Penelope, my friendship with Olivia, falling for Jordan; all the moments of my life built one upon the other.
And this right now? This is the freaking tornado.
“I have to go.” I stumble out of the room and down the stairs, holding my breath so the tears don’t fall.
I can hear Olivia’s footsteps behind me. “Yeah, get out!” Her voice is sharp as a knife, her words twisting in my gut. Katie’s eyes are wide, mouth hanging open. Romina has her phone pointed in my direction, and I see the light that means she’s recording. Soon my misery will be posted all over social media. Soon the whole school will know what I did.
I pull open the screen door and race out into the yard, Olivia right behind me. The sprinklers are on, and I run through them, the cold water shocking me awake. My bare feet squelch through the grass and then I’m on the blacktop, tar burning hot from the sun, and running down the driveway. It’s not until I’m out onto the street, around the corner, where I know Olivia can’t see, that I start to cry.
THEN
JUNIOR YEAR—SEPTEMBER
I WAKE UP EVEN earlier than usual the morning of the first-day-of-school pep rally so I can take the necessary million years to get ready. Each grade was assigned a color for the day—green for the freshmen, blue for the sophomores, red for the seniors, and black for us. Whichever grade has the most school spirit gets a Friday off at the end of the month, so it’s going to be war.
My friends decided to go all out—lots of dark eyeliner and fishnets that will probably get us in trouble with Principal Hanson but are totally worth it. I laid my outfit out on the floor the night before—a black Thrasher T-shirt and a pair of pleather pants I transformed into shorts. I went to the touristy thrift store by the lake for accessories—I even got a pair of those Madonna gloves from the eighties to complete the lewk.
“You’re actually wearing that shit to school?” my brother, Sebastian, grumbles when he sees me. Olivia is coming to pick us up since there is no way she would ever leave me to die on the bus with the freshmen.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” I glare at Seb. He doesn’t know the hours I spent on YouTube learning how to sew a perfectly straight hemline.
“You’re breaking about thirty dress code rules.” Seb is wearing all green, but not in a way that looks purposeful. Not like he means it. He’s got a Redwoods High School baseball cap backward on his head, ears sticking too far out the sides. I’ve got the same ears, which is why I can never ever wear my hair in a ponytail.
“Dress code rules are meant to be broken. Is Mom still here?” I ask, although the question is unnecessary. There’s a ten-dollar bill on the counter for each of us for lunch money, a sticky note with a smiley face on it indicating she’s already left for work. I crumple the note and throw it into the trash, tucking the money into my pocket. I know it’s stupid—that in the grand scheme of things, it really shouldn’t matter. It’s just I was kinda excited to show this outfit to my mom.
But I should have known better. She’s a nurse at a rehab hospital, and they’re stupidly understaffed, so they’re always calling her in at crazy hours. Sebastian and I are used to fending for ourselves—lunch money on the counter, frozen pizzas and ramen noodles, little notes with smiley faces that are supposed to be suitable fill-ins for an actual human parental presence.
A horn beeps outside, and I grab my backpack from the closet. “Come on, Liv is here.”
Olivia has a green punch buggy, and Seb punches my arm as soon as we get outside, which I should have expected because it happens every time we see her car. But somehow I’m still caught off guard. “Ow!” I say, pulling my arm away and thwacking him back.
Olivia rolls her window down and lifts her sunglasses to perch them on top of her shiny blonde head. “Could that be my best friend, Penelope Ann Harris, or has a beautiful supermodel angel taken her place?”
“Are you saying I’m not usually a beautiful supermodel angel?” I ask, all faux-offended, and climb into the front seat of her car.
Olivia laughs, deep and scratchy. She’s got a low voice for a girl, but it works for her. She’s pretty much the embodiment of a sexy war-era lounge singer draped across a piano. “Actually, I misspoke. You are all devil today, girl.”
“Back at you.” Olivia is dressed almost exactly the same as me. She’s in a huge vintage AC/DC T-shirt that goes down to her midcalf, matching fishnets, and big black combat boots. People are generally scared of Olivia even when she’s wearing her standard flouncy dresses and floppy hats. Today, in this outfit, no one will fuck with her.
“I need you to do my makeup when we get to school,” Olivia says. “I need your winged liner skills. I tried to do it myself this morning, and I looked like a wet raccoon.” She turns around and eyes my brother. “Hi, Sebastian. No good morning for me?”
Seb’s face immediately flushes pink, and he clears his throat. “Good morning.” Like every other living, breathing straight male on the planet, my brother has a huge crush on Olivia. And she totally knows it.
“Don’t be gross,” I say. It was okay when Sebastian was still a little kid, but now that he’s growing up—now that he actually looks like a boy who could date her—the teasing feels a lot weirder.
“I’m just being nice.” Olivia gives me a toothy grin. “Sebastian and I are friends. Aren’t we, Seb?”
His eyes light up. “Yeah, if you say we’re friends, we’re definitely friends.”
“But don’t worry.” Olivia turns to me. “I would never replace you, Penny. You’re the spicy tomato soup to my extra-sharp Vermont cheddar grilled cheese.”
This is a game we’ve played for a while. It started back in eighth grade with fairly normal combinations: You’re the milk to my cookies, the Kendall to my Kylie, the Batman to my Robin. But over the years the comparisons have gotten a lot more creative as we’ve run out of ideas. Making it strange and specific is part of the fun.
“You’re the fashionably ripped fishnets to my badass combat boots,” I say, wiggling my foot in her direction.
“Oooh, very on brand for today.” She grins.
At times like this it’s easy to forget that Olivia and I haven’t always been close—that I spent all of elementary school alone with my nose in a book. But those days are behind me. All that matters is we’re here now; we’ve found each other and we won’t let go.
Olivia knows everything about me: how my dad left when I was little—the way I sometimes like to pretend he doesn’t exist so I don’t have to think too hard about how a guy could do that to his own kids. She knows how mad I get sometimes when my mom is pulled into work, how much it sucks when she uses her limited free time to go out on dates instead of hanging out with Seb and me. Olivia has been there with me too many times—big bowls of Easy Mac at the kitchen counter—when my mom comes home with some dude she’ll only see for a night, introducing him to us like he actually matters.
“What do you think Jordan is gonna say when he sees your outfit?” She turns to me again, waggling her eyebrows. Another thing Olivia knows: all the details of my lifelong debilitating crush on Jordan Parker.
I flush, embarrassed because Seb is in the car, but also because this is a natural reaction I have every time Jordan’s name is brought up. I’m in love with Jordan for all the obvious reasons—he’s tall and fit and amazing at basketball with dimples that are actually soul-crushing. But for the not-obvious reasons too. He’s just so nice. A guy like Jordan doesn’t have to be one of the good ones; he could be a huge douchebag and everyone would probably still worship him. So every kind gesture feels like it matters even more.
“Jordan isn’t going to notice my outfit,” I say quietly.
“There is no way anyone could not notice your outfit,” Seb grumbles from the back seat. “You look like a baby prostitute.”
Olivia spins around in her seat—a dangerous feat considering she’s still driving the car—and glares at him. “You know, I take that as a compliment, Sebastian. You’re saying she looks like a strong, independent entrepreneur who celebrates her sexuality.” Then she turns back to me. “And believe me, Jordan will notice.”
* * *
• • • • • •
When we get to school, Olivia pulls into her spot under the shady tree toward the back of the lot. It’s not technically her spot—we don’t have assigned parking at RHS—but everyone knows Olivia’s green buggy, and they know to keep space cleared. It’s just one small example of Olivia’s power—people probably don’t even know they’re doing it; she just gets away with things mere mortals can’t. To be honest, if I weren’t always reaping the benefits by carpooling with her, this would probably be supremely annoying.
Seb unfolds his too-tall body from the car and pulls his backpack onto one shoulder. “You gonna sit with me at lunch, Olivia?” he asks with a smirk as he walks away. “I mean, if we’re friends and all.”
“In your dreams, freshman!” Olivia shouts at him, laughing.
“Will you please
for the love of all that is holy stop flirting with my brother?” I shut the passenger door a little too hard. “He is like five years old.”
“It’s harmless,” Olivia says. “Come on, I want to take some shots of you before first period. Got to commemorate our win today.”
“We haven’t won yet.” The truth is the seniors usually win the extra day off, which is completely unfair considering they get out for the summer a whole month before we do anyway. Even so, I feel good about our chances. These outfits took work.
Olivia pulls her camera out of her bag as we walk, skirting around the side of the building to the expanse of grass behind school. There’s a soccer field back here, a baseball diamond, and some old tennis courts slightly overgrown with weeds.
“Tennis courts?” Olivia asks, leading me there before I’ve answered. The weeds are looking especially plentiful this morning, which Olivia has said is part of the charm. She likes the combination of the chain-link fence with the overgrown grass: industrial meets natural. We take photos here a lot.
Olivia is Very Serious when it comes to her camera—she only uses real film and pretty much lives in the old darkroom after school. Once she’s developed a photo at least three times to find the exact right exposure, she’ll scan it and put it on Instagram. We’ve got a photo series going, which she’s dubbed the Tennis Court Kids—black-and-white shots of all our friends posed back here like we’re on some album cover from the nineties. I do what I can with hair and makeup, but Olivia has a gift.
We snap a few pictures, and then the bell rings in the distance, signaling we’re about to be late. Since it’s the first day, we’re meeting in the gym for the pep rally before homeroom.
Olivia tucks her camera lovingly into her bag, and then we sprint back across the field, joining the crowds of people swarming down the hallway toward the junior locker area. There’s a banner proclaiming a JUNIOR BLACKOUT hung across the ceiling beams taped up by the kids that got here early, black balloons strewn about the floor, black streamers twisted around columns. And everyone is wearing all black too—black hats, black leggings, black boots, with smudged football stripes across their cheeks. It’s amazing.
