Boy Swap

by Kristina Springer

  “Yeah! Of course! What do you think I’m talking about? Are you going to go over there and slap her or something? Or better yet, him?”

  “No!” I answer, a little too loudly. “Of course not. They’re just friends.”

  At least they better be just friends. I glance over at Chris and Cassie again and see Cassie toss her head back in laughter at something Chris just said. How dare she laugh at my boyfriend’s jokes!

  Lizzie stares at me as if I’ve completely lost it. “Are you saying you’re okay with them being together?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

  “What’s up with you, Brooke? First the band party and now this? How do you not care?”

  “I trust Chris,” I say quietly. “He wouldn’t cheat on me.”

  “But…but…”

  “Let’s get out of here before they see us,” I interrupt, grabbing Lizzie’s elbow.

  Whoops, too late. I glance back at the music store and there is Chris, looking at me, blood completely drained from his face.

  Chapter 6: Kiss and Shop

  There is nowhere to go. Cassie and Chris are walking straight toward us. She’s strutting like she was just named Miss Rose in the Rosehill town parade, and he’s slumping like he’s walking down death row to the electric chair. Whatever I do, I can’t start screaming at them. I have to remain calm, nonchalant. I cannot get pissed at Cassie and Chris, outwardly anyway, per BSC rules. When I get home, however, I’m totally making a Cassie voodoo doll.

  I do my best to put what I hope is a look of love on my face. “Hi, Chris. Cassie,” I say when they stop in front of us. Oh man, that was rough to get out.

  “Hi, Brooke!” Cassie says, completely thrilled with herself. “And…I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name,” she says to Lizzie.

  Lizzie narrows her eyes and I can hear her grinding her teeth. “It’s Lizzie,” she says flatly and then turns her attention to Chris. “Hi, Chris…” she growls at him. She crosses her arms against her chest and doesn’t take her eyes off Chris. He shifts nervously. “What are you up to, Chris?”

  “H-hi, guys,” he finally gets out. Oh God. He looks so guilty right now. My stomach lurches. “Um…” He looks at Cassie, desperate for help in answering this question. Ugh. I’m the one he’s supposed to give looks to when stuff is going on. Not some other girl. Not Cassie. Now he’s trying to look at anyone or anything but me. And he didn’t even give me a kiss or a hug or anything. This is so incredibly sucky.

  Cassie happily comes to his rescue. “Chris is such a sweetie,” she chirps. “I was here shopping and Chris was here shopping and we ran into each other a little bit ago. Anyway, I told Chris how I was thinking of buying my brother some sheet music, he plays the guitar, and he offered to help me pick it out. Isn’t that so sweet of him?”

  Chris lets out a visible sigh of relief and shakes his head up and down in agreement.

  “Sweet,” I say flatly.

  “Yeah, I’m getting a freaking toothache,” Lizzie says, still not taking her eyes off of Chris.

  “Well,” I say, “I hope you got what you needed.”

  Cassie nods her head up and down happily. “Oh, I did.”

  “Great. Well, we’re heading into Victoria’s Secret, so I’ll see you guys later,” I say. Lizzie looks between them and me, jaw dropped.

  “Okay. I’ll call you tonight, Brooke,” Chris says and leans in to give me a quick peck on the cheek.

  Gee, how very generous of him. It takes everything in me to turn away from the two of them and walk away.

  “Bye, girls!” Cassie says to our backs. “Happy shopping!”

  Lizzie and I walk into Victoria’s Secret and she immediately begins ranting at me. “How could you just let them go? They were so totally lying!”

  “Do you need a shopping bag?” a perky made-up blond in a black fitted suit and color-coordinated headset asks me.

  I stare at her, puzzled, like she just asked me to divide 934,543,239 by 7165. Lizzie snatches a bag from her and the headset girl walks away.

  I can’t help myself. I step back toward the window and peek out behind a mannequin modeling a seamless bra and panties. I see Cassie and Chris talking for a moment and then she gives him a kiss on the cheek, turns, and leaves. And Chris stands there, watching her go.

  My heart sinks.

  * * *

  We’re sitting at Petey’s Pretzels eating our dinner: two giant salted pretzels and two diet sodas. Only I can’t eat. For the last five minutes, I’ve been picking off one piece of salt at a time and putting it on my tongue to dissolve.

  “Not hungry, huh?” Lizzie says, eyeing my now half-salted pretzel.

  “I guess not.” I’m too busy trying to figure out what this all means. Yes, it looked really bad. Chris looked so, so guilty. But what if Cassie was telling the truth? What if she did just run into him? Sure, she probably planned a run-in with him just to flirt. But that isn’t his fault. What if he was telling someone at school that he was stopping at the music store today and Cassie overheard? I can totally picture her setting the whole thing up. And I should trust Chris. Right?

  “You want my pretzel?” I ask Lizzie.

  “Uh no. Not after you picked at it.” She scrunches up her nose.

  I play with the straw in my cup and stare out the window at people walking by, happily swinging their purchases in brightly colored bags.

  “Are you trying to figure out what you’re going to say to Chris?” Lizzie asks.

  “What do you mean? What is there to say?” I ask.

  Lizzie moves her head around trying to get me to look her in the eye. “Um, Earth to Brooke? Hello, is my best friend in there? Blink twice if an alien has taken over your body and you’re trapped somewhere in there.”

  I try to giggle. “Stop it. An alien has not taken over my body.” Though I totally wouldn’t mind someone else taking over the controls for a little while.

  “How can you have nothing to say to Chris? How about, ‘Hey, Chris, what the hell is going on with you and Cassie? Why is she suddenly showing up everywhere and hanging all over you? Why did you look guilty as hell when I saw you guys together today?’ And you so know he did, Brooke. He could barely form sentences, he was freaking out so badly.”

  “No he wasn’t…” But I don’t even sound convincing to myself. “Okay, he did look nervous. But he probably thought I’d freak out at him and it was a totally innocent situation.” I hope.

  “You’re serious? You believed all that, ‘We’re picking out music for my brother’ stuff?” she says in a high, whiny voice while flipping her head around so her hair flies out to both sides. Which makes me laugh for real this time.

  “Your Cassie impersonation is so dead on,” I say. “But yeah. I believed them. Why shouldn’t I? Chris is a good guy, Lizzie—you know that. He wouldn’t cheat on me. He’s always been really thoughtful and wonderful to me. It’s not him. He loves me,” I add, partly to remind myself. I mean, just two weeks ago he bought me a birdie boyfriend for my pet parakeet, Baby. I’ve had Baby for a year and she is so sweet and beautiful with yellow and white feathers and a pink spot on her belly. One day Chris was in my room doing homework, door open of course per Mom’s rules, and he said Baby needed a birdie boyfriend. The next day he showed up with Chris Jr., a blue and yellow parakeet. Baby is still getting used to him being in her cage and I’m reserving judgment on Chris Jr. until Baby decides if she likes him or not. But Chris, the human, I know is a good person. He would never hurt me.

  “This is why I don’t date,” Lizzie says, popping the last piece of her pretzel into her mouth. “Too much B.S.”

  “That’s not why you don’t date. You don’t date because you’re waiting for Jacob to notice you, fall madly in love, and beg you to date him.” Which I don’t think is going to happen. I’m pretty sure Jacob knows Lizzie has a huge crush on him but he’s intimidated by the size of her instrument since he only plays the French horn to her tuba.

  A dreamy haze s
preads across Lizzie’s eyes. “Jacob is yummy. And I’ve recently decided that my sitting-around-waiting-for-him-to-notice-me plan isn’t working as well as I’d like, so I’m going to come up with something a little more proactive.”

  “Oooh, what?” I say, happy for the temporary distraction from my own problems.

  “I’m not sure yet. I thought about just coming right out and asking him on a date, but I don’t know if that’s too forward. My plan is to make him mine before the Disney band trip. That way we’ll both have boyfriends and it will be the best trip ever!”

  “Yeah, that’d be great,” I agree. If Chris is still my boyfriend in four months. Stop! No negative thoughts. Of course Chris will still be my boyfriend. I can’t think that way.

  * * *

  It’s around 7:30 and I’m in my room hanging up the two new sweaters I bought at the mall. I spritz a little bit of the lilac body spray I bought on my wrist and smell it. It’s nice. I wonder if Chris will like it? I don’t wonder for long though–I hear my laptop dinging that I have an instant message. I walk over to my desk. It’s Chris. Why is he writing to me? Didn’t he say he’d call? I glance at Baby and she’s perched sweetly on her swing, looking back at me while Chris Jr. is flying around the cage like a spaz.

  ChrisDonnely4321: Hey, Babe.

  PrincessBrooke00: Hey. I thought you were calling me??

  ChrisDonnely4321: I was going to but my mom is on the phone. Don’t know how long she’ll be.

  Riiiight. He’s totally lying. He’s afraid to talk to me on the phone. Does he think it would suddenly slip my mind that he has his own phone, which he’s called me on about a million times. He doesn’t need to wait for his mom to get off her phone to talk to me. And he doesn’t need to message, he could text me. Then again if he could text he could call. Unless his batteries dead.

  PrincessBrooke00: Oh. Right. So what’s up?

  ChrisDonnely4321: Not much. Just doing homework and stuff.

  PrincessBrooke00: Me too.

  ChrisDonnely4321: Fun. So that was strange running into you at the mall today huh?

  Nice. So this is him trying to feel me out to see what I think about what happened. If I flip out at him, he’ll be all, “It was totally innocent” and “You don’t trust me” and I’ll look like a jealous girlfriend. Not to mention it will go against the BSC rules. Which are really starting to annoy me if I’m going to be honest. But, if I act like nothing is wrong, and he really IS innocent, then I’ll look like a good, trusting girlfriend. He’ll probably love me more for it.

  ChrisDonnely4321: U there?

  Whoops. I’m taking too long to answer him.

  PrincessBrooke00: Sorry. POS.

  Eh. Just a small lie. Neither one of my parents is hovering over my shoulder.

  ChrisDonnely4321: Take ur time.

  Gee thanks. I will. Ugh. This is so hard! I totally want to know what really went down today. I hated that feeling—that Cassie and Chris versus me feeling. Them sharing something.

  PrincessBrooke00: K. I’m back.

  ChrisDonnely4321: :-)

  I want to slap that stupid emoticon right off the laptop screen! Grrr. Okay. Play nice.

  PrincessBrooke00: I missed you this afternoon.

  ChrisDonnely4321: I missed you 2. But it’s good for you to get some girl time w/ Lizzie 2.

  Since when does Chris care if I get any girl time? Whatever.

  PrincessBrooke00: At least I saw you for a few minutes. That really was sweet of you to help Cassie like that.

  Ick! Blech! Spit, spit, spit! I can’t believe I just typed that. My fingers are puking all over the keyboard.

  ChrisDonnely4321: It was nothin. I got a new pair of drumsticks too.

  PrincessBrooke00: Cool! I got some clothes and body spray.

  ChrisDonnely4321: Mmm. Maybe I can check out your body spray 2morrow night? :-)

  Hmm. Well, this does seem like the same old Chris. He could have said he was busy doing something tomorrow night and then sneak out to see Cassie if he actually likes her. Maybe nothing really did happen? Maybe it was just like they said? He didn’t have to ask me to do something tomorrow. Am I stupid to feel relieved?

  PrincessBrooke00: Definitely. :-)

  ChrisDonnely4321: Cool. Want a ride in the am?

  PrincessBrooke00: Yes!

  ChrisDonnely4321: K. Be there @ 7. Love u.

  PrincessBrooke00: I love u 2.

  I shut down my Messenger and look over at Baby and Chris Jr., who is now sitting next to her on her stick. “What do you think Baby? I should trust him, right?”

  Baby flies off her stick and lands by the food.

  Chapter 7: Denial is Bliss

  Is it completely lame that I’m totally happy this morning? Chris picked me up for school and we stopped for breakfast at Mickey D’s. Okay, we didn’t actually go in and eat anything—just sat in the car and made out. But everything felt normal again. It was the old Chris and the old Brooke. Together. I didn’t feel like there was a giant Cassie looming over our relationship waiting to pounce. Chris is 100% totally into only me. All through band practice this morning, he kept giving me cute little winks. And he hugged me or slapped me on the butt any time I walked by. Thank God for normalcy again.

  Plus the pink scarf is really changing things for me. Even Lizzie pointed it out during Chemistry class when we were supposed to be working on our lab. People are noticing me. People that never used to look at me twice are stopping to tell me my shoes are cute or they like my haircut. Which is kind of strange since I haven’t had a haircut in over a month but hey, I’m not knocking any good vibes sent my way.

  It’s so hard not spilling absolutely everything to Lizzie about Boy Swap and Cassie. I know she knows something is up. At different times, I’ll catch her looking at me quizzically, like she’s trying to solve a math equation. Brooke + pink scarf = Cassie + Chris +/- Brooke (depending on the day). But she’s not saying anything. Yet anyway. During band practice this morning, she did tell me that she understands that I want to trust Chris and we’re in love and all that, but as my best friend, she’s committed to watching my back so she will be on Cassie patrol from now on. Which I really wish she wouldn’t. Like I need a daily report on how many times Cassie hits on Chris. I wonder how the other girls in BSC deal with this?

  * * *

  It’s 4th period gym and me and the other fifteen girls in my class are sitting in our assigned spots on the floor, waiting for our gym teacher, Coach Brown, to announce today’s activity.

  “Listen up girls,” he says, clutching his clipboard and waiting for the chatter to die down. “We’ll be playing with the guys today. The game: kickball.”

  A few of the girls groan. No one really likes playing kickball with the guys. They take way too much pleasure in tagging us out before we reach a base.

  “There will be two captains,” he continues. “Coach Dearborn will pick the guy’s captain and I’ll pick,” he looks around the room and his eyes settle on Missy Stevens, a 5’10” Malibu Barbie look alike (seriously, she part-times as a Malibu Barbie impersonator at the toy store in the mall. The little girls love her. As do boys of all ages. Sigh.). “Missy.”

  A few of the girls roll their eyes but most stare happily at Missy, hoping to be picked first. This is a surprise to none as Coach Brown picks Missy for team captain every single time. It’s like his male brain can’t see past her four feet of spray-tanned legs and short shorts. I settle comfortably into my spot—I’m generally picked last or near to last. Which I guess I can understand. While I’m in pretty good shape from my nightly work outs in my mom’s home gym, I suck at every sport invented by man. Name the sport and I’ll cost your team five points with one foul-up or another.

  “Alright girls, group up,” Coach Brown says. “Let’s name the teams. Dearborn,” he shouts to the other gym teacher. “You got your captain?”

  “Yeah,” Coach Dearborn replies. “Donnely’s the captain.”

  Yes! My heart speeds up. Chris i
s the other team’s captain! He’ll definitely pick me first. Love is greater than kickball. I look over at Chris and blow him a kiss. He grins and joins Missy in the middle of the gym.

  “Alright. Ladies first,” Coach Dearborn says.

  Missy bats her eyelashes at him. Coach Dearborn almost drops his clipboard. Like I said, boys of all ages like Missy.

  “Remember,” Coach Brown says. “Eight guys and eight girls on each team.”

  “Okay,” Missy says, looking over first the guys and then the girls. “Hmmm…I’ll pick…Brooke,” she says, her eyes settling on me.

  “Me?” I say.

  “Her?” Coach Brown says.

  “Really?” Chris says, looking at Missy in shock.

  “Uh, yeah,” Missy says, slightly annoyed that people are questioning her infinite kickball team-picking skills. “Come on, Brooke.” She points to the spot next to her.

  I stand up and slowly walk toward Missy. Why on earth would she pick me? I didn’t think she even liked me. I join Missy in the center of the gym and give her a tentative smile. And then I see it. She has a pink scarf tied around her ankle, barely peeking out from under her white gym sock. BSC. Membership does have its perks. I stand up there next to Missy, bubbling with glory, as she and Chris pick the rest of the teams.

  The game starts and yes, I still really suck at team sports. No matter how hard I try, I keep missing the ball when I’m up to kick. But it doesn’t matter. Now that Missy has given me her Barbie nod of approval, everyone is being nicer to me. Even Coach Brown. He says the other team is rolling me bad balls and tells me to take first base. My first time getting on a base! Some of the girls on the other team even clap for me to show good sportsmanship. And they tell Jason Jennings, the guy throwing for Chris’s team, to work on his throws. He glares at them and mumbles some curse words. Chris gives me an impressed look. I can tell he doesn’t get what’s happening, but whatever it is, it’s turning him on.